Monday at Khon's, Houston

Khon Lu is a cool guy. He has a little wine bar where they serve only high quality local wines and beer, and his family is always around, and they play darts in the back, and poker Texas Hold 'Em in the front on Mondays. He was passionate about the small company wines and beer from the area, and his passion reminded me a lot of Chad's passion about good tea. In the vacant store adjoining Khon's, which they have access to, Khon has created a performance space for musicians. The walls have curves and are painted cool artsy colors, there are really high ceilings, and gels on the lights, so the vibe is awesome. We set up there and had so much room to move around, and it felt really comfortable. The acoustics in that place were fantastic. I could tell when we were setting up that it was going to sound great. There was a sweet natural reverb in that room. It always lifts my singing up a notch when there is good room sound to sing into. It feels likes leaning on a wall made of trampoline, you just lean into it as far as you want and it molds to your shape and gently supports you. I love good room reverb! Anyway, one of Kayte Grace's fans from youtube came out, and it was her 16th birthday! Needless to say, she had a cool birthday. Kayte played an amazing opening set, really singing well, and sounding good. Scott added hand drums to a couple of songs, and I played piano on "Soaked You In" like we did at her EP release party in DC a couple months back. Anyway, in all of the excitement about the youtube fans and the afterglow of a great performance, Kayte and Kevin kinda forgot to mention that we were playing next, and most of the crowd left! Oops! But Joe Next Door played anyway, because the acoustics were just too good to pass up. Khon's wife Ashley, and their kids hung out and danced while we played. One of their little girls thought we were there to celebrate her recent birthday, and we were happy to oblige that role. They could hear us through the wall in the wine bar, and outside the wine bar smoking, and they told us many times how much they loved it. We got audio and video of the whole show, trying to take advantage of the special room, and we hope to be able to edit it and post some highlights when we get back. I was told by the band that I have never sung my solo song "I'd Be Close to You" better. Stay tuned for mp3's and vids next week sometime, after we get back and have time to work on them.

The streets in Houston are the worst I've ever seen, full of potholes, bumps and broken pavement. Where the pavement is not broken it's wavy and weird. There's lots of detours and road construction and blocked off areas. Whew it was a time navigating our little tour bus through it all. We get to do it again tonight on the way to Bohemeo's.