Dar, guitar tech/production engineer Kip, and Bryn practicing harmonies with Heather in Boulder, CO.
I’m in the Flying Cup Café in Albuquerque eating the sort of bread that Susan’s bird, Karma, likes. This is the second of my two days off here before moving on to Dallas, Austin, and into New Orleans for another day off, which happens to be my birthday, Halloween.
I’ll be happy to be there. My plan is to eat a nice dinner somewhere, then buy a cupcake and go sit in a dark corner of Lafitte’s bar, my favorite little spot in the Quarter. It’s candlelit, and that will be all the candles I really need. Dar wants to do dinner together with everyone, and I’m thinking we might drop in on our friends Al and Amy at Asia Pacific Café, if I have my way.
I’m with a pretty politically motivated group, so last night I saw the documentary “Secrecy” at the local theatre. I saw “Religulous” with Dar last week. During the night of the presidential debate, Blair (the tour manager), Dar, and Bryn (the keyboard player), crowded around a computer to watch whatever they could minutes before the start of our own show. They give thumbs up to the late-night hard workers visible through the windows of the local Obama action station. The other night, Dar met for a long time with a man in Flagstaff who does wind installations. These are the folk musicians who support community gardens and local foods, and it’s nice to see a group of vocal artists who also walk the walk.
Blair and Bryn intently watching the presidential debate before our show in Holladay, UT.
It’s been an interesting couple of days in the southwest. A few days ago, we rolled into Tuscon to what has now become my favorite venue, Hotel Congress. A music venue attached to an old hotel with a Dillinger connection, attached to a coffee-shop-bar-restaurant with fantastic food. The stage is framed by lacey etched-out metal that is backlit at showtime. The café floor is tiled in pennies, hundreds of thousands of them.
It also happens we roll in to a bizarre combination of events. There is a zombie walk, and a zombie band miraculously not bleeding into our set inside, though we’re only separated by a single wall. Across the street at The Rialto Theatre, a huge rap show featuring Tech Nine has the line down the block immediately across the street and visible out the same window as Dar and Shawn’s own line. The two crowds cannot be more different.
Dar Williams’ merch girl, Ori, setting up in the lobby of the Moore Theatre in Seattle, WA.
I sit down to a meal for the first time ever where I do not care about cost, and drink several cocktails with dinner.
The next day, we roll into Flagstaff just in time for the local football parade, complete with marching bands, old cars and the cute main street. We are in the Midwest during a beautiful weekend of parades and zombie walks.
We’re in the leg of the tour where I don’t know anyone. The first two weeks had me seeing my two oldest friends: Andy in Eugene and Shani in LA. I also got to see Ashraf and Nomad in their new home of Berkeley/San Francisco, and songwriter cohort, Justin McMahon, who drove in from Reno to show me the sites on my big West Coast day off. I went for my first wine tasting at Bonny Doon in Santa Cruz, walked Ocean Beach just outside of San Francisco and panted breathless up the hills of Haight to get to an Indian restaurant. I am surrounded by smokers who can take hills like superheroes and light up right at the top as I try to hide my gasping.
The “Ancient Elevator” at Flagstaff’s Hotel Monte Vista.
Seeing my oldest friends was lovely and reminded me that there are some people you really will know your whole life, but seeing Ash and Nomad was also really cool. They’ve only been there about a week themselves, having set out from Maryland October 1. I’d told them I would be the first person from home they would see, but none of us realized how soon I would make good on that promise. I’ve isolated myself a lot recently, immersed myself in this tour and nothing else like it was a chrysthalis that might spit me out reborn, but seeing Ash and Nomad and hanging out for hours talking after the show reminded me there are people from that “past life” who care about me, like me for who I am. Happy people who I long to be more like.
From the back of the room at Hotel Congress during Shawn Mullins’ set in Tuscon, AZ.
The venues and the hotels have been things of beauty. We’re playing places with marquis that have been around a long time and almost always end in the word “theatre.” Old theatres transitioned from whorehouses, like the deceptive bland façade of the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco that opens into one of the most guilded, ostentatious rooms I’ve ever seen. The audience that night is so into it, it’s the first time I can clearly hear them singing along with Dar. The Moore Theatre in Seattle has a lobby that reminds me of an old train station, and beautiful painted ceilings.
The zombie drummer from the band rocking out right in front of our show in Tuscon.
The parade as seen from my hotel window in Flagstaff.
The Hotel Monte Vista in Flagstaff has signs cautioning people to be kind to its “ancient” elevator from the 20s. All the rooms are themed after movie stars.The Moore Hotel in Seattle has mosaics. The Hotel Lucia in Portland caters to its share of musicians, and the lobby is full of them, as well as incredible art and light. I get a king-sized bed to myself in a room that has a bathrobe laid out for me. I feel like no one should walk into this place without one of those skinny black ties. Other than that one, which felt posh, I like that the hotels and motels and venues have more character than swank, per se.
We leave for Dallas tonight to play the House of Blues tomorrow, a first for me. Hell, this whole thing’s a first for me. And yet I have the cred. I’ve logged the miles and played the long bar gigs. I leave a flower for the driver when I think about it. A daisy in Eugene. The two orchids from my drinks the other night. It’s sometimes days before I see him since all his driving is at night while I’m asleep. I’m so used to driving, it’s weird. And I’ve given up on trying to know what time it is. There is the time the bus rolls in. The time we have load in and soundcheck and then dinner. And then the time the show starts and the time we have to get back on the bus. Other than that, it’s my best guess what day it is.
The Congress Hotel zombies, including a few contest winners for Shawn of the Dead and Zombie Jesus.
