Jerry Chapman's tour journal

Journal

9.14.03… bring the pain
the marathon is over. due to 3 hours of sleep & some "stomach issues", i didn't quite make my goal of 4 hours (missed it by about 20 seconds). extremely happy with my performance, though. toenails are for sissies. ready for kiawah in december.

9.12.03… you know it's you, babe
happy birthday to me. back at the comfort suites karaoke bar. i entered to "love shack" and now it's that alterna-hit by eve 6 from a few years ago. everybody is smoking, but they seem to be having a good time, so i'll let it slide. cool gig tonight. very intimate (read: small crowd). most of 'em bought cd's. thanks guys. good soundman, too. thanks michael. oh yeah… i did indeed go to tthe yuengling brewery. good tour. I even managed to get out of the gift shop without spending any money. then i went to see matchstick men, the new nic cage movie. pretty happening. i think it's one that jenny wants to see, so don't tell her that I already saw it. now a girl is singing "babe" by styx. beki, randy & jonathan are in pennsylvania tonight. i should give them a call. mission accomplished. they rocked gettysburg tonight. we'll be criss-crossing for the next few days, but i don't know if we'll get to hang. a bunch of white people are singing "end of the road." please make them stop. now a large man is singing "he ain't heavy, he's my brother." is that irony? regardless, it's a kick-ass song. they don't make 'em like they used to ("in da club?" i don't think so). got carded at the brewery & the karaoke bar. one of the college kids guessed that i was 25. couldn't ask for a better birthday present. except to be able to hang with the gals. too much smoke and too many bad songs. time for sleep. uh oh. now they're doing that "summer nights" thing from "grease." later.

9.11.03: siouxsie sioux?
i'm sitting in the banshee, a hip irish bar in scranton, pa. just finished playing university of scranton. best show of the tour so far. they really seemed to listen. played a bluegrass version of "every rose has its thorn" in an attempt to bring mount airy & pennsylvania together. i'm enjoying a blue moon, though i feel like a bit of a traitor for not drinking yuengling. i may visit their factory tomorrow, which will be my birthday. i think it's the 10th year in a row that i've been on the road for my birthday. pretty appropriate, i'd say. i just wish i was a little closer to home so i could see the gals. this is the longest i'll have been gone since georgia was born. bearable, so far, but it's going to be a long several days 'til i get home. i can keep myself busy with gigs, brewery tours and, of course, the marathon on sunday. i'm not sure it was a good idea to commit to a marathon in the middle of a tour, but a boy's got to have goals. i'll give the full report after the race. time to finish my beverage, then head back to the fabulous clarion hotel.

7.7.03: a real band
my band, the evil herbivores, are now a real live rock & roll band. we did a couple shows this weekend, and i couldn't have been more pleased. sure, we made a few mistakes. but to me, it sounded like a good band making mistakes, not a band who didn't quite know the songs, or how to play with one another. we are ready for world domination. get off your butts and come to a show. speaking of which, go to an athenaeum show, too. We played with them at ziggy's last night. if there's a finer pop combo in nc, I haven't heard them.

6.5.03: teletubbies
i think i now know all the names & colors of the teletubbies. this can't be good.

5.12.03: nadas vs. herbivores
my band & i just got through playing a couple shows with iowa's finest (slipknot? I don't think so), the nadas. their new record, "transceiver," may be their best yet, and they continue to blow me away. their drummer, tony, played with us, as bob was away for the weekend. tony did a fab job, especially considering that he met the rest of the evil herbivores an hour before showtime. in his honor, we became angry instead of evil. i think i joined them on guitar at the rubber soul show. it must have been on "new start." then it was off to atlanta. smith's olde bar has got to be one of the best mid-size rooms in the southeast. truly a pleasure. to anyone who has ever hung with the nadas for longer than 10 minutes, you know that i need, more than anything, sleep.

4.3.03: couch vs. cd's
the table 7 coffeehouse was indeed fab. the audience was great and the folks who ran the place were among the nicest i've met on the road. a nice little drive across missouri, too. those of you who know me know that i love a good flea market. i got a radio-controlled kiss van from '76. it doesn't work, but it sure looks great. beki got a couch. i took out my case with cd's, guitar cables, etc. to fit the couch into the van (the tour van, not the radio-controlled kiss van). i did not put the case back into the van. i am an idiot. fortunately, eric peters, the other guy on the bill at the coffeeshop, loaned me some his gear. a super-nice guy, he certainly would have loaned me his guitar had i needed it. and a swell singer of songs, too. check him out. after a detour to the flea market tomorrow, it's on to kc.

4.2.03: front desk vs. the commodores
i'm hanging out with beki hemingway in nevada, missouri. had a great show tonight at cottey college. a few forgotten bits here, there, but it was the first show on this mini-tour. back at the hotel, we decided it would be a good idea to try our hand at some commodores tunes. the front desk called to tell us it might, in fact, not be a good idea. so out to the front lawn we went. we made it through most of the alarm's first album before the wind & cold drove us back in. on to sedalia, missouri tomorrow. we're playing a coffeehouse. beki says it's pretty groovy, so i'll take her word for it.