Michelle Branch Tour Update

Okay, before I get to anything else, let me just get this off my chest: I understand why you can't transfer your songs from your iPod to another iPod, or to someone else's iTunes - I make my living from people buying music, not stealing it so I'm right there with you, Mr. Jobs - but why can't you PLAY songs from your iPod when it's connected to somebody else's iTunes? Huh? Can you answer that one?

The reason for this tirade is that I'm in a car traveling seven hours to San Francisco and using my friend/traveling companion/road manager/she doesn't really like titles Mary's iBook, trying to play some tunes. I brought the iPod and one of those dinky cassette converter things, but of course our modern day, new millenium, looking towards the future Rent-a-Car has no cassette player. Yes, I know about iRock and the like - the little deals that broadcast from your iPod to your FM radio - I have one, in fact, two - but I didn't bring those. So, then the brainstorm hit me of opening up the iBook, connecting the little devil up and listening to tunes through the little speakers in the iBook. Yep, the speakers are pretty small and tinny, but I'm a guy who gets excited playing records on a Close 'N Play, so a little absence of low end isn't going to phase me any. But then I discovered the Apple Conspiracy described above.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, here's what's going on.

Mary and I are headed up to SF for a show tonight at a place called Cafe Du Nord, then staying and playing tomorrow night at the Warfield Theatre opening up for Michelle Branch. So, um . . . about the Michelle Branch dates - as a lot of you may have already heard, most of the dates I was going to be on have been cancelled. Michelle has blown out her voice and can only do a limited amount of singing for a while. I found out late the night before I was supposed to leave for the first gig and it is, as they would say in San Francisco, a drag, man.

264 miles to SF: I completely understand Michelle's reasons for canceling the shows - when you make your living with your voice you tend to want it to be able to work for a few years. It's also just another one of those life lessons - and certainly music business lessons - that you never really believe anything that's going to happen until you're really there doing it. If anything, I'm a little jealous that Michelle's in a position where she can take the time off and rest her voice. I'm sure she's getting holy hell from certain quarters - managers and agents and promoters and the like tend to be less than pleased by canceling dates - but God bless her for doing it if she has to.

I don't find myself in that same position. The other half of my musical life, 4 Way Street, has just spent the last 10 weeks doing a series of in-the-trenches, grass-roots, everybody pile in the van and let's play gigs to promote our new record. At one point, we played eight gigs in five days, including two nights in a row of two one and a half hour shows. I sing all the high parts in 4WS, some of which are really only in my range because I'm screaming them, and it really takes its toll on my voice. A couple nights ago, I was doing a session with my friend Shane, just singing some stuff over at his house and you could hear the tell-tale overtone that comes from having nodes on your vocal cords. Nodes are little abrasions that happen from over-use and if they get bad enough, require surgery to remove. I've suspected I've had them for a long time, and it's really at a point now where I can't avoid having them looked at by a doctor.

But first I have the couple remaining shows with Michelle, plus my solo thing tonight. But that's only three gigs in two weeks AND they're all really short AND I'm singing lower stuff, so really its like a vacation.

Save your voice, Michelle. It's your life.

Oh yeah, and somebody tell Stephen Jobs to stop screwing me on the tunes.