Five Shows in Five Days - Part 2

The miles between Charleston, SC and Hendersonville, NC went fast. I’d made the same drive many times when I was younger. It’s basically just Interstate 26 the entire time and seems much faster than the nearly four hours that it actually takes.

Our first stop in Hendersonville was at my stepdad’s automotive repair garage. He was able to do a scan on our car, determine the cause of our check engine light, and then cleaned our mass air flow sensor. The car ran better after that.

Dos Burros at Guidon Brewing

Traveling musician tip: It helps a LOT to know good people with a wide variety of skills. It helps to know a good mechanic, an electrician, a sound engineer, a sitter, and a financial adviser. All of these people form a part of your professional music playing team, even though they’re not directly involved in the music part.

By Friday night, I was setting up to play a show with our good friend Trevor Walker of the Wintervals (https://wintervals.bandcamp.com/). We were playing at Guidon Brewing in Hendersonville, NC. Trevor and I had played as a trio in a rock band called Los Burros several times over the years, so this show we had decided to bill the two of us as Dos Burros. We had basically zero rehearsal and zero planned material going in to the show, but Trevor and I have played so much music together over the years that we were able to just wing it. We played a particularly excellent version of a song of mine called “Blueprints” that was written over 13 years ago.

We stayed the weekend with Trevor and his girlfriend/bandmate Lisa at their house. We briefly thought we were going to be added to a pickup gig in Johnson City, Tennessee for Saturday night, but that ended up falling through. I’m kind of glad of that, as Saturday ended up being a really fantastic, laid-back day.

Trevor making ice cream

We slept in and then went for a swim with Trevor and Lisa at Fawn Lake in the DuPont Forest. It had been a LONG time since Kendra and I had been swimming. It was really nice to watch the salamanders swimming at the waters edge and then float out together to the middle of the lake.

Later, we all made homemade ice cream with an on old hand-cranked maker that my dad had acquired somewhere. My dad had been bragging about how good the ice cream was, and I thought he’d maybe been a little overly-excited. He had not been. After turning the crank for forty-five minutes, it really was some of the best ice cream either of us had ever had!

On Sunday, Trevor, my brother Wayne, and I played as Los Burros for my dad’s big annual party that he lovingly calls “The Old Farts Reunion.” Wayne also plays in The Log Noggins (https://www.thelognoggins.com/). One of the best things about the Old Farts Reunion is all of the great food that shows up. My stepmom is from the Philippines, and cooks all kinds of great dishes including lumpia, which is always a big hit.

It was really very good!

Wayne set up a huge PA system with a sub, full monitors, and everything. It was the first time I’d played a full electric guitar set in many years. Los Burros played a bunch of tunes which rarely see the light of day. Most of them are in a funky/jammy direction and quite different from my normal material. Kendra and I played a few Brown Mountain Lightning Bugs songs with the full band and recorded them. Hopefully, we’ll post some of those recordings soon!

After the Old Farts Reunion, Kendra and I hit the trail back toward Winston-Salem. We were utterly exhausted, but also energized. We’d learned a lot about touring, and are happy looking forward to doing more of that in the near future!

BMLB at the Old Fart’s Reunion. Photo courtesy of Tammy Blankenship.