Music: none
Book: Taltos - Anne Rice
I'll just take it day by day for anyone who cares...
Atlanta - arrived at said venue and all was dark, doors were locked. Headed across the street to Miss Q's gay bar and pool house for a drink with Todd the friendly bartender who kept calling the other venue wondering why they weren't open. Nice guy to help us out like that huh? Chadly and I had some delightful conversations but finally decided to cut our loses almost 2 hours past arrival time. As we were leaving...the Red Light opened. Pissed and happy at the same time we played our set, competed for the evening and won the M.U.S.I.C. night competition. Couldn't wait to leave Atlanta though.
Birmingham - WOW! Gorgeous city and even better people. Moonlight Music Cafe could be one of the coolest listening rooms I've ever played...or been to for that matter. We had an attentive audience, sold a bunch of CDs and heard another interesting musician from Florida named Eric Himan - check him out if he's in your town. "Outskirts of you" is a beautiful song. I would recommend this town and this venue to ANY traveling musician or poet or wine lover, person, kind soul. etc. THANK YOU KEITH!
The Carolinas - my advice to you is maybe investing in some street lights, but other than that, you have a lovely state(s). Charlotte was great at the Evening Muse BUT we checked into a hotel, keyed the lock and found the room already occupied, we switched rooms only to have the plumbing not work and finally, turned down the covers to find stained sheets. Bye bye hotel, we left Charlotte immediately following the set at Evening Muse.
Carrboro, Chapel Hill, Durham - great fun, great cities. I fought against Greg Brown and Buddy Miller for the folk crowds and lost but enough of you came out to listen that we were pleased with the stops. Temple Ball was cool, but not our scene, the Open Eye was delightful. We even had an encore!!!! Chadly found a fabulous restaurant called the Mad Hatter in Durham so we feasted on organic veggies, killer onion rings and sinful desserts. I even scored a Nina Simone CD find in a tiny music store off Main Street. Another great band to check out is North Carolina's Parklife.
Now back to Alabama.
Opelika - Probably the most segregated community I have ever encountered. 8th and Rail was a great venue and filled with people...most of whom didn't know there was a music show happening on stage. The surprise of the evening was a "Deming" crowd in the front row who came to check me out and find out if we were all related. Oddly enough, our grandparents probably both came from Dubuque Iowa. Cool random event. Atlanta is not my favorite place to visit...it could be my favorite place to leave. And I was quite happy to land safe and sound in the Twin Cities. My pets were ecstatic at my homecoming and Mr. Manager appeared pleased as well *smile*
Thanks to those of you who came out to see me and my new friends in the south. Chadly survived traveling with me I think and hopefully I'll head back sometime soon.
I am so tired my eyes burn.
