I had an interesting birthday.

I woke up in the extremely lovable bohemian hotel, the carlton arms (where furniture goes to die). said hotel and the vermissitude of folks who work/live/hang out there also happens to be the subject of a dan bern song recording on which I spent about 300 hours of my life.

later, after failing in attempt to get my birthday breakfast for free, I hung out for a while in the fine business digs of my friend brian winton of foundations music. we know each other from playing and touring together and from working on a terrific meliaa ferrick record a few years ago.

then later, I made my way to the show venue in alohabet city in alphabet city (which you may think of as rough & tumble but which now is the hot nightspot area of nyc). after soundcheck & before the show, I went off in search of food. I paused at 5 or 6 places & then doubled back, still trying to decide.

A couple approached and the man opened a door to a italian bistro. in a londoner accent he asked if I'd like to join them for a drink. thinking that he'd mistaken me for someone else, I started to decline but they were insistent. I finally said, 'sure' 'fine', etc. and we went in. no sooner had we sat down at the table when the owner greeted us and explained that is was the grand opening and they were going to give us all the wine and bottled water/coffee drinks and they just started pouring and bringing plates of food. which were out of this world great, besides.

the couple from london and I talked about this and that and were served a 5-course meal (or more; there was wayyyy too much food to keep track), complete with dessert and wine and espresso drinks afterward. in nyc, that's probably at least a $150-175 tab for three. our bill was $36. quite a nice birthday surprise. it was, as I told the owner, 'as close to italy as
anything I'd ever experienced outside of italy'.

I made it back to the alphabet lounge and, to our surprise, it was quite filled with a happy and enthusiastic crowd. the show was short but really fun and surprisingly good at a venue which looked a bit sketchy at first.

so, in short, I had lunch with a good friend I don't get to see often, dinner with complete strangers, and I played an unexpectedly great show. very fun.

ttys,

wil m.

WOO HOO! We're in! We won! We are opening the Bon Jovi Concert in Des Moines on Wed! I can't type a sentence without an exclamation mark!

Read More.

Culture Shock. . . . .

I know I'm behind. I know I have been in New York for a week with tons of crazy experiences to share and things to explain and stories to relate. I know, you know that we have had a couple of magical shows that you our local blog readers deserve to have described. But how am I supposed to process this stuff while I'm still living it? I don't want to take my eyes off of the action for long enough to glance at the screen and type even these few words. I'll catch up.

This city is a great distraction from the circus that is going on back home related to this whole Bon Jovi craziness. Yes it would be great to open for Bon Jovi in front of 17 thousand people. But is it worth the negitivity that we have to endure? Is it worth the name calling and accusations? read here. Or would it be better if it just never happened and we continued to grow the old fashioned way with a little airplay and some shows and selling records. Breath, let it go, relax, don't worrry about it. We have a great show in NYC tonight. Phone's ringing . . . .

Swan Song.

So the band decided to split up and go do our own things. Some wanted to stay in the city and others didn't. Mike was the main one who had just had his fill of Ney York. So, Mikes day of funwas born. Jon, Charidy, Mike and I bailed out and went to a small toutist town in PA called New Hope. Apon arrival we started Mikes day of fun with a few luke warm Miller Highlifes. After that Charidy noticed a boat being pulled by horses in a canal and a swan swimming in the canal. Nothingthat you get to see in IA everyday. I got real excited about the swan and took some bread from the bus to feed it. When I aproached the swan it started hissing like mad. It calmed down after I started feeding it but started hissing again as soon as I quit feeding it. Damn swans. After that
we strolled around the senic town of New Hope looking for food and refreshment. It didn't take long to find a pizza place that served beer and we sat down. The food was perfect and the beer was cold. Sweet! MDoF was starting with a bang. Party!

Interesting road discovery #4426

Interesting road discovery #4426 - 1st take one large gulp of red bull, swallow, wait 5 seconds, eat one handful of rold gold pretzels. this combination tastes exactly like PANCAKES!

Good things come in small packages

 We walked into the Rockwood Music Hall.  The inward swinging door nearly bumped the current performer mid song.  The term "music hall" implies to me a large room. So I was expecting something different.  Rockwood Music Hall is a little bit larger than my living room, but a very cool place.  The gal I about made swallow her microphone was Jill Stevenson -- another great musical experience I was not expecting.  Our good friend and label mate Benjamin Wagner played next and was nice enough to invite us up for a couple of songs. (Benjamin’s new CD Heartland drops November 15.  Go on over to www.authenticrecordsonline.com  for details.)

When we are on tour and playing a show that for one reason or another is weird we always bet whether or not anyone will be there.  A midnight show on a Monday in the rain is a perfect recipe for playing to literally no one but the bar and sound staff.  I always thought it would be funny and kind of cool to play a show like.  The crowd was small at 9:00 last night but when we finally took the stage at 12:45 after an hour long set by what I can only describe as Steve Vai meets Kenny G except on guitar it was us, the bar staff, the sound guy, and five other people.  Suddenly the idea of playing to no one isn’t so romantic.  Two fifths of the crowd was there to see Yanni Tesch and leaves.  Yikes.  One of the remaining three passes out in the bathroom.   Yikes.  The other two remaining folks were treated to three of the best songs we have ever played!!!  To be completely accurate half of those two left half way through our one quarter length set. YIKES!     

Midwest Record Recap . . . .

NADAS/Listen Through the Static: Buncha college buddies from Iowa carve out an under the radar career that seems to be blowing right past all the tastemakers with their call out research and know it all attitudes.  Hiring first class support people to bring out a sound that can compete with anything on the majors, this totally indy DIY crew is on album 7, they kick ass and yet they still stay grass roots.  It's kind of amazing.  If you are bitching that rock has lost it's soul, make the effort to seek this out and see what yo haven't been hearing.


That's a pretty cool review.

Well that was an eventful evening:

We headed to the lower east side again last night.  Wil found out his friend Randy Kaplan was playing in the same joint we hung out last night.  In the subway on the way there we were treated to a little person Michael Jackson impersonator.  I don’t actually know if the PC term for a little person is little person so my apologies to anyone I offended.   After five minutes of stretching and checking his make-up he ripped out every dance move MJ has ever done.  It was H.O.T.  After another transfer or two we came across a band I knew was the real deal after hearing only one song.  Check out Susan Cagle at www.susancagle.com   Speaking of the real deal, Scrap-O-Matic was the headliner at the Living Room.  HOLY COWHIDES!  .  .  I love it when I go somewhere to see music not knowing or expecting anything and get totally blown away.  P.S. Thanks to the nice lady from Russia in town for three Rob Thomas shows (?) for sharing her table with us. We weren’t  quite ready to head home after Scraps (that’s what I call Scrap-O-Matic now that I feel we are buds)  we followed a hot tip on a cool late night acoustic club.  The place  almost lived up to the hype.  It was: 1. cool 2. Late night 3.a club.  There weren’t acoustic performers but there were performers.  It ended up being a hybrid comedy club/burlesque show.  I laughed, I blushed, I took a cab home. 


 


 


 

I decide to meet a couple of photographer friends for drinks at grand central station. Seems impossible doesn't it. I call and say I'm on my way in, how do I find you. He says, you'll see me, I'm wearing a red jacket, everyone else is wearing black. That's new york city. Sure enough I walk right into the main atrium, where millions of people pass through, and there he is. It's amazing how it really doesn't feel like that big of a town.Later, I ran into a photographer friend from college that I hadn't seen for a few years. Just passed her on the sidewalk. We started talking to a group of people on a late night train and told her we were in a band, she said really I work for sony records, we said we're called the nadas, she said I have an eamil about you guys I haven't read yet, see you at the show. It's a small world in a big city.

Fly like an eagle. . . .

no alarm sounds good at 5am. where the hell are we? lansing, kansas.
yikes.

thankfully, we can count on each other to move things along.

"are you getting up."

"I snoozed it for 5 minutes."

"somebody has to go first."

"yeah. I'm _fine_ to go first. I'm just snoozing it for a second."

" we have to get out of here by 5:30..."

okay, fine, I'm going in.

***

we make it out by 5:30am or thereabouts and drive through the
ghost-town-like kansas and missouri back roads. made it onto the plane
(minus charidy), although I did get tested for explosives and had my bags
searched (they looked at my little audio connectors like they were from two
centuries into the future).

flight #1 was on southwest and I staked out my last row spot, in hopes that
I'd get a row to myself for onbaord sleeping. alas, I ended up squeezed in
with the other plane-full of sardines and slept in the fully upright and
locked position.

I add here that everyone hates me 'cause I can sleep anywhere at any time on
demand. this comes in really handy on the road and in late night studio
situations.

flight #2 was a little better as I traded with mike (who hates the back row)
and I ended up with the only empty row. sleep come free me! sweet.

***

we disembark in NYC and, as always, it like you see the whole array of new
yorkers in condensed form in the first 5 minutes. we saw: a buddhist monk,
a 15 person extended asian family, NYC cops, a taxi driver who pissed his
pants, a mafia muscle guy driving a limo, a posse of young urban males in
full 'and one' Bball attire, a transvestite, and a girl with green hair.
welcome to new york.

***

we take a cab into the city to meet our friend and host, ben wagner outside
his office at MTV (I think he was afraid to have us seen by anyone at work).
on our way across the street from the cab, carrying all our gear, mike
dropped the box of cds in the middle of braodway in times square, but deftly
kicked it all the way across the street to jason. yeah! as we pulled up to
mtv, I set my keybaord soft case on one end because I was so tired of
holding it, which in retrospect was a really bad idea since I discovered I
had set it in phlegm on the sidewalk. bad enough until you consider that
it's SOMEONE ELSE'S PHLEGM. kill me now. wiped it off and away we went to
ben's place. welcome to new york part II.

***

at ben's we carry all our stuff up the 5 flights of stairs (welcome to new
york part III) and settle in to figure out how we're going to spend our
first night in NYC.

we settle on a couple of shows, starting with a free 'celebrate the new
canal park' celebration, which is an outdoor show with film, dance, and a
set by legendary new yorker lou reed.

so, we went downtown and saw lou reed.

actually, we did see him, but he was just tuning his guitars off-stage.
what we did see was a film with no audio. kind of hard to follow, so we
walked a few blocks to get a slice of new york pizza (which is all that it's
cracked up to be), walked back in time for a bit of native american drum
circle. who doesn't love that?

along with the drumming and chanting, there was an african dancer, and in
the middle of all this, out comes a poet.

I'm all about poets, they're cool and all, but this one took the cake. she
interspersed banal descriptions of the park flowers with unexpectedly
shocking fake native american chanting and hair-raising shrieks.

for example:

"let us enjoy the green grass and fresh air of the city
hulayayayayayayayayayho mamamamamamamamama and the night brings beauty
together with the sounds of music and
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYEAH we enjoy the silence
and beauty and move to the drums..." et cetera.

then she 'danced' a bit with the drum circle. um, yeah.

this was followed by more lou reed tuning, the launch of two paper hot air
balloon sculptures, a self-serving jazz shop owner who we decided was not
pretentious but, rather, _pompous_. and by that time we decided to move on
to another show.

but we _saw_ lou reed.

heading across town I started to speak in italian to a couple who appeared
to be lost; mike thought I was faking it so he hailed a cab and that nice
older couple is probably still lost.

we made it to see a band that mike decided should have had tour shirts which
read:


not quite ready to tour yet

they were nice, though.

lowlight: the 2 for drinks tasted like battery acid (I had it once, it's
not as bad!)

highlight: walking in the room and realizing that I had been there 15 years
ago with a girl I haven't seen since. yeah!

***

on the way out of the club, we met up with mike's friend jimmy. he took us
up through alphabet city, where we dropped in on a crazy and great show by
aldo perez at the living room. when I say he's crazy, I mean, I think he's
truly crazy. hard to explain the show but there were toy megaphones,
classical guitars, hip-hop M.C.-ing, a trumpet player, bad jokes ("I once
had sex with a model... the glue got _everywhere_!"), a classic rock
medley, a song about insomnia, and a plethora of weird facial expressions.
quite an evening. welcome to new york, part IV. it's getting old hat, now.

Thy Wil be done. . . .

it's 10:27 and we're still at it here at nadas world HQ. just part of our
continuing effort to bring shows, cds, and music directly to your door (or,
at least, to your general vicinity).

even though there's no show today for us to play, I've been working since
8:30 this morning on bringing more nadas shows and more nadas airtime to
you. that means:

a. calling or writing basically everyone I know from all my many years in
the music business to try and get the nadas chances to play on radio
stations and stages all over the U.S., europe, and japan. this is a pretty
good challenge, in spite of the fact that we all all know the nadas are a
truly special and talented band. it's a challenge because of the huge sea
of music out there in the world.

I like to think of that as some kind of advantage; the good stuff should
stick out from the crowd, right?

so far, it seems to be working as several cool radio stations who've never
played the nadas are seriously considering adding listen through the static
tracks to their playlists, and stations who have played our music are being
even more supportive this time around. it's enough to make a guy think that
there's some hope left in the world.

which brings me to:

b. working on the final preparations for the uploading of some live tracks
from our acoustic performance on KUNI. soon, you'll be able to hear those
tracks on nadas radio and, you may even get a sampler disc with some of
those tracks if you catch us at one of our many east coast dates next week.

in the meantime, as hard as I worked to make these live cuts sound A-1
today, I can't help but be moved by the music, even at the tail end of a
14-hour day. guess that's why I have the job I have playing music and
making records. it's a drag but someone has to do it.)

see you in NYC, boston, philly, virginia, et al.

wil masisak
your faithful correspondent & hard-working dude

KXNO sports talk

Thought you'd be interested to know The Nadas are featured on the
latest Cotman's Cuts Podcast on the KXnO Podcasting Page:

click here

Live from Studio One

Jason just called me to put this up. Him and Mike are playing KUNI's Live fro Studio One at 7pm tonight. You can listen at here.

here is a phone pic of us taking pledge calls after the show. Look for the show to be posted soon. It went great and sounds good.

The circle of life. . . .

Ebay through the static

We rocked our Keysters off. . .. . .

Well, we survived. A two night stand in our home town. I played 3 shows yesterday. I can hardley keep my eyes open to type this. It was a great weekend of music. Friday night josh davis opened the show. Saturday it was towncrier. Josh joined us on stage a little bit as did several other great musicians over the course of two shows this weekend. Josh Davis and the tail chasers, Towncrier, Jerry Lorensen, Travis Ballstadt, Stephanie Walsmith (my wife).



My three shows on Saturday. . . .

There is an amazing excitment stirred by performing a show (or 2) for a sold out crowd at a bar in your own home town. The crowd radiating energy that somehow slams into the band on stage and is slingshot back into the audience in the form of raw peformance. I know that no matter how tired or worn out I am when I hit the stage there will be enough to go around and then some. It is an exhileration I wish everyone could experience.

Still sometimes I wonder why we do it .. . . are people listening, or they just there to party? Are the stories falling on nerve deaf ears?

Borders books. A listening crowd. Some people there to hear intimate versions of songs they usually hear under piles of guitars and through veils of smoke. some people held captive by the lyrics, some by the fact that they came to study and are too polite to get up and leave during the music. Telling stories, singing songs, people laughing, requesting, questioning. An exchange with an audience.

Still sometimes I wonder why we do it. . . . are we making a difference? Are we contributing to society? Is it just a selfish need for accolades and applause. A pat on the back from a hundred people.

A habitat for humanity benefit in a park on a beautiful Autumn Saturday. An event organized by two 8th graders with a little help from their parents. The audience, a group of people who only need an excuse to do something to help make a difference. To lend a helping hand or a buck. The music, the excuse.

This is why we do it. . . . to make a difference. To help people build houses, to tell people a story that makes them think, or to give people an excuse to dance and get away from it all for a couple of hours on a saturday night.

what a fullfilling spectrum of shows.

Now I can close my eyes.

Let ME Sleep.

Let ME sleep

We have made it back from the west coast safe and sound. For any one who is interested I have enjoyed my first touring experience a lot. Traveling lots of miles, meeting lots of people, taking lots of pictures, and listening to lots of music. That is exactly what I was looking for when I signed up for this gig. I hope all of you who have purchased copies of shows are enjoying them, and are continuing to rock long after the bus has left town. 

I have had one small problem since we have gotten back into Des Moines, that is staying awake. On the road our sleep schedule is pretty much what you'd expect, stay up nice and late, and sleep in the next day nice and late as well. Although I seem to be the only one who sleeps until noon everyday, but then again, I am also one of the only ones who doesn't take naps. I seem to have some sort of touring jet lag, because all I want to do is sleep, and when I don't want to sleep I do anyways because I am to tired to function. I can't wait to get back on the road for many reasons (The Family Guy movie, etc.), the major one being I definitely want to get back to a sleep schedule that fits me better.

Looking forward to seeing you all at some point, somewhere.

 

 

Luke Meek
Audio Engineer: The Nadas

Extra, extra, read all about it. . . .

'Static' brings Nadas fame

Scene Scribe: The Nadas hope to break through with 'Static'

The Nadas party roller-rink style

Gaps: Always look for context in life's juxtapositions

Nadas zap radio biz in most focused album yet

radio killed the radio star . . . .

I want to share with y'all an exchange I had with a radio person today. Radio has been the single biggest hurdle our band has had to deal with over the years. Radio is the most direct key to a mass audience and is all but non existent for bands not supported by a major label. I'm not playing a sympathy card here, it is just the way it is. So we as an independent band have to look for a way around that obstacle. be it, radio advertising, syndicated radio programs, college radio, other non commercial stations, online radio, podcasts etc. We have been lucky this record to have finally found a little bit of support. Star 102.5 in Des Moines has gone out on a limb and taken a risk by playing our song "listen through the static" in regular rotation. With the permission, but against the better judgment of the system and some higher ups. It is still being tested to see how there audience responds. If it does well in research and testing and it appears that their demographic likes the song then they will continue to play it. If they continue to play it and more people like it, then there is a chance that a few other stations may follow suit. If that happens then other regions may start to pay attention. That is all you can ask for in this biz. It is tempting in a situationlike this to engage or fans to skew the results. Call or write and make the station think everyone loves us. But we are very careful to not do that, we want our song to stand on its own merit. So we DON'T campaign for airplay. We do continue to send CDs to stations that we think we would fit and may consider playing. When appropriate we contact the station, tell them we are in the area and available for interviews or performance and would they consider playing the track. Sometimes we win sometimes we don't. But we don't organize fans to mob stations. That being said I want to share with you a correspondence I had with an unnamed radio station in the pacific northwest today. A fan emailed to show the response when they requested a song. . . .


On Thu, 13 Oct 2005 a fan wrote:

So my hope is that one of these mornings you play "The Nadas" for me. I thought you were going to do it last week, but it wasn't to be. This morning on my way to work I got a flat tire; let's just say it wasn't the greatest way to start the day. I think the only thing that can salvage my morning is to hear The Nadas.
Oh should also thank you for turning me on to a ton of awesome bands, too many for me to list here, but the more recent ones being Silversun Pickups, Okkerville River and The Hold Steady.

Love and blasting you in the cubical,

Fan

Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 07:33:49 -0700 (PDT) Radio DJ

Thank you very much...and while I'm sure you're just a fan of the band you
can imagine we aren't big fans of our having our email clogged with people
driven by this:

"Become a field agent DOWNLOAD The SURVEY and send to charidy@thenadas.com
The Nadas are looking for people interested in becoming NADA FIELD AGENTS.
These agents help promote the band by calling local radio stations,
distributing posters and flyers, etc. Basically, The Nadas are looking for
one or more people per town to do all they can to create a buzz."

Then I wrote . . . .

On Thu, 13 Oct 2005, Jason@thenadas.com wrote:

Thank you for your comments on this. We take great pride in not creating an "artificial buzz" as we know that can be annoying. We engage our field agents to forge a relationship in a professional manner and no more than one per market. The interesting thing here is that we have no field agents in the N.W. I think what you have here is an honest fan of your station and our band requesting music he wants to hear. If your email boxes are clogged I hope it may mean that more people want to hear our new record. (we had a person from somewhere in your hood call into a show we did in Carbondale, CO that she was listening to online asking if we had sent it to your station). I hope that this person's request doesn't turn you off from even listening to our record for consideration. Please check it out.

Thanks

Jason Walsmith

The Nadas

On Oct 13, 2005, at 10:35 AM, dj wrote:

Thanks Jason, appreciate the email, however we're one of the most popular online stations on line and most of these...if not all of them are from outside the NW and we've been in this long enough to know when its a campaign from fans/friends/the band and while we encourage requests, we also try to let the music speak for itself. We need not be convinced something is good by having our inboxes clogged with requests. We'll for sure give the band and the record a chance with an honest review and it'll be up to the DJ's if they want to play it or not, but first the emails need to stop or at least slow down.

Thanks

dj


On Oct 13, 2005, at 10:46 AM, Jason@thenadas.com wrote:

Thanks for the correspondence. I don't know what I can tell you to make you believe that we did not organize a campaign to your station or any other for that matter. Our street team list is completely stagnant and obsolete. We haven't even communicated with anyone since our last record 2 years ago. I also have been in this long enough (12 years and 7 records) to know that this kind of thing pisses off programmers and dj's. I guess I can just feel good about the fact people are requesting on their own accord whether you believe it or not. That is the best compliment you can ask for as an artist. Thanks for considering it and I hope our exchange doesn't give us black eye in your mind. Check out the song "listen through the static" track one. It is all about how homogenized commercial radio is and how hard you have to work to hear an independent voice on the radio these days. A tip of the hat to stations like yours.

Thanks again,

Jason

No response . . . . As much as you will want to respond to this station I intentionally left the address off. This would be a good forum discussion instead.

Out of the Ashes . . . .

My west coast memory: from Charidy

Rhythm Room, Phoenix AZ

I had multiple brief phone conversations with the bar manager, Mona
Lisa. She seemed cool enough. Little did I know... We arrived early
to the club, unheard of for The Nadas. A lot of good it did for me to
push that as no one was there to let us in. Mona called and let me know
she had an emergency stop at the grocery store and would be right over.
Jason, the sound guy, arrived first and we started load in.

Mona emerged from the back office, cigarette in hand, hair high in a
tight bun. She let us know that it would be clear when the night got
rough; the bun would get looser. (Her hair was down before the show
began, but we tried not to take it personally.) An important side note
here is that her cigarette signified to all the smokers in our group
that, yes, we had left California, the land of no-smoking clubs. That
called for a mini-super party on their part.

The club filled with both new and experienced Nadas fans before we even
completed sound check. Again, a super party because, while Cali was
great to us, we missed having a club packed full of fans that can sing
along (particularly awesome for a Sunday night). Without much of a
break, I set up the merch booth and the show got rockin'.

Mona came to check out all the Nadas goodies and was trading some Rhythm
Room tee's for Nadas tee's when the Iowa State Fair Coloring Book caught
her eye. She loved it; why wouldn't she, it was my idea ;) We had a
chuckle and both went back to work...or so I thought.

During Jon's solo, Jason took the opportunity to visit the restroom near
the back office. He came over to tell me that he saw Mona busy coloring
The Nadas while enjoying a drink and a smoke. This, I had to see. She
colored the stage complete with the Rhythm Room banner behind the band
and was clever enough to give Mike a t-shirt emblazoned with "Mona kicks
ass" (though I think his hair ended up a bit too dark). I made her take
it directly to stage to show off and it now has a permanent showcase in
the merch box. Come on out and see it!

Happy ending... Mona sent me a late night text, "The Nadas kick ass!"
Well, duh!

Leave only foot prints, take only phone calls.

Luke during our 20 min visit to the beach on our way to molly malones in L.A..

San Francisco Bay

No, but I stayed at a holiday inn last night. . . . .

Well not really, but we pulled into the parking lot a little after 3am. The people at the front desk were kind enough to let us check in at 8:00am for tonight's stay. This is tricky, but other than the sleeping part we essentially get the hotel for 2 days. Hey we are scrimping, it's not cheap out here on the road. This our general strategy. Hotel every other day. Check in early, check out late. It is working well so far. So we have been at the hotel all day, recharging batteries, making phone calls, sending and receiving emails and just generally getting caught up. I even got to get caught up on some blogs, as you can see. I talked to Star 102.5 who informed me that while we weren't getting many spins today, Sat. and Sunday were going to be heavy. Almost a dozen spins a day. Tune in folks and spread the good word. They just got the results back from the first round of testing and it looks like the songs is pretty popular with the people who are already familiar with The Nadas, but still not very familiar with the general public. (how they know that is a mystery) but keep spreading the word. I also did an indepth interview with Cityview today who will be running something next week. Ben snapped a picture of me at the window doing the interview. . . .

As the Samples say. . .

As the Samples say, the wheels spin round and round and round. Yes, we are still out rocking and rolling on the west coast. The trips have been much shorter but the traffic is much thicker. Nothing like rolling around San Fran in a huge bus. Last night we played a really cool place called the Last Day Saloon. When we arrived, there wasn’t any parking available so a few of us drove around and around till our luck changed. Three spaces free up and Jason, the master backer parallel parked the bus. It’s always a sight and does attract a crowd when the MeatLoaf bus backs in. In fact two people came up and took pictures in front of it. After the park job we went to the coolest little sushi bar just steps from the bus. The placed was laid out in a large round bar that had little boats, chained together slowly floating round and round with different types of sushi on plates. Nothing on any of the boats was over two bucks and it was delish. After dinner we headed out to rock the saloon were magicians were involved. I’ll leave that story for someone else. For now I’m out.

Pacific Coast Radio. . . . Stranded.

(photo from Wil's camera phone)
KUSP radio. What an awesome station! You can tune in anytime at KUSP.org. It sounds like they may be adding Listen Through The Static to regular rotation. Anyway . . . We arrived right on time delivered by a wild drug crazed cabbie. We were welcomed into the studio and immediately began to set up. Wil spotted an old wurlitzer spindle piano. He asked if he could play it and we started dragging it through the hallways and into the studio. There was a great vibe in the room, a fun performance, and a great interview from someone who seemed genuinely interested in our band. After the interview Mike, Wil and I walked down to the beach and had some fish tacos. Then we sat at a bus stop and waited for a ride downtown. The bus never came. A generous bystander relayed that there was a bus strike and we could be waiting a while, so we called our wacky cab driver. He said "sorry man I am way our of town and have another pick up scheduled. Can you dig?" So we were stranded. Directly across the street from a hair salon called Stranded. We contemplated walking the 4-5 miles to downtown but instead decided to try and catch a ride. I asked a passing bicyclist if there were laws against hitchhiking in Santa Cruz. She informed me that it was indeed illegal to hitchhike. If you were standing in the street with your thumb out that was considered hitching and would be prosecuted by Santa cruzes finest. However if you were standing on the sidewalk, that was considered thumbing a ride and that was perfectly acceptable. So we stood on the sidewalk and thumbed a ride from a very nice woman in a minivan. We had a door to door ride within minutes of our request. Thank you lady from santa cruz.

Harder than I thought.

I never said I was a good blogger. I'll have to learn to keep up. But, in my defense. . . .we did do 9 shows in 5 days (when you include record stores and radio). And, we have't had cell service at all for about a thousand miles. I may try to get caught up, so check back. For now let me tell you about the last 24 hours. okay . . . . we have been driving. That's pretty much it. Yesterday morning we left evergreen at 8am headed west for radio interview/performances in Aspen and Carbondale. In Carbondale during the show we mentioned that our old bass player, Brett Nelson, lived somewhere in earshot of the station. As it turned out everyone there knew brett, but they didn't know he was ever in a band. It was an incredible small world scenario. After the show we fielded some phone calls from people who heard the show and wanted some more information. Including someone who was listening online from Portland, OR. (which made me realize that any of you who are interested could have tuned in and may be able to tune into future radio things). We then stopped at City Market and hightailed it over to Brett's house for a little get together. It was great seeing Brett and his wife nicki. Reminicing about old road stories and us telling him new ones. He loves living and working in the mountains and is enjoying listening and playing music. We enjoyed some good food and conversation with some old friends and new friends and then hit the road. . . . and we hit it hard. We are just arriving in Santa Cruz. CA after nearly 24 hours of constant driving across one of the most desolete roads I have ever been on. Constant driving except for fuel and one magical stop. . . . Half way through the toquima mountains we searched out some ceremonial hot springs that we had heard about. It was off the beaten path. And it was a great way to soak away some aches and pains of contant motion. A hole in the the desert with boling hot water. Magical and theraputic. Check out the pictures.


Reconnoitering the springs



Jon "come on in, the water is great!"


Jason Lounging