2015 wrap-up

As 2015 draws to a close, I think I'll remember it (along with 2014) as a pretty pivotal time. It was incredibly trying and difficult - some of the things that had previously put me in a state of alert (like the time I freaked out and decided to apply to grad school) are the things I acted on this year, which have completely altered my course, ultimately changing where and how I live. I don't think I realized the impact that all of this would have on me, and looking back, it's still incredibly strange.

The first semester at Pitt is over, and I feel good about it. Being a student in a university program is a huge contrast to my previous training, and I'm still adjusting to even the smallest differences. It has been rewarding, but has a completely different character. Having to acclimate to this is made easier by the other folks in the incoming class, who are extremely thoughtful and supportive people. After this past semester and the holiday break, Pittsburgh feels like home, and I'm looking forward to returning.

Eric Weidenhof - one of my newest and most loved collaborators

I'll also remember this year as one largely in transit. While I haven't ever toured extensively, I spent less than 2 months worth of time in Astoria before moving to Pittsburgh in August. I started the year with family in MA, then flew to the midwest to look at schools. Most of March was spent touring (at first with Tara & Lou), and I made two additional trips to Pittsburgh between April and June (the second time to sign a lease). By that time, I was essentially free of living in one place, and stayed with family when I didn't have any musical commitments.

Steve playing piano on Long Island over
Thanksgiving Break

July turned into a month-long trip to VT, which was undoubtably the brightest part of the year - the pictures in previous posts provide some photographic evidence of this! I'll always love VT and the kindness of the people that live there. One highlight (among many) came on a night off, sitting around the Manhattan Drive living room with maybe four others. We listened to two or three records straight through (including Thelonious Monk, and the Beach Boys). Halfway through Pet Sounds, one of the people in the room finishes their dinner, looks up, and says "Music is so good!" 

a therapy dog on the Pitt campus

Since moving to Pittsburgh, I've made trips to both Boston and NY. I'm sure I'll spend the next year continuing to adjust to my new home base - I've already decided I'll probably live on my own when my current lease expires, and I'd like to spend at least part of the summer away from PA. I get an itch for the road sometimes during the semester, and I'm figuring out how to satisfy that while staying on top of these new commitments. Next semester is looking like a full one within the university alone, and I couldn't ask for much more.

Cheers to 2016 !

Cathedral of Learning

w/ Mike Prentky and Lyle Davidson in Boston

w/ Jaimie Branch and Stephen Haynes at SPECTACLE in Hartford, CT

w/ Lou and Tara in Bloomington, IN

366 Manhattan Drive, Burlington, VT

w/ Anna Azizzy Rosati and Dan Malinsky in Pittsburgh

Comp Seminar Final - Anna Elder, Lu-Han Li, and Eric Moe 

Summer in VT pt. 2

 

VERMONT JOY PARADE

After my first week up here, with all its serenity (plus a little bit of chaos), it became clear that the best thing for me to do was stay in VT as long as possible before the 25th. Though there was a gap in my gig calendar after 7/4, I managed to patch it up a bit and staying here made more sense. This past weekend's Adirondack adventure made everything a little sweeter, too.

On the way up here, I got an email that one of our first gigs was dropped because we were playing the same city the night before. This was sort of a bummer (the money would have been ok), but other things have come up that certainly balance this out. We ended up taking a gig in Burlington that was really fun, and it didn't matter to anyone that we had another one a few days later. I guess this is an issue that a lot of different people and places fuss over. I don't think our other venue was any sort of competitive force, either, but after getting feedback about this on social media, I do realize that it can present issue.

After our first string of gigs, I spent a few days just shedding trombone and trying to relax. Maybe I mentioned this, but I feel so much better about my playing than I did at the start of the year, and having the time to stay in one place and really work stuff out has done nothing but help. I've also managed to get out and see more nature this summer. My hosts at the beginning of the month have known each other for years and we spent a couple days out on Lake Champlain having a great time.

Mama

Duke

This continued before and after our show at Galen's parent's house in Ticonderoga. Their property is right on Lake George, and we managed to have good luck with the weather surrounding our gig there, which was a total blast. I slept on the Vermont Joy Parade tour bus, which has been parked there for 2 years. It was good to hear the Whippoorwills, which brought back vivid memories of my childhood camping adventures in the Myles Standish State Forest in Plymouth. Leaving Ticonderoga was bittersweet, but I'll probably spend a couple days there between our upcoming gigs, and I'm really looking forward to seeing the place again.

I returned to Burlington and was able to spend four nights in an empty apartment below Becca Mack's place on N.Winooski Ave. It's just about fully renovated, and they weren't doing any work on it last week. We would get together during the day sometimes and work out Balagan rep. It's great to be in a situation with musical neighbors, and something I miss about this place a whole lot.  

Sam on the VT-NY ferry

Last Friday I visited the Manhattan Drive house (where I was staying when I wrote the last post), and Sam told me that he was going to visit his parents in the Adirondacks this weekend - his birthday is on Wednesday. On Saturday, a whole bunch of us went out to Elizabethtown, where we spent the better part of two days between the river and the grill. It was great to get to know him and his family a bit better - they just bought their house and have only been living there for about 3 weeks. It's a big white house with a pretty neat history. Yesterday morning, we met one of the guys that's been working on it for years, and they keep uncovering old pictures and documents laying out the history of the place. This whole thing turned out to be a great weekend getaway that we weren't really planning on. We got back yesterday around 8. The Adirondack region is a neat place, ferry ride and all. Before we left I spent a few minutes yesterday blasting out arpeggios towards the mountain on the other side of the road. The echo there is pretty long, and it's a good way to check on your intonation.

Playing music with Emily on Sam's patio

In the next 10 days before I leave, there are 6 gigs - the last two are with Balagan. I'll be going to Boston on Columbus Day weekend to play with them at HONK, but I'm glad to reunite with them here. Tonight is a hit at radiobean with Mal Maiz, a really fun Latin band that has a weekly slot. I wasn't planning on playing with them, but I'm glad they wanted me to join up with them. I feel pretty good about how all of this turned out, and I'll definitely be sort of sad to leave VT. With everything that's happened in the last three years, I can't think of a better way to start a new chapter .

Sunset at Battery Park

Retracing Steps, Connecting Dots, etc etc etc

Two entries - one old, one new:


5/30/15 Pittsburgh, PA

Ok - 2 months and no post. Sad, but that's how it usually goes on this here thing...

Murray Ave in Squirrel Hill

Anyway, I'm delightfully revisiting Crazy Mocha (in Sq. Hill, Pittsburgh), where FULL CIRCLE TIME MACHINE found ourselves a couple of months ago on our way to second gig in Swissvale. In April, I was offered funding to pursue the Ph.D @ Pitt, and I've visited the city twice since that time (most recently to sign for an apartment here, and play another show on 6/4). Mark (my eccentric bible-thumping yet uber-liberal future roommate) says that the baristas at Crazy Mocha have particularly visible followings that you can notice when their shifts end, and a new crew of people come in while the others leave. It was quiet here before, but it's much busier today (partially due to the 80 degree weather and scattered storms, I'm sure).

After leaving PA in March, I stayed in Boston for a week, playing a solo set at the Green Room before heading up to VT for a duo, with Anthony Santor and some other things. It was during this time that I started really questioning the value of living in one place if I wasn't going to be working towards a degree. After applying to the Doc programs, I created a schedule that kept my head above the water, and also rendered looking for full-time work in NY completely pointless. Being on the road has trying moments, but I'd felt so many emotional highs from it, and I was getting along better than I had been (not having to worry about rent and whatnot). With this in mind, I booked a couple of dates in Pittsburgh for mid-April, and was starting to plan a summer itinerary.

Mattress Factory - North Side, Pittsburgh

Two days before I came out for those April shows, I got the word I'd been waiting on - funding from Pitt, which I accepted immediately. Those few days in Pittsburgh were almost euphoric. Under some conditions, getting on a bus for 8 hours each way to play a couple of door gigs might have felt puny - I did have one moment of soft doubt when the local bus I took to get to the first gig went over the Monongahela River and I realized I'd missed my stop. But, doing this trip more or less on a whim and knowing I'd be moving there gave me a good feeling. It's also worth noting that the people who ran the shows, hosted me, and hung out with us were incredibly generous and beautiful. A few days before all of this unfolded, I had a conversation with the NEC EM folks, who encouraged all of the questions I was asking myself. In VT, I had a similar conversation with my father over the phone. I rarely talk about this sort of stuff so openly with my family, but it seemed important at the time. I was ready to leave Queens and be on the road for months before either moving to Brooklyn or Chicago. I could see myself in Chicago, and my visit there was certainly part of this whole thing.

Anyway, I'm certainly glad that Pitt is happening, but I was equally looking forward to working on what could have been if it wasn't going to this year. During my visit to VT, I started to look at spending time there over the summer, and I'll be going back next month for a few weeks. this takes me up to the end of July. On 7/25, my cousin Amy is getting married in NH, and my lease here in Squirrel Hill starts in August. It's good that there's a big family gathering right before I leave the east coast. It's not too often that we all find ourselves in the same place.

Mothers Day 2015 in Plymouth

With this larger move in mind, I spent 3 weeks in Massachusetts following the PA gigs. Matt Gilbert (one of my best friends from home) found his dream job in Florida, and planned a going away party with his fiancee Mark. They got engaged a day before the party, and I knew I had to see them before their move. Following this, I found the place I just leased here, and spent a bunch of time with my grandparents, and some of my younger cousins who were on school break.

On a sadder note, one of our Great Aunts, Evelyn, passed of sudden illness while I was home. She was 94, and previously in very good health. It's never easy to see someone go, but that I happened to be home when the service took place somehow made it a bit easier to come to terms with. After the service, we all went to the cemetery where my great grandmother and a bunch of other relatives are buried. It's in West Roxbury, but I'd never been there. Later, my cousin Sandra and I went over to the Harpoon Brewery in South Boston, and I played a solo set that night at a house concert in JP. Rarely do I experience single days that are this packed or wide-ranging, and I found all of this strangely fulfilling.

The next day happened to be Mother's Day, so I got on a train to Somerville to meet up with my brother Jeremy and our cousins - we drove back to Nana's, and found that they had made plans to get lunch in Plymouth. This turned out to be pretty fun, but we didn't lunch there. I suspect anyone actually eating there that day had made reservations weeks in advance. This didn't stop us from trying to find a place with less than a 2-hour wait. We did manage to get out to the jetty though, and ended up eating about 5 hours after we intended back at the house in Middleboro.

Eric's Record Cutting Room

A few days later I went back to NY to pack up my belongings in Astoria. This was not hard (physically or emotionally), and only took a couple of hours. I ended up having to get one more box for all of my winter clothes, and somehow managed to fit most of my books in this gnarly brown suitcase with wheels that I've had for a few years. I'll probably move the stuff to PA right when my lease starts, and it won't be too much of a pain. I managed to get a bed here within a day of arrival (at the insistence of my roommate, who repeatedly asks if I need any more furniture besides what's already there). The guy is bit of a worrywart, but that wore off by the end of the week. The house itself is on the end of a private terrace, and is super nice. All this is probably helped by the fact that most of these places are owner-occupied, and that our landlord lives less than 10 yards from our door.

I've been in Swissvale since Thursday hanging out with Eric Rann, watching him make tiny records, and helping out with a show there. These last few days have been super quiet, and it'll be nice to have a bit less chaos to deal with now that everything is secured for the fall and beyond.

1/3 1/3 1/3 - trio with Anna Azizzy & Dan Malinsky
@ Mr. Roboto Project 6/4/15

6/30/15 Burlington, VT

I managed to stay in Pittsburgh to play the show with Anna Azizzy Rosati and Dan Malinsky as planned, and I'm super glad I didn't leave earlier for a couple reasons. The show turned out really great, and being in town for a few more days was well worth it (for my wallet and my brain). I spent some time in the Strip District at Liz Bloom's place, and Dan hosted me for a couple of days leading up to our show. The venue was right by his house in Bloomfield. Bloomfield is a working class neighborhood with little hills, narrow streets, and plain two or three story houses. It's a bit quieter than Squirrel Hill, but also more urban, with far less space (if any at all) between individual houses.



I wasn't nervous about our show and I think I ate enough that day, but I definitely had some strange feelings leading up to our set (at about 10pm). It felt like I might not have been able to produce a single sound. But somehow when we started playing, things just moved. It helped maybe that our audience all got on the floor around us, and kept completely still. We knew we wanted to stretch out, and managed a 25-minute set that I had no major issues with. This is becoming more common since the tour in March, and I'm back to playing a lot of brass in front of people again. I've got a ways to go, and will probably get back to taking semi-regular lessons when I move, but I feel more confident with a horn than I did before I gave it a rest over the winter.

Sam & Carrie's gear @ Blank Space Series #4

That gig in PA was the first of three that week - the second was the concert series that Emily Praetorius & I are doing. This one was in Carroll Gardens, BK, at Nick Pauly's place. I stayed there for a few days when I got back. It was a great place to have a house concert, and we had a lot of fun. I hadn't really seen that part of Brooklyn before, and I experienced what many people think of when they think of NY - spending higher-than-usual amounts of money. I found the cheap food spots by the time I left, but having to make a trip up to Astoria one day and then over to Morningside looked something like $45 easily vanishing from my wallet.

The day after our house concert, I took the Metro North up to New Haven to play in a concert called Spectacle - a dream gathering of 15 improvisers put together by Joe Morris and cornetist Stephen Haynes. They run a series at Real Art Ways in Hartford, where each month they meet with a master improviser to give a concert. This year's Spectacle was their second end-of-season concert featuring improvisers from various generations. Some of the performers came from NY, others from Boston, and some were CT locals. Aside from some of the Boston folks, every performer was new to me. They set us up in different combinations before we all came together for a group piece led by Joe at the end of the night. Sam Lisabeth, Jaimie Branch, and I drove back to NY together, listening to Weezer and talking about Steve Lacy (among other things). That whole day was a great and unique experience that I'll remember vividly, and it made me just a little sad to be leaving.

With Junko Fujiwara & Allan Chase at Real Art Ways in Hartford

I left NY maybe a few days earlier than expected, but after leaving Nick's house, I didn't want to bounce around to different places too much (here in VT it's a lot easier). I stayed with Jonah for two days in Sunset Park, and then I was en route to Boston. The night before I took off I went to see Anthony Coleman play a concert in the LES, and I was glad to see his swift recovery from hip replacement surgery. I spent the next ten days in Massachusetts going between my grandparents house, and my brothers house in JP. Sick Puppy happened to coincide with my time in MA, so I ended up going to a few of those concerts. Lou Goldford and Kevin Zhang were also around that week, so I was able to meet up with them. Lou and I drank a giant pot of coffee at this Mediterranean place near Central Square, and Kevin hadn't been in Boston since we finished NEC in 2010. It was fun to muse about everything that has changed there since he left, and point out some of the great things that haven't.

@ Shelburne Museum 

The next day was Father's day, so I caught the train down to East Bridgewater, catching up with my sister who was also visiting home that day. It was nice to get to spend a few days at home before coming up here to VT, but I have to say that this is the most relaxed I've felt in a while. I've been here for a week, and after a series of back-to-back gigs with this New Orleans-y cover band, I found that I've been able to finally maintain my high range through an entire gig (it only took 13 years...).

Emily playing Bob Belcher's posthorn

We've got another weekend string coming up, and I've been staying with various people in my old neighborhood. Currently, I'm at Emily DiPaola's old place, where I spent some time last summer during JazzFest. Though she left town before her epic bike trip over the winter, there are lots of familiar folks here, and she's also visiting VT this month. We went to the Shelburne Museum a few days ago - I'd never been there before, and it's now officially one of my favorite places on the planet. A couple days later a few of us around the house decided to go to Rockpoint, a secluded cove on the lake that's about a 15 minute walk through the woods down crazy rocks. We spent a few hours there before heading back to the house. We had our second gig that night, and it was nice to be able to walk there from this house.

I'm not totally sure when I'll be heading back to MA, but this is definitely a productive time that I've been enjoying the hell out of. The importance of having genuine conversations and exchanges with people is reaffirmed more than anything else when I'm up here, and because of the time we live in (with its progress and perils alike), this means more than anything.  

Balloon from I-89S near Waterbury, VT

Roadtrip Playlist, Pittsburgh Video Clips

Tin Hat Trio

Arthur Russell 

From Tara & Lou's drive to Chicago to making our way back to IN and beyond, here's a fairly comprehensive list of things we listened to. We tried not to repeat anything, listening to albums all the way through. Our will to stick to things was help by the fact that, once plugged into a usb port, the ipod we used could not be changed manually.

Tin Hat Trio - The Rodeo Eroded
 History of Rome 

The Band - Brown Album

Best of Mississippi John Hurt

The Free Design - Heaven/Earth

Freakish - Anthony Coleman plays Jelly Roll Morton

Arthur Russell - Another Thought

Art Tatum - 20th Century Piano Genius vol.1

Daniel Johnston - Hi How Are You

The Hilliard Ensemble - Perotin

Ives: Songs (Jan DeGaetani & Gibert Kalish)

Joanna Newsom & the Y's Street Band

Lake Street Dive - Promises, Promises

Ornette Coleman - Beauty is a Rare Thing

Joanna Newsom & the Y's Street Band

Also, here's two clips of our first duo set in Pittsburgh (courtesy of Joshua Tenenbaum)! We were mildly exhausted, but I think it gave us some sort of weird edge that I loved. Check out each video below, then play them both simultaneously. It works really well:

After parting ways with Tara I got on a bus to Boston, where I've been since Sunday morning. I only spent a day feeling hungover from travel, and have since than been working on solo material for a set tonight at the Green Room in Somerville. It's been great to be here visiting - I just had lunch with my brother in JP, and tomorrow I'll be getting on a train to visit my grandparents. After a visit to VT, I'll be returning to NY around the 7th or 8th. After this, I think I want do even more away from NY. It's been great, and I'm loving the situations I've found myself in for the last 3 weeks.    

Mississippi John Hurt

The Free Design

Chicago & Tour blog, part I

"What would you do with three months of time if you didn't have any other obligations pulling you this way or that way? ... in a way, three months can be a gift."

                                                - Ellery Eskelin

So, I neglected to post anything about February. Stuff happened, including a few really wonderful days in NY while Boston was getting pounded with snow, but other than a few good shows and the regular grind, really nothing too notable. This is perhaps a good thing, as it gave me space to work on organizing a tour - the bulk of which just happened last week with FULL CIRCLE TIME MACHINE and our friend Lou Goldford.

Andrew spinning at UChicago

I had been thinking about organizing a tour for the last several months, and it hit me sometime in December that I had this gap in March that could frame one. I'd never been to Chicago (where more and more friends are moving), and Indiana University (Lou & Tara's school) was only about 4 hours away. We figured out a set of dates during IU's spring break, and had our entire route planned by the end of February. In five days we played five shows - Chicago, Bloomington IN, Louisville KY, and two in Pittsburgh.  Louisville was actually the first date we successfully booked (for 3/18), which put us in Chicago on 3/16, Bloomington on 3/17, & Pittsburgh for 3/19-20.

CHICAGO:

I left for Chicago about a week before the first date, giving me some time to get to know the place and see old friends. Before leaving NY, I found a giant duffle bag with wheels that I could fit my horn into with everything else, so I didn't have to worry about checking the horn on its own. I'm a fan of trains, but I only rode the subway in Chicago once (from the airport to Andrew Clinkman's house in Logan Square). I got settled in and met up with Allison, who took me to this great Korean market with a food counter and dumpling stand. After that we found this pie place (in lieu of the Bucktown donut hang, which she brought to Andrew's house the next day). Andrew and his girlfriend Julia also turned me onto their favorite taco places - Chicago is full of them!

Besides reunions and low-budget great eats, I spent my days getting the music for the tour together, and wandering up and down N. Milwaukee Ave, checking out the many record stores and bookshops that Chicago is famous for. It's definitely unique, but the residential areas around Logan Square really reminded me of Boston. I felt at home there.

New Wave Coffee

I also met up with Neal Markowski and went to one of the Mathias Spahlinger 70th birthday concerts. Spahlinger is new to me, and it was sweet to go see the music there. I've gotten a few different accounts of the Chicago new music scene, and saw firsthand that it's a pretty healthy one. After the concert we went to Margie's, which had incredible sundaes & surplus hot fudge in a big saucer. If I say any more about food in this town, It'll be too much.

There were a few nights that Clinkman, Julia, & I went out to hear music, and one of those nights began with a visit to the UChicago radio station. Julia has a weekly show there, and we sat around the record room checking stuff out while she ran it. Whoever was supposed to show after her shift was late, so we put on a great Roscoe Mitchell record that was sticking out of the jazz stacks. During this, we watched the number of online listeners drop from 17 to 9. Andrew joked that, as improvisers, the one thing we'll never have to worry about is fame. Aside from this, they also showed me the music of Nnamdi Ogbonnaya, an incredible local musician whose work I've been listening to nonstop for the last  few days.

During the week, I'd asked Allison and our friend Nick Meryhew (trombone) if they wanted to sit in on our set, and I was happy that they did - some of the music I'd been writing for the tour would work better with a few more players when we didn't have electronics (as in Chi). On the day of the gig, Allison & I went to the Korean place again, and greeted Tara & Lou at Clink's house. We started rehearsing, and Nick came over after his classes. When the music was together, we had a beer and walked over to Uncharted Books. It was a great place to play, and once we were turned onto them, they were eager to host us. Andrew opened with a solo set, we played ours, and Ethan Parcell, Hannah Bureau, & Eric Hollander closed out the night as 100 Ducks. Ethan & Hannah were also visiting town, and Eric has been living there since they graduated from Boston Conservatory last year.

One Hundred Ducks

The next morning, we got ready to head to Bloomington, quickly loading into Tara's car and driving a few blocks to New Wave Coffee, a place that Andrew said reminds him of the old ERC in Boston. I certainly know what he meant by this, and appreciated the proximity of the place to his house. We were there for less than a half hour before hitting the road, but it was a much-needed segue to the 4-hour drive ahead.

BLOOMINGTON, IN: 

While our pre-departure coffee break was nice, we stopped at a Flying J about an hour after we took off for snacks and gas. One of my friends from VT recently biked across the country, and spent an entire paragraph describing the glory of gas stations in one of their posts. I won't go as far as they did, but after seeing nothing but road, a barren Northern Indiana landscape, and some interesting yet scary billboards for a while, a rest stop like this can feel like utopia for just a moment before wearing off. Later we noticed an adult video chain that looked like it occupied a former Pizza Hut. Lou was aware of a blog of former pizza hut locations and submitted a photo of the roadside establishment. To our surprise, they tweeted that the store was not formerly a Pizza Hut.

We pressed on towards Bloomington, passing through a huge wind farm, and making one last stop to empty our bladders before the last dozen miles or so. Aside from the country music blasting in the gas station, there wasn't much in sight to suggest that we'd entered into a completely different environment by then, though the horribly misspelled handmade signs all over the gas station made it slightly more apparent.

Um?

Tara dropped Lou & I at his house, where his dog was quietly waiting to be walked. I was quick to jump in the shower, change, and make some noodles while Lou went over to the venue to check out the PA. They have regular events at Rachel's Cafe, but Lou had never played there. 

Thanks to IU spring break, we were able to secure a spot at the last minute and really get a feel for working with Lou's set up. It was interesting, and I feel like we got the hang of it by the time our 80 minute set ended. Even more interesting was how queasy I felt by the end of it all. It became obvious that coffee, road food, & instant noodles were not enough, and we went to revive ourselves with Jimmy John's afterwards. We immediately started saying that this tour was fueled by Jimmy John 's, and actually stopped at one in Louisville upon our arrival the next day.

Post Rachel's trio shot

After eating, we went to a local dive for a round of cheap St. Paddy's day beer specials, then over to Tara & Andrew's house to bro out with bass players and play Settlers of Catan late into the night. We didn't have to leave that early for Louisville the next day, but our lack of sound rest was evident of the two-hour drive there. 

LOUISVILLE, KY:

After making breakfast, we reunited with Lou  in the afternoon at a new coffee shop he really likes. It was mildly hard to find, but enabled us to sit down for over an hour with coffee and bagels. We left for KY by 2pm.

One notable thing I discovered on this drive was that by plugging an ipod into an auto USB port, you can't actually control what you play unless you first unplug it. I've been listening to more albums from start to finish anyway, but this really drove it home: no skipping around - listen to an entire album before you unplug your ipod and and find a new one. It's a very healthy practice, and served us well on longer-than-average drives.

Trio shot at Dreamland

We were parked near the venue (Dreamland) by 4:15, and Lou arrived in a separate vehicle a few minutes later. He had to turn back after KY to take care of his dog, but we were glad to have him on board when we did. Tara and I noticed right away that the three of us work together really well, and by the end of that night it became completely obvious that we had to do this again. Another part of this is that Tim Barnes (the owner of Dreamland and former New York improviser) filled us in on many of the spots we could play on our next tour - more gigs with shorter drives. 

After a visit to Jimmy John's and a few local shops near the venue, we met with Tim and began sound checking. During this, Lou was able to show us in detail what he was doing with the laptop, and how we could affect it. While performers in the other ensemble (Dreamland Improvisation Co.) began to arrive, we finished up, greeted them, and visited a bar across the street at Tim's recommendation. Lou ordered a ginger bourbon slushie, which we all sampled and found amazing. With visits to Jimmy John's and a local watering hole behind us, it was time to play.

Musically, KY was the most solid trio set. This is due to a number of factors - arriving early, soundchecking, and getting to know the place and its people. Tim is a warm person who runs a tight ship, and we couldn't have had a better experience there. It's a relatively new space, and I'd recommend it to any musicians who might want to visit Louisville on tour. They also recorded it, and we'll post the audio to soundcloud as soon as we can!

Tim Barnes during the
Dreamland Improvisation Co. set

After the show, Lou had to turn back to IN. I was sad to see him go, but so so happy we got in three good shows. I'd met Lou a few times, and other than discovering mutual interests, we'd never worked together before. I'm glad to say that we will be continuing to explore. 

The Lone Bottle of Pabst At Sergio's - $69

Before we headed to Tim's house to crash for the night, a local composer named Jacob Gottlib took us to Sergio's World Beers. Jacob was my initial contact for KY, and he was eager to show us around. Sergio's is an incredible bottle shop with a tap room up front. Due to laws restricting the width of buildings in Louisville, many businesses have spaces that, while narrow, seem to stretch endlessly. In this case, those walls were lined with bottles of craft beer from all over the world. It's a really neat place, and both Tara & I think it's home of the best beer we've ever tasted.

After the round at Sergio's, We followed Jacob to Tim's house, where he set us up in his guest quarters. At a late hour, we were greeted by his cat Patch, who was one of the most social cats we've ever come across. In the morning, I got up just in time to go downstairs and meet Tim's family before they went off to school and work. We were grateful that they could accommodate us. Before setting off to Pittsburgh, we went to a cafe around the corner, where I found myself mildly smitten by the girl at the counter. It was a week ago today that we arrived in KY, and I think more than any other spot we visited, I look forward to seeing it again the most.

The Road To Pittsburgh

The 6+ hour drive to Pittsburgh was for the most part uneventful. It felt way easier than our drive to Louisville, and involved large swaths of highway with no interchanges or mergers. The only issue we ran into was being turned around in Cincinnati's outer beltway (missing an interchange and having to drive partway into the city to get back on track). At some point before that we stopped at a gas station to refill our tank, and say goodbye to Kentucky. We also stopped at a Dunkin' Donuts in Ohio. When I left NY I made a promise that I'd stay away from familiar institutions, but that one visit to DD's was my only exception.

Why Louisville, Lou?

Southern OH is an interesting cross section between the south and midwest, and has surprisingly wonderful town names that we took note of, among other things (like biker churches). The road continued to be simple until the end of OH, where it seemed that multiple routes occupy the same road, split off, and come together again. While we were utterly surprised and confounded by a brief stretch through West Virginia, we quickly realized we weren't lost, and definitely enjoyed the novelty of adding another state to the lists of those we've visited... or at least travelled through.

The only part of the tour that really put us in full out alert mode was entering into Pittsburgh from the west. Those roads are so twisty and the exits so confusing that we added about 25 minutes to our ETA in the last hour of our planned route. Siri, the google maps navigator is rather long winded sometimes, but she doesn't sound too happy when we stray from her route. After a little craziness, we arrived at our first venue in Pittsburgh, with what turned out to be plenty of time before we had to play.

Tara and Patch the cat

PITTSBURGH:

Our first venue/contact for Pitt was an interesting one. We spent a few minutes driving around our presenter Manny's block in Lawrenceville before we realized we could park in front of his house, a big 3 story victorian with a large living room he has set up for performances - Aesthetic Parlor. I wrote to him a few months ago when I was looking for a place to play in January. He couldn't host that time, but invited us to come play as soon as we were able. He lives there alone, and has a large space on the third floor to accommodate guests. When we were settled, we went downstairs to play a few notes before hitting up another gas station for some snacks. As the house didn't really have a proper kitchen, the gas station (a Get Go right next door) was highly recommended. . .

When we returned we were warmly greeted by Joshua Tenenbaum, who helped set up my January show in Swissvale. He and Dan Malinsky were opening for us with solo electronic sets, which were wonderful to hear in a slightly more intimate space. The small audience seated in chairs lends itself well to noise music, and I wish more people listened to it in this way. This place was like the Whitehaus in Boston, with much less swag, higher ceilings, and a real 1870's vibe. Yes, the 1870's. 

Snacks!

Tara and I played a pianoless duo for the first time in almost a year, and we both had arrived at great sounding things neither of us were doing before. It was a complete surprise and delight, and another surefire signal that this isn't over, and we should reunite as much as possible. I really wish we had audio for this set, but maybe its beauty came out of the lack of pressure that goes with not actually being recorded.

After the set, we all went to this bar around the corner and watched a stand-up open mic that was hit or miss (more miss by the time we left). Despite the standup turning into a bit of a drag, we had a good time and were lucky to have such a great crash pad that night.

3rd floor digs

It was snowing the next morning, but it stopped before we really set out to start our day. We went to the Strip District to get coffee and have lunch (Allegheny Coffee Roasters, plus small plates at S&D Polish Deli, a Thai Place, and snacks from the Asian grocery stores). We spent about two hours there. Peace Love & Little Donuts had just closed, but at least we could open the door and get a whiff of all its glory.

Leaving the strip, we headed across the river to check out the view from the top of the Duquesne Incline. There's a great little park up there too, where we started to talk about our set that night - the first violin/organ duo we've done in 2 1/2 years. Before heading to Swissvale, we went over to Squirrel Hill to go to a cafe with wifi, visit Jerry's Records, and get a slice of pizza. I don't remember the name of the pizza place, but they had the best plain slice I've eaten in a long, long time.

Roadblock Story

On our way out of Squirrel Hill, we ran into a bizarre roadblock: after turning the corner onto a one way street, we found two police cruisers with flashing lights just ahead of us. Being on a curvy oneway meant we couldn't easily back out, and had to wait for the cruisers to move. There was a man next to one cruiser having a seemingly animated exchange with the officers (who were in their seats with the windows cranked down). It couldn't have been anything serious, and the officers acknowledged our presence after a certain point, as if to say "we're really sorry about this..."

A few minutes later, a white car comes up behind us, and weaves in front of us. We were confounded. "He's not going anywhere," Tara says to me. 

The man in the white car gets out with a delivery bag just after the cruisers turn off their lights and start to inch forward. Meanwhile, the man that was talking to the cops goes to (what must have been) his house. The man with the delivery bag gives him a pizza, gets back in his white car, and drives off, not too far behind the cruisers.

We will never know exactly what all that was about, but it was an amazing series of events.

SWISSVALE:

Swissvale is a small inner suburb right on the other side of the Frick Park. It's about 12 minutes from Squirrel Hill by car. Roadblock story aside, we made it there with plenty of extra time. The Abandoned Store is the same house venue I played in January, and I was happy to see Eric Rann when we got there. He showed us where we'd be staying, and told us to use anything we could find in his kitchen. There was another kitchen downstairs next to the music room as well. 

We didn't need to eat when we got there, but spent some time chilling in the living room and rehearsing the vocal material for our set before soundchecking. Like many DIY shows, we waited for a decent crowd to show up before getting started, and got the chance to meet just about everyone who came through the door. The first person to play was this guy Johnny Jitters, whose original DJ material blew us away. It's situations like this that make all of the other quirks worth it, or completely enlightening.

Johnny Jitters!

Mattress w/ Sleeping Bag in Swissvale. Good
thing we brought extra blankets. 

Going back to the organ/voice material was slightly disorienting at first, but by the time we finished, I was ready to play for another hour (I wish we could have). The reactions we got for the slightly larger crowd were mixed, but the ones who loved us were not afraid to come right up and say it. Someone even left a note on Tara's case that we found in the morning. It turned out to be a really good night.

After the entire show, we were starving and made more noodles in Eric's kitchen. He was cooking too, and had a platter of veggies and sandwiches out for everyone to share. As with the last show, he kept a quiet electronic loop going until bedtime, and he told us that he prefers that to throwing on itunes - just like home cooked food over take out. I like the way that guy thinks, and I'll always look forward to playing there.

The next day, Tara had to turn back to IN, and I had to somehow get to Boston. We left Eric's pretty early and went back to the coffee shop on Squirrel Hill. Before going to the cafe to plan our individual routes, we went to the Bagel Factory (an incredible place I went to in Jan) to catch a breath, and recap our trip a little. It was then that I started feeling blue about our run ending. At the same time, I was definitely looking forward to coming to Boston to decompress a little.

After charging our electronics and finishing our coffee, we drove into downtown Pittsburgh to get to the megabus stop. it's a confusing area for an out-of-town driver, but we figured it out with minimal struggle (and Siri's help). We pulled into a parking lot next to the train station so I could grab my bag and say goodbye. This was the hardest part of the trip for me. It really hit home right then - I realized that we've been doing this for 4 years, and that I've never maintained a consistent musical relationship with anyone else over such a span of time. I was struggling to hold back tears, and when Tara drove off  I couldn't keep it together (at least I was surrounded by guys in business attire who probably didn't even notice).

After 5 shows in a row we're in different places again, but that we did this run is a really encouraging sign that we'll continue, and discover new things along the way. I had no idea that these engagements would have such an impact on me, but I'm looking forward to reaching that level of transcendence in practice with others more often.

Stay tuned for more photos, audio, &/or our road trip playlist!

To be continued.

FULL CIRCLE TIME MACHINE with Pittsburgh in the background