Tour, Day 32 – Seattle Practice Space

Back to the Music

Two of my goals for this tour were to become a better performer and to get a sense for how compelling my music is. I have absolutely been able to learn a lot in both of these areas. One of the challenges, however, due to so much driving and cramming so many shows into such a short time, has been putting what I’ve learned into practice. For weeks, I’ve wanted to lock myself in a room and make some revisions to how I’m playing some of the songs that I think are strong, add in some new songs and try new instruments and arrangements. As I drove through Oregon and Washington, I made calls to several band rehearsal studios in Seattle and finally found one that had a room free at a reasonable rate for a two-day rental. The prospect of actually being able to set up all of my equipment in one place got me very excited as I pulled into Seattle.

That said, the building was a complete shit hole, as many band rehearsal buildings are. It reminded me of a less clean version of the space my Radio Mango band mates and I shared at Superior Street Studios in Chicago, though the common areas in this building were much worse. My actual room was quite filthy and still had drum sticks jutting out of the walls in various places where the previous tenants had jammed them into the drywall (WTF?). The rooms weren’t sound-proofed so you could hear endless drum soloing coming from two rooms down adjacent hallways and you could hear – and feel – the sludge/black metal band on the other side of the floor bringing the hate full on.

Nonetheless, it was still great to be able to make my own noise. That first day I stayed there 12 hours straight. Since the tour began, I had worked harmonica into my repertoire. While in the space, I worked on incorporating the loop pedal I had recently bought, my keyboard and some electronic track sequencing. I hoped to use all of these in the final North American show in Vancouver on Sunday night. I also was able to write a new piano-based song titled, “Little Bird.” I’m very excited about it and will post it to the site as soon as I make a demo.

That night, I got to hang out with a college friend, Cam Caldwell, who has been living in Seattle for about 6 years. I hadn’t seen Cam in 10 years or so. He happened to also be at the wedding in Maui, so we ended up seeing each other twice in one week after such a long hiatus. I had a few beers with him and his friends next to a fire pit in one of his friend’s backyards, which was great. Chilly at night here, even in the summer. We talked a bunch about the weather – how the eastern half of Washington is hot and dry almost all the time while the western half is cool and wet – and ultimate frisbee, which they all played together. They told me about some big UF tournament, where a team played quasi-naked. I have to go to one of these events sometimes. The people that play UF seriously sound half-bent.