The loneliness and the quiet on this solo tour is more than I expected, actually. Tonight, it’s too late to get the internet password from my sleeping hosts, and so there’s not even that company. So I’ll write this for a while, scream into the void, and then watch the movie I rented from the red box down the street. At least someone will be moving and saying words. It’s cold and I wish I’d brought another blanket in. But I don’t want to make too much noise now.
Not a lot of noise is the theme of this trip, oddly enough for a music tour. Since my throat has been scratchy, I have not been doing what is one of my most customary practices since childhood: singing along to the radio while in the car. It feels utterly foreign not to, but the physical concerns are outweighing my natural inclinations. So every drive has seemed a little longer. Rob is also not in the passenger seat. And he and I may not talk sometimes for hours of a car ride, but we talk in bursts, or prompted by some sight on the highway. If he’d been with me, this is what we would have talked about: I got excited when I was north enough to hear my first French-Canadian radio station, see signs for exits to Canada, pass Niagra Falls and kick myself for not having scanned the map more closely and built in more time – I’ve never been. A vanity plate that reads, “EZLUVIN.” Surprising amount of marsh land. A deer more blur than animal runs one car ahead of me … the truck next to it…I never see it get to the other side … it vanishes like a once-headlighted ghost. The truck is pulling over, though, and I wonder how much of the blur is on the front of the truck.
Alone, I curse here and there at a signal-less driver, or gasp at something beautiful, but more than a few hours pass in silence. I drove 6 hours of this today, six hours of it yesterday and 3 hours the day before that. I stop more frequently at rest stops just for the humanity. “Do you sell postcards,” was my only sentence for the better part of the day. “Thank you,” to three toll takers.
When I went to the open mic at Woodlands Tavern in Columbus, OH two nights ago, I was joined by local friends like Phillip Fox, stayed in a familiar house with Brandon Mintern, who stayed up to talk with me a little while. Before that, I’d had a lovely time in a town that is almost home away from home – Columbus, IN. There are towns that feel like company at this point even when I’m alone. Putnam, CT, where I am now, would feel like that in the daytime. But at night, with the antique shops and restaurants closed, it might as well be The Stand. I’m hungry, having not eaten since 2:30pm (it’s 12:30am now) in the hustle of doing my own sound, set up, set list, sound for someone else, merch … where did the time go … but hunting food alone at this hour would be too much of a solo adventure. So I’ll go to bed hungry, and eat a big lunch tomorrow, when Putnam is my companion again (I’m now, hours later, at Victoria Station eating and interneting).
It started a little bit that first night heading east; I’d gone to dinner at a place ilyAIMY had been twice before, a creole place in Short North called Da Levee. I ate my meal in the near-empty restaurant in silence, watching the hip passersby outside on the street. This loneliness became more apparent the next night, when I rolled into completely new territory – upstate NY – on my own.
I should say, I’m being very social at the open mics and shows. Meeting new people and sitting at tables with an open chair left. So I’m not isolating myself.
When the open mic I planned to hit in Syracuse last night didn’t seem like the right choice (electric and jammie on second look), I planned to stop a little earlier in Rochester. When I got to Rochester and the planned open mic was not running, I sat down there at Boulder Coffee (cool space) for a moment anyway, grabbed a city paper and started hunting my alternatives over Italian Wedding soup and regular coffee – $5 altogether for dinner (second time I ate soup that day, oddly enough). I found one, re-routed, scoped the cheapest motel around and tucked that into my mind, though did not make a reservation in case I found a willing (and non-threatening) soul to take me in. That would be free and the hotel would mean I needed to sell 3 cds to make the money for the stay. I’d been successful selling 2 the night before, which got me my gas that day, so it seemed reasonable. But as Dar commented on when I toured with her, I am a road warrior and I can make myself comfortable almost anywhere. So if I could save the money, I should. No knowing how this weekend’s gigs will go.
I was pleased with my ability to adapt quickly, and my collective knowledge of how to choose an open mic from a listing in a paper and a website was on. I ruled out the blues one, the jam one that catered to the local firefighters and went to the bar that seemed to be in a college/downtown district, the Standard Lounge: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rochester-NY/The-Standard-Lounge/157080124320203?v=wall. Though the open mic has not been running long, it’s starting to take off. In my opinion, this is largely due to the incredible house bands, including The Tall Boys. Host John Mossey looks like a super-young hipster Buddy Holly, sings almost like an American Idol, but covers things like The Beatles’ “Get Back,” deftly while switching instruments all over: keys, guitar, drums. And drummer, Greg Detwiler, was friendly and talented, as well. Brothers Tim and Matt Dana round out the incredible talent, making covers their own, and constantly choosing things that left me saying, “Really?!?” “Feeling Alright,” “Suck My Kiss,” “Land Down Under …” I sat in on djembe for “Send Me On My Way” while Matt Dana played kit, and sang harmony for “Hallelujah” for Tim Dana. Another band played a killer version of Bill Withers’ “Use Me,” and The Beatles’ “Girl.”
I got to play six or seven songs to an audience that was surprisingly attentive for a bar-crowd – apparently Eastman School of Music is here. Sold my three discs needed for the hotel even … But Matt and Tim offered to take me in. Though they were cool, they stayed up later than I would have, playing me songs from Squeeze, Mumford & Sons, Moxy Fruvous, talking ASCAP… and four hours of precious sleep later, I was on the road again after loading my entire world back into my frost-covered car before 9am. But I bought my Starbucks with some of that saved money. A hundred miles and a coffee down and I reapproved my choice.
The show Nov. 12 at Victoria Station was the official start of the Heather solo tour weekend, and was going to be the longest set and the most set up on my part. Gina Alibrio (http://www.myspace.com/ginaalibrio), who we met in Boston at the Lizard Lounge open mic contest the night before she released her cd there, agreed to share the show with me. It seemed only natural… one of her friends saw my pic and asked if we were sisters; Two tattooed, alto, wavy-haired brunettes singing about the perils of love, one on piano and one on guitar/djembe/uke (I’m beginning to feel pretentious carrying four instruments around)
The miles rolled more quickly Nov. 12 while I scanned the radio. I made it to Putnam by 3:30, took a shower and was well set up at Victoria Station an hour before show time. Travelling alone also means loading in alone, and with four instruments and a full sound system, this took a good seven trips: one for each speaker so I had a hand for the door, one for the stands, one for a guitar and the drum (since I busted the zipper on the case), one for the merch and the mixer, cables, uke …
The show at Victoria Station went well, with some noteable absences of friends working and ill. More on that later. Now it’s on to Girlspot in Providence, RI, for tonight’s show with Becky Chace.
