Insert "Big as a whale" joke here.

Whoa. So you never know what will happen when you're traveling around for gigs. This past weekend was an enjoyable one with two days in Houston and then a day off before a Monday night show in Port Aransas. We claimed a cabin over at Seashell Village (which our friend Jim owns and where Terri and Lloyd do their songwriting workshop), and went down to the beach. We were on the sand for about 35 seconds when a guy comes up and asks if we had seen the whale. Um, no? Apparently a whale had washed up 3 miles down, so we hopped in the car and found it. It was long dead and apparently smelly, though I plugged my nose and never smelled it. They had dragged it into a dune they had bulldozed out to bury it, but people from the university were studying it...or dissecting it...or whatever you do. There was a fin on the sand and the ball joint was almost as big as a volleyball. I touched it. Never thought I'd touch a whale, I'm not much of a swimmer. It was neat all around because apparently this is not a common occurrence, so the chances that we would be there on the right day and also learn about it to go see...were slim. This has nothing to do with music, except now when someone says, "It was as big as a whale!" I'll know exactly what they are trying to say.

August Recap...

Here we are. Here I am, here you are anyway. I'm in Albuquerque...not being a merch girl in Colorado. I quit the tour in a fit of frustration over a lost bag of Skittles in the van last Thursday. Just kidding. While I love touring with Susan, I have another job in Austin that must be attended to at the music school. It's good for me to have both, and I am fortunate enough to have both jobs let me be flexible with where I am at any given moment. I fly back to Austin tomorrow and Susan stays on the road for another 2 weeks. The first two weeks went fairly smoothly besides the gaping wounds on my feet (mostly healing well, one is still gaping and hurts right now...but it was the worst one so it's taking longer heal. Skin is pretty awesome, growing back over itself and stuff). We played at the Rhythms on the Rio Festival in South Fork, CO last weekend. We drove all night from Fort Collins to get there (translation: Susan drove all night while we slept and I took the last half hour drive in the morning so she could go to bed and sleep a bit before the festival). We stopped at a rest stop somewhere in CO at 3:30 AM and let me just say this...if you are a creepy dude, or any dude at all, or any creep at all...never ask 3 girls in a van at a rest area to jump start your truck at 3:30 AM. Ask a guy. Or call the cops. Or just wait for daylight. We left in a hurry and I'm sure creepy guy got a jump start...just not from us. Shudder. It was the first annual and went really well for a giant production like that in its first year. The scenery was awesome, the people were great. Susan played a great set and won a lot of new fans. I played what is called a "tweener" set between bands while Great American Taxi set up their gear. It's weird to play solo at a big festival. I felt like an ant on the big stage, but it was fun nonetheless. Even ants have fun. Then it was off to Taos, NM for two nights at the Old Blinking Light. The 2nd night we were lucky enough to be outside, and the view was gorgeous. Sunsets rock here. I have thought it for a while but really, mark my words, I am retiring in Taos in an adobe house. I can't wait. I want to retire when I'm 32. A few days in Albuquerque are good for meeting up with people I haven't talked to face-to-face in a while. I get to be a bridesmaid in my friend Jamie's wedding, so I tried on the dress today. I hope I don't trip in its fanciness - it will be a fun wedding! Currently listening to the new Imogen Heap album...she's brilliant as usual. My wound will continue to gape for a while. In exactly a month I'll be flying to New York City. Things swim in my head.

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...

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!

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

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.

A Big Day!

Someone buy me a corsage or something. :)

Ceramic Pig Update

I know. I know you all were waiting for this one. "What of the ceramic pig collection, Jana?" You'd go about your day in kind of a daze, phoning it in at the office or at school because you JUST WANTED TO KNOW. So here's your update. "One of these pigs is not like the others..." While the Boss has been out east in Nashville and such, gigging and such, and such...I have not left Texas since Christmas, so it's not been on my radar to acquire any ceramic pigs. Imagine my GLEE when I opened a mysterious package from the UPS dude yesterday and inside was...well, a Nashville pig. He might just trounce any attempt by any other state to create the ceramic pig of all pigs. If you couldn't tell already, Nashville made the rhinestone-studded one. That's impressive. While it's amusing that Texas tried to be the bully and make their pig 3 times the size of everyone else's, Nashville wins for style and flair, I think. I have decided to name him Porcine Wagoner. After Porter. He wore a lot of rhinestones, too. They kind of match.

The Big D for Done. And Dallas.

Merching for 2008 is over, yo. What a time. I plan to ruminate on it all more when I am ensconced in New Mexico, eating biscochitos and red chile (not together). How Christmasy of me. Dallas was so fun and great way to cap it all off. My train home from Fort Worth even ran ON TIME, the first time that's happened for me. Whoa. Also, we had our first WARDROBE MALFUNCTION at a gig, and I handled it. With duct tape. That stuff fixes everything. I'd like to think Susan has started a trend. Susan played a great show at Sue Ellen's and the company was snarky and sublime. Also I got a new hat, because it was flippin' cold in Dallas. I was sweating Austin when we departed, and by nightfall it was a good 30 degrees c-c-c-c-older. Hizzat, yo. This looked cooler without a flash in the club lighting. Really. Excellent gig. I played a set with Marian...and the hat. Thanks, boss. Fo' shizzle. More stuff happening next year...new opportunities and more of the fun stuff. I'm excited. I'll be even more excited after a bit of a winter's nap and some warm toes. Goodnight, y'all. Thanks for reading. Some sort of year-end round up will ensue, no doubt. Go make your lists of things accomplished this year and revel in a life well-lived. It's good to do.

Positively European

My new tool for the road is a "Euro Lap Desk" (that was what the package said anyway). It's a big piece of wood with padding on the bottom, so I can laptop in the van in style. I've also successfully used it as a writing desk and today I used it to eat a salad with no mishaps or spillage whatsoever. Truly, the Euro Lap Desk is a thing of beauty. What makes it "Euro"...we can't figure out. Maybe lap desks are big over there. Hello, mobile office. We're on our way to the White Elephant Saloon in Fort Worth...

Retirement Fund Grows

So Saturday night after the show in Lake Buchanan we had a convenience store stop to make, and while I was more focused on popcorn vs. pretzels for the trip home, Susan managed to find a ceramic pig that I don't have in my collection yet. Win! Nice boss.

Packingpackingpacking

Mr. Daniel Barrett and Miss Katie Lessley and I are heading to New Mexico tomorrow so we can do a house concert on Friday night and I am so excited but in the meantime I have 8 things to finish and I have not started packing and when I pack I pack a lot of cables and wires and I need to make sure I can charge anything that needs charging when I am in ABQ and so I decided to blog this sentence instead.

Merchtober Video

Thus explains the banana comment from the previous "out of context video" (Phil asked!). I especially like the "whoosh" sound the banana makes flying out the window....

The Last Merch Meal: Fish Tacos

Waffle House. WAFFLE HOUSE! Jackson, Mississippi.

Homeward Bound

Last gig is done...Charleston, South Carolina was a fine town to end the whole shebang in. Now we're driving south to Augusta, Georgia to stay the night...it's about 2 AM and we thought we'd get a head start on the 20ish hour drive home to Texas. It's been so much fun and learning and good people and music. LOTS OF MUSIC. More on all of that later...we've got 20 hours of driving to do.

Hello, Charlotte

We're driving through Charlotte, NC.  We have seen about 42 Waffle House signs today. This is my pen from the Country Music Hall of Fame.  Still waiting on that hit song... I get to see my cousin at the gig tonight!  She moved to North Carolina this summer, and I thought it would be a while before I got to visit...surprise!

The Early Year and Eddie's Attic

We’re on our way to Winston-Salem, NC after a great time back in Atlanta. Susan played at Eddie’s Attic and my good friends Keith and Suzanne came to the show and then put us up in their home with fluffy beds and cute dogs and cats. Then Keith made CHEESE GRITS for breakfast and I think I might officially be a grits fan. So good! Keith and Suzanne also acted as couriers for me because I had 50 copies of The Early Year delivered to their house so I could see the thing as soon as possible. We popped open the box in the Eddie’s Attic parking lot...very cool. It turned out great. Video forthcoming, of course, haha. The other surprise of the night was a box of roses delivered to Eddie’s for ME...which confounded me as I was opening them. Shockingly, I am not known for having secret admirers, even with my charming camera presence. They were from my Merch Girl Groupies back in Texas, Teri and Sandy. They are great Susan supporters and always take good care of the Merch Girl...and when I told them we were going to Eddie’s Attic, they were very excited because Decatur is their old stomping ground and where they had their first date. (Front row table on the right of the stage!) So um...getting roses at Eddie’s Attic right after opening a box of my EP was pretty stellar. And the show was great and Martha Scanlan played too and she was great...and then the fluffy bed, and now we’re back in the car to North Carolina. Phew.

Seeing the Sights

The morning started off at Pancake Pantry, one of those famous places where everyone who is everyone goes, apparently. I had the Carribean Pancakes. Tasty! We did some wandering, but found a lot of closed doors in Nashville. No, we weren't looking for record deals...but we found out that things close at 5 PM and that's pretty much lame. The Country Music Hall of Fame was closing when we got there. And the Ryman was closed when we got there. We did get in to some gift shops, though. Susan and I both picked out pens at the Country Music Hall of Fame, which will inevitably allow us to write our first multi-million selling hit songs. Oh, wait. It will allow ME to write my first. Hehheh. We stopped by Bug Music on Music Row so Susan could drop off some records - they administrate her publishing. Interesting how Music Row is a non-descript little street with brick houses and such, and all the deals that affect a lot of music in this country are made here. We stopped at the legendary Tootsie's Orchid Lounge, where all the Opry stars used to hang out... And Cotten Music and Gruhn Guitars, where I will one day drop a pretty penny when I get a pretty penny to drop... Tonight we lucked out and saw an AWESOME show at 3rd and Lindsley - Catie Curtis was in town. She's a Boston folkie and I have never gotten to see her play before. Great show! Tomorrow it's off to Decatur and Susan's Eddie's Attic show! Another legendary venue...the good life indeed.

Paper Rock Scissors Fiddle!

Here's a tune from Lawrenceville, GA. The house concert had to be moved to the porch because so many people wanted to come because Susan is THAT COOL. One of the fun parts of this trip is that Suz is not afraid to grab the camera and let the merch girl play some...it gets me extra saltines in the van, too. Marian Brackney, Susan's fiddle and violin virtuoso, is nice enough to play along with my songs and make me sound 40 times cooler.

Viva Nashvegas!

We left the gig last night and got a little ways down the road to Morristown, TN. It was kind of late. We started late because somehow we had it in our heads that Johnson City was on Central time again, so we thought we had time to kill at the venue. In fact, it was Eastern time, so we started a little late. Oops. But it was all good. We DO know that Nashville is on Central time. We're on the road to Nashville now. We stopped for lunch in Knoxville and wandered around their Market Square district. Very cool old buildings. We grabbed a brochure at the hotel last night. Conversation in the car: Jana: Hey Suz look at this! Dolly Parton! RIVER BATTLE! Susan: No. Jana: But, it's Dolly. Susan: No. Jana: And then there's...a river battle. It's new. Susan: No. Jana: I'll work up a version of "9 to 5" for the next gig? Susan: ...No. Oh well. River Battle with Dolly Parton another day.

Hello Johnson City, TN

At the Acoustic Coffeehouse in Johnson City about a minute ago...

From South to North

Greetings from outside of Asheville, North Carolina.  We left Lawrenceville about 2 PM and Suz plays in Johnson City, TN tonight.  The kudzu vines are amazing and I feel like I might get covered myself if I stand outside for more than a few minutes.  There are lots of mountains in South Carolina and North...it's chilly today and we're all wearing our hoodies and driving with windows down.  The dogs are sleeping on the couch after a rest break in Greenville.

Oh Atlanta...

Great house concert in Lawrenceville, GA tonight right outside of Atlanta. We left Birmingham at a leisurely pace, discovering that : a) It's hard to find a mailbox to mail stuff in. The blue official kind. b) Bugs were all over the front of the van. c) Boiled peanuts are sold in cans around here. As we went through Alabama it was kind of freaky to see evidence of a fuel shortage.  Entire gas stations were closed or there would be one pump open with a huge line of cars.  There didn't seem to be as much of a problem with diesel, which is good for Susan.  Cuz...we have gigs to be at. Thank goodness we have a plastic Jesus, a cute turtle, a gig potato, and a can of boiled peanuts on the dash for good luck. More tomorrow...it is so ridiculously late you don't wanna know...