Staring Down The Path North American Tour Journal Day 10 November 19, 2011 Travel Day / Wyoming to…? Day nine ended with the bands pushing our tour bus up a hill to a Best Western Motel. The fortunate side of it all was the fact that I had requested a pit stop for the bands to eat. If we had not gotten off that last exit in Wyoming, we would have been stranded on the side of the road outside of Evanstan. Wyoming closed all the roads due to heavy snow and icy conditions. The other fortunate side of things is that I got the best night’s sleep I have had in over a week. I rented...

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Staring Down The Path North American Tour Journal Day 9 November 18, 2011 Travel Day / Somewhere Between California & Wyoming On The Way To Chicago I woke up in Nevada after leaving San Francisco at about 2:30 am.  I was a bit melancholy having to say goodbye to my son, Josh last night.  I half seriously invited him to quit his Job, get on the bus and tour the rest of the US with us.  He could have been a great help and it would have been nice to have family aboard.  Half way through Nevada, it started snowing heavily, but a little ways after, it subsided. We needed...

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Staring Down The Path North American Tour Journal Day 7 November 16, 2011 Oakland, CA We arrived to the venue in Oakland early. The New Parish club was near downtown Oakland in the same vicinity of the epicenter of the Wall Street protest.  It was also across from a homeless shelter.  The homeless problem is a sad reality, but can also become a nuisance after being asked for things over and over again.  I had to stop giving spare funds away, because, after all, our band had to eat as well.  San Francisco had a much bigger problem with the homeless and it seemed to create a very...

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Staring Down The Path North American Tour Journal Day 6 November 15, 2011 Los Angeles, California The trip from Phoenix to LA is relatively short and also meant we weren’t going to sleep too much again.  I think I’m getting accustomed to waking up early now.  It has been a while since I had been to California and I had forgotten how beautiful the mountains are and how awesome the weather is in the winter.  We got to the world famous Troubadour five hours early and had time to kill in LA.  I called an old high school friend, Ryan Smith, and we met for Lunch along with John...

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North American Tour Journal Day 5 November 14, 2011 Phoenix, Arizona Sam, the tour bus driver, woke me up at 4:30am to get $600 to put gas into the tank so we could make it through the desert. He then talked my ear off for an hour about the fact that he is really a bass player and not a tour bus driver. I’m hoping he is a really good bus driver for at least the next few weeks… Since I had only slept an hour, I decided to try to sleep while the bus was moving. It only lasted a couple of hours until we reached the next truck stop for coffee. A stray dog walked up to the bus as we were...

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Staring Down The Path North American Tour Journal Day 3 & Day 4 November 12 - 13, 2011 Dallas, Texas.  It was a short, 4 hour, drive to Dallas from Austin. We left at the unreasonable hour of 7:30am after going to bed at 4:30am in front of the venue in Austin.  Three hours of sleep was not going to be enough to get me through, but I had to endure.  We had a warm welcome at the club in Dallas on arrival from the show promoters and loaded in at 2pm.  This club really had its act together, especially in the sound department.  The engineer got the sound perfect for the show and the room...

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?North American Tour Journal Day 2 November 11, 2011 So after a small fire in the generator compartment at 1:30am, we tried to sleep.  I explained to the other lads who woke up at the unreasonable hour of 7:00am that I felt like a human vibrator.  The beds are directly above the engines running. We really lucked out last night. After we booked a motel for our driver, Sam, John Kolbeck and I took a brisk stroll to the local Waffle House for a late breakfast. On the way back, we noticed a huge amount of white smoke billowing from the bottom of the bus.  I called and woke up our driver,...

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Staring Down The Path North American Tour Journal Day 1 November 10, 2011 It is 9:52 pm, Central time, and we are on the Prevost II tour bus travelling through the Bayou in Mississippi. We are planning on stopping in Lafayette, Louisiana tonight before we start back up in the morning and head to Austin where our first show is scheduled at The Elysium on 11/11/11.  We have been through two truck stops so far in Alabama, which were quite interesting. As I’m writing, I can hear the bus traveling over the rough patches on the shoulder of the road, which is causing a bit more anxiety...

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Black Swan Lane Staring Down The Path Of Sound / US Tour / 2011 We will be touring the United States the majority of November 2011 along with our good mates from Manchester, Chameleons Vox. Our set list includes tracks from our last three albums and will feature some of the hits from our newest record, Staring Down The Path of Sound.  We sincerely hope you come out and support us if you live in or are close by any of the listed cities below. There will be five members playing in BSL, three of which are mates from Manchester. The concerts are not only a golden opportunity to see BSL,...

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Almost Famous A good friend emailed me the other day and said we should video and document our upcoming US tour like the movie Almost Famous. Released in 2000 by Cameron Crowe, I recall loving that film and especially remember the great scenes in the tour bus. I’m sure this tour with ten grown men in one bus with one bathroom would make for an exciting reality show. I know the soundtrack would be worth buying as well. It would have to be on HBO, of course, due to all the cursing and such. The title, Almost Famous, made me think for quite some time. It is, actually, quite fitting...

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