It’s been too long! And damn does it feel good to be writing here again. We’re only just getting the summer/fall tour started so this won’t be too long, but here’s a quick update on how the summer has gone so far.

We were home for just under five weeks. And while it didn’t completely feel like we never left, we did fall back into a lot of our old routines pretty quickly. That said, it was of course nice to see everyone in Buffalo and recharge our batteries a bit.

We played a total of 15 gigs (I think), and that was honestly a little strange for me. Something that used to be such a big deal, that I took years to cultivate and network to obtain, these gigs at home seemed so very ordinary compared to everything else we did this year. Don’t get me wrong, a big part of me really did enjoy the predictable nature of playing the same places I’ve been frequenting since I was about 18 in the company of longtime friends, fans, and family alike. But in the back of my mind I found my inner voice musing “remember Flagstaff? Remember Austin? Remember Fort Collins?” I was inwardly nervous I might become complacent after coming home and I wouldn’t be as excited to head back out on the road this time. But the point of this entire thing is to play music, and I felt about a hundred times more fulfilled doing that on the road where every single day is truly an adventure. Home is for friends and family and 4am nights at the bar, and good pizza and Louie’s slime dogs and blue cheese (I miss all of these things already). But everywhere else in this country is for the rest of my life, I think.

We did find some time to make some various upgrades while we were home! The van got about $1k worth of work, which was very overdue (and yet, yesterday afternoon we discovered a large piece of the tailpipe had rusted through and very nearly fell off.. the cycle of repairs is unending). Greg got a brand new DSLR camera as an early birthday present and has had a blast learning how to take “real” pictures, and I grabbed some of my fancy audio recording gear from my parent’s place. We’re pretty decked out from a tech perspective these days.

And that brings me to our new video project – The Pit Stop Sessions. We plan to shoot music-centric videos regularly in the places that we’re visiting on this tour. There’s not much structure – we wanted to leave it open ended so that we have creative freedom everywhere we end up, but with all our fancy gear now seems like the right time to get more consistent with some video content. You can check out Episode 1 here!

That was shot in Allegany State Park, which was our first stop out of Buffalo. We did their artist in residence program – they give you a cabin and a stipend for a week, and we do five 1-hour concerts for park visitors. It’s a pretty sweet gig, and a really nice way to ease back into being on the road. Although the lack of cell phone service is not my favorite park feature, we were kept well occupied with visits from both friends and family for the majority of our stay.

And now we’re back at it. We’re playing in Binghamton tomorrow night, we’re currently hooked up at a state park, and I’m plotting our future path months down the road into places I’ve never been.

I am SO happy to be back. Onward!