Boulder, Co – “Let’s Get This Rodeo On The Roadeo”- March 1, 1999

This morning, my band (MY BAND!!!!) congregated like a murder of crows on my lawn at 6th & Pine to pack Moby for our very first national tour!

I’ve felt tucked into the borders of Colorado as though the state were a bed with confining sheets. While this tour has us warming up in Colorado, playing now-familiar venues and occasionally returning us to our homes in Boulder to water plants and sleep in our own beds, I feel gitty about escaping the confines of Colorado’s borders and exploring the wider nation.

I was beside myself with excitement as I skipped down my driveway to meet Kenny, Brian and the two Chris’ in my new green felted clogs. In the sparse days leading to departure, I’d managed to get all our instruments insured and (by the skin of my teeth, Kipp’s invaluable wisdom, and his fully decked out tool chest) remove two of Moby’s back seats to replace them with a ‘gear cage.’

“This cage will prevent your gear from decapitating you whenever you break at a stop light,” said a nonchalant Kipp who, having managed bands for the last 10 years, should know.

We played Tetris with equipment. “This is a one-time thing,” apologized Delluchi after the first hour of finagling guitar cases, bass amps, and suitcases. “But it’s imperative we figure out which instruments fit by size, weight, and fragility and then, after every gig, we’ll repack the van exactly the same way every time.” Chris Delluchi our soundman and tour manager is a road veteran and when he says “jump” I ask “How high?” But he’s never stern. He’s a muppet of a man, with Pantene bouncing shoulder-length hair and the town-given title of “nicest guy in the universe,” or so says 9 out of 10 people.

Once Chris was happy with our Tetris-configured boot, he gave us a nod and a whistle and like obedient show dogs we leapt in the van with our tails wagging.

Riding shotgun, I stared at the postcard I’d snail-mailed to a scant but burgeoning list of fans, addresses for whom I’d started collecting last month at shows on Kipp’s recommendation. I felt bad about taking Kipp for granted the last few weeks as I realized I couldn’t have done 1/2 of this without him.

The truth is, my boyfriend Kipp Stroden, more than anyone or anything in the world (including my Mom or Dad, all the music business books I’ve devoured, and a lifetime of experience playing in indie bands) has taught me more about the ins and outs of the indie music business and made the possibility of my being a solo touring artist a reality.

I have been a shitty girlfriend.

On the postcard was an image of me hitching a ride down a country road with a list of West Coast tour dates overlayed in black, routing us through Colorado, California, Oregon and Washington State.

Was I ready for this? You bet I was.

‘I hardly know these guys I’m traveling with.’ I thought to myself. ‘Am I crazy setting off on an month-long adventure with four strangers who might snore and fart and have mommy issues and bad breath not to mention might try to murder me in my sleep?’ But it was too late.

But Here is what I know so far about my band…

Kenny reads constantly. He brings a handleless grocery bag brimming with paperback, tattered, bodice rippers everywhere he goes. He inhales one after the other; you seldom catch him unglued to a page.

Brian is constantly making up new drum beats on his “Red Box” (which we playfully refer to as his “girlfriend” because he loves it so much). He’s always trying to get one of us to listen to his newest sample.

The jury is still out on Chris Soucy as we only just hired him two weeks ago. But so far, I find him meticulous. He’s very exact, always on time, always on the beat and he hates chord progressions that are not in the same key (I’m hoping to break him of that).