I consider myself a reasonably dialed in kind of asshole. It turns out, though, there’s this German band called Seeed. Heard of ‘em? Yeah, me neither. They’re popular in Germany, as it happens. When I say popular, I mean laying cities to waste like King fucking Kong, a Godzilla/Mothra love child of a live band. [...]
So we’re in Denmark with an unexpected day off, and it’s snowing. Not the “fuck you, I’m going to turn into brown, disgusting sludge and ruin your day” snow, or the “I’m going to punish all the moose in the Yukon” snow. It’s the winter wonderland varietal, lightly falling on peaceful streets. The giant snowflakes [...]
We’re playing a sold out show at Dingwall’s in London, and I’m having one of those mind-wandering moments on stage. These can be great- you know the tunes, they’re engrained in your fingers, you could be fighting a silverback gorilla on stage with your bare hands and still make the Running Game transition- generally, you [...]
It’s a beautiful morning in Wherever the Hell We Are. Wyoming? It’s early by touring musician standards, around 10am, and I’m settled into my usual morning perch, in the captain’s chair next to Leroy at the front of the bus. Carving out some solitude on the road is tough, and I’ve found what works [...]
I’m drinking Jagermeister with two close friends at Miller’s, a dive bar in Charlottesville VA where Dave Matthews used to bartend. It’s a pilgrimage of sorts, albeit a convenient one (the bar’s half a block down from the venue). Downtown Charlottesville is beautiful, organized along a mall that’s quaint in all the right ways, and [...]
It’s 2 AM in Baltimore. We’ve just wrapped up an awesome show at Soundstage, and Mark Sampson and I are posted up outside the tour bus watching the passing parade. The venue’s situated where there are about forty five bars in a two blocks radius, so the passing parade’s quite entertaining. Baltimore’s a city [...]
Here we are in the beautiful-ish city of Philadelphia, the first official date of our headlining tour. We’ve been out for about a month now, but it hasn’t felt like being on tour, honestly. I’m catching myself about to write how eating four star DMB catering establishes a false sense of identity, that I hate [...]
We’re in the basement green room at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. Our last gig with Dave Matthews Band just wrapped up, and a congratulatory mood is pervasive amongst the team. Iconic jazz guitarist Stanley Jordan, who’s just sat in with DMB, has the adjoining green room and joins us for a drink. [...]
I’m lying down in front of our dressing room, back stage at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Irvine CA, attempting to do some yoga. I’m new to this discipline, so I’m fumbling around with an appropriate ineptness, eventually contorting myself into what could charitably be called Downward Dog. Dave Matthews, rocking cargo shorts and a [...]
I’m eating Korean food in the U District a few days before leaving on tour for three months, and these are my chopsticks. My first impulse is to be offended. Clearly, the dumb, inept white dude can’t use chop sticks- let’s send him a patronizing message veiled in encouragement, one that conveys the depth of [...]