We’ll here we are. We are in Shangri-la studios in Lexington Kentucky getting ready to record Liz’s album. It’s a beautiful studio, huge open plan place. There’s no control room as such, spaces separated by cute pieces of furniture and music equipment, its really a sweet studio. I can sense Liz is a little nervous but I think they’ll take good care of her here.

So as the days go I will keep y’all posted on events, but in the mean time I guess I should tell you about the last week and SXSW.  I left NYC on the train, to meet Liz in Baltimore, MD. It felt so very good to leave NYC in my wake, I needed to get out for a while and breath some new air, I’ve been living a tight circle of days, spinning slowly around a routine and I guess it doesn’t really suit me. So as soon as I was sat on that train a big smile graced my face and a big weight lifted off of me. I was free.

It felt good to be back on the train too, the uninterrupted flow of the landscape passing, having both hands free, just moving, it’s peaceful.

I arrived in to Baltimore that evening to meet my smiling wife, and we hit the road, old style, in a beat up jeep that needs to be coaxed along. Needing to be in Austin, TX in three days, we decided to put in a few hours that evening. And really the next three days are a bit of a blur. It’s tough work driving solid throughout the day, it’s kind of trance like on the highways. Hours upon hours of the same scenery lulls you through the day and before you know it its dark and its time to find somewhere to rest your head. We spent a lot of our time listening to ‘This American Life’, wow it’s an eye opener, or an ear opener. Thank goodness for that team of people finding those stories and giving them voices.

So after a few nights at numerous dodgy motels and a few days of bad, bad food we arrived in Austin. People of NYC, it was hot!! I’d forgotten the sensation of having warm skin. It’s another element that gives the feeling of freedom, shedding layers and relaxing the muscles into the warm air, it was everything I needed. We were greeted by some friends, Chris, Jen, their dog Mister and friend Tara, who kindly let us share their house for the weekend.  We didn’t have long to hang out before we had to get to our first of two gigs at the One Two One bar in the city, so we got back in that car again and made our way over. Its my first SXSW and it was funny to see the hoards of ‘rocksters’ there all trying to out-do each other with ‘emo’ hair styles and tattoo’s, it must be such hard work keeping up with it all. Like sheep they moved from bar to bar. We played a rockin set at the One Two One bar. It was a weekend showcase put together by Jenni Alpert, and she did an awesome job. Its not a job I would like, having to keep all of those artists happy but she did a stand up job of it. We met Pete Harris down there of Harris Radio, and had a really good night of it. Saw some great acts, a favorite being ‘The Rescuers’ and headed back to Chris and Jens to get some sleep, at last!

Next day we played ‘Rock Band’ and formed a virtual band called ‘Tragically Gerald’ a band consisting of three goth rock guys that looked like triplets, all with long black hair and goatee’s! Fun Fun.

We also went to a exhibit of pieces collected from the beat-poet era. It was brilliant, I didn’t realize that Jack Karouac wrote ‘On the Road’ on a scroll! It goes on for miles. He apparently bought sheets of waxed paper and stuck them together, wrote it within a matter weeks. There is hardly any punctuation, just stream of conscience. Its as if his words were held court in his stomach and they were making him sick, as if he vomited it up on to the sheets. Sure is beautiful vomit though. Its amazing what great and warped minds were around in those days. They lived a line.

More tomorrow……….