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It’s been something of a long day. And it hasn’t let up yet. We got up, practiced for about an hour with Jeff Wheeler to get him warmed up to ilyAIMY speeds, went out and had a big Mongolian for lunch and then drove out to Rocheport where we set up a ton of gear, met up with Seth Horan and played a gig… then after the gig we tore down a ton of gear and ran over to KOPN and played a show on the radio… and now we’re driving from Columbia, MO to Belleville, IL to crash with Susan and Jeff and Seth… but those people are probably going to be too much fun so it might be a long TIME before we crash – which is fine… but tomorrow’s the LONG show…

All in all my fingers are tired and so is my soul. As always, I’m completely blown away by Seth’s playing and I’m grateful that our mutual tour schedules have allowed us to overlap for a night. Beyond playing his own set – reminding me that he’s a very strong writer and by far one of the best bass players around – he played a couple of songs along with us and really did some wonderful things with Hands and Drown. Both of those tunes were written sort of from the bass up, so to have them attacked and reworked by Seth was simply delicious.

Playing the General Store was interesting. It’s under new management again (no zombies) and there was a subtly different flavour to the venue. Still, we saw a lot of familiar faces and had familiar curried chicken salad sandwiches. The cookies are still wonderful and 25% of the show is still played to the kids that are running around outside the windows. We coaxed people in off the street and wished people happy birthday. We played hard and did our best not to put our boots through the stage. Maybe it was simply the first time in a long time we’d played there without Rowan? Maybe it’s the personal history the venue has with me? Something was just a little bit… off.

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OR – it could’ve been the fact that I had hiccups all through “Stand by Me”. That made me kind of want to die.

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I was talking to a musician friend of mine who’d been talking about how rough his year had been. How he’d had a rough time with his marriage in the last year or so and how it’d almost all fallen apart but that they’d manage to salvage it, rebuild it – how he’d come to realize that though his music takes him from his home all too frequently, that the flexibility that was also part of the job was a blessing too – something that could allow him to work hard and be what his wife needed.

I hear so many tales of musicians who DON’T make it work, who let things fall apart, who fall victim to the temptations of everything that the road offers. People try to tip us with drugs, it’s easy to get laid and it would be easy to take advantage of others and even easier to get taken advantage of.

I’m frankly never quite sure which side of the argument I’m on – sometimes I think that musicians really AREN’T a very good choice of mates. Even when they’re the responsible sort they’re STILL beholden to something else. Generally we’re egotistical and proud. We have to be to do what we do… it’s why bands are so very difficult to keep together… and then from the other end, musicians with their egos get exposed to the very prettiest humans and the egos that go with that physical beauty are every bit as big, and generally even more scared simply because for every one person looking to take advantage of talent, there are a hundred people hungrily and desperately trying to take advantage of the Beautiful People…. we’re all recipes for insanity.

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In any case – I’m proud of him.

At the moment, Heather and I are rounding Saint Louis on our way back to Susan’s house. I still don’t know if I’ve got a bed tonight or a floor for the night or a couch, but I’m looking forward to whichever one it is destined to be. Its syren song is getting louder with every mile down.