Tuesday Update 07.25.06 (Superman, da blues, mad cow)

Tuesday Update 07.25.06

Okay, technically it is 1:20 AM on Wednesday! Thanks Whitney for pointing out that I missed my blog for Tuesday!

Honestly, I’ve been a little out of it. I just got in from seeing Superman Returns with my sister...there was only on other person in the theatre besides us...it was a little eerie.

My movie thoughts:
1. Superman needed to be a little more masculine. I mean really, with oversized blue eyes he looked more like a little lost puppy from a cartoon than a superhero...go back and check out the comic books...there’s your real superman. (My sister is looking over my shoulder and disagreeing...go write your own blog!)
2. You can’t use actors from one superhero movie in another superhero movie! Lois Lane’s fiancé was clearly the character of Cyclops in all 3 X-men movies...I kept waiting for him to zap something...there was this tension for the whole movie between him and superman over Lois and I was truly confused...come on Cyclops! Jane Grey is way cooler than Lois Lane...(if you have no idea what I am talking about then you need to invest more of your life reading anmimated magazines where the characters talk in little bubbles)
3. We got to the theatre just in time to see the preview for a new animated movie about a partying cow or something to that effect...I think it was called Barnyard...Anyway, it had a clip of this cow jumping off a diving board into a lake and yelling “man-a-bunga!” Honestly I don’t know whether to find this clever or disturbing, but anything that ridiculous needs my money more than I do so I vow to buy a ticket for this movie on its opening weekend even though I have no intention of actually watching it.
4. I just realized that I have been negative in the previous 3 points, so I feel the need to be positive: I am positive that there will be a sequel to Superman Returns....I’ll be watching for Superman Returns Again in 2008.

Moving on from the movies, I want to let everyone know that I was in the studio Saturday and laid down 3 songs which will be released first to my street team (for free!) and eventually made available for the rest of the world. They sound great and I am really excited! Two of the songs are new, and one doesn’t even have completed lyrics! You can get on my street team at www.beaubristow.com if you want to get in on this. The first track will be out by September!

Another cool thing from the past week was my jam session in a Petro in Kentucky last Monday. I was coming home from Louisville and I pulled into the truck stop to get a coffee. While I was in line I noticed an older black man playing one of the cheap acoutic guitars for sale at the front of the store. He was laying down a couple of blues licks and something possessed me to grab one of the guitars and give him some chords. All he said was “alright man” and we were off. We traded some good blues in A for about 10 minutes before management told us to buy the guitars or quit. It was a blast. I haven’t had that much fun playing in....well, 48 hours since the recording session on Saturday, but it was still so much fun to play just for no reason...even for an audience of 2 truckers and one angry manager...
I could tell you more: about the big rig that had a blow-out right in front of me or how I was almost run over by a wild taxi driver...I could talk a lot, but I need my sleep so I am off to bed.

Sorry for my tardiness on this one...it won’t happen again...much...


Watching the ground rush to meet me,

Beau

Tuesday Update 07.18.06

Tuesday Update 07.18.06

Okay, coming at you again with a little update...

Since last Tuesday I have had 2 more shows and then a wedding this past weekend (congrats Stuart and Jen!), so I really haven’t even been home until yesterday! I actually managed to add another 1,000 miles to the “Woman Repeller” (my Saturn) last week!
The good new is that I am here until the 27th and I plan on getting a lot done between now and then...we’ll see how that goes...

Today I have been catching up on random stuff and booking things for the fall....yadda, yadda. who cares....

The big thing my heart is in as of now is this new song I’ve been working on! I guess the chorus was from last spring...it came to me in the car on my way back from a show in Alabama. It has been in my head ever since and I finally got to sit down and throw some chords down for the verse when I was in Springfield, MO the week before last. It was quite an accident really.

I was just sitting in this park and enjoying playing my guitar with no real purpose (something I rarely get to do!) and BAM! There was this groove, and then these chords. I found a new shape for an Fadd9 (which I cannot believe I have overlooked!) and suddenly I was really enjoying the shade and the breeze which I had not even noticed until then. As I was jamming I started to feel a melody and began “skat” singing over the chords. I suddenly realized that this transitioned quite well into the Chorus I had been singing for weeks now. It was even in the right key!

I made a few mental notes and threw down a rough recording on my voice recorder before I went to my show that evening. I didn’t even get to look at the song again until last Saturday.

I was sitting in my room and had a few extra minutes before I had to leave for the wedding rehearsal Chattanooga (or at least I thought I had extra minutes, more on that later). I picked up my guitar and started toying with a few lyrical ideas. I had some idea of what I wanted to say because the song is about a real situation in my life...I just had to get it into words.

After 30 minutes I had 80% of a verse completed and I was stoked about it! I had it running through my mind all weekend and all I could think about was when I would get to finish it.

I finally got to wrestle with it more today.... and I do mean wrestle. My approach to songwriting is content driven...I know what I want to say, and I have to rise to a new level as a wordsmith to say it. Quite often I fall short in poetry with what I could easily express in prose. (Anyone who has ever written a poem knows what I mean.) I’ll have to take one of my songs in the future and pick it apart in a blog for you, explaining the personal process I went through and the various lines that were edited. It will be fun to share and re-live the writing process. Feel free to suggest a song for this!

Anyway, click here to listen to a quick clip of the first verse. I recorded it on my laptop mic, so it is rough, but will give you a sneak peak at an upcoming song!

Now, as for my trip to Chattanooga for the wedding rehearsal, I have made the trek a dozen times in the past year and I always remember that Nashville is on Central and Chattanooga is on Eastern time. I even remembered this time, but did the math wrong...idiot! So I am on the road and look at my clock thinking I have plenty of time, then I suddenly realize that I have 90 minutes to make a 2 hour drive just to be there at the start of the wedding rehearsal!!! Long story short, I made it right on time...the poor Saturn...

Now, I must share something that has had me smiling since I saw it. One of my former guitar students took this picture...we’ll call him “Blondie” to protect his identity (he's gonna kill me for that)...does that stance look familiar? Hmm...something about that electric guitar, red wall, and head to the side that just looks like I’ve seen it somewhere before...


(FYI, it is a myspace joke...go to www.myspace.com/beaubristow!)


Okay, that’s it for tonight. If you have any pictures with me from a show (or any other occasion for that matter) please send them to beau@beaubristow.com!

Thanks for reading!

Beau

Tuesday Update 07.04.06

Tuesday Update 07.04.06

2500 miles
13 days
12 shows

I finally made it back to Nashville last night around 2 AM. For those of you who don’t know, let me enlighten you...

I travel in a 1999 Saturn SW2. I bought it last summer and have put 40K miles on it in a year (fyi, the average is 15K a year). I load 3 speakers, a 6 space rack, my ridiculous pedalboard, a bag of cables, a toolbox of strings/guitar things, 2 boxes of CDs, a tip jar, posters, mailing lists/clipboards, a mic stand, 2 guitar stands, 2 speaker stands, a bag of clothes, a bag of shoes/towel/toiletries, a bag of assorted gym/running gear, 2 guitars, a laptop, a backpack, a soft-shell cooler of non-perishable foods, and a ice-chest that is my refridgerator for the tour.

Here’s a typical day:

I arise at the residence of some kind soul who has allowed me to borrow the shelter of their roof for the previos night, I load my bags and guitars in the car (never leave them in there overnight), and jet out. I eat cereal (bran flakes) out of a cup with milk (1% or 2%) that has been kept in my cooler overnight. This is breakfast as I drive to whatever YMCA happens to be between me and my next show (I look this YMCA up online the night before).

After a good workout I shower in the community showers with all the old men...don’t dwell on that...then I down a protein shake (a non-perishable source of protien is a must for a balanced tour diet) and look for a Panera Bread where I can grab lunch and a little WI-FI to locate my next show and get some work done. After a couple of hours in Panera I am usually getting odd looks and decide to hit the road.

I average between 2 and 4 hours of driving a day, and so after my morning schedule I am generally to the venue just in time to set up 2 hours before a show. I drag all of my gear in and am generally checked and ready to go in less than 45 minutes.

I grab dinner (from the venue or from my car most often) and try to chill a bit before I play. Then comes show time.

After the show, I am generally fortunate enough to find a good conversation with someone who was there for my set (this is the high point of the day...if the show goes well).

I then tear down and load out and in most cases have been blessed with a friend who has a couch or spare bed (hallalujah) that I can crash on. If they have Internet, I get online and prep for the next day and it all begins again...

Someday I’ll have to share more about the contents of my cooler...it’s like a 2 week camping trip...and I have grown to not care what people think when I am making a sandwich on the roof of my car in the Walmart parking lot...in fact I’ve grown to not care about a lot of things...underwear for one....but that’s another thing for another day....

Honestly this last tour was the roughest I’ve had. Low summer attendance and almost 2 weeks of solitude can weigh heavy on even a loner such as myself. Thanks so much to all of my friends on the road and at home that keep me going...I wish I could bring you a piece of the highlights of my trip...the cool summer breeze that bathed me as I played a late outdoor show in Louisville, July fourth with friends in Dayton, morning quiet time in a lonely Indiana cornfield, a tear in Illionois, Ted Drewes historic and famous frozen custard (with fresh peaches) right along Route 66 in St. Louis, being startled from a prayer as a red fox chased a rabbit through an old cemetery on the edge of a hayfield in Missouri, the shooting star over Oklahoma, the nectarine sunrise after driving all night into Little Rock, the full moon on my final ride back into Nashville...

There are ups and there are downs...I’m sure you’ll find them all in a future song.

Until then,

Beau

Tuesday Update 7/4/06

Tuesday Update 07.04.06

(Since I have been so inconsistent in my Journal/Blog I am as of today giving you an update every Tuesday).

I hope that the 4th is treating you well. As for me, I am relaxing in the Dayton area of Ohio with friends as I take a brief break from my current tour. I have played 7 shows in 6 days and so the respite is well received. So far I have hit Louisville, Columbus (OH), Dayton, Indianapolis, and Bloomington (IN), having played Columbus and Dayton twice.

I have met a lot of new people along the way and have had some great conversations. One of the best things about all of this is the way I am getting to know the diversity among people: the various ways people think and act, the ways we are different and the ways we are the same. I get to step outside the circle of friends I have always known and come face to face with ideas and opinions that are very far removed from my own.

I am also learning the limits to my sense of direction. After missing my exit 2 days ago because I was so wrapped up in the song spinning on my iPod, I took the next exit and worked my way to where I was going without losing any time. I must say I was a bit proud of this feat.

However, last night after a show in Dayton, I made the mistake of presuming that I could find the place I was supposed to sleep at because I had been there 2 times before. I was wrong...way wrong. It took me 45 minutes to get where I needed to be (I could have been there in 7 or 8 if I had gotten directions...and no, ladies, I don’t need any comments about guys and directions).

On a random note, someday I need to write a blog specifically about the various gyms that I have been in. I worked out one time in a YMCA in Columbus, GA that used 3-inch lead pipes as a rack for barbells. They were run into the concrete walls in the basement of a building that must have been built around the turn of the century (the 20th century, not the 21st). Talk about a dungeon. All of the weights were rusty and there was the smell of 100 years of sweat. There was also this little 4 foot door down there that I’m sure hid a secret passageway. I felt like I was in some sort of medieval prison...I was going on like 3 hours of sleep, but it was one of the best workouts I can ever remember...barbaric even. (so you know...now I’m laughing at the thought of myself with a sword and one of those Viking helmets with the horns...sick really.)

On the other end of the spectrum is the YMCA I visited in Fishers, IN last Sunday. It was way nice...it had a blitzflikin Subway in it! (I would have preferred a Milo’s, but if you’re not from Alabama that doesn’t mean anything to you. If you are from Nashville, think Fat Moe’s...yeah)

Anyway, I’m headed to West Lafayette, IN tomorrow and eventually to Tulsa, OK this Saturday. I’ll be back in Nashville by 7/11.

I’m depending a lot on friends for promotion and places to sleep, so if you see me coming your way, help me spread the word. Also, I am still looking for a place to sleep in or around Tulsa and then again for Little Rock. Definitely give me a shout if you’ve got a contact in those areas.

So that’s about it for this Tuesday. Thanks to everyone who believes in me and has invested in this journey so far. I hope to be seeing you on the road again soon.


Somewhere north of here,

Beau



By the way, be sure to wear your safety goggles when you are throwing bottle rockets and burning your hand off with sparklers tonight...my mom would have had me wearing a welding visor if she could have...