"In the Suburbs I, I Learned to Drive..."

 Well here I am, in the suburbs of Austin at my aunt's palatial hilltop villa, reconnecting with a lot of my extended family that I haven't seen since I was discharged from the Marine Corps five years ago. While the West Lake / Southwest Parkway area on the outskirts of Austin is hardly the "Weird Austin" of downtown and Sixth Street, it is still pretty cool - the Spike-Jonze directed short film "Scenes from the Suburbs," included with the deluxe edition of Arcade Fire's album "The Suburbs," was filmed here. My first night in town I was lucky enough to meet some local musicians, via my father's brother, and we had a very enjoyable evening sharing our music with each other.

I did get some sad news yesterday. One of the bands in our little West-SLC music clique, "The Wild Ones", is breaking up. Always a drag to see a good band cease. Selfishly, I am disappointed because we never got to do a show together. But in the bigger picture, I just hope that the relationships in question aren't too strained, that there is no bad blood. Who knows, maybe this had to happen to give everyone some fresh perspective...and they'll end up playing together again some day, in a better and more mature incarnation? They say that there is a silver lining to every cloud...

Well...the piano, for my show tomorrow night, is being tuned up right now...

"...Oh, and the blues, I got the blues, that's me..."

Just a quick update for today. I played a set with the Mojo Blues Band in Oklahoma City, and it went pretty well. The band was made up of extremely skilled musical gunslingers, so them not being familiar with the Genre Zero songs was only an issue for the songs that have a lot of sudden stops or starts. Otherwise, it was fairly spectacular. I was warmly received by the audience, despite NOT playing anything resembling "the blues", and one fast friend was kind enough to take some video of the show:

Leaving Lincoln

Wow! The whirlwind fun of Lincoln is finally, sadly, over. It was actually very embarrassing, the way that I didn’t want to leave and how I scrambled around trying to savor even the last minutes of my time there. I am glad that after a week hanging around the Bolzen Compound, I hadn’t fully worn out my welcome. I felt like I was starting to a bit, like the seeds of expectation and resentment had been planted and were starting to grow, and like my gentleman’s courtesy was gradually becoming either just rote niceties or falling away completely in the wake of familiarity. For example: right at the very end, I was trying to say my heartfelt goodbyes, but I was distracted worrying about my luggage and things...I even got called out on it; someone was trying to say their heartfelt goodbye back to me, but I kind of ruined the moment.

I think we all understood and shared the feelings of exhaustion, awkwardness, and bittersweet anticipation that are attendant on the end of the temporary. Still, I cannot say thank you enough to my hosts, so here we go again:
Thank you Brian and Jandi for your epic hospitality!

In my continuing quest to improve myself, or more specifically to improve the effect  I have on the world around me and the people in it, I learned a lot. This past week in Nebraska, meeting new people and experiencing a different rhythm of life, really changed a lot of my outlook. It was such a breath of fresh air, not to say anything bad about SLC, that I am leaving Lincoln with an improved perspective.

Onwards and upwards!

Lincoln Weekend Bonus Edition

 

 What a whirlwind of a weekend...a whirlwind of music! It started Friday afternoon, when we headed into downtown Lincoln to hear a local band "Good Show Great Show" perform at a busy intersection during the lunch rush. They were a very cool band, with what I suppose you would call a 'psychedelic' flavor throughout their rock/pop/indie/whatever style. I guess it is part of a new program the city is putting on here, partnered with local non-profit "Be Heard Lincoln," to put on live lunch music every Friday.

After the end of the show, I busked again, this time at a substantial downtown bus station. I heard after the fact that the bus station has a mean reputation, but that's where the people were, and I got a pretty good response. It was great practice, and was also good for getting my voice nice and warmed up. I was also very fortunate in that later Friday afternoon, my host's roommate kindly drug out her old keyboard (a late seventies, birth of analogue synthesizers, old-school Korg affair) and had a good-old-fashioned noise-band jam. That put me in a good headspace for the show Friday night - it was dark in the basement (Lincoln house shows are in the basement from what I gather), but here are the shots from the Genre Zero set. My thanks again to Brian for the backup - the tuba sounded really good!

Bolzen Beer Band, of course, played after to close out the night. Almost two kegs of beer were consumed! And finally, Saturday night I roadied for Bolzen. We drove an hour or so away to Diller, Nebraska. Bolzen did the final show of the "Diller Days" festival, an all-day street fair, carnival, and celebration of the small town of Diller. Bolzen had played at the literally-only-bar-in-town before, and so there was a presence from their fans, as well as just the Diller crowd coming in to the bar the end their festival day. In case you didn't know, Bolzen does a very cool alt-polka routine.

Yeah, that's right. Alt-polka. You'd have to be at their show to really get it, but here is a taste:

The Tourist

 A very lovely day in Lincoln yesterday! While I had been downtown Tuesday night, I went back in the daylight and played tourist a little bit. I've explored a lot of the downtown area already, which is surprisingly large, with the University of Nebraska - Lincoln, a kind of bar district, the state capitol, a lot of eclectic shops. It is very vibrant, too - when I was going around Tuesday night, the bar was full, if not somehow over fire code - overall the feel here is small town mixed with downtown, west mixed with east.

I got some decent pictures of some cool older buildings. The first is the YWCA, according to the stone over the door, and the second was really cool and probably ten stories tall:

I also walked down to the Nebraska state capitol building:

It was really cool inside, although I think I went too late in the day, and I got thrown out of the big tower. I made a cool $8 busking downtown yesterday; not to make excuses, but it was a bad time of day. For the time of day, roughly 2-4 PM, I think I did very well. Also, not one, but three or four other musicians ended up stopping by and jamming. Two of them were even young teenagers, and we formed impromptu three person jams for a song or two before someone had to scoot on their way. When I left to re-connect with my friend at his job, a just-back-in-town singer/songwriter type guy and a girl from a local band were still playing!

It's a really cool atmosphere here, but I am just passing through...

Lincoln, Nebraska

I survived 21 hours on two buses, arriving in Lincoln Tuesday evening. The roommate of the friend I am staying with was nice enough to take me out to downtown - we got pizza and drinks at "Ya-Ya's" (a local institution here, it seems), then moved to the bar/club "Duffy's, where we chatted and played pool. Eventually, we were picked up by my long-time buddy on his way back from playing a successful show with his group: Bolzen Beer Band.

Yesterday was the 4th, or Independence Day if you will, and we spent it with a group of very cool Lincolners. Guess what - there are lots of garden nerds up here, too:

I was able to meet a lot of cool people, the main group of which lived in two nice, old, turn-of-the-century houses; very reminiscent of SLC! 

Also: everyone in Lincoln goes crazy for fireworks! So today I am off to hang out downtown, do a little busking, and get some more pictures. The show is tomorrow night!

Pre-Tour Decompression

I have been very busy these past few weeks, getting everything lined out for the "Greyhound Run-Around" bus tour, and doing a lot of work around the house and in the garden so that I'll have less to worry about while I am out on the road. This past weekend, with the trip looming ever closer and most of my preparations complete, I took off for the weekend on a whim. I hopped a ride with the Remodel Man up to the Uintas, which are a series of mountains and forests rising up from the mountain plains East of the Wasatch Front. It was a good little adventure, and certainly more relaxing and restorative that simply hanging out around the house feeling anxious. Above you can see our first campsite, in a nice meadow atop a ridge.

I also managed to capture some nice images of the sunset, which was a rich and fiery orange, probably due to the great plumes of smoke in the air from the half dozen or so wildfires burning throughout the state. It the fading twilight, after some experimenting and failed attempts, I managed to get the following panorama, with the moon and sunset both in the wide frame:

Our second day camping was filled mostly with driving, as we explored the high desert landscape surrounding Red Creek and its namesake reservoir, which we camped near on the second night. We did a few small bush-whacking, trailblazing hikes, especially around our campsite, situated in a spring-fed grove of cottonwood and other deciduous trees. I got up early yesterday morning to check out the wildflowers, then we both explored the highest part of the lonely copse. Now, I have one final busy day of packing, double checking, last-minute errands, and finally I will get on the bus this evening, bound for Lincoln and the beyond. I'll just have to think of this if I get too stressed out on the road: