Kalimba lessons

well... its been an exceptional few days it really has.

north carolina came and went... with no piles of crazy coloured objects. which is a wee bit sad. but we did have a large papermache cow with a wide mouth backstage. so that was nice. plus gareth and kevin found big bits of wood lying around and batted eachother with them.

the cow looked on with disdain.

yesterday was a bit of a gruelling drive it has to be said. seven hours in the van through south carolina to georgia. south carolina has not a lot in it as far as i can see. except a very large plastic peach on a stick which i saw out of the window. (and i mean VERY LARGE!) all we had in the van was a bunch of windows to drool upon and the sum total of 6 grateful dead cds. we did get through 5 of them. oh yes, 5!!!!! an odd atmosphere ensued, fuelled only by subway salald sandwiches and cheerwine (the South's version of cherry coke. weird as!)

but the gig last night made EVERYTHING worth it! We played at the 40 watt club in Athens. It's a really cool place. And we played a kickass set with some awesone sound (thanks to Brendon our Bostonian wizard man). It's just as well really, because... get this.. afterwards i was standing backstage holding my kalimba ready to put it away when in walked who but MICHAEL STIPE! he almost whacked me with the door. and then he said he really enjoyed the show. and asked me to show him how to play the kalimba!!!! Once i had managed to gather up my faculties like wayward toddlers and wiped the lipless goldfish expression from my face, an entirely surreal jo mango kalimba mastercalss ensued.

waaaaaah!

also in the audience it turns out were many other band members. whooo! i'm glad i didn't know all that before we played. shucks. Athens Georgia is the place to go if you wanna meet fellow band members.

there was indeed a lot of dancing and shouting and whooping and generally childish behaviour from most of us once the aformentioned REM man exited through the back door.

bizarreness continued apace today when we arrived in nashville. i felt like i was dreaming from the moment we stopped at a gas station - which was filled with fireworks ceiling to floor - to find the proprieter nonchalantly smoking a cigarette amongst the highly flammable explosive devices surrounded by gasoline.

we made a sharp sharp exit and huddled under the giant peach for refuge. then a giant centipede arrived shouting "WATCH OUT SHE'S GONNA BLOW" but we escaped without injury when he hooked a bunch of passing seagulls to us and we flew on the breeze all the way to tennessee.

welll... that's not entirely true... but that's what i did in my head anyway.

yup.

The promoter here is married to none other that cerys matthews from that nineties band catatonia. so we all just returned from their house where she made us all curry. honestly. seriously. the giant centipede thing was a lie. but the curry thing is true true.

yummmy yummmy curry it was too. plus her daughter has the same sparkly shoes as me. so talent and taste run in the family.

well... i gotta go now and play an encore with the fantabulous vetiver. they rock my world. i'll write soon after our day off in nashville. woooo!