October 20, 2010

Greetings from the Countryside Suites hotel in East Lincoln. Aside from our hotel room smelling strongly of cologne (Drakkar Noir?), it’s otherwise quite nice. Non-smoking, two queen beds, a flat screen tv, fridge, and a couch/sitting area where I’m sitting here updating the Road Journal. No complaints, and no asbestos warnings (see earlier Road Journal post, last tour). Oh, and there’s a King Kong Burger next door, with lots of gorilla statues of various sizes along the parking lot. Good “RBT” photo opp in the morning.

Lincoln has a great little downtown. The city has 250,000 people, and we spent the evening in the Haymarket district, where we had dinner, walked around, and then (Anton and I) played our duo acoustic set. We had dinner at The Oven, an Indian restaurant across from the music venue, and it was unbelievably good. Between the five of us, we enjoyed the full range of low-spice to “damn hot,” along with some tasty salads, soups, nan (bread), and a bottle of cab wine. The entire neighborhood smells of good food – mainly of BBQ wafting from some restaurant that we weren’t able to find.

Oh, and there’s some weird photo shoot thing going on in Lincoln today/tonight. We saw at least 4-5 different “scenes” being shot by a photographer around the downtown area, some of which appeared to be for softcore pr0n mags or something. Really strange. We drove by a factory building and there was a girl posing on the “porch” of the building with a photographer, then we walked by another girl standing in a fountain a few blocks away with a photographer shooting, and yet another girl standing in an alley in a shiny red dress with a photographer shooting away. Weird. No one seemed interested in photographing us, though.

Anywho – after dinner we headed to Crescent Moon Coffee House for the gig. Really cool little room in the lower (basement) level of a building in the middle of the Haymarket area. Big heavy arched metal doors opened to reveal the ‘cavern’ style room, with big wooden beams, a low ceiling, and tables scattered throughout the room. There’s a small (6″ high) stage area with some spotlights, and overall a nice little vibe in there. The reporter who interviewed us last week for the Journal Star showed up with some friends, and we met a local musician who was really interested in our stuff, which was cool. Other than those folks, it was a to-be-expected quiet night. Jay, Beers, and Fred hung out playing chess and reading while Anton and I made noise with our geetars. The owner of the place asked if we’d be able to come back and play a Saturday night sometime, when the place is hopping. We’ll see… nice to be invited back for sure.

Here’s how the setlist panned out:

Story Of…
From The World I Have Known
Years Ago
Heat
Message In A Bottle
Obey
Nightlite Jesus
Marula Binge
IIKOYN
Park
Machine
Turn My Egg
Hazel
View From Way Up Here
Don
Blame
List
ZED
Emil
Relief
Eoghan, Late Saturday

The girl from the Journal Star suggested we head to the Starlight after the show, saying that it’s one of her favorite bars in town. We packed up the van and walked over to the place, and found it to be exactly as she described (and exactly what we needed) – mellow, cool place that felt like someone’s basement, circa 1967. The whole place is decked out in authentic 60’s furnishings, with wood paneled walls, 60’s light sconces on the walls, 60’s rolling chairs around card tables, and Frank Sinatra on the radio. Awesome. They’re known for their martini’s (including a “s’mores” flavored one), so a couple of the guys tried ’em out. It was super nice to be in a bar at 11pm with no dance/house/4-on-the-floor music blaring. It literally felt like hanging out in a friend’s parents’ basement or something. Everyone was super nice, and we stayed for an hour, talking about the plans for the new album, our upcoming NACA conference in Connecticut, etc.

When we wrapped up there, we drove back to the Interstate and headed East about 10 minutes, to the hotel where we are, here for the night. We listened to the new album recordings in the van on the way, and we’re all continuing to be very excited about the material. Woot. We’ll hit the road to Sioux Falls around noon tomorrow, should take us about 4 hours. We don’t load in at the venue until 6pm, so it should be a relaxing day.

Okay, here are a bunch of photos from Lincoln. More blabber tomorrow from the road:

Lincoln’s Holy Site: “Go Big Red”

The Weird Photo Shoot at the Factory (blue shirt = photographer, blonde = model, red shirt = lookout?)

Fred & Anton, Haymarket neighborhood, Lincoln

The Trusty Red Van – downtown Lincoln

Lincoln

Lincoln

Lincoln

Our venue for the night

waiting for the bus.

Beers and his little chocolatey drink

Anton brings the beet back.

we’d probably love her.

pretty.

the fountain before the girl jumped into it for her photo shoot.

loitering.

fred. head.

lincoln.

buddy bench.

crescent moon cavern.

the nan. yum.

crescent moon. cases.

Russ & Anton

Russ & Anton (2)

Jay & Fred at Starlight (note blue/green chair on the right. vintage.)

that’s a dirty margarita.

hotel home.

indoor pool!

One of our neighbors for the night.

Greetings from the van. We’re driving Eastbound on I-80, headed for Lincoln, Nebraska. Duo acoustic show tonight (me and Anton) at 7pm at a coffee house called “Crescent Moon.” Sounds like a pretty cool little place, an active part of the burgeoning Lincoln music scene. It’s been a great drive so far, perfect weather, dry roads, and as usual, no traffic, with the exception of a few construction zones in Eastern Colorado. Other than that, the cruise control is set to 80mph and it’s non-stop except to get gas and grub. Anton drove the first leg to North Platte, then we played musical chairs and Beers is now at the helm. Fred and Anton are playing Foosball on the iPad in the back, and Jay’s in the way back, enjoying a nap.

I had an “oh, crap!” moment today in North Platte as I realized I’d left a bag full of gear at my house back in Colorado. The power cord and pedal for my piano, along with my guitar tuners, extra strings, picks, etc. are all in it. Called FedEx in Louisville (CO), and they’ll be able to overnight it to Sioux Falls, South Dakota for our show tomorrow night – so hopefully that all works out well (and I owe my wife big time).

As we loaded up the van last night, we were all reflecting on the fact that touring feels so natural now; still exciting, but there’s a real “home” feeling to being on the road, too… I-76, I-80, I-90, I-35, I-70, I-95, 495, etc. all hold familiar sights for us. Like the Maranatha Bible Camp sign we just passed here in Nebraska, and the familiar “Des Moines 353 mi” signs, etc.

Beers is playing DJ at the moment, and we’re jammin’ out to some Tower of Power as the blurry cows, farmhouses, and semi trucks pass by the van windows.

So tonight we play duo in Lincoln, then we hit the road to Sioux Falls tomorrow (easy 3-hr drive) for a show with our friends, Harriet Tweed, at Latitude 44. We’re headlining the show, and the venue is supposed to be pretty sweet. The Ryan Montbleau Band guys and our friend from the road, Jason Spooner, played there a couple of weeks ago. On Friday morning, we drive north 6 hours to Grand Forks, North Dakota for a headlining show at the University of North Dakota. Friday night shows at colleges are tough to predict – sometimes they can be packed, other times the kids want to go out or to house parties or whatever… and they can be relatively dead. We’ll see; at the very least, the venue is supposed to be super nice, with full lights/fog, house sound, big stage, etc. Good times. On Saturday, we drive back down to the Lincoln, NE area for a return visit to Doane College in Crete. Anton and I played there last month (see Road Journal entry below this one)… and they’re having us back with the full band. Should be fun.

More later… here are some shots from the van:

Our Traditional Departure Shot

The Melted Funk II

The Melted Funk (“Original”) I

Self Portrait

Mr. Beers

The Boyz.

Nebraska Agua