Sorry for my lack of posting. We've been driving a whole lot more than we've been having wireless internet. Also, my laptop's battery life is for sh*t.
Failing my own entries, the band is keeping a tourblog. You can see it here:
http://tallyhall.com/journal.php
11.14.2023
And it starts again...
Here I am writing a new blogtastical blogpost, days away from being gone from home again. The end of the last tour was way busy. We played lots of divey places and a couple of real gems. I still kind of miss the Republic Tigers, our opening act from the last tour. For the first few days after I got home, my head was filled with Tally Hall songs and happy memories from tour. Overall, we had a pretty great time, I think.
I've been "home" from tour for about three weeks, but it hasn't felt like much of a vacation. It's really hard for me to settle down, knowing that I'll be gone in not too long. This kind of liminal period between home and away leads to a perpetual senioritis. It feels like I can just put off stuff to deal with after I get home the next time. Of course then there will be plenty of stuff to do, people to contact, dog to reclaim.
Adding to this liminal feeling is the fact that I was in San Francisco for about a week, visiting my sweetheart. She sure is awesome. Unfortunately, our schedule for this
At the moment, I'm working at the Wonder Ballroom in fabulous Portland.
I've been "home" from tour for about three weeks, but it hasn't felt like much of a vacation. It's really hard for me to settle down, knowing that I'll be gone in not too long. This kind of liminal period between home and away leads to a perpetual senioritis. It feels like I can just put off stuff to deal with after I get home the next time. Of course then there will be plenty of stuff to do, people to contact, dog to reclaim.
Adding to this liminal feeling is the fact that I was in San Francisco for about a week, visiting my sweetheart. She sure is awesome. Unfortunately, our schedule for this
At the moment, I'm working at the Wonder Ballroom in fabulous Portland.
I'm tired of starting every tour by apologizing for not posting on my blog. I suppose that's why I haven't posted in the month that I've been out so far. Nevertheless, my urge to share my tour musings with the world is back with a vengeance, therefore I bring you my unapologetic inaugural Carolina Liar post, almost at the midway point in this tour.
It's been a life-changing few weeks for me. At the end of August, I quit my job with the sound company in Portland. It was a crazy summer, including at least two 90 hour weeks (one while my sweetie was up to visit, of course). I did lots of interesting shows and learned a ton about sound, production and people. No big, cool gigs like BB King/Etta James this summer, but I PA tech'ed for Ringo Starr, which was pretty fun. I definitely tested the limits of my sleep deprived brain and came out on the other side with a pretty good opinion of it.
For the first week of September, I got a taste of show production life outside of the audio world, getting the opportunity to production manage Doug Fir and Holocene for Music Fest Northwest. I learned a lot about advancing, about time management and about everything surrounding rock and roll shows that is not the performance itself. I dealt with over 30 bands at the two venues over the course of 3 days, and rode around SE Portland on a bike with a backpack full of cash and receipts.
After I finished the Music Fest Northwest madness, I spent a week packing my house into a storage unit and Goodwill, marveling at all the weird crap I had collected in 3 years of being in the same place (a bear trap? really?). I'll definitely miss the 12th and Taylor house, with its moderate indoor temperature (it was one of the coolest, non-airconditioned, indoor places I've ever been), its amazing location, a 20 minute walk from downtown Portland, a 15 minute drive from PDX airport, blocks from a great dog park, a stumble from a veritable cornucopia of fantastic bars and restaurants, and its amazing front porch, which I am convinced is the best hangout in the city of Portland.
Some old pictures:
Porch
Front hall w/keg
Kitchen
Bathroom, with bedrooms on either side
Duh.All things considered, the B-DOSC took the upheaval fairly well, though I'm sure he was more freaked out than he let on. On the morning of the 13th of September, having been fêted by a bunch of close friends the night before and fed breakfast by Ji and Becca at Sanborns, the B-DOSC and I hopped in a rental car and drove the 600ish miles from Portland to Berkeley to be with Rachel and Tessa.
12.03.2008
Gone and back again
There are a few things that make me question my self assuredness about how lucky I am to do what I do. Among them are 6am flights to the East coast requiring me to leave the warm, cozy embrace of my girlfriend's bed at 3:30am. Also included on that list would be my least favorite part of traveling for a living: Christmas. It's not so much the holiday I'm not a fan of, it's the saccharine music that becomes America's sonic wallpaper. At the moment, I'm sitting in OAK at gate 7, listening to a psudo-Steely Dan version of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," complete with synthesized nylong string guitar straight out of a bad hip-hop track and the slap bass part that Kenny G's bass player thought was too sappy for his last chart topping adult contempojazz smash. I'm not sure which is worse, having to hear this drivel or getting into its groove, only to be startled out of it by the harsh female voice telling me to report anything suspicious to the Transportation Security Administration.
At times like these, I also think about my going away ritual. Why do I take special care to tell Rae Rae and the dogs that I love them? I'm extra careful to tell them I love them for the same reason my dad balanced the books and paid the bills before he left for a business trip: 'cause you never know. Trips away from home make you realize how much you count on those around you and how much happier they make your life. I suppose it's important to tell them you love them because, however unlikely, it is possible that you may not see them again.
I'm coming off a nine-day vacation after two months of solid touring during which time we did a run of 42 shows in 50 days. For those of you who don't know, I've taken a touring monitor gig with Carolina Liar, an alternative rock band. Bill, our tour manager, and I--and to a lesser extent Johan the keyboard player and Randy the fill-in drummer--put roughly 25,000 miles on the van in 9 weeks. That works out to almost 3000 miles a week!
My second Carolina Liar tour will be a lightning two week run of radio dates, culminating in a sold out show at the Crystal Ballroom,my old stomping grounds. I'm excited to come back thru the Crystal with a band. The crew is aces, and filled with my close friends, and the venue itself, while presenting a distinct set of production challenges, possesses great atmosphere, founded on its the bouncy floor. Get 1500 pogoing punk rockers up therelike at an MXPX or Flogging Molly show and you'll see the Crystal's floor travel up to a foot!
For our last meal together for a few weeks, Rachel took me out to La Méditeranée, a mediterranean restaurant in Berkeley. We had a couple of combo plates, which included the obligatory baba ganoujh, tabouleh, stuffed grape leaves, and hummus, as well as these interesting fillo dough wrap things filled with chicken, lamb, cheese and spinach. The food was pretty good, although the service was god-awful. Nevertheless, the unbeatable company more than made up for the inadequacies of the wait staff. Also, it was nice to find somewhere with heated outdoor dining like Portland's Pambiche , our favorite Cuban restaurant.
For dessert, we went to an incredible gourmet ice cream parlor down the street called Içi . Rachel ordered three scoops of ice cream, the divine coffee-hazelnut, the delicate but intense earl grey, and the tangy lime mint sorbet. The combination was oddly delicious, especially because the flavors were so pure. Each item really tasted like its name, not a close, artificial approximation of it, filtered thru sugar. I had an eggnog ice-cream sandwich, with ginger snap cookies. It was deliciously decadent.
Overall, a delicious end to a fantastic week. I'll post more about our adventures as today progresses, but right now I have to board a plane for Denver.
A plus tard.
At times like these, I also think about my going away ritual. Why do I take special care to tell Rae Rae and the dogs that I love them? I'm extra careful to tell them I love them for the same reason my dad balanced the books and paid the bills before he left for a business trip: 'cause you never know. Trips away from home make you realize how much you count on those around you and how much happier they make your life. I suppose it's important to tell them you love them because, however unlikely, it is possible that you may not see them again.
I'm coming off a nine-day vacation after two months of solid touring during which time we did a run of 42 shows in 50 days. For those of you who don't know, I've taken a touring monitor gig with Carolina Liar, an alternative rock band. Bill, our tour manager, and I--and to a lesser extent Johan the keyboard player and Randy the fill-in drummer--put roughly 25,000 miles on the van in 9 weeks. That works out to almost 3000 miles a week!
My second Carolina Liar tour will be a lightning two week run of radio dates, culminating in a sold out show at the Crystal Ballroom,my old stomping grounds. I'm excited to come back thru the Crystal with a band. The crew is aces, and filled with my close friends, and the venue itself, while presenting a distinct set of production challenges, possesses great atmosphere, founded on its the bouncy floor. Get 1500 pogoing punk rockers up therelike at an MXPX or Flogging Molly show and you'll see the Crystal's floor travel up to a foot!
For our last meal together for a few weeks, Rachel took me out to La Méditeranée, a mediterranean restaurant in Berkeley. We had a couple of combo plates, which included the obligatory baba ganoujh, tabouleh, stuffed grape leaves, and hummus, as well as these interesting fillo dough wrap things filled with chicken, lamb, cheese and spinach. The food was pretty good, although the service was god-awful. Nevertheless, the unbeatable company more than made up for the inadequacies of the wait staff. Also, it was nice to find somewhere with heated outdoor dining like Portland's Pambiche , our favorite Cuban restaurant.
For dessert, we went to an incredible gourmet ice cream parlor down the street called Içi . Rachel ordered three scoops of ice cream, the divine coffee-hazelnut, the delicate but intense earl grey, and the tangy lime mint sorbet. The combination was oddly delicious, especially because the flavors were so pure. Each item really tasted like its name, not a close, artificial approximation of it, filtered thru sugar. I had an eggnog ice-cream sandwich, with ginger snap cookies. It was deliciously decadent.
Overall, a delicious end to a fantastic week. I'll post more about our adventures as today progresses, but right now I have to board a plane for Denver.
A plus tard.
10.08.2008
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