Record Groove Sky

I took this somewhere outside El Paso. The clouds looked like record grooves to me. There's a great DJ in the sky, apparently. This weekend was good...we went to San Angelo (see previous LOCKED IN THE BATHROOM post), Lubbock, and Amarillo. I commented to Susan that we are usually either coordinating a stunning execution of pull up to the gig/load in gear/change clothes/sound check/walk dogs/set up merch in a record 7 minutes and 46 seconds, or we have hours to kill for well, hours. (We are actually ALWAYS punctual and early, but our degrees of early change and make for less hectic load ins sometimes). In Lubbock we had hours to kill, which was nice. I laptopped at the venue, we walked the dogs around the venue neighborhood which happened to contain a mall. It's good we had stuff to do or I would have dropped my paycheck on crap at Dillards out of boredom. I work like that sometimes. The Amarillo show was great as usual, as Susan has a crack team of musicians up there and they do a great band show. The drive home from Amarillo yesterday was long, though I killed maybe the first 3 hours reading out loud from the New Yorker (my favorite magazine because it's interesting and it costs $6 but it takes me like 5 hours to read, so that's cheap entertainment, and then I get to say things like "I read in The New Yorker..."). It was the Thanksgiving food issue, so I informed Susan and the dogs about such things like making borscht, pickled cabbage, a roadhouse in New Orleans that hasn't changed since 1962 or something like that, and gastropubs in NYC. After a while my throat got scratchy and now I have a lot more respect for talk show hosts, because I was not cut out to talk for 3 hours straight. However, I will train so that I can do it more, because I like reading and Susan likes books on tape, which I am almost akin to except she doesn't have to change the disc every 60 minutes. We had a headlight out, and we got pulled over twice by very nice officers who informed us of such fact. We also needed to decide where to eat dinner. "Where do you want to eat?" "I don't care." "Oh, we're being pulled over. I'll pull into this Dairy Queen." (Nice officer interlude). ..."Wanna eat at Dairy Queen?" "Ok." Sometimes these things just get decided for us, which I prefer to making decisions sometimes. While in line at the DQ, Susan decided that in the future, she will refuse me my per diem on food unless I order things in my old man New Yorker accent. I will either starve or get over my fear of public humiliation in fast food restaurants. Updates forthcoming. I told her I would start by being British, though, and work my way up to old man.

H-Town!

We had a swell time in Houston this weekend. Susan played in Boerne (San Antonio) on Thursday and then we just hoofed it to our friends in Tomball (north Houston) so we could wake up where we needed to be instead of waking up somewhere we didn't need to be. Always a good rule of thumb. The Gene Simmons of folk. We caffeinated up and headed to KPFT for "Wide Open Spaces" with Roark, the coolest DJ on the planet. His show is named after that one song that Susan wrote you may have heard of it, so that's cool. If you check out their Facebook Fan Page you can see all the videos from the interview. The static and the blur: an interpretation. Photo by Melissa Noble! Then we killed some time in a park whereupon I laptopped on a picnic table and it was a lovely day. Then we headed over to the house of some fine friends who made us DINNER oh my that is always a perk. Thanks Nancy Jane, Leslie, and Jim! Nancy Jane, Susan, Leslie, and moi...songwriter girls unite! THEN we headed to an awesome concert series called Heights Live! right in the middle Houston. These folks have created a listening room in the fellowship hall of a church, and then in the set intermission they SERVE PIE. Um hello? Folk music and pie? The version of Susan's "Perfect World" that we did all Vaudeville style when Susan's arm was broken was requested, so I got my strum on. It's been so long since we have done it that was I was hoping I didn't forget it, but the I realized Susan has the hard part and all I have to do is...strum. So that was fun. I'm glad she has 2 arms again, though. And then we drove to Dallas. Thank you, Houston, for your kind hospitality! And check out Heights Live if you're in the area...great folks. And listen to KPFT, too.

The Last October Weekend

Oh it's good to be back in Texas. I liked the Southeast. But I like seeing folks I know at the shows and that does not happen in states where I've never been before. We traveled to Navasota, Houston, and Port Aransas this past weekend. Port A might be one of of my favorite places ever...it has the lovely Third Coast Theater, lots of pastel houses on the beach, and even more nice folks that come to the show than pastel houses. Third Coast is where Terri Hendrix hosts her songwriting workshop every year, and so my first few times in Port A were spent in songwriting bliss. Large poster-sized photos of the artists that play there line the walls, and of course The Boss is up there...so it's even more cool to return to the workshop scene in a work capacity for Susan. I should have made her pose next to her giant portrait. No, I shouldn't have. One thing that maybe I haven't shared is that when I am feeling punchy, which is most of the time because hey, life is good - I burst into spontaneous accents. Not around everyone. Actually, usually just in the car...so that means Susan and the dogs get the brunt of my accents. My favorites are my old-somewhat-New Yorker-cranky-man and my British. Not together, though I have tried to mesh them with disastrous results. Anyway, this weekend was so fun I was in accent-mode the whole time. Wot? On Sunday we made it home in time to see porterdavis at Gruene Hall. It has been too long since I have seen Dan the Producer play, and what better place then Gruene? They rocked it. Today was a recovery day which was problematic because it was also Monday, and I was expected to start a new work week. I am bad at spacing things out. Holding out for a week off at Thanksgiving! And...onward.

Texas Box Guitars

Maybe I'll call it "The Burqueño." How New Mexican of me. Ok, this is the COOLEST. Dan the Producer has had a Texas Box Guitar for at least over a year now, and I have been drooling over it because: a) it's a guitar b) it's got a license plate on it, which not only looks cool, but to me is a geographical reference, which I love (see also why I collect ceramic state truck stop pigs and hang maps on my wall for aesthetics). When I moved this summer for the 47th time in 4 years, I found my old New Mexico license plate in a stack of crap and pondered what I could do with it that would be cool because I wasn't going to get rid of my first ever license plate. Then the lightning bolt struck me, 2+2 came together (4), and I emailed Walter Morgan at Texas Box Guitars. Walter is the COOLEST, and he came by the music school to check on Dan's guitar (and Dan) and to show me the options for mine. We decided a black box would make the bright yellow stand out the most, and away Walter went to his magical guitar shop in Dripping Springs while I was driving around the country last month. Probably the 2nd email I sent when we were back in town this weekend was to Walter to see when I could pick it up. As opposed to most other guitar buying experiences I've had, which has either been in a music store or on Craigslist, this was super enjoyable. Where else do you go to pick up a guitar made just for you and get offered a Coke and chat with the maker (and Walter's awesome better half, Susan) at their kitchen table? So fun. It's a 4 string slide guitar, right now I've tuned it to open G, and Walter installs a pickup that sounds great. Love at first note! I'm going to have to study up on slide techniques this summer...I wish I knew someone who worked at a music school. Hm. I suggest you all go check out Texas Box Guitars' website...they are super reasonably priced and if you have a plate that's just hanging around your house, this is a great way to make use of it. The quote on TBG's website? "You can never have too many guitars." So true.

Lately

Photography by Maurice Ok, it's been forever. Part of it is that Blogger changed their publishing ways and my blog is messed up. Hence you are reading this at the non-normal location. Anyone who is any good at Wordpress design or whatever, or knows how the heck I can publish to jpo.com through this new Blogger ruledom, let me know. Blah. I'll fix it, I will. But! Things have been fun. The Boss is recovering and also playing some slick electric guitar. I have gotten pretty comfy with all the tunes I have learned, which means I don't have a mini-panic attack every time we start playing one to make sure I am doing it right. I am a perfectionist. It causes mini-panic attacks. We played a cool event in Yorktown, which as far as I can tell, is in the middle of nowhere...called Yorkstock. They made awesome t-shirts and we played on a flatbed trailer, which made a great stage. We should just haul one everywhere. The Golden Light Cantina in Amarillo was one of my favorite shows lately, because I had finally hit my stride with all the material and John Lerma, drummer with the mostest, was so fun to play with. And because there's stuff to read on the walls when you're setting up. We had quite a long row of songswappers at the Blue Light in Lubbock...there's Red down at the end, and then Brandon, and then Rode, and then Susan...who brought the lead guitar cred to the stage. Very fun. It is weird to songswap with 4 artists so you're playing only 25% of the time. I tried not to do anything distracting like picking my nose while we waited. It's wildflower season in Texas, so the drives have been, as I like to say, disgustingly beautiful. I hope it's legal to pick one for the car, because I did.

Having a Blast, Kids

Thanks to Winker for the photo! My callouses are AWESOME right now. Thought I would share. I've been cramming and Susan and I have been rehearsing over the past few weeks so that I can play a full gig of her tunes and make them sound decent. So far, it's working. Now, Gibson over there throws in a lot of nuanced little tricks that deceive the casual observer but when you try and play them yourself you realize...Susan is a really awesome guitarist. So I've been picking up some tricks and some I'm just leaving there to lay in the road until her arm is back to strumming because, she does crazy cool stuff and only she can do it. So bow down to the guitarista in a blue cast, please. You can't keep a guitar nerd down, so Suz has been fingerpicking on a Gibson hollowbody electric and it's been super fun. We're all going to come out of this with a lot more music theory in our heads. I love it. My car is now officially the FolkMobile. So over the past few weeks I've gotten to be the right arm on a ton of cool stages with a ton of cool players. When you'd ask what are the venerable venues here in Texas to play, no doubt the names Gruene Hall, Luckenbach, and Saxon Pub would come up. We've played them all this week. When you ask who are some of the coolest, most reputable musicians in Texas these days, you'd probably see Terri Hendrix, Michael O'Connor, Adam Carroll, Mark Jungers, David Carroll, and The Mystiqueros on the list. We've played with them all over the past few weeks, too. Hot dang. Everyone's been so cool and supportive, the gigs have flown by. Except the last half hour in Marble Falls when the temperature dropped about 20 degrees and we all started shivering. But that was fun, too. Thanks to my buddy Havilah for playing with us and selling the merch, too. I haven't figured out how to strum and sell a CD yet. With The Mystiqueros at the Saxon. Terri soundchecking for the Sunday afternoon songswap at Luckenbach. Susan picks with Adam Carroll and Mark Jungers at Gruene Hall. And with all of that, Dan and I still managed to meet to mix some of EP 2. Which is coming along quite nicely and probably in the 80% done zone, not to jinx myself. So fun! That's that...we have a week off or so. I have more songs to learn. The weather is nice. Something called SXSW is happening this week. I might just nap.

2009 Recapment Part 1

So to start, I did the lamest thing ever and put in each trip I took for musical purposes this year on Google maps and then added up everything...this includes mileage from my place of residence to the gig(s) and back. This is mostly touring with Susan, but some on my own, and I didn't always go with Susan on her tours, so she's logged a ridiculous amount more. She's a road dawg like that. Anyway, my grand total of miles traveled (car and plane) is...drum roll please... 29,803 That's a lot. It's as accurate as it can be...sometimes we took alternate routes or drove around a lot once we were in the gig town and I don't keep track of that stuff, but in general - from point A to point Z...29k miles. The most miles in one month goes to October for about 6700 miles, when we flew to New York and back and then drove to Nashville. The least was February, when I didn't leave Texas and went about 600 miles from home. It's been a super fun year...I plan to ponder some of it more in blog form in the next couple of weeks. But after looking at that 29,803 number for a bit, all I really want to do now is take a nap. Hm.

Winter Wonder- oh, it melted.

Greetings from rainy Austin. We spent the weekend in snowy Houston and wet Fort Worth. There was a precipitation theme throughout. When we left Wimberley on Friday it was snowing a little and pretty. As we neared Houston it got sunny, but it was still pretty cold. Since our gig was kinda outdoors, we thought we'd stop at a CVS and get some of those handwarmer things. Except CVS stores in Houston doesn't seem to sell them, because IT NEVER GETS BELOW 80 DEGREES IN HOUSTON. Makes sense. So we went to Autozone. Surely when you are stranded along the side of a Houston road in 80-degree weather you would need a...oh, no luck there either. So then we went to Academy Sports, to the hunting section, where I saw way too much camoflauge for my taste and were told they were out. Because of COURSE when it actually is going to be 26 degrees in Houston, people run out and buy that stuff. Luckily we found some in the shoe section. Toe warmers, not hand warmers. They saved the day, and they don't just have to stick on your toes. I stole this photo from Susan because apparently I DIDN'T TAKE ANY. Dang. (c) suSANG! 2009. This was all that was left the next morning when we walked around a park in downtown Houston. That snowman's got impressive core freezing technology, or something. Then there was a show in Fort Worth and I played a little and truly enjoyed playing my tunes, which is always nice because I'm about to put them on a record so I'll be kinda stuck with them. Very excited for next week when we do the last bit of tracking on EP 2...it's getting closer! Now I'm gonna go find a furnace vent because I'm out of toe warmers.

Panhandle Hauntings

Happy Belated Thanksgiving! I like it because I think it's one of the least commercialized holidays, in that you can only up-sell someone so much on a cornucopia. I had a great time in Amarillo, hanging out at the Nat Ballroom for a live taping that will be part of the new Root 66 series...it is a TV show brainstormed by a collective of very talented Albuquerque filmmakers, musicians, and such. They asked Susan to film an episode, and no better place than in her hometown. When we rolled into the venue I knew my friend Matt Jones, a great singer-songwriter also from the ABQ area code, would be there. What I didn't know is that my buddy Josh was riding along with Matt. Josh and I used to be intern together at PBS in Albuquerque...and NEITHER of us knew that our former boss at KNME, Tony, was part of the crew that day. So it was a very impromptu and fun reunion. Tony even interviewed Susan, weird collision of worlds. Former boss interviews current boss. The show was awesome, all of the artists including Matt and Susan and Jenn Grinels and Rodney Branigan did great. Afterwards, they wanted to film some intro footage in the boiler room in the basement of the ballroom...which is a terribly old building (I mean, it has a BOILER ROOM for crying out loud), and this basement was the spookiest place I have ever been in. Apparently there are ghosts in this place as it used to be a gambling hall and a swimming pool at various times in its life, among other things. The floor was dirt and had rusted metal things laying around, there were cobwebs all over and nails poking through the ceiling from the floorboards above us. You would never catch me down there alone. SSSSHHHHH!!!! Luckily, we were there with about 10 people and a floodlight for the camera, so I felt pretty safe from the ghosties. Susan filmed a hysterical intro reminiscent of Scooby Doo or the like. Then we hightailed it upstairs again, to not disturb the spirits. You never know what you'll run into with this crazy job.

We all get fortunate sometimes.

I had a good weekend. It was busy, with non-stop events and gigs, including the 13th Annual Austin Empty Bowl Project. This is a neat charity because all year long, people make bowls and decorate them...close to 4,000 of them, actually. Then local restaurants and chefs donate their time to make soup, and then thousands of people come buy a bowl and get to try good soup, and all the proceeds go to charity. Brilliant! Susan played at the swanky preview party this weekend, whereupon I wormed my way in and partook in the hors d'oeuvres that included ingredients like dates, endives, and eggplant. Thems fancy food words. The next morning Jim and I woke up the soup eaters with our folk and roll act on the plaza at the Mexican American Cultural Center. I had a sweet potato dumpling soup. Awesome. Then, during my errands for the day, I FOUND A HUNDRED DOLLAR BILL ON THE SIDEWALK. I am pretty sure the best thing I have ever found previous to this day was maybe 2 bucks floating in a gas station parking lot, and it was my friend's who had just gotten out of the car. A consultation with Jim reassured me...it's cash, and I was in a big parking lot, and there's no way to track down anyone who might have been its owner. Crazy. I feel safe telling you all this because I already spent my half at Hastings. (Jim gets the other half because I can never pay him for gigs, but I found it on a gig day, so he gets paid). So anyway, look up most of the time but sometimes, LOOK DOWN. Later that day was benefit number 2 for Susan that weekend, at the Brauntex Theater in New Braunfels. It's a great old movie theater that is being repurposed for live shows (as well as film). Good times. There are neat little jewels all over the place...stop in a small town and find one.

In Search Of...JFK

Yes, another video. This weekend I took a day and visited the Sixth Floor Museum at the Kennedy assassination site in Dallas. Since my degree is in Modern American History, I was quite thrilled to see it.

In Search Of: The Luckenbach Chicken

I used to watch "In Search Of..." all the time...it was one some cable channel when I was a kid. They were usually hunting Bigfoot or aliens or something. I was looking for something far more sinister in Luckenbach, Texas.

Who Made Texas So Pretty?

We had the most beautiful drive to San Angelo today...

House Concerts = Joy

Thanks to Raymond for this photo! All right, back in town after a weekend of house concerts. Very different settings, both very cool. The first was outside under a covered patio outside of Tyler, and there was a veritable farm on donkeys around us. Dub tried to take on a donkey and then it made a donkey noise and he ran back to hide behind us. Wimp. Dog vs. Donkey Then in my usual fit of loading everything up, I left my backpack full of clothes in Tyler. Sigh. Better my stuff than someone else's, I suppose. They're nice enough to ship it to me. Yay. :) Lesson: HAVE A SYSTEM AND KEEP IT. The next night was a house concert in Denton. It was a packed living room and Susan was her usual brilliant funny self, I played some, we played together at the end of the night, and it dissolved into us singing Flight of the Conchords songs. That's probably a sign the house concert is over, haha. The neat thing about those shows is that no two are ever alike because the audience can participate and the whole room gets a personality of its own. Yesterday we drove back from Denton and had, as Susan called them, "yawn-versations" all the way. Not even a rousing game of that peg-jumping triangle thing they have on the table at Cracker Barrel could energize us. We aren't very good at that game anyway. Dub after donkey wrangling. (I stole these photos from Amy. Thanks, Amy and Amy's iPhone!)

A Big Day!

Someone buy me a corsage or something. :)

Wake up wake up we are fortunate

My old apartment is empty and locked. That's my alarm clock in the middle of the room because for some reason I am a horrible packer and it sat out a long time. Katie helped me clean and move the last things out. I don't know how I got a friend like her but you can't have her. I don't wish moving from a third floor on my worst enemy. I think I went up and down stairs 100 times this week. Having friends help made it so much better. That being said my grumpiness is over and I am excited for my two new living spaces and the opportunities it will afford. And next time I'm going to own less crap.

At the Crossroads Again

We're driving back from Winnsboro, TX...Crossroads Music Company is a great venue about an hour and a half east of Dallas. It's run by my good friends Lynn Adler and Lindy Hearne, and the lovely and talented Kate Hearne. It's a wonderful listening room and one of my favorite venues ever. There was a full circle moment for me because last July I opened for Susan at Crossroads (re-live that thanks to the glorious blog archive) and it was my first weekend as being a merch girl. I was kind of along for the ride as far as being useful goes, and it was fun and a great weekend. But here we are almost a year later and I am now The Merch Girl, Tour Monkey, and whatever else you wanna call it. We went back to Winnsboro with much excitement, and I got to play with Marian and Kate (who is a killer guitar player). Susan then rocked the stage with Marian (she works all the time) with a great show that sucked the crowd in from the get go. At the end Susan had me and Kate up to play the song that Susan and I wrote together called "Still Lovely When You Cry." Then Lynn joined us for "Wide Open Spaces"...Kate called it an estrogen fest and then Susan deemed it "Festrogen." That might not sell well on t-shirts. Me, Kate, Marian, and Susan Festrogen? So there we go. So fun to return to the beginnings of merch girldom as well as hang out with such good people. There's more to this weekend story but that's another blog post... Photos by Lindy Hearne! Yay Lindy!

Quirk on the Road

It seemed that everywhere we went yesterday brought us interesting interactions. I opened for Susan and Dana Cooper at Opening Bell in Dallas last night (FUN FUN show), but we started the day in Houston. Breakfast was at Taco Cabana, where a man was holding up the line because his receipt was wrong. He was threatening to call a branch manager and report the staff, all the while our glee at walking in before noon so we could score breakfast (11:56 AM) withered away while he ranted. Now, I don't know much about tacos but I do know this place has a menu of things that cost $1.50, so could his receipt really have been that big of a deal? Weird start to the day. We stopped for diesel somewhere in north Houston and a car full of...I believe Buddhist monks (wearing the orange garments, anyway), were getting gas. I was dog-watching, but Susan and our friend Amy who was along for the trip said that all four of the monks in the store bought lotto tickets. They couldn't decide if they should have followed suit because the karma would have been good or the opposite. We drove up 45 to Dallas and decided to stop at the ginormous Sam Houston statue in Huntsville to walk around. Such a neat little spot right off the road, with a giant likeness of Sam himself. The dogs probably enjoyed the big field the most, but we loved the wildflowers that are popping up in reds, yellows, pinks, whites, and the ever-present bluebonnets. The Opening Bell show was super fun and the room was great and the company greater... And then Susan and I had to head back to Austin afterwards because I have a Red Leaf showcase this afternoon. We thought a night drive would be better than sleeping a little and waking up and driving to make it back. So there I am in downtown Dallas, tapping on the convenience store window because they lock up at night even though they are open. The guy behind the counter asks what I want...and since I can't browse the aisles, I ask if he has Red Bull. He goes over to the fridge case and grabs 3 sizes and displays them in the window for me. I point decidedly at the mediums and pantomime "FIVE" at him (long drive...caffeine for two). At this point he walks around to the front of the store and opens it up and says, "Nice girls get to come inside the store in the middle of the night." I'm sure he deals with a lot of not-savory characters. And he probably wonders why this kid pulls up in a van and wants to buy 5 Red Bulls. So I complete my transaction in the safety of the inside and then we're on our way. I told Susan that while that was another quirk for our day's list, that guy probably thought the same about us. So it goes...

South By WOOHOO!

Day two is done, and I should be getting ready to go plod around again for day three...but blogging comes first. Rule number one for being Jana: blogging ALWAYS comes first. I guess it all started Wednesday night when I ended up at the Gibson Showroom for the Austin Music Awards after party. Porterdavis is Best Roots-Rock Band...because they are...so there was celebration. Deadman, Slaid Cleaves, and Hayes Carll played among others and them were good times. Yesterday got off to a good start when I turned in my notice of not renewing my lease on my apartment. Now I actually have to start packing and throwing stuff out for reals because it's...REAL. Eek! I made my way to 6th street, found an excellent parking spot, and wandered in to Waterloo Records. I was there early to see Justin Townes Earle. Luckily there's lots to look at. I did not buy anything, though, as tempting as it was. The weird part was the I, the CD junkie, had the thought many a time of, "I'll just download it." Poor brick and mortar. Part of it is probably the thought that anything I buy will have to be moved down 3 flights of stairs in a month. I digress... The only thing I knew about Justin is that he's Steve Earle's kid and he's a legend in the singer-songwriter parts so I thought why not? I was so impressed. Justin's a great musician and his songs are great and his presence is charming. Charmed! Then I had a couple of options and they were on 6th Street so I trekked quite a few blocks East from Waterloo. The weather was perfect and there was already so much going on for 1:30 in the afternoon. I knew Terri Hendrix and Lloyd Maines were doing a Gibson showcase, but I had no idea what time they were playing...so I decided to try that party first and just see. Lo and behold I walk up the stairs at Maggie Mae's and Terri and Lloyd are sound checking. SCORE. They did 4 songs and I was thrilled because it's been months since I've had a Terri show fix. Afterwards Brandon, the manager for porterdavis who also works for Gibson, hooked me up with this sweet wristband. Dear Brandon, you are my favorite. That got me into the VIP lounge where Terri and Lloyd were being interviewed. After that Randy Rogers and Mark Jungers played followed by Bruce Robison with my buddy and Red Leaf teacher Kevin Carroll on guitar. Bruce is a great songwriter and the likes of the Dixie Chicks, Tim McGraw, and George Strait have covered his stuff. Then it was over to Artz Rib House for Elizabeth Wills and a Diet Coke. And some photo fun. And THEN...then...Elizabeth and I headed over to La Zona Rosa to see about some Tori Amos. We cruised in with good parking karma and there wasn't a line to get in. We found a spot on the left side of the stage and planted. Perez Hilton introduced her which is maybe my first encounter with a blogger celebrity in real life. And there was TORI. I got to see Tori in college and she converted me into the type of fan that will forever buy her albums on the first day of release. My shortlist of artists like that is well...short. The thing that I love about Tori is her stage presence and musicianship. She's a classically trained pianist and an impeccable singer and when she's in the room, you're watching her. Her command of the audience is one of the best I've ever seen from anyone. Always observing. We got to hear 3 new tunes from her new record and also some classics like "Crucify" and "Cloud On My Tongue" and "Silent All These Years." Yeah. And I went home and went to bed and now I need to do it all over again.