Well kids, here we are!

After making my way through seemingly insurmountable amounts of work on Monday and Tuesday, I was finally ready and able to step out the door for Bonnaroo. At this point, I need to stop down and give huge amounts of thanks to my co-worker and fantastic friend Rebecca for being willing to make sure things happen while I am out of the office for five days. Without her help, I’m not quite sure how I would have pulled this excursion off.

Roommate Adam and I made it to Brian’s house around 2:30AM, and we were on the road with a brief stop-off at Sheetz by 3AM. I can tell you that last year, on the tail end of Virgin Festival, I was so tired and grumpy when we made our first visit to an Ohio-area Sheetz location, that I had a bit of trouble navigating their computerized ordering system.

All I wanted to do was add cheese to my burger, and it was nowhere on the list of ingredients that I was seeing on the screen. So I kept cancelling my order and starting over. Turns out, that cheese was way down on the list of steps, filed in some ridiculous category that I would never place cheese. This year, the visit to Sheetz was a much better experience, and I ordered a couple of cheapie burgers loaded with bacon and about 12 other ingredients, and took my traditional place in the back seat for the trip.

My pal Brian has an account of our trip to Nashville that is mostly accurate, so I’ll direct you to that, and skip straight to Nashville.

Once we were in Nashville, Brian had plans to stop by to visit indie record label gods Thirty Tigers, home of quite a few artists including Those Darlins, a group that you’ll discover that like Blue Rodeo for me, Brian really likes those girls quite a lot.

The Thirty Tigers folks were really, really cool, and hooked us up with a bunch of tunes including the Freedy Johnston covers disc from last year that I didn’t have, and a couple of Will Kimbrough discs (among many others.) Kimbrough has been on my list of artists that I’ve been curious to check out for a long time, and I’ve never gotten around to that. Now, I’ll have some tunes thanks to the Thirty Tigers folks, to figure out if I’m a fan or not.

What are the odds that Thirty Tigers would be located right upstairs above a really cool record store? Really good, actually. My streak of finding an awesome record store in every city that I visit continues with this trip’s discovery of Grimey’s, a mecca/metropolis of used and new musical goodness including a huge selection of both new and used vinyl. I’m really trying to be financially smart, and anyone who knows me, knows that I could easily drop a hundred bucks in a place like Grimey’s. But I didn’t. I passed up Mobile Fidelity vinyl and CD copies of Faith No More’s Angel Dust, which have been on my want list for quite a while now. But I also got a couple of nice scores as well.

While fielding what will hopefully be the one and only emergency work-related call (hint, hint,) I was making my way through the stacks of used CDs, and came across the new CD from Chicago-based Freddy Jones Band, a favorite of mine back in the 90’s. Time Well Wasted, the new release from the group, is a collection of three new studio tracks, and 10 live tracks recorded live at Martyr’s in Chicago.

And now, the score: My eyes see a copy of the previously Japanese only (on CD anyway) solo release from Chicago member Bill Champlin, No Place Left To Fall. Released here in America only as a download last year, the album is finally allegedly getting a U.S. release on CD in August. This could be an advance promo for that planned release, I’m not sure. What I do know, is that it has both the CD, and the 70 minute DVD documentary on the making of the album, something that up until yesterday would have cost me 50+ dollars on import.

Price tag at Grimey’s: $5.95. So awesome!

We went to the legendary Music Row in Nashville to meet up for a late lunch at The Tin Roof with my Ohio pal Kevin Mason, now living in Nashville as a marketing king. I was pretty wiped out at this point and ready for the hotel, but it was still good to see Kevin and catch up with him.

Onward to the hotel, and at this point we all crashed out hard after a long day of traveling for the best naps ever. A txt message from D.X. Ferris letting me know that he was watching Jane’s Addiction and NIN in Pittsburgh inspired mild amounts of jealously for a second, but then I was back asleep shortly thereafter.

At breakfast the next morning, Brian directed my attention to the fact that The B-52’s are playing tonight in Chattanooga, about 20 minutes away from our hotel. Being the good pal that he is, he’s willing to drop me off in Chattanooga for the show, so that’s where I will be on day one of Bonnaroo. As our friend Bear said to Brian on Facebook, “Only Matt could find another concert to go to when he’s going to a four day concert.” Indeed.

So there’s an update for you all on our first day 1/2 of activities and entertainment – Looking forward to Bruce on Saturday night!