Charlotte, NC

Hey, guys! I can't believe I'm in the home stretch of my time out on the road. In some ways, it seems to have gone by really fast, and in other ways, I feel like I've been gone for about a month. Time's weird on the road--it's hard to explain, but everything is accelerated. Anyway, I've got three more shows (Louisville, Atlanta & Lake Buena Vista), plus a set-up day in Ft. Lauderdale (I'll have to leave to catch my plane before the bands start) before switching off with our music editor, Scott Heisel (whose blogs are sure to be more entertaining than mine).

Anyway, just thought I'd update everyone on my status. Especially if my blogs tend to start leaning more toward talk of finding showers and food, as the longer I'm on the road, the more important they are getting. :)

So, last night we were in Charlotte, North Carolina at Tremont Music Club. It was definitely an interesting venue. I felt like we were playing a show in someone's municipal building on their farm (but totally in a good way). I'm talking concrete floors, steel ceilings and dirt everywhere. My fingernails were pretty gross by the end of the night, and I'm not even sure how it happened. But regardless, the place sold out, and I met a lot of cool people. For instance, there was the dad who hung out by the table for a while because he never lets his daughter go to the Tremont alone, but he knows how much she loves music so he wants her to get to experience it live. Then there was the guy who works at the Walden Books in Winston-Salem and always puts the AP mags at the front of the racks (gave him a big high-five for that). There were also lots of concert-goers who weren't familiar with AP, but once they checked out our posters and the pictures of past covers on our signs were totally hooked and couldn't wait to get their free subscription. Also, the employees at the Tremont were all big AP fans, one telling me that he gets almost all of his graphic design influence from the pages of AP (I told him that our design department kicked ass and they would be please to hear it).

I also had about three or four people ask me how to go about getting a job at AP, as it is their "dream job." Interacting with the people who read AP and are interested in what we are doing is probably my favorite thing about being out on the road. When you're in the office, sometimes you can feel a little removed from the audience occasionally, and it's nice to have some real interaction with our readers to remind me that what we're doing excites people and that people are watching to see what we do next, and they truly care about the magazine. It's really a great feeling and sort of makes all the long hours we put in melt away. It's a good experience to have a couple times a year, and I realize I'm totally lucky to have a job that lets me get out on the road and be with our "customers" in the best setting possible--a live show.

Anyway, that's my token "think piece" entry. Ha! We're currently en route to Louisville, and I'm not 100 percent sure what state we're in, but we're passing lots of open (read: treeless) fields and farms, so it's reminding me a lot of Nebraska (where I am from), so I don't mind the scenery at all. I've heard lots of good things about Louisville, so I'm looking forward to seeing the city. Come say hi at the show tonight--and if you have a portable shower, you should definitely bring it!