12/21: Home For The Holidays.

There is no other place I would like to be than home for the holidays. After my 6:20am flight out of New Orleans was cancelled yesterday due to the Nor'Easter which dumped record levels of snow up the east coast, I finally arrived home this morning. My parents did an amazing job with decorating the house with all of our jovial christmas decor. I usually like to be a part of the "decking the halls" tradition, but because I was arriving only three days before Christmas, I preferred to arrive home to an already joyful house. The tree is one of the best one's we've had in years, the nutcrackers are proped in their cordially bellicose stance, the porcelin carolers are caroling and the candles are all lighted. My mom surprised me by putting colored christmas lights around the two pillars in my room. In the four years we've lived in this house she has never done that; I guess she really missed me.
Besides hugging my parents and going to the bathroom, the first thing I did when I got home was put mulling spices on the stove--cinnamon, cloves, allspice berries with pieces of orange peel simmered in water--in order to heighten the holiday ambiance. I find it tough to get in the holiday spirit when I'm travelling in a van for hundreds of miles a day far, far, far away from your family. My holiday spirit is slowly gaining momentum now that I am home and by Christmas it should be fully restored.

12/16 Wine Wednesday :: 2008 Shoofly Shiraz

Shoofly Shiraz
Australia
2008
$10

There is something unromantic about opening up a bottle of wine without having to uncork it. Truth be told, unless you're drinking wine out of a box, the corkless bottle is not a quality demarcation. The only reason a cork is necessary is if you are planning on aging the bottle of wine properly. With that said, the deep plum hued liquid has a bouquette of dark fruits (mulberries, plums, blueberries and raspberries), spicy licorice and earthy notes. Upon touching the tounge, the palate is inundated with more dark fruits, cedar, smoke and pepper with medium tannic qualities and a lingering finish.

12/2 :: Wine Wednesday :: 2006 Paul Jaboulet Aine Cotes Du Rhone Parallele 45

Paul Jaboulet Aine

Parallele 45

France

1996

$10

This Cotes Du Rhone, straight from southern France, was my Thanksgiving wine this year. Composed of 60% of the Grenache varietal and 40% Syrah, this slightly brick hued, deep ruby, medium bodied wine, contained flavors of plum, black cherry, raisin, and traces of pomegranate. It's earthy nose hinted at leather, coffee and woodchips. For $10, this smooth Cotes Du Rhone proves to be quite an enjoyable wine.

Texas, it's not you, I promise.

Dearest Lonestar State:

It was brought to my attention days before my embarkation for this December run that there would be several shows that I actually would not be the supporting act for despite my previous belief of otherwise. This would leave me with a full 5 day hole that would be unfillable thus unprofitable. Fact: music isn't about money. Fact: I am not doing music just as hobby but as a profession. Fact: It isn't feasible to sustainably tour if you are losing money. Five days with no income while living on the road means the profit equilibrium becomes unbalanced thus resulting in an increasingly large hole in my pocket. The economy is hitting everyone hard...especially musicians who don't have a fixed salary. I am sad that I will not be in Texas starting 12/3. I was looking forward to meeting all of you and seeing some of your familiar faces. I was also looking forward to try your kick ass BBQ. I realize I owe ya'll a show or two and when the time comes where it makes sense I will give you a proper show. As we are all feeling economic pressures, though perhaps dissappointed, I am sure you will faithfully understand and not hold a grudge. If you ARE in the area PLEASE go see Benjy Davis Project while they are in Texas. They kick ass. I will be meeting up with BDP in Little Rock, Arkansas on 12/10 to continue on and finish the December tour.

Love,

Andrew

11/29--Autumn Falls Into Winter

The leftovers have been consumed (perhaps so much so that roast turkey, gravy, cranberry sauce and stuffing won't sound appetizing until next year), the out of town family members have made their treks back to their homesteads, and the house has the uncanny whisper of lonely winter knocking on the double front door and the window panes...a few weeks early. It's the coming of darkness at too young of an hour that really reaches the senses dolefully. The Thanksgiving excitement weens away and the Christmas cheer has really yet to blossom. Perhaps what I need is the Christmas decor. The nutcrackers, the wreaths hung with their red bows, the carolers. It's always charming to drive through Fairfield, CT's downtown Post Road with it's dimly lit street lamps ornately swaddled with white Christmas lights and pine garland. The feeling becomes heightened with Brian McKnight's sultry vocals on his 'Bethlehem' album (in fact, I'm listening to it as I type this), perhaps joined by a hot apple cider riding shot gun in the console or a peppermint stick lazily resting on your lips and tongue.

I was driving home from the grocery store today and saw a mother and what I presumed to be her high school daughter decking their home with lights, bells, holly, and even faux Santa Claus figures. It was one of those excessively done jobs (a la Lampoon Christmas Vacation)--so much so that I sensed the teen's chagrin. I wonder if that's why her back was always turned to the street--never exposing her face, her identity. It was wasn't it? So she wouldn't be seen by her fellow school mates driving past. I would have done the same. It wasn't cold enough for a full on, burglar style, ski mask.

11/26/09--Thanksgiving Break.

Ah. Thanksgiving. The holiday for the aunts who concoct a lumpy, oily over salted sludge called "Gravy". Well, not in this family. My momma knows how to whip up a creamy, perfectly seasoned, rust hued sauce, perfect for moisturizing the often dried out bird (or hypodermic needle infatuated with a junkie's dosage of Tryptophan--ours was not dried out by the way). Our Thanksgiving spread provided for a plethora of good eats. From 'Roasted Fennel Soup with Hazelnuts and Cranberries' to a 'Grilled Turkey filled with a Granny Smith Apple and Sage Dessing' and the infamous influx of root vegetables (from the cinnamony turnip to the sweet n buttery butternut squash). I popped into the kitchen and satiated my culinary longing by fixing up an appetizer of 'Brie, Pumpkin Seed, and Cranberry Mousse on Wheat Toastlets with an Ambrosia Apple and Red Pearl Onion Chutney and a Fig-Wildflower Blossom Honey Aioli. Dessert? Pumpkin Pie. Pecan Pie. Sour Cream Pie (a family recipe...you would not understand it's wonder) moisturized with a cup of coffee dosed with Bailey's. Yum, Yum. The ambiance was set with with a warm, blazing, wood fire set in the slate stone fire place which my dad laid and tended with his pyro prowess. The Hoover's homestead is the place to be ya'll.

My phone was an inhibitor of family relations, so my sister stole my cellphone from me and is currently unwilling to give it back. Frankly, I am happy she did and hope she holds onto it for a few more days. Throw it in the ocean for sometime. Drown it in the bath tub. Tie it to the back of the Ford and take it on a disparaging trek through the multifaceted terrain; crack its screen, deafen it's ear piece and muffle it's microphone. Take me back to a simple life devoid of mundanely robotic ringtones full of their anticipatory retaliations.

None the less, my Thanksgiving started off on a high note. Why you ask? My cousin rolled into my parent's house slinging a holstered digital video camera with memory cartridges full of his 3-year-old daughter singing 'Saturday' and 'Secrets'...enough to leave me feeling full of joy...leaving me hopeful...leaving me satisfied... (as a chocolate flourless cake might--minus the guilt) and giggling like a piglet from her sheer adorableness. I was wholeheartedly impressed. Marketing wise? I wish I could bring her on tour with me--she could probably sell more CDs then I currently do. Kids are awesome. Let's leave it at that.

Here's to a less technological me (ha, yet here I am writing a blog)...a less technological you...a less technological us...let's be thankful for one another. Bring me back to the day of the ink filled quill pen and the previously readily available (and quite romantic) post card.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Love,

Andrew

Song of the day?

Fuck that. Anything by Paolo Nutini will do today (tonight)...enjoy.

11/21--A Day In The Life: Tour Blog #6

The show at Cicero's in St. Louis, MI ended on a high note. The boys wanted to make the 12 hour trek down to Louisiana that night, post show, instead of using the following day off to do so. I understood this move. If I had a day off followed by a show in my hometown the day after, I would want to maximize my time at home, especially after having been on the road for just short of a month.

When we arrived in Baton Rouge, LA just after 12PM, I checked into a Marriott hotel. After sleeping on hotel room floors and the back seat of a turbulent van for much of November, I was worn pretty thin and needed my space to recharge my weary body and mind. First sign of exhaustion: your legs feel as if they are controlled by another force other than your body. Check.

Barely having put my bags and guitar on the floor of room 504, I took a hot shower as spending 12 hours in a van with five other guys tends to give you a musty stench of pure masculinity. I slipped on my old Miami University sweatpants and faded fast into a dream riddled slumber. Weird dreams actually. Dreams involving the hotel I was in, dreams suggesting the haunted reality behind this establishment. I remember glimpses of a cadaverous child no older than the age of 10. His pallid face was made to look more creamy due to his matted black hair and his wardrobe--tattered church clothes--an old black woolen jacket and knickers.

After sleeping off much of the afternoon, I spent the remainder of the evening in the Marriott's lounge reading and eating a nourishing meal of Cobb Salad (mixed field greens with hard boiled eggs, applewood smoked bacon, avacado, grilled chicken and Maytag bleu) and Louisiana's own chicken gumbo as well as a glass of jammy Pinot Noir; strawberries and black cherries filled its bouquet.

I indulged my body more by hitting the sheets by midnight. Erie enough, it was at this time that I heard two rounds of female screams. At first, as my pupil's dilated, I thought it was a woman reaching climax on the other side of the wall. However, the screams were too inconsistent, too few and too sporadic for it to have been a side effect of good sex. I wonder if this hotel really was haunted.

I had a day off yesterday, so I went to bed at 11:30 only soon enough to wake up at 4:30 this morning with the vigor and zeal of an un-neutered pit bull. I don't understand. I was given the gift of a day off to sleep and rejuvenate, yet my body refused to accept. I spent the bulk of the morning listening to the rain, writing a new song and reading.

We have the rest of the today and tonight off and then we drive 8 hours to Nashville, TN for the final show of the November tour. Looking forward to getting home. For my Thanksgiving dish I think I want to make Grilled porcini polenta cakes with shaved parmigiano reggiano and drizzled with black truffle oil. I'm looking forward to home life.