Richmond, VA. The Camel. photo by Andrew H.

There was a point when I thought I'd be able to thoroughly catch you up on all the shows we've played that this blog has failed to mention, but my friends, that hope is long gone.  I'll just keep telling you stories until I'm nearly asleep.

Friday morning, after the Atlanta show, we woke up, drank coffee, ate oatmeal, ate scrambled eggs generously made by Drew, loaded up the van and drove away.  Hours. and Hours away.  Before I realized I'd committed the most annoying/most atrociously rookie tour foul ever.  …Ya know, sometimes when you're three and a half hours down the road, sometimes you get a phone call informing you that you left all your clothes in the last city.  ALL of them.  Winter scarf. Winter socks. Sweaters. Pajamas. Underthings. Toothbrush!  UGH.

After realizing that overnighting my backpacking bag wasn't going to be an economic decision I'd be proud of later, I decided to embrace my luck.  Amelia, a lovely gal visiting the folks we were with in Atlanta happened to be driving back to Nashville that same day and was planing on catching our show there any how.  The godsend agreed to take my clothes and sleeping bag with her and deliver it to me at the show. ! incredible.  Tomorrow is that glorious day.  But I haven't' been roughin it too terribly at all.  We stopped at a Target in Charlotte and I bought a couple sweaters, pajama pants, socks and such.  I've been wearing the same two shirts for the last four days but honestly, its sort of liberating to traipse around living out of a plastic target bag.

Charlotte show was nice.  Saw our friends Adam and Doran (whose couch I'm writing from at this very moment!).  Played after Lindsey Ryan.  She writes lovely songs.  The next show was in Richmond, VA, and was probably one of my favorite nights.  Good sized, silent, responsive crowd for both Idyl and me.  I opened for The Moonbees and The Greenboys, two local bands who were all so incredibly friendly and supportive.  Meeting great people all over the world is hands down one of the best parts of this whole thing.  It's funny how music is the reason you end up on the road in the first place, but its such a tiny, tiny fraction of what you actually do in a day.  Fun crowd, awesome sound at The Camel and gracious hosts afterward.  Not too shabby at all.

After all of that goodness we drove up to Washington DC.  But perhaps I'll save those tales for another time.  Tonight we played Chapel Hill and it was incredible.  I've been "home" (At Dorans--she's working the night shift and let us take over her house) for the last hour or so and we're getting up quite early for our eight hour drive to Nashville.  If I know whats good for me--and I usually do--I'll stop here and call it a night.  This thing is winding down!  Just four more shows before I'm back home again, probably counting the days until I get to leave again.  I am turning into some sort of traveling fiend! But, there are probably worse ways to be, right?

g'night till next time.

Atlanta

This day was heavy for me.  Heavy with warmth, wonderful hospitality, history, grief and remembrance.  We woke up in the home of Drew and Gray.  Together they spearheaded Dr. G--the record label that released Elements of the Field on vinyl.  Just last night we were talking of how good hosts are such a game changing, special occurrence, and these guys were great to us.  After making a little oatmeal and coffee, Gray took us on a short tour of Atlanta.  We stopped in the neighborhood where Martin Luther King Jr. grew up.  We walked into Ebenezer church just in time for a presentation on its history and a surreal live performance of the "I Have a Dream" speech.  The actor shut his eyes briefly, opened them again and as his voice bellowed through the hall he became someone else.  Imitating Dr. King in a way that could almost make you forget he was reciting history.  

We walked upstairs to the sanctuary and sat in the pews.  MLK grew up in that church, co pastored it with his father and was later mourned and celebrated there after his assassination in the late 60s.  My mother's face was all over my mind.  She was 18 when he died, and grew up a segregated small Texas town.  She used to tell me stories of sitting in the black section of a local cinema and how they were restricted to the balcony but felt they had the better view anyhow.  How she remembered the bus ride to the first integrated school in town.  How color blocked the city was.  She had the "I Have a Dream" speech on vinyl.  She collected books on the civil rights movement.  She was fascinated by its documentation.  And so of course, while walking down the street Martin Luther King Jr. walked down, seeing his house, his church, I was drenched in her.  

I couldn't stop imagining what her face would've looked like if I could've told her where I was.  I could hear the excitement in her voice so clearly that if I didn't know better I would've guessed it was real.  I experienced all of this, knowing that I'll see a million more amazing things that I'll want to tell her about.  And then I disintegrated at knowing that I won't because I can't.  It's crippling.  But there I was among friends full of excitement for a celebratory show with great people and our day had barely begun.  I swallowed my grief.  Chiseled my face into a smile and continued on. 

Back at the house I curled into the tinniest ball and fell asleep in an arm chair.  This is a quite useful skill I've acquired after five years of touring.  I can fall asleep at nearly any moment in almost any place.  I probably wouldn't trade gold for that.

After snagging the couch partway into my nap, and after multiple sneaky photos by passersby, I woke recharged, mostly emotionally centralized and ready for music.

The label guys organized a house show.  The place was neat. A porch swing nearly the size of a twin bed. a long dark wood church pew to its left.  a lamp inside that was once an old gas canister.  A light made from an edition bulb attached to an old wood plank.  The host runs a vintage/antique shop in the city and its written all over his house, which slowly began to fill with people.  I played first and felt okay about it all.

This tour is such an experiment for me in learning how to perform alone.  There are so many external elements in play each night, and I'm just relearning their weight.  I'll tell you more about this another time though, this post is reaching monumental proportions.  After a local songwriter performed, Idyl was up!  The set was big and loud and all the while spacious.  Someone yelled out a couple requests and we ended with a mellow "Ship of Death" encore.  classic.

We left in good and perhaps sleepy spirits.  Drew home brewed some moonshine and it perhaps got the best of some of us.  That paired with a celebratory drink of Japanese whiskey back at the house had us all feeling rosy and full.  We traded stories as we leaned further and further into the walls, into our chairs.  We set out our sleeping bags, found our sleep clothes and darkened the house for some shut eye.  We sold a few records, made some money, played a great set and all in good company.  What more dare we ask for?

The Church Martin Luther King Jr. grew up in.

Walking through MLK's neighborhood.

Idyl Boys. Alex And Dave. Atlanta.

my mom and a tiny me. San Antonio, Tx.

Atlanta. Sneaky photo by Andrew H.

New Orleans!

Thursday night we played at The Circle Bar.  First show of the tour.  First performance as a touring solo act.  Somewhere in a song, my mind let my body play and sing while it floated to some other plane of thought.  Somewhere amongst the drunken chatter, the clack--hiss of beer cans, the silhouettes of friends in my periphery, and the three empty bar stools facing me, I re-realized that all of this--even the frustrating elements--is a part of whatever musical life it is that I've subscribed to.

I feel different, sitting up there alone.  Its different when its your voice swirling around the shouts of people who hardly realize there's a show happening around the corner. Its sort of uncomfortable, but you play anyway.  Somewhere along the line, people came in and they stopped.  I watched a guy freeze like he'd hit some sort of invisible wall.  He turned to face me, and stayed through the set's end.  By the time I was done, a decent little crowd of faces I'd never seen before stared back at me.  Small victories!

Noisy bars are just part of it sometimes.  And that's absolutely okay. 

The Idyl set was strong and loud and fun.  This was the first time that many of these songs were played with a full band and came together quite well.  These guys are all so talented!  Pumped for the next set!  

Atlanta Tonight!   1593 Rogers Ave.  A House show celebrating Elements of the Field on Vinyl. 

Day 1

It seems a tour arises just when it is time for me to leave the city.  I can't explain it. Either its some fantastic kind of luck, or perhaps I am just always ready to leave.  The routine of things back home found me in a rut, and I couldn't be happier to be hours from the state line.  

Every trip I try to figure out what it is about traveling that is so soothing to me.  The root of its magic is untouchable, but I think somewhere near that is this overwhelming sense of possibility.  A thick stretch of trees line the interstate as far as I can see, all the way to the edge, to where the world seems flat.   The endless stretch of highway, monotonous as it is, rattles opportunity to me over and over. It's as though I could drive for hours and hours and stop anywhere and become anyone. 

Tonight we will stop in New Orleans, but I will just be myself, I think.  Aisha Burns, opening for Idyl.  !  This will be the first show of my first solo tour and everyone's asking, but I don't know how I feel.  I'm excited of course and nervous sometimes but mostly curious about it all.  It is a different animal, taking the stage alone and singing the same personal stories over and over again.  They are all fragments of very specific things--past loves, losses, disillusions, lies I tell to myself.  It will be quite the experiment to learn what the songs will work up in me after the tenth straight time of their telling.  But with all luck and thankfulness, I am not afraid.  There are few times that I am struck with purpose (and I'm not fully sure this is really one of them), but I can peacefully say that there's nothing else I'd rather be doing right now.

The road to New Orleans is swampy, rainy and wet.  We are running on Alex's homemade banana bread and apples and Saltine crackers.  There is a flash flood watch hovering over us.  It is cold and pouring rain, and who knows what we'll find once we get there, but we'll go anyway.  

The Circle Bar. 9p. tonight! 

A I S H A  B U R N S  W I N T E R  T O U R  2 0 1 3 

Aisha Burns solo. Opening for and performing with Idyl.

Jan 10  -  New Orleans, LA - The Circle Bar w/ Andrew Duhon

Jan 11  -  Birmingham, AL -  Charlemagne record exchange in-store 3pm

Jan 12  -  Atlanta, GA - Dr. G Release Party at 1593 Rogers Ave. 

Jan 14  -  Richmond, VA - The Camel 9pm $5 - w/ The Greenboys, the Moonbees

Jan 15  -  Washington DC - Columbia Station  9pm - $10 - w/ Wendell Kimbrough

Jan 16  -  Chapel Hill - The Nightlight- 9pm - $5 - w/Holy Boats

Jan 18  -  Memphis - The Cove - 9pm - $5 - w/ Sultana

Jan 20 - Dallas, Tx - City Tavern - $5 -  w/ Home by Hovercraft