Yesterday was a busy and long day. I started the morning in Oklahoma where it was warm and humid and made my way east - still on the I-40. I cruised along, hoping to make it to Nashville by about 3pm or so - which would give me enough time to get cleaned, get some food, and practice for the set at The Basement that night. As I drove through Arkansas, past Little Rock, with Memphis not too far away, I saw storm clouds off to the south moving along quickly and heading on a diagonal north east path to the road ahead. The wind blew strong and I knew it was only a matter of time before we would meet.
I made it across the Mississippi River and through Memphis - and then the rain started to fall. It fell harder and harder and the wind started howling. Slowly I moved along, and everyone else was cautious since it was so hard to see. I kept on the lookout for tornadoes too - since I knew that could be a possibility. Right after Jackson, Tennessee though everything came to a halt. I figured that there was an wreck somewhere down the highway caused from the storm. So I sat there, and sat there, and waited and waited - the rain came and went and after almost two hours - the traffic started moving again.
I was so glad when I finally got to Nashville - I was looking forward to a shower and to getting cleaned up. I figured a nap was out of the question since it was too late by now and we had to get to The Basement by around 8pm to find out where we were on the line-up for that night's show. We settled on a setlist and got our stuff together and headed over.
The show is called the New Faces Night and each act gets around 20 minutes or about 4 songs. Also the owner and guy in charge of the night doesn't let you know the line-up of the night until about 8pm. So we were ready to get there and find out and then start sending out messages to our friends about where we were on the list. Obviously it's better to go earlier in the night - so there's less waiting around time and it's easier to get people out. The last time we played there at the end of March we were last on the list - and so we were surprised when again we were last on the list. Neither of us were too happy about it, and if I had another show lined up in Nashville I would have left. But it had taken too long to get there and so we decided to wait it out. Lauren started working her contacts and I made my updates and then went to eat some food since we still had about 2 hours or so before we were due up.
When we got back we heard that several people were going to be making it out and we were ready to play a good set - since we were pretty annoyed about our time slot. Finally it was our time and we set up and played our songs - Lauren going from harmonica, to vocals, to banjo - and we had a decent crowd for being last. So I was happy in the end, but not sure about booking another New Faces Night.
It felt good to get back and sleep - yes it had been a long day. When I woke up in the morning I was still groggy and it took a while to get the energy to go out and run errands. I knew I had wanted to make pizza tonight so I had to make a run to Trader Joe's - my old job - across town. It takes a surprisingly small amount of time to get across town on the highway. It felt good to be back in town - and almost like I had never left. It rained during the day which cooled things off nicely.
Tonight after pizza I've just been enjoying a quiet night - soon though I need to get to bed. Tomorrow night I'm heading up to Chicago to play a show at The Horseshoe. I really like Chicago and I'm hoping to stay around town on Friday - we'll see.
yours truly,
Jeremiah
from the train
New Mexico Highway
The Big Texan in Amarillo, TX - where you can get a free steak dinner if you can eat 72 oz. of steak - there's big billboard signs all across the highway
from the Texas Panhandle
The storm moving quickly off in the distance
Stuck waiting in traffic
Nashville from the north side of town
Lauren and I at The Basement - and me in my lucky shirt
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