Daniel Hart

I play the violin and I sing.

It’s Alive! IT”S AL!V333333333#*$%&#*^#

After six weeks of working, waiting, working more, waiting more, buying parts, unscrewing bolts, gashing fingers, gnashing teeth, forgetting which bolts go where, and giving up all hope in the possibility of resurrection, my van starteth!

Aug. 18th, in a mad effort to brave a ridiculous rainstorm and make it to the last show, the homecoming show of the “Daniel Hart” summer tour, I drove my van into the flooded intersection of Gaston and Garland, causing it to stop henceforth in every way, right in the middle of a growing lake of brown swampy muck. 

A fire truck showed up right as the water threatened to rise into the van and three firemen, seemingly unamazed by my stupidity, pushed us to safety. We eventually made it to the show and finished the tour intact, and then I headed to China for solo tour two days later. The van, however, did not recover so easily.

The van had to be towed back to our house, as it refused to start again. As you probably know, water and automobile engines don’t mix. When I returned from China, Bobby (who knows considerably more about cars than I do) and I set to work on finding out if water actually did make it as far as the engine. If that was true, the chances of my van starting again were, as Bobby informed me, about the same as my chances of fathering a bastard child with Betty White.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHSrGBthfZs

First order of business was to remove the air filter and the spark plugs and flush out any potential water in those places. Air filter? Wet. First spark plug? Wet. Other spark plugs? Impossible to reach without taking apart every conceivable thing under that hood which could be taken apart. And so, after two weekends of bolts and nuts that wouldn’t unscrew without considerable blood, mosquitoes and humiliation/utter frustration, we ended up with this:

We dumped and flushed water out of every place we could find it, and last weekend, we finally put the whole thing back together. Bobby said to me, “Well, Daniel, let’s give it a shot. If we did everything right, then it should start back up.” Bobby pulled up his 4-Runner, we hooked his battery up to mine, I got behind the wheel, and put the keys in the ignition.

The car made lots of noises (rurururururur) and my dash lights flashed and clicked like the Enterprise bridge computers under Klingon attack, but no dice. We let it charge for 5 minutes. I hit it again. Nothing. Charge…nothing…charge…
Bobby left. I went back inside. I sat down on the couch and contemplated what I would make for the ensuing dinner I had no interest in making or eating. I spent the next four hours playing online board games contemplating my ruin and the destruction of everything good in this world.
Monday, I mustered what little hope was left in me and checked the battery at O’Reilly’s. It was bad. Excited at the possibility of having solved the problem, I bought and installed a new one. I put those keys back in that ignition and…nothing. Same as before, without the flashing lights. Lots of noises (rurururururur), but not the sweet hum of that engine purring under the hood.
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Tuesday, I added gas and rechecked all the connections. I tried it again…rurururururur.
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Wednesday, I added more gas and re-rechecked all the connections. I floored that gas pedal with all my strength: rururururur. I felt this anger welling up inside me and, with nowhere else to put it, I slammed my foot down on the accelerator twice, as hard as I could. To my amazement, I heard: rurururu-ROOOR-rurur in response. So I did it again, twice, fast, as hard as I could: rurururu-ROOOR-rurur. So I slammed that pedal down 15 times in a row, fast and furious. 
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(if my powers have worked then you’re looking at a picture of Vin Diesel and Paul Walker right here)
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Rachel was watching from the window and she said a giant plume of the blackest smoke bellowed out of my exhaust when that engine finally turned over. I never saw it, because it took me awhile to figure out what was actually happening. I honestly could not believe it. My van started again.

TWO QUEENSRYCHES?

TWO QUEENSRYCHES?

From the Queensryche Wikipedia page (stop laughing at me):

“Wilton, Rockenfield and Jackson announced on June 20, 2012, that Queensrÿche has parted ways with lead singer Geoff Tate and will replace him with Todd La Torre going forward.

On September 1, 2012, Geoff Tate announced a new Queensrÿche lineup featuring Rudy Sarzo, Bobby Blotzer, Glen Drover, Kelly Gray and Randy Gane.

Who legally owns the right to use the Queensrÿche name is still unclear.”

Bottom Bunk

on the 31-hour train ride from Chengdu to Guangzhou, which began at 10pm Sunday night and ended at 5am this morning (Tuesday):

followed by a 90-minute high-speed train from Guangzhou to Shenzhen. Followed by Chinese immigration, then Hong Kong immigration, then the Hong Kong metro for an hour or so, to the Airport Express train for another 30 minutes-ish. And now here, at Hong Kong International Airport, waiting for my flight to San Francisco:

to be followed immediately by a flight to Los Angeles and then a flight to Dallas. Boy, are my arms tired…

What Do I Know? Apparently China Loves tumblr Now

my room at the Meiyu Hotel, Shanghai, Aug 24th, with my two saviors: water from the purest springs of Nongfu, and the remote for the A/C wall unit -

aaaand the flyer for tonight’s show, plus a 7-inch from a local band:

hmmm…I look happier in the first photo. Probably b/c I’m emo…

Phoenix, August 14th 2012

sitting in The Trunk Space while Sundressed gets set up. Watching Anna’s troops* run all over me in Hyrkania, Germania, Atlantis and now Africa. What can a guy do? When it’s 38 to 2, I think Anna’s army has a slight advantage. But what my soldiers lack in numbers, they make up for with confidence. I wish I could say the same for the crowd at Trunk Space tonight, which is, so far, laying down to the troops of the oppressive dictator HEAT. Sundressed has a harmonica player in their band. He’s playing it now, as if his skinny tie has exploded into a musical geyser shooting out of its Windsor knot. The crowd nods slightly as the rest of my band makes its way back here from the Bikini Bar and Grill next door, where there is rumored to be air conditioning and alcohol.

Tonight we play with Hi Ho Silver Oh, my guitar player Casey’s band. Pause - the bass player of Sundressed has extensive chest and shoulder tattoos. Hard to tell from this distance but the chest ink looks like either Olde English a la Gauntlet or runes a la Zeppelin IV.

Back to Hi Ho: they’re what I would call “BADASS”. It’s true, I have played in Hi Ho from time to time, but that has absolutely nothing to do with my completely objective robot feelings about what a really excellent band they are.

Before heading over to The Trunk Space tonight, we had dinner together (Daniel Hart & the Daniel Harts and Hi Ho Silver Oh) at the Flower House, which is like a little corner of heaven here on earth, set down (still trying to figure out the reasoning for this) right in the middle of Phoenix. Unlike many a desert oasis, Flower House is not a mirage.

We walked in, sat down at their dining room table, and as the cool fake air washed over our disgruntled bodies, we were handed black bean burgers on carb-conscious pita-bread-esque buns and a plethora of Garden Salsa Sun Chips. I helped myself to a generous portion of Cran-Grape “juice” (thought about explaining why I put “juice” in quotations during this parenthetical aside, but I’ve changed my mind: you decide why I did it), and smiled as the archangel Gabriel whispered “I told you so, idiot. Now eat some more Sun Chips for Daddy.”** We proceeded to enjoy pleasant conversation with Alex, Brandon, the rest of the Flower House habitants and their Teach for America cohorts before rushing on over to this fine venue to load in.

And at this point I must tell you that Sundressed are really going after it and I like that very much. I must also tell you that my battle with Anna and the other armies of almost-Middle-Earth is not going any better than it was when I started writing to you, dear readers.

And this is the point at which I had to stop writing and start setting up my gear for our show. In the end we played for 10 people and the PA was acting up, or, to be more exact, acting like it had forgotten what its job was. We were sweating like hungry hogs in a heat wave (that’s a phrase, right?) and I oversang and the stage was no match for the amount of gear we tried to put on it.

But also in the end, my soldiers proved their resilience and I won my game of computerized Risk Godstorm hands down. So perhaps its not the battle that matters, but…well, you can finish that sentence as you like it. The people who did come to the show were pretty fantastic people and they bought some CDs and some intense thunder and lightning came in to give us an amazing pyrotechnic show through the windows behind the stage, consequently also cooling down the streets. When we stepped outside to load the gear back into the van for our next adventure, there was a cool breeze in the air, and I could feel the promise of tomorrow blowing its way through my sweaty shirt.

* Anna is one of my many computerized opponents in the version of Risk which runs on my laptop. Thanks to Yura.net for creating it.

** replace the archangel Gabriel with the sun god Apollo for a more consistent metaphor.

Ugh

Headed to China today, friends. Daniel Hart solo tour ensues. At LAX now, waiting for my flight to Hong Kong. Trying to post some more entries about the band tour we just finished, but LAX Complimentary WiFi is just not that into me. I click “+ Upload photo” and LAX Complimentary WiFi says, “uh…what?” No tumblr in China, so see you in a couple weeks. Please do everything I wouldn’t do.

Dreamzzz

Had a dream last night that Obama’s team took a poll to find out how many people would be interested in seeing him and his rock band play a show in DC this Fall. Michelle is also in his band.

Naturally I started writing an email to his people to say that I’d be very interested in seeing him play with his band and inquiring as to the possibility of my band playing as well. It was a tough decision but in the end I attached “O Sangeeta” to the email as proof that we would be the best band to open for him.

I’ll let you know if Dream Obama replies.

I Figured It All Out

I’m no scientist (nod your head in agreement).

But after today, I think I can safely say that, in the end, the chief motivating factor that will push this country to exact lasting domestic policies in an effort to reverse the damaging effects of climate change and global warming will not be our reliance on foreign oil, nor will it be the continuing disappearance of fossil fuels, the dangers of fracking, urban pollution, toxic dumping, or even the melting of the glaciers.  

No. After today, I can safely say that, in the end, the chief motivating factor which will move us towards a more logical, compassionate, efficient relationship with the world around us and a real desire to stop doing all the things we do which heat up this planet is buttsweat. 

I’ll say it again: it’s buttsweat, people.

We’ve finally made it.

My brother Justin and my sister-in-law Stephanie live in Lubbock, Texas, where he is a professor at Texas Tech and she is getting her Ph.D. They have a wonderful, beautiful daughter: Irene. We played at a coffeeshop in Lubbock on Monday night this past week, and the show was early enough that my niece could come, making it her first “Daniel Hart” show. 

My brother just sent me and the rest of the band this message yesterday:

For quiet time today, Irene set up four stuffed animals on her bed and got out an instrument for each and said that they were Casey, Bobby, Daniel and Rachel and they were going to have a concert.

Hope the tour is going well.