road trip

So I decided that I have been sitting around long enough.... time for a road trip. I got in touch with one of my favorite mandolin players (Matt Flinner), and he had some free time.... so it's off to Nashville for me. Now, with the amount of traveling that I do you would think that I would remember that Nashville is no where near Richmond... not so. I set out on a sunny monday afternoon for my solo adventure and the 10 hour drive that I had ahead of me. It was pretty uneventful until the sun went down.... I guess somewhere in eastern Tenn. I was unfortunate enough to get caught in an unexplained firefly migration.... for about thirty miles (that is a lot of bugs)! It was pretty fun, I kind of felt like I was in Star Wars and was attacking the death star. Shortly after this I had to stop for gas, as I got out of my truck I noticed a strange glow.... the corpses of 1,000,000,000 fireflies had given my truck an interesting green hue... if anyone heard of UFO siting on 40 west on Memorial Day, it was just me screaming along.
So, I finally get there. One of the great things about being in a band, is the crew! I show up and Cliff had booked my hotel.... time to find a Mexican restaurant.

I wake up early, eager to get started. Being self-taught is alright, as you get to take credit for your hard work... HOWEVER, if someone points out a flaw.... your best comeback is something along the lines of "oh yeah, well... those sandals make your butt look big!" I am about to sit down with one of my heroes, and I have never had a mandolin lesson, or any real contact with other mandolin players.... this had never really occurred to me.... and now I'm a nervous wreck. I stop and get some high power coffee (to ease my nerves) and a muffin from the hip coffee shop down the street. You know that you are eating something good for you when you can feel the earth and tree bark in every bite. Time to head over to Matt's house! As I am getting close, I realize that I have timed it perf..... wait a second.... what was in that muffin... oh, dear. Have you ever seen Dumb an Dumber (Jim Carrey, etc)? The "I hope that you're not using the toilet, it's broken" scene comes to mind.... but fear not, it was a false alarm.
I knock on the door and am greeted by Matt ( a real shock there), and the best I can manage is "drrrr... you play mandolin gudd...drr" undeterred by my lack of people skills he invites me in and it's time to play.
We had a blast and played for about 4 hours a day for the next few days. It was a ton of fun to get back to playing the mandolin again! I'm hoping to get back down there this summer and record a few tunes with Matt, I think that you guys would dig it.

If you are a mandolin fan, you have to check out Matt's stuff (this is instrumental music)!!
Some of my suggestions...
Matt Flinner - A View From Hear, or Latitude
Phillips, Grier, and Flinner - Looking Back, or Phillips, Grier, and Flinner
also, www.myspace.com/mattflinner

If you have any suggestions of fiddle tunes (bluegrass, old-time), or anything you would like to hear us play.... let me know and we'll consider it.... if Matt is into it.... this might be a bad idea.

Hope that you are having a great summer! Best....
carter

Comments

[Lane]

Nashville's a great town (my hometown). Glad you had fun. Just out of curiosity, which coffee shops and Mexican places did you hit up? For your next trip, I'd recommend Frothy Monkee for coffee or SATCO (San Antonio Taco Company) for cheap Mexican.

[Pam]

Asking for tunes suggestions is dangerous, Carter.

For the record: A View From Here = AMAZING. So's all the rest of it. I adore Matt Flinner.

[Shannon]

Thanks for the blog update, Carter! It's always a pleasure to read your humor....

I call that kind of muffin Super Colon Blow, or just Colon Blow depending on how much bark they've put in. Good times :)

In terms of suggesting tunes, I've always liked the idea of doing bluegrass covers of rock and roll tunes, like you did with Crazy Train. Old School Freight Train has done some fun stuff that I've really enjoyed.

Best of luck to you and your newfound mandolin friend. Next year you ought to come out here for Wintergrass. It's outstanding!

See you in August :)

[Angel]

Sounds like you had a great trip. Too bad you didn't get any pictures of the swarm of firefly's...sounds like an experience.
It's funny to hear you talk about your Mandolin heroes when you are one too so many...my hubby for example. You don't know how many hours he's spent dissecting your music, seeing as he's self taught too.
Anyway, thanks for posting and can't wait to see you all at Toad's and Wolftrap!

[mathjedi]

thanks for the funny story... and I'm glad you had fun. :)

[Cindy]

Haha, you know you love mysterious muffins!
Glad you had fun playing, I hope once I master guitar I can start learning mandolin, it would be amazing. I'd love to hear some of the stuff you guys played.
<3 Cindy