Jennifer O’Connor Tour Diary, Entry #4
Friday, December 1, 2006

I’ve been home from the Portastatic and Mountain Goats tours for about 2 weeks now, and I never did tell you how the rest of the tour went.  I’m sorry.

When I left off we were on our way to Austin.  The Austin show was really great, but even more importantly, we ate BBQ the afternoon after we played with Sally Crewe.

On Halloween we played in Baton Rouge.  I have amazing photos of John D in a Batman costume, but I swore I wouldn’t post them. So, here’s a pic of me (who didn’t dress up) and Matt Sutton (guitar) as “Old Man Boogie.”

Another big highlight was Sarasota, FL. I went to high schoool in the next town over—Bradenton—so it was pretty cool to play at New College in Sarasota.  My parents came to the show and we totally rocked their socks off. This was also the first night that Jon Langmead played drums with the Mountain Goats.  He played on the last 2 songs of the night: “See America Right” and “Houseguest.”

Here’s a photo of them getting down with Jon Darnielle pointing right at me because he saw me jumping around in the audience, taking pictures like a maniac. He had just broken a string because they were rocking so hard.

The last show of the tour (for us) was in Columbia, South Carolina. It was my birthday and one of the best shows I think I’ve ever played. It was certainly one of the most fun.

We had some cake, goofed off and watched Animal House backstage before the show.

Right after we finished playing, we got in the van and drove overnight (well,to be fair, Jon and Matt did most of the driving), so that I could be back to sing with Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and Patti Smith at the Bob Dylan tribute at Lincoln Center.

I was too scared to take out my camera and take pictures this night (I don’t know why because every one else was), but it was a truly mind-blowing experience, one I won’t soon forget.

Now, I’m back home in Brooklyn, NY trying to adjust to life outside the van—getting ready for the holidays, writing some new songs, preparing for the next round of touring (with Kevin Devine in late Jan/Feb), and of course, taking pictures of myself wearing my new winter hat in my living room.

Love and happy holidays!

—Jennifer O’Connor

Jennifer O’Connor Tour Diary, Entry #3
Wednesday, November 1, 2006

Hello!

It’s been almost a week since my last confession. We left off in Missouri, I believe, where we played the Randy Bacon Gallery. They were super sweet there and I especially liked the poster display outside the club on the sandwich board:

Next we played in Norman, Oklahoma where we had amazing mexican food. The Opolis had the best hand stamps of any place I’ve ever played. Check it out:

The following day brought a long drive down to Lubbock, Texas where we saw some amazing countryside and a tumbleweed actually rolled right past us on the highway.  This was probably the most deserted place I’d ever been in my whole life.  It was pretty amazing:

Once in Lubbock, we had a mission. Jon Langmead, my awesome drummer, is a really big Buddy Holly fan. As you may or may not know, Buddy was from Lubbock, so Jon wanted to find something related to the man and he’d heard about a statue. We had to find it. It took a while and lots of stopping people on the street, but find it we did:

Next was Denton, and I really felt this was our best show of the tour so far. It was packed, and the crowd was awesome. We met the dudes from the Baptist Generals, a group that Mr. Darnielle is good friends with.  They were super awesome and I hope to see them again really soon. Here’s our set list for the night, a pic of John and I, and an awesome pic of Arabella in front of the no drugs sign out back. Lots of pictures this night.

I’ll do another update in the next couple of days to bring you up to date. We are on our way to Birmingham Alabama today. More miles, more miles, more miles.

Love,
JO’C

—Jennifer O'Connor

Jennifer O’Connor Tour Diary, Entry #2
Monday, October 23, 2006

Jennifer O’Connor

We’re in St. Louis, Missouri and this is our first night with the Mountain Goats. We just finished playing to a packed room of college kiddies here at The Gargoyle at Washington University.

But let me back up. When I left you last, we were in a pumpkin patch. And let me introduce you to Matt Sutton (on guitar) and Arabella Kauffmann (on bass). Here’s a pic of them driving us away from the pumpkin patch which you can see reflected off the driver side window:

After leaving the pumpkins in VA, we headed down to Durham, NC where we played a rousing set with Portastatic at the Duke Coffeehouse. It’s always awesome coming to this area because my friend Darren Jessee (Hotel Lights) and Debora Francis (an awesome lady and friend who took the cover photograph on my new record) live here and we stay with them. The next day I recorded a song at Brian Paulson‘s home studio for an upcoming eMusic EP. The ep will have some songs that didn’t make the record and a Bob Dylan cover.  He was amazing and we had the track done in under 2 hours. Here’s me and my new pal Brian:

South Carolina was pretty fun, if very, very smoky. I am constantly in a battle to not smoke, so this was annoying for me as I’m currently in the “not smoking” portion of the battle. It sorta looks like Jon has a neon beer sign halo in this photo taken outside the Village Tavern.

The next day was in Atlanta at the Earl for our final night with Portastatic. I used to live in the ATL, so I always love coming here. Ms. Chan Cat Power was in the audience so it was nice to say hello to her as well. Here’s a group pic of our final night with the Portastatic boys (and girl)…

Ok, I’ll get more to you soon about the Mountain Goats leg of the tour.  Until then......

xoxo

JO’C (and jon langmead, margaret white, arabella kauffman, matt sutton)

—Jennifer O'Connor

Jennifer O’Connor Tour Diary, Entry #1
Wed, Oct 18, 2006

Jennifer O’Connor

Hello People! Welcome to the Jennifer O’Connor Tour Diary written by me, Jennifer O’Connor.

I just put out a new album a couple of months ago on Matador Records called Over the Mountain, Across the Valley and Back to the Stars and I’m in the midst of some major full-band tour action — in September I was with Mason Jennings, right now I’m with Portastatic, and soon I’ll join Mountain Goats.

This afternoon itinerary included a radio interview/performance at George Washington University, a lounge session at a nearby park and a purchase of a discounted 50 Cent biography at a going-out-of-business Tower Records. I’m currently sitting backstage at the Black Cat in DC where we await soundcheck, dinner, and the eventual show.

This will be our seventh show in eight days with Portastatic, but it feels like the tour is just beginning. I think it’s because the first five shows were so close to NYC (where we’re based). It should be noted that I am completely alone right now. This is a very rare thing for a person on tour. Everyone in my band is out walking around, or eating, or scoring drugs. Just kidding about the drugs… I think.

Jon (my drummer) and I both got new cameras to document our activities over the next few weeks. Here’s a photo of us trying to figure out how to use them:

Last night we played in Charlottesville VA. It rained a lot, again. It’s been raining a lot during this tour come to think of it. But Portastatic totally brought the rock as they tend to do on a nightly basis. Here’s some proof of that:

I don’t have any photos yet of my band playing, but I’ll work on that. What I do have is a very funny photo of Jon imitating a photo of me in a recent Magnet article. Here’s that:

On the musical tip, we’ve been playing most of the new record every night, with a few old songs thrown in here and there. We are beginning to toss out ideas for covers, and so far the Pretenders has come up as a possibility. If any one wants to weigh in on cover choices, please do.

Lastly, I will leave you with a photo of some pumpkins we saw today in Virginia:

I decided we should get one for the van. There’s no reason why we can’t have a pumpkin in the van! We are also trying to decide what band we should dress up as for Halloween. We are thinking about Led Zeppelin or ZZ Top. Although we will be 4 at that point of the tour and the Top only had 3. I’ll let you know what we decide.

More soon,

-JO’C

—Jennifer O'Connor