2010-10-19: The Road to Ravenna

THE ROAD TO RAVENNA-The suitcase is heavy with clothes, CDs, guitar pedals and books, my jet lag is surprisingly minimal, the lush green Italian countryside rolls along to my right while my driver Ben is my escort for the three hour drive from Milan Malpensa Airport to Ravenna where I will begin rehearsing this afternoon for the Songs With Other Strangers tour. I've never met Ben before. He's a drummer with a hardcore black metal band and about to start a UK tour. There are always so many different bands and musicians criss-crossing the world and most of them ply their trade, unaware of the others that share the same highways and backstages in parallel but completely different worlds.

And it's a different world I'll be entering for the first week of this 2 month tour that will mostly comprise of the first Miracle 3 European tour in almost 5 years. I was originally booked to play an acoustic show in Milan this Thursday at the Teatro Dal Verme. Knowing that I'd be here, my pal Manuel form the very popular Italian band After Hours (a band that also includes my Dragon Bridge Orchestra touring mate Rodrigo D'Erasmo) asked if I would be a guest on the variety show tour he was putting together with various other luminaries including John Parish, Hugo Race, Stef Camel Karlins (from Deus),as well as local indie cool fixtures Cesare Basile, Marta Collica and Gioriga Pol.

I know I'll be singing "Manhattan Fault Line" and "Resolution" (the leadoff track from "Northern Aggression," my new album with the Miracle 3) each night. I think I might be singing a John Cale song as well. Maybe I'm going to make some guitar noise here and there on other people's songs. I don't know and that's both daunting and exciting as our car gets closer and closer to Ravenna where I'll start rehearsing in a few hours.

In other words, it's another chapter of Embrace The Random. All of the best things on tour are the things you didn't plan. And there's going to plenty of that this time around. Grab your morning coffee and pull up a chair. I'll be your pilot for the next few months. "Sunday Morning" by the Velvets is on the radio, easing out the memory of the Ian Dury binge that got me through the flight (mixed with the latest Dungen-fantastic!-and some Doors and Byrds). No food to report...yet. But you know that will change.

Look, there's a castle!