Wed 12/3 – FocusMusic presents Eryn Michel, Annette Wasilik, rob Hinkal, Jillian Matundan, Rebecca Berlin, Catherine Pajic and Gabrielle Zwi at Hank Dietle’s. 11010 Rockville Pike, Rockville,…

Not full by any means, but the list was - and this is what it should look like at Morsbergers. Thank you all for showing up and making this place and community what it is. Well, tonight I had to get forceful about "don't sign your friends up" and kicked a number of people off the list. Not a big deal, but being a victim of our own success is only fun for so long, and then it becomes a problem!

We met Sean Morse in our very first trips across the country at an open mic in Colorado, almost 22 years ago! He's returned to our fold here in Baltimore in the past and returns again, and we've...

YouTube video by ilyAIMY

YouTube video by robsOpenMics

dangerous music for dangerous times. Monday night is open mic night. Wednesday night's ilyAIMY Live from the Lair. Then other stuff happens tooooo.

Before heading over to Morsbergers to run my open mic, a cellist snuck downstairs to record some tracks for our old friend Sahffi. T'was a chill night and I got to come home relatively early. I approve. Relatively short list, we ended up going around again for a third song and I got to play bass with Fayo as WELL as Alex in Treblepants which has been a dream for the past several years.

A "rest stop" where the dumpster is bigger than the rest rooms... Full-disclosure, I’m writing this in post. I’m certainly romanticizing it. But people keep asking “what was your favourite moment” “what’s the most beautiful thing from the trip” “what was the best part”? And I don’t have a clear answer to that. At this point in the narrative, our best gigs are perhaps still ahead of us (though it’s a close thing, Reno WAS pretty awesome – and there were BIG HEART moments) and Yellowstone behind, but as I write this on October 15th, looking back, this is the moment that stands out as a favourite because it’s unplanned, strange, surreal…

This picture says it all. Start the long drive home where all the traffic Lives? Or stay out west? Sigh. We've got no REAL choice. Our cat is back east. Outsider artists, visionary arts, independent musicians. Not waiting to be told that you’re good enough, self-belief, or perhaps never needing any belief, just a DRIVE. The world knows that if I’d waited for someone to tell me I was “good enough” to record I’d have never bought my first 4-track, and if I’d waited for some popular form of acceptance before the Trip I’d never have seen this country the way I have.

It's hard to read, but the pole says "I am ashamed". Heather took us all out to an all-you-can-eat sushi place and in all honesty I ate far more than I should've. I feel like I learned a lot about my body this day. I should feel more guilty about not having a Journal entry specifically about Reno, NV because we had a good time there.

The vintage postcards we found back in South Dakota continue to serve us well! Farewell Coyote Lodge. You weren't awesome, but you WERE close to everything! Today is the longest drive. Initially we were racing west to Reno from Yellowstone so we could play gigs Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but the ineffable complexity of tour scheduling inevitably took its toll and now it’s more about hanging with friends and not paying for another hotel.

Even the view outside our Bozeman, MT hotel the morning before entering the park was epic. We'd never seen the park under the influence of moody mists and rains, and it was like an entirely new experience. ilyAIMY with our new drummer... a Sasquatch from West Yellowstone, MT. There's no hope of really capturing our Yellowstone experience in photos. Kristen did a better job of photography than I ever could and that's BEFORE you get into the emotional highs and lows.