Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category

If you’re not getting happier with age, you’re doing something wrong.

That’s what my buddy, Seth Glier told me Ani Difranco (my hero) said to him a while back. It stuck an absolute chord with me. And from time to time, I remember that statement and try to gauge my relative happiness. For whatever reason it came up tonight and here are the first few things that came to mind:

1) I am touring with a full band, in a new, stressful situation – one that’s made me painfully aware of my overall control issues. Mostly, when I feel like I’m out of control – I get snappy, defensive, and passive aggressive with the people I love. This was an issue when Chloe and I were on tour last year – she brought it up, and we worked through it. Later, she recognized the fact that I’d grown through the course of the tour.

My solution: remember that none of it is personal, it’s not just me running the show anymore, and that can be a beautiful thing. Meditate and let go. Recognize and apologize when I’ve been a bitch. I have total confidence I can work through this.

2) I am doing work that I love, some of which is not completely centers around making someone else’s material stronger. In the past I didn’t have the skills or patience to work as a sideman, or step back long enough to let someone else’s ideas shine through. I love watching other people’s reactions to my bandmate’s tunes.

3) I pack less. When I was 19, I went to Mexico for a week with my older sister on spring break vacation. I must have brought two over-sized suitcases, bloated and packed full of heels and dresses and all kinds of crap I didn’t touch once. I’m now traveling around Europe for two months with one carry-on size suitcase, my guitar and vihuela. It’s hot pink, and my older sister lent it to me.

4) It is 3am, I played a wonderful show tonight, my best friends are all cuddled up around me, and tomorrow morning, we will sleep in. I will eat oatmeal, go for my second jog around Berlin, catch our friend Aisha’s art opening and discuss possibly subletting a flat in May. I have a job that enables me to do all of the above.

5) I know now that all I can rely on is change. Even with that, unhappiness is a choice.  Even still, my mantra: all in life comes to me with ease, joy and glory.

All of these things make me happy.

As I write this, Chloe and I are driving through the first snow of the winter – from Terre Haute, Indiana to Louisville, Kentucky. Connie Wrin (of The Verve) adopted us into her extended family, inviting us Turkey Day Orphans to her sister’s house for a delicious Thanksgiving Dinner. Half a dozen blonde six year olds scurrying around the house, mystery pink Vodka punch, and Apples to Apples. So now, here we sit, in my cozy little car, bellies full of mashed potatoes and pumpkin. Charlie Brown Christmas Station playing on the radio. I love that movie.

I have a wonderful 24 years (and three days!) to be thankful for. Buckets and barrels full of beautiful memories driving across the country, around the world. I’m grateful I’ve had reasons to write as many thank you notes as I’ve left under people’s pillows, drivers seats, and kitchen counters. I am grateful for Alyse, Laura, Douglas, and Chloe. Each tour partner has taught me something new about music, about the world and about myself. I am grateful for an amazing, albeit sometimes crazy family that supports me and only hopes to lift me up.

I am grateful my car runs.
I am grateful I have a home.
I am grateful I’ve known great love.
I am grateful my heart is still full of that love.
I am grateful the universe gives me reasons to share that love every single day.

I did an interview earlier this week with Kyle Cunningham – from A&M's Battalion magazine. Kyle and I met earlier this fall when I performed with Laura Meyer at Stafford on Main (Bryan, TX). The interview was a pleasure…he asked great questions, and, and expected – did a spectacular job summing up the inspiration and ideas behind this tour with Chloe.

Probably the most poignant description of the tour concept so far…my sincere thanks to Kyle, Stevo Schlemmer and everyone in the Bryan/College Station area!

You can read the full article here, or check out the text below:

Being on the road is tough. There's the loneliness factor of leaving everything you own and love behind to play show after show; but when everything is finished, you can still return to those things and people.

Some people aren't so lucky, which is why musician Aly Tadros is hitting the road on a tour of the Midwest and southeast, stopping in Bryan for a 9 p.m. show today at The Village.

For the last few years, Tadros has dedicated herself to two projects: music and non-profit work. In Austin, Tadros worked with a group called Care Communities.

Care Communities is a non-profit organization formed in 1991 to provide daily care and help for those with serious illnesses like cancer, HIV and AIDS. Tadros worked with a patient named Anna, and what started as a volunteer assignment grew into more.

"Anna needed rides to acupuncture and just wanted someone to hang out with her," Tadros said. "I ended up spending a lot of time playing music for her. We just became really, really good friends and I loved it so much. She was such a huge inspiration for me."

After Anna passed, Aly released her album Things Worth Keeping and started touring, but something kept tugging at Tadros while she was on the road.

"I felt restless, I wanted to be doing more and there was a part of me that felt that I should be volunteering or contributing my time somehow because I get so much from it in an altruistic way," Tadros said. "I didn't want to do music if it was all me all the time. I mean, you say it's for the fans and you want to share your music and music helps people, but a lot of time it feels like you're spending three hours a day on Facebook promoting shows because it's all about you."

Tadros' research on what she could do with her music to benefit more people than just regular fans, led her to discover Musicians on Call, a group that plays for hospitalized people.

The Musicians on Call model pushed Tadros towards the style of tour she is doing now – performing for those in retirement centers, assisted living homes and at The Arc, a foundation for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Her tour-mate, Chloe Charles, wasn't told about this until the middle of their first tour together, back in the summer.

"We were in Europe and the same feeling kicked up and I was thinking, ‘What am I doing this all for?'" Tadros said. "You know you're working towards something bigger, but it still felt like a selfish sort of thing – sell my merchandise and pay my bills. During the second week of the tour I was feeling really depressed."

This led to Tadros asking Charles to do this tour – just a plan back then – which Charles supported.

Six stops on the tour will be for those in assisted living, retirement communities or various Arc locations.

The entire tour will take place as Tadros takes an online class for lyric writing, which she said takes up multiple hours of her day.

"You're learning all of the clinical, intellectual sides of analyzing and putting together songs," Tadros said.

As the learning process continues for Tadros, she only hopes that she can give as much to the world with her music as she can take in.

Continued from The Official Southeast & US Tour Announcement:

So, Chloe Charles is back from Toronto; touring around NYC with Sam, her bassist, and getting ready to head down to Austin for our big show at Momo's (Thursday, Nov 11 @ 8pm!) to celebrate the release of her latest EP, "Little Green Bud".

Me? I'm celebrating wearing tights 5 days a week. Yay winter!

I'm making my third tour out to the Midwest and Southeast (holy crap!) in the last…year or so? No wonder everytime I turn around, ol' Black Betty is ready for another oil change. Sponsorships, anyone?

In all seriousness: this tour I was determined to find a way to give back on the road, and feel like I was contributing to some higher purpose other than "sell merch." I've always been passionate about nonprofit work (I am a full time musician, after all), don't have a bunch of funds at my disposal, and love working with people one-on-one. So, I thought integrating music and volunteer work on the road would be the best way to go about it.

I got in touch with the wonderful people at Musicians on Call last year to see if I could figure out a way to perform in hospitals around the country. Unfortunately, MoC is only based in a few specific cities, and it seems they won't let just anybody waltz into hospital rooms and break out into song. Liabilities and differing music tastes and such. So that was off the list (for now).

Then, my friend Katie in Evansville hooked me up with the people at Evansville ARC – and a free performance was scheduled for the Ragged Haggard Tour. And it was AWESOME. I didn't care what I sounded like, wasn't critiquing my lyrics or performance; all I cared about was being in the moment; interacting with the students and have a damn good time. We had a blast. And I thought, "Shit, shouldn't every show be like this!?"

And then, I got these in the mail:

click on images to enlarge:
  

Yep. Done.

Several people also recommended checking out Nursing Homes, as they're constantly looking for volunteers. I read online that something like 60% of people in homes never get a visitor – I mean, really?!

But I needed help. I put up ads online and found my fantastic intern, Sarina – and enlisted her to help me around the office, and coordinate free-performances around our regular show schedule.

And, voila, we have a full-fledged, 22-date tour.

This is an experiment of sorts, hopefully to grow into something bigger over time – but, let's just say I'm getting my feet wet.