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Tuesday, April 17, 2007 Chocolate and Coffee I have a theory that singer-songwriters have to love coffee. It's almost a job requirement. And I've only ever met one person who was more obsessed with chocolate than I. So before leaving the Quad Cities, Kim, Monica and I made a detour to a local chocolatier that had clearly inhabited its space for years--very few shops were open in that part of town (we walked past a cafe that listed its Saturday hours as 8:00am-11:00am), but the store was full. I ordered a small assortment of truffles, English toffee, and caramel that didn't last through the evening. Admittedly I'm a chocolate snob; the confections were good enough to devour immediately, but nothing special overall. We walked through the streets, white bags of candy in tow, and relaxed for a while at a coffee shop I immediately loved for its name: Dead Poets Cafe. (Remember the movie of a similar title? O Captain, my Captain....) Large portraits of writers hung from the brick walls, and we could identify Shakespeare, Poe and Dickinson, though most of the others were contenders for debate. There was an old grand piano in the corner--in decent shape, I might add--and with Monica's urging, I played for a little while. (It's difficult for me to walk past a piano and not play something.) Somewhere in the middle of my noodling on the keys, the cafe staff turned off the radio so that my playing filled the space with no competition. It was an excellent way to start the day. Labels: touring ^ Top | 1:42 AM | | | 
Sunday, April 15, 2007 Theo's Java Club Thus began the tour: insanity in leaving Chicago in the middle of rush hour (my fault), an additional two hours of unrelated gridlock, a sturdy 1990 "truck" (closer to an SUV, really) named Bessie, two guitars (if we'd added mine it would have made three) and a keyboard, stories about raising children not yours, a Californian guitarist named Kim (also known as Monica's best friend), and three musicians left to their own devices for hours on the road with no radio. It was awesome. Sometimes I'm ambivalent about touring before I actually get into the car--there's so much to take care of before leaving town for a few days or weeks that I wonder if it'd be better to just stay home. But once I get to the first venue, I often realize that I'm exactly where I need to be. Friday was an excellent example of this. With everything that needed to be done, uncertainty about where we would spend the night (our housing plan had fallen through), and running behind schedule due to all the traffic, I was in an unusual mode of stress. But the people at Theo's Java Club were great, and I relaxed as soon as Monica started her set. That night I asked for a title and some characters to appear in an improvised song, and one of the suggestions was Redbeard the Pirate--so in the middle of the song we had an audience full of people saying, "Grrrr!" in a very pirate-like manner. I took a photo from the stage that I'll post on Flickr when I get back to Chicago. And after the show, Joe offered us a place to stay. Joe's an up-and-coming filmmaker who launched into two of my favorite subjects: aesthetics and theology. So it wasn't surprising that he and I talked until 6:00am, long after the rest had gone to bed. (Along those lines, Kim snores. Loudly. Though I hear she's not nearly as loud as she used to be.) Labels: musicians, performing, touring ^ Top | 3:39 PM | | |
Monday, March 26, 2007 Michigan Travels I find pieces of my parents' house in my brother's. The ceramic dishes, the wok hiding under the stove, the pots on the burners. It's the first time I've been to his place since he moved in, and it feels both immediately familiar and unfamiliar. Familiar because I feel comfortable--it's the bachelor pad of my kid brother, after all, and I don't feel the otherness of a guest even though his friendly roommates refer to me as one--unfamiliar because this is the first house he's lived in without our parents, and though it's been months since he moved to Lansing I hadn't been able to visit until this weekend. I played a show at the cafe down the street. The walls are decorated with brush paintings from a trip to China two years ago, chopsticks from his fellow InterVarsity staff roommate, a jazz poster from his musician roommate, and wallpaper that was fashionable decades ago. The fridge is a relic from the 70s (much like my microwave), but with the retro feel of the house there is a footed tub in the upstairs bathroom that's begging to be photographed or painted. In Ann Arbor I slept in the TV lounge of an all-women's co-op owned by the University of Michigan and remembered what it was like to live in the dorms while walking down the hall to use a communal bathroom with four sinks, three toilets, two showers, and a tub. I walked around my old city with friends I've known for years, surprised to see that the theatre building has been mostly torn down--only a third of it still stands. Its replacement is on North Campus, home of the engineers. I wandered through the Arb and tried to avoid patches of mud on the newly-thawed ground--spring has finally arrived, and just being in the sun, strolling without a jacket, conversing on life plans and theology while surrounded by a carefully sculpted wild landscape, was satisfying. And I played Guitar Hero and Karaoke Revolution for the first time--an apartment's worth of guys (and me) laughed so hard when Alex belted out tenor notes in a range almost too high for him that he wasn't able to sing from laughing himself. Here I've gotten a snapshot of my brother's life, playing Settlers of Catan with the other IVCF interns, hanging out with his students from Chinese Christian Fellowship, meeting the family that's essentially adopted him as their own (recently the two-year-old daughter spontaneously started calling him "Uncle Ben"). Three concerts, two cities, one brother, and lots of friends. It's been a good trip. Labels: concerts, touring, travel ^ Top | 1:07 AM | | |
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