Home. Road. Rhythm.

I've been home maybe a grand total of 4 days since the day after Christmas Day. Seriously though...5. I think. I've been home for 3 1/2 full days now, and I'm uncomfortable. The strangest dynamic in traveling and playing tunes for a living is the ability to fall in and of a rhythm. For a while, I'd composed the home living rhythm. I'd even call it a sort of routine. Both good and bad gigs poured in, so I left home and played them. So then my rhythm got lost. Like Crazy Horse...I mishandled my rhythm. But my road rhythm began to develop. Here...too..you could say I'd developed a routine. I have time off now, and I'm more frantic than everyone else. I'm so excited to see everybody that I haven't seen in quite sometime, and I'm mostly confident that it's bothersome. Genuinely strange to most. Well it's downright intense. When you see familiar faces against the backdrop of ticking watch. You think: MAXIMIZE. You over-commit. You disappoint. Then, you get back on the road. You think to yourself, "Micah, you should ensure for yourself a wife or a full time band...or develop a strong sense for real estate development". All my friends either think I want more from them than they can give...or they wonder why I just won't sit and rest. People excite me more than rest for now. Especially people that I see less than 10 times a year that are fantastic human beings. Folks that have inherent rhythm. This all sounds dramatic, and it most likely is, but it's disorienting. Fast food relationships. Good news: I watched "Of Mice and Men" yesterday, slept through half of it, and still almost lost it at the end...I got myself a library card, and tomorrow I'm going to develop some photos. I haven't bought groceries since May so I see no reason to start now. But I did buy milk and Honey Bunches of Oats with my CVS card earlier in the week. I think to myself: I'm off a good portion of the month..I can hear the crackle of the snare coupled with the ol' bass drum in the distance. Feels like rhythm.

This live footage of the tune "Jet Lag" is courtesy of FilmMeFirstFilms out of Atlanta.

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Carolinian Times

I don't know much of the title of this blog. Seems like a newspaper name, but not sure. Anyways, I'm playing a handful of times this weekend throughout the Carolinas. Thanks to all the people who came out to the Charlotte show. Three things happened the day of the Charlotte show that were disheartening to say the least: 1) I was pulled over by a policeman for "following too closely"...he asked me to step out of the car....he asked me if I had a slew of drugs on me...to which i cordially responded no...then he aksed me if I had over $10,000 US currency in my vehicle...I said that I wish I did...he kind of laughed and then got serious again really fast...and the words that followed as the bookend to our bizarre dialogue were astonishing. He grilled me on the whole weapons front..ie...any firearms, etc....then he asked me if I had a SWORD. Again, I laughed. This man was inadvertently putting me in extremely high spirits. Ryan and I then felt a rhythm. We saw a bunch of other black people pulled over, and we concluded that they were looking for the real life version of Blade's Wesley Snipes. I can only guess that they need his specialty skills in terms of dealing with vampire carolinians. 2) I broke a string on the first song of my set the other night: Blame it On January. I feel cool sometimes when I play that song....probably more so than the majority of the other ones. Therefore, I the embarassment was maximized. Then I changed the string and broke it again when I was trying to tune it. I feel like I'm always having to play off technical difficulties...then I turn into some sort of circus clown trying to maintain until everything gets under control. 3) Someone told me my yellow argile sweater was "awful"....I didn't care too much, I knew it was a risk...but awful? How so? How sure can you be that somethng is truely awful? Mad respect to the fashion poilce in full effect.
If you're from Atlanta, and you're reading this, I'm playing Monday night supporting Ryan Horne and Jon Black...at the Red Light Cafe.. 7:00...$5...I'm performing all new material with a sensible band, and it's going to slam. Please, do come.
MD

The Essential Mathew Linton

Good morning.
I've decided to give you a first hand look into a dialogue had between my friend Mathew Linton and me. Mathew played drums on some of my new material we recorded at Smoakstack Studios in the Berryhill district of Nashville. He might be the funniest person I know. In fact, I think he is. This is an "interview" I threw his way in the kitchen of the studio. Now, understand...this video might not get you the way it got me. It's just a preference thing. Anyways, happy president's day. I'm more than thrilled that I've landed home for a couple days. No snow. No problem.

Upstate New York Apocolypse

Today...I'm in a cozy hotel room after speaking with a kind, talkative receptionist. She put cookies out for me..so she says. So, I decided to scratch the myspace blogging due to my close friend and roomie josh cook. Josh takes blogging seriously. Visit his site at joshcooksucks.com. I am a huge proponent of creative travel. If you ever wonder how indie artists get to gigs...so do i....all of the time. I played at a school called SUNY-Geneseo last night. I flew in...was picked up at the airport...brought to the hotel....picked up again...brought to the venue....driven to dinner...taken back to hotel. This morning I had to figure out how to get to Alfred, NY. I only wanted to pay for the rental car for one day so I was dropped back off at the Rodchester airport in the early afternoon...so I could get back closer to my fight time tomorrow. I made some calls, bought the new Rolling Stone (for junk food reading purposes...purely), and read in the lobby-car rental space and then rented my green pontiac sudan. Started driving. Then the snowing ensued. I've arrived now for the show tonight at SUNY-Alfred. It's overload though...the only way the overload can ever cease to exist (here in my situation) is when grossly cold weather stops AND I learn the art of the airport hang. That's right...the airport hang. First of all, I have to LOVE, LOVE, LOVE hanging out at the airport. Second, you have to find those middle chairs in the terminal where you're not directly next to another human. Third, you have to enjoy...wait ..no ...have a serious dedication to a) listening to music b) reading c) starting conversations with complete strangers or d) ascribing to the Tom Hanks "Terminal" thing...where you fall in love with a beautiful stewardist if only for a short time and then leave. I don't think that lovin' was a two way street though...between him and the woman. But Tom had time and he was an endearing foreigner. I do not fit in with Tom here. So I have hours to burn at the airport tomorrow...from about 3-6 PM. Then I have a layover in Cleveland, Ohio. It's worth it though. Genuine connections through a mysterious medium. Worth it. There's tons of men and women who have to work their lives away to stay afloat...for a burger...or a t-shirt for their little boy or something...and I have time to blog.