Frisco, CO – “Coco Coffee” – Barkley’s – April 8, 1999

I’m embarrassed about the interview I did with Wendy Kale for The Daily Camera yesterday.  Wonderful Wendy had taken me for coffee and we’d sat on the porch of Buchannan’s letting the wild Colorado gusts dust us a shade earthier by the minute. By the time we went our separate ways, we could have passed for clay sculptures of ourselves.  Wendy, an exceptional journalist, and soul, I know she’ll write a nice piece about the smattering of Colorado gigs we have coming up before we hit the road again next month (this time heading east). 

I think I sounded pretentious and I’d cringed as I slid back in my little Rav 4 and tried to scrape the caked-on dirt in my rear-view mirror.  I realized I seemed boastful telling her I’d been offered record deals and turned them down, like I’m the only musician who could be, but doesn’t want to be, famous.  Like I’m some sort of lone wolf in the music scene.  Yuck.   It took me two hours to wash Colorado out of my face and just as long to forgive myself for acting so pompous.

When the boys showed up at my house at 5:30 I was delighted to listen to them whine about wanting to go back on the road. I’m a little desperate to get back out myself.  Not because I don’t love being home or because the road is easy but because the band is becoming more and more like my family and coming home requires readjustments no chiropractor can crack.

It was a relief to be back in Moby as we hauled ass for a one-off* in Frisco.  Dellucchi had Moby’s carpets vacuumed and the dashboard dusted and she looked like a new van.  We opened fan mail, listened to homemade CDs people had given us to listen to, and stopped at our favorite Loaf ‘N Jug for coco coffee and cheap sunglasses.

The band caught up on the week we’d spent apart.  Every one of us had been through the wringer: Breakups, one of us was fired from our day job, parking tickets, dog houses we’d metaphorically slept in, bike accidents and days we’d slept through entirely. Glad to be home much?

We got to Barkley’s a little late and didn’t get to sound-check until 15 minutes before the show. Our audience was already in attendance which made me self-conscious and rushed. As a result, I played the show with monitors that sounded like tin cans echoing my voice from the bottom of a well. My performance, no doubt, suffered as a result.

It was an OK show. Nothing really to write home about (though that’s what I’m doing) and the people in the audience were sweet, attentive, and seemingly had a wonderful time.

The boys fell asleep on the way home but Delucchi and I were wired on coco coffee and Excedrin we’d taken for our brewing headaches. By the time the guys dropped me at my house it was 3 am.  It was cold.  I was alone again; just me and my guitar and the moon hanging overhead, huge and orange like a pendant against the breast of the mountains.

*A one-off is a single gig, untethered to a proper tour.