Call Me Le Corbusier

I’m reading Moby Dick right now. I’m finding the experience to be both cathartic and inspirational. I somehow skipped this important part of American literature during my education. Perhaps this was to be included in the semester in high school when my classmates and I, as self declared pirates of the curriculum, convinced our all too eager to please teacher that reading the Hobbit and Woody Allen short stories were vital to completing our secondary education. Or possibly I just weaved my way through years of English classes without ever stumbling over this brick of a book. Either way, I find myself now sinking into the depths of my week off chasing the great white whale. And I’m enjoying myself. I can’t help but cast myself a harpooner on the high seas of rock, although what constitutes the whale I’m chasing, I’m not so sure.

I’ve been reworking the design and function of my website. I’ve said this before and not followed through, but this time I’m confident I’ll have a new site to launch soon. I just have a few tweaks to clean up the design and I’ll be ready to go.

I’ve been partially inspired by my new desk. I haven’t had a proper desk for a while, choosing instead to work at the dining table or kitchen island in my house. But it feels good to carve out a little workspace for myself while I’m home. Plus the desk is so damn beautiful that I gravitate to it naturally while I’m home, perhaps indicating that my brief but intense love affair with my Eames recliner is waning. I’m slowly fixing my place up, having abandoned my previous approach to life at home of putting it all off until the tour ends. It turns out that this attitude is just a convenient perpetual procrastination technique, since the tour never really ends. As I’ve transitioned from touring with Train, with whom I enjoy staying at wonderfully inspired design conscious hotels, to Sugarland, where the family of travelers more often opt for spending the day together at the venue in the hastily thrown together dressing rooms of arenas and Rodeos, I’ve felt a growing need for some order here at home. And thus I’m finally getting around to painting, unpacking and decorating my condo in little spurts.

One of the advantages I’ve discovered of touring with a county band is that I get to come home just about every week, if only for a day or two. Apparently going out to hear country artists on Mondays or Tuesdays isn’t very popular. And since most of the industry is based in Nashville, tours are generally routed to pick people up and bring them home every week. And thus I’ve found myself home enough to break off my old habits of domestic inertia. Or at least I’ve purchased a vintage Dutch teak desk from which to write about how my inner decorator is blossoming.

A Little Catch Up

I was busy last weekend playing a trio of shows to close out my year touring. On Friday I played with Shawn Mullins for his annual post Thanksgiving show at the Variety Playhouse. It was fun to jump up unrehearsed and play music with a great group of musicians. On Saturday I joined my brother, Ellis Paul and Matthew Kahler at a writers in the round night at Eddies. They asked me to sit in behind them as they traded off songs all night. Having three incredible songwriters, each deeply rooted in the tradition of great nights at Eddies, together on stage again brought me right back to the nights, weeks and months I spent leaning against the bar, engrossed in the songs I was hearing.

On Sunday, to top off the weekend, I joined Sugarland for one last performance this year as the half time entertainment during the Falcons Saints game at the Georgia Dome. I was fully engrossed in the royal treatment we received from the Falcons staff. I met the cheerleaders, watched the pre-game warm-ups from the endzone, enjoyed the game from the comforts of our box suite, and stood in awe as a Saints player brought down an impossible touchdown pass as we stood on the sidelines waiting to take the stage. We played our two songs during halftime to 80,000 football fans, stepping off the stage only seconds before the second half kick off. The whole experience was bizarrely familiar from having seen so many games on TV.

This past week, I’ve spent some quality time recovering from a year of touring. I played about 140 shows this year, which averages out to one every two and a half days. Which when you add in the travel days and lost days off wandering through malls in middle America, left little time at home to spend time with friends, take care of projects around the house and just generally exist. So I’m playing a little catch up now; rejoining the gym, setting up my writing studio and catching up with some familiar faces. One of the many projects that I’m hoping to finish up now that I have some time to focus is the compilation of my journals and pictures from my trip to China, which I plan on posting here.

A moment’s hesitation

Yesterday marks 6 years since my mother died on a brisk, bright and earth shattering Thanksgiving morning. It is amazing to look back over everything that I’ve experienced in the last 6 years that she hasn’t been here to share. I’ve married and divorced an amazing woman, witnessed the birth of my nephew and niece. I’ve moved twice. I’ve joined a grammy winning rock band, toured three continents playing music, performed for millions of people on television, and watched my brother become a country music superstar. I’ve survived eight months of chemotherapy and buried two grandparents. I’ve been styled, primped, catered to and put up on a pedestal. And I’ve sat on hard plastic bench in a crowded train station somewhere in central China, lost and hungry, coddling my last precious granola bar in total appreciation of how amazing my life has been. And without a moment’s hesitation, I’d give it all back to spend one more day with my mother.

With My People

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been keeping up my consistently frantic pace of playing shows and traveling. I’ve been in 10 different states, including setting foot on the upper peninsula of Michigan for the first time in my life. I’ve seen some impressive livestock from Iowa to Pennsylvania, culminating in yesterday’s enchanting stroll through the swine breeding barn. I spent a couple of much appreciated nights in my own bed. And now I’m taking a moments rest on a flight to California to rejoin the Train guys for a couple of west coast shows.

I just left the Sugarland camp in Indianapolis, where just a few days prior, on a rare day off with Train I stumbled into a huge gaming convention called Gen Con. To be honest I didn’t really stumble into the convention. I asked around at the hotel and was graciously treated to a convention badge. I pursued admission to this convention mainly out of curiosity, but partly out of a burning need for my under nourished gaming soul to roll some 10 sided die with my fellow fantasy friends. As I perused the convention center, passing elves, storm troopers, pirates and an occasional real live mad scientist, I confessed to my band mate who had joined me for sport, “I’m with my people!” But I was only too aware of the truth of the matter; that in my $40 t-shirt and hair gel, I was not one of them. The blank looks I received in every room that I entered only confirmed that I was clearly an outsider here. I don’t know the rules of these tradable card games. I don’t recognize most of the characters passing me by. I don’t really know what to do with a 10 sided die. I don’t have a true commitment to this lifestyle. But seeing it all, if only for an afternoon reminded me of how detailed and deeply interesting people’s lives can become. Being surrounded by people indulging their acute interests in seemingly unheard of games and hobbies reminded me of how important it is to be open to whatever it is in my own life that keeps me curious and entertained, which right now is traveling and writing.

In less than a week I’ll be off to China. I’m anxiously excited, as I will be in some fairly remote areas with no language skills. But I’m up for the adventure. Many of the sights I hope to visit I studied in college. I have a vague itinerary, and plan on getting a little lost in the process. I hope not completely lost, as I fly back directly to a Train show in Seattle. I plan on taking plenty of pictures and doing my best to find out where it is that Chinese children hope to get to while digging holes in their back yards. They are already in China, right?

Giant Inflatable Breakfast

I ate my humble breakfast of yogurt and granola in the shadow of a giant inflatable pokemon character this morning. I should have know to expect something strange today when I passed all the commotion as the band arrived back at the hotel at 1:30am. Forklifts and generators do not equal a peaceful nights sleep. And sure enough, at 8am the sound guys were checking their system right outside the hotel. I can’t really complain, since I’ve been responsible for doing this to guests at this hotel a couple of times when we’ve performed on Good Morning America. So I got up, grabbed some breakfast and wondered through the park surrounded by excited children and concerned parents, all frantically sucking up all the marketing energy, as if it was the elixir of life. The big cartoon-ish characters look pretty cute, walking around in the heat, stumbling over the landscaping, tables and chairs. Heatstroke is funny.

Our tour is winding down next week. We have a few shows in the next few months, but in general we are taking a break from touring. I’m going to jump from the Train bus to Sugarland’s bus and finish out the year touring with them. Ideally I’d like to literally jump from one bus to the other. Have them pull side by side going down the interstate, somewhere where rock and country share a stretch of road. And I’ll climb out of the window of our bus, saying my fond farewells to my band mates, grit my teeth and heroically leap over to the country side of things. But alas, neither band’s tour insurance will underwrite my stunt.

In the midst of playing shows with both bands, I’ve planned a trip to China. I’m going to spend a couple of weeks of alone time backpacking around central China. I’ve never been to China, however I spent many classroom hours in college studying Chinese art and architecture. I’m thrilled that I now have the opportunity to go experience some of the places I studied.

Where I’ve been

I’m embarrassingly overdue for a journal entry here. I’ve started a few, but the truth is I haven’t been inspired to write much. My blinders have been on, reducing my world to the immediate surroundings. And thus I feel like I don’t have much to write about. But when I do, I will pick up here again. In the mean time, I will put some new pics up on my flickr site from this tour.

-Brandon

The Beast and Curl

As I was relaxing in my hotel room somewhere in Florida last week, my trusty ipod in its infinite shuffle wisdom chose to play While My Guitar Gently Weeps. And it hit me that I don’t listen to enough Beatles. I have plenty on my ipod, and I listen to my ipod all the time, but there are countless other artists shoved in there as well that tend to rise to the surface for one reason or another. So I’ve dedicated this week to listen to only Beatles. After four days, I’ve listened to 208 out of the 244 songs I have on my ipod. And I have to say it just keeps getting better. The only snag was when Revolution 9 came on while I was on the treadmill and I had to rally all of my available concentration not to fall off while enduring 8 minutes of dizzying, experimental nonsense. (My apologies to Beatles enthusiasts who can catch a mad groove on that classic)

Last night during the show I was distracted by the shadow of my head on the wall of the venue. I’ve noticed at other shows how if the lighting is just right behind me my head casts an enormous silhouette over the audience. Last night, however, the shadow was on the wall on the side of the venue. And I noticed that my typically unruly curly hair had sprouted a single big mass of a curl on one side of my head. And there it was, this massive hair coil, bouncing to the rhythm of the song. By estimating from the people innocently enjoying the show just below this gargantuan curl of doom, the shadow was at least 15 feet tall. And had the concert magically transformed into a Japanese monster movie, this curl would have swept down and devastated the unsuspecting audience in one quick motion. But not before Godzilla would have burst through the wall Kool-Aid style and fought an epic battle between beast and curl. Needless to say, I’m looking forward to some time off in the coming weeks.

New York Trendspotting

I’ve been busy just being on the road for the past few weeks. Our schedule has been pretty jam packed, and I’ve had little time for adventures. Now that the month is half way over, it is about time to announce the article on me in Keyboard Magazine is on stands now. It is so bizarre and amazing to see myself in that magazine I’ve been reading for so many years.

I spent the last few days in New York City, visiting friends. Walking around Brooklyn in the afternoon sun with friends did wonders for my road weary soul. I also watched my first game in Yankee stadium. The highlight of the uniquely New York baseball experience was listening to the row of hecklers with heavy Yankee accents berate a really drunk fan for having the nerve to throw up in Yankee stadium. Actually I saw way too many people throw up this weekend in New York. A sharply dressed young professional man was systematically distributing the contents of his night out on the floor of the subway station at 1am, as the typical crowd of New Yorkers did what they do best and completely ignored him. And then just last night I passed a young bride to be hurling into a gutter outside a busy bar in Chelsea, while her fellow bachelorette party goers congratulated her. Seems like throwing up is the new in thing in the big city. I’ll be sure to bring that trend back with me to Atlanta on the next break.

Lost On the Road

On this tour, more than any other I have been fortunate enough to experience, I’ve spent a good bit of my time lost. I’m not sure if it is a result of me embracing my under exposed irresponsible nature, or if things have just been more confusing than usual. All I know is that I didn’t used to spend this much time wondering around lost.

I first noticed this when after arriving in my hometown airport for a brief two-day break, I walked into baggage claim and couldn’t remember from where my flight originated. There is a giant board in the airport with all the arriving flights and baggage claim numbers. I just stared up at the board, going down the list of cities; unable to recall what city we had played in the night before. Nothing sounded right. It wasn’t San Francisco, Portland, Los Angeles, or Denver. I knew it was somewhere west because it had been a long flight. Conveniently, I left my ticket on the plane, and thus had to walk around the baggage claim until I recognized someone from my flight to discover I flew in from Phoenix.

Only a few days ago I was returning to my room from the hotel gym. I have learned to write my room number down on a little piece a paper, so that I can find my way back to today’s, not yesterday’s or last Tuesday’s room. And so I confidently made my way to room 1161. As I was headed down the hall, something didn’t quite seem right, but my trust in my own memory is suspect at this point in the tour. So after repeated attempts to gain entry into room 1161, while the hotel maid eyed me suspiciously from down the hall, I felt frustration rising in me. I was sure the hotel had deactivated my key as we passed the normal (non-musician hours) check out time. I geared up for my passive but pissed off encounter with the front desk. And then it hit me. I was on the 19th floor. Room 1911. Lost again in the frenetic pace of the road.

Just now, what brought to my attention my newfound propensity for getting myself lost, I was sucked into the vortex of a casino floor. In attempt to make it from the stage to my room after sound check I became so completely lost in the depths of the casino that I gave up and headed back to the venue, thinking I’d start again from the stage and look for a different way. I stumbled out the front door of the venue out onto the casino floor, sheepishly passing the Train fans lining up for the show with a quick nod of acknowledgment to the few folks that seemed to recognize me. I picked a direction at random and headed off to find the hotel elevators. Now in my defense, these casinos hire experts to design the most confusing and disorienting floor plans possible, to keep you gambling. It is as if they can hide the elevators at will when they sense you approaching, having not yet spent enough on the slots. And thus 10 minutes of brisk walking later, I arrived right back at the venue in a panic that the fans lined up out front think that not only did I walk out the front door, obviously wanting to get noticed, but I’m now doing circuits of the casino floor, returning to the flock of adoring fans for just a little more attention, when all I really wanted to do was find my room, order some dinner and bask in the familiarity of my suitcase and ipod playlists; which is exactly what I’m doing now in my temporary state of security.

New Photos on Flickr

I’ve been busy busy busy. Until I get a chance to write, I put some new photos up on my flickr site. http://www.flickr.com/photos/brandons_photos/