Like this:

Five months since my last blog.  I think most of the reason that I kept putting it off is because so much stuff has happened, so much big stuff in that time, that I wanted to really capture it all and do the blogs right.  And I never made the time to do it right.  So I didn’t do it.

(Seems like a big part of my blog in general is confessing my sins of not blogging.  So here we are.)

April 30th.  That was the last one…

We played the Fillmore after that.  And 27 more shows with Martin Sexton, including Bonaroo, The Crystal Ballroom in Portland, OR, the Nokia Theatre in Times Square, The House of Blues on Sunset Strip.  We lived in Martin’s tour bus and continued to open and back him up every night.  And then he had four shows opening for Dave Matthews Band.

It was quite an experience to be rolling around in a tour bus for two months, feeling on top of the world in that way, and then to roll  into Dave Matthews Land where he has ten tour buses, and twelve tractor-trailer trucks at every show.  And every night there are somewhere around 20,000 people in the amphitheater.  I shot a little video of me skateboarding through all of the tour buses in Ohio:

It’s funny how you ebb and flow and grow in this business.  During the Martin tour, I think I could feel my ambitions coming back down to earth a little bit.  This may be hard to explain, but I’ll try:

When you first start out, you say you’re humble, you say you’re realistic and maybe your are in some ways.  But in other ways, you just want to be the next Beatles.  You’ll be playing stadiums someday.  Top of the world!

Then you hit the road and don’t see home for a week and it’s amazing.  Then you don’t see home for a month.  Then you’ve been touring more or less for a year.  Then six years.  Seven.  It’s still amazing, but it’s just a fair amount of time is all I’m saying.  You don’t see home much, but what you do see in that time are clubs.  Lots and lots of them.  The gigs are your reality now, they are real, not just some dream.

So the reality of actually playing that stadium is just that now:  a reality when you think about it and not the fantasy that you once had.  Maybe it’s possible, but based on history, it is highly unlikely.  And that’s ok.  Plenty of clubs out there.  Plenty of nice theaters in plenty of towns with room to grow.  Hell, we played the Fillmore!  We can make a living and express ourselves and see the world in this.  This is good.  We can still very much live the dream.  But the dream has come back down to earth a bit.  Maybe we’ll never play a stadium, but we’ll get wherever we get.

And my point in all of this is to say:  when we rolled up behind the scenes and experienced Dave Matthews Land, I was like, “F*ck all that, I want to rule the world!!”  It sparked that ambition again.  Seeing that freakish level of success, all the hired professionals, the gear, the operation, the catering…

When I first started getting to tour with Martin Sexton, it was like I stuck my head up through the ceiling and could see another floor.  Now I was doing that again, but starting from Martin’s room and seeing an even bigger floor.  Crazy.

We also finished a record since my last blog, produced by Mr. Sexton, which is now available, and which I am very proud of.  Above all, I believe this record is a step in the right direction for us.  And I’m already starting to write a million other tunes that I just need to finish.  (That’s always the kicker, the initial inspiration is usually the easy part.)

Summer was good.  A little harder than I had planned on, but it was good.  We played out every weekend and during the week I managed to spend some time with my girlfriend, which is always a miracle.  She lives on Martha’s Vineyard and I live well north of Boston.  So it’s a two-and-a-half hour drive plus a ferry ride to see each other.  It ain’t easy but we make it work, and it’s heaven when we do.

And now the record is out and I’m back on the road again.  She’s at a friend’s wedding in New Jersey without a date and I’m in Rochester setting up for a show at Water Street.

As for the band and the tour, we have a new trailer, new bunks in the van, a new lighting rig, soundboard, merch setup, our own sound guy and light guy, and a new CD with some new songs to play.

Time to go to work!  (Hope you have fun at the wedding, baby.)

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