Posted 1 year ago
Return to “Block Ice”
Studio360 has rebroadcast a segment from a show they called “On The Road” featuring stores inspired by Kerouac. You can hear the segment: http://bit.ly/hUogzqand here is the intro to my live show “Taking Trips To America”
“When I was a kid, summers meant long months on the road. My father is a photographer and those long summer days, with all that light, meant a chance for him to take some great pictures and the rest of us…well, we were along for the ride.
So, this is how it worked: One of our family vehicles was a Chevrolet pickup truck. And on top of that truck we positioned a camper shell. We would depart from just outside of New York City late in June, and would return from the West late in August. and this happened every year of my life until I was 17.
There was..my sister and me, my mother Maria, the family pet, and my father Lee. Lee would take us from one job to the next, in part paying for the trip, but also pursuing pet projects, like the Nat’l parks, certain neighborhoods in cities, and particular landmarks. We would travel from a record cover shoot in the midwest, to a teaching job in Aspen, all the while pulling over a rest stops or picnic tables on the side of the road for lunch. Making dinner later in the fire pit of whatever National Park we might have traveled to.
100’s of hours, 1000’s of miles on back roads and highways, I think I saw the entire United States from that high picture window of the camper. And memories of these trips came filtering back to me as I was composing the music for this project; influencing how I wrote and what I wrote. In the end I tried to capture that weightless, suspended feeling I had riding in the back of that camper, which is where I learned to pay attention to my inner dialogue, and to appreciate the power of daydreaming.”
