The last two stops on the Travel Write Sing Tour were in Iowa City and then in Julianne’s hometown, Marshalltown. The whole tour felt like a crescendo of music, friendship and of meeting the kind of people that you’re glad to know. The kind of people that make you glad there’s people in the world.

Musically, I don’t think Tom and Julianne can ever go back. At the start of the tour, they used to worry about how their music would come across, since as my brother Aaron in Saint Paul put it, “They should be opening for Broken Social Scene.” But instead they were touring with two acoustic singer-songwriters who like whiskey and rollies. But something marvelous happened in the two weeks on the road, and by the last two shows, Tom and Julianne played with the type of confidence they’re going to need when they take their music places. Hek and I both had a similar image appear in our minds on the same day, of Tom and Julianne on high up on a stage, playing a festival. I think this will happen one day.

For our part, Hek and I grew in a lot of ways on the road. Something popped in me before on our way to Iowa City. I’m not quite sure how to describe it, but it was almost like a transcendent in nature. I saw myself in the van from the past, saw myself from when I had given up music, saw myself from when I had started to write songs again, saw myself as the 12-year-old who’d written his same song, and felt a proud elation at where I was in the universe and where I planned to go. I don’t know if my music will ever do much more than tag along my writing, but it’s something I’ll keep doing for the love of it.

At the show in Public Space One, I didn’t play any of the songs I’d been playing on the tour. Instead, I played mostly songs I’d written in 2011, the year I started writing songs again.

Crystal City’s Rocking Sounds

One highlight of Marshalltown and and Iowa City, was meeting Dave Helmer and Sam Drella, the front man and woman of the band Crystal City. Their music is so, so good. Dave can play the guitar like they just let him out of musical prison, they place they send musicians for jamming too hard. Crystal City’s music is right up the melodic alley where I could sit on the stoop the rest of my life. Also, we played with a band called “The Men From… Earth” but my camera died before I could capture more than a photo. That’s mostly I lie. I could have gone to the van to get a new battery. Instead I went to the bar The Dublin Underground to flirt with a bartender I’d met before the show. You tell me, how am I not supposed to be smitten by someone getting their doctorate in 20th century American Literature?

Dave was inspiring in his approach he takes to music. He’s a great guitar play, and he’s worked to get there. “If you are going to play guitar,” he said to Hek and I in his backyard, “Why not tear it up? Why not just be able to rip on it?” It’s good advice and inspires me to start setting aside specific daily time dedicated to the craft.

Dave also related a story about sitting at a bar and talking to a guy twice his age. The guy told him that now that his 28, if he doesn’t make it in the next few years he needs to figure out what he’s going to do. Dave just laughed inwardly like people who have already made it do when people who are less happy question the happier. Dave knows. He’s already made it. He’s making music and loving it. He has a job that makes a difference in people’s life, and the freedom that his job gives him enables him to pursue his passion. What else should a person be doing with their time and breath?

Since a picture is worth 1,000 words and a video is worth your neighbor’s cat, and my brother Tyler gets off a place in 15 minutes, I’m going to let these pictures and videos do the talking. As this is the last post from the tour, all I have to say is an enormous thanks to my fellow troubadours, HEK, Julianne and Tom–cheers for life–to everyone along the way, thanks for opening this window to wonderfulness for us. Larry, thank you for mailing me a grizzly bear sock to replace the one I lost. I will wear it roaringly proud. Cheers to you all.