Greetings from somewhere in Kansas. Somewhere where they make their own donuts at the general store. The chocolate frosted mostly-cake donut was light and fluffy and delicious and got messy really fast with the hundred degree heat baking the landscape here in Lebo, KS. Mirages on the highway are the only sign of water and “range burning : do not drive into dense smoke” signs give what would seem to be obvious advice.
Driving through Kansas east to west tends to be tedious, long and boring. Add to that the angst of generally driving into the setting sun through a landscape of zero trees and topographic monotony and you have a recipe for raging road headaches. Driving north to south is a whole other story and we’ve gone from hills to cities to forests to flats, dusty little towns with donut-baking general stores and back to plains of NOTHING as far as the eye can see… just enough variation to keep us interested in the world outside the Weaselmobile. A windmill on the horizon is the only manmade structure visible from here outside of the immediately roadside fences and signposts.
The last couple of nights we’ve been bumming around Columbia, MO – a small college town two hours west of Saint Louis – and each night we’ve played a show. The first one was one of the coolest venues I’ve been in for a long time : you can only get to the Social Room through the neighbouring vintage-looking hairstyle shop – and you can only get into THAT by dialing on the rotary phone in the antechamber and giving a password (ours was “commando”). Once your inside this kitschy-cool hair cuttery you have to know to push on the right mirror to get into the venue itself – and even THAT has some secret passageways from one point to another…. Indeed, when you check in to the place on Facebook it tells you that it’s “the most inconveniently located fun you’ll ever have” or something to that effect.
Since I didn’t get any frustrated texts or last-minute “WHERE IS THIS PLACE” phone calls I don’t think any of the above worked against us – if anything the spectacularly lackluster attendance for our incredible bill probably had more to do with the rain than anything else. We had plenty of people threatening to come, backing out at the last moment… le sigh. Our co-bill of Noah Earle was strong and vibrant and passionate as always and the new-to-us artist Blake Gardner was fun with a pretty damned spectacular beat boxer doing percussion for him – and I’ve seen some pretty amazing beat boxers – this guy was unexpected out here!
Last night we drove out to Cooper’s Landing where Kristen and I kicked off songwriters night and had – well, possibly the most Coopers Landingish night of any Coopers
Landing show we’ve ever played there. A slightly bigger audience than we’ve ever had before, and though we didn’t get to go riding the Plan B out to the Isle of Naked Hippies, we DID get to hang out as the sun fell below the river, playing music around a massive bonfire and reacquainting ourselves with long-missed local personalities like Naked Daveand The Voice. Good times were indeed had.
And today – Kansas. Alas, no gig in Kansas… a frustration… but we’ll spent the bulk of today and tomorrow just making our way through The Sunflower State stopping only for gas, bathrooms, freshly-made donuts, giant spiders, the scenery, clothing malfunctions, art galleries and bazaar cattle crossings. Same old same old.
Tomorrow : Texas!
Below – wonderful photos from Kevin Dingman!
