Sunshine is stabbing through as we find ourselves pinned behind a dump truck on I-70 heading rapidly out towards Louisville, KY eating molasses cookies. It’s going to be a long drive, but it’s also been a beautiful morning full of dramatic clouds and burning mists. We had breakfast on the Monongahela River before loading up the truck and getting on the road. We even got showers this morning and even though Heather’s insisting on a morning diet of country tunes I’m feeling pretty good about the day.
It occurs to me that finding this couch upon a car near Jozarts the next morning that perhaps the well-known college activity of tying couches to friends’ vehicles created some of the noise last night.
Passing Eighty-Four (the town that’s the home of 84 Lumber) and West Virginia shall embrace us soon.
Last night, once we finally rolled into California, we met up with some friends who’d made dinner for us. I can’t express how welcome a hot meal was after all that crap and traffic. I don’t know that mashed potatoes have ever tasted so very, very good. Then we collected at the Underground where we were headlining the night (i.e. we were on a lot later than we’d thought and worried the whole night through that everyone was going to leave before we played) and killed time listening to the other bands and eating free celery. There was pizza too, but really after a home-cooked meal, who cares?
Once we got on the stage I had that feeling of watching myself from the outside – thinking of the three of us the way I was thinking of White Rose Confession the other night – we’d been waiting patiently to explode into doing what we do. It was a pretty great show, hair flying and clever between songs, earnest and angry in turns and ever fiercely in Love. It was good to see the Californians again and we play in response to how good they’ve been to us, perhaps.
And as always, having Erica sing with us… so very good. She’s expanded her voice a little while we were gone, gotten more daring. I really think she’s amazing.
After the show we gathered for dessert and that was also good. We exhausted ourselves on cheesecake and conversation, retreated to Jozarts and settled in for the noisiest night in California ever. I think there was just a power-tool / bang on stuff / screaming convention in town. They rolled in at around 4am and got tired around 7am, just in time for the Dollar General to start playing music downstairs and for the trash truck to arrive with a sound like the final battle on Cybertron.
I’m soooo sleepy.
