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02:38 p.m.
SUNDAY, MAY 30th, 2004; BUFFALO – wow... two weeks since my last entry... I guess it must seem like I've been taking time off or something... not necessarily so!
Though I have been laying low for the better part of a week as far as touring, the biggest reason for that has been, shockingly, VEHICULAR. No, really. It happened AGAIN. A van I was driving broke down. Can you believe this?...
I just laugh now. It's happened so often I really can't do anything else, you know? :) I'm just happy this van waited until AFTER the last show of this tour leg to let its Fuel Pump go the Way of the Dodo. That was nice of it. And so I stayed a few days longer than expected in Buffalo, coordinating the mixing and mastering of the new album from here instead of Indianapolis, where I will be heading in just another day or so. All is still progressing on schedule, and CONDUIT is still heading for its August 24th release date. Keep knocking on wood, and I will too.
After I'm done in Indy I will be heading back out West for a few weeks! Colorado, Nevada, and California, and a co-tour I'm really looking forward to with friends old and new. David Peters, Amber Rubarth and I will be trekking from Reno to San Diego together, and we'll be joined on different occasions by the likes of Timothy Daniel, Larry Marciano, and Sweet James, a Northern Cali band I have heard some great things about. The circle grows ever bigger, and this is a good thing. :)
**FALL 2004** I'm booking the entire fall right now, and the existing shows are already posted on the Tourdates page; if you don't see your city or school listed and you'd like to help ensure that I make it out to see you, get in touch! I always make the extra effort to reciprocate when y'all show the love.
In the meantime, I'll keep plugging away at making this album, and will hope to see you someplace soon!
-Seth :]
11:33 a.m.
SUNDAY, MAY 16th, 2004; ORLANDO – So this last week of gigs has been GREAT. I am feeling good; refreshed; glad to be touring again, and confident that I can bring the Rock when playing almost all the new material for unsuspecting crowds now. Now it’s time to make my way back up North and finish this record so you all can hear what I’ve been talking about for so long!
ATLANTA. This was a re-evaluative trip through the ATL for me… my show at the Ten High had the lowest attendance I’ve ever experienced there… and to boot, the new guy they have on sound, while a lot NICER than the old guy, just doesn’t make it go BOOM like the old guy… I worked hard to keep morale high for the faithful few that came out to hear some tunes, but there was a strange apathy in the room, and it’s always disheartening to jam as hard as I possibly can through a set of originals and to have drunken yahoo after drunken yahoo come up to me afterwards and say “Dude! I totally dig that Journey song!”… I think it might be time to retire that cover… I don’t want to be some novelty juke box…
…but I digress. I stayed in Atlanta for a couple days afterwards, checking out some other rooms that might be a bit more singer/songwriter-friendly; I hit the open mics at the Red Light Café and Smith’s Olde Bar. Both were a good time, and I think I’ll definitely be working with the Red Light on future trips through town. I’m aiming to play the Eddie’s Attic open mic this week on my way back north if I can get on the list, too, so we’ll see how that goes.
PENSACOLA. My return to Florida started WELL (and has continued well…). Pensacola is a town that by all appearances, does NOT have a music scene worth a damn. It’s near a lot of military bases, a lot of beaches, and a lot of swamp. It’s also close enough to New Orleans that you might expect all the touring acts to just go play THERE instead. You’d be right. However, there is a group that has started up there recently and formed the Belmont Arts Center in downtown Pensacola out of an old window factory. Every week, they do an open mic/concert series, and the thing has just taken OFF. What a cool place this is! It’s run by great people, they get great acts to come through, and they encourage all kinds of community involvement. I really hope this place takes off, and that other cities looking to kick-start their scenes take note… these people are doing it right. I played to a great crowd, we had a great time, and afterwards, I got to hear the best jazz/jam band I’ve experienced in a while… SARAABA, a slammin’ outfit from New Orleans. Check them out if you like to A) Dance B) Lose your freakin’ mind. They’re HOT.
ORLANDO. This was tricky at first, but had a vastly happy ending. I showed up to Natura Coffee and Tea to find that the owner had FORGOTTEN that I was playing that night… he’d booked three other acts. However, he was incredibly cool about the whole thing and had me start the night, right at nine, when I was slated to play in the first place. Everyone else just started an hour later, and the night went off without a hitch. I also got to play to a HORDE of new people, and to meet some really great musicians: A Girl Named Chuck and the band o’pen put on killer shows with some great tunes, and were really cool people to party with afterwards, too. Though this is a small café in eastern Orlando, it’s got to be one of the BEST rooms in the country for people who want to listen to songwriters. It’s almost entirely a college crowd, but they GET it… everyone inside sits down and is almost entirely silent and attentive, and when people want to talk, they go out to the front patio. You’d think this was some new idea or something, based on what I experience in so many other places in the country, but here was like a DREAM. Plus, I had the honor of being photographed while performing by the lovely and talented Anne Gabele, who’s handiwork might just become very familiar to listeners in the very near future… such a good time. : )
The next day I stayed in town and played Natura’s open mic to an entirely different crowd, and had yet another great experience. Touring songwriters; I cannot recommend this room enough.
More soon! -S :]
11:03 a.m.
TOUR UPDATE, CONTINUTED!
OCEAN CITY. So awhile back I got this note from this reporter I met in Philadelphia who likes my music (he called me the “Martin Sexton of solo bassists”, and shoot man; that is HIGH praise; I’ll take it!)… he had moved to Ocean City, Maryland, down on the east coast between Deleware and Virginia Beach, and he was starting what he called the “Starving Artist Concert Series”, and would I be interested in being the first starving artist on the slate??? HELL YES. And I’m glad I did. The Iguana Surf is a nice little award-winning restaurant/bar that looks deceivingly small until you put eighty-five party people in it after dinner hours. Local singer/songwriter Lance Romance did a cool opening set of bluesy folk numbers to whet people’s appetites, and then I did my thing. Highlight of the evening: the Baltimore crew making the three hour drive and staying the night! Yehaw!
PHILLY. I decided to spend my days off in Philadelphia. I had a few reasons to do so: The Fire, Nellie’s Irish Pub, and The Point all had their open stages within a two day span, and I hit all of them. And I met a ton of cool people! Plus I got to bend the ear of my new web guru, Chris Camarato, and discuss the concept for the upcoming website overhaul… what’s this, you say? Website overhaul? But Seth, your website has looked pretty much the same for four and a half years! Yes. Yes it has. And that is going to change with the release of “Conduit”… :)
D.C. My all-too-brief stay in the Capitol was a whirlwind of good times, and it must be noted, my best show of the tour so far. (Almost the YEAR so far, but that gig I did in Gainesville back in February at the Music Law Conference was just too sickly wicked.)
I played to a room where very few people had heard me before, but were there to check out the full-band-debut of MP2, DC’s next big act. No really. Mark my words. DC’s next big act is going to be MP2. Unless they change their name, in which case they will STILL be DC’s next big thing; they just wont’ be called that anymore. But I digress! They rock; they write tightly arranged pop rock tunes not unlike another certain Georgetown-spawned band from recent history that I have a fair amount of experience with…. ;) good stuff.
So ANYWAY… most of the people attending were MP2 fans…. But I must say, they accepted me with open arms and thunderous applause. A big thank you to all the new DC peeps. : ) And to Evan Field, MP2’s guitarist, who hooked the whole thing up.
RICHMOND. Further and further south goeth I. Off to Poe’s Pub, to do a show with my good friend and guitar-looping wizard, Ed Sheets. Ed is the guy who inspired me to go get myself the loop pedal. He’s just an incredible composer with that thing, and he blows my mind with some of the stuff he comes up with and the way he arranges his pieces. When he came out to Reno in March to lay some tracks for “Conduit”, we set up these Richmond shows, and so I had a plethora of Ed-fans out to see me play. This was a fun evening; Ed and I alternated every few songs, and played a bunch of tunes together, too. Good times all around. Highlight of the evening: Shay introducing us like we were at Showtime at the Apollo. Aw, yeah. Highlight of my WEEK: Eating at Vietnam Garden. Oh my lawd. It’s good to be on the Atkins Diet. Mmmmm…….
More to come…
12:20 p.m.
SUNDAY, MAY 9th; ATLANTA GA – Whoops… time has been slipping by since I last updated this thing. I must say I was distracted from updating the journal for a bit… it seems someone thought it would be fun to take my words out of context and conduct an “experiment” on the message board… but to anyone that may have been following that whole debacle, the situation has been defused, and I’m actually harboring suspicions that I know exactly who “D. Halilwell” is. And if “D” doesn’t believe me, maybe she should confront me about it.
Those who check the Benchmark Records website on occasion will probably soon take note that an official release date has been scheduled for “Conduit” in late August… while there does appear to be some truth to this date, I will reiterate that those who pre-order the album will get it before the general populace, and we’re still going to be releasing that confangled Live CD in conjunction with pre-orders, too. I just don’t want to rush this process… I rushed the making of “…this is the session.” I rushed the making of “Notwithstanding”, and I just DON’T want to rush this one. Everyone involved wants to make this a great record with no corners cut, and hopefully those that hear the finished product will agree that it’s worth the wait. : )
But! I have been playing an awful lot since my last entry, and have taken a spin down the east coast and through gig after gig after gig… I finally feel like I am now, as was graciously phrased by a fellow musician, “Bringing my A-Game”. The feeling is good. Here’s the scoop:
BOSTON. The Burren is always a cool show. I’ve been playing this room for as long as I’ve been a solo performer: I did my first Boston show here before “…session” was even released, and I had a few songs thrown onto cassette tapes I was dubbing from old demos… ahh, the ghetto days. Danielle Miraglia runs the songwriter series each week, and she’s just cool like the other side of the pillow. Gigs that are run by a fellow artist are quite often the most fun to play, and this is the epitome. It wasn’t a packed room, but that was actually a good thing: it was just full enough of people who were digging on the show, and they made the night really worthwhile for me. Afterwards I got to hear Danielle do some of her new material, and I think she’s onto something… she’s a petite l’il thing, easy on the eyes, looooong blonde hair, nice as you please, and then she gets on stage with her guitar and busts out fingerstyle country blues licks that would make yo mamma talk and spits out lyrics that get more soulful everytime I hear her. Not that cute petite blondes aren’t allowed to do that, but how many do YOU know?...
The next night I played the feature slot at the PJ Ryans open mic, just down the street from the Burren, hosted by my fellow solo bass maven, Tom Bianchi. This ended up being more of a VIP party, in a way… and I got to hang out with Ed (Toth), who I hadn’t seen since February. I had the chance to play him some of the rough mixes of the songs on “Conduit” out in his car, and we agreed: it’s not ready yet. So sit tight, y’all… once it gets the “Ed stamp of approval”, you can have at it. ;)
NORWALK. LAAAAAAAAYDies and Gentlemen! We have our very first ROOOOOAAAAD KIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLL!!!!!! Every tour has one, it seems. I thought this was going to be a nice little night at a nice little coffeehouse, and it was… but I was all by myself… (aside from a few people who had no idea why I was there)… It’s odd. I’ve been getting emails from a lot of people in Connecticut pleading with me to come back for over a year now… and so I got a gig in a place where there was no cover charge, where I’d play more than just one set opening for someone else… I dunno. Sometimes you make assumptions, and sometimes you assume incorrectly.
WILMINGTON. This tour’s house concert; enabled at the last minute by the one and only Catherine Marie Charlton! The Grape Street Entertainment Complex has yet to re-open, so my gig there was cancelled, and I thought I would be without a venue until she rescued me. Thank you, Catherine! (She even got to play a piece at the end of the night, and that was wonderful…) This was very chill… so chill, in fact, that there was a SIX WEEK OLD BABY in the audience, and even she was quiet as a mouse. Perhaps it was the Dramamine we slipped into her bottle… ;) Seriously, it was a very mellow evening, with the lights low, no microphone, and an intimate, pleasant, attentive crowd. A good night for more of the mellower songs that I haven’t been playing as much in the club venues, too, so that was nice. Every tour needs a show or two like this, so I was very happy.
More to come. Next update: OCEAN CITY, PHILLY, D.C., RICHMOND, ATLANTA!
11:30 a.m.
Sunday, April 25th; NORTHAMPTON MA -- What a WEEK! I have run the entire gamut on this first FULL week of touring by myself… I haven’t been on the road doing shows by myself since last October! SIX MONTHS… everything else has been a one-off show here and there, or a co-bill with other traveling musicians. I remember why I love this again!
CLEVELAND. The Barking Spider is a weird place. I like it, but no two shows here are ever the same. I have a group of folks who always show up to see me play. I have learned that they will ALWAYS show up twenty-five minutes after start time, and that they will always do the things that makes me grumpy: they basically ignore me the whole time I’m performing a song; they chat; they huddle towards each other and shout over the music; they laugh; they scream. They act like they’re in a bar with a jukebox on. Then I end the song. They (usually) clap. Then I take a second between songs to check my tuning and figure out the next song. I look down at the bass; I don’t say anything.
AND NEITHER DO THEY.
I never understand this; Cleveland is not the only place it happens. Why would you only pay attention to a performer when he’s NOT PERFORMING? I’d chalk it up to a low cumulative IQ, but these are mostly Law Students! I’d call it a lack of respect due to them not liking my music, but they come to every show! They’re not rednecks, either! And they come up afterwards and tell me I did awesome. Like they heard any of it. A continual quandary…
But I digress; the rest of the bar patrons seemed to enjoy it quite a bit, and Martin, the saint who owns and runs the joint, seemed pleased. A highlight was my old friend from Buffalo, southpaw acoustic guitarist Adam Keeler, who came out and sat in at the end of the night. It was an appropriate “get your feet wet again, Seth!” show.
UTICA. Whoa, Nelly. What a roller-coaster ride THIS one was… I’m still not sure exactly who was responsible for making this evening go the way it did, but I am sure that the majority of the people involved with the SUNY IT Campus Activities Board are pretty J.V. The long and short of it was simply this: I was scheduled for ten o’clock, and another act was scheduled at eight. The eight o’clock act missed his flight. So about fifty minutes into my contracted ninety-minute set, the other act’s manager storms in, demanding that the plug be pulled on me so that the other guy can go on. Almost three hours after he’s been contracted. So I was forced to finish up my set early, to the general protest of my audience. I announced that this wasn’t my doing, and I pointed out the other act’s manager as the source of the problem before leaving the stage. He came up to me immediately, and in what I THINK was a legitimate British accent, he proceeded to tell me how unprofessional it was for me to point him out in front of the crowd, and how if I was going to get anywhere in this business, I had better learn a few things about professionalism. He went on and on for about five minutes. He made his very pompous point that being that rude to him was CERTAINLY not professional!
I stood there and listened to his whole schpeal. Looked him straight in the eye. Said, “Neither was missing your flight.” Walked away.
As it turns out, the manager of the campus center food joint was enjoying my set, and allowed me to set up with my practice amp and finish the night out about a hundred yards away, so I did a mellow little set to end the rather turbulent night, and the British jackass dude didn’t say another word. :)
BURLINGTON. This show just rocked. No conflicts; no fuss; no mess… just a cool little coffeehouse program on a cool campus, run by cool people who have their ducks in a row. Campus folk, take note: the best place to stage your coffeehouse program is NOT IN YOUR CAMPUS CENTER. It’s in the DORMS. I have never played a solo show in Burlington before. I had NO following there. I might be so bold as to say that that has changed now, and it’s all because the students walking through the halls heard some bassificatory noises down the way, and went to check it out. We had a great time, and I met some really cool people. Props to UVM; that was a blast, y’all. I will be back as soon as possible!
EASTHAMPTON. Yet another fun evening! I love this room; I love how it changes every time I come back. PACE has been open for almost two years now, and they have been kind of building it as they go. Currently, the stage is undergoing a transformation for their upcoming theatrical production, so I performed on a stage that looked somewhat like someone’s living room, which was really cool… I shared the bill with local prodigy, Steve Beigner. This kid is awesome. He and his drummer, Brian, and myself alternated two sets each throughout the evening, and I throroughly enjoyed myself. Maybe a bit too much… I was kind of loopy throughout the night. If anyone has ever seen me behave like I’ve had a bit too much coffee, they know… ;) However, I did play the most NEW material of any show I’ve done so far, and will make no bones about the fact that I screwed up two of the songs! I should probably point out that this pre-album-release tour is not only to get YOU used to the new material. It’s also to get ME used to it! All in all though, ‘twas a fantastic evening, and the after-show hang at the home of PACE’s co-proprietors, David and Sonia Oppenheim, was the bonus at the bottom of the crackerjack box.
I took yesterday off here in Northampton; spent the day seeing friends and hanging with the future of solo bassist/singer/songwriting: John Hanifin. This sixteen-year old can do everything I can do on the bass, and not just because I taught him how… he’s a wunderkind, and now that he’s started singing and writing songs of his own, I predict that the bassification-coup of modern popular music will be unavoidable by the time he’s in college. Remember that name, folks. John Hanifin. Hey, Gonzalo? Tom? Jud? Scott? Ritt? I think we’re going to need a bigger box, guys… :)
04:46 p.m.
Monday, April 12th; CHATTANOOGA TN – It is pouring rain. Just like that, out of nowhere. First thing, Brad Passons and I are just driving away from the studio where I laid down some bass tracks for his upcoming EP (“I Don’t Think You Care” is my personal fave, but “I Want Your Girlfriend” turned out pretty rockin’ as well…). We stopped at Grumpy’s, a cool used book store here in the ‘Nooga, and I went to look for a book recommended to me by Syd, the unofficial Queen of my message board, called “Dumbth”, but I couldn’t remember the author, so I reached down into my omnipresent cargo pants pocket for my day planner, where I’d written it down, only to find that it wasn’t there… so I figured I’d left it in the studio. So we went back to retrieve it, and I made the horrific discovery that I’d also left my LAPTOP there… Slapping myself upside my fool head, I was blissfully reunited with said laptop, and am making the celebratory road journal entry with a renewed sense of warmth and love for my computer. And for Syd, who indirectly just saved my butt by recommending that book. Syd? You rock, hon..... :)
......So yeah; I’m here in Chattanooga for the week. Hanging with Mr. Passons, who was kind enough to bring me down here and let me hang out in preparation for our co-billing shows this weekend. Given my current transportation situation (longtime fans, you may chuckle HERE), I had to cancel my Nashville slot this Tuesday night, and would have had to bail on the ‘Nooga gig as well if not for Brad, so I get to explore a charming little part of Tennessee for the week and play some shows, and he gets a little Seth-style bassification on his record. Everyone’s happy..... :]
.......Starting next week I should have a temporary solution to my vehiclular handicap, and will be doing the lion’s share of my spring tour dates within the next month, from April 20th to May 15th. After that, it’s likely that I’ll head down to Kerrville, Texas for the annual Kerrville Folk Festival before heading back west in June for some co-touring with David Peters and Amber Rubarth. And of course, there will be some major preparation for the release of “Conduit” going on as well. Stay tuned, y’all; more to come! -Seth
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