A strange sense of normalcy as we head west on I-70. Our gateway to so much of America, a highway that leads to Frederick and points West. Pittsburgh, PA tonight. It points to and reminds me of so many other things. Columbus, OH. Saint Louis, MO. Denver, CO. It just begs for us to drive it, to push out to California like we’d planned almost two years ago. It hurts to know we’re only going 3 and a half hours west, though, we’re out of practice with distance driving and my body begs to differ with my mileage-hungry soul.
Stupid people continue to careen ahead of us, past us, around us. There will be no justice in the world outside of gas prices which makes me a little sad. It fills me with a craving for orbital bombardment. Tight-beamed atomic disintigrators turning overcharged Mustangs into flourescent gas that condenses into streaks and beads of plastic and carbon scoring as we drive laughing through the clouds of the recently-speeding dead.
Too dark? It’s just a dream.
Last weekend we got to perform at Sky Stage in Frederick, MD. It was a great night that I’m kind of regretting not recording, and yet part of the greatness was that I relaxed away from my eternal attempt to document each and every show and just enjoying the gig. Jeff Miller joined us and his quiet, dry humour was a good partner for us. Indeed – the ilyAIMY humour was in fine form and almost more than the music, I wish I’d captured the banter because I bet it would make me laugh even in playback.
We’re funny creatures!
Our friend Tracy captured the spirit of the night, Jeff captured the colour, but alas we didn’t capture the SUBSTANCE of it.
It was our first night playing with my new Behringer XAIR. Ostensibly this ghost-trap-sized box is simply going to be a backup, taking the lead for right now first as I get used to it and second till I can get my QSC TM16 worked on by someone competent – but I continue to be really impressed with it. It sucks it doesn’t have the full I/O capacity that the QSC does, but that only leads to sacrifices on absolutely full-band gigs, and missing any one of us means we can perpetrate all our bells and whistles, perhaps eventually with even greater agility than the QSC… I’m not convinced I Love the preamps as much, but haven’t really dove in deep enough to know…
Rowan’s had his for over a year (or two?) and I sort of feel bad I didn’t pay greater attention to him earlier, but … I do Love my QSC.
You don’t have to care about any of that. You just need to know that the show went really well and that we played to a full house… full enough that I think I’d have been uncomfortable being in the audience, roofless venue or not. Full enough that next time we probably need to kick the ticket price up a notch because a sold-out room should net each player at LEAST a hundred bucks.
Le sigh.
Such are the wages of folk music.
Meanwhile – we’ve made our way to the highways of Western Pennsylvania where apparently they’re waging war on intelligence. Past the huge Trump sign, past the Unborn Lives Matter billboard, past the “You Can Talk to God Just Like Jesus” billboard – all of that’s fairly typical. But all of the “coal provides jobs” and “Biden will put us in the dark” signs of the last election have been replaced with “Life Needs Carbon Dioxide” billboards and a giant sign with a picture of Biden in a hijab with an AK47 with the text “Making the Taliban Great Again”. I spend plenty of time being disgusted with my species, but somehow I’d forgotten the depravity of radical right wing roadside signage.
“Ivervectin doesn’t need boosters”
I mean what the FUCK!?
