This is the last stop on this two week run. Newport, Kentucky. You can really just consider this an outlying city or town that comprises the Cincinnati metro area. The architecture of the homes looks almost urban colonial style with their narrow length and two to three stories of floors. I’d think I was in a city in the northeast if it wasn’t for the empty thin strips of space between each house. Enough space to accommodate a car but not always utilized for this purpose. Most of the small downtown shops and bars are made of brick too, another indicator of their antiquity. Where the venue is located, the Southgate House Revival, it’s right in downtown and I notice there is a profusion of little bars around the neighborhood as well. Most still have their 50’s style art-deco sign with some still with operating neon accents and outlines. I know this because I took a slight walk after our sound check. The ‘Brass Ass’ was my favorite for a namesake. The sign had the word ‘Brass’ in capital letters on a vertical plane with the picture of a donkey or ‘Ass’ at the intersecting circle on the bottom and all highlighted in neon too. The sign was vintage 50’s or 60’s with a bit of wear n’ tear on it but working and legible nonetheless. I felt silly because as I was viewing all of these bars deciphering and guessing at some of the coy names given to these varied establishments, I kept thinking, brass mule, brass donkey, which both I thought were totally suitable for a bar name, but when I got close I saw it written on some notice in their window, the Brass Ass. I thought ‘Of course!’ silly me, a much better marketing name.

As I said before, the venue is an old Methodist church that was purchased and made into a multi-roomed live music complex. I know with the use of the word complex it kind of bespeaks certain modernity to the building as if the ‘ex’ on the end gives it a corporate ‘veneer’ in your imagination of it. Not so, although the church is rather large, the owners are definitely not corporate. They’re just music lovers with pragmatism and methods at economic efficacy. The main room, the Sanctuary, is of course what you would envision when one mentions a church. With its large spacious room, sans pews, and high ceilings and its original stained glass windows positioned down the lengths of the sides telling various stories from the Bible, it’s a beautiful room. Also included is the original pipe organ situated in the rear of the room. The owner told me that the organ is listed on a historic registry of pipe organs that still reside in their original location. It’s never been moved once it was built and placed there. The owner informed me of this information as I questioned her while the Bottle Rockets were setting up their sound check. (If CDG fans remember, Robert Kearns, a former occupier of the bass chair in my group during the Love > Me days. He now has held the Sheryl Crow gig the past two plus years. Robert was in the Bottle Rockets) It was also told to me the doings of all the acoustic work that was done in the big room to kill the natural echoes and sound bouncing of the waves. I’ve played in some gymnasiums and other venues that weren’t originally intended for loud amplified modern systems and you get an actual delay or echo that will just nauseate you if listened to for an extended period of time. The acoustic panels are placed all over the room, on the roof and down the sides and in the back to absorb these bouncing waves so their projection is just forward and then dies. Accoutrements of the sort, the panels, are not cheap and this room has quite a few but the owners, being economically minded, this is the live music biz, a proven money vortex or worm-hole where you money disappears into another dimension not located in your bank account, researched how the panels were made and then bought the materials and made the panels themselves. I was impressed. The Bottle Rockets sounded great with their Americana songs and the panels were doing their job; the room sounded great. I leaned down into the venue matriarch’s ear, ‘One day…’ She knew what I meant and she said, ‘Get some people to your shows and we’ll put you in here.’

The other of the two stages is located in the bar that services the main room I was just in. Everything from rock bands to acoustic singer/songwriter to what else; Bluegrass bands, we are in Kentucky after all, plays this room and its capacity is probably around a hundred to a hundred and fifty if you stuff it. No permanent PA so each band has the responsibility to bring their own and the one tonight’s band just dragged in is a ‘PA on a stick’ set-up. Our room is upstairs of course. I was told that the room we’re playing in is actually the original church and the big room was added on rather than the other way around as the normal convention of thinking would assume but it makes sense as a congregation grows so does the room they pray in. Upstairs is called the Revival room and you can really get the vibe of that. The room does have an old style stage in there, one you can imagine an elementary school play is presented on, and it does have a permanent PA with it. We’re obviously the second-tier band on the bill and although the room isn’t that large, there is a bar up here so one does not have to venture downstairs and then attempt to carry drinks upstairs. I’d say it’s about the same capacity as the little downstairs room. The stage size is comfortable for our trio set-up and we finish our sound check and wait for our time to hit the stage. I have to really reflect on my technique because my left ring finger has a hole on the tip from me playing so hard the past two weeks and wearing right through the layers of skin. The layer that lays exposed is just raw and red and tender and the tip is slightly swollen too so now any amount of pressure applied on the tip is a bit painful, well really it’s an annoying pain. It’s the kind of pain that makes you pull your hand back as if in a flame or from sticking a sharp object in it like a sewing needle while stitching something up. I can’t even practice during the day cuz’ I have to save it and let it toughen up and heal but the pain is coming, no doubt about it. The solace I take is that the pain somewhat subsides after about 3 or 4 songs but it’s a pain that has to be endured and experienced. No way around it. It can be unsettling and it interrupts your thought process. I’ve done this many times but it never ever gets easier.

We start and I’m not having an easy time and even though the pressure pain will subside a bit, you still have to avoid that hole in my finger cuz’ that’s where the real bell ringer of pain is. The gig is having disastrous effects on my playing and I’m growing a bit frustrated with my hindrances. I then make a horrendous mistake while playing ‘Fire’ and jump to the middle solo instead of going to the ‘Move over and let Jimi..’ part, yeah let me take over and make a hash out of this. It’s embarrassing and I show my obvious frustration after the song is done by throwing my pic down on the stage. I manage to get through the next songs and I’m starting to come out and regain some kind of control of my normal faculties. With my confidence growing, I start trying to connect up my emotional side with my thought process side and the merger is getting easier and the natural flow is beginning to come. By the time we get to ‘Sundown Blues’ I’m back to trying modal attempts off a certain scale and also mix in different rhythmic phrases using John’s drumming to contrast to. Sometimes it works and it flows with good results, and sometimes it’s a bit of a jumble. John and I have to be kind of on the same page and tonight’s OK. We have better but we’ve had worse too, we’re only human. If we were a cover band and played the same thing every night it would be one thing but we’re not and at the level I’m at right now, playing like a gypsy band from town to town and able to express myself differently because this level affords me that luxury, I take full advantage of this. I’m always trying to learn to expand my horizons in my music and technique. That’s why I do this; to improve on my axe. But if we were playing big halls on a tour supporting someone big, you bet your ass I’d have a show together. It sounds boring but this has to be done. I’ve tried it the ‘free-form’ way and it doesn’t project to the back rows on a consistent level. You’ll have some good nights but not consistently. You have to be consistent on the bigger stage to take advantage of the opportunity you’re given by playing to larger audiences in the support role because for the most part the majority of people there didn’t come to see you play so you have to leave an impression of the professional somewhat polished kind. But for now I can let my Freak Flag wave and enjoy the station I currently occupy. The gig ends on an emotional high point and we play ‘People Say’ for the encore and this song is getting better too.

Not a bad way to end the tour. We return home on Saturday, we all comment how weird it feels to not be playing tonight but it happens, and as I write the last blog from this tour today I can start to get into a practice regiment because I’ve given my finger a rest and it felt fine with the little bit of playing I did last night while watching Kenneth Branagh’s ‘Hamlet’.

It’s back to work for me because I still want to be better. Even after all these years and gigs played, I still think I have a long, long way to go in expressing myself musically. The metronome will be busy today. Till next time and always play from the Heart. – chris duarte

 

I’m up and so is the Beast across the street. With its insatiable appetite for industrial sustenance the wheels and cogs of industrial output go on. Maybe the economy is doing good if the world still needs that many satellite dishes. Huh, who knew? It’s keeping people employed and I’m all for that. We’re in the van and its back on the road for us. Au revoir Burlington and to the great corn state of Iowa, so we head back on Hwy 34 east to I-74 east and into Indianapolis. We’re also seeing the annual migrations of birds heading back north. Today the weather is quite pleasant and it looks normal for them to head north but there were a few days at the beginning of this tour where it was looking and feeling like the dead of winter and there the birds were heading north in long spindly undulating skeins and you just know there’s got to be at least one bird trying to be the voice of reason, ‘Hey Y’all, I don’t know it’s still pretty cold up here (flap flap) and the ground hasn’t gotten any browner. (flap flap) If anything it’s getting whiter down there. (flap) Can’t we just stop and relax until it’s at least above freezing?’(flap flap flap)… The internal clock is a powerful pull in all of nature. Oh yeah, it’s also pretty cool that I see a bald eagle here and there now. I was 44 years of age when I saw my first bald eagle in the wild. It was actually on my 44th birthday too. Albeit I mainly lived in the southern regions where they are scarce and the species was making it’s comeback from the dark widespread days of DDT usage which through the passing down in the food chain was shown to significantly weaken the shells of eggs laid and then with the minority of people actually shooting the birds to protect livestock plus loss of habitat and other variables. The times were not good for the bald eagle in the late 60’s and for most of the 70’s. Happy to report they are making a healthy comeback.

The Slippery Noodle is a famous club on the circuit with a good restaurant included in the biz. With its high stage and upper and lower seating layout it can surely be a rocking place when filled to capacity in the room the bands play in. Tonight we hear from the owner’s son, Josh, that the phone has been really ringing and they’re expecting a pretty good night. As we take the stage, the bottom is completely filled and there’s a few people lining the rail upstairs so we definitely have a bigger crowd compared with our last gig. The playing arrangement is a bit different too; three 60 minute sets. Just when you’re getting on a roll and as we start to warm up we have to take a break. I do get to sell merch for two spans of times so there is a small silver lining. All things being normal we adjust to the time configuration aptly and it allows us to be really intense for the ‘hard-cores’ who hang on for the last notes. Tonight I front end loaded the first two sets with mostly blues and saved the last set for the ‘wild’ unconventional songs that have my ‘crazy notes’ that I spin and weave. Once again the night ends with me going totally overboard in my attempts to channel some kind of Coltrane spirit and evocations from my guitar. Listening to the drums laying down a thunderous pad I go back and forth from lyrical lines to furious emotional spurts thinking of the tensions in respect to the root key of the song. I know I’m probably a sight to see with me bending up and down and stomping my foot and at times singing out loud with the slow lyrical lines. I have no idea what I’m doing at the time because I am all in with my mind body and soul to the musical moment on stage. I am on an internal journey. The landscapes I see in my head are made solid in my eyes by the sounds that come into my ears. Only when the last note is played and the sound ceases do I return to this world I mostly move through. I know that sounds dramatic but that’s what I think about and what I see when I play. Really
One more night to go and it’s just a short drive to Newport, KY. An old church is what I’ve seen. I pray for a good show to end this tour. We shall see….

We turn our collective gaze to the west and nearly repeat the route we traveled yesterday save but 100 miles or so. I’ve traveled this road system so much the past 20 years that all I have to do is take a glance at the map and I’ll get us in the area of our destination. Of course I’m not perfect and I do make the occasional wrong turn and misdirection, which doesn’t go unnoticed by my bandmates with a few gibes and cracks, but rest assured I will find the mark and we will arrive safely too. So it’s off and on our way.

Arriving early we check into our modest motel, a Super 8, and while I’m sitting in my room I notice there’s this ‘BANG…BANG…BANG’, about every 1.5 seconds. Not really loud but an unmistakable industrial banging. It never stopped and as inquired down at the front desk, it’s coming from a satellite dish manufacturer. It’s got to be some kind of pressing contraption cranking that stuff out. It wasn’t even noticeable after I turned my AC unit on the fan setting so that covered it quite nicely. It’s just another quirk on the road.

On the itinerary it has the appointed load-in time so we depart with that in mind. Upon arriving in beautiful downtown Burlington and pulling around the side where the load-in door is we bang for a while on the metal doors but to no avail. No one is there. Well, we’ll just take a gander at some of the shops around town and then come back to the club about an hour before we play.

Burlington was like stepping back into the late 70’s mid 80’s. Not the most economically robust of places but a charm all to its own nonetheless. I did go in this Art Gallery shop and a couple of the paintings did look good but just a bit pricey for me. I’ll pass. I do have a number of original paintings hanging on my walls and one that is a Van Gogh copy of ‘Café Terrace at Night’ that I bought on the streets of Paris for like $30, then I went and picked out a frame 30 times the money I paid for the painting. Damn good looking I must admit but not one of my most thought out choices. Anyway we head back to the hotel and chill and get ready for our return.

We return an hour before show time at The Washington and they’re ready for us now. We set up in the usual manner and within 30 minutes we’re ready to go with sound check completed. The club here likes for me to play really quiet so I do my best to adhere to their request. It’s a different thing to play at a low volume. I really have to make adjustments with technique and I approach it in a different way. It can be done but it’s a gradual thing when I have to do it. I can’t just snap into quiet mode like that. We are doing well though despite our restrictions and the crowd, although light tonight, is really enthusiastic and it’s their enthusiasm that we feed off of. We give em’ two sets of wildness and one encore and we’re done. A different show for sure but we made the most of it.

Back at the hotel I notice the banging is still going on and when I look out my window towards the sound, I can now see inside the factory because the big window on the side of the building has reversed its visible properties and now since the light is brighter in the interior it’s one-way viewing is opposite. Even better, I see the big machine that is making all the noise. It’s a huge RV size rectangle and in the middle portion of it there moves this large yellow block-like assembly up and down with a corresponding ‘Bang’ at the bottom of the movement. I watch it for a while as if in a slight trance and awe for there it is – the beast that bangs out its mighty roar. As all around it, the Beast’s minions are feeding it and taking its refuse on the other end. Soon at the stroke of 12:30 or so the Beast retires for the night and sleeps while its minions prepare the Beast’s food for the next shift. Sleep well mighty Beast…….’BANG…..bang….bang….bang….’ I drift off to sleep….

On our day off for travel we left to go east towards Indiana after doing our last show in Iowa. A bit of good Samaritan-ship was offered before we left town. While going back to our hotel, cuz’ I left something in my room, we came upon a man who was having a seizure on the side of the street. If anyone has seen someone have a full on seizure it can be a disturbing sight. With extremities held out against gravity contorted and rigid, it makes you feel helpless when trying to render aid to alleviate what obviously appears to be a suffering of some sort. Another woman had stopped her car in the street and I had parked the van and gotten out as well. We both stood there and really just made sure he was safe cuz’ after all he was in the street. Don’t take the advice from Hollywood on what to do when someone has an epileptic like seizure, like inserting something in their mouth or holding them down, just make sure they’re in safe conditions to let the seizure ride out. Remember, Hollywood is there to present drama and action. Even reality shows are staged. So we called 911 while the both of us stayed with the man while he went through what seemed like a long time but really was only about 2 minutes of contractions. After that he slowly started to come around but we assured him he was safe and that help was on the way and to just stay calm and don’t get up. I remember the sun was high in the sky and behind my back and as he was coming around I would position myself to shield his face from the glare, in other words casting a shadow across him so as to lessen the stress of this bright light coming into his awakening consciousness. Another man stopped and the woman had to get to work so we stayed with the recovering man till the Emergency Techs arrived. We answered a few questions and apprised the ET’s of the events and then let them do their job. It’s reassuring for me to help out someone in need so as my faith in humanity stays strong even while I’m going through a bit of a tough time in my personal life. With that now concluded I retrieve my things and we venture on to Indiana.

So the club we play is called Beer Geeks. The club’s calling card is its huge selection of special beers and ales and all of the sorts. I never drank much and beer was really way down on my priority list in learning but there is a huge following of avid beer drinkers for the epicurean and refined palates. It’s a small room but we’ve managed to sell out the venue so we’re excited about that. There is no stage but rather an open area where a band can be accommodated and it’s within that assigned perimeter that we set up in. After getting used to the PA and the aural lay-of-the-land we start our show with the ‘Lucky 13 trio’ of songs; Trane’, Ain’t Gonna Hurt No More and Angry Man. After that is varies.  I’ll probably be doing this same start-up for maybe a month or so while the new album is still a bit fresh. I can feel in my fingers the day off drive from yesterday and I’m striving to get back to the point I was at when I last played this past Sunday. By the second set I’m starting to feel the connection come back and I start pushing myself in new directions. It was good to see some of my old and true fans at the club because Beer Geeks is basically a far reaching suburb of the great Chicago metro area. It’s not a far drive to downtown Michigan Ave, but as Chicago might be known as the ‘Second City’, it was my ‘First City’ in popularity when Texas Sugar was riding high. I headlined ‘Park West’ a couple of times; even once almost selling it out. It was quite the ride. I still have a bit of a following but I don’t play Chicago proper enough to have maintained that esteemed level I used to have so it was gratifying to see some of those fans from those days. I hope I’m still as good as they remember. By the end of the show there’s still a good crowd hanging on for the last notes and I have a long visit at the merch’ table and with a few people before I could start to pack up my stuff. This night had more than just music to feed my soul, it was also about reconnecting with my stalwart fans and friends from days past and we all know that’s good for the heart too.

I still love what I do. I’m so Lucky. Now back to Iowa…

Sioux City Iowa is next on the itinerary. I’ve watched this town grow the past 20 plus years I’ve been playing here. It actually is the home of Sioux Bee Honey. Many a morning I remember looking at the lovely Native America/Tinkerbell girl donning the outside of a honey jar while eating breakfast growing up. We’ve played many clubs here but now we’re playing the Chesterfield off the downtown area. When you come into town from the south up I-29 you see a tall obelisk on the right upon a hill and that’s a tribute and memorial to Sgt. Floyd. Sgt. Floyd was the only person in the Louis and Clark expedition to die. It happened pretty much near the beginning of the mission. It wasn’t some shoot-out or anything of that dramatic nature, he unfortunately just got sick according to Clark, the assigned physician on the expedition but modern physicians and historians agree it was probably appendicitis. I know this cuz’ I read about the L&C Expedition. Fascinating journey, it’s amazing that they made it back all intact sans one member and they only had one violent altercation with the Native Americans. A testament to the level headedness and pragmatism of the men Jefferson chose to lead such a daunting journey.

Anyhoo, we enter the city and set up. The Chesterfield is a long and narrow club with the stage at the very back of the layout. It opens up into the performance room and the PA is more than ample too. After running through a few things we strike what we can for the opening band. Leave em’ a little room. We’re not stingy with stage room, if we can accommodate those guys we do. I have had run-ins with ‘difficult’ bands before when I’ve been the ‘pesky opening band’ but you can’t take it personally and you just have to take it as the station you occupy. We get to the club and it’s a fine showing of fans. The room has a lot of people in it and we rip into our show. Go for the jugular is what I say and give em’ a ‘left-right-uppercut’ to wake the people up. Sometimes we’re just relentless in our shows and it does produce the aural fatigue factor so we thin out the herd at times and tonight was one of these nights. All that was left near the end of the show were the ‘hard-cores’. God luv’ em’. It was another good night in the books and we’ll be traveling to Cedar Rapids tomorrow.

Till then…

Aaah a Zip Zoom and I Wake Up!, Do my exercising for the morning and clean up and in the van we go for the moderate drive to Kansas City, Mo. Weather is starting to warm up so you can feel the seasonal change in the air. Knucklehead’s is a great venue. Located literally right next to some railroad tracks, you often get trains coming by but due to the switching and loading up from a nearby rail yard, the trains are usually coming by at less than 20 miles an hour. They have to blow their horn due to the crossing out on the back street from the club so during the summer months they will rumble through while the band is on stage contributing to whatever song is being played. Often times when trains come near the end of the song I start to work in its sonic properties with the song I’m playing and attempt to make art of the horn and the low frequency rumbling and hum. It can be pretty cool with an industrial edge to it. But being early March and it’s a bit nippy outside we’ll be in the more insulated confines of the interior of the club on the other stage. Knucklehead’s is also run and owned by Frank. He’s a fan of the 3 Stooges and he’s a Harley rider so the name all falls into place. I always have fun when I play here.
We load in and go through a couple of things then we yield the stage to the opening band.

We’ll then just hang-out at the club in their spacious green room located upstairs above the stage. When it’s our time to play we go down and prepare our equipment again and start the show. The show starts and we’re having a bit of trouble with the monitors but for the most part we soldier through this temporary shortcoming and focus in on the songs and our abilities at hand. It’s a really good crowd that’s shown up for tonight and I’m pleased to see I still have a good fan base here in KC. I’ve been playing KC since the late 80’s when I started coming here with Jr. Medlow and the Bad Boys back at the Grand Emporium. Plus some of my first tattoos that I got were inked on me right across the street from the Emporium. All my ink is on my torso so unless I take off my shirt you wouldn’t know I have any. It’s another fun show and getting to see a lot of my longtime friends and fans is gratifying. We’re all still here, some aren’t but that’s nature. I won’t forget them and I can never forget Kansas City.
Next stop; Sioux City, Iowa…

What’s not to like about Omaha? If it’s just cold weather you’re not fond of well then that’s a small list to hold up against this fine town in the heartland of America. Let’s see, we all remember as kids watching ‘Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom’ with Marlon Perkins on Sunday afternoons. Marlon, an actual zoologist, with his mild voice and disarming avuncular looks brought many animals in their natural settings into our homes every week. We can’t forget about Marlon’s co-host and sidekick Jim Fowler. When it was time to wrestle an alligator or wrangle with an anaconda it was Jim Fowler who drew the short straw. Also, Omaha is the home of the Union Pacific Railroad, one of the original train lines out of the two that constructed the famed Intercontinental railroad by meeting the Pacific Central line upon Promontory Summit in Utah with the ‘driving of the Golden Spike’ that connected railroad transportation for the first time from coast to coast. There’s also the College World Series and the Doorly Zoo, etc. I’ve been playing Omaha since the early 90’s before Tx. Sugar came out down at the Howard St. Tavern. We’ve been playing there ever since. There are many attributes and memories here in Omaha.

Another languid easy drive up US 75 out of Topeka, we set out on our way. The 21^st Saloon has been in Omaha for quite some time now. It was Murphy’s when I first started playing there and then it changed to the 21^st Amendment, the one that repealed the 18^th on the Constitution, (a bit of ‘rye’ humor no doubt), and it’s here that in conjunction with the Omaha Blues Society we play a kind of ‘Happy Hour’ show with our start time being 6pm. A surprisingly spacious club on the inside with the stage being in the middle of a rectangle layout on one of the long sides so you can have people on three sides on the stage. We’ve held on to a core fan base here and even now some fans that still attend shows all the way back from the Howard St. days. After we loaded in and I went out to move the van, the engine refused to crank and all that you heard was the tell-tale sound of a bad starter; ‘Click’ after turning the ignition and nothing more. Ugh!, well at least there’s a bit of time before the gig so I’ve got time to throw a new starter on the van. I get a ride from a longtime fan who as it turns out was one of the original bartenders/Mgr. from the Howard St., Dave. He graciously and happily gave me a ride down to the auto parts store. After buying just a couple of tools because all my tools are at home and I don’t have the extension necessary to reach one of the bolts on the starter, I return and promptly get under the van. It’s a bit brisk outside but I plunge ahead and after a few choice words shouted out in frustration while changing the starter, I endure the cold with my bare hands and successfully get the new starter on and the van fires up like a champ. It is a gratifying sound. With that done it’s time to for me to change strings and clean up and be brilliant on stage.

The show was a lot of fun and our sound guy had the stage sounding good so all I had to do was throw myself into the music and let it flow. The crowd was great and once again I am reminded of how fond I am of Omaha and the history I’ve made here the past 20 plus years; thank you Omaha.

Onto Kansas City we go….c

We leave the frozen confines of Joplin, MO. and head due west towards Wichita, KS. This day I get to go on a few roads I haven’t traveled on. It’s funny, I’ve been doing this since the mid-80’s, traveling on the road and playing music that is, and I always get a kick when I get to travel on a new road and see what the lay-of-the-land is. Of course I could choose to travel different roads all the time but it wouldn’t be the most efficacious with our travel schedule so it has to fall under the pre-set routes to the future gig. That makes it more fun for me. It’s a gray day and it’s also a travel day so we’re not so pressed for time. Kansas can be quite the picturesque horizon. One of my favorite views or evocative horizons is actually on I-35 as you go through Chase County between El Dorado and Emporia, KS. When you pass the sign telling you you’re in Chase Co., and if you look all around you in a 360 degree view you’ll notice the obvious absence of trees on the entire horizon. Trees are there but as a very small quantity and usually lining a water source such as a meandering creek or of the like. It’s truly awe inspiring. Especially when you see the prairie change in color due to seasonal changes; very evocative. It is said that back in the days Indians roamed these lands up to the early mid-19th century, the grass was so tall that to view the horizon one had to stand on your horse. It’s truly one of the great grasslands and prairies still out there in the contiguous US.
We arrive in Wichita and we go to our prospective rooms and chill for the night. Hey, we’re in close proximity all the time, it’s understandable that we each require time to ourselves or ‘me’ time every day. We’re up the next day and we have a TV show to do on the local CW network affiliate. We’re once again doing an acoustic performance and since the gig we’re doing is for a charity organization- Honor Flights, with their cause going towards paying for Veterans of Foreign Wars air flights to go back and visit the vet’s location where they served duty and or fought in combat. It’s a really good cause for these vets and one that my good friend Brock has been involved with for years. He takes passion and pleasure in providing for the vets. So for the TV show I chose the song, The Ballad of Kohima Ridge, which is about an actual engagement that happened between the British and Indian forces fighting against the Japanese Imperial Army back in 44’ in Eastern India just outside what was then Burma. There’s a monument there that was erected for the men who fought there and in a tribute towards the army that carried the day, the Allies, the monument says – ‘For your tomorrow, We gave our day’. When I read that I thought, ‘there’s a song right there’. As we’re setting up for the show there’s the usual camera angles and attachment of microphones you go through and this time we’re just in a separate studio so once the daytime talk portion of the show was done then the host’s came over, Brett and Sierra, they came to our side and we did just a quick little chat, introduced the guys then it was show time. Kohima has some rather high vocal parts to hit and so naturally I wasn’t in top form for being so early in the day for me, 11 am-ish, but we got through on emotion and from all accounts I’ve heard it was OK.

We go back to the hotel and relax a bit then it’s down to the gig. Our show is in an venue named the 150 Loft and it’s located down in this revitalized entertainment section in downtown Wichita. We set up and hope for the best for a good crowd to make us feel good about our drawing power in Wichita as well as for the cause towards the Vets. When we arrive at the venue before our gig, the place is comfortably full and it’s a gratifying sight. We kick into our show and I can feel that I’m starting to regain my playing legs. Confidence is growing and my fingers and thoughts and ideas are starting to initiate too. I have such a long way to go musically that it’s not even funny. My Goals Beyond will always be ahead of me and it’s always where I’m trying to get. I don’t think I’ll ever stop trying to reach it. When I did a show with Tab Benoit last year Tab was wanting me to go out and hang with them to go and bowl, yes really bowl with pins and everything, but CDG had to leave a bit early and I’ve learned that it is best to get your rest on the road to help give me the energy to expend myself as I do every gig, and I told Tab I couldn’t cuz’ “I have to go practice because I want to get as successful as you.” Tab looked at me with his celebratory après-gig cigar clenched between his teeth and as he shifted his weight to his other foot and took a drag and cocked his head sideways towards me he said, ‘Chris,…(exhale), to get successful as me you gotta’ stop practicing’ in his wonderful Southern Loo-siana drawl. He’s something else that Tab. We both had a good talk that night. But alas, I still practice every day and it’s just something that I know I’ll be doing for the rest of my life so long as I am physically able to. The metronome is part of the soundtrack of my life.
The gig was fun and we now turn our sights towards Topeka for our return to Uncle Bo’s.
Watch Out, Here I Come.

The drive to Topeka does cut through my aforementioned fave – Chase Co., and I can’t help but ruminate on things in my life and what I shall do in the future. Empty spaces as such can often evoke such thoughts to euphemistically occupy it. Arriving at Uncle Bo’s, it’s a club that’s a real throwback from the 70’s and part of the 80’s. Meaning it’s a club located in a hotel. The Ramada Inn that is situated in downtown Topeka off I-70 and not too far from the Capitol building is of the time I mentioned too but with a charm all its own. It’s convenient with our rooms in the same building so our load in is without the drive after the gig. It’s a nice break in our quotidian events.

Since it’s a Wednesday the crowd is brisk but not light. We have our die-hard fans that have driven far and  they intend on following us for the next several engagements, Traci & Toni, also Brock and his wife Sam have come up as well from Wichita after putting on the show we did down there for the vets. We work up Metaphor song at sound check, the one I released on Love > Me album, #3, and with ambition and nerve we start to play the song live warts and all. I know as the gigs go on, we’ll start dialing in this song and it will start to stand on its own. Tonight the stage is sounding good because my monitors sound like my amp and when I can get a good mix on the stage with the amp’s sound at my back and an even quality of my amp hitting me in front, it gives me this stereo effect as it surrounds me and I can hear everything I attempt with all the nuances and subtleties. Plus it’s just our third gig on the tour and I’m encouraged on how good the group is starting to gel. We get through Metaphor and it’s another auspicious gig for us. The future of the tour is looking bright.

On to Omaha….