8/27/2011 Raleigh, NC

Well, after after a week of Mother Nature taking out its wrath on the East Coast of the good ol' USA in the form of an earthquake, which my mom, sister, and sister's godmother narrowly avoided (check out their blog @ www.marykingsley.wordpress.com), we drive right into the think of it to the Carolina's to see what Hurricane Irene would dump our way.

Before that, we played in Johnson City, TN at the Acoustic Coffeehouse. What a cool place. The inside is a typical hippie/hipster/alternative coffee place with all kinds of beer. The outside has a giant mural of John Hartford (which in my book always raises a place many, many notches), with campfires and people jamming and playing pretty much whatever. The scene plays to mostly old-time string bands, which is fine with me...it felt good to hear "Angeline the Baker" and smell a campfire at the same time.

The next gig was in Greensboro, NC at the Greensboro Grasshoppers game. We played in the left field bar area where people were, not suprisingly, not paying attention to the Single A affiliate of the Florida Marlins. Little did any of us know that it was a record-breaking 19 innings. Read the full story here. We did a promotion where anyone who signed up for our email mailing list got a CD for free. The response was great, and with dollar beer night, we had a great time. And this wasn't your daddy's dollar beer night either...usually at these things, dollar beers mean a miniscule dixie cup full of watered down Bud Light. But on this night, it was any beer on draft! We enjoyed a few pints of the local brew, Buckshot.

Greg sang the national anthem, but nobody really cares cause he's a diva. What's really important was I was named honorary manager for the Greensboro Grasshoppers. I served my team well by escorting the real manager to home plate at the beginning of the game for the exchange of the lineup card. I can't tell you exactly what was said between the opposing managers and umpires, but I promise that it wasn't about the attractiveness of the ball girls of their respective teams, and which member of each team had a romantic interest in said ball girls. No, nothing like that at all.

Tonight, we played at Deep South, a cool venue in Raleigh. With most hotel rooms full because of people leaving the coast due to Hurricane Irene, we weren't sure what the turnout would be, but for a last minute show it was alright. The club was great, the owner was really cool, we got 4 free PBR or Tecate, and the sound guy knew what he was doing. You can't really ask for much else.

Everyone on the east coast please stay safe this week. We go up to Boston soon and are pumped for it. I personally haven't been up in that area in a few years and am looking forward to seeing some familiar faces.