fall tour 2005 scrapbook
dear friends,
it has recently been pointed out to me that it’s been 3 months since i’ve written in this journal. as if i needed reminding. (ok, sometimes i *do* need a swift kick in the rear) i’ve meant to write so many times since July 28th when i embarked on this 9 week tour. but time has been short and exhaustion and to-do lists long and the more days that passed, the greater the need i’ve felt to have something important and meaningful to show for myself and my silence.
there have been so many adventures on this stretch of highway. more than i can flush out in words before my endurance for typing runs out. i’m hoping maybe if i sketch a list of memories from this tour and let you fill in the colors that would be enough to make it up to you….
fall tour 2005 scrapbook
*looking out on summer rain showers and the smiling faces drenched by them in downtown Asheville from under my tent at the Bele Chere festival as i sang my song “Blue Ridge” inspired by the local mountains
*going on a motorcycle ride with my friend Cathy (who played drums on “If The World Would Just End”) in the rolling hills just west of Nashville. it was evening, right after the sun had set and the air was cool and thick at the same time, filled with the sweetness of grass that had been baking in the sun all day like cookies. she took me through parts of Percy Warner park, which is stunning, where we saw packs of deer grazing in the blue green grasses and past the mansions of country music stars in Belle Mead. Cathy decked me out in a biker’s jacket and gloves and a helmet…i shoulda taken a picture!
*playing at a house concert in the country outside Raleigh just a few miles from where i grew up on Yates Pond Rd. i had to hold my breath as i drove past our old driveway. so many wonderful memories that it hurts to think about since my mom is no longer with us. the house concert was one of those magical nights that gets imprinted in your memory. it was a steamy august evening in the backyard under a canopy of trees. there were tiki lantern torches lighting up the scene which reminded me more than a little of the Ewok celebration scene in Return of the Jedi. my favorite part was the night symphony of crickets and cicadas and bob whites singing along with me. i miss that lullaby of my childhood…we don’t have many bugs out in LA compared to the south where the humidity and rich soil are an insect’s paradise. my friend Dan Tan, who so generously did the sound for the show, also recorded it on his mini-disc. when i listen back i realized maybe the crickets et al weren’t singing along after all, they were noticeably louder than me, i think they were trying to drown me out. but both of those possibilities are too ego-centric on my part…it was probably that they were all so drunk on lust and the search for someone to share the night and maybe something more with that made them sing at the top of their lungs. not so far from the reason we humans sing our little hearts out…
*at the sidestage opening for James Taylor, in my hometown of Raleigh, looking up in the middle of a song and seeing my 5th grade math/science teacher, Ms. Parker, and 4th grade social studies teacher, Ms. Harris. total trip down memory lane. they looked just as i remembered them.
*getting to spend some precious time with my 90 year old Grammy in between gigs in NC. afternoons i’d sit in my late Poppop’s black recliner and Grammy would sit on her famous green couch and tell me stories about my mom, trips to Topsail Island in the summer, her family’s history (including the Kylers, her mom’s side of the family), and what me and my brother and sister were like as kids. we watched her soap operas and my favorite shows like Sex and the City and she pretended to be scandalized by “what kids are up to these days” but i know she got a kick out of it. i have the coolest grammy ever. she made me some okra, onion and tomato stir fry that warmed my soul and chocolate chip cookies that are still with me.
*closing my favorite hometown venue, the Six String, with a bang. my show there was the last one before this listening room closed its doors. one of my best buds in LA, Adrianne, opened the show and stole everyone’s heart. Adrianne then sang backup for me and Alex McKinney played electric guitar and i actually drank Jack and Ginger onstage and got pretty tipsy by the end of the show. don’t know how it sounded but it sure felt good.
*hanging out with my bass player from NYC, Whynot Jansveld, backstage after opening for Avril Lavigne and Gavin DeGraw. Whynot is on tour with Gavin so after the show i hung out on his bus (i was drooling over this luxury-mobile) while he mixed some vodka and cranberry juice. i got to participate in the ritual of sitting around in lawn chairs in the parking lot, drinking and talking by candle light with music courtesy of an Ipod rigged to some speakers. when bus call came at midnight, the party packed up in 30 seconds flat and the buses rolled out leaving me to get my gear out of the shed it had been locked in, drag it to my car and drive the 45 min to my home for the night all by my lonesome.
*a week or so later playing at the Living Room in NYC with my electric guitarist, Ben Butler, and having Whynot show up on his only night off from touring as well as my NYC drummer Ethan Eubanks who was playing later that night with his band Have Her Home By Ten (who rock btw). Ethan and Whynot asked me if they could sit in on some songs…as if they had to ask! playing with my whole NYC band that night and having so many friends and fellow musicians come out to support me made me nostalgic for my former home. don’t get me wrong, i’m happy as can be in LA at this time in my life, but i will live in NYC again one day, it’s just a question of when.
*my Dad taking me out for a sail in the Baltimore harbor with the warm sweet smell of the Domino Sugar factory floating on the wind. exploring a creepy boat graveyard in a little nook off the beaten path where an old half-sunk ferry sat rusting, burned out hulls of small boats had become home to their very own ecological systems, and ghosts whispered in the reeds
*shopping for shoes in Harvard Square with my friend and fellow singer-songwriter, Kristin Cifelli. having a girls night out on my night off and going to see Constant Gardner which is an exquisite film and left me dehydrated.
*taking a break from my tour to be a bridesmaid in Chicago for one of my best girlfriends from college. getting to see my sis and her hubbie as well as my sweetie and several college friends who are the lifelong kind. letting loose and getting tipsy together and talking trash about boys and sex and college memories.
*listening to a book on tape (that my friend passed on to me which she had rented from a Cracker Barrel and had forgotten to return) on the many miles of the NY State Thruway. it was a totally cliche mystery romance whose sex scenes made me laugh out loud. (”she wrapped her trembling hands around his engorged member”…it makes me blush and chuckle just to think of it) the miles went so much faster.
*going for a walk in my old park in my former hood in Brooklyn, Prospect Park. visiting the clump of Monkey Grass i planted under a tree there in memory of my mom so i would have some place to go visit her. (i grew up with this decorative grass, also known as Liriope. it had been passed down from my Grammy’s yard and divided and replanted each season in a process known in my family as “making babies” until the backyard was filled with it) the little clump i planted in 2000 is alive and thriving and was blooming with pretty little lavender stalks of florets. next time i’m in NC i’m going to make a baby from a monkey grass in my Grammy’s yard and take it home to LA with me and plant it on my patio. i hope monkey grass likes full sunlight cause that’s all it’s gonna get there.
*after going on a walk in the park, getting breakfast at the best little french bakery this side of the atlantic. when i lived in Brooklyn i used to fall out of bed in my sweats every morning, round up some loose change and stumble the 2 1/2 blocks to Delices de Paris to get a steaming, rich cup of french coffee, my shot of optimism for the day. when friends and family came to visit i would take them there under the pretense of introducing them to my fave cafe and allow myself to have one of the Delices’ almond croissants which as a dessert-aholic and connoisseur, i can safely say is one of the finest pleasures i’ve experienced that doesn’t involve a second person.
*being recognized in the lobby of a hotel outside Philly as i checked out in the morning with wet hair and 3 bags in tow like a pack mule. i hadn’t had my cup of coffee yet so for a moment was confused by the 2 young women headed for me excitedly saying “are you Kyler England?” turns out they were in town for a wedding and staying at the same hotel. one had seen me open for Jim Boggia at The Point in Bryn Mawr and the other had seen me at a super cool house concert in Chicago called Green Note (which i’m playing at again on 10/30). one of the girls said she had some of my songs on a mix CD in her car outside in the parking lot. needless to say, this made my day, no, tour!
along the way i read some great books on this tour: Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver, Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende, Nickeled and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich and now i’m on to what promises to be an interesting and emotional read, All Over But the Shoutin’ by Rick Bragg. (i already got choked up in the prologue)
i had so many wonderful shows including awesome house concerts hosted by some of you, and met so many amazing people who were generous and welcoming and helpful…thank you all, you know who you are. i would never be able to do this without all my angels looking out for me on the way. sometime i feel like my karma is way outta wack cause of all the support and warmth i receive from strangers just cause i sang a little song or two that they liked. it’s overwhelming at times. i’m so grateful.
tomorrow i go home for a lil bit…yippee! i promise i’ll try to write more often,
kyler 