We wake up in Knoxville, Tenn., and drive to Harrisonburg, Va. It is the last day of our SXSW tour.
We exit I-40 at Dolly Parton's Dollywood to eat at a much-praised pancake house. We find that the pancake house is closed. I eat French fries and a garden salad at a Wendy’s near the highway.
Not [...]

D.C. bands that attended the musical segment of South by Southwest in Austin, Texas spanned musical genres. The annual DC does TX day party provided a nice array, including the intelligent indie rock of Dischord artist Soccer Team and the ecstatic, psychedelic post-punk of Kid Congo Powers & the Pink Monkey Birds. I was also happy [...]

We leave New Orleans at 9:30 a.m. to drive what one friend calls “every bit of 10 hours” to Knoxville, Tenn. This drive takes us through the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and a corner of Georgia before depositing us safely in the Eastern Time Zone. In Knoxville—which, in the words of the promoter, is [...]

I try to collect the band and leave Austin at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, March 17—St. Patrick’s Day—to drive nine hours to New Orleans. But, before we go, Drummer J. needs breakfast tacos, Fill-In Bassist C. needs Advil, and Singer C. needs fried chicken. She fails to secure it—Church’s Chicken opens at 10 a.m., but [...]

I wake up on a tile floor, beset by cats. They play with my toes and pounce on my chest. They jump on my sleeping bag and jump off again. The cats are cute, as are many killers, including Ted Bundy, who worked for a Republican governor's campaign (please excuse About.com link). Plus, I’m allergic [...]

I wake up on a mattress in a friend’s bandmate’s house in Austin. Though I am a dog owner, a vegetarian and, at least in the presence of animals, a genial fellow, a pit bull mix two rooms away has decided, for reasons that she has chosen not to disclose, that I am an evil [...]

THE FOLLOWING IS A TRANSCRIPTION OF AN EMAIL SENT BY A 35-YEAR-OLD MAN TO HIS BOOKING AGENT—OR, AT LEAST, TO A GUY WHO HELPED HIM BOOK A FEW SHOWS IN THE MID-SOUTH—ON MARCH 13, 2012:
Dear [name redacted],
We had a fun show in Springfield, Mo., last night, but I wanted to let you know that we [...]

After gaining an hour going from Cleveland to Chicago, we lose the hour to daylight savings time, then lose another hour going to Louisville, Ky. This leaves us minus one hour at a house party across from a funeral home in Muhammad Ali's hometown, where the former champ undoubtedly refined his famous poems as MC [...]

We wake up in Cleveland and drive to Chicago. Due to unremarked-upon tectonic movements neglected by earth scientists more interested in studying sexier faults like the one that caused Japan's 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster, these two cities are growing further apart every year.
We drive for hours, stop outside Toledo to get Fill-In Bassist [...]

Not yet acclimated to the late nights and late mornings of a touring rock 'n' roll band, I wake up at 8 a.m. on a couch in Pittsburgh after having lay down on the couch only five hours before. With nothing to do, I am forced to finish reading Norman Mailer's Why Are We in [...]