I uploaded all the photos in one batch. Is this today? Or was it on Saturday? Not a clue. Same curve. Different clouds. (Driving West to Cumberland, MD),Saturday September 5th we drove into Cumberland, MD to play Loft 129. It was the first time we’d been back in two years which is slightly inexcusable, but mostly caused by some difficulties with an event in West Virginia that kept ALMOST having us, and we kept putting off Loft 129 in order to make it almost happen. In hind sight… this was an error. Above – the train doth herald our coming! It also blocked our leaving. Trains want us to stay in Cumberland.
Déjà vu. 18 miles from Cumberland again just as we were roughly 100 hours ago. Originally we’d planned to play Cumberland and just continue west but we HAD to complete the album first. I was convinced we could’ve done that on the road (Hell, most of our mix checks have been done in Heather’s car…) but it was probably right to do them from home, if only because that brought a slight sense of stability. We were able to Put It Down and Go To Bed.
But I don’t meant to be thinking about the album (it’s done, sent to duplication) because for the past two months it’s taken up almost my entire mental capacity and I’m trying to NOT think about it right now.
In the Expanse novels by S.A. Corey, there’s an incredible description of slow recovery from starvation, calories slowly reaching the brain over hours, days, and weeks of recovery. The authors make it sound like waking up, and waking up again, and realizing you’re STILL not awake because you wake up yet again. And there’s a small aspect to that as cycles that I didn’t know I was using seem to come back into play. I was able to use my calendar today. For something OTHER than album planning! I’m feeling exhausted, but precise.
We were a little scattered Saturday night, but Loft 129 makes it all pretty easy. Good stage, right sized room for us. The building next door where we’d done all of our promotion photography a couple of years ago has been sold, but they’ve expanded in different directions and were even able to provide us with a green room this time around! Especially in an otherwise one-room venue like this, it’s good to have a little escape spot.
I don’t feel like I’m losing the thread.
Or maybe it’s just all this beautiful highway, mountains and sky.
Today’s a long drive. Longer than I’d like. My ass and my spine have begun to complain and with a late start, we won’t have as many options for taking breaks. With a fully-loaded Hyundai there’s no RIGHT gear to take the mountains in and for once, Western Maryland and we can’t pass the Appalachians fast ENOUGH.
Ears popping, back aching, at least I’m not at my computer trying to decide if a djembe is too boomy!
It was nice to see that the venue had hung our posters around town, including the music store 3 doors down. I hate that I look at the other poster suspiciously and wonder if it was drawn by a friend… or if it’s just AI generated. In any case, we totally didn’t get to spend much time in the music store, just grabbed some bare essentials, and then it was on to play the show! We had a good night, played our little hearts out, and then drove straight back home to pick up with the album the next morning. But I’m not talking about that!We were listening to mixes in Heather’s car, parked in the shade around the corner from our house. Our neighbour puts up different inflatables every… month? No, longer. Season? No, shorter. She changes them semi-regularly and she has giant dogs so I never bug her about the when or why. I believe we’ve just moved from the Season of the Pickle to the Season of the Dragon.Monday and Tuesday ended up being marathon sessions. Above is the computer ripping through final renders of all the tracks.We tried not to worry about any bugs in the process.Okay, I’m pretty sure that THIS is today, and that photo above was Saturday but… who knows.Passing Mona’s Ark. Except it’s not Mona’s. It’s some madman who believes God spoke to him in a dream to build another Ark that doesn’t float. It’s been at around this stage of progress for literally as long as I can remember and has existed for almost as long as I’ve been alive. I can’t imagine they’re NOT getting donations, but those donations don’t seem to go to construction.Once again! THROUGH Cumberland Gap!Happy Pennsylvania! Though we’ve certainly been to PA a couple of times over the last year, this is the first time we’ve hit this side of the state since LAST September and our Finish America Tour.And we haven’t been quite RIGHT HERE (between Lover and Twilight) in a long, long time.Ugh – so I’m feeling guilty about not responding to this in time. This car was staying in his lane and probably not going very fast, but he was very clearly south bound in the northbound lanes. Other cars pulled well out of the way. We honked and flashed but I SHOULD’VE called 911, but by the time I was passing road markers that would’ve told us exactly where we were I felt like it was moot. But the feeling that I should’ve done something hangs with me.Happy West Virginia! For a little bit.Happy Ohio! I’m really sad that we’re just rushing through, but we’ve got places to be and people to see!
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