Oct 22, 2004 • Northhampton, MA

It's good to be back on the road again. Today we are in North Hampton, MA, playing the Calvin Theatre. Our first visit here was probably four years ago, and we played a great little room called the Iron Horse, and we've gotten to come back nearly every year since. It was nice to wake up in the bus, look out the windows and immediately recognize where I was and know how to get where I wanted to go.

"Parent Weekend" for at least one of the five colleges in town, coupled with the weekend at the height of fall foliage has made this place busier than I've ever seen it.

It's always a treat to be on tour in autumn! Especially in New England. If the band stuff didn't take me out of San Diego to come to more seasonally expressive parts of the country, I might miss the symptoms of my favorite season all together! ...That's not completely true. We have a species of trees that becomes beautifully colored this time of year, it's just that there are so darn MANY of them out here!

Now-then. I realize that during the course of the last year I've been less than consistent with my journal. In part, it's due to the fantastically-bizarre and inconsistent band happenings. We'd hoped to make a record earlier this year but, for many reasons, that didn't happen.

When the Mutual Admiration Society record came out and we toured with Pete Thomas and John Paul Jones there was so much excitement I could barely believe and keep it all straight in my own head, much less articulate it onto paper.

The combination of people that were on stage for those MAS shows is almost nonsensical! I'm trying to think of what to say about that tour and the great honor it was to play and spend time with those people, but it all sounds trite. Like when you try to take a picture of Yosemite with a disposable camera. There's no way that the pictures would do the reality any justice. So I'll spare us all.

Then Nickel Creek played two nights at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. I still have no idea how that came to happen... I've played the Hollywood Bowl. Unbelievable. The first night, I was trembling through the first 3 songs. Being a part of that night was an absolute Highlight for me.

So, now we're getting ready to record an other album. There have been a few false starts to our third record, and we became kind of discouraged through the whole process, but we've regained a mutual optimism since things are looking like we may get to work with producer Eric Valentine.

Chris and i camped with my brother at his house for a while writing and demo-ing songs. Finishing melodic and lyrical ideas, coming up with new ones... so funny...we'd just wake up, go surfing or for a run on the beach, grab some food at Pollos Maria's or Mozy, and get to work, take a break for dinner and finish up late at night! For nearly two weeks. What a blast. We have 6 new songs now!

Chris' record came out on Tuesday and you all should buy it. You will have heard nothing like it I'm sure. It sounds like he had a blast making it and getting to stretch and challenge his own creativity and he sings his butt off. Plus Gary Paczosa engineered the whole thing, so sonically it's absolutely beautiful.
Well - time to get off to sound.