July 24th, 2013.

Hee! My friend Steve Pollack’s wife came into the store a couple of weeks ago and asked about a guitar that Steve had come home in Love with a couple of weeks before. She was hoping, hoping, hoping it was still there and that she could buy it for him for his birthday. I think she was a leeetle surprised that it was a pretty pricey Eric Claption signature Martin, but she felt like Steve was worth it! We hid it away till his birthday and we went through a big show of straight-facedly handing him a “free guitar with your pick purchase on your birthday” promotion. He’s a happy, happy birthday boy. Romance ain’t dead my friends!

Oh the madness that is running up and down and up and down route 95. We just wrapped up tracking at Asparagus Media and now I race back to Baltimore to play with a couple of friends at Joe Squared. And by “race” I mean we’re moving at about 23mph. Unfortunately my entire body is beginning to cramp up atrociously and my neck and shoulders feel like Hell. I think I spent too much time crouched on a stool yesterday. I’m getting too old for that shit.

Fortunately I’m NOT too old for the rockin’. Tonight is 45 minutes of me solo plus a dash of me having to cover some Elvis Costello tunes. As I spent more time listening to his music in preparation for this I’ve fallen further and further out of Love with him. Careening from mindless to misogynistic, there are exceptions here and there but I’m just NOT a fan. Brennan found me a song that I’ve adopted for the night and I stumbled across another that was apparently ACTUALLY written by Paul McCartney. I guess it still counts. Maaaybe.

DeJohn and Frank Cassel performing at my Old Bowie Town Grill open mic.

l-r Mosno Al-Moseeki, Marc Avon Evans and Nelly’s Echo performing at Teavolve’s open mic!

Well we’ve picked up the pace now – but 67mph just came and went and we’re doing more than just tapping the brakes. There’s always this slowdown riiiiight here as you approach the truck stop. I think it’s a combination of a curve and the average speed with which people read the highway alert sign. I’ve noticed that when it’s got nothing to say we fly through here – but when it says a couple of lines of text we sloooow waaaaaaay down – and I think it’s totally because it takes forever for my fellow highway users to parse the message that there’s a slowdown 25 miles up the interstate.

I’m stunned by the outpouring of support through our indiegogo.com campaign. I was getting really bogged down by the reality of our finances as we approached the deadline for the new CD. We’ve always had the Takoma Park Folk Festival on September 8th as our release target – but we’ve been just plugging along reaaaaaally slowly (8mph) as our band accounts allowed. We finally bit the bullet and kicked off a “real” fundraiser campaign (because it’s not “real” unless you do it on the internet, donchaknow) and sure enough it’s looking like it’s REALLY going to help. Hell, if we surpass our target maybe we’ll be able to buy Heather a ukulele!

Well. Part 1 of my day is down. Part 2 is approaching at 42mph. 35mph. 28. Might never get there.