Hey y'all. Wassup Fam?!?  Yesterday we played the sunny slopes of Ft Mason Park in beautiful San Francisco. With the Golden Gate Bridge in the background, it was a majestic day to get our jam on.  The gig was an afternoon affair and I headed out to the waterfront for a run before the show. The San Francisco bay was perfect and Alcatraz was even looking inviting out on the island. Seeing Alcatraz (the famous "inescapable prison") reminded me of a good story.

Well, I've had a bit of a rough couple weeks. I didn't want to say anything public about it but now my mood has changed and I'm gonna spill the beans on myself.  Before my tour launched, I was asked by a friend nicknamed Bluefish who was paralyzed (and luckily recovered) to play a benefit for the Christopher Reeves Foundation. The benefit was at a small room in Avalon, NJ called the Rocking Chair. I was able to raise $13,000.00 for the CR Foundation and had a good time as well. However, during the course of that show, I hurt one of my vocal chords. It hemorrhaged. The same chord I had hurt earlier this year on my upper-Midwest-freezing-ass-frostbite-your-guitar-fingers tour at a shitty but fun club called the Pickle Barrel in freezing-ass-cold Vermont.

Ambassador Randt and his wife have welcomed me into their home four years in a row to play for them and 80 of their closest friends. This time with the Sparrow 3 was no exception. The guests filter in thru the courtyard and into the “venue,” which is the long living room overlooking the courtyard and the dining room with a big impressionist painting of W Jr. and steaming handmade hotdogs waiting for the conclusion of our show to get munched up.

* Note: "Regina" is pronounced "rah-gina." The town slogan is “Regina rhymes with fun.”

We started at 4 a.m. yesterday from the Ramada in Regina, Canada. First layover in Minneapolis for eight hours, then Tokyo, then Beijing. Just arrived in our Beijing digs. Sitting on a high floor of Oakwood Apartments near Beijing’s third ring road at the airport expressway exit. The view out the window is of other newly built residential towers just like this one, and a neon-bannered restaurant of food in the Xiamen style that the receptionists says is “hai keyi” (translation: "it’s ok") with a smirk on their face… That means "don’t eat there." Everything else around here is closed. I’m hungry. It’s 1 a.m., and the only thing to eat is complimentary cornflakes and warm milk left as a welcoming present.

We are on the second week of our six-week tear here. Last night found us in Detroit. I was chilling eating my dinner before the show, and what was on TV but 8 Mile. I had to watch it because Eminem is from Detroit, and, in all honestly, the freestyle is inspiration, plus the whole movie is dope.

8 Mile put me in a Detroit state of mind. There was a hell of a lot of good music that came out and is coming out of Detroit. John Lee Hooker, Stevie Wonder and Motown, right? Recently, other peeps like Em, Kid Rock and my boy Jack White. Sick soulful music grows in Detroit. 

Every band has its own dynamic. Sonic Youth, DBT and Dinosaur Jr are all very different bands internally. Some are more democratic than others, and with that, dealing with each band and individual member is a case by case scenario. The same holds true with The Hold Steady. In terms of songwriting, both Tad and Franz are strong songwriters in their own way.

[Above, L-R: Bobby Drake and John Agnello]

Things are really rolling. We’ve been tracking furiously and the band is really hitting their stride. We’ve nailed easier songs like “Stay Positive” and harder ones like “Creepy Jam,” which will end up being called “One For The Cutters.” That song became one of my favorites early on. We cut it live with Franz playing the intros and verses with a synth harpsichord simulation. We knew we needed a real harpsichord on the song, but we had to find one that was accessible. But that would be for another day.