The Skinny Dippers,Camping At The Ritz,Boys In The BathroomandThe Most Important Meal Of The Day
Dallas - July 22:
We flew to Dallas. Our buses caught up to us the next day. We stayed in a lovely resort hotel with a snaking lagoon-like pool with a waterfall in which four of us held a private skinny dip party at midnight. Word must have spread because for the following 2 days our tour manager kept addressing us as “the skinny dippers” when he passed us backstage.
John Mayer and his band came to our concert. I like his music and it was fun talking with them after the show. Kevin, Michael and JJ were the band members I met. They were playing that venue the following night.
When I met John we fell into a technical but fun musical conversation right away. He said he pretends a song is slower in order not to rush, I told him I’m the queen of backphrasing. This reminded me of an article about Bjork in which she said she sometimes chooses her tempos for songs based on her heart rate from walking or running while creating the piece. We agreed that both of our voices have a husky quality in the mid-range. I asked him if his sound engineers have ever told him it was a challenge to place his voice properly alongside other mid-range instruments to make it pop out in the mix, and he said that was true. He wishes that he could sing higher. I told him I believe he could if he wanted to because he obviously has a great voice and a great voice can always expand, but I then cut my diatribe short, saying, ‘but don’t go changing, ‘cause I think you sing real good’. Our time was up. “You talk fast!”, said I. “I like you!”, said he. I decided that merited him a copy of my “my little flame” CD. He said, “I will review this CD, mark my words. Mark my words!” Memories of Regis Philbin flooding my mind, I said, “I’m marking them!” (See, John Mayer? They’re marked. But will you deliver?) Off went the John Mayer band, and off went we to Austin. (“Let’s to Essex”, as my best girlfriend Viddy likes to say).
July 23 & 24 - Austin & Hoston:
A complete blur. I remember nothing. No offense to both fair cities, but all I saw was the guts of 2 arenas.
July 26 - New Orleans:
In the morning of our day off I hand washed some of my delicate clothing that I don’t like to send out to the laundry and hung it to dry around the room. I then headed out to see what I could see. Before long I found my way over to Bourbon Street, going in and out of the never ending tourist gift shops, trying on wigs and picking up New Orleans trinkets for my friends and family. I bought myself a coyboy hat. I took myself out for a blackened catfish lunch. I went down a sidestreet, sat down on a front stoop, phoned my mother-in-law and spoke with her for 45 minutes while the world went by. By dinner time I was still lurking about when suddenly I heard some of the crew guys calling to me from one of the Bourbon Street balconies. At the same time I ran into more crew guys on the street. We went into the bar to join them on the balcony and I discovered we were in the gay district. Dinner turned into spending the rest of the night gay bar hopping with a quick burger stop at a diner. We ducked in here, saw some drag shows there and generally cavorted about like slightly more mellow, older versions of the young tourist hooligans that fill that street at night. I went back to my room (at 10:30pm which felt much more like 2am) and tested the dryness of the morning’s wet laundry. Still slightly damp but certain to be dry by morning. Camping at the Ritz.
July 28 - Nashville:
We had a very good show in Nashville. Afterwards we were invited out to the Legends Bar by the Butterfly Boucher band, some of whom live in town. The bar was a number of blocks away from our hotel and I was particularly proud of finding my there alone with extremely limited directions, ie: “that way”. I was also greatly relieved that my judgment call in asking a man on the street if he knew the place and having him lead me into a dark deserted Nashville discotheque?! to consult more strange men, did not result in a scene similar to Bruce Willis’ unfortunate choice of shops to stumble into in “Pulp Fiction” (especially because the man I asked looked remarkably like Ving Rhames). I met up with Butterfly, her tour manager Roger, her drummer Shay, her keyboardist Buck and her boyfriend Dawson. Some of my boys showed up a few minutes later: Dave, Vince, Luke and Brian. It was a great little bar with a good band and country record covers all over the walls. My boys and I were the last of our bunch to leave. On the walk back a white limo stopped and the driver asked if wanted a ride. We just laughed but before we knew it Luke gave him $10 to take us back to the hotel and in we got. I recently heard a top bouncer say in an interview that he never trusts a white limo: true VIPs always ride in black. Case-in-point I suppose.
When we got back to the hotel I urged the boys to follow me down to the restored Art Deco Gentleman’s Bathroom I had checked out earlier in the day. It’s a thing of beauty that men and women are welcome to enter. Apparently a lot of photo sessions and music videos have taken place there. As soon as they saw it they flipped out. When I saw the four of them against the four toilets, four sinks and four latrines (in an amazing shade of green porcelain against black laquered walls and granite floors, shoeshine chairs on a platform and an old telephone), I turned into Annie Leibowitz and told them to plan their poses while I ran up to my room for my camera. When I returned they were all sitting on the toilets with their pants around their ankles. Beautiful. We then had a fantastic photo shoot. I will post the PG-rated ones on my website soon. I have to say that was the highlight of my whole trip thus far.
When I recounted this story to my folks they reminded me of the time my dad caught me at age 7 locked in the bathroom inspecting a boy from the neighbourhood, not totally of his own free will. Interesting...
The next day I went sightseeing and bought a number of prints from the famous Hatch Print Shop for my friends and family and one for me of Dolly Parton.
July 30 & 31 - Raleigh & Philadelphia:
Last night my good friend, very talented songwriter and Raleigh resident Dan Bryk (http://www.bryk.com) came to the show. He told me he would be bringing a surprise visiting guest from Toronto. This turned out to be another fab songwriter friend of mine, Chris Warren (http://wwwchriswarren.cc). I actually spotted him in the audience when the lights came up during “Possession” and nearly lost my place... We had a 30-minute visit after the show (too short!) and then had to drive off to Philly.
I stepped off the bus early this morning, eyes blinking, and nearly fell to the ground to protect myself from a landing aircraft. We’re at one of those hotels on the airport strip. Normally after our longish night drives I rifle through the room keys left for us on the bus by our wonderful band assistant Gail --- who graciously suffers her last name being caterwauled at high pitch by needy musicians for their own amusement, and whose birthday we celebrated yesterday with a cake brought into the dressing room moments before we took the stage last night in Raleigh, North Carolina, a clothing steamer in one of her hands and me in no underwear whatsoever trying to weave my way through 6 men and assorted crew singing Happy Birthday --- and fall right into a hotel bed for the second half of my night’s sleep before we have to go to soundcheck.
This day however I opted for breakfast. The Edmund/Miller * Family Reunion was in full swing at our hotel. Tens of men, women and children in proud red T-shirts had cultishly overrun the place. The breakfast buffet was a madhouse. After some finagling I was able to procure some food for Rose/Table-for-one/Breakfast Reunion. Hurdle # 2: the screechingly loud action cartoon playing on an overhead television (one of 8 about the restaurant). Seeing no hotel staff in my section, nor anyone from the Edmund/Miller clan specifically watching this program, I took my life in my hands, stood, reached up, lowered the volume and switched the station to the news. You would have thought I activated an air raid siren, or left it on a porn station. The voice of a large male Edmund/Millerian came down: “These kids were watching that,” he boomed, waving a breakfast sausage on a fork in the direction of some bored looking children. “You’re gonna wanna switch that back!”
“Everybody has to get along,” I half-shouted, prompting an Amen Chorus from a childless Red-Shirted table. Traitors; probably these same people would incur the scorn of the others by opting out of the 2-Legged Races and Sack-Hopping contests later that day. I restored the action cartoon minus the blaring volume. * * Somehow I managed to eat the rest of my breakfast in peace. So peaceful in fact, that when my waitress finally tumbleweeded back to my table, even she realised an epoch had passed and in turn, gave me a free breakfast. I left her a tip and scrammed.
Who knew you could get into so much trouble trying to eat the most important meal of the day? A meal before noon? It’s just not safe.
________________
* Some names have been (slightly) changed.
* * For the record: I love children. Want to have my own someday. Don’t love loud sci-fi action cartoons at 8am after 4 hours sleep on a tour bus. Would like to draw out my own family tree as a homework project on this tour. Would not necessarily like to gather them all up in matching T-shirts in a hotel on an airport strip anytime soon. They all know where to find me. Most of them have come around looking for free Sarah McLachlan concert tickets.
PS: Two more shows and we get to go home for 6 days! I haven’t seen my house since the end of June, nor my husband since July 14. Can I get an Amen? Thank you.
We flew to Dallas. Our buses caught up to us the next day. We stayed in a lovely resort hotel with a snaking lagoon-like pool with a waterfall in which four of us held a private skinny dip party at midnight. Word must have spread because for the following 2 days our tour manager kept addressing us as “the skinny dippers” when he passed us backstage.
John Mayer and his band came to our concert. I like his music and it was fun talking with them after the show. Kevin, Michael and JJ were the band members I met. They were playing that venue the following night.
When I met John we fell into a technical but fun musical conversation right away. He said he pretends a song is slower in order not to rush, I told him I’m the queen of backphrasing. This reminded me of an article about Bjork in which she said she sometimes chooses her tempos for songs based on her heart rate from walking or running while creating the piece. We agreed that both of our voices have a husky quality in the mid-range. I asked him if his sound engineers have ever told him it was a challenge to place his voice properly alongside other mid-range instruments to make it pop out in the mix, and he said that was true. He wishes that he could sing higher. I told him I believe he could if he wanted to because he obviously has a great voice and a great voice can always expand, but I then cut my diatribe short, saying, ‘but don’t go changing, ‘cause I think you sing real good’. Our time was up. “You talk fast!”, said I. “I like you!”, said he. I decided that merited him a copy of my “my little flame” CD. He said, “I will review this CD, mark my words. Mark my words!” Memories of Regis Philbin flooding my mind, I said, “I’m marking them!” (See, John Mayer? They’re marked. But will you deliver?) Off went the John Mayer band, and off went we to Austin. (“Let’s to Essex”, as my best girlfriend Viddy likes to say).
July 23 & 24 - Austin & Hoston:
A complete blur. I remember nothing. No offense to both fair cities, but all I saw was the guts of 2 arenas.
July 26 - New Orleans:
In the morning of our day off I hand washed some of my delicate clothing that I don’t like to send out to the laundry and hung it to dry around the room. I then headed out to see what I could see. Before long I found my way over to Bourbon Street, going in and out of the never ending tourist gift shops, trying on wigs and picking up New Orleans trinkets for my friends and family. I bought myself a coyboy hat. I took myself out for a blackened catfish lunch. I went down a sidestreet, sat down on a front stoop, phoned my mother-in-law and spoke with her for 45 minutes while the world went by. By dinner time I was still lurking about when suddenly I heard some of the crew guys calling to me from one of the Bourbon Street balconies. At the same time I ran into more crew guys on the street. We went into the bar to join them on the balcony and I discovered we were in the gay district. Dinner turned into spending the rest of the night gay bar hopping with a quick burger stop at a diner. We ducked in here, saw some drag shows there and generally cavorted about like slightly more mellow, older versions of the young tourist hooligans that fill that street at night. I went back to my room (at 10:30pm which felt much more like 2am) and tested the dryness of the morning’s wet laundry. Still slightly damp but certain to be dry by morning. Camping at the Ritz.
July 28 - Nashville:
We had a very good show in Nashville. Afterwards we were invited out to the Legends Bar by the Butterfly Boucher band, some of whom live in town. The bar was a number of blocks away from our hotel and I was particularly proud of finding my there alone with extremely limited directions, ie: “that way”. I was also greatly relieved that my judgment call in asking a man on the street if he knew the place and having him lead me into a dark deserted Nashville discotheque?! to consult more strange men, did not result in a scene similar to Bruce Willis’ unfortunate choice of shops to stumble into in “Pulp Fiction” (especially because the man I asked looked remarkably like Ving Rhames). I met up with Butterfly, her tour manager Roger, her drummer Shay, her keyboardist Buck and her boyfriend Dawson. Some of my boys showed up a few minutes later: Dave, Vince, Luke and Brian. It was a great little bar with a good band and country record covers all over the walls. My boys and I were the last of our bunch to leave. On the walk back a white limo stopped and the driver asked if wanted a ride. We just laughed but before we knew it Luke gave him $10 to take us back to the hotel and in we got. I recently heard a top bouncer say in an interview that he never trusts a white limo: true VIPs always ride in black. Case-in-point I suppose.
When we got back to the hotel I urged the boys to follow me down to the restored Art Deco Gentleman’s Bathroom I had checked out earlier in the day. It’s a thing of beauty that men and women are welcome to enter. Apparently a lot of photo sessions and music videos have taken place there. As soon as they saw it they flipped out. When I saw the four of them against the four toilets, four sinks and four latrines (in an amazing shade of green porcelain against black laquered walls and granite floors, shoeshine chairs on a platform and an old telephone), I turned into Annie Leibowitz and told them to plan their poses while I ran up to my room for my camera. When I returned they were all sitting on the toilets with their pants around their ankles. Beautiful. We then had a fantastic photo shoot. I will post the PG-rated ones on my website soon. I have to say that was the highlight of my whole trip thus far.
When I recounted this story to my folks they reminded me of the time my dad caught me at age 7 locked in the bathroom inspecting a boy from the neighbourhood, not totally of his own free will. Interesting...
The next day I went sightseeing and bought a number of prints from the famous Hatch Print Shop for my friends and family and one for me of Dolly Parton.
July 30 & 31 - Raleigh & Philadelphia:
Last night my good friend, very talented songwriter and Raleigh resident Dan Bryk (http://www.bryk.com) came to the show. He told me he would be bringing a surprise visiting guest from Toronto. This turned out to be another fab songwriter friend of mine, Chris Warren (http://wwwchriswarren.cc). I actually spotted him in the audience when the lights came up during “Possession” and nearly lost my place... We had a 30-minute visit after the show (too short!) and then had to drive off to Philly.
I stepped off the bus early this morning, eyes blinking, and nearly fell to the ground to protect myself from a landing aircraft. We’re at one of those hotels on the airport strip. Normally after our longish night drives I rifle through the room keys left for us on the bus by our wonderful band assistant Gail --- who graciously suffers her last name being caterwauled at high pitch by needy musicians for their own amusement, and whose birthday we celebrated yesterday with a cake brought into the dressing room moments before we took the stage last night in Raleigh, North Carolina, a clothing steamer in one of her hands and me in no underwear whatsoever trying to weave my way through 6 men and assorted crew singing Happy Birthday --- and fall right into a hotel bed for the second half of my night’s sleep before we have to go to soundcheck.
This day however I opted for breakfast. The Edmund/Miller * Family Reunion was in full swing at our hotel. Tens of men, women and children in proud red T-shirts had cultishly overrun the place. The breakfast buffet was a madhouse. After some finagling I was able to procure some food for Rose/Table-for-one/Breakfast Reunion. Hurdle # 2: the screechingly loud action cartoon playing on an overhead television (one of 8 about the restaurant). Seeing no hotel staff in my section, nor anyone from the Edmund/Miller clan specifically watching this program, I took my life in my hands, stood, reached up, lowered the volume and switched the station to the news. You would have thought I activated an air raid siren, or left it on a porn station. The voice of a large male Edmund/Millerian came down: “These kids were watching that,” he boomed, waving a breakfast sausage on a fork in the direction of some bored looking children. “You’re gonna wanna switch that back!”
“Everybody has to get along,” I half-shouted, prompting an Amen Chorus from a childless Red-Shirted table. Traitors; probably these same people would incur the scorn of the others by opting out of the 2-Legged Races and Sack-Hopping contests later that day. I restored the action cartoon minus the blaring volume. * * Somehow I managed to eat the rest of my breakfast in peace. So peaceful in fact, that when my waitress finally tumbleweeded back to my table, even she realised an epoch had passed and in turn, gave me a free breakfast. I left her a tip and scrammed.
Who knew you could get into so much trouble trying to eat the most important meal of the day? A meal before noon? It’s just not safe.
________________
* Some names have been (slightly) changed.
* * For the record: I love children. Want to have my own someday. Don’t love loud sci-fi action cartoons at 8am after 4 hours sleep on a tour bus. Would like to draw out my own family tree as a homework project on this tour. Would not necessarily like to gather them all up in matching T-shirts in a hotel on an airport strip anytime soon. They all know where to find me. Most of them have come around looking for free Sarah McLachlan concert tickets.
PS: Two more shows and we get to go home for 6 days! I haven’t seen my house since the end of June, nor my husband since July 14. Can I get an Amen? Thank you.
posted by Kathryn Rose (aka KR) at 4:15 p.m.
1 comments
