Ponies, Music & White Sandy Beaches

A very weird thing happens when you’re on tour.  The passage of time seems to shift all over the bloomin place.  There are moments when an hour feels like an eternity.  Other times it feels like seconds.  Then at the end of it you’re left asking yourself; ‘did we really do ALL that in XX amount of days?!’…

…which is exactly how I felt after my most recent trip away.  It went a little bit like this:

On Sept 20th I set out on an East Coast tour with Doug and Telisha from Wild Ponies. We played 8 extremely fun shows in 6 different States.

Brooklyn Americana Fest, New York, New Yooooooork

I’ve been to NY a handful of times and this is generally how it makes me feel:

Days 1-4: I absolutely LOVE New York. I love that there’s so much going on and that everything is just go, go, go all the time.

Days 4+: Ok I’ve had enough. I hate that there’s so much going on and that everything is just go, go, go all the time.

I caught a 6am flight out of Austin and a few hours later landed in Newark, NY. I had a taxi driver take me from the airport to Manhattan, where I was staying with D & T.  On this 30min taxi ride through down town, I felt a mixture of intense fear combined with utter amazement that no one was either killed or run over.  The driver seemed to possess Jedi-like powers and was able to make a rather large passenger van shrink down and fit through the tiniest of gaps.  Random people just walked out into the road, seemingly oblivious to any thoughts of self preservation.  Cars, trucks and motorbikes casually pulled out in front of each other at speed, as if they were surrounded by an invisible forcefield preventing anything from simply ploughing straight into them.  The one thing everyone did have in common was driving like they were in some sort of drag race, where you get extra points if you take out pedestrians and other road users.

As we would say in the UK, it was totally bonkers.

And yet, despite all of this – nothing bad happened.  No-one crashed and everything was fine.

How? I’ve absolutely NO idea.

We played 2 shows at the Brooklyn Americana Festival.  First at The Jalopy Theatre and then the second under a railway bridge.

I realise the second venue sounds a little unusual – but it was actually a lot of fun. We played under the Dumbo Archway with trains passing overhead every few minutes.  I absolutely loved it.`

Friendly River Music, Maine

Having spent some time in New York, I couldn’t wait to see some green stuff.  By green stuff I mean trees, fields and birds (Yes I know birds aren’t green…but like me, they enjoy hanging out in green stuff).  I’m an earthy, hippy, outdoorsy kind of gal and my natural habitat is being close to water, plants and wildlife.  It re-charges my batteries and brings me back to centre.

Friendly River Music is one of my FAVOURITE places to play. It’s a live music venue and a freakin music shop, in arse-end-of-no-where Maine surrounded by nothing but nature.

The show was sold out.  The crowd and our hosts John and Charlene (as always) were lovely.  Such a magical night ❤ Can’t wait to go back.

Café 9, Connecticut

We played this venue on the Galax release tour last year.  My memory of this is that our show was a lot of fun and afterwards I went outside to get a bit of fresh air.  I was wearing my Wild Ponies baseball T – which has the band name clearly written across the front of it.  A random male driver with his window fully down drove past me, wolf whistled, pointed in my direction and at the top of his voice yelled out

‘Whoooo! Look at them titties!!’.

I suppose there are some people in the world who would consider this flattering.  I however find it rude, kind of yucky and not ok. My first reaction was to flip the guy off, but as I was wearing a Wild Ponies shirt thought better of it. So I did nothing.  Later in the van I told D & T about what happened and the first thing they said was, ‘I hope you flipped the guy off!’.  So just for future reference, I have been actively encouraged to express my feelings should this happen again.  Thankfully it hasn’t.  Let’s hope it stays that way.

Just like our previous show, this one was also a blast.  However there was no mention of my boobs, just my drumming.  Yay.  Progress.

While we were in Connecticut we wanted to sample some pizza from what has been labelled by many as ‘the best pizza joint in the world’.

That place was Frank Pepe’s Pizza and legend has it that Frank Sinatra himself would regularly stop by and order a clam pizza (Doug did in fact put in an order for clam pizza, you’ll have to ask him what it was like 😉 ).

Frank Pepe’s is a pretty cool place and, as per the legend, the pizza was indeed A-MAZING. Check it out:

2 Days off in Virginia

This is the second year I’ve spent my birthday on the road with D & T.  My birthday eve and birthday were spent with Doug’s lovely family in their equally lovely house in Virginia.

Everyone put in so much time and effort into making the day special ❤ For dinner we had an authentic British meal of Jacket Potatoes with baked beans and cheese.  Doug’s Mum also made a delicious vegetarian soup and desert was a specially made birthday apple crumble which yes, was bloody lovely.

Hurrah and yay 🙂 ❤

Tin Pan, Virginia

I’ve never played at this venue before but it was a lovely space.  Like a little kid I get super excited when I look at old gig posters and see the faces of people I grew up listening to (Joan Osborne, Paula Cole etc) and think to myself ‘they played on this stage!’.

It was awesome to meet a lot of people who saw us playing at the Richmond Folk Festival last year (THAT was fun).

Footlight Theatre, South Carolina

My first ever trip to S. Carolina.  My Mother-in-law is from here and always brags about how awesome it is.  She wasn’t wrong.  It’s very cool (definitely not temperature wise though!).

The theatre was a super characterful place located in the French quarter of Charleston.  There were a TON of historical buildings in that area (from the 1670s), the oldest I’ve seen since moving to the USA.

The show was great, but we had a looooonnnnggg drive ahead of us – as we were playing a live radio show in Tampa, FL at 12pm the following day! 😮

Suncoast Songwriters Weekend, Don CeSar Hotel, Florida 

We made it to the radio show, then travelled onwards towards the Don CeSar hotel – the venue for the Suncoast Songwriters Weekend.  As we drove across a bridge covering a large stretch of water, far off into the distance we could see a HUGE pink building that towered over the land like some sort of giant pink castle.

Surely that’s not where we’re staying? I kept thinking as we got closer and closer.

Yep, it was.

The hotel is absolutely beautiful, and get this – it’s right slap-bang next to the beach!! 😮

The first night I went and sat on the beautiful white sand for a good hour.  I listened to the sound of the waves moving gently back and forth and gazed up at the clear night sky.

While sitting there I recorded this voice memo:

The Don CeSar hotel is by far one of the most magical places I’ve ever stayed ❤ I really hope one day I’ll be lucky enough to go back there.

 

Back to Austin

Sunday I flew back home and that evening got to hear my dear friend Sarah McQuaid play her wonderful music.  She’s from Cornwall (which is right next to Devon in the UK) and is currently on an epic US tour. She very kindly gave me a copy of her new album (which btw is rad, been listening to it in my car since I’ve been home) and I can’t wait to nerd out on her DADGAD guitar book.

All in all, it was an amazing 10 days.

I know.  All that in 10 days.  Like I said earlier: touring = time warp.

I think it’s safe to say that next to my adventures in Norway back in June, this trip will definitely be one of my highlights of 2018.

Thank you so much as always for reading this far 🙂 Appreciate you coming on these adventures with me ❤

On the Roooaad Agaaaain

Austin TX to Nashville TN to Lansing MI to Livonia MI to Oberlin OH to Columbus OH and back to lovely Austin TX again.

As you may have already guessed, last week I was on the road having a ton of fun playing drums, mando and a smidgin of electric guitar for Wild Ponies.

It was a short run of 4 shows, all of which were extremely awesome.

But before I get stuck into story telling, I have to introduce you to my new friend, Bertie.

Bertie was my lovely drum kit for the week and he did a most excellent job.  On the ride to the house from Nashville airport I asked Doug what kit he had for me, to which he replied – ‘dunno what make it is, something old and weird!’….and Bertie is exactly that, old and weird – just like me.

Show #1 – The Old Town General Store, Lansing, Michigan.

My first time to both Lansing and this super characterful venue. If I could sum up my lovely little home town of Totnes in a single building – this would be it.

The Old Town General Store has a shopping area in the front selling mostly local produce and a lovely courtyard out back where all the live music happens. The shop had lots and lots of hippy stuff – all of which I wanted (I stocked up heavily on organic Kombucha and Michigan bumper stickers) and the courtyard was filled with beautiful and very happy looking flowers of all shapes and sizes.

The sun was shining, people were super into it, hurrah.

Here’s a little video courtesy of the my GoPro…

 

Food Stop – The Whistle Stop Diner, Pleasant Ridge MI

One of the best breakfasts I’ve ever had – it almost beat me! A toasted vege burrito with a side of hash browns, all washed down with a cup of tea – heck yeah.

Show #2 – Trinity House Theatre, Livonia, Michigan.  

The moment I stepped through the front door and saw the stage, I knew this was going to be an amazing show 🙂

I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed connecting with ‘old’ stuff since moving to the US, so it was lovely to walk into a building oozing with so much historic character and charm.

Apparently it use to be a church a while ago.  And so,

**BONUS** – guess what was right slap-bang next to the building?

A freakin’ super old graveyard! 😮

Well, by ‘super old’ I mean American super old (1830s)…but still, these were the oldest stones I’ve seen since moving here 4.5 years ago which was extremely cool.

Most people don’t know that in my ‘spare time’ I do volunteer work for a couple of organisations helping to preserve and document old grave sites in Texas. This includes documenting with photographs, clearing and cleaning stones all over the place and it’s been fascinating to learn about the history of each site.

Not everyone’s cup of tea I know, but this was a real treat for me – music, old buildings AND dead people! 😉

The show was packed.  The audience were absolutely lovely and we had a wonderful time. Can’t wait to go back.

Food Stop – Wonder Bar, Milan OH

We stopped for food in a super cute town in Ohio called Milan (pronounced; My-Lan).  The first building we drove past appeared to be a food place called Invention Restaurant.  We all noticed this and agreed it was a rather odd name to call a restaurant.  Once we’d parked up I grabbed my camera and had a bit of a mooch about the town square, at which point I very quickly learned that Milan was the birth place of Thomas Edison.

Ahhhhh, okaaay.

Invention Restaurant.

Light bulb inventing dude.

Got it.

And for those of you who are interested, according to our resident Wiki expert (aka Greg Horne, guitarist, pedal steel and violin player for Wild Ponies) Milan has an annual Melon Festival.

I do think a melon festival could get you into all sorts of trouble if you’re not careful.

‘Look at the size of her melons!’

‘What lovely juicy melons you have!’

Really, the double entendre possibilities are pretty endless.

Anyways..

 

Show #3 – RiverDog, Oberlin, Ohio.

Right out in the arse-end-of-nowhere is an incredibly awesome place called Riverdog. Surrounded by trees, lush green grass and nature, Riverdog (as the name suggests) is right next to the river and there are 4 beautiful doggies who live there.

It’s magical, mystical and marvellous all rolled into one, and I didn’t want to leave.

Riverdog is owned by Terry and Deborah who are both artists.  They spent 5 years renovating the buildings on the property themselves and did a wonderful job.  The main house is an art gallery and studio.  The other is a guest house and coolest of all was the venue for that nights show, which was a converted barn.

Yes. It was freakin rad.

 

Here’s another little video from the second set, the atmosphere was beautiful.  Along with the 100 people sat inside and outside the barn, 4 doggies lay passed out asleep to my right, utterly unmoved by all that was going on around them.

🙂

Show #4 – Natalie’s Coal Fired Pizza, Columbus Ohio.

Two things I look forward to when playing at Natalie’s.

1. Playing music (well, duh).
2. Eating their amazing pear salad AND consuming large amounts of their outrageously tasty pizza.  It’s sooooo good.

I played at Natalie’s last year with Wild Ponies on the Galax tour (hence my pizza knowledge) and it was a ton of fun.

(I’m guessing I must’ve been too full of food to take any video or photos this time around 😉 ).

Then the following day we drove back to Nashville and I hopped on a plane to Austin.

For most of the trip the temperatures were between 75-80F and at night it cooled right down (which is what I’m use to being from the UK). It was a (nice) shock to the system when I got off the plane at 11:30pm in Austin to be greeted with 98F heat 😉

Good to be home ❤

I’ll be heading out with the Ponies again in a few weeks, can’t wait 🙂

Adventures in Norway.

If you read my previous blog, you’ll know that I had the most amazing experience exploring beautiful Eidfjord in Norway.

I honestly didn’t think it could get any better….and then there was Geiranger.

Holy. Crap.

The cruise ship left Eidfjord and traveled all through the night to get to Geiranger.  The following morning I woke up to find our vessel parked right slap-bang between a gaggle of HUGE snow capped fjords.

So…just to give you some idea of the view from my cabin window – you know those pictures they always use to advertise the ‘magical’ Norwegian fjords? They’re always on a perfectly still sunny day, with the clearest looking water you’ve ever seen in your life, capturing spectacular wildlife and waterfalls dotted here and there….

Well, it looked a bit like that. No, it looked EXACTLY like that….only way better.  It was like total eye candy for the soul….and it was REAL, totally real.  AND right outside my little window!

Once I saw what was out there I grabbed my camera and headed out to explore.

I didn’t have any kind of game plan. I just walked where ever felt right…which in that moment was a road off to the left that followed the water along a mild incline and up towards a steep hill.

Having lived in Austin, TX for the past 4.5 years my steep hill climbing skills are much weaker than they used to be when I lived in hilly Devon, England 😉 But luckily there were PLENTY of sights to ‘oooo’ and ‘ahhh’ at long before the rather scary looking incline.  I was stopping literally every 5 mins, convinced each time that I’d seen the best views to take photos of.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a truly magical experience that I’ll never forget ❤

Thank you so much Geiranger, you’re awesome – but I’m sure you already know it.

The next two locations on our journey were Alesund and Bregen.

I’m slightly ashamed to say I decided to have a ‘hang out on the cruise ship’ day in Alesund and I was prevented from seeing Bregen due to inclement weather.

It was raining, a lot.

Just a heads up for anyone who doesn’t already know – I’m originally from the UK…so my opinion of what a lot of rain is may well be very different from yours.

In Austin, TX if it rains people act like acid is falling from the sky and they’re going to die.  At the very least, they wont go anywhere.  Plans are changed, people refuse to go out.

If they adopted that approach in England, they literally wouldn’t go anywhere. Ever.  It rains more often than not.  And by ‘rains’ I don’t mean for like 10mins here and there – I mean HEAVY rain for sometimes weeks at a time.

So when the cruise ship said the rain was making it unsafe for people to venture out, I stuck my head out and thought…

‘Pah.  Really? I’ve taken my dog for a walk in worse than this’. 😉

But after standing there for a few moments watching the freezing cold sideways rain drench absolutely everything it came into contact with, the newly born Texan in me (who has gotten very used to almost 300 days of sunshine a year) thought….

‘ya know – getting wet and soggy isn’t actually that appealing, let’s go back inside and grab a drink or something’…

…to which of course the British part of me responded in total disgust with ‘Coward! You’re scared of a few drops of rain?! You can STILL have TONS of fun *even* in the pouring rain!!’.

Sorry Brit, it actually sucks being cold and wet….unless there’s a toasty fire, a cup of tea and a tray of chocolate digestives waiting for me….then it’s not so bad.

And due to the yucky weather we ended up leaving Bregen early as we were due to hit a nasty storm.  They announced to the whole ship that we’d be hitting 10ft high swells and if we had any anti-nausea medication now would be the perfect time to take it.

Oh great. Hold on tight peeps, we’re about to hit Hurl Central.

The captain said he thought the rough seas would only last a couple of hours.

A few hours turned into 8….and they were 8 very loooooong hours.

This is a short clip of how it all started – when it got really rough I couldn’t stay upright (in this video I struggled to hold the camera up we were rocking around so much!).

Thankfully by the following morning everything had calmed down and we could continue our journey back to Rotterdam in a much more civilised fashion 😉

And after a 48 hour boat ride, a 9 hour flight, followed by a 2 hour flight, finishing with a 45min car ride….I was back at home in lovely Austin. It felt like I’d been gone forever….it was only 14 days.

What a super cool experience that I’ll never forget.

Thank YOU as always for reading this far.  Can’t wait to see where life takes me next….

Oh! And I couldn’t finish this post without showing you an animal made out of towels.  Ari my amazing room cleaning dude made me a different animal every single day.

Yes, he was a legend and a genius.

Magical Music and Fantastic Fjords

A few months back I was asked if I would like to play a couple of shows with Ruthie Foster on a cruise ship heading out of Rotterdam and then spending 5 days exploring the fjords of Norway.

Rather unsurprisingly, I said yes 😉

I’d never been on a cruise ship before, never mind played any music on one – so I really had no idea what to expect.  I heard multiple horror stories from various folks eager to share their experiences (which seemed to mostly involve getting motion sickness and then hurling somewhere or another).  This didn’t exactly fill me with confidence – but thankfully all was totally fine….

…..with the exception of the last night of the cruise – which I’ll tell you about later.

The cruise lasted a total of 7 days and a couple of those were spent being out in open water.  Not seeing any land did feel a little odd at first, but once I found the very top deck and could look out across miles and miles of absolutely nothing but beautiful blue sea it was wonderful.

My shows with Ruthie were on the second day of the cruise and were (of course) SO much fun.  I played mostly drums but also bass on a couple of tunes.

Here’s a few clips.  Sorry we appear to be in miniature (we are regular sized people I promise). I thought this would be a good spot for my GoPro camera to sit. You may need set of opera glasses….

 

 

After the shows were finished, all I had to think about was exploring Norway.

Heck yeah.

I woke up the morning after our show believing we were still moving across the ocean….but I drew my curtains and was greeted by 2 giant fjords and a small cluster of characterful houses of all shapes and sizes dotted around the hillside.

We had arrived in Eidfjord, a beautiful village in the arse end of nowhere, with a total of 250 inhabitants.

Apparently the quaint village of Eidfjord has to contend with around 500,000 tourists descending upon their little oasis every year….coming from a seaside town, I know how that feels – but nothing like on that kind of scale.  Helpful to the local economy yes, but extremely overwhelming I’d imagine.

The first place I went to check out was an Iron Age Burial Ground, located at the very top of a rather nasty hill which almost killed me.

(A part of me did wonder if as a joke the locals picked a spot on the top of a very steep hill, put a pile of rocks together, covered it in moss and told the tourists it was an ancient burial ground) 

Other than the epic hill towards the end, the walk to the above burial site was absolutely lovely….as the footpath took me right through the middle of a forest. I kept thinking how much my doggy Molly would’ve loved to have gone on this walk with me ❤

My favorite forest find was a lake located just off to the right of the main path.

It was surrounded by fjords, waterfalls, trees and nature.

I could’ve stayed here a while.  A loooong while.  And in that moment if you’d offered me a cup of tea and a guitar I definitely wouldn’t have gone anywhere.

Another building I wanted to check out was an old stone church dating back to the 14th century. Along with the church was a beautiful old cemetery (yes, I like looking at old graves…I’m weird and I don’t care who knows about it) and with the fjords as the backdrop it really was a beautiful sight – even on a cloudy day.

So having taken a ba-zillion and one photographs on my lovely cameras – I headed back to the ship….which looked enormous moored up in the tiny little village dock.

I very reluctantly said goodbye to beautiful Eidfjord.  What a gorgeous place.  History, hardly any people (well, except the hordes or tourists), tons of nature and zero phone or internet signal.

Heaven.

Surely this was the highlight of the trip – it can’t get any more beautiful than this, can it?

Oh! Hello Geiranger 🙂

It’s all kinda weird. Cool. But weird.

I can’t quite believe the tour has come to an end.

We played 54 shows, in 8 different countries over the course of 12 weeks.

It was pretty darn amazing.

Highlights? There are honestly too many to mention…..but a few that spring to mind are checking out Niagara Falls before our Buffalo show, playing a venue in the UK that was built in 1498,  meeting the oldest tree in Wales, getting to see my brother in Berlin after almost 2 years of not seeing each other, playing a show close to my home town and having my friends in the front row, consuming far to much delicious cheese in Holland, Germany and France…..

…..what else?

Oh and how could I forget – on one of our days off we had a bit of a mooch about in Amsterdam (incorporating the red light district) and got matching Wild Ponies tattoos.

I didn’t make that shit up, I have the tattoo on my ankle to prove it 😉 It wasn’t too painful and looks rather nifty if I do say so myself.

Right now I feel kind of….I dunno….weird.

It’s strange to stop and think about the fact that before the tour I’d only met Doug and Telisha very briefly, and for 12 weeks straight we were in each other’s company almost every day.

Now all of a sudden they’re in Nashville, I’m in Austin….and it’s back to our regular every day lives as if nothing ever happened…..

…..which isn’t bad in any way – it’s just…..weird.

That being said – I can’t tell you how happy I am to be back in lovely Austin.   When I arrived from the UK almost 4 years ago I never, ever thought for one moment that I’d end up feeling so at home here (it’s extremely different to Devon in the UK where I lived for 33 years).  But having visited so many unfamiliar places on the tour, the familiarity of everything Austin provided some much needed warmth and comfort to my rather weary soul.  My fav hang spots, the cool restaurants and bars, my musician friends and their beautiful music…..Austin and me, we’re kinda like two peas in a pod.

Sadly I wont be able to hang here for long.  In about a week I’ll be catching yet another flight to London and spending Xmas in Devon, which is a good thing.  It’s a very good thing….and something I’m extremely grateful for.  I can’t wait to be on my parent’s farm for what will probably be the last time before it’s sold.  This stirs up a real mish-mash of emotions for me.  The best way to describe it is a deep sense of gratitude combined with an equally deep and selfish desire to never leave, because I can’t wrap my head around never being there again.  It’s a uniquely beautiful place that no-one is happy about leaving.

….but more about that another time.

For right now I’ve plenty of shows lined up in Austin before I leave – and I’m going to wade through my hours of Wild Ponies video footage and see if I can put together a montage from the tour.

It’s going to be pretty epic as I filmed pretty much every show 🙂

Thanks as always for reading this far, hope all’s good with you xx

*Wild Ponies Galax Tour* 

USA:
Nashville, TN
Knoxville, TN
Mobile, AL
Austin, TX
Oklahoma City, OK
Kansas City, MO
Chicago, IL
Madison, IN
Ann Arbor, MI
Worthington, OH
Buffalo, NY
Pittsburgh, PA
Hamilton, NY
Nashua, NH
Cornish, ME
New Haven, CT
Cambridge, MA
New York, NY
Washington, DC
Martinsville, VA
Richmond, VA

UK:
Ipswich, England
Lewes, England
London, England
Birmingham, England
Scarborough, England
High Wycombe, England
Bedford, England
Portsmouth, England
Sheffield, England
Essex, England
Plymouth, England
Cardigan, Wales
Nottingham, England
Beverly, England
Garstang, England
Edinburgh, Scotland
Menai Bridge, Wales

Europe:
Oentsjerk, Netherlands
Sing Joosland, Netherlands
Nijmegen, Netherlands
Steenwijk, Netherlands
Norderstedt, Germany
Berlin, Germany
Oldenzaal, Netherlands
The Hague, Netherlands
Saarbrucken, Germany
Oberdorff, France
Mondorf, Luxembourg
Sulzbach, Germany
Saarwellingen, Germany

❤ ❤ ❤

 

Time Flies……apparently.

It’s November 14th.

Since arriving in Nashville on Sept 13th, we’ve played 24 shows across the US and 17 in the UK.  Later today we head off to Luxemburg for the European part of the tour.

Where the heck did all that time go? 😮

It was lovely to be back in Devon for a little while (‘a little while’ being an evening, a morning and half of an afternoon) but incredibly sad for me to have to leave so soon.

That being said – along with playing some awesome shows we have seen some absolutely beautiful places ❤

Beverley Minster, Yorkshire 

Cardigan, Wales

Edinburgh, Scotland

And lots and lots and LOTS of beautiful UK sunsets (they don’t look like this in Texas.  Not sure why…..but they just don’t…..)

The European leg will include Germany, Holland, France and as mentioned earlier – Luxemburg.

Can’t wait 🙂

Although I will seriously miss a good old cup of British tea 😦

Right now I’m trying to catch up on emails and laundry….both are equally large in quantity – but one a little more stinky than the other.

Will write more soon xx

* all photos that are featured in my blog posts were taken by me, please ask first if you would like to use them anywhere 🙂

An Unexpected Truth

Hey there 🙂 Remember me?

I know, I know.  I should have written this a while ago…. I do have good reasons (honest).

Right as the US portion of the tour ended and during my only 2 complete days off in Austin before starting the UK / Europe tour – I got sick.

Yes, it was bloody annoying.

Right now we’re a week or so into the UK tour and thankfully I’m feeling WAY better.  I’m still getting over the tail end of it….but other than the occasional coughing fit that makes me sound like I’ve contracted the plague, I’m doing ok.

That’s Reason No.1.

Reason No.2…..well, if I’m being honest….I’ve been avoiding you.  It’s nothing you’ve said or done, there’s a specific blog post I’ve been wanting to write – and I kinda knew it would be difficult.  But for what ever reason it’s important for me to get these words out of me and onto the screen.

So here goes……from the top.

Touring is fun.  Crazy, but fun.  Getting paid to travel around and play music night after night is such a privilege and I never take it for granted.  Not only is it a wonderful way to see the world, it also really helps you grow enormously as a musician.  After every show I feel as though I’ve learnt something new – especially as this is a genre of music I’ve not played a huge amount of (plus there is the small matter of playing an instrument I’d barely touched before this tour 😉 ).

But in between the music side of things, there is an awful lot of free time to do one thing I already do way too much of.

Think.

One situation in particular sparked a tidal wave of thoughts and emotions that I had zero control over.  I kept on trying to shut the flood gates, but once they were open I was forced to take a long hard look at what was going  on.  I honestly thought I had my shit together.  I really believed I’d worked through so many demons and my soul was clear of negative experiences from the past.

Apparently I was sooooooo wrong.

On the outskirts of New York, in a tiny little place called Hamilton we had a show at Colgate University.

No biggie.

Ahead of our show we got to check out the grounds and see all the facilities the place had to offer.

Again, not a big deal….in fact pretty cool by most people’s standards.

I found out very, very quickly that this was like hell on earth for me.

Within about 10mins of walking around the University grounds it was as if I had stepped into some kind of weird time warp where I was back being 14 again.

Awkward, angry, emotional, zitty, uncomfortable 14.

As 37 year old me walking around the grounds of Colgate University, I went past countless gaggles of super confident kids, all in their little groups of friends.  Smiling and laughing.  Making conversation.  Connected.

I can’t tell you how many times at school I sat totally alone watching all these groups of people interact with each other.

It was like watching everyone through a window.  I was present but not.

I’d sit there day after day trying my best to blend in and failing miserably.

I wasn’t cool.  I didn’t have anything in common with anyone.  I wanted to be a musician.  Everyone else wanted to be something far more conventional.  I had no idea what it felt like to fancy that boy who works in the local shop or that guy on that crappy TV show everyone’s into or the good looking one from that boy band.  I didn’t want to go out and be with the cool people because most of them were actually pretty uninteresting and the places they wanted to go were as lame and boring as they were.

But as inane as they were, they had something I didn’t.  Friends.  They were the cool kids.  Everyone liked them.  And at 14 being liked by the appropriate people is the ONLY thing that matters.

Then there were the teachers.  I was picked on by them too.  According to them I was lazy, stupid and didn’t care.  These days they call it dyslexia.

So all in all, there was absolutely nothing enjoyable for me about a school environment.  Every day was just a matter of survival.   Each morning I’d head straight for the gym changing rooms to sit quietly and brace myself for the day ahead.  A couple of mornings I stayed there longer than I should and was late for the first class.  One of my class mates told the teacher I was late because they’d seen me smoking round the back of the building (which clearly was a lie).  I got a detention.  No questions asked.  It happened all the time.  I honestly couldn’t do anything right and no-one gave a crap about how difficult it was for me just to set foot inside the school never mind get any work done.  If they didn’t know how I felt on the inside it was pretty obvious on the outside because I was self harming on a fairly regular basis.  It was ignored.

The thing is, as an adult if you don’t like something or someone – you have options.  You can walk away.  As a child / teenager if you don’t like school it’s tough shit.  And if you do walk away, they’ll hunt you down and take you straight back there whether you like it or not.

Since moving to the US I have had a few judgemental comments / dirty looks when I admit that I left school at 15 and I actually have no qualifications at all.

‘What? You’re a high school drop out? Why would you do that? Don’t you care??’ and so on and so forth.

It may also surprise some of you to know that Colgate was the first University campus in my 37 year existence to walk around.

I had no idea it would make me feel like bursting into tears, but when I stop and think about it – it’s kind of obvious that I wouldn’t feel that comfortable.

So what happened after I left school?

I started learning.  Strange but true.

At 15 I was playing various solo shows at a few rather seedy pubs around town.  By 17 I had taut myself to play bass guitar and drums, had recorded 2 albums and was playing music full time in 4 different bands as well as continuing my solo shizzle.  I learnt how to read and write considerably better than my school days – mainly because I had to write to venues and create posters for events.  I was also rehearsing (A LOT)…..7 hours a day to be exact.  I created my own schedule for practise and stuck to it religiously.

I also developed an even deeper understanding of nature and animals.  I regularly hand reared and rehabilitated sick and injured birds.  My wife’s favourite story she loves to tell people is that I helped a chicken recover from a serious stroke that left her not able to walk or feed herself properly – and within a short space of time I managed to get her almost totally back to normal.  It was pretty awesome.

Through all of these ups and downs in my life there have been a few things that have kept me sane.

Music being the major one.

And my amazing and patient parents being the other.

They have forever supported me wanting to do music and have never once tried to sway me from my path.  In fact they have always been so encouraging.  Over the years I subjected them to me learning various instruments (which must have been like some form of torture at times) along with being incredibly moody and unkind 90% of the time because I was so frustrated with life and couldn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel.

But despite all this, there’s always been unconditional love by the bucket load thrown in my direction.  All they have ever expected of me is that I get up every day and do the best I can.

No expectation of good grades.  No desire for me to be some specialist doctor or high flying lawyer.  Just a good person who is being their true authentic self….something at times I took for granted.

I can’t even begin to imagine what it must be like for kids to not only have to contend with what I did in school but to also have parents who expected them to achieve.

I am incredibly lucky.

So I guess the conclusion that I’ve come to is that no matter how crappy things might be, thank God I don’t have to go to school every day.

And you know what? I’m totally fine being a high school drop-out musician.

It’s actually pretty amazing 🙂

Thanks as always for reading this far ❤ ❤