Emerson Hart was a fellow performer on the Train cruise, and I’d forgotten how amazing those hit Tonic songs really are. If You Could Only See, Open Up Your Eyes, You Wanted More, all very 90’s and very, very, most undoubtedly awesome. And he’s an underrated, still-crushing singer.
People lament the lack of rock music in the mainstream, and my response is, well, write songs as good as these.
Indulge some throwback this evening, my friends.
Tonight in Clearwater, a couple hours before showtime, I’m reasonably convinced my life’s not a sloppy, deplorable sham. It’s three weeks into this tour, and I’m tired, and all the familiar aches and pains are there, but this time accompanied by the warm embrace of inevitability, that whether or not my story included a detour in the actuarial sciences, whatever’s pulling the strings in the ol’ cosmic soup would’ve made sure I wound up, well, out here, singing and dancing and leaving the grownup shit to someone else.
The world seems particularly dark and foreboding when you’re marooned in the lobby of a drafty hotel and contemporary christian music’s nearby, but, in the light of day, Pensacola’s really not so bad.
It’s actually just the kinda place I dig - a little run down, everyone’s drunk, with a sardonic pride that accompanies living in an objectively shitty place, but it’s YOUR shitty place, and you, unasked for uppity douchebag, can fornicate right off to south beach.
The vaunted Pensacola Grand Hotel, in which I’m writing this, is self-described as possessing “old world charm,” which means it’s highly flammable and ever-so-slightly culturally insensitive. Christian Contemporary superstar Lauren Daigle and her thousand semi trucks are parked at the arena next door, and I’ve reconciled myself to the world’s saddest chicken salad sandwich and accompanying gastrointestinal discomfort. ‘Tis a silly place.
But my gallows humor’s a good sign, it means we’re a few weeks into a long run and I’ve still got my wits about me, romping all cathartically sardonic through life’s infinite preposterousness.
I missed a few days on account of performing on Train’s Sail Across the Sun Cruise, foolishly assuming a floating city in the 21st century would have functioning WiFi. But I’m back on terra firma, curiously sunburned, enjoying the peak of human civilization that is Ft. Lauderdale, playing a venue tonight that has, at various points, hosted every known venereal disease. Oh, the yin and yang.
There’re few things better than hard working artists enjoying a paid vacation, drunkenly ping ponging all over the place, phones in airplane mode, the omnipresent hustle redirected toward crooning Don’t Stop Believing along with the dining staff in the artist lounge.
It’s low hanging fruit ripping on a themed cruise - and I’m sure I will a little, at least playfully - but that aspect of the gong show’s a beautiful thing.
Every show of the tour so far’s been sold out, which is incredible, and entirely unforeseen by yours truly. If I’ve learned anything in my bajillion years hacking away at this thing, it’s that Nostradamus I am not.
There’ve been moments where I thought the Allen Stone Electric Mayhem Experience would become the biggest band in the world, and others where it seemed a foregone conclusion we’d implode. Every step of the way, I’ve been edifyingly wrong. It is, simply, what it is, and there’ll always be a bunk for me, if I want it.
And I’m realizing that, somehow, I have an actual career in music. I don’t want to do anything else, don’t need to do anything else, and have a sense of what I’m contributing to the continuum. I’m no longer wishing I was further along, richer, more famous, or anywhere other than where I am.
The song of the tour so far, for whatever reason, and one of my favorite live vocal performances. Devin Townsend continues to be an unending source of nerdy inspiration. The man’s playing prog metal at the Royal Albert Hall, for god’s sake.
Behold, the not-so-debaucherous life of a guy with no real world skills, pleasantly condemned to do this shit, in some form or another, for the rest of his life.
9 hours in the bunk on show days, 10 hours on days off.
drink more water than you previously thought possible.
Vitamins, vitamins, and jesus god more vitamins.
An hour of yoga before every show.
Regard the bottle of Jameson with a wistful smile, remembering the good times but also that one time you slept slumped against a vending machine in, jesus, Philadelphia? Better, sometimes, to surrender gracefully the things of youth.
Knowing that, at the end of a long tour, you’re a different person, and just who that dapper bastard might be you’re oh so eager to find out.
Here I am with engineer extraordinaire Zack Pancoast, in between takes at Sound Emporium in Nashville, right around this time two years ago.
During these sessions, there was a shape of a new record, hints even that it might be pretty good, but such is the nature of the old school music biz that it took until tonight to debut these songs in the city in which they came to life.
But the tunes are infused now with renewed vitality, courtesy of fans who’ve woven words and melodies into the fabric of their own omni-shifting worlds.
There are advantages to playing in a highly capable band. You can be tired, sick, hungover, beaten up from sleeping in a moving vehicle, missing your home, loved ones, partners, friends, lack a general sense of equilibrium or perspective on anything that’s not wearing a turtleneck and playing guitar, and goddammit none of it matters because these sons of bitches will carry you, nay drag you, to that perfectly aerated glass of vino tinto at the end of 82 minutes of soul/funk shenanigans, and perhaps a touch of purely medicinal jazz cabbage if one were hypothetically so inclined.
Come watch this highly capable band play. We’ll be on tour until the sun envelops the earth.
A fan on Allen’s social media commented that he enjoyed the Austin show very much, it was only sometimes boring, and “tell your guitar player he looks like the villain from Encino Man.”
Below is the villain from Encino Man. There is, I suppose, a passing resemblance, insofar as I’m burdened with a passing resemblance to any vaguely preppy white guy.
But below the villain from Encino Man is a photo taken this morning. Jealousy’s a normal human feeling. Embrace it.
And so it begins, show one of the Allen Stone Band 2020 Doing The Thing tour is officially underway! Andy Suzuki and the Method just hit the stage, and I’m tucked away all surreptitious-like in the corner, playfully feigning indignance that I’m not famous enough to be recognized but really just so happy to be here, still working, an improbable career in music continuing to evolve, my very own magnificent sloppy mess of improvised balderdash.
How can you tell it’s time to start a tour?
First, it’s important making the distinction between being ready versus it being time.
Readiness implies ample opportunity to build and rehearse a show, organize a trailer pack, and generally manage and/or anticipate all manner of logistical gymnastics. Being ready means you experience a pervasive feeling of calm as you greet the first show day.
It being time means that no matter how well you may or may not know the music, or how magnificently disorganized things inevitably are, anything’s better than spending another minute in the previously unimagined level of hell that is this goddamn rehearsal space.
I’ve never felt ready for a tour, but sweet merciful god is it ever time.
The greatest tour manager in the land, Ryan “Bear” Drozd, and Allen singing a duet in between runnings of the set.
As Bear easily can best me in a physical altercation, I agreed not to film it, but it was quite lovely, and we’re at a point now in the process where we’re letting in a little levity.
And we are. At least I think we are, as much as a brain reduced to sludge by twelve hour rehearsal days can think anything.
All I can tell you definitively right now is the lights flash, the band’s loud, and we’ll have a show of sorts ready by Friday. I hope. Austin’s sold out.
The omnipresent challenge from our over-qualified, inspiringly sardonic crew, and I accept.
We’re posted up at a lakeside compound on the outskirts of Austin, surrounded by Cocaine Cowboy mansions, billowing Lonestar flags, and herds of marauding deer interspersed amongst invasive species.
Texas is a vast, diverse, and profoundly confusing place, but writing this as I am on a gently undulating pontoon dock, utilizing in small talk what I’ve been led to believe is fishing lingo, I’m pretty content with my lil’ slice of it.
I’m reminded that I’m light years away from where I started with my Al Stone family, that I’m owed nothing, and I might be open to the challenge of subduing my restless mind long enough to enjoy it.
Al Stone rehearsals start tomorrow, and I promise I’ll have something edifying to report, but for now let this picture of Chris Martin from Coldplay and Till Lindemann from Rammstein remind you that friendship between soft rock and german industrial metal titans is possible, so stop complaining about Billie Eilish winning Grammys.
I’m taking a break from preparing for the upcoming Al Stone tour, which over the years has evolved into a disconcertingly relaxed process.
I spend most of my time drinking tea and listening through tunes, and won’t really pick up a guitar until I’m running stuff with the band. I’ll memorize chord changes, song forms, make note of dynamics, but we don’t recreate the records live, so unless it’s a signature moment, I’m not too invested in specific arrangements.
Al hasn’t sung and we haven’t played a lot of these songs since we recorded them, which is over a year ago now, so I’m curious to see how they’ll come to life.
I was writing something quite lovely and earnest while listening to the record below. Then I got distracted for about a half hour, on account of listening to the record below, and whatever lovely, earnest thing I was writing evaporated within my teleportation to Icelandic vistas and the lingering acridity that the chips fell where they did and I’m not in this band.
So, I’ll suggest instead that you listen to this record, with headphones.
