Here's to Poseidon and the Next Shift
Hello, friends! Rob here!
Well, it's a new year, and the air is full of new possibilities! Like, the possibility to buy a slightly updated model of the car you already own, or to accidentally write the old year in the date on the check you write for that new car you just bought!
For The Revivalists, the year is starting off with a... not much, to be honest. Just a few cool things followed by a bit of much-needed vacation. We had the privilege of ringing in the new year at Athens' landmark Georgia Theater, which will always be one of our favorite rooms in the country. From there, it was on to Jamcruise, a music festival so self-contained and free of hassle that it just barely grazes the minimum requirements for something to count as "work.” (THE PREVIOUS STATEMENT APPLIES ONLY TO MUSICIANS. The crews, engineers, stage techs and backline coordinators were all, as usual, working at least twice as hard as any of the bands and deserve tons, miles, hours of credit- whatever the proper unit of measurement is.) Although largely recreational, Jamcruise was a busy, dense experience, filled with sit-ins, superjams, crossovers, takeovers, and all sorts of adventures, musical or otherwise.
In addition to a very enjoyable pre-cruise kickoff show at The Stage in Miami, we got to play two sets on the boat itself. The cruise sets were (and I know I use this simile a lot) like two unique but equally beloved children: the sunset show out on the pool deck was the bright, beautiful overachiever, and the lounge set was the brooding teenager, hard-hitting and dressed mostly in black. Both were wonderful in their own ways. Thanks to the many musicians who either sat in with us or had us sit in with them. Please imagine me taking a deep, gasping breath and trying to recite this entire list before running out of air, like Ace Ventura solving a case: Galactic, Jennifer Hartswick, Carly Meyers, John Gros, Roosevelt Collier, Nate Werth, Mike Dillon, Weedie Braimah, The M&M's, Sasha Brown, Eric Garcia, Papa Mali, Margie Perez, George Porter Jr., and whomever I may have regrettably omitted. Honestly, it's possible someone came and sat down at the organ for a song during the pool deck set and I didn't even notice because I was too busy having fun to look behind me. Jamcruise is like that, and that's why Jamcruise is special.
Oh hey, just curious, do you think you can tell me how long it takes to get a handful of partied-out, sleep-deprived musicians and some of their girlfriends from Miami to New Orleans via airplane? Oh, I'm sorry. "A few hours,” while a totally reasonable guess, is incorrect. Unless, of course, you meant "a few” on a cosmic scale, in which case, I'll give you partial credit, because 36 hours could absolutely qualify as "a few.” As part of my deliberate effort to preserve this blog as one of the last bastions of unblemished positivity in all of the internet, I'll save most of the details for the recipients of a few strongly-worded emails I'm planning on writing once I've fully recovered. (I'm looking at you, guy who secretly controls the Earth's weather patterns from a fortress hidden underneath a volcano.) But I will tell you this: One of the things that caused our secondattempt to fly out of Miami to be delayed (yes, on one flight we experienced back-to-back delays completely unrelated to one another) was a medical emergency on the ground (not any of us, thank goodness), and that when this went down, the flight attendants actually did that thing you would think only happens in movies where they asked if there was a doctor on the plane. Fortunately, two or three passengers stood up.
ALBUM UPDATE: There's an album. Sort of. There are songs. Many songs. We went into the studio for a bit in September, and again in December, and we made a few more songs on top of those we recorded roughly a year ago. Now there are a lot of songs. Too many songs, in fact. A good album is a bunch of good songs. A great album is a bunch of good songs that come together to paint a picture of who we are and what we are and what we think is our place in the world and how we feel about that. So now we have to actually have to get together and whittle down this exhaustive collection into a concise, cohesive statement. Which is kind of like (I know, twice in one update! Deal with it.) having to choose which of your almost twenty children will be born this year, and which ones will have to go back and incubate for another two years or so. Okay, no metaphor is perfect. And don't worry, there will still be plenty of songs on the album. The important takeaway is this: There will be a new Revivalists album this year.
Probably. I think. Who knows? That's the thing about January. The air is full of new possibilities. Now get out and buy that car! Or something. Rob out.
