blue number nine

TOUR DIARY - Summer 2005

7/14/05 to 7/28/05

July 14, 2005 ≠ JERSEY CITY, NJ ≠ Mini tour this weekend. I have 10 minutes until we have to go into NYC to the Alphabet Lounge. I hope some people come out. Camari will be singing with us, then she's heading to Seattle for a little vacay. Chris Vaindirlis, who signed onto this mini tour at the last minute (she received the songs only last week after another singer, who we wasted four rehearsals teaching, quit last Wednesday!) Chris did great at rehearsal, so I'm not worried. I'm looking forward to hitting the road again, but I wish it were longer.

July 15, 2005 - SOMEWHERE IN PA HEADING TO ALTOONA, PA - Last night, we got in the Prius and discovered we had a flat tire. We were already running late for the gig. Thankfully, my car, ET ("my primer coat gray hooptie made in å85" ≠ see lyrics to Turnpikes & Parkways on our latest CD) still runs. Marco had a gig in Brooklyn after bn9's show, so he needed to take his own car. It's a good thing he had that gig, because otherwise, we would have all gone in Jack's van, which would have meant we would not have discovered the flat tire until this morning. That would have screwed us up. We screwed up anyway! A flat tire would have slowed us down more. We had planned to leave at noon, but didn't get on the road until 12:25, then, stopped for gas, so we really didn't get moving until 12:40. Now, it's 4pm, we play at 6, and there has been so much traffic on route 80, due to never ending construction, that we are going to flying into Altoona at the last minute, when we should have gotten there at 5 or earlier ≠ a nice, relaxed load in and time for a sound check. This exact same thing happaned last year! You'd think we'd learn. But Altoona, on paper, is 4 1/2 hours from home. It's going to be more like 5 1/2. This traffic is so annoying, I can't look. So I'm closing up this laptop now and meditating! I'm completely stressed out.

LATER ≠ As expected, we arrived at 5:40 ≠ 20 minutes to set up! We only started a little late. Now, we're driving to Pittsburgh to stay w/Morgan's family. Tomorrow, we go to Cleveland. I'll write more tomorrow, because it's dark and I'm tired.

July 16, 2005 ≠ PITTSBURGH, PA ≠ Chris was great yesterday! The band was great. We performed in Altoona's downtown concert series last year, too (billed as "JAZZ!) Many familiar faces showed up. Thanks very much to Karen from Blair Arts for hooking us into Altoona. The people in Altoona are just cool ≠ nice, polite, open minded when it comes to music, and they have great taste in music as well! The audience was bigger than last year, and people ranged in age from 7 to 70. And they wanted an encore when we were finished! Gotta love that. If you live in Altoona, and you haven't checked out the concert series yet, DO IT! There is good beer ($7 pitchers), a 50/50 raffle, and this year, barbeque ribs & chicken. YUM! And live music, of course. Thanks to the generous vendors for hooking us up with food & drink, Thanks to Brian for providing the awesome sound guys (but Brian, next time, you better not hold out on the Sennheisers!) And special thanks to our favorite Italian Altoona family for shooting video, coming out and supporting and just for being themselves. We love you guys! We're all crossing our fingers about Las Vegas, but please know you can call us even if it doesn't work out. Your enthusiasm is of more value than any performance opportunities. Believe it!

It was supposed to rain last night, but didn't. That was a huge relief. We performed a few new tunes for the first time, which is always fun. I just love playing in Altoona!

Now, we're on our way to Cleveland to play at Fat Fish Blue tonight. So far, no traffic. Morgan's house is amazing ≠ they have an indoor pool and a beautiful butterfly garden, and you know I love gardens! Cindy (Morgan's mom) hooked us up with a killer French Toast breakfast, and filled our cooler with more food. We have more than enough to eat. I think blue number nine is the most spoiled band in the history of touring bands! Considering we operate and tour on a shoestring, if we had limos, we'd be livin' large on all accounts! As it is now, we end up staying in nice places with tons of food most of the time. I am thankful of that! Who needs limos?!

July 17, 2005 ≠ CLEVELAND, OHIO ≠ Damn HOUSE OF BLUES. Here's why I say that ≠ the last time blue number nine performed at Fat Fish Blue, Cleveland, we parked in the loading dock area on 4th street, behind the apartment building where the venue puts us up for the night. There was construction on the street, and there was no HOUSE OF BLUES. Now, HOUSE OF BLUES apparently owns said loading dock area. Last night, we parked the Prius and the van in the loading dock, because the valets for the damn HOUSE OF BLUES said we could. This morning, while Chris, Morgan and I slept, Jack, Marco and Luca went back to Fat Fish Blue to load out our gear (Fat Fish lets us leave our stuff there overnight, but another band comes in at 11 to play the brunch, so we gotta get our stuff out by 11.) I got up around 12:30 and found a message on my cell phone from Jack saying, "Stef, both cars are gone." Both cars, in fact, were towed! Marco's cell phone was in the car. So for about an hour, I sat stewing, wondering what was going on. On 5 hours sleep, max, the guys had to walk to the pound (it took an hour, it was raining, and they got lost. They wanted to hail a cab, but apparently, there's no such thing in downtown Cleveland. They had to take a bus over a bridge... I don't even know the details!) It cost $110 for each car. So much for earning any money on this little tour! When they returned, I went with Marco into the damn HOUSE OF BLUES. He had already spoken to the manager, so there was nothing we could do about the money, the lack of sleep and the hassle, but I figured someone needed to convey to these people that it's simply not nice to tell people from out of state they can park in a place and then tow them the following morning. Had we gotten out there earlier, we could have headed them off and not been towed. Of course, the manager pulled the ole, "not my fault" jive, and that's fine, it wasn't his fault. I attempted to appeal to his sense of kindness and suggested that he or someone convey to the valet dudes that they shouldn't be so irresponsible. Especially since the place is a music venue and we were very clear that we are musicians, too. So what ≠ we were performing at another venue, their competition. But their competition was there first!

So that's our mishap for this tour... a very expensive mishap.

As for the show last night, we were good. I'm pleased! No ≠ we were excellent! People seemed to enjoy it, the band had good energy, and it was nice to see Music Barry, Caitlin & Craig and Gary & Jean. Also, our fan Irv from Columbus, Ohio, came all the way to see us. He has a friend named Bob who lives in Cleveland, so Irv drove here and the two of them hung out until the end. Then, they came back to our apartment and we all sat, chatted and ate like pigs until close to 5 in the morning. It was a good time. It's a shame it ended with this getting towed crap, and I do take responsibility ≠ we should have made absolutely sure that it was OK to park where we parked. But at the same time, the damn HOUSE OF BLUES really didn't have to tow us. The manager said that big tour buses were coming to park in the lot, so we couldn't even leave our cars there today. But as of 2:30 pm, there are no big tour buses parked there. Damn HOUSE OF BLUES!

Now we're eating, and then, we head to Painesville. It was raining earlier, but the sun seems to be breaking through now, so maybe we'll get lucky.

JULY 18, 2005 ≠ SOMEWHERE IN PA, HEADING HOME ≠ No rain yesterday. In fact, it was a nice day, and the evening was even nicer. We made it with time to spare to the Painesville Party in the Park. I wish some of our Cleveland fans had come out (Barry did, the sound guy from Fat Fish!) What a great festival ≠ organized, excellent bands, food, good beer. They had two stages set up so music was seamless and non-stop. This was the 25th annual Party. The people in charge are incredibly nice and work hard, getting sponsors for all of the artists. The event itself is free to the public. If I lived anywhere near the Painesville Party in the Park, I'd attend every year, all weekend. The group before us was a reggae band from Cleveland, and we met another band from Virginia who happen to live close to Urbanna (the only place in VA we've ever played...) Nice people everywhere.

I was disappointed in our CD sales, and our set could have been better. I'm picky. People liked us. I got a lot of compliments afterwards. But I wasn't too thrilled with our show. This upsets me alot, because the organizers saw us live prior to booking us. Well, I just hope we didn't disappoint! I probably shouldn't be so paranoid. I should be convinced we rock all the time no matter what... but, I'm picky. We drove back to Morgan's mom's afterwards (Pittsburgh), got a good night's sleep and headed out a little before 3. We should be back in Jersey City by 8, we load in all the gear, and everyone goes home. Our next show is Wednesday at the Empire State Building. I'll be going to work my part time day job and cutting out for a long lunch break to do the show. Crazy, right?

JULY 20, 2005 - NEW YORK CITY - While I do accept the title of "Rock Diva" , I must confess to you, dearest reader, that I have another job. Two, actually. I am at my job right now, 2:18pm. From 12:30 to 1:30 today, blue number nine performed in the lobby of the Empire State Building. Chris & Morgan joined me on vocals. This was Luca's first time on this show and I am thrilled with how well he did. The sound woman was actually telling him to play louder! This is why I'm happy. The lobby of the Empire State Building is only marble - walls, floors & ceiling. Guitar+Marble=bleeding ears, if played too loudly. But Luca was simply amazing. We put on a great show in very limited space, and people asked us to purchase CD's afterwards. But, alas, on corporate sponsored shows, we're not allowed to sell CD's or even hand out flyers. And I DID NOT sneak some a CD and sneak the money into my bag, NOR did I sneak Derek from Princeton or the guy from France who was in NYC for the first time flyers. I didn't do that. I am not allowed to do that. Anyway, it was tough to come back to this office because it's such a nice day. Plus, everyone is looking at me in awe - I'm wearing gig clothes. Usually, at the day job, I'm in jeans and a t-shirt. You wouldn't recognize me if you saw me on my way to work, so I definitely have the incognito thing workin'!

JULY 23, 2005 - LAKE HARMONY, PA - Last night, we played at the Rock Bar again at Split Rock resort. My mom's cousin Fred came with his wife and some friends. They also brought along a woman named Karen. I heard from Chris who had been talking to Karen, that Karen is a singer. So I asked her if she wanted to sing. She was a little shocked, but man, she got up and sang a blues tune (Rock Me Baby) and that sure got everyone's attention! What a great vocalist. It was a good time. There were quite a few people there due to a car racing event in town over the weekend. I met 3 interesting guys from NBC who were there to cover the race (Jeff, John & Carlos...) I talked to them well past the time I should have. The venue turned off the lights on the stage and the band packed all the gear without me while the four of us discussed television, video editing, and all that interests me. Nice guys - turns out they work in NYC very close to where I work, so it would be cool to connect. Aside from that, there was nothing unusual about the show, except that I had called earlier in the week to find out what our lodging situation was and was told something different than reality. The woman on the phone told me they were giving us a suite and a room. Suites have kitchens. So I made THREE trays of baked ziti to take with us. The idea was to get there early, set up, then go back to the suite and eat, but when we arrived, it turned out we only had one room - no kitchen. We were devastated (and hungry!) Marco, quick thinker that he can be, took the ziti to the pizza restaraunt on the premises and asked them to heat it up for us, and they did. That saved my butt, because a hungry band is an angry band! We are late checking out and have to go. We play in Harrisburg, PA, tonight. It's 2 hours away. It is now noon. The plan is to go get some breakfast, then drive to Harrisburg. When we get there, we'll have a lot of time to kill. I hope we don't kill each other!

LATER - HARRISBURG, PA - I neglected to mention that we had a VH1 Behind the Music situation last night - the guys and I sat arguing, a/k/a discussing, musical band issues until 4 in the morning, then woke up at 11. I'm wiped out. We just went down to the river in Harrisburg, then killed time at a bar eating greasy fries and drinking coffee and iced tea (Jack & Marco had a beer - don't ask me how). I'm so tired. I'm getting in the van and am going to take a nap. It's 7:30 and we don't start until 10. Scott's Grille is crowded. I hope people stay.

JULY 24, 2005 - JERSEY CITY, NJ - Last night's show was quite good. My cousin Charline drove all the way from Maryland to come see us. I hadn't seen her in about 2 years. The band was bugging out that another cousin came to see us two nights in a row! They were like, "How many cousins do you have?" The answer is more than I know personally. I come from a big family - 10 kids in my mom's family. Anyway, shout out to Jason, Anton, Ken, Ross, of course Jeff from Scott's Grille, and everyone else. But especially Jason, who told me, "Screw the cover songs, just play your originals!" That makes me happy!! Somehow, I pulled some energy out of my life and put on my usual crazed show. Please don't ask where I get the energy - if I think about it too much, I'll get exhausted! Anyway, the show was fine - Luca complimented me on my flute solo on "Love The Beat". He's never done that before. He had a great time, and for some reason, I feel great when Luca is happy... I definitely have some connection to him. He's a good guy and a great guitar player. So many people at shows make comments to me about him. I'm so happy we found him. Because he and I are alike in many ways, at first, we kind of went at each other's throats. But I have grown to appreciate his manic devotion to music. He takes it so seriously, and he has changed the balance of the entire band with his attitude. It's fantastic! Chris is a windfall as well. Not only is she gorgeous both inside and out, but she has the cajones to sing Chaka Khan, and she does it well! And for anyone who saw the band when Morgan first joined - you should see her now. She's my girl... I feel like she's my kindred spirit. A younger version of me in many ways (and my friend Susan from Harry Fox, where Morgan now works, told me the same thing.) I am completely thrilled with this lineup. And as much as I hate that we're starting to have too many chiefs and not enough indians (and it results in arguments), at the same time, it's good that the personalities are strong and take responsibility. I have to reign them in at times, and I'm not good at that, but it beats having to think about EVERYTHING all the time.

Anyway, enough of this personal sentimentality! I hope something great happens for this band, because these people deserve it... and one last thing about last night. A woman at the gas station had a flat tire. It was 3am and she was asking for quarters to put air into it. But it was shot. Marco, Jack & Luca helped her change it and she went on our way. Good boys!

On another note, THANK YOU LISA MARIE. The show isn't confirmed yet, but our fan Lisa Marie passed our name on to several people in NJ and we got a call about a festival in Frenchtown over Labor Day Weekend. We hope it works out. The pay is a little low, but I can't tell you how hard it is to get money out of people who don't have it. I'm not good at such things, but I do need to get better at it if I want to keep the people in the band. It's so hard. Sometimes, I pay them and keep no money for myself. If the band is to stay afloat, I can't keep doing this. But our only other option, it seems, is to turn things down. Tough decisions have to be made. I don't like that part of running things.

Tomorrow, we are shooting a cable tv show at Maxwell's in Hoboken. Nick Zitelli hooked us up with this and I'm pretty excited about it. Marianno Groppa will join us on alto sax, and Rob Susman on trombone. Rob is playing at Maxwell's tomorrow night, ironically, so it wasn't hard to get him to sign up!

JULY 28, 2005 - NEW YORK, NY - I'm pretty happy with how our show at the Cornelia Street Cafe went. We sold the most CD's last night of any NYC show to date. Amazing. The Cafe is a good restaraunt upstairs, and a teeny performance space downstairs. I was quite worried we wouldn't be able to fit an 8 piece band (the usual 6, plus Rob Susman on trombone and Lily White on alto sax.) But we did. It was cozy. But fun. And we were good. Only one more show and that ends our summer tour, 2005, in support of our new CD. My solo CD got so delayed, that I missed sales opportunities all summer long. I should have one box tomorrow, in time for our show in Brooklyn on Sunday. I hope I can sell some. I spent so much money on the band this year! I probably could have gone to St. Kitts and back 3 times by now for a scuba diving vacation! Oh well. Anyway, thanks to everyone who came out... what a lovely lovely audience...... On another note, the video shoot that I mentioned above, in my July 24th entry, got cancelled a few hours prior. I didn't know until we arrived at Maxwell's. I still don't know the real reason why.

6/2/05 to 6/12/05

June 2, 2005 - COLUMBUS, OHIO - Ok, we were supposed to leave at 9am and someone was late and we didn't leave until 10am, then no one packed the guitar stands, so Marco and I went back to get them.  All were mad at the late party, but we were making good time, until we hit bad traffic in PA on route 70,  It delayed us by about 1/2 hour.  The plan was to get to Camari's house before the Columbus Arts Festival (we were supposed to check in with the stage manager by 7pm), but we were quickly running out of time.  So we decided to drive as fast as we could.  And then, we got a speeding ticket!  No clue how much it's going to cost.  Needless to say, we did not make it to Camari's.  So she met us at the Arts Festival.  The weather was bad - I had spoken to Camari a few days earlier and she said it was 80 degrees and sunny!  But on Thursday, June 2, it was about 65 degrees, cloudy, and at one point during our set for a few songs, pouring rain.  The audience was small, unfortunately, but we had a great time anyway.  The staff enjoyed us, the people who were there danced, we sold our first copy of the new CD, and the sound system was high class.  We all decided not to bawl out the late person, but there's a new rule in the band - for every 15 minutes someone is late, $5 is deducted from his or her pay.  Now, this may sound cruel, but the rest of us could have slept 45 minutes longer!  It's an 8 hour drive to Columbus from Jersey City.   

June 3, 2005 - NEWPORT, KENTUCKY - We left Columbus at 12:00, but made it to KY faster than expected.  So we couldn't load in our gear to the venue - we had to wait until after 3pm so as not to disturb the lunch customers.  We checked into our hotel.  Last time we played this venue, they provided us with a 2 bedroom suite with a full kitchen, and an additional room.  So we packed all kinds of perishable food.  Well, to our surprise, this time, they put us up in a regular hotel - a very nice one, but no kitchen!  We do have refrigerators, though.  I'm in the room right now, and we're going to load in.

June 4, 2005 - NEWPORT, KENTUCKY -  Someone asked Marco last night what the photos on our new CD mean and what the title means.  I'll have to update the "Story & Lyrics" page for "Living It Up" when I get home.  Basically, those photos were donated.  I ended up designing the CD myself, because this CD already cost more money than we should have spent (we had it mastered professionally, it has an 8 panel insert, and I invested in new equipment in order to be able to record the CD on our own!)  I didn't want to do the CD art, and in fact, I agonized over it.  So I simply asked all the photographers I know if they had anything that would convey my cynical concept of "Living it up in the new world."  At the time of the creation of the CD, I was definitely feeling cynical about so many things.  So that's pretty much how it came together... My mindset was "life is hard, then you die, so make the most of it." 

later... - I just realized that we should have planned to not sleep here tonight.  The venue provided us with hotel rooms, but it would have made more sense to just leave here tonight and drive back to Columbus, since it's only an hour and 45 minutes away.  Anyway, the show last night was fun.  I saw some familiar faces in the audience and spoke to people who had seen us the last time we appeared at Fat Fish Blue.  The weather was hot and muggy, and the venue wasn't anywhere near as crowded as it was in November.  Nevertheless, we sold CD's and people enjoyed the show.   We met some cool people from Newport and also from Louisville, which I learned is pronounced "LOUA-VILLE" - two syllables!   Not only were they nice, but one of them is in charge of booking artists for a festival in Louisville, and she liked us.  So that would be nice to go play down south.  We're down south now, but no one in Newport has an accent!  The people from Louisville do.  It's 2pm right now.  I woke up about an hour ago.  We stayed up late.  After the show, we went with the people we met for beers at the Hofbrau House (I'll have to look up the spelling.)  Apparently, there are only 2 in the world, one in KY and the other in Munich, Germany.  I find this fact amusing for some reason!  Kids were dancing on the tables to a cover band when we walked in.  The beers were strong and HUGE.  Someone bought me a stein full of excellent German beer.  When we got back to the rooms, I chowed down the rest of my dinner (the venue feeds us - we had taken our food to go and the portions are enormous.)  We talked and hung out, but when it turned into arguing about the evening's performance, I quickly headed to my room! 

June 5, 2005 - on our way to COLUMBUS, IN - We have a short drive now to Columbus, Indiana for a show at a place called CADDIES PUB.  No idea what to expect.  Last night's show was better attended than Friday night.  It's cool to hear us get tighter and tighter as a band each night. 

June 6, 2005 - back in COLUMBUS, OH - Columbus Indiana was THE BOMB.  For a Sunday night, it was great.  The venue was huge and we had to run our own sound.  We were concerned our little PA wouldn't have enough juice for the room, but musicians we met and sound people assured us it was fine.  We met so many cool people - CJ, Darrin, Chris, of course Gary, the manager and person responsible for booking us, and Kayla & her fiancé... everyone was awesome to talk to.  We'll have photos up on the website, but not until we get home.  We have a laptop with us on this tour, but no card reader for the camera card.  Last night, we had 2 horns players from Indianapolis: Bob Burns on alto and Fritz Graf on trombone.  The sound was big and funky.  They did a great job and seemed to be enjoying themselves, which is the most important thing!  They would look over at me and smile with "YEA" on their faces after just about every song.  I was simply giddy, it was so much fun.  People were incredibly supportive of us - we sold quite a few CD's, and some people even bought all 3!  So I guess we'll have to come out with another CD before returning to Columbus, IN! 

One other thing about the town - it's small, but cultural.  We Yankees/Northeasterners, and especially NYer's can be so snobby.  We do not have the market cornered on culture!  In between our sets, poets read, and their stuff was great and people dug it.   I'm going to back up, because something happened earlier in the day that was truly bizarre.  We drove around to kill time, because we were super early (we didn't realize that we had entered a different time zone and gained an hour!)  We went to a beautiful place called Irwin Gardens.  We happened upon it, we hadn't planned it.  The grounds keeper had heard us on the radio!  (This was the doing of Gary from CADDIES - he also had a banner hanging outside the venue, visible from the street... we should have taken it with us, but we forgot.)  We also met a couple - Jack & Meg - who were strolling around the garden.  I struck up a conversation with them, told them about the band, one thing led to the next, and he tells me he's originally from Edgewater Park, NJ, and used to live in Iron Gate apartments and went to Ridgeway Middle School.  My father lived in Iron Gate apartments and worked at Ridgeway Middle School.  When I asked Jack if he knew my father, his eyes practically popped out of his head!  I could tell he hadn't reminisced about NJ in a long time.  BIZARRE!  Yes, he knew my father, "The big guy with the pony tail".  I was stunned. We left Columbus, IN, at around 2am and drove 3 hours back to Camari's house in Ohio.  That's where I'm writing from now.  We're off to Cleveland tonight. 

June 6, 2005 - CLEVELAND, OH - Now we're in Cleveland at Jean & Gary's place.  They have a gorgeous condo.  It's on the market, but they haven't sold it yet,  so we have the amazing good fortune to stay at their luxurious place.  Tonight, we play at the HiFi Club in Lakewood.  We've played there before.  As I recall, the sound system is excellent.  Fortunately, it's only one set.  I'm a little hoarse.  I should stop accepting the drinks that people offer to buy me! 

June 7, 2005 - CLEVELAND, OH - I don't think I'm going to make it to the end of the tour.  I was hoarse yesterday.  Now, my voice is gone.  Last night's show did it for me.  We had a really really long set up and sound check, and everything sounded great!  Then,  halfway through the first song, the sound guy turned my monitor down completely.  I could hear the girls just fine.  Then, he turned the bass up really loud and the guitar was ear bleeding in my monitor and in Camari & Morgan's monitors.  I lost my voice.  I tried really hard not to push, but I guess I was pushing.  It's hard to tell when you can't hear yourself.  We went to the Grog Shop with Caitlin & Craig afterwards and hung out until the place closed.   Overall, it was a good time.  Plus, the place had beer for 50 cents a cup! 

June 8, 2005 - (last night KENT, OH) now back in CLEVELAND, OH and off to FORT WAYNE, IN - Well, my voice is actually OK.  Our show last night in Kent was interesting.  We had been told that 2 local bands would be performing before us and we would be the headliner, however, the only other band on the bill was a group from Florida, and they had only booked their show a week prior!  As of one week ago, we were the only band on the calendar.  Even with dollar pitchers, the place was pretty much empty - no one came except for a few locals (who call themselves "Townies").  Fortunately, these people dug us.  We had them dancing.  The sound guy, Pomeroo, a real sweetheart, came out from his booth and danced his bootie off on "Love the Beat."  Afterwards, he said to me, "That was beautiful - you guys made me sweat."  That made me feel great, because that's our goal:  to make the planet sweat!! On the first verse of LIKE WE ALL DO,  right on cue, practically, all the power in the place went out!  Apparently, because all the doors to the place were open, the air conditioner was working overtime.  Others said it was because we were too hot for the place!  Power was back on in about 20 minutes, so we played a few more tunes and stopped. We hung out until pretty late with Sonja, Nik and other locals, to support the band from Florida.  They had a killer light show.  They travel complete with their own sound and soundperson, and lights and lighting engineer.  All of them were super nice guys, and so were the locals.  Some of the people we met told us that we can stay at their places the next time we pass through, and Pomeroo plays in a band and said he'd be in touch about putting us on the bill with his band.  I hope he emails me, because I didn't get any info on him. 

Regretfully, I didn't get to say goodbye to Cindy - THANK YOU CINDY for the quiche and chocolate cake!  (She made us an amazing mushroom and asparagus quiche, and chocolate cake, complete with jam & chocolate sauce.) When we got back to Gary & Jean's condo, we scarfed that food down so fast, you'd think we hadn't eaten all week.  Now we're stopping by Gary & Jean's house for lunch, then we're off to Fort Wayne, Indiana. 

June 9, 2005 - FORT  WAYNE, IN - These are some of the awesome people we met... I say "some" because I know I'm forgetting someone.  We're driving to Chicago today, but we should have just stayed here and slept, since we didn't get back to our rooms until 5:30 and had to check out at 11:30.  Anyway, shout out to all the nice & cool people we met in Fort Wayne, including Jessie the bartender,  Joe who people call "Whoa", Maurice, Ricardo (Rick), Mina, Dan, Andy (thanks for the after party!!) ,  G-Money, Brian (thanks again for the shots!), Bob the lawyer, Damien,  and anyone else I'm forgetting right now.  If you signed our mailing list, I'll remember you once I see your name!! Mid City Grill is a venue where musicians hang out.  They have live music there 7 nights a week.  Everyone was happy to have us - they don't get a lot of bands from out of town.   They will now... more and more bands are going to contact them, especially bands from NYC. I'm so tired, I can't really write.  I don't think I'm making much sense. 

JUNE 9, 4:30PM CHICAGO, IL - We stopped for barbeque at a killer place in Fort Wayne recommended by a man named Willie who we met at the Mid City Grill.  Willie's brother owns the place.  He stopped by (Camari called him) to see us off. YUM.  Then, we took off to Chicago.  I'm in the back seat of the Prius and tried to sleep, but didn't.  At least I got some rest, and we don't have a show tonight.  This tour has been an interesting experience for me in many ways, so far.  I enjoy traveling, seeing new places, meeting new people, and basically, seeing how other people live.  The most touching aspect has been accepting non-stop compliments from audience members, especially when they thank us for coming to their town.  So many people have asked us to please come back.  That's just sweet to me.  They enjoy our music, but it's more like they enjoy what we're communicating to them from our hearts, and this is the reason I put a band together in the first place.  We get such reactions in NYC & NJ sometimes, but people seem so much more passionate about music in the areas where we've played so far than they do back east.  They're friendly, so many people have offered us to stay at their homes if we ever return to their town. 

In a way, I'm sad right now writing about it, because I know that it is highly possible that we will never return to their towns, and most likely, we won't return as the blue number nine that we are today.  People in this band have to earn a living, and the money we're earning is nowhere near a living.  So I can only look at this tour as a working vacation.  We aren't losing money, but we can't do this on a regular basis.  We probably can't do anything like this again this year.  I would love to come back to all of the towns and more towns next month and every month, but I simply can't afford to.  I suppose I should be happy and excited, and I am!  We've got the most challenging part coming up - 4 shows in 3 days, and the last show will be the biggest show.  Plus, we're going out tonight to hit the town.  I've never been to Chicago.  I can see the downtown skyscrapers right now.  I am excited, and I'm enjoying myself, despite the long drives and weird sleep. 

The band has sounded great to me more often than it hasn't sounded great.  Of all the lineups we've had, the lineup on this tour feels better to me than any other lineup ever did.  We are all getting along, but most importantly, there's no drama!  Everyone is cooperating, spiritually... that's the only way I can explain it.  We're on the same page.  No one is complaining about hanging out with new fans.  No one has special needs or places to go by themselves.  No one is driving anyone else crazy.  No one in the band is complaining about anyone else in the band.  So I like that.  It keeps me calm, and it has affected my singing in a positive way.  I've sounded pretty damn good every single gig, even doing stuff with my voice that I've never done before.  I feel fortunate that I'm having this experience.  Honestly, it's a little late in life for me to be having it, and it'd be nicer if we had roadies and a bus and someone to drive it, and a manager and someone to sell our merchandise and all those things.  But I'm not complaining!  This may be my only tour experience ever, so I'm savoring every note, every new fan, and every single moment. 

JUNE 10, 2pm - CHICAGO, IL - Actually, we're in Wheeling, IL, a suburb of Chicago.  We went to Kingston Mines last night to see some live blues.  There was an amazing group called "Duke Tumatoe".  I have to look him up.  I swear I've heard of him before.  They were so tight, with no dead air at all between songs, and amazing vocals.  The keyboard player's voice was amazing, too, and he wasn't even the main lead singer.  The venue was crowded and hopping on a Thursday night.  It was a good time.  We ate Chicago style pizza before going to the club... I was not impressed, but I think that's because I had ribs for dinner at the Mid City Grill and then ribs for lunch the next day!  That's a lot of gloopy fatty food all in a row with not a vegetable in sight.  I'm not used to it! 

I'll have to come back to Chicago another time, when I can really enjoy it.  We were all pretty beat last night, running on 4 and 5 hours of sleep, so we didn't get to fully enjoy the city.  It's kind of a shame!  Camari and Morgan are still asleep, so the day is pretty much shot.  Tonight, we play in Barrington.  Our hotel is only 20 minutes from the venue.  This is a good thing, since we have to be in Deerfield at 9:30am tomorrow, which means we must check out and load all the crap into the van very early in the morning.  It will be interesting to see if we make it through the rest of this tour, especially me. 

Tomorrow morning's performance is 3 sets, tomorrow night's is 2 sets and then Sunday afternoon, 3 sets again, and that one is our highest paying show with the most people expected for an audience.  I'm a little bit stressed out about it!  It's hot and muggy here right now.  Last night was cool and comfortable - more so than all the other places we've been.  But today is HOT!  Oh, and by the way, no sooner did I write what I wrote yesterday ("no drama"), but drama occurred!  Marco got mad at Camari, Morgan & I for staying up until the wee hours and keeping him up.  I feel bad about it still.  Not a good way to start a weekend with a hellish schedule! 

JUNE 11 - DEERFIELD, IL on the road to WI - Wow, I can't believe the tour is almost over.  We just finished playing from 10am to 1pm at the Deerfield Arts Festival in Deerfield, IL.  Now, we're trying to make it to our hotel in Green Bay, WI, before our show in Appleton, WI.  I hope we make it because it's about 92 degrees outside and we just played for 3 hours sweating like mad.  Deefield is an adorable town, and once again, the people we met are all incredibly nice.  Thanks so much to Debbie Netter for booking us.  The band after us, PATCHOULI, were sweet and excellent.  They're an acoustic folk duo with great energy... really cool people.  Morgan kept saying, "They're adorable!" 

The show last night at the Penny Road Pub was ok.  Not great, not awful.   Sunhead King was the group after us.  They wanted to go on before us because they had fans there and were afraid their fans would leave.  Fortunately, this didn't happen!  They're fans actually liked us, and we hope to do a show with them again next time we're in Chicago.  Anyway, the venue had bands upstairs and downstairs.  We played downstairs, which was unfortunate, because when sitting upstairs, it's impossible to know there's a band downstairs, let alone know if the band is any good.  So we made no money - zero.  At least we got free beer and the food was inexpensive.  And meeting Sunhead King made the gig not a complete waste. 

I nearly had a meltdown this morning with the hotel.  Because we're earning so little on this tour, I transferred American Express miles to my hotel card.  I wanted to pay for one room both nights using my points.  But when we went to check out, I was told there was no record of me asking to use my points.  Not only that, but the hotel in Fort Wayne deducted more points from my account than I was quoted, so I didn't have enough points for the hotel in Wheeling, IL!  I started to freak out a little, then, calmed down and explained to the woman at the desk that we're a band on tour, we're trying to cut costs, and it's so annoying to deal with voicemail and computers!  She could relate to that; she went ahead and comped one of the rooms.  Whew!  I'm telling you - people are nice out here in the Midwest.   Two more shows to go.  I'm sad it's almost over.  I could keep going at least another week, maybe 3!  I didn't think I'd have such stamina.  I thought that by today, I'd be wiped out and ready to just go home.  But I'm feeling exactly the opposite. 

JUNE 13 - COLUMBUS, OH - Didn't write yesterday because it was a LONG DAY!  The show Saturday night, the 11^th, in Appleton at Tom's Garage was great.  The owner, Tom, is incredibly nice.  He gave us all shirts with the venue name on them.  We sold a bunch of CD's, and again, met nice people.  There was a great article about us in a local paper, and people came to the show based on the article.  I'll scan it and put it up soon.  It's the first time a reporter quoted me verbatim, without making stuff up.  No offense meant to past writers who have done interviews, it's just that Jim Lundstrom was extremely accurate! 

Our show could have been better, at least to me, but I understand everyone, including myself, was wiped out.  We drove 4 hours from Deerfield to our hotel in Green Bay, and had about one hour to rest. 

During that hour, a tornado hit!  We turned on the weather channel and discovered that we were located in the eye.  The newscasters were telling people to go into their basements, and that the tornado would hit at 6:17.  I went to tell Luca & Jack, at around 6:20, and found Jack completely soaked.  Apparently, he went to get something out of the van right as the storm hit!  As quickly as it hit, it passed.  If he had waited 10 minutes, he would have been fine.  Jaaaaack!!  Hee hee.  We then drove another half hour to Appleton for the show.  We didn't get back to the hotel until around 3am and then we had to check out and be at the festival the next day at noon.  We made it, somehow, and all of our voices made it as well! 

The festival itself was fabulous because the weather was perfect.  It was hot, but we heard that it rained Thursday night and bands were cancelled, it rained Friday, and on Saturday, the entire park was evacuated for about 1/2 hour because of the tornado.  So we really did play on the best day of the festival.  The audience, unfortunately, was sparse.  But the sound system was top of the line and the stage was big, with more than enough room to move around.  I feel like I put on the best performance of my life.  So did Marco. 

By the end of the tour, Marco was active on stage, moving around and dancing and smiling.  It was so much fun.  Also, while performing, a young woman who was working at a booth that sold wine brought us a bottle.  It was ironic, because I was wearing my bunch of grapes earrings that I bought at the Poconos Wine Festival last year.  I said, "I guess you can recognize 6 winos when you see them!"  Her name is Meagin, and she works for the Stone's Throw winery, and her boss Russell loved bn9, so much so that he invited us over to his booth for wine after the show, and then, took us all out to dinner.  We ate and drank and had a great time.  But then, we had a 10 hour drive back to Camari's in Columbus, which is where we are now.  I slept the entire way.  I don't know how Morgan, Jack, Marco and Camari did it, but they did. 

Amazing bandmates.  I'm so proud of everyone, but still melancholy, because I could keep going!  Anyway, everyone has been paid (we made over $600 each, which is amazing, considering the stories I've heard from other touring bands.)  So the tour is over.  We have 8 hours to go, and it's 4pm, so I'm signing off now.  Photos will be up soon!