Rockstar visits and LDE in Hartford (end of June)

The guys were out of the office and the first phone call I got from Rich was about how my management company caused an uproar in Cincy. Too funny. Details can’t be written publicly, but nonetheless, it was a good way to start the day. Craziness as usual ensued pretty much nonstop. Apparently it was “call Miranda on her cell while she is at work day” – I got calls from my mom, Tom, and John while trying to finish up everything for the weekend. Thanks guys :-P.

As I was nearing my sprint towards the end of the day, John Faye called to say he was out of the studio and on the way to my work. He met my coworkers and waited as I closed everything up. We walked through the city as I caught him up on our mutual friends and he shared with me his adventures in the class that he is teaching. We hailed a cab and headed over to check out Omnisoul in the recording studios. They’re hardcore working at Avatar for about 13 hours a day barely seeing sunlight. Trust me, it will be so well worth it. It was great seeing them again and while they are creating their magic. They introduced us to their production team and its evident that they are all working very well together – this album is going to be incredible. Shawn showed me his new guitar, wrong color and all. Honey blonde is not orange. Jamie has finger cymbals at home in NJ…time to send an intern! They were trying to create a sequence for an intro to a song and Derek and Greg had it in their heads, but couldn’t recreate it. Jamie was rocking out with the various sounds and on the keys trying, but to no avail. I also learned their secret term for the factor of work put into something for the outcome.

After our extended visit, John and I hit up a Thai place in Hells Kitchen and chatted about IKE’s album release. So much mirandaband excitement is coming up, strap in kids. We tried to meet up with JJ in the studios (he is recording as well) but we ran late. Dan had also texted saying he was coming into town, so the plan was to ride to the train station with John, meet up with Judy, and see Dan when he came in.

Judy and I said our hellos to Dan and Sarah then headed back to the ‘Boken since Saturday was going to be a long day and we had baking to do. I was telling her of my crazy week and we totally got turned around in Manhattan and walked 15 minutes out of our way. When finally in Hoboken, we were followed by a creepy guy who wanted to go home with us and I almost got hit by a car…a few times.

We put on one of the movie channels, brought out the laptop to exchange music, and busted out the baking gear. See, I can’t really cook, but I can bake…kinda. The eggs may have been bad, but I told Judy they would be fine because anything bad in them will just be baked off. I also almost caught the paper towels on fire and left the butter melting on the stove and came back to a sticky yellow mess on the stove top. Naturally we had to taste everything before packing it away and everything tasted ok.

In the morning we had some time to kell before picking up the car so we made these coffee milkshake blended things from Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf while watching “Along Came Polly” on tv. While Judy was in the shower, Phil called telling me that he has no pants. This statement first caught me off guard, as if I need to know that he doesn’t have pants with him…until he said they were near Delaware and needed a place to buy pants.

We met up with Anna at the PATH and destinated to Newark to pick up our rental car. Well, with a few steps in between. We had to walk to the PATH, take the PATH to Newark Penn Station, take a train to the Airport, then pick up our car. Or so we thought. We get to the train station and this bitchy lady who was totally out of it sold us tickets for a train that was soon departing (and should have known it would have left before we got there). We kept asking her if we would be able to make it as the tickets were printing out, and she kept saying yes. We had our tickets in hand and RAN to the train gate…straight out of a movie haha. And we miss our train. So we took a bus instead through the heart of Newark.

We got hit on many times walking to the rental car place:
“hey girls, wanna hang out tonight?” “nooo thanks, not tonight” “not EVER!”

We got a super sexy silver grand am…but…could it be…? I saw something underneath the rearview mirror…a STAFF STICKER! Oh how perfect! Oh we’ll show that sticker how we roll and that there will be fun to be had. Oh and since this starts the travel part of the road journal…someone said that if I were to write about certain things, I would have to use pseudonyms. And there was also a comment of “whats happens in this car, stays in this car”.

Before destinating to Connecticut we went to our usual Dunkin Donuts for caffeine. Why did I order a large? What possessed me to order the massive size? Who knows, but within an hour I was in the fetal position in the co-pilot seat. We sat in traffic but rocked out to mix cds and my fabulous ipod. I played the most random things…such as Avril and Kelly…along with Coolio and Outkast. We did listen to our Honestly song at least four times. Half the trip was spent talking about the Virginia trip and we remembered how Jay almost his eye when a pine cone flew in the car and hit his face. Ok, maybe it wasn’t a pine cone, but it sure wasn’t an apple like he said it was. Sorry Jay, but that was really funny. I think I hyperventilated from laughing so much.

My favorite part of driving up north is riding past the sailboats on the Connecticut coast. I thought we would pass them so for much of our coast drive, I hung out the window waiting for the boats, but they never came. We were not too far away from the venue when we turned into a rest stop and changed. Too funny, we were there for about a half hour as we changed into night clothes, did something to our hair, and put on makeup. We had the whole shelf covered with girly stuff and each one of us borrowed something from the other. We have a picture, but Angela has it I think.

We got to the venue totally on our own since Mapquest sucked and there were detours. Judy went the wrong way down a road, but that’s ok since our car said that we were from Maine. We met up with Morgan and proceeded into the empty room and played catch up with the guys. Phil and I planned more into our rock takeover.

The Brickyard was also host of Sausage Fest 2005. Chris mentioned that once the band went on stage, the girls were left wide open for the taking. We took that challenge by grabbing a table right up front so that the creepies wouldn’t see that we weren’t there to socialize.

We got the usuals...I needed cash back at CVS that morning so I needed to buy something…bubbles are always fun, so I got a six pack. Obviously there were put to use during In the Water. Laid by James was thrown in for good measure. I went to the hip hop room with Johnnie and Donnie during the set break and Johnnie tried to teach me how to dance. Phil bought me drinks and Rusty got the best dressed award.

Another half hour long Two Step. I had time to go to the bathroom twice, visit the hip hop room, and walk around the venue. ADD at its finest. I would much rather have less Two Step and more LDE. We did get the pleasure of having Phil use a milk crate as aux percussion. We did hear a new song, Fingerprints which reminded me of something though I can't recall it now. Birmingham was more put together and dynamic since the last time I heard it live.

After the show I helped them carry equipment downstairs while talking to Doug, Johnnie, and Phil. They never cease to make fun of me, and Doug is always up to enlightening me on his observations. I cringe when I think of what may be said in the van, especially since Johnnie seems to remember everything I have ever said since I met him Jan. 15th -either he has a really good memory, or people talk! There are no secrets in rock. And of course Phil tells me the same thing that he has for the past three years…of course, maybe there are some secrets in rock! Some things never ever change.

We stopped at a the only rest stop open in Connecticut to get sustenance. Anna and Angela crashed in the back and Judy and I kept ourselves awake by listening to CDs over and over again because we were too tired to change them. Got back to Hoboken and searched for parking forever. Finally got to bed around 6:30 AM.