Fiddy Cent and the Pumpkin Patch

Jennifer O’Connor Tour Diary, Entry #1

Wed, Oct 18, 2006

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