It isn't very often I get to send an update from tour, usually being the one responsible for driving or anything else that would keep me too occupied for computing. But I have two strapping young lads to help me with van duties and I'm capitalizing on the free time. We are on our way to Pittsburgh right now, excited to be playing the Andy Warhol Museum - a personal favorite of mine since I was a teenager. There are currently 8 Brits sitting right behind me watching a movie (most likely Sleepless in Seattle, Four Weddings and a Funeral, or something romantically comedic). Dave (pilot) and I (co-pilot) are making our way through the San Diego music scene, band by band - probably the only fond memories I have of living there...

In other news, Ra Ra Riot have announced their Japanese tour dates and I am incredibly excited to be a part of this one. Dates are in the usual place. All of us have been buzzing, discussing at length all the different things we're going to do over there. If you have any suggestions, please send them over. I'm interested and I've got a nicely sharpened Ticonderoga #2. Try me.

Just a quick hello to the 3 people that check this regularly. I'm sorry it couldn't be longer but we're coming up on load-in and I have to look busy. More soon!

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I decided that while bulking up on my vitamin D, I should also update my website. Greetings from sunny Austin, TX! The past few months have been a bit of a rollercoaster with a lot of tough decisions being made, but there has also been a lot of empirically good things happening. I have lined up a crazy, extensive travel schedule that should top all of my 3 previous touring years combined. Get this:

On Wednesday, I'll be leaving to begin a week with my beloved Ra Ra Riot for a small west coast tour surrounding Coachella. Aside from the fact that I have a soft spot for this particular festival, it's also the only time planets have aligned to allow me to see Devo. Finally. The only times they have toured, I have been on the exact opposite side of the planet. Years of fandom will be exploding out of my brain come Saturday night. There will be dancing. Perfectly awkward, white girl dancing. I hope some of you are there to see it. I apologize in advance.

I'll then be spending 1.5 weeks in San Francisco as a nice prelude to my month-long May tour with Laura Marling. Laura's new record has been blowing my mind since I bought it a week ago and her live show is a real class act. Please, please come to her show if we happen to be in your town. You can reference all of these dates on the TOURS page.

I made a decision this year to take full control of my birthday destiny and quit waiting around for someone to throw me a party. I bought myself a plane ticket to Europe for a month to (1) see some lady friends of mine, (2) have the Scandinavian summer I've been missing since 2004, and (3) to catch live bits (and photographic opportunities) of my all-time favorite sporting event, the Tour de France. I was around for it in 2004, but like the Devo debacle, I was never in the right place at the right time. So, I will trot through Benelux and bits of France to eat, drink, and be merry around some bicycles. Happy 28th birthday to me!

From Europe, I'll be traveling to Japan to do a 10-day jaunt with Ra Ra Riot again. I'm not even sure how to properly express the building excitement for this one so I think I'll leave it until there are confirmed dates. I'm already plotting my path through the eateries...

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Hello out there. It's been a considerable amount of time since my last update because I find it difficult to update when I'm in the thick of tour. However, by the time I have the energy to reflect on tour, it's over and there really isn't much to write about. The Laura Marling tour was a true dream - an excellent, talented group of people who didn't mind me doing caricature imitations of their accent (think Eliza Doolittle). There was a lot of laughing, a fair bit of crying, and too much flying. I came home with a great feeling in my heart and a not-so-great feeling in my left ear. I also had my first absurd flying experience (sadly, with JetBlue) that involved a missed connection, an extra night in NYC, and a near missed connection the next day - it would have been another complete missed connection had the pilot on the LGB-PDX flight not been sitting right behind me. I felt lucky but all I could do was war crawl across my doorstep by the time I made it home. I'm sure you know the feeling.

I'll admit that the timing of the tour (not the tour itself) sort of derailed my momentum for reasons I can't really place. I came back from this one spinning a bit, lending creedance to the oft-cited "post-tour depression." What's interesting about post-tour depression is that it doesn't always come from missing tour and it doesn't always manifest itself as depression, per se. It is more of a purgatory between productivity and reflection with an amplified feeling of transition. The metaphor posed yesterday during a lovely meetup with some friends was that of a moving train: you stare out the window, watching everything whizzing past, and slam to a dead stop. Then immediately change directions. How do you draw up the energy to get moving again when every fiber of your being is being pulled in the direction of that last ride?

I recently wrote a post on morning rituals on my blog that was able to put into words how I deal with the structureless home life that charactizes half of my year. What I have yet to write about is how to go from 60 (tour) to 0 (home) gracefully and with minimal casualties. I'm not sure I or many others have really figured out how to do that just yet, but I hope to scratch the surface soon. And while I am definitely my own worst critic, I have enough perspective to recognize that it lasts for a few weeks at most and then I'm back to embracing my home routine once again. I have finished knitting my first sweater, started a new book, unpacked my suitcase, cleaned the house, and seen a number of friends already. The ways in which us touring folk are able to inject instrinsically-motivated structure into our downtime is an art form. I hope to document it justly.

In other news, I have a few irons in the fire right now - some touring plans with no concrete dates to post. I will announce them as soon as I am able. I developed 4 new rolls of film recently and, unlike most of my photographic ventures, I don't have much to show for this set. I feel like a few of those rolls got the crappy end of some airport x-ray. But it's okay. There is always more film to shoot and I'm proud to announce that I have opened up my options even more: I recently bought a new/old medium-format camera. It's an original California highway surveying camera; a beautifully-functional Zeiss Ikoflex (no doubt paid for by my personal hero, FDR).

Isn't she lovely?

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Happy New Year, everyone. With a new year comes at least one new website update, so here we are. As usual, it has been a busy and rewarding time for me - I feel blessed every day to be earning a living doing a job I love. If you find yourself in an economy such as this being able to relate to the previous statement, give yourself a hug. You are lucky.

Speaking of lucky, I recently accepted a tour with the lovely Laura Marling for a few weeks in February. I remember her bandmates from Noah & The Whale telling me years ago to "watch out for her", as if she was a ticking time bomb. Sure enough, she is a 20-year-old with a list of qualifications and experiences a mile long, including a nice jaunt on the Jools Holland show (which means relatively little to Americans but is a nice check off the bucket list for the Brits). I'm looking forward to this little tour-let - you can find dates & locations on the tours page, as always.

In other news, I have set my internal compass towards purging, sloughing off, and streamlining my personal affects and, in turn, preserving my psychic well-being. It was a delightful holiday this year for so many reasons. But not coming home with a boatload of junk I don't need really sealed the deal. This poor economy has taught a few of us how to be careful and considerate about what we buy and, in turn, has led to more creative ways of demonstrating to the ones we love all the ways in which we love them. Like, just telling them - spending time with them, creating & crafting with them, cooking with them, slowing down for a moment to just be with them. It means more than a DVD or gift certificate and this year was one of the first years I have really felt it. On top of that, I was able to take a well-needed and inspiring vacation over in England with my very special man-friend. More details on that trip as soon as the film comes back from the lab.

I have also taken this new outlook on paring down and applied it to the internet. I have shut down my old blog, Blogjammin', and have started a new one, Lonely Lemon, taking my many interests and putting them in one place. I aim to tie this website in (structurally) with the blog so I don't have 500 varying and disparate ways to update the world on my whereabouts. It is helping to focus my energy and work flow and minimize my time spent in front of the computer. This means more time spent in the three-dimensional world with the three-dimensional beings I call family and friends. Hopefully this means less time fretting and frittering time away, overwhelmed by to-do lists (imaginary and real).

Per request, I am also addressing the question that keeps coming up in my inbox: When is your photo page going to get up and running? Well, friends, I need some help. I don't have a programmer, nor am I a programmer. I am having issues finding an appropriate (and safe) way to share my photographs with you and the internet. Does anyone have any ideas? Does anyone do this for a living? Does anyone know java script? Please email me, if so. I could use the guidance.

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So, after accustoming myself with the prospect of having a relaxing, cozy time (read: broke, lazy time) at home in November, I unexpectedly got offered a tour with the illustrious Neko Case. Color me a lucky duck. With little more than a week to prepare, naturally I've been a little frantic as I am still on the road with Tegan & Sara. But the details have snapped into focus, taken shape, and are beginning to look like a tour. I love when that happens... Tour dates are posted in the usual spot (marked 'Tours').

Other than that, I am still making my way through Dumas' The Three Musketeers, which has less plot and more heart than my favorite The Count of Monte Cristo. That is just an opinion, not a fact. I have taken up a few new hobbies, namely needle felting and purging personal belongings. I have recommitted myself to a vinyl-only policy, as I have been able to find the culprit in my post-tour crazy-making: my unruly CD collection. CDs simply are not as tactile and sane as vinyl. I really cannot explain it more articulately, except to say that I feel better with them gone. Bon voyage, crappy plastic jewel cases! Bonjour, simplicity!

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Wow. This might be my very first update from a tour, nevermind my very first update in over a month. I wouldn't be surprised if my 3 readers lost interest at this point for lack of updates. But it isn't for lack of projects on my end.

I am currently on tour with Ra Ra Riot, watching them play a KUT 4-song radio acoustic set. After this, we're off to WOXY for a 60-minute DJ set. I think there will be a margarita and a taco in there somewhere (most likely after the driving portion of the day). This has been an overall successful tour, with a number of sellouts and coups along the way. Whilst on tour, I have been advancing the current Jolie Holland tour. Jolie's voice is other-worldly, as is her song-writing and fiddle prowess. The tour dates are posted on the tours page, appropriately. Please go check her out as soon as humanly possible.

Some more exciting news: I will be an assistant tour manager on the Tegan & Sara press run, which includes two shows at Town Hall in New York. Dates on the tours page, as well.

Beyond ALL of that, I have been traveling extensively, documenting these trips with my Pentax and my Fujifilm Instax 200. Seattle, New York City, and all tour stops after that. I finished one large knitting project and am at a loss to figure out what to do next. Selfishly, I want to knit something for myself after the many gifts I've given but strangely, I'm not as motivated to knit for me. Maybe this is the humanitarian cause I've been searching for, some kind of "Knit for Humanity" cause ("Knit for Homosapiens"? "Purl for People"? Help.). On that note, beware all family members! You're getting scarves for Christmas. Nothing says "I love you" more...

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Yikes. It's been a little too long since I have updated you three who actually pay attention to this website. The truth is, I have been enjoying summer, ignoring technology and obligation, which I think is what summer is intended for. The truth is, I'm drinking a Kumquat-flavored Dry Soda, wondering why it always seems so monolithic to update this thing. Is it the HTML code? Nope. I love the challenge. Is it the trying to appear interesting when I feel the contrary? Maybe. Is it that I just can't seem to stomach sitting in front of a computer when it's sunny in my town and I have friends I need to see? Absolutely. So no apologies.

I have been working hard in the realm of booking and pre-production and am about to start another foray into the ever-chaotic-yet-uninteresting-to-those-not-involved-in-the-details tour management. The first of a few weekends in Harvey Danger's last run was a success and I aim to make Ra Ra Riot's last tour of this record just as successful. It reminds me of a time, many years ago, when I booked a 10-day Harvey Danger run through the midwest and northeast. I remember the promoter in NYC asked if a certain band named "Ra Ra Riot" could open the bill because they were starting to draw people and were really fun. I said, 'yeah, sure' because truthfully, I didn't care. And to be experiencing the talent and expertice of both bands to this day is such a privilege and it makes me wonder at what funny concentric circles we travel in.

I have been in perpetual sensory overload since I have been home, which normally is a bad, overwhelming thing - but right now, being summer and all, it is something I have enjoyed immensely. I have had this strong desire to touch, smell, and remember things in a way I haven't in a long time. I have also cultivated this random urge to know everything I could ever want to know about Japan, through film, food, and otherwise. I have for quite awhile written about a desire for tactility and tangibility (I think, as our worlds get more and more digital) and I feel like Japan might have a lot to offer, despite having a reputation for technology obsession. Counterintuitively, I feel like Japan has been able to balance that obsession by maintaining certain traditions in literature, food, film, and craftsmanship and I aim to find the essence of it... Whether or not I am successful, I have been engulfed in this sense of awe and wonder that I haven't felt since I began sifting through 7" bins when I was 15. There is something about that familiarity that feels like home.

I have been having brilliant dreams of crafty projects that have manifested themselves in buying domain names for my future craft company. There, surely, will be more on that, but until then, I am going to finish the G.D. baby blanket I am making, while deciphering subtitles in this obscure Japanese horror movie. Here's to tying up loose ends!

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There has been so much travel, work, planning, and organizing that I nearly forgot yesterday was the first day of summer. I spent the weekend in Portland, wandering the neighborhood and the sidewalk happy hours, embracing my city during the summer. It is so hard to be gone so much during this time of year, especially when all the neighbors have tomatoes and a color wheel's worth of chard.

But summer is a time for change and growth in all endeavors. The big news of my week is that after August, Harvey Danger will cease to make music as Harvey Danger. A few of you know that I have been booking their tours for over 3 years now and while it saddens me, I am truly happy for them and their courage to move on to future endeavors. Something tells me this won't be the last you hear from the members of Harvey Danger in the future. Catch them where you can - tour dates posted. To download the official press release, please right click here and save to your computer.

I also have a September tour confirmed with Ra Ra Riot. We are carting along the very talented Maps & Atlases, and some rad guys who know how to throw a mean barbecue, Princeton. Dates are up here.

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At this point, I am 3 days from finishing my west coast tour with Jens Lekman and Co. It isn't strange that an update at this moment is nearly impossible, as it requires that you be a bit out of the bubble to talk about the bubble (if that makes any sense). I am astonished at how much perspective I have and how much I have learned about tour relationships, band dynamics, and my own personal and professional characteristics as pertains to my job. This job isn't easy, touring is not glamorous, but if you're lucky, you come out the other side with a new family and a sense of shared experience unlike any other in your life.

It is easy to romanticize tour memories. That is not to say the last tour was all rose-colored glasses - it means, more or less, that I remember the good and bad moments from the last tour very vividly, as history often repeats itself. It is part and parcel to the whole experience of sharing a little too much personal space, trying to hit a groove to make this thing go. And it IS going. I feel so honored to be forging and cultivating new and old friendships with this group of people. They're inspiring, talented, funny, and, well, human.

I got to celebrate my birthday the other day and I said to myself, "If I can't be home with my family and significant other, I can't imagine a better group of people to be with today." But the real truth of it is that even if I had not been on tour, I would have chosen them anyway. They cheered me up on a rather cheerless day (550 mile drive on 5 hours of sleep) with cake and the most beautiful birthday song (complete with harmonies). We then proceeded to take fake party photos and laugh our asses off. I also learned it's not abnormal to cry on your birthday. All of my reasons for getting into tour management in the first place had been affirmed and it is a fantastic feeling when you realize that all the groundwork laid actually does pay off. I think 27 is going to be a great year. I hear it is one of the best.

On the not-so-existential tip, I am working on a few Harvey Danger shows to end their 15-year career with a bang. Details to come.

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Eight plane rides, one gigantic loop around the country, and one thousand miles of semi-voluntary road trip find me in sunny Tarzana, CA, in a house that is the spitting image of a Real World house (with a few more Home Depot materials and cut corners than the ones you see on TV). There is a pool and a gigantic bathtub - gluttonous in the age of conservation but my bourgeois side is getting the best of my better judgment. I am also living in a house with four gentlemen who are at a studio all day, so it's really like my own little island here (surrounded by Starbucks and strip malls and delicious sushi). One thing I have learned in my excessive traveling is that once you learn to accept a place for what it is, rather than what you want it to be, you can really begin to love it. I hear that works with people too. So Tarzana, you're serving me well for now.

I have only seen my house for three days in the past two months. I have done most of my obligatory family visits, venturing to wild frontiers like Austin, Brooklyn, and Lockney, TX (where you ask? Yes, I know...). It was a real treat to get so much concentrated family time in the face of such a crazy schedule; it was an even bigger treat to brush up on my family knowledge and stories, namely the one about how my great-grandfather sang and played fiddle for Bob Wills & The Texas Playboys. Then there was the one about my great-great-grandmother Lawson who aided in the jailbreak of Eva Richetti, a member of a regular Bonnie & Clyde band of outlaws headed by Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd. She was also Elvis' babysitter. Who knew a few days in a small west Texas town could be so enlightening? Not me, not me...

I am beginning the Jens Lekman tour in a few weeks. I am pleased as punch to be able to tour with them again and I'm getting more excited as I get closer. I always approach tours with equal amounts of enthusiasm, trepidation, and gratefulness to have a job I love in such tough times. Jens tours are 75% enthusiasm, 24% gratefulness, and 1% trepidation (to account for all of the potential catastrophes that could be caused while driving a van 1600 miles listening to "One More Time" by Daft Punk - you just never know).

I have been really inspired by a number of people in my life, particularly when it comes to arts and crafts. Craving the tangibility that comes with handiwork is par for the course when I spend 95% of my work life on a computer. I just want something I can put my hands on - knitting, cooking, sewing, photographing, and reading (actual) books. I got a new film camera (the illustrious Pentax K1000) and have been devouring knitting and nutrition books. The flighty Gemini in me is threatening to break loose in the face of all I want to learn and do right now, but I'm keeping her at bay by not being home. Traveling means paring down so I have no choice but to focus right now. And now I will focus on updating this website, as it is littered with cobwebs and in need of an airing out.

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After many grueling hours of tour and HTML decoding, I've made some changes to the format of my site, to make it more of a one-stop shop. I have been listening to an inner-dialogue between the two sides of my brain. Left said (in my grandmother's voice, strangely), "Keep your personal and professional lives separate." Right said, "In the music industry, "meetings" usually consist of drinking and watching live music, all the while talking about wildly inappropriate things that have nothing to do with business. It probably doesn't matter if you put a little more of your personal life on this website." I bet you can guess who won the argument.

So now I have all these extra pages, some under construction, with the intention of pruning and preening them after my tour ends. I can't devote a lot of time to banging my head against the wall re: HTML code when I need to be paying attention to spreadsheets and Google maps. But there's enough here to get started. The groundwork is laid.

Tour-related news: I have added Jens Lekman dates to the tours page. They are no longer a secret as they have been announced on Pitchfork and other such places (remember, kids, if it's not on Pitchfork, it's probably not real...). So, ladies, sensitive gentlemen, and gay lads, please come see Jens play your west-coast town. He and his voice are very dreamy and you can always come visit me at the merch table.

Industry-related news: Mikrokultur is now Moutique. One of my best ladies-in-music, Nadin Brendel, has been working hard to expand her booking agency with all sorts of goodies, like pre-production, travel booking, etc. She handles many of my favorite bands so if you're a band and want to tour Europe, hit her up. She's mighty nice.

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I feel grateful for the momentum I gained on this last jaunt as I'm using it to carry me through this action-packed week. I'm making preparations to leave for what is going to total about 2 months, with a 4 day break, and then 2 more months. I bought a new and larger suitcase (as I'm tired of streamlining - I want to be a little more vain on the road and be able to find room for one more bar of soap and another pair of socks in my bag). I made an appointment with my accountant to sort out the antiquated public stoning my checking account is going to endure, thanks to fiscal year 2008. Let's see, what else?

I confirmed a two-week west coast road trip with my favorite reason to tour, Jens Lekman, in the months of May & June. I am particularly excited for this tour because we have a new lineup and multiple nights in major markets, which means sleeping in with time to eat. It's the small things, people. I've added Stereo Total dates on the tours page - which reminds me: start advancing the tour. Ah, to-do lists.

Now that I'm about 3 days divorced from the Ra Ra Riot tour, I have some perspective by which to write about it. I won't go into it here (it'll be on my blog, with photos) but, suffice it to say, they are one of the most talented, hot-to-trot, and funny groups of musicians I have toured with in a long time. I request (plead, even) that you go see them when they come to your town. And they will be coming to your town in the next 2 months - either on their own or opening for Death Cab For Cutie. Also, be sure to watch them on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on March 25. Isabella Rossellini is the guest (though we didn't get to meet her because they tape all these segments separately and paste them together like a collage). Click here for all things Ra Ra Riot-related.

And lastly, my friend and website designer, Dianna Potter, directed a rad video for up-and-coming band (and opener for Ra Ra Riot), Telekinesis. It's this really great stop-motion video that took a meticulous mind and careful hands like Dianna's to produce. Click here to watch it. It was recently featured on Pitchfork (which means a lot to some people) but all official acclaim aside, the video is pretty sweet.

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It has been awhile since an update but truth be told, there's been nothing worth mentioning about my professional life, thanks to winter hibernation. But the nature of freelance is feast and famine. I'm happy to say that there is more of the former than the latter after a long uneventful winter.

Currently I am on tour with Ra Ra Riot and it's always difficult to find time to write on the road. So much of tour is mere survival, getting through your day one biological need at a time. There isn't much time for abstract thought or trying to drum up the energy for something more than first-layer drivel. So, I'm aiming for somewhere in between right now, as we're at a radio station and it is difficult to write when listening to a band get interviewed over studio monitors.

After I finish this tour, I have about 9 days at home before I begin a tour with Stereo Total - 5 weeks, one gigantic loop of the country. As soon as dates can be announced, you will find them on my tours page. I have a few other projects in the works but those are surprises and I'm not one to ruin it. As soon as I can figure out how to make this HTML code stuff work, I aim to add a page of miscellany that should keep all of my readers (all 3 of you) entertained. You can thank me later.

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After some serious post-holiday comatose, I am back up and running again. I came home early from Berlin to celebrate the marriage of two friends and the birthday of another. Not long after, all of us were promptly snowed in at our respective homes and saw very little of civilization for a good 2 weeks. Well, long story short, the snow is gone, the holidays are gone, the sweets are gone (thank the good lord), and I am getting all of my ducks in a row for the following months.

As of today, I confirmed a 2-week-ish long tour with Barsuk's Ra Ra Riot, starting on February 21st. The dates are listed on the tours page and I am elated to be spending some time back in the van with some very talented individuals - and on my home coast, as well. Easy breezy.

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This German "vacation" is getting off to a good start, as I've accepted some preproduction work through Mikrokultur (the first of, hopefully, many endeavors). Giant Sand, from Tucson, AZ, will be touring for 6 days in Germany, along with many other European dates that I will have nothing to do with.

GIANT SAND GERMAN TOUR // DECEMBER 2008
Friday, December 5 // Koeln, DE // Gebaude 9
Sunday, December 7 // Hamburg, DE // Ubel & Gefaehrlich
Monday, December 8 // Berlin, DE // Lido
Tuesday, December 9 // Dresden, DE // Scheune
Wednesday, December 10 // Heidelberg, DE // Karlstorbahnhof
Thursday, December 11 // Muenchen, DE // Feierwerk

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Though I am currently on vacation, I am working significantly on my preparations for excessive busy-bodying in 2009. Nadin Brendel and I have been shooting around ideas for potentially pairing up to bring Mikrokultur to the States and to bring more Rachel Demy to Europe (which is empirically a good thing).

There has been much deliberation regarding the state of the music industry and I have learned much about the limitations, as well as advantages of the European touring system by comparison with the North American system. It is helping me see the many roles that promoters, labels, and agents can play in our musical ecosystem. I believe a lot should and probably will change. I would of course like to do my part to help that process along.

All idealism aside, the German language is making my head spin but the cheap wine is screwing it on straight again. I forgot that there could be winter without rain. Someone please tell Portland, OR because I'm not there to do it myself.

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At long last, I have managed to get this thing going. Truth be told, I suffer from a sincere and honest bout of laziness and technological intimidation. Thanks to my friend, Dianna Potter, I have overcome the malaise and justified my presence on the internet (or so I think). I will let you be the judge.

My intention or mission statement or what-have-you is that this is a place to post about professional and hobby-esque endeavors. You'll notice to the left a self-explanatory collection of pages - tours, being what I do for a living and the many capacities in which one can tour; photographs, being what I make when I aim a camera containing film at something so I can capture that magic moment; links, being my list of friends, goods, places, and names I endorse and choose to be associated with. It is a smörgåsbord of nouns (if you can't read that word it is because my computer is silly and won't let me save the original Swedish spelling. This is what it came up with as an alternative).

I think pencils are lovely devices so I decided to make them a mainstay at this site. Though, for the record, I do all my crosswords in pen. I am committed.

Incidentally, Blogjammin' will still be up and running for various and sundry BS that I don't necessarily care to have professional contacts read on the front page of my website. We'll see though. I really just want to keep it because of the name...

Peruse, enjoy, and email me. Thank you.

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