Now this is the type of routing I can go for all the time. We just have the short drive up to Sioux Falls,SD from Sioux City, IA. A mere conversation away. The drive is on a relatively flat plane here in the heartland of the Midwest. The sides of the Interstate here as usual are teaming with corn and soybeans. Later as we get going across South Dakota you start to see fields of sorghum. Made obvious by the dark reddish tops on their stalks. The drive is easy and I continue to speak my bad Japanese with Yoshi in an attempt to get it better for the upcoming Japan tour in Nov-Dec. I still have so far to go with my Japanese. I had originally given myself 5 years to attain a rudimentary grasp with this eastern language. That goal was extremely ambitious given that I wasn’t taking many lessons and I don’t live there. I do know how to read some but I’ve got to practice my writing more. I have a collection of about three to five hundred flash cards that I’ll pull out and read as I’m going down the road, much to my bandmates’ slight anxiety on occasion, and it takes me about a little over 2 hours to go through them all. Its good practice for me but speaking and conversing of course is the optimum medium I require right now. I’m helping Yoshi with his English too so we’re engaging in an endeavor that helps us both. You never realize the subtleties of your own tongue until you hear someone trying to learn it. All the little eccentricities start to gain your attention on the slight inflections and cadence that can drastically alter the meaning and intention you’re trying to convey. There I go being an anorak again. May my curiosity live on till I shuffle off this mortal coil.

We get into town and then we head down to load in. Old Skoolz is an intimate setting and shaped like a long rectangle. Stage size is more than adequate for our trio configuration so we get set up in no time. After checking the monitor system on stage so we’ll be able to hear, we go out to procure our food for the night. We come back for the show and the club is comfortably full and we snake our way through the constricted space between the people occupying the tables in front of the stage. Of course I see many of my returning fans that have turned into good friends over the years that I have been coming to this city in Eastern South Dakota. The Pomp Room being the first place I played here. Alas it’s gone now but the memories still live on. We start in on our first set and I turn my thoughts to trying out new ideas and melodies. So the band plays on….

The load out is a fast one and I get a short time to visit with my Sioux Falls friends. Everything is good here in the heartland and my friends look well. Once again I’m overcome at times with gratitude for all my fans and friends coming out to see me for all these years. It’s my responsibility to keep getting better as a musician so as to make it interesting and or entertaining to keep them coming out. Now I just need to write better songs to attract more people en masse. The never ending striving for artistic gratification keeps me going. I hope I never lose this feeling.

On to Sturgis tomorrow. ‘Heavy metal thunder!…’

We travel towards the west again and into the border area of Iowa and Nebraska for our show at the Hard Rock Café and Casino in Sioux City, IA. I know, why has the Hard Rock franchise decided to open here? I’m mean why not? People like fun and gambling and also a major player that can bring big entertainment acts to this part of the Midwest. Without me doing research on this subject of why, I should just enjoy it and revel that we’re doing a casino gig. I normally like casino gigs. Sound systems are always good, the rooms can be large but the apparatus and crew is almost always very pro and efficacious. The food will be good and more than likely the load-in will be a short and easy affair. My hunches were all confirmed when we got to the gig. Instead of the venue being within the structure of the casino, the venue had its own outside doors for easy load-in. A more than ample stage and a top notch PA system with a good crew all around. This was going to be fun. We loaded in and proceeded to set up then sound check and got the monitors dialed in for our show. Nice and loud on stage, the monitors were hitting me in the face with my guitar and vocal and the drums took up space by booming in the front of house PA that none was required in my mix. We thanked the crew when we were done and we went to claim our provided meal at their buffet. Food, food, food and more food was the spread here at the Hard Rock and we dove into it with zeal. I still have to always get me a fresh salad when the opportunity arises cuz’ I eat them all the time when I’m at home. Just veggies with virgin olive oil and salt n’ pepper on top. At home I do add a touch of sesame oil to add more complexity to the flavor. While in Italy almost 10 years ago our road manager would eat his salads this way; nothing but olive oil on it and so I’ve adopted his way and taken this method ever since. Nothing wrong with the rich dressings out there, just when it’s fresh veggies I’d like to concentrate on the flavor that each vegetable has to offer, and besides with Italy having just about the best olive oil in the world, it’s where I started my taste for fine virgin oil. Besides, the price of the good stuff can get very expensive depending on the source and region from whence the oil comes. Lots of times when I’m in Italy, if we go to the Cambria or Umbria area I have the promoters go and find me the best virgin olive oil in the region and they’ll bring me a couple of bottles. Then I’ll go buy like a baguette or some long loaf and I’ll just pour oil into it and eat it just like that as we roll down the road. Since I don’t have to drive while in Europe that frees me up to indulge in my oil and bread or to read something that has to do with the country. Last time I was in Italy I brought along Goethe’s Travels in Italy book and related his experiences with mine at the time. Funny, Goethe actually thought the Tower of Pisa was intentionally made with a lean to it. He said it makes the tower stand out more amongst the other buildings and gives it more character. Pablo Picasso had the same analogy with some paintings he had in his place. One large painting he had hanging in his living room was purposely set at an angle. You know, the kind of angle where some of us couldn’t stand to see a picture like that and would go to straighten it out, but Pablo told his friend not to do such a thing, ‘People will notice the frame of a painting more than the painting sometimes, when you hang it at an angle, you see the painting better and don’t notice the frame.’

We finish this part of our day and head to our hotel over across the bridge into Nebraska to prepare ourselves for the show. You know the usual; clothes and changing of the strings and maybe just a bit of warming up the fingers for our gig. Another good thing about nice casinos is that the dressing room facilities are usually pretty good and it’s no exception here. Plus it gets back to the old school days where someone comes to us and tells us 5 minutes before show time and all. That service also comes with the bigger venues as well so it’s a nice respite from the more straight-up clubs that we play.

We ascend and the crowd isn’t too bad. I mean it’s a big room and it takes a lot to fill this place up but it’s not such a bad showing. We rip into our show and start down our musical road till the end of the gig. The load out is quick and we do a bit of sales at the merchandise table and I’m happy to still be playing here in Sioux City after all these years and venues later, The Salt Cellar in KD Station, (which by the way used to be a porcine abattoir), The Ickey-Nickle with the golf driving range that we’d occasionally go and whack some drives and the few other places I’m currently playing in the area. What is important is that I’m still here and I’ve still got wonderful fans and friends that come out to see me.

Still, I am the luckiest man alive.

With the hot sun of late July beating down upon the heartland of America, we venture westward towards Iowa. Tall stalks of corn reach towards their life giving sun rays in long vast horizons giving the landscape a fecund virescence as far as the eye can see. Not to be outdone by the stately corn stalks, the humble but proud soybean whose stature might not be as majestic as their kernel cohabitants but equal in their uses other than the dinner table. Yoshi marvels at the sight of these green chlorophyll seas because Japan, albeit with their own capacity to produce crops, has not the space or expanses as vast as America’s on such a repeating level. After all one only has to get beyond the ridge or hill line of this view of crops to be met by another then another and on and on and so forth. So goes the Midwest. We arrive in Waterloo by late afternoon, our home for the next 3 days, and settle into the downtown hotel. Seems Waterloo, not its original name, was Prairie Rapids Crossing until the Post Office came to town and the name Waterloo was chosen for the station name. Thus the town then adopted the Post Office Station name in 1851 less than a decade after the first families settled in this area. With the abundance of land for raising crops and animals, an agrarian economy and lifestyle took hold. Soon manufacturing and industries related to these operations moved in, namely farm equipment and meat packing plants. Rath Packing Company was one of the major employers of the time. I used to remember the hot dogs Rath put out back in my days of youth. They closed up in the 80’s but the John Deere factory is still a dominate fixture in the Waterloo economy. The streets of the town are charming and there appears to be a comeback and a vibrant entertainment district across the Cedar River close to our hotel. That’s where our gig is.

We get to the Screaming Eagle across the river and not but a quarter mile from us, if even that far. It’s      an outside event this day and we inquire inside as to where we should set up. ‘Out there,’ says a bartender inside, hmm,…still dealing with bartenders taking on all duties. Curious though, I wonder if he’s our sound man? Gathering myself back up we start to unload out on the curb but we’re later informed by the sound company that has pulled up, that our area is actually in the middle of the street on one of the four-sides of the intersection. Our stage is the asphalt. My feet will be tired tonight if I’m to carry on in my usual fashion of moving and stomping about while I play. We set up and I’m at least happy that we’re facing east and we shan’t be squinting in the sun as it goes down during our performance. Yes I’d love to be able to don a pair of rocking sunglass to complete my appearance but unless I have an elastic band to affix them on my head, I otherwise just end up casting them off with my head movements whilst I play. We finish preparing our stage and after a short sound check of the system we’re ready to play. A small crowd gathers up in front of the stage as we start and it takes just a bit of getting used to the sound of the stage. The PA set-up is what we would normally see in an enclosed stage setting; monitors in front of us with two columns of speakers on the sides for the crowds ears. No side-fills, this isn’t that large of an event, but being outside, the lack of surfaces around us in close proximity prevents reflection and retention of the sound waves close to us and thus the waves are diffused rather quickly. It can be a bit thin on the bass end and it’s that I’m adjusting to. Doesn’t take me long and soon after we start to find our groove and proceed to step-on-the-gas to ramp up our efforts. I’ve been coming to this area of Iowa since the very early 90’s and I still see some of the fans and staff from Steb’s. The club I first started playing in the neighboring town of Cedar Falls, IA. Steb’s was so endeared by the many who attended it over the years. To this day it is still held in high regard within the memories of the staff, locals and with the many students who were passing through getting an education at the University of Northern Iowa; UNI. Steb’s has been long gone now but like I said, its legacy lives on.

The owner of the Screaming Eagle, Ivan Weiland, has been a long-time fan and saw me back in the Steb’s days. He’s always wanted me to play for him in some capacity or another. From his humble origins growing up in a barely middle class family to being a dishwasher in clubs and restaurants and now owning several businesses in the area. A true American story of hard work and opportunity. He’s still a young guy, younger than me, and we found him to being gracious and accommodating to our needs and desires to giving him the best we could do. I’d work for him any day. The show was a blast and my feet, although I know in the morning will let me know just how hard I pounded them on the streets, were still working fine as we packed up and said good-bye to our friends and CDG family that came out to this show. Iowa has always been good to me and it all started in the Cedar Falls/Waterloo area. Another place I will never forsake in my musical career. So long as I can play and as long as they’ll want to see and hear me, I’ll be coming here to do just that.