I need to do this a lot more, listening to other people's work, well at least people like Darrell who I respect so much. The guy is just amazing. Jesus this thing is rich....

So I was wrong about Madison, we're not playing there tonight. We start tomorrow at Gil's in Milwaukee. It's just as well, I can use another day at home. Working real hard trying to learn ProTools, but I could use a teacher. It's gonna be nice being able to record on this little laptop.

I took the new record over to Quad the other day to have it transferred from Radar to ProTools files in order to ship it off to Pops in Denmark. He is re-mixing Millionaire in 5.1 Surround for a DVD Audio to be ready in April. We're going to go ahead and do Save Everybody while we're at it. I think these things are going to kill. Long Cold Train......oh man......

Meanwhile, down in Australia, work continues on the Live DVD with the Flood. I guess we're going to release it in a couple of months. That show will also be aired on TV at some point.

It seems like all of a sudden there are a lot of new projects coming out. The CD Live Down Here On Earth with the Flood, the DVD of the subsequent tour, our new one You Can't Save Everybody, and the two 5.1 remixes.....oh yeah, and the record with David Francey too, which I'm crazy about. Jesus no wonder my brains are scrambled....

Feb. 8

Highway 70 East out of Indianapolis toward Columbus Ohio to play for our promoter friend Alec Wightman tonight. Late.

This morning neither one of us got our wake up call from the desk of the Wright Inn in Chicago, so we overslept. There aren’t many things that make me as mad as a hotel blowing a wake up call, and this morning the girl at the desk didn’t even bother to apologize. I made her give me a complaints form, and I’m gonna crucify her to her boss when I get home. As it stands, it only cost me a shower and a shave, because we had to split right away, and we will basically just walk onstage in front of a sold out room and do soundcheck and start the show. But what if we had missed a flight and a gig as a result...?

Our first night out we played in Milwaukee at Gil’s Cafe, had a great time. These are real nice folks, and I hope we go back often. Last night in Chicago we finally returned to Fitzgerald’s, one of my favorite rooms for years. Bill Fitzgerald runs a good room, and has added a separate bar and a really nice restaurant. Good to see him.

I mentioned Alec Wightman, who we are working with tonight. He is an interesting guy who started doing occasional shows a number of years ago. I guess it started because he simply wanted to hear Tom Russell play, and there was nowhere to see him. So, he called around, found a room, called all his friends up, and they put this show together. Tom came through and played and it was a success, so Alec just kept doing it. Every year he’ll have maybe a half dozen shows, he’s never spent a nickel on advertisement, and he has never lost money on a show. Tonight he has sold 180 tickets in a 150 seat room, had to quit selling last week. This is our third time in.

The show at the Columbus Music Hall was really nice. Place was packed with nice people and we played pretty good. Alec is a good guy.