Baby-Criers UNITE!!!!

Never thought I would see the day! Actually - I never really thought about it :) This lady was at our show at UNC tonight in Charlotte North Carolina - and she, too, did a "baby-cry" for Oprah!!! Watch and see :)

Opening for the Doobie Brothers!!!!

We're just found out that we're opening for the DOOBIE BROTHERS!!!!!!!!!!! We are playing at Ribest again this year in St. Petersburg, FL. at Vinoy Park. We'll be headlining the Transitions Optical Stage on Friday and Sunday, and on Saturday we get to play on the Mainstage before the Doobie Brothers! Styx is also playing the Main stage on Friday night :) SO AWESOME!!!! I also have been given the honor of singing the National Anthem each afternoon on the Main stage to kick off the Rib eating!!!
Ribfest is the premier charity event in St. Petersburg and is put on by the Northeast Exchange Club. Last year they were able to pledge $1 million to the construction of All Children's Hospital. It is truly an incredible event and something that I am so proud to be a part of. Not only do they provide the best ribs you can find and amazing entertainment, but there are also tons of activities and shows for the kids, an antique car show (which is where my Daddy spent most of his time last year), face painting, "beverages" - basically all things AWESOME! The guys and I can't wait to go back this year and we would love to see you there!!!

We play Nov 14, 15, and 16!

www.ribfest.org

YAY!!! We had another NACA conference this week. AS always - we had a splendid time! We've already booked a whole crap-load of shows - so if you are reading this, hopefully I will see you out on the road SOON!!!!!

The conference was held in Lancaster, PA. I hadn't been there since I recorded an album with my band in college - Green Line South. The guys stole egg cartridges from a chicken farm to insulate the room in the basement that we recorded in. (They didn't tell me they were stole them until after the fact, cause they knew I would have been mad!)

The convention center was across from Dutch Wonderland :)


This time I made double chocolate oatmeal cookies... mmm.... one of my FAVORITE cookie recipes... One girl told me they were a "symphony for her pallet" :) I liked that girl.

This is Crystal Tennille Irby and me hanging out backstage - it was her first showcase with NACA and she did an INCREDIBLE job. She is a beautiful spoken word artist.


We only have 15 minutes to showcase and then we run over to the booth at the marketplace. As always, marketplace was FABULOUS. :)

Ummm... WOW. I want one.


I don't get it... but I like to hold signs.


These two were part of the sound crew that helped us get set up. It's intense - sometimes they have to change over an ENTIRE band in 15 minutes.


Mark and Ryan from Iona College in New York.



Hootie drove up separate for this trip so he could spend some time with the fam in PA. The Suburban felt uneventful without him there! Plus, we couldn't watch West Wing without him.... Miss you Hootie! Come BACK!

Peace, Love, Fiddle

Rathskeller in Indy

When we first got booked at the Rathskeller.... I was scared..... It sounded like a heavy metal club!!! I was thinking, ummm.... do they know we are a country band?
But Ari is a really smart agent, and I KNOW he wouldn't do that to us... unless... nah.... he wouldn't.

Turns out. Yeah. Rathskeller is just a German word for "bar beneath street level"

This is one of the coolest bars we have EVER played. EVER.
The whole place is Unbelievable. The building is an old 19th century Antheneum building in downtown Indianapolis. Amazing dinner menu - with REALLY nice, upscale dining areas all the way to an outside Biergarten that is famous for their amazing pretzels.



THE STAGE! It is so beautiful. It looks like a fairytale. It's an old hatch-shell that was built for orchestras in the 1850's. They have restored it and made it such a cool stage. So basically, you get to play outside under the stars looking out onto the Indy skyline. I was ok with that. :)

So not only do we get there and see what a cool place it is, but Dan, the owner, was just the greatest guy. He took us on a tour of the whole place, He had pretzles, beer, and water (for me) :) waiting on us as we were setting up. Anything we wanted was on the house, and he REALLY took care of the guys after the show... taught them allll about German beer... which I am sure you saw the effects of in the tour diary....
YAY! DAN!


The guys liked the little flyers on every table - I like how Hootie is pointing at my forehead...



Everyone at the club really took care of us and the audience ROCKED out. We played over a hour longer than we were supposed to - actually we played all the way up until we HAD to quit due to the city noise ordinance. One of the Colts players and a Colts cheerleader were both there - the cheerleader got up on stage and sang with me :) She was absolutely adorable.

This entire group had seen us play in Nashville and saw that we were playing here! Thanks again for coming out yall!



And these girls were out celebrating a birthday!!!



This is just some random cool guy that wanted a picture at the end of the night. I don't think he saw the show - but he saw us taking pics and wanted in :)



We needed to drive a few hours after the show so we wouldn't have to get up so early the next morning for our drive to Simpson College. The drive was one of the most fun we have ever had. We had a pretty intense sing-a-long to Queen. The Tour Diary doesn't do it justice cause you can't SEE how into it Hootie is. We need a better way to light the Suburban for night taping.... I will NEVER forget that night.

Peace, Love, Fiddle, Rathskeller, and Queen

Kennsaw State University!

KSU has us on the website! :) This pic was taken right after we all competed on the inflatable obstacle course. :) It was so hard!!! It's kinda like a cross between those bouncies that kids play in and American Gladiators.

I'm calling for a rematch against Hootie!

That was also my first time on a mechanical bull. :) Not sure if there are any pics of that one.... NEXT TIME....



For the actual website: ksukab.com

Thanks KSU!!!! It was so fun!

Brew River!!!

Every time I say "Brew River" I hear the melody of "Moon River" in my head.... :)

This place was so fun! It is located in Salisbury MD right on the water and the crabcakes did NOT disappoint!!! They lived up to the Maryland expectation!!! BREW RIVER

First of all, I have to say a HUGE THANK YOU to CAT COUNTRY 97.5 and 105.9 for being so supportive!!! Thank you to EJ Foxx for having me on mid-days with EJ all week! CAT COUNTRY was sponsoring the first "Country Night" at Brew River. They gave away my cds and all kinds of cool stuff to everyone at the club! It really made it a festive night!!!

This is me showing my love for CAT COUNTRY!! CAT COUNTRY's website


And I was PUMPED because Middleweight Boxing Champion Fernando Guerrero was at the show!!! The whole place was a-buzz when he walked in :) He was so sweet and QUITE the dancer :) He's 10-0 this season so far.... so yeah, he's doin all right :) I'm sure you'll be hearing more about him soon if you haven't already!



The whole night was so fun. The entire wait staff was decked out in cowboy hats, boots, and all that is country. Here's some shots from the crowd:

This lady went on and on about how she was aaaaalllllll comfy in her pj's, and her husband called her from the bar and said "You HAVE to come out. Get ready and I'll come get you" She didn't realize it was country night. But she came out and then they stayed until the very end!



These two walked in and were cracking me up! They had just come from a costume contest at another bar. Even though no one else here was dressed up, they didn't care! Ms. policewoman handcuffed me to Mr. White Trash..... Thankfully she took the cuffs off before I had to play again for the next set....



This is Sarah who works at Brew River and asked for the night off so she could just enjoy country night. I thought it was Carrie Underwood when we were setting up. Even if you don't think so from straight on - If you saw her profile... you would definitely think you were looking at Carrie Underwood :)




Larry also work there and was singing an dancing the WHOLE night. I know it's hard to tell.... but he was having a GOOD time *wink wink*



So yeah, we had a blast at Brew River. Shows just keep getting better and better.

Peace, Love, Fiddle YALL!

Tour Diary #2!!

As promised....

NACA CENTRAL!!!!

My very first booking conference was at NACA Central 2 years ago and WOW!!!!! How far we have come!!!! This year the conference is in Tulsa, OK. NACA Central is made up of schools from Colorado and New Mexico east of the 107th longitude (which roughly parallels the Rocky Mountains), Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana.

We got to see a lot of old friends and made a ton of new friends. And we've already booked over 20 dates for next year from this conference!!! So we'll see ya'll over the Central US!!!

Here's the highlights!

ME AND BELDING!!!!!!!!!!! I used to watch "Saved By The Bell" EVERY DAY after school while eating goldfish crackers and a caffeine free coke :) Mr. Belding is AWESOME. We're rockin out :)



Ari (my agent) and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary at this conference. We first met at NACA Central 2 years ago when I had no agent and didn't really know much about NACA. He saw my showcase that year in Little Rock and signed me! Happy Anniversary to us! Awwwwwwww..
This is Ari and me in a Dave Sandwich :)
Dave Madden is on the left and he was the keyboard player in my very first band in college!!! We were called Green Line South and we lived at my parents house 2 summers in a row playing music around Nashville. Dave is an incredible singer/songwriter/musician and he lives in Austin, TX.
Check him out!! www.davemaddenmusic.com
And Dave Tamkin is on the far right. He is another amazing signer/songwriter. He's lived in Chicago his whole life and is currently moving to Denver. He has a really fun, funky, acoustic sound. Check him out, too!
www.myspace.com/davetamkin



Before we got to NACA we had a message from the Orion Experience from New York. They were flying in and needed to share gear with another band, and we just happened to have the right amount of amps and such. :) I can't believe I had never heard of these guys! THEY ARE SO MUCH FUN!!!!! First off, they made our gear sound amazing :) It was fun to hear my fiddle amp handle a rockin guitar. These guys have a new song that was just featured in "The Hills" And L.C. AND Audrina both give props to this band as one of their favorites. And Perez Hilton loves them too!!! If you want to read what PEREZ has to say:
Click here
Their website is:
www.theorionexperience.com
They are a MUST KNOW band. Learn about them now so you can be one of those people saying:
"I knew them before they were HUGE."
I am obsessed with "Obsessed With You"

Here's me and Orion:


And both our bands!


Right after we took these pics, I ran into Nikhil Korula who we played a show with at Quinnapiac University in Hamden, CT. Nikhil has such a cool sound and his band has opened for Dave Matthews on the road. So if you like DMB, you will LOVE this guy!
www.nkband.com



We ran into tons of students that we met at previous conferences and Colleges we have played and then this sweet girl came up to me and said, "Hey! I saw you in San Diego on July 4th!!!!" Isn't that awesome? San Diego to Tulsa :)




So yeah, NACA #1 this year was awesome. We have another one in Lancaster, PA this next week. Stay tuned for the next Tour Diary which James is editing right now. I keep cracking up at all the footage!

Peace, Love, Fiddle

Wishful Thinking

Guess where we are....

Kansas!! Where else?

Hmmmm. Ok

I will say that the parrot in the middle tree made them MUCH more
convincing.

Family

I really don't know how we'd all make it without the kindness of our family and friends. Lately, we have all become a bit spoiled from conveniently being able to spend time with our friends and family out on the road.

The past few days we spent on James' grandparents farm in Iowa. Not only did they give us a place to stay, but fed us better than anyone deserves to be fed, let us run in the corn fields and even hooked us up with a spare tire for our trailer. Of course, Grandma was a bit ornery since we doted on her SOOO much for her birthday - by that I mean we each got her one of her favorite candy bars.... and yet somehow that was "too much" you know, since she spent the whole day taking care of us.... As if all that weren't enough, Grandma, Aunt Betty, and Aunt Carol sent us on the road with tons of homemade snacks and cookies. Thanks for everything y'all!!! We are now well-rested and plump and safely back on the road! The farm is just the best.

We stopped at Planet Sub in Des Moines on our way out of Iowa today. It's a franchise that James' cousin Barb owns. And OH MY LORD it is good. Wow. I'm still thinking about that Chicken Enchilada Soup.... and the snickerdoodle cookie.... and I wanted to steal Hootie's meatball sub... mmmm.... If you are in Des Moines, you HAVE to go eat there.

And THEN for dinner we stopped in Kearney, Nebraska. Coincidentally Jenn (Miguel's wife) and Bridget (Hootie's woman) are both from Nebraska and BOTH went to college in Kearney. So I've heard a LOT about Kearney, Nebraska and tonight I finally got to go! Jenn's mom, Ki, little brother, Ben, sister Kylee, and Kylee's boyfriend, Jason, took us out to dinner. It was so good to see them all. I hadn't seen them since Thanksgiving last year at Ft. Stovall!! :)

Ben was rockin out with his guitar t-shirt and was entertaining us all at the table with Miguel's iphone games. :) OH! And we got to see his Storm Trooper Halloween costume which was AWESOME.



There's really nothing like getting to hang out with family along the way. I don't I could describe how much more meaningful it makes these trips.




signing off from somewhere in Colorado...

goodnight.

PFC Hootie

Hootie getting a little trim by Aunt Traci in Iowa. :) poor guy has
had 3 hair cuts in the last week. The first girl didn't pay attention
and barely cut any of it. The second guy just kind of chopped up the
back. So now, finally we went to someone who knows what she's doing!
If you're ever in Winfield Iowa - Cuttin Loose is the place to go!

Oh! And we just went to the restaurant in town - Pork's. And we didn't
know it when we sat down, but we were seated in the Republican Women's
lunch meeting. It was so funny because we were just sitting there
catching up with everyone and then the State Representative got up and
started speaking. We just sat politely until the meeting was over. But
we did get some nice literature and a map of Iowa out of the deal. :)

Moo-cow, Iowa, Chilean Skills, & Go RED SOX!

Well, after a couple of awesome shows, we have had an equally awesome
day off in Iowa. Today is James' birthday - HAPPY BIRTHDAY
JAMES!!!!! And coincidentally we had the day off where the majority
of his extended family lives! (good job on booking that one Ari!)

Hootie, Miguel, Uncle Troyt and I all played soccer in the fields next
door. And Lord they made me run!!! I wish I had played in high
school.... Miguel was showing us all how it's done with his Chilean
skills. Big surprise on that one, right?

After getting schooled on the soccer field we all took turns playing
MarioKart on the Wii! I don't know what it is about Iowa, but we've
gotten our gaming on here lately! :)

And now.... We have made it to the farm. We were greeted by some
mooing cows when we got out of the suburban. :) Grandma has already
been talking about breakfast casserole and all the other great food
she is making for us. I love the farm. Grandma and Grandpa are just
the best.

Currently, we are watching a tied TB Rays and Red Sox in the bottom of
the 9th. (They are playing in St Petersburg. We'll be there in a
little over a month!!!)

Come on BOSTON!!!!!

I heart Simpson College

Tonight we played at Simpson College in Iowa.... yeah these people are amazing. First of all.... our green room? Ummmm best ever. Candles, tapestries, XM radio, tons of snacks INCLUDING FROSTED SUGAR COOKIES!!!! You know - those really soft ones with sprinkles you buy in the grocery store... I always want to get them but try not to  because I can't stop eating them.... mmmm.... we still have some left....

This is the amazing group of students that made our green room the coolest ever:



Show = AWESOME
We FINALLY got to play with Nick Motil. If you have never heard of him then you should definitely go check him out. We have known each other for a few years because we share the same agent - he actually introduced me to Ari. But we have never gotten to play together! Nick is actually the "most booked college act". Pretty ridiculously talented guy. http://www.nickmotil.com



All shades of purple! Thanks for booking us Rich!



Old school and New School "Peace, Love, Fiddle" t-shirts with Abbey and AJ!!!



DREW!!!!! He was going CRAZY during "Devil Went Down to Georgia" doing back handsprings and back tucks and just gettin down with his bad self!



And the award for family that bought the most cds:



Happy Birthday Traci!!! And thanks to ALLLL of my newly acquired family and their friends that came out tonight!!! You ALL made this such a fun and special show. I heart Simpson College forever.

Gas... And Arby's!!

I am not sure whether to be happy or sad about the fact that I was
elated when I woke up and we had pulled into a truck stop with $2.79
gas!! We got 21 gallons for $60 which is unbelievable. But if it were
2 years ago I would have been bummed. I was talking with some friends
about how we used to get confused with price and the octane level. In
high school it was $.87 yeah, crazy.

Oh and there was an Arby's which I was craving last night. So I guess
that helped with my initial sense of elation.

Cinnamon

I'm pretty much in love with my dog. I hardly ever get to see her anymore though :( I can't take her on the road with us, which makes me sad, but it makes my parents very happy... They take care of their grandpuppy while we are traipsing round the country :) When James first got her, we were barely traveling at all, but NOW.... Good Lord! My parents see her WAY more than we do. But I am SOOOOOOO lucky they love her so much. How could they not though?

So yeah, we found this video of Cinnamon and me talking... I call it "grumbling" That's the best description for what it sounds like to me :) And I LOVE that my dog works the camera.

I miss our talks.....

Hydration

Normally we get a few bottles of water on stage. Tonight we were a lot
more high class than that :)-

Blog search

ummmm.... you know how you can see what people are "searching for" to
get to your blog?

Well, you can....

Tonight someone got to my blog by searching... wait for it.... "dreams
with hippos"

That's awesome.

:)

Texas to "almost Canada" trip

We played at MSU in Wichita Falls, Texas on Saturday for their family day!!! They had a mechanical bull, games, face painting, all kinds of fun things to do!!!! It was so hot, my bow broke!!! That's never happened before. The hair on my bow loosened so much, I couldn't play with it! I was a little paniced the first song, cause I wasn't sure how in the WORLD I was gonna play the rest of the show..... I mean, I could have cut my own hair off and fashioned together some kind of bow.... but that would have taken at least an hour and a half and it was only an hour-long show. Luckily I had a spare that I completely forgot about in my case. Whew. Pat on the back for that one!



And I have to thank Tiffany for the pics! (I just stole them off facebook where she posted them!)



We left a scorching hot Texas on Sunday and our next show is 1,306 miles away in Marquette Michigan which is almost all the way to Canada! We are currently in a hotel room in Appleton, WI and my sunburn from Texas is quickly fading into windburn up here. It is COLD. I mean, not really - I'm a wuss... but it's all relative. :) I am looking forward to going back to Marquette, though. It is such a beautiful, quaint little downtown. We'll play at Upfront & Company on Wed and Thurs nights. They have GREAT food and a really fun stage and dance floor. Oh, we'll be doing the line dance :)

James' Aunt Deana noticed that we would be driving right through Iowa City on our way to Marquette and offered to provide a little room and board for us, which we GLADLY took her up on!!!!
We drove 16 1/2 hours the first day to get to Iowa City (took longer than normal because of the interstate traffic at 11pm... go figure) We definitely got some good footage for the next Tour Diary of our ridiculous attempts at guitar hero. I got booed off the stage trying to play "Devil Went Down to Geaorgia" but it's ok. I took out my aggression by boxing James on the Wii. :)

And wow. Home cooked food. MMMMMM. So good. Thanks for everything Aunt Deana!

Peace, Love, Fiddle Y'all.