On a Roll (Nashville and Knoxville)

Thursday afternoon...

Weather.com shows an enormous bloody rent through eastern Tennessee, and so we sit here in a Knoxville bar looking out at the rain pounding down in the square and wondering if we're going to be able to play today. The event is called "Sundown in the City," but from the looks of the weather, the sun went down around 11 a.m.

The bus spent the night in a fireworks superstore parking lot just outside of Knoxville last night. For the last two nights we performed at Nashville's historic Belcourt Theatre. It's always exciting playing in Nashville, but two sold out nights in a venue that once hosted the Grand Ole Opry is something to write home about. I also bought a suit jacket with some kind of Cyrillic Eagle/Dragon on the back. Scary!
Now, deep in the heart of Tennessee, the tour has taken on a real roll. A run like this has about twelve people on the road living in Das Boot proximity twenty four hours a day. Sometimes the stage is the farthest physically we get from each other during the day. This being the case, it always takes several days for everyone to figure out everyone else's schedule.

It also takes awhile for everyone to have their jobs under control and on schedule. The monitor engineer and guitar tech, Brandon Eggleston, has to know when from day to day strings need changing, the stage plot needs readjusting, and when the gear needs loading out. Tim Craven, sound man and tour manager, needs to know what time loaders will arrive at the venue to lug the gear into the club. He also needs to know where the bus is parking for the night, what time in the early morning the bus is leaving for the next town, who is paying for the show, and among countless other chicken herding details, where I have to be and when. Things get figured out fairly quickly, but the first several days are always a bit harried.



Right now, keyboardist, producer and friend-extraordinaire Sam Kassirer is sitting next to me arranging for a piano tuning, and I'm about to dive back into Curriculum Vitae by Muriel Spark. The rain is really coming down but it's pretty cozy here and rain or shine, this show is going to be fun. The bus leaves tonight at 1 a.m. for a ten hour drive to Little Rock!

Josh


photos by Austin Nevins

Comments

[MaryaC]

Obama? What? I thought this blog was about Mr. Ritter's tour. What does anything else have to do with the price of tea in china?
On another note, that jacket is FANTASTIC. You should wear it when you play Boise....

So, who else is on that bus (or otherwise on the road with you)? I'm nearly as fascinated by the dynamics of your tour as I am by these guys ...

http://www2.montana.edu/shakespeare/

...also hardcore, badass, inveterate tourers out there making the world a better place by the mere fact of their existence.

[Stevelagain]

Isn't that in the heartland of all those "average white people" who "bitterly cling to guns and religion" and foolishly want the immigration laws enforced? Thank God, Obama will force them to comply with the wishes of the radical left.

[VivaZapata]

wha'd you say? i'm sorry i fell asleep and ....

[martinchill]

knoxville - home of cormac mccarthy...

"ruder forms survive"

nashville - driving in from the southern side, always laughed when i saw
"The World's Largest Adult Bookstore" sign where i-65 hits 40...

Nash-vegas... that city looks better in the rear-view mirror...

stay safe out there.

[Blondiegrrl]

Whoa, now that jacket is stylin'! My all-time favorite stage getup is Gram Parson's famous (infamous?) Nudie suit. I have a mini shrine to Gram taped to my computer at work. Some naive individual once asked me if it was David Cassidy. *blinks* Blasphemy!
I must say you've got me interested in Muriel Spark. I've added her to my (very long) list of "must reads." At present I'm deep into Thomas Hardy's little ray of sunshine, "Jude the Obscure." ... Great book, profound bleakness aside. It's amazing (and more than a little depressing) how well its premise of class warfare holds up today.
Those are great photos of you and the guys. I hope everything went smoothly in Nashville.

[castlerider]

Gram was one of the greatest to ever live.
He was supposedly the principal force behind "Wild Horses" that the Stones recorded and called a Jagger-Richards tune. But that's just one of so many stories about the great singer/songwriter.

So hard to believe he left us way back in '73. He was my hero; I went to Puebla, Mexico for a few months, showed all my friends his records, when I came back I was so sad to hear he'd passed away.
Thanks for mentioning Gram.

[imperfect]

GREAT JACKET!
I found a jacket with some crazy embroidered stuff like that in the clearance bin of a vintage shop.
I LOVE IT.
Iget compliments on it all the time and so will you.
Does it make you want to do a crane?
Wax on Wax off
Peace!
Angie
PS I am blogging for Off the Bus. Y'all check it out. It's under my real name though - Angie Santiago

[lng]

Hey Josh,

so bummed about the weather--we've got it here in NYC now--my parents & k-town friends were all set to go, but apparently they're so sweet they melt in too much rain. Good luck on rest of the tour--I know a lot of people are looking forward to the Madison show!

Lauren

[SouthsideDiana]

Lol, love the jacket! Anyway, will you come to play in Italy sooner or later, isn't it?