Indianapolis Day One (Arms more open than mics)!

My friends!
Time to catch up on reporting the last week of the tour! Currently in Philly and we are leaving soon to get home,
But a lot of things have happened in the past week and as always the journey is the story as much as the destination!
Wednesday February 27th we arrived to the snowy and cold afternoon Indianapolis, we got picked up shortly after by two of our hosts Rachel and Amanda! They were very fun and nice and as we drove to their house we got a historical tour of the little city. We also got the local perspective of some fun personal anecdotes and the daily procedures of some locations, this has been one of the wonderful benefits of staying with people who live in the cities we stop at as opposed to just a hotel or something (aside from saving money and making human connections) but that we get the local and intimate view of the places around us! That night I took some of the sites we saw!

We got to their beautiful and fun little house and met their cat Bodie (perhaps misspelled but it is pronounced bow-dee). On the way there we passed by their other room mate Aaron who was running and training for a marathon, one that Rachel was also involved in! Soon after he came in the house and jovially and shyly introduced himself, he quickly headed to the kitchen offering us food and he and Amanda had a "Kitchen Dance Party" and generously made a great salad as well as eggs and onions and served us big helpings of delicious food! We got to know our hosts a little better and between scientists and hardworking social work type assignments it was inspiring to see so many young people arduously engaged in endeavors to change the suffering in various communities around them!

We had an open mic that started 9 with sign ups at 8:30 at a music venue/bar called The Rock House that night so we headed out there as a group, intending on meeting a few other friends and our fourth and final house member and host, Kerry, who had been working the whole night! It was a dimly lit and had pool tables and a stage and big bar. I had been reading Hemingway on the way to Indianapolis and it was not quite "A Clean Well Lighted Place". Then again, the Vonneguts built Indianapolis, and Kurt is more associated with vulgarity!

There were probably ten of us altogether at this long table talking and getting to know one another! Alexa and I sign up as numbers 3 and 4 on the list, we resume socializing while we wIt for it to start. I put The Mars Volta on the TouchTones jukebox because I tried that in New Orleans but it never played and so i got my justice in Indianapolis it only took two weeks and several cities! Suddenly the bar was populated with pacing and patrolling men who were all in their forties and looking like Alice Cooper, eyeliner and metal shoulder length or longer hair. Alexa describes them as "never having left the 80's"! They start setting up full band gear and soundcheck every drum and solo on every instrument over the course of an hour, we assume this is a very elaborate open mic performer set up. However it is also nine o'clock, this trend repeats itself, Amanda and I bond over having girlfriends in far away places, we get to know Kerry and her boyfriend and Rachel and hers, as John recounts what seems to be horrific tales of spelunking.

Finally around 10 (an hour after the supposed start of the open mic), a band called Sweet Nothing starts aggressively and enthusiastically playing earsplitting metal/rock covers. Despite not being our flavor of music, they were talented for what they were doing and were a much welcome change from the mediocre country open mics we had been subjected to (Just discovered that our Nashville host Steve posted a hilarious and complimentary blog about us and those experiences at www.Regdarandthefighters.com so check that out!). Also, it's hard to argue with a band that addresses you constantly as "Motherfuckers" ignores the fact there is no audience near them, and has a frontman named Bluebeard who has a blue beard (I wonder if there is a connection to the Vonnegut novel). There is something to be said for that unbridled passion and dedication to persona and badass performance!

This is all fun and great and Amanda and I rock out to Van Halen and Metallica covers for a while and we all try to talk at a below screaming voice, their set goes for, no exaggeration, AN HOUR! Our hosts have to be up early and it is no ones' scene really so we are all getting tires of it, though everyone is a good sport about it. Some of them break out cards and start playing Go Fish, Alexa takes a tequila shot, Amanda is several Rum and Cokes into the night in between bumming cigarettes off our 80's neighbors. Alexa's patiently waiting toy piano/desk bells set up gets its normal heckling and questioning. We are asked by several people if we are hosting a birthday party, which we all find humorously absurd.

Kerry and Aaron disappear for a while and return from Walmart with a bag of apples and a full jar of peanut butter and while the second band (mostly still Sweet Nothing's with one different musician and a new front man who is older than Bluebeard and has longer hair and dark sun glasses in a dark club at night, starts playing for another hour heavy music and Tool and Pantera covers, with worse vocals while we comically eat apples and peanut butter in this smoggy Rock dive with music blaring. A man resembling Hagrid of Harry Potter goes up and rocks out alone, making the closest thing to he stage besides our "birthday party" congregation sitting docilely at a table. I couldn't help but think of how depressing a sight it was for th performers as well as our hosts.
It is now midnight and they show no signs of stopping, our group is red eyed and exhausted, it is a week night, the group begins to disband, we decide to just got back to the house and have tea and perform for Aaron and Kerry and Rachel and Amanda in their living room. We did, the tea was great and the stories of the Rock House were funny and Alexa and I performed a few songs while Kerry took pictures with her nice camera! I made Kerry cry by performing Pennsylvanian Patriarch, that's when I notice the mug she is drinking out of reads "I love my Grandpa". We talk for a bit and say our thanks and goodbyes to those who would be up and out before we woke! Yet again I was baffled by how quickly and how close we felt at home and as friends around our new group, it was as though we had known one another for years and I am so grateful for their hospitality and kind words and cooking and friendship! We set up sleeping arrangements and utilized them! Finally we caught up on some sleep!
When something doesn't go as expected, enjoy it as best you can and change your perceptions and plans appropriately to fulfill your goals and be fulfilled by your experiences.
And so it goes,
-AllOne

An Unexpected Essay About YOU, The AllOne Family!

Good to see you again!
Welcome to March! Since my last full post I have been in Indianapolis and met friends and arrived in Chicago and met more friends and performed, but first I have a few words to share.
We arrived in a snowy and freezing cold Indianapolis Wednesday afternoon! It was the first time we had seen snow since Washington D.C. and it was just enough to make our bus stop shelter seem like a cubic ("or as my absurdly and hilariously jesting siblings would say "squareular") snow globe! But first, a word on what I do and why, as well as what you do and how!

While on the bus I had finished writing a verse that is currently homeless but has a lot to do with the excitement and importance of travel as a person and a thank you to my supporters and an explanation of my mission statement as a person and how I desire to use my music and writing and performance to achieve our happy interconnected family and how each person contributes to me but also to contributing positivity to the people who I have met in the past and will meet in the future.

Anyone who is making an effort to spread my messages and music is just as important as I am in creating this movement, at risk of sounding like a cult leader. Even more important is that you spread you own ideals and achieve your own personal goals in life, and the expense of no person's discomfort except those who hope to see you fail, or make you anything other than what your heart honestly desires. A true measure of my success is entirely vicarious in nature, if I can incite some insight or prompt someone and play even the smallest role in someone feeling happy or achieve what they want in life, then I have done my job as a human being and an artist. Thus, when you do your "job" right, I am doing mine! It's selfish really, I just hope to help people along to see their "Personal Legend" through, and I can feel in some way responsible for them, then I am happy and fulfilled! It is an avaricious altruism perhaps, but I like to think its more of the Robin Hood variety... Remind you that you're rich, if your self esteem is poor. If anything, I hope to inspire open mindedness, self assuredness, stress the importance of personal fulfillment as well as our generous human responsibility to those around us!

My "music career", as it were, and my fan-base (whom I affectionately refer to as my family a feeling and belief that I genuinely have), is overall my endeavor to set an example and artful explorative exercise in expanding out compassion as human beings. The music I make is an attempt for me to remind myself and others of instances of our interwoven nature and of the pure moments of personal and universal struggle and hopes to perhaps proliferate any lessons my experiences or the experiences of the people I have learned from long the way.

You have; in all ways and will always affect everything in some way, and I hope you know the honest love and hope and friendship I feel for those of you who consider me your friend or an artist or musician or poet or whatever label, as someone worth encouraging and sharing the work and words and ideas and ideals of. This life and movement always about us, and as much as my name and my art is created "alone" again, it's always for and because of the fact that I am always reminded and humbled by the natural and cosmic sinew and beauty that we are all one. All of you are my muses. Thank you.

This trip is nearing its end and it has been a gorgeous and strange journey that I hope will snowball into happening in various permutations many times over. I come home feeling like I have many more homes and friends than I would ever imagine, and I hope I have paid back my debt to anyone who has lent a hand or a couch or some food or bought a cd or connected with me!

Each and every one of you are one unique and necessarily important person. The more you realize that and intend on taking full advantage of it with the help of those around you and while helping those around you, the better off you are for yourself and the better off we are because of you!

It important to remember that each of you is an incredible integral piece of a grander movement of everything, the chain reaction of your smile may end up changing someone's life! I hope you achieve exactly what you desire in life, because that is how we love you best and need you most!
Sometimes I need to clean my mouth out with a soapbox!
I love you all, thank you more than I can say, in more words that I can ever write or rhyme or record! You help make my life as contented, motivated and optimistic as it is!
Go do good things!
-AllOne
P.s.
The photo provided here has regrettably had its quality diluted and compromised by being passed through various devices to arrive here! It is, however a photo taken of me by Kent in Austin at my performance in Wardenclyffe Gallery! Thank you to him! One of many beautiful friends and family I met on this trip, along with his lovely wife Paula!

An "Exhausted But Alive" check-in from Chicago!

Hey from chicago!
Very exhausted but here's a photo from the chicago open mic at Red Line Tap... Indianapolis was so cute and fun we met great friends all around... Much more to share but exhausted and cold so I am passing out!
Alive and well,
-AllOne

The Last Day In Nashville (A redeemer)

Dear constant reader,
Tuesday debunked my theory that the weather would be consistently beautiful in Nashville! I woke up rather late, although the futon I'm sleeping on is not comfortable in the least, I find It hard to get out of it! Maybe it is because I'm trying to replace quality sleep with quantity, I don't know. Around ten thirty after much tossing and turning Alexa poked me up and asked if I wanted to the Tennessee state museum with her, and mentioned it was raining, I suggested groggily that she go ahead without me and I would meet up with her, since I didn't want to hold her back while I got ready, and I wasn't overly eager to get out into the rainy day! I woke up and stepped outside and it seems abysmal and freezing cold so I took my time getting up, had my two apples with peanut butter for breakfast and showered.

I got a text from Alexa saying the museum was a bust, overrun with obnoxious children (that I probably have more of a tolerance and appreciation for than her, oddly) and relatively bland presentation. That was all the motivation I needed to spend the day indoors catching up with people on the phone, on writing the songs I've been working on, transcribing my works into my notebook and reading these Nick Adams stories. First I thought "maybe this is absurd, but it is my last day in Nashville... I really ought to get Bolton's for late lunch after I earn it with some work). So I did. It was every bit as spicy and juicy and delicious as the 3 times before it! Certifiable addict.

I talked to Heather and to my Dad, which was encouraging and fun, so nice to hear the voices of those you love when you are away for so long! I freestyled on my walk to and from Bolton's as a means of gathering thoughts for my tentatively titled "The Story In And Of A Notebook [small-world-view]" and am making progress! Spent the afternoon reading writing ehich pleased me thoroughly!

Alexa came back to Steve's and we hopped on a bus to go to Cafe Coco's open mic, where Steve also organized a couch surfing meet up! Cafe Coco (poorly pictured from the outside below) seems to be inside a house, which was restructured as a cafe/bar/music venue/restaurant... Very charming place with all sorts of quirky rooms decor and small rooms for studying and such! We met several couch surfing hosts and travelers, all of whom were respectful and interesting, John, Sebastian a bassist from Argentina, his girlfriend Dana from Europe and several others that I had nice conversations with! I got a cookie that was the size of my face and a caramel/creamy vanilla coffee called "The Adrenaline Rush" that had four shots of espresso in it! Dangerously delicious! (Insert "Rapid Enrapture" quote For those dedicated AllOne & The Room fans!)

The open mic started up so we got in line and immediately the character in the room was different and more varies than the previous two nights! As the charitable and professional host and sound man Cody, who I later befriended read off a list of abot a dozen open mic rules and stipulations, my excitement shrunk. One rule, two songs or less, another rule, no tracks, and a third rule... NO POETRY. Alexa and Steve fought my discouragement like true friends and I agreed to split a slot with Steve (picture below) as we decided he would do some improv back ups on guitar as I decided my beatbox-Harmonica fable "It Always Pays" would take the stage!

Many of the performers were very good and original and nice people! Most notably, Aarodynamics, a very tight funky multi instrumentalist loop pedal song builder! Jennifer, with nice song writing and a beautiful voice and fun crowd interaction! Alexa played two songs from her forthcoming album, one I had never heard her perform called "Two Tusks" A song about salt in mammoths!

Steve did a risky song about a town he used to live in called "Everyone here plays acoustic electric guitar" back when John Mayer was hugely influential and he went to open mics over saturated with that, it was relevant and edgy and joked on a lot of the culture that we were surrounded by the past two nights and it was hilarious! That got increasingly awkward for him socially as more acoustic electric performers took the stage! My performance was odd and off kilter but on point (which in my best days describes my entire musical journey I suppose!) Steve backed me up interestingly and successfully by the end of it and people seemed to really dig it! Luckily Cody the host enjoyed my work and didn't find it too against the rules or disagreeable!

There was a rapper/poet who performed over a guitar player who called himself "Aspartame Kills" who was enjoyable and also a singer who really entranced me Shannon who sang a ghastly story with a haunting voice and performed guitar very intensely!

We met a lot if really supportive friends in the audience, both the couch-surfers and other musicians and spectators as well! People who had advice of where to go if we come back, while encouraging us to do so! Our performances were recorded so expect an odd video of my performance soon as I get that in my email! I met a really nice guy named Ross who tours and records with a group called Last Of The Horsemen, making what he calls "doom rap". We did a CD exchange and swapped info to help each other out on future trips!

Since Steve rode his bike from home, and we had stayed later than the buses ran, we ended up getting a ride from a really enthusiastic and jovial physicians assistant named Shaun! It was very kind of him to offer the ride and be was really supportive about our musical journey! We said goodnight and felt good and that this was what we came to Nashville Hopi g to see, the last night being a great success, we exchange stories and laughs and CDs with Steve, said good night and thanked him profusely, another great friend made! Went to sleep!

All in all, despite what might seem like some harsh critiques or opinions of my experience in Nashville I am definitely glad I came and got to experience the culture. It is always a learning experience to be in a place unfamiliar to you... and the struggle to adapt is just the necessary process of evolution as a person , thank you for challenging me Nashville!
Today we are hopping on an right hour bus ride to Indianapolis! Built largely by the Vonnegut family!
And so it goes,
-AllOne

Nashvill3 (A record store, a bridge, birds and an odd open mic)

My friends!
Nashville day three (Monday) confirmed a few things:
1. That I am addicted to Bolton's southern hit fried chicken.
2. That the music scene is very over-saturated with aspiring pop-country musicians.
3. There are many unique open mic formats.
4. The weather here is beautiful and there are some really pretty things to see here!
5. One should always make the best of their scenario while never compromising who they are.
As you are probably aware of, Monday is the first day of the work week so our friend and host Steve was out the door for his programming job before we were even awake! That left Alexa and I to have our peanut butter and apples breakfast and I got Bolton's again for a early lunch (pictured below, as well as photos of the charming and respectably independent little one window one room chicken and fish joint)! I sincerely have a problem! So good.
We set off to sight see and find Third Man Records, which is Jack White's (of The White Stripes and The Raconteurs fame) record store and novelty shop. After running into some cool statues and fountains, and the giant pedestrian bridge erected in 1909, perhaps my favorite thing in Nashville (as you will notice my documentation of) we found the store and boy was it quirky and interesting! If you are a Jack White fan or a fan of Vinyl records or odd things like a jukebox for films or coin operated wax mold makers or photo booths and three inch portable record players, this is the place for you! A small store with a lot of memorabilia and music and intriguing items for sale, it also doubles as a music venue! I documented quite a bit of the place below!
We had some time to spend after so we found the library but discovered lamentably that it was closed in Mondays so we sat on a park bench and I tried sharing my carrots with groups of excitable and small black capped birds!
To close our night out we went to The Bluebird Cafe for an open mic! When we arrived there was a huge line of dozens of people looking to sign up! (Reference the pic below and note there were and 20+ people behind us!). The format is rather unique, everyone on line signs up on a piece of paper and the ordered is determined randomly as all the musicians are picked out of a hat! You are only permitted to play one song, as with commodore open mic, no pre-recorded tracks allowed! Also, the open mic runs from 6 to 9 only, so if you get picked in the late thirties or early forties Somehow Alexa and I got #38 and #40 by A stroke of poor luck which we figured guaranteed we wouldn't play.
I was feeling pessimistic and admittedly self conscious after seeing yet again the 3 hours of mediocre homogenous pop country music. What bothered me primarily was that everyone seemed like they were doing what they were doing because they were obligated to or because it served some ulterior motive outside of an intrinsic personal creative need. All the writing and performing, even a itsbest seemed creepily designed to accomplish one goal: adhere to the set of musical and cultural and genre conventions that would propel them to commercial success. Please note this is only an impression I got, and not meant to be an insult to anyone, although if the diluting of a creative medium for avaricious intent is your mission statement, I find it hard to have respect for you.
Finally, Alexa went up and played "collections" which is one of my favorites of hers! I then remembered I had my harmonica with me and for the first time on tour, played it with an a Capella verse section doing the AllOne & The Room song "It Always Pays". People definitely had their ears perked and didn't seem to hate it, despite the weirdness! Steve did not get to perform, so we went home and talked ourselves to sleep!
All and all it was a nice day and exceeded our expectations, which were, I confess, rather low at some points! We were a little dejected by feeling out of place in Nashville despite our budding friendship with Steve and an affinity his hilarious band Regdar and The Fighters (www.regdarandthefighters.com) whose new album "Spoiler Alert" just came out this week! I encourage you to support this funny and kind and talented man!
For now, good night!
Lead your heart,
-AllOne

Nashville Day 2 : A (country) music Mecca!

My dearest friends!
Woke up Sunday and Steve had gone off to church before we woke up and left us a carafe of coffee, I looked for a mug but could only find mason jars and so I started my day with peanut butter and apples and coffee in a mason jar on the run to catch the bus!
After we did a little sight seeing, Alexa and I resolved to go busking (performing on the street for tips) as it was nice out and we had a clear day of exploration! We separated and picked spots to perform...without any music to accompany me I realized I just seem like madman rambling words that rhyme (which isn't inaccurate!) people treated me sort of like guiltily apathetic people do around the homeless in New York City, I assume here with live music pouring out of every over Honky Tonk door and abundant street performers, you get disillusioned. Not to mention I was doing a very niche thing in a very genre specific city (which we learned later that day). One man all decked out like a cowboy stopped and listened to me as I was performing Trash Can Epiphanies, and I performed the whole second verse directly to him eye to eye and he was really into it and dug 75 cents out of his pocket and dropped it into my empty mason-jar-mug! That was about the extent of my success and Alexa didn't have much different luck!
We checked out some honky to is and an incredible candy store reminiscent of Mr. Wonka's factory that I fell in love with but refused on principle to buy candy when I only made 75 cents busking! After marveling at sweets we then went to the massive Nashville Public Library! Spent time reading there and I read a great short story by Ray Bradbury from his collection "One More For The Road" and then headed out to make the list six at The Commodore open mic with Steve.
The open mic was our first experience of performing and open mics in Nashville and it was admittedly disappointing. The open mic was in a bar and cafe area adjacent to a Hotel lobby and the first three and a half hours was done in four "rounds" of chosen performers, before the open mic began. The rounds function as three or four performers that sit on stage and play single songs one after another. Each performer was exclusively a country singer and, gender non withstanding, each was indistinguishable from the next and 95% of them were abysmally generic and unoriginal, which is not to say these weren't good people. Everyone just had a sense of doing writing playing and singing everything they were because that was what they were supposed to do, not because some inner creative need or outer catalyst muse prompted it out of their souls to personally make something unique and their own.
Finally Alexa (or Alesia Odeksa as the host insisted on announcing her) Steve, another man Steve and I go up as the first open mic acts. After several hours of spectating respectfully we were not given our own stage moment, we were allowed to play one song and tracks were not allowed to be played (so if you didn't have an instrument or a player with you you're screwed, aka me). Alexa performed "Nomads" acoustically really well, I performed my verse from "Will She Ever Change?" a Capella and made mention of the fact that many people had performed songs tonight about an uncompromising sense of identity and yet Alexa was the first person to do anything remotely different in nearly four hours. Steve played a distorted bass guitar like a six string and played a hilarious song parodying bands who talk about teenage love even as they age which turned into a song about time travel and looking for a partner in that time travel journey! By odd coincidence the fourth performer we shared the stage with hailed from Pennsylvania and if I could play tracks I would have played Pennsylvanian Patriarch but since I couldn't I played a verse from a song I remixed of my Pennsylvanian friend Phil Minissale's song so that was a odd and neat to me! We performed to perhaps a tenth of the audience that were there for he rounds and it was now 11pm so we headed home and fell asleep, feeling a little chagrined, so we freestyle jammed and to cheer ourselves up in five minutes we had a parody country song!
Don't dare to be different, just resolve to be yourself,
-AllOne

Nashville Day 1 ( Steve, food shopping, new music and a small world)

Good morning from Nashville!
After Alexa and I got off the Megabus on Saturday afternoon, and experienced the funny encounter from the last post, we the bus pulled away and we waited for the public bus. The sun was high and enjoyable, the bus finAlly arrived and stopped at a Different sign about a hundred feet before the one we were standing at, and so, confused, we figured we would wait for it to come stop at our sign. Despite us blatantly waiting and waving for the bus to pick us up, it apathetically drove past us! There are hour long increments in between each buses' arrival so we began to walk to a least kill some time.
As it turns out, there are many hills in that part of town.
A bus picks us up, but it is strangely a two piece bus with an accordion type connector, and with the bus crammed, I stood in front of the first piece while Alexa sat in the second back section and there was a weird optical illusion where the bus seemed like it was bending!
After a bit of a walk, we got to our host Steve's apartment, a hilarious guy with a Mohawk/ponytail and glasses who plays electric pop punk rock type music that parodies all sorts of things, he is a programmer for his day job and he is intelligent and fine company, he led us into his apartment which was clad with lord of the rings and periodic table of elements posters and a floor littered with musical equipment!
We ended up going shopping at Aldi and another place called Kruger, where Alexa and I bought several items since we'd be here until Wednesday. Shopping for food on tour is interesting because your budget is low, you don't want to carry a lot generally. Some big items thus far have been peanuts, apples, beans and baby carrots! I bought a cucumber for a quarter and ate it as we walked back to Steve's, lentil soup and beans, both under 75 cents for a can, were also mutual choices!
We walked home and the sun fell so it was brisk! After we had the Gus' chicken with Adam in Memphis the night before, I was craving it and Steve brought up local hoy chicken joints and so I ended up caving in and we went to a nice one window family owned place called Bolton's and I got spicy chicken and slaw and greens and beans.... Absolutely amazing! I think I now have an addiction.
We ate it at home while Alexa had eaten and we shared tour stories as Steve had been on a few trips with bands he had had and we shared laughs and got to know one another before passing out. I have been sleeping on a rather solid futon bed and it took me a while to get to sleep so I listened to Astronautalis' album Pomegranate. It is very unique and innovative and genre-less generally and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys music.
Then the wildest thing happened! As I was tossing and turning I got an email from the woman Pamela who found my lost notebook in Dallas. She wanted to share the story with me of the notebook, she is not actually a Dallas native but GREW UP ON LONG ISLAND. She lived for a time in Selden, where I grew up and has relatives that live currently in Port Jefferson Station, where my dad currently lives!! I am baffled by the serendipity of this, and went to sleep totally numb and unable to explain the beauty and weirdness of such coincidence! I have since decided to write a song about the account for my non fiction album "Water Coolers and Camp Fires".
The world is small when you travel it,
Love you,
AllOne