10 days, 16 songs, 10,000 gallons of coffee. It’s going to take me a day or two gathering my thoughts, and I’ll be gushing about Ty, Jay, Al, Swat, Zack, Eddie and Jamie for the next several posts. Consider yourself warned.

But, today, I’m experiencing the all-too-familiar post tour/session come down. Every musician reading this knows what I’m talking about.

Everything we do in the Al Stone Band’s kinda a lot. Crazy energetic exchanges, marathon shows, intense travel and generally being all up ons 24/7. It’s difficult, crash landing back home after all that looniness. I used to experience gnarly depression post tour, walking up and down grocery store aisles all zombie-like, shoveling ketchup into my shopping cart and lamenting the lack of pyrotechnics while starting my Corolla. After a few too many Howard Hughesian moments, I realized I needed to soften my landing back into reality. Now, after every tour (or crazy recording session, in this case), I treat myself to a stay-cation. A couple more nights with higher thread count sheets, a few more plates of hipster food and generally experiencing my hometown as a lucky traveler might. After 48 hours or so, I’m ready to fully decrescendo, buy new pots and pans from Costco and maybe a hat (not from Costco).

I’ll be posted up at an undisclosed hipster hotel for the next few nights, reading, writing, listening to music, luxuriating in a jacuzzi tub and, if I’m feeling decadent, eating some mini-bar gummy bears. Lots of cool shows worth checking out, too. I’m grateful to be doing the thing, whatever the thing is exactly, 'cause the thing won’t thing itself, after all.