Silly Photographic Side Note

I had wondered how Tift Merritt got the effect on her album cover for "Another Country"... Until I took this in Montana. Huh.

Land Legs

All right. Back in Austin, jumping back into my other life as manager at Red Leaf School of Music. Our summer camp for kids starts next week, and I'm excited to be a part of making them into little rock stars. Take that, Jack Black. Dub is my co-pilot. The last leg of our tour was fun and the last bit of road home was slightly eventful...we had a 10 hour drive from Amarillo back home on Friday, and the van had gotten an oil change the day before we left. Outside of Plainview Susan got a dashboard light that told her the oil was too high...so we stopped at a Jiffy Lube and they had to let a quart and a half out. Ouch. Come on, people. So there we are, happily back on the road, I'm trying to do some writing, and there's a big "BRRRRRAAAAAAPPPPPFFFFFTFFFFFTTTTFFFFFFT" noise under our feet...the power steering goes out...the battery not charging light comes on. Egads. Luckily we are on the outskirts of Lubbock and Susan pilots the van to Joe Jackson's Transmission. All five of their mechanics were on the case immediately and we were on the road in no time. It could have been bad, but ended up being an interesting little sidestep. We left them with a stack of CDs in thanks. Video forthcoming. Ironic how we went about 5000 miles and that happens in the last 400. Chase and Jamie, the fan belt heroes. I sold one koozie in Amarillo. Susan made sure I got my 10% cut. I'll admit the first couple of days back I missed going somewhere all the time and I still do miss the constant 70 degree temperature average of the Rocky Mountain chain. But there are songs to be worked on and an EP to be made this summer. I'll probably head back out to NM and CO in August for a bit and I'll be merch girling around Texas in July. There's a lot to do...I just don't have to be on wheels when I do it. I learned some things. I learned you can still accomplish a lot on the road if you have a bunch of discipline and take advantage of technology. I discovered I enjoy the travel and the people and I really enjoy tour managing. I like making the bottom line work out to everyone's benefit...which is the job. If the bottom line is negative there's no tour and no tour manager. I'm fortunate to be able to work with an artist like Susan who has character and is a character. Witty repartee is our forte. I feel French. Now, about booking gigs in Paris...

I Heart Taos

It is soooo nice to be back in New Mexico and get to be here a couple of days. We're staying at a resort near the venue (sometimes...ok many times...we luck out with where we get to stay) and the smells and sights of the sage and skies and mountains are good for whatever ails. This morning Susan and I headed over to KTAO and did an interview about the show tonight, and Susan played a second time on the afternoon show. The KTAO studio is gorgeous and perhaps where I want my retirement home to be. I don't know if they'd sell me the whole station so I could live in it, and I could only probably pay them $45 for it, but I can ask. Hank the dog helped Susan out with her interview...too bad he didn't hop in the van with us. Time to go set up at the Old Blinking Light! They have awesome green chile stew. Yesssss.

It's time for a video!

I've been slow at editing...too busy collecting ceramic pigs I guess. Here's some footage from the front half of our month...Winter Park, CO and the cabin in Montana!

Rear Views III

Idaho River Lots of construction on the drive to Boise. A little rock with our usual green. Crossing a bridge in Idaho. Somewhere in Wyoming. Rainy Colorado drive. Sunset outside Denver!

On knowing a rock star.

We saw two sets of double rainbows yesterday on our drive from Salt Lake City to Denver. I feel like I have spent much of this tour gasping in wonder at the natural beauty of this country...from the flatness outside Lubbock to the raging river in Idaho we followed for hundreds of miles...makes me want to stick my camera out the window backwards and take it all in, I guess. Susan is a rock star, so while Marian and I have today off, we will drop her off at Denver International because she will be flying to San Antonio to open for Steve Earle in New Braunfels tonight. Good grief that is cool. Steve is singer-songwriter GOLD. The crowd will love Susan. They approach writing from the same earthy, plain but estute place. That's what makes a songwriter the cream of the crop...less fancy-pants and more substance. Then she'll fly back Sunday morning and we'll start driving again. Confronted with all the possibility of having the van and dogs at our bidding, I bet we will park it back at the house we're staying at and not move the whole day. That's the plan.

Days off are expensive.

Since I spend so much time trying to get the exact right shot for documenting things, as evidenced by the photo above, I splurged today on our day off in Parker, Colorado. (Actually that shot is evidence that I drop stuff in the wheel well while driving and have to contort myself in my seat to get it...anyway). When we were in Missoula, Susan was interviewed for the Montanan. Editor Brianne and crew were great and they introduced me to the joys of the Flip video camera. They filmed the sit-down interview as well as a walk-around campus and I was enchanted by the tiny gadget. When I researched them and found out they have an HD model and they don't break the bank...well...let's just say the boss indulged me by letting me stop at Best Buy today. She's such a gadget enabler. Pretty excited to road test it! I'll get my chance because after one more day in Parker, we'll jet for a set of gigs in Cuchara CO, Taos NM, Lubbock, Amarillo, and San Antonio. And then this month of touring will be done. Not sure what my land legs will look like...probably wobbly.

Rear View II

Wyoming sunny day. Wyoming grey morning. Driver's side flip in Montana. Flathead Lake in Montana Downtown Missoula, MT

Salt Creek by a Lake

Ok. So I haven't blogged in a week. We arrived here in Montana on Monday night after hours and hours of driving and I have been enjoying the lakeshore ever since. I've learned you can't blog and HELP WIRE POWER TO A BOATHOUSE at the same time. I never thought I'd type that sentence. We rolled big driftwood logs up the beach and burned tree debris and Marian and I held some wires while Susan and her dad did the electrician stuff. And that proves...you probably can't Google everything. Except the name of the power company which is what I'd have to do if I had to wire anything. Susan's dad sat down next to me yesterday and said, "Can I ask you a personal question?" "Yes?" "Do you have a sunburn on your nose or have you been drinking?" Haha. It's sunburn. All this outside time and my pasty eastern European complexion have caught up. Better crack a beer. We did take several hours to sit on the beach and practice, though. I learned the traditional bluegrass tune "Salt Creek" in high school, and since we have a guitar, banjo, and fiddle, I thought that would be a good one. We got pretty far for one day of practice. So it is. The gigging starts tomorrow. Maybe I'll find a good Internet connection in Missoula this weekend. And some suntan lotion.

So far so good. We've logged some miles, from Lubbock to Red River to Winter Park. We wound our way through a mountain pass and I shivered the whole way, but when we loaded in to the venue tonight it was lovely out. My flip flops remain on. We're chilling before the show tonight in a rare bit of hang time. I've been filming a bit and wanted a driving backwards shot. Of course that requires duct tape. Murphy's in Lubbock was fun -- the West Texas winds picked up a little but just enough to make it comfortable. It was great to be back in New Mexico even if I was nowhere near Albuquerque. The air smells fresh in that state. Susan played at The Lodge bar, and she and Marian were joined on a tiny stage by some great musicians...but it made the stage even tinier. Kinda crazy how in one day you can go from this view... To this view! I'm having a good time. I've had allergies or something, so I haven't been singing much. Luckily I can still play guitar for the big banjo finales. Tonight I'm going to give it a go and play a set. Mucinex is a wonderful thing. Tomorrow we have the shortest drive so far...4ish hours to Centennial, Wyoming. More scenery! Gotta keep sticking my camera out the window...

Rear Views

West Texas Northern New Mexico Central Colorado The Johnson Tunnel on I-70, Colorado

Algebra? Really?

Here's a word problem for ya: A singer/songwriter is offered a gig with a choice of payment options. They are: - take a $450 guarantee versus 80% of the door less $150 for sound at an $8 ticket price - take 90% of the door less $150 for sound with no guarantee - take a flat $650 guarantee with no versus percentage If the singer/songwriter expects to pull in a crowd of 112 people, which deal is the best? We did an Excel spreadsheet with formulas today to figure out something like this. The numbers were completely different, but the formulas are the same. It made my head hurt. We think we picked the right deal.

Switch It Up

One of the 85,000 things I love about working for Susan is that there's always a surprise. This last weekend at her gig with the marvelous Elizabeth Wills, we witnessed both Susan and Elizabeth playing congas on each others' tunes. Then there was the uncommon marriage of banjo and cello onstage, too...it worked. I enjoyed it a ton. I've seen and played tons of songswaps and set swaps where artists pretty much do their own thing, and it's a rare treat when interests, talents, and schedules line up so the artists can play on each other's stuff. I had some allergies set in before that gig, which I opened, and I could sing fine. The next morning I woke up with the voice of a teenage boy in puberty. I sound a lot more pathetic than I feel, which is probably cooler than sounding really good and feeling like crap. Oh well. My theory is that if indeed I have acquired allergies, I will be fleeing Texas in 2 days anyway and the clear skies of Montana will save me. We can hope. If it's a cold it's super mild anyway. This photo is from Alabama. Maybe there will be less bugs this time. We cleaned out the van yesterday in preparation for 24 days of travel. I need to pack my suitcase and make sure I have every piece of technology imaginable in my bag with appropriate cords. Will someone please make everything charge itself via laser beam or something? Solar power even? My bag would be so light. I'm looking forward to the big skies of Montana and Wyoming, and I'm excited to spending some time in Boise, which I know is a neat town. I'm also pretty stoked about booking Susan for a week on the East coast in October...that's in process and I'm all about going to New York and hopefully Boston and/or Washington, D.C. That's what's neat about planning tours...you get to be excited about going new places (well, new for me anyway). I've done it enough by now to know that there's probably not much sightseeing to be done on a short trip like that, but sometimes being among the locals at a music venue is a neat way to steep in a city or town, too. There's plenty of steeping to be done starting Wednesday...better pack some deodorant. Natch!

Stuff I Hope to Accomplish On Tour

So...yay it's all fun and joy when you're "on the road" and "going places" and stuff...except there's a weird psychological time warp when you're traveling daily. Let me explain it. Logic: You have so much time to sit and do nothing between cities that you have plenty of time for making phone calls, reading, and attending to other things of self improvement. Actuality: Who knows. Where it all goes. Part of it is that Susan and I set up our mobile office in the front and spend hours booking, talking about booking, routing, dealing, wheeling, whining, dining, whatever you call it. We get a LOT done, even though spurts of Waffle House jokes arise inevitably. After spending so much time on the laptop, reading and writing words, the last thing I want to do is spend some more time reading and writing words. My favorite form of "Jana Van Time" is making short films in iMovie. It's creative, but completely different from anything else, and usually hysterical. Plus I have something to show for it at the end. I also have a weird distaste for holding phone conversations longer than 3 minutes in a small moving vehicle with other people in it. So phone chats are usually out. I like to think it's being polite to my fellow passengers. That being said, I'm not into self-limiting behavior, and a month is a long time to be driving around, so I'm setting some goals for myself. There's talk of starting to record EP 2 in July (BE STILL MY HEART) with Dan, so I have some song clean-up to do on the new tunes...and some rehearsal to do on the done ones, too. Making different types of films while continuing my usual output is on the list. One of my year's goals is a 20 minute piece on being a Merch Girl, and another is to mimic the shorts that were included with the new Tori Amos album. Except not mimic TOO much...but go for the vibe. Work on my cuts and editing. I've been playing guitar on some of Susan's set while she plays banjo, so we have plans for rehearsal when we have off days with no gig. That makes me excited. I have a lot of fun being the rhythm guitar player. There's a lot of back end business stuff to attend to on my front...when I get back in July I want to gig with my new and beloved Trio...I need a business plan drawn up for the next album because I need to SELL THEM. (Imagine that. Do you have The Early Year yet? Do your 10 closest friends?) All the stuff I get paid to do for other people gets backburnered for myself. This is not a complaint because I'm learning tons...but after a while you feel really behind. Oh yeah, and I want to read at least one book and write songs. It's manageable, with focus and discipline. It's all fun so there's no worry that way. The best thing to do with the van bubble is to make it work in my favor instead of against me. I get to see some really pretty scenery along the way, too.

Kerrville Folk Festival

All right, this is my 3rd year in Tejas and my first time at the Kerrville Folk Festival and all I can say is HOLY CRAP everyone is right. People rave about the Kerrville experience and it was just as cool as they all said. Which is rare to happen, by the way. We rolled in and I played the Ballad Tree as one of the high falutin' Regional Selected Artists (finding my name in the program made me yelp with joy)...but it was very laid back and fun and I met about 8 New Mexicans at the Ballad Tree. Which is an actual tree, or used to be, with a kickbutt stage next to it. It's a mini-hike across the massive campgrounds to get there, and up on Chapel Hill, no less...I felt like I needed to hire my own monkey for the trip. Ballad Tree stage. Tuning and chatting. Would you be my monkey? I want that little triangular pop up trailer on the corner. Then it was back to the mainstage area where I looked tough and checked in Susan's merchandise so that people could buy buy buy. And I had the night off from sell sell selling. I count EVERYTHING. Katie and I wandered backstage to the staff kitchen, where they served us some (what I assume were) vegan tamales and black beans and rice. Tasty. The whole staff was so happy to be there, too. Made us feel good. Then it was time for suSANG to rock the festival's face off, which she did. It was neat to wander the backstage area and also through the crowd and hear everyone's comments about how great the show was. Yay! Yay again! Afterwards we wandered around the campgrounds, which is the other main attraction of a 3 week folk festival...the mini-compounds that get set up and often have traditions of gathering for 20+ years. My favorite happening was when one of us exclaimed in the middle of the road, "We need a guitar!" And then a passer-by said, "I have one." And it turned out to be my friend Grace who I had met at a songwriting competition...so we all sat in the middle of the road and passed Grace's guitar around in the dark. That's what they call a Kerrville Moment. We had a late night and an early morning so we drove home...but I've got plans for next year already. I had better practice my tent-setting-up abilities...

Yay Terri!

Yeah, those are my buddies Terri Hendrix and Lloyd Maines jamming with the Indigo Girls in Austin last Thursday...and Terri gets to sing her own VERSE! Yay! That is the ultimate in folk music cred right there, to sing "Closer to Fine" with the Girls. Terri's opening for them all weekend...so cool.

@susannng on mainstage kerrville!

Jana Rockin' the ballad tree

Thanks for the photo boss! :)

Things to Do in the Van

A hint of the salsa song...and various hijinx...

Hometown Tour

What an intensely fun weekend that is now over and it's already Wednesday. How did that happen? We started off last Thursday in Lubbock with a show at La Diosa, a fancy wine bar downtown. I had only ever driven through Lubbock previously, one trip involving college bud Beth and I taking way too long to get through town and we're not sure why, and another involving college bud Jamie and I taking way too long to get through town and we're not sure why. We're tried straight through and we've tried the loops, which makes me believe that Lubbock has what we have termed "The Lubbock Time Warp." Thankfully we stopped there and weren't just passing through. The next day it was off to Albuquerque for my hometown show at The Source. I think the door people laughed because everyone that came through the gate was someone I had to scream at and hug. I also was so busy talking that I TOOK NO PHOTOS. Dangit. We did score some salsa from the lovely folks at El Pinto (who Twitter, too)...Jim was cool enough to come to the show and bring us a 6-pack. We were the hit of every place we went to after that because we always came bearing salsa. Thanks, Jim! Since we knew El Pinto would be representing that night, Susan and I set up the Mac between the front seats, I pulled out my guitar and crunched into the passenger seat, and we wrote a very clever El Pinto jingle (if I do say so myself). The Albuquerqueans seemed to dig it a lot, so we're going to get a solid recording...because stuff like that needs to be shared, haha. What else are you going to do on a 6 hour drive except write songs in the passenger seat? Then it was off to Susan's hometown of Amarillo for a gig at her old stomping grounds, OHMS Cafe. It's a fancy wine bar now (it was a more laid back cafe when she was an employee there), and I had some of the best food ever. It's nice to break the convenience store streak for dinner. One neat thing to arise from the whole trip is that Susan is playing banjo onstage more (she is a killer banjo player) and I get to come up and be the back up guitarist for a few tunes each night. When there is a banjo vibe, anyway. (So far both wine bars have required a banjo, just so people don't think they're going to an uppity show). It's been awesome, and I didn't even implode when we played "Wayside" for the first time onstage with no rehearsal beforehand. It helps that I used to wear those Groobees records out in college. Nifty. We've got our June tour almost all wrapped up in terms of logistics, I'm performing at the Ballad Tree at the Kerrville Folk Festival tomorrow, and we leave for Montana/Idaho/Wyoming/Colorado/Northern NM in a couple weeks. I need a nap!