Put a new Laboratory and Lounge video up at the ol' YouTube channel the other night. “Lights Out” was the only song from the new record that we didn't do at the release show, so here's a little solo performance.
Have you ever dropped something greasy on the kitchen floor, maybe the leftover can of lard or something, and you get the main sludge up, but you’re down there on your hands and knees with some wet paper towels, trying to sop it all up, but you’re just kind of spreading it around? I find grief to be a lot like that.
Starting a new video series in the spirit of the pandemic-era Shed Bar Sessions. Laboratory and Lounge is the alliterative allusion to, well, our basement. This is the space where I made the Folios album and where the band usually practices these days. Pig's Eye Records' warehouse and office. I'll be digging into some deep cut catalog tunes, newly written stuff, and maybe the odd cover. Subscribe at the ol' youtube channel, if you find yourself over there and share the tunes if ya like…
The first episode is for the tune “Blue Highways.” With being on the road a little more again these days, I figured this would be a good one to start with. From the 2013 House of Rust album, I think I understand this song a lot more now than when I wrote it. I remember when I was growing up, my dad had a book he loved on his shelf titled Blue Highways by a writer named William Least Heat-Moon. A travelogue of the back roads of America. Some years later, in 2005, I borrowed his copy (still on my shelf, dad) and read it while on tour with Mike Gunther and His Restless Souls. Fitting for the times of touring with just an Atlas, pre-GPS days. It took a few more years to get around to it, but I knew I had to write a song with that title. And a great read, in any case.
