Posted 26 April 2002
Road report: Our final day in Japan was a doozie. The band — minus Andy, for reasons not worth going into here — rode the "bullet train" to Nagoya to do some interviews for radio and the Japanese press, and to give a concert to a small roomful of contest-winning fans at radio station ZIP-FM. From what we saw, Nagoya has a mellower vibe than Tokyo and is a little less urban. There's a beautiful old castle right in the heart of downtown and the head of promotion for Toshiba/EMI (the label Norah's on in Japan) took me to see it at dusk. There wasn't time to go inside, but just seeing it from the perimeter was really stirring. The sky was azure and a full moon was already riding low, making the castle — and its surrounding moat and park grounds — look even more picturesque.

I'm here to say that creative visualization works! My first three days in Japan, the one thing I wanted to eat was una-ju — that's broiled eel over rice, served in a square box. I even learned how to say, "I would like some una-ju, please," in Japanese. Well, it turns out that Nagoya is the place to eat this dish because the eel is farmed in a big nearby lake, and our hosts at the radio station decided to treat our little entourage (the three-piece band, our rep from Blue Note's New York office, and some folks from Toshiba/EMI) to this local delicacy! At dinner time, a delivery guy showed up with 9 boxes of the very dish I had been dreaming of for the past three days! Did I dream it into being? Or did I just get lucky? Either way, it was yummy, yummy, yummy!

After dinner, we played our concert. We were up on the 18th floor, with huge windows all around us, so we had killer views of Nagoya by night. It was a treat to be playing for actual fans, as the other playing we had done in Japan was one private, press-only show in a big theater, and then three songs in an empty radio studio. Faced with fans, I think we rose to the occasion and played a really solid set. At the end of our show, the three of us were interviewed by a vivacious Japanese radio personality. She asked each of us to say something to the listeners in the radio audience — all 1,000,000 of them. For an instant there, I froze, freaked out by the thought that the microphone I was just handed was wirelessly transmitting to 1,000,000 people. But then I thought about my dad, who is a popular radio personality on KFI-AM in Los Angeles, and I got my wits together to say something smooth, in my best FM voice. I think.

Then we had to get back on the train and return to Tokyo. Racing along at 250 kph, I slept, my half-empty Kirin Ichiban nestling safely in the recessed circle in my fold-down tray table. Goodbye Nagoya. And farewell Japan. I'm writing this on the jumbo jet, flying back to the good old U.S. of A. Only six more hours to go. I'll be gaining a day. I left Tokyo at 3:55 PM on Friday, 26 April, and I'll be arriving in San Francisco at 8:55 AM on the very same day. Time surfing, it's a trip.

Posted 25 April 2002
Road report: Insomnia reigns. After last night's road report, I was sleepless again. So I went out at around 3:00 walked around the neighborhood. Tokyo is a round-the-clock city, so there was still considerable activity going on. I wandered until the sun came up, then came back to my hotel room and crashed for a few hours. Slow down, thinking mind, slow down and rest.

After a late-morning breakfast of Korean BBQ with Andrew, the two of us took the subway to Shinjuku so I could buy a digital camera. (To read about Shinjuku, check out this blurb on the tokyoessentials.com Web site.) Shinjuku is so densely packed, so saturated with neon signs, so buzzing with electronic sounds, it made Manhattan's Times Square look like a strip of Idaho farmland. After checking out the latest innovations in digi camera gear, I ultimately didn't buy one. But our trip wasn't in vain, because there was just so much going on all around us. Among the things we saw: a life-size fiberglass statue of The Colonel in front of a KFC, wearing an actual pair of glasses that are somehow molded to his head and two very real Rotary Club and Shriners Club pins on his fiberglass lapel; a video arcade with a game based on taiko drumming — players score points by playing a drum in rhythm with the game's soundtrack, cued by colored balls that go scrolling across the screen, red indicating "hit the drum head" and blue for "hit the rim" (see photos below); several shoe stores with the freshest and most dope new styles of Puma, Nike, New Balance, and Converse — wild color and fabric combinations you'll never see at your local Foot Locker.

The taiko drum game.

Then we went to a radio station to play a few songs — "Feelin' the Same Way," "Come Away with Me," and "Don't Know Why." We had to do this show without Andy, due to the space constraints of the radio studio. He was missed, but we had fun. (Translation: We had a good time, but I'm not sure if the time was good.) After we played, they interviewed us. And because the show we were on is a travel show, they asked us several questions about the place we're from — New York City. "What's your favorite place in New York City?" I answered Central Park, and Norah and Lee said the same. Central Park is my fave because it's so big and so rich that you can see completely different things every time you go there, especially as the seasons change. "If you had a friend coming to visit you in New York, and this person is very important to you, where would you take this person?" I would want to walk them across the Brooklyn Bridge, take them for a ride on the Staten Island Ferry, or to the American Museum of Natural History to see the whales and dinosaurs, and then take them to eat at Katz's Deli. Oh, now I'm getting homesick for New York! It's like that line in Tom Waits' song "San Diego Serenade": "I never missed the East Coast 'til I moved out to the West." Except right now I'm so far west that I'm east. And I won't be home for a while. After Japan, I'll be in San Francisco for a few days to play a guitar concert with Will Bernard, Jim Campilongo, and Leni Stern. Then I'm off to New Orleans for the Jazz & Heritage festival, and finally back home on 5 May. Norah & the band will be on the David Letterman show on 6 May, and I'll be eating dinner at Katz's that night....

We're very near a big Shintoist shrine, and I'm curious about it. I've asked a few people about Shintoism, but haven't found out much. Maybe I'm not asking the right questions? Anyone out there in Web land know anything about it? Drop me a line at shrine@adamlevy.com.

Posted 24 April 2002
Road report: Okay, I lied at the end of yesterday's road report. I didn't go to sleep. At all. So, depending on whether or not you include the date-line change, by Wednesday evening I hadn't had any sleep in 2 days — or three. By 7:00 I was feeling like leftover crapowski. Then I looked in the mirror and saw that I looked even worse than I felt. So, I checked myself into the emergency sleep clinic (my cozy hotel bed), and conked out until my eyed opened up for some reason a few minutes ago. It's now about 1:00 AM Wednesday night (Thursday morning), so that's 6 hours of the good stuff. Not enough, I do feel good, but not quite good enough to go out. At least good enough to type. Eeeeurghhk! My "road journal" has become my "insomnia journal."

Yesterday was our first official work day. 9:30 lobby call, then off to the theater to set up and sound check for our afternoon performance. Quick, easy sound-check, made easy by the fact that there were so many stage hands that each of us basically had two-and-a-half helpers all to our self. Three songs planned for our appearance: "Feelin' the Same Way," "Come Away with Me," and "Don't Know Why." After we get it all together, Lee, Andy, and I came back to the hotel for some strong late-morning coffee. Later, our Japanese interpreter and Norah's A&R guy from Toshiba/EMI Japan took us Lee, Andy, and me to lunch. Funny thing is, they took us to a place that we got frozen out of the night before. Did I mention that? Before we found the yummy noodle place (see below), we went to one other restaurant first. It looked cute from the outside, and not too full, but the host who greeted us at the front door told us that he was over-booked and that there would be a two-and-a-half-hour wait. Maybe there was good cause for this, but it sure felt like we were getting the icy 8-ball. Anyway, we ended up having lunch there yesterday and they were very accommodating. And the food was quite good. Same kind of thing as the place we dined the night before — it's all about the noodles. Cold, hot, soba, udon, in soup, served with broth on the side. But this time we had some appetizers, too. First, each of us got a our own fat, short-handled wooden spoon with roasted miso paste on it. I think they scoop the paste onto the spoon and then stick the spoon in the fire. Does this sound good? It was yummy! next, little dishes came out with inch-long gob of creamy, off-white paste, about the size and shape of the toothpaste on a toothbrush in a Crest commercial, but without the curlicue at the end. This was some sort of fermented bean paste, I think, with the funky taste of a strong English cheese. Like the spoonful of miso, this probably doesn't sound so good by my description here, but I dug it. Then they brought out bowls with bite-size pieces of raw white-meat chicken, splashed ever-so-gently with a light soy sauce and garnished with a bit of light-green veggies. (Green onions, or wakame? I can't remember now.) This was the only dish that gave us pause. In the States, raw chicken is the last thing you'd want to eat. And I don't usually like chicken of any sort. But we all tried it and we all liked it, and we all lived to tell. It was so tender and tasty. Wow. For my main thing, I had cold soba noodles, served with an intense broth with slices roasted duck breast. Again, I say wow.

After lunch, we returned to the theater for our 15-minute performance, which was part of a big music conference that's going on here now. When it was show time, we walked onstage in the dark — each of us guided by two stage hands with Mag-lites, and took our places. There was a screen up in front of us, and on that screen they were showing Norah's video for "Don't Know Why." The music faded, the screen rose, and I busted into the intro of "Feelin' the Same Way." Where there had been a big sea of empty seats in front of us several hours earlier, there was now an ocean of music-industry folks. 1,200 Japanese journalists and media folks, representing most of northern Japan. Everything clicked on stage, all of us happy to finally be playing together again. It felt so good to be playing, after all that it took to get here. It's all about the music, man, it's all about the music. And the appetizers. But mostly the music.

Back at our hotel after the show, we met Speech, from Arrested Development. Cool.

We'll do it again tomorrow, and we get to play seven songs this time. A bonanza!

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. Before I collapsed, Andy and I took the Subway to Ginza to go the Hakuhinkan Toy Park, an incredible toy store. Andy and I love us some toys, and this is one of the coolest toy shops I've ever seen. Four stories of playful things for children of all ages. Andy bought a whole lotta love there, but I was on the verge of meltdown so I only picked up one thing (which I can't mention here because it's a surprise gift for someone). Anyway, just for the record, Toy Park rocks! And the Subway here is cool. Easy to understand, clean, inexpensive.

I don't think I can go back to sleep. Maybe I'll take a walk. Later....

Hey, did I mention the huge crows they have here. They're monstrous! Here's a haiku poem for the crows:

Magpies, enormous
Their beaks like huge black crab claws
Please don't feed the birds

Posted 22 April 2002
Road report: We're in Japan now. My first time here. Flew in from NYC, leaving at 1:15 PM on Sunday and arriving at 4:15 PM on Monday. The flight itself is 13 hours, plus time-line and date-line crossings. I don't totally get it but that's okay because I can sleep at any hour, in any condition. Except for right now, when my insomnia has kicked in. It's 1:00 AM, late Monday night in our new zone, and I'm wide awake. Sandman, where are you? Before yesterday, I worried that the 13-hour jet ride would make me feel claustrophobic, but the time passed quickly. On my little private video monitor I watched K-PAX twice, most of Joe Somebody, and some of — ugh! — Driven.

Going through the passport screening process at the Tokyo airport, I almost got sent home because of a simple misunderstanding. On the form we had to fill out, in the space that asks for the "purpose of visit," I wrote "entertainment." The guard asked if I have a Japanese visa, and when I replied that I don't, he got real stern real fast. Apparently, if you're here as an entertainer, you need to have a Japanese visa to allow you to work here. I understand that, but we're not really here to play concerts. All of our activities are private, for press and promotion only. And though I'm getting paid to be here, I'm not being paid by a Japanese club to perform music. (The money is filtered from elsewhere.) So, technically speaking, I'm not here as an "entertainer" but rather I am here on "business." Things got pretty tense for about 30 seconds. I should have explained to him that when I wrote that the purpose of my visit is "entertainment," I meant my own. Yuk, yuk. Anyway, I finally smoothed things over with the man, and our band made it out of the airport without further incident.

Tokyo, I've been told, is one of the most expensive cities but I think we've had it easy so far. Our quartet (Norah, Lee, Andrew, m'self) found a great place to eat, right near our hotel, and the four of us filled our bellies to the brim with noodle soup, tempura, cabbage salad, and beer, for a grand total of ¥6,500, which is approximately equivalent to $50. The same meal in New York City would have cost at least that much. And on the way back to our hotel, the smoker in our group found his favorite brand in a vending machine for ¥280, which is about $2.25. Anyone remember the last time they bought cigarettes in the United States for $2.25? So, it seems, Tokyo is not as obscenely expensive as reported. This is good news for traveling jazz musicians.

Our hotel rooms are charming, with lots of classic Japanese carpentry and cozy furnishings. We also have all the modern conveniences — the toilets have multiple functions (you dig?) and from the clock-radio on my nightstand I can turn all of the lights in the room on and off and can adjust the air conditioner as well. Slick! Tomorrow will be a big, busy day, with lots of press and promo to do. Maybe I should force myself to catch at least a few winks. G'night.

Posted 19 April 2002
Road report: Dela vu.... the road followed me home! Around 5:30 yesterday afternoon, John Mayer's bassist David "Dela" LaBruyere called me on my cell phone just to say "howdy." He was at a sound-check and had a little down time. He thought I was still on tour someplace, but I was home in New York City. When I asked where he was, he told me that he was at the Bowery Ballroom, which happens to be just a stone's throw from my apartment. I cruised over to the Bowery and found out that Mayer was there opening for Elvis Costello. Yeah! This gig was some sort of private party, basically for press people and a few lucky fans, so the guest list was too tight for Dela (or anybody else) to be able to put me on. What's a brother to do? I waited around and chatted with Alicia, Becca, and Jamie — three avid John Mayer fans who met each other online and came to the show together.

On Delancey Street, near the Bowery Ballroom, New York City. Left to right: Alicia, Becca, me, Jamie.

The four of us waited and chatted some more, hopeful that we'd be able to get in somehow, and the waiting eventually paid off. Just after Mayer launched into his first song, we got into the show. It was funny (not "ha ha" funny) to see Mayer playing an opening set after having opened for him a dozen times in recent weeks. When he headlines, he'll typically play 90 minutes, plus a big juicy encore. But at the Bowery he had to make it all happen in less than half the time. He and the boys pulled it off nicely. Funky, fun, well-paced, as per usual.

Elvis' set was completely rad. I had never seen him before, but wanted to for a long, long time. To see him, in my neighborhood, almost by accident — it was a mind-blower. His new band is called the Impostors. It's basically the Attractions (Pete Thomas on drums, Steve Nieve on keyboards) but with Davey Faragher on bass (replacing Bruce Thomas). They rocked with incredible intensity. And his songs — wow!

It's now 6:00 PM on Friday night, 19 April, ,and there's an *INSANE* thunder storm happening. I'll sign off here....

Posted 17 April 2002
Road report: Now this leg of the tour is officially over. It's the middle of the night, 4:48 AM, after our House of Blues gig. Norah, Lee, and Daru are on our tour bus, maybe 1/3 of the way home to New York by now. Andrew and I stayed over in Chicago; I am flying to NYC in just a few hours and he'll be flying to San Francisco. I'm sleepless and somewhat sad. Some sort of post-partem something or other. The tour itself was nothing to be sad about. Our little band ventured together across a sizeable chunk of the U.S., sang and played the best we could, met a lot of cool peeps, enjoyed unreasonably good weather, wrote some new songs, and had all sorts of spontaneous adventures (some of which are logged here). Additionally, we've been getting good reports from the home office — Norah's album has, apparently, nearly acheived "gold record" status. That's 500,000 copies sold in the U.S. Whoa!

One of the coolest things I found in Chicago is the Smith Museum of Stained Glass Windows at the Navy Pier. Here's a blurb from thestorefinder.com:

"The Smith Museum of Stained Glass Windows has over 175 windows on permanent display at Navy Pier, on Chicago's magnificent lakefront. The museum is open every day of the year, when Navy Pier is open, and best of all, it is free. See the only known window to survive from the Womans Building of the World's Columbian Exposition, windows by Louis Comfort Tiffany, John LaFarge, Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, Franz Mayer and F.X. Zettler of Munich and many others, all fully labeled, easy to understand, and in beautiful installations. Free guided tours of the Museum are available by appointment. Please call 312/595-5024 for further information."

Andrew and I found this place quite by accident. We were down by the Navy Pier, and were simply looking for the, ahem, Little Boys Room. What we found beyond the porcelain was a free exhibit of turn-of-the-century stained glass, some of which was so beautiful that it moved me to tears. Though maybe I'm not a good emotional barometer. The Sixth Sense also moved me to tears. Anyway, if you find yourself anywhere near Chicago, do go see this beautiful place.

Boom Chick, I miss you!

Posted 16 April 2002
Road report: We're in Chicago now, and we'll be playing at the the House of Blues tonight. It's noon now. We got into town yesterday afternoon. First stop was Andy's Jazz Club, where we stopped for lunch and a beer. There was a jazz trio playing when we first sat down, but next thing we knew there was a small army of kids filing in, from some local middle school. They were there to give a concert! It was so strange to be in a funky, dark bar, where people are basically there to drink and smoke, and then suddenly the 13-year-olds practically outnumbered the adult patrons. They took the stage, their band director counted them off, and they busted out with a kick-ass version of "Tuxedo Junction." My two lunch partners — Andrew and Daru (see below) — and I were particularly stoked by this, because we all got our musical starts in school bands and were flashing back heavily. We hooted and hollered for them. Then we went for a walk and sat by the Chicago River for a while, soaking up the mid-day sun like a trio of housecats. Then more talk, more walking, and a late-afternoon coffee. Days like these are necessary on the road. A break from playing, and recharging our batteries with the energy of rich daily life. Oh, wait, we did actually play a gig last night — an in-store appearance at a Borders Books. But it didn't feel like a gig. I mean, it just felt like a natural extension of our mellow, elastic-time day. Know what I mean?

Posted 14 April 2002
Road report: After a long lapse in online activity, I'm back with a special "guest road report" from our drummer, Andrew Borger. Due to a prior commitment, Andy wasn't with us for the first few weeks of this tour, but he rejoined the band in Portland, Oregon. We're glad to have him back! And now, without further ado, here's Andy....

Hi everyone. As Adam may have mentioned, I joined the tour late. I unfortunately was detained by my new pilot tv project. It employs a perfect combination of court-style TV and cooking shows. Think Judge Judy meets Iron Chef. I am unable to divulge more details here, for obvious reasons.

Life on our bus, "007," has been rough. The engine threw a rod, which came up through the belly of the bus while I was in the back peacefully reading the Louis L'Amour novel Flint. Narrowly escaping a death by impaling, everything subsequent has seemed like a cakewalk. All that I can say is that 007 has resurrected both mooning and streaking for me, and that is a happy thing. (All of that is not true, except for the mooning and streaking part. And Flint.)

Sometimes the food scene on the road is good, and sometimes it is rough. For lunch today I had a really good breaded walleye, for example, but then for dinner I had to deal with a Wendy's single with cheese. Of course iceberg lettuce is king in the heartland, and all other vegetables are cooked to the point of being unrecognizable.

I am getting used to taking showers at truck stops as well. Wotta gas. I never really realized it, but a shower really is worth seven dollars.

In other news, Adam and I have essentially stopped all verbal communication, in lieu of extensive cell-phone text messaging. It has brought us much closer.

Guess that about sums it up.

P.S. The music has been fun as well.

~Andre LeBorge

And now here's another guest editorial from Daru, our beloved tour manager....

FYI....I am Queen Commander of 007, Green Eagle Ride. I withhold all accounts of devious and reckless goings-on. Adam is my prize artist and delicate bloom of a friend...right now we are watching Miss Spears on MTV2 in the country's largest truck stop. The road is positively fantastic. The mirrors on the ceilings of our bus symbolize our intent to rock....and ROCK, we do. With the addition of the final band element, "Candy Pants" Borger, we are complete as a musical extravaganza. As we near the end of this U.S. leg, we have become so much closer and violent with each other. Occasionally, I fear for my life and the popping of my ears. It is this fear, as well as the twisted back roads of California and the sulfur fumes of the Midwest, that keep me strong and dedicated to the life of our tour.

Please hold onto your itineraries with a grain of salt and always carry a Mag-lite. :)

Peace,
Daru

Posted 9 April 2002
Road report: I'm writing this on board our tour bus, zooming northward from Portland to Seattle. It's 11:00 AM, and I haven't had any coffee yet today. Grrrrr.....

Our show last night was at the Crystal Ballroom, an incredibly beauteous old ballroom. The floorboards have a nice springy feel, which is great for lindy hopping, I imagine. After playing as a trio for the past three weeks, this was our first gig with drummer Andrew Borger back on the beat. We're glad he's back 'cause he plays so musically, and because he's the essence of joy, distilled. Really. He's also a demon on the billiards table. Damn.

The Portland gig wasn't a "personal best" for me, but the band played well as a team and the good people of Portland seemed to appreciate us. This leg of the tour has been a little tricky, because we've been opening for John Mayer, so most of the folks in the crowds have been there to see him, not us. But on those nights we can win some of those kids over — the ones who have driven hundreds of miles, across state lines to see and hear the main attraction — then I think we're doing alright. Tonight will be our last night with Mayer, and I'll miss him and his band. Next, we've got one date in Denver opening for Medeski, Martin & Wood, and then a date in Chicago where we're the headliners. After all of that, we're off to Japan. Something new every day.

Posted 7 April 2002
Road report: Spring forward.... We were in L.A. again last night. In Claremont, to be exact, at the Claremont College, in the Bridges Auditorium. It's a large, lovely place, with a fantastic constellation-inspired painting in gold-leaf on the ceiling. A mellower show than most we've done in the past week or so, because it was an auditorium with seating. For most of our shows with John Mayer, we've been in clubs where people stand — the Fillmore, the House of Blues, and so on. The excitement of 1,500 people standing up and rocking out is undeniably great. But it's also nice to play it theater-style sometimes.

One of our House of Blues shows from last week got a pretty nice write-up in the Los Angeles Times. Click here to read it.

Speaking of which, there were these two very cool girls at that show, and I hung out with them after the gig. They bought me a Heineken, invited me to a party the next day (which I couldn't make) and we had a stimulating talk about G_d and Passover. I didn't mention them in my road report the next day, but then they showed up at our Claremont show (to work the merchandise table for John Mayer) and busted me for leaving them out. Sorry, Erin and Terri. If you're reading this — howdy! Wish you were here.

In Claremont, California, with Erin and Terri — kibitzing about kabbalah.

If anyone out there has photos from this tour, send them to me at photos@adamlevy.com. Please and thank you. If I post your photo here, you will be credited.

One other bit of news: There had been a hateful, sulfur-like smell on our bus for the past few days. It wasn't so bad at first, but it got worse and worse, to the point beyond my ability to describe it. No one on our bus could figure it out. It wasn't the bathroom, it wasn't food gone bad, it wasn't one of us. Finally — while stopped at a truck-stop service station tonight — our bus driver, Buzz, solved the awful mystery. It seems that one of the batteries down below in the cargo hold had gone bad and was heating up like crazy. Hence the sulfuric stink. Long story short, he replaced the battery, and we once again have olfactory peace on our bus. We're glad he discovered this bad power cell when he did, because it was so hot and volatile that could have exploded. Yikes! Thanks, Buzz!!!

Posted 6 April 2002
Road report: Last night's show at the Fillmore was a treat for us, not only because we played well and had a good connection with the crowd, but because we played this venue not too long ago (opening for Willie Nelson) and the folks that run the place remembered us and were extra-kind to us.

After our set, I slipped down the back stairs and went across the street to the Boom Boom Room to hear the OM Trio. If you haven't seen these guys, check 'em out. And they tour like crazy, so chances are good that they'll be in your town soon.

One big bit of weirdness: After the Fillmore show was all over, we went out to our bus, parked a block from the club, next to a little park. When we got to the bus, there was yellow "Police Line Do Not Cross Tape" everywhere. And cops. And cop cars. Apparently, there was a homicide in the park while we were playing. Seriously.

This is our tour bus, by daylight, without Police tape.

Posted 5 April 2002
Road report: We're now in San Francisco, camped out at the Phoenix Hotel, relaxing before our show at the Fillmore. The past few days were spent in Southern California. One night in San Diego, at Canes Bar & Grill, and then two nights at the House of Blues. In S.D., I got to visit an old, old friend of mine, Arlan, who I had my first band with. He's now a beer merchant, for Stone Brewing Co. We hung out after my gig and sampled some of his wares. Yum.

The House of Blues on Sunset Boulevard is modern and urban, mixed with blues mojo and a vaguely mystical vibe. I wish I had some great story to share here, but I'm just getting over the flu and have been groggy and dazed for the past few days. About all I can tell you is that Jackson Browne dropped by to say hello. And a couple of the kids from Hansen were there too. Okay, that's my story.

Posted 1 April 2002
Road report: Okay, so Dallas was fun. We played a good set. Looser than usual, in a good way, I think. John Mayer played the best I've seen him so far, which is saying something because he's really "on" every night. After the gig, hung out and listened to Graham Colton, a local fave. Then stayed and sipped Dos Equis until last call with one of Colton's guitarists, Drew, and his twin sister. Nicest people. Since Dallas, we've been driving, driving, driving, en route to San Diego, CA. Long drive, lot's of cacti and beautiful desert plateaus. Best name for roadside diner on this trip: Fork in the Road (Las Cruces, NM). Runner up: Omar's Highway Chef (east of Eloy, AZ). Not much of a name, but special mention for best tortilla chips of all time, ever: El Zarape Rojo (Eloy, AZ), behind the Waffle House.

Also, I wrote another new song today. My fourth complete song in 14 days, and my first totally non-autobiographical song. Hmm.... maybe I'll demo these soon and post some mp3s here. Maybe.

Posted 30 March 2002
Road report: We (Norah Jones, Lee Alexander, and I) rocked Austin. Discreetly. (Tenacious D reference.) We were supposed to play at Stubb's, an outdoor music venue and a place to eat pretty good barbecue. But, due to a rainy forecast, the show was moved over to the spacious Austin Music Hall just a few hours before show time. That meant that another 800 people could come, along with the 2,000 fans who already had tix for Stubb's. Whoa. So far, we had never played any place that size. It was wild to walk out on stage and see that ocean of music lovers, pumped to see us and John Mayer. Really, it wasn't that long ago that we were playing to 50 people a night every Wednesday at Makor, with no cover charge. Now people drive hundreds of miles to see us and sometime follow us from show to show. I hope we can make it worth the trip.

I've been writing songs out here on the road. Songs with words. That's a new thing for me. I'm no John Prine, but I'm doing the best I can. Norah has been singing two of my new songs in our shows, which is a thrill for me. I just wrote another one yesterday morning, while out for a walk around Austin. My goal at the beginning of this tour was to write a song a day. We've been out for 11 days so far and I've finished three songs. I've got to start cranking them out faster if I'm going to meet my goal.

Now we're en route to Dallas. Should be fun, seeing as how Dallas is Norah's home town and today is her birthday.

Posted 29 March 2002
Road report: Two nights ago, we (Norah Jones & band) opened for John Mayer at Numbers, in Houston, TX. After the show, three autograph-seeking fans followed our tour bus back to the hotel, thinking that we were John Mayer. When we got out at our hotel and they realized we're not Mayer, they were only mildly bummed out, and were really glad to meet us just the same. Then they said they were going to the House of Pies, and asked us want to join them. Everyone else was too tired, but I was game so they took me out for a "cherry Dr. Pepper" (Dr. Pepper plus Maraschino cherries and cherry syrup) and a grilled-cheese-and-tomato sandwich.

Had a day off in Austin yesterday, which I spent doing practical things: haircut, bank, post office, trip to the Austin Vintage Guitars for strings and picks, lunch at Hut's Hamburgers. We have today free, too, until show time. With all of the practical stuff taken care of, I'm looking at a day of 100% fun. It's only 7:15 AM now. Time to get rolling.

Serenading the peeps in the parking lot behind the Austin Music Hall in Austin, TX, after our show on 29 March. (Note fan at left brandishing a copy of Buttermilk Channel.)             Photo by Bari Glover, © 2002.

Posted 27 March, 2002
Well, I have been totally slack about updating this page. I think the best thing will be to start posting some sort of tour diary. Self-indulgent as that may be, that's about the size of my "news" these days. I'm on the road with Norah Jones, and the road is stretching out as far and wide as the eye can see. We're currently in Houston, TX, and will be heading west tomorrow, for Austin and Dallas. You can find tour details on Norah's page.

For now, in lieu of any big posting for today, I'll just mention that I recently got interviewed for allaboutjazz.com, and I think it turned out really well. Check it out here.