RVs and Beers to-go: Ivan & Alyosha Tour Diary, Part II

The second installment from Tim Wilson's diary, recorded during his band's recent West coast mini-tour.

The band's home away from home.

May 13, Cottage Grove, OR @ The Axe & Fiddle

For the rest of the tour we are lucky enough to have a luxurious 1990-something RV to travel in. It’s roomy and comfortable, has plenty of groceries/beer; bikes are on the back; gear is in the trailer and there are plenty of cassette tapes and an i-Pod, of course for playing some old Mariah Carey, Duran Duran, Emmylou Harris, Fleetwood Mac, the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, Dylan, Wilco, Simon & Garfunkle and Delta Spirit for our enjoyment.

Arriving in Cottage Grove after 5:00pm, we played The Axe & Fiddle of which the amazing Richard Swift is part owner. Cottage Grove is a beautiful, small, family-friendly, simple-living kind of town in Southern Oregon. 

The first thing I saw when we got into the venue was a guy selling eggs at a table near the stage. It turns out, every Thursday the bookstore next door to the venue does a sort of farmers market and serves free homemade wine. We were told that there is some sort of natural market that takes place in Cottage Grove pretty much on a daily basis. 

The Axe & Fiddle is a great place with lots of families, young people and old, eating good food and drinking beer out of the mason jars the bar uses for pint glasses. We find out later that the bar can also screw a lid on your beer and you can take it to go.  

Read more after the jump.

We end up playing an early set and a later set, about an hour and a half of music in all.

Played a lot of new stuff: “Father Be Kind,” “I was Born,” “Everything is Burning,” “God Or Man,” (all songs you'll hear on our next record), as well as some older songs and a Beatles cover we haven’t played in a while: “Normal People,” “Nothing To Fear,” “And Your Bird Can Sing,” which was fun, but a bit rough at times.  

We enjoyed a great dinner provided by the venue, loaded out our gear, and rode our bicycles to nightcap at Swift’s house.

All of us were inspired by Swift’s home studio including a 70s Tascam console, Otari 8-track tape machine and other vintage gear. We got to hear some of his new tunes (awesome), which he was nice enough to play for us. 

It was a cold night for a bike ride, but we finally pedaled our way back to the RV around 3:30am. 

Tender is the band that tours in confined spaces.

May 14, Still in Cottage Grove…onto Redding

We spend the night parked in front of a funeral home just a block away from The Axe & Fiddle. In the morning, we had a French breakfast and biked around town. Afterwards, we went to the Goodwill and found a few good vinyl records and a helmet for Pete, and then headed into the farmland. We passed cows, bridges, a river and found ourselves in some woods before we finally turned around about 45 minutes later. It really was a beautiful day.

We loaded our bikes up and headed out for Redding, staying in a Wal-Mart parking lot for the night. We arrived about 12:30am, did a little shopping in Wal-Mart, rode our bikes around the parking lot, then had drinks and hung out in the RV until the wee hours of the morning.

Tomorrow, Ivan & Alyosha's tour comes to a close, but not without a dissatisfied wino crowd, hellish LA traffic and a few tiny gigs.

Just joining us? Read Part I here, only on CAB.