February 2022: "The Long Way"
Post Originally published february 10, 2022
Greetings! Tours, songwriting offerings, and more 2022 happenings below.
But first, the words to accompany the video, the blog post from Xtracycle, who sponsored our 300-mile Bay Area bike tour:
Physically “hitting the wall” doesn’t happen on most band tours.
And the four musicians on the “Planet I’m From” tour were picked because they are some of the finest players and humans I know, not necessarily for any particular cycling prowess…
Day four of the tour found us riding 55 miles non stop from Santa Rosa, CA to an afternoon concert in Inverness. The final mile was a 20% grade hill, and on that hill each one of us “hit the wall,” completely unable to ride or walk our bikes any further. And there’s a certain beautiful and unforgettable look in one’s eyes when that line is crossed.
The tour goal: Perform 8 album release concerts in the San Francisco Bay Area, traveling roughly 40 miles per day with my four piece band from Oregon and Washington carrying all of our musical and personal gear on Xtracycle cargo e-bikes. And somewhere along the way, maybe convince ourselves and perhaps anyone else, that pedaling is a better way to go.
Initial reactions varied from, “That’s awesome, I wanna go” to “You’re nuts,” to “What about cars and safety, ” to “Why over complicate things?”
The fourth response gave me the most pause – is it not enough to wrangle a band into one-ness, to muster up a performance night after night that brings both joy and that ineffable sense of “I’m not alone?” Must we bike too?
Slow travel is counter-intuitive. Mapping software is designed to find the fastest routes from point A to B. And I think I too have been programmed to minimize the in-between.
A typical west coast tour is 4 nights – LA, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle. Interstate 5, gas station coffee, Subway sandwiches, staring at phones to pass the miles, maybe sleeping on a tour bus if you’re lucky. I’ve been there. I’ve showed up on some sidewalk in some city dazed and holding a bass amp. But what about the town of Sebastopol? What about the sleeping couple holding hands beneath their tarp by the side of the bike path in El Cerrito?
Fox Recommends
"Ambition" by David Whyte – A beautiful inisght into what it is that drives us and what is worthy of that drive. And hearing David read aloud is worth the price of admission alone.
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer – Chances are someone has already recommended this to you. If not, READ IT. One of those books I can't keep a copy of, because I keep gifting it.
The Question by Anna Tivel – Special plug for the vinyl version, It's been on repeat in our house. Beautiful writing, lush arrangements, sit back and let it wash over you!
“Action on behalf of life transforms. Because the relationship between self and the world is reciprocal, it is not a question of first getting enlightened or saved and then acting. As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us.” – Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass