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1. Michael Hedges - Aerial Boundaries

Supposedly, when Michael Hedges first heard what a huge sound engineer/producer Steve Miller had created for the recording, he flipped out and dissappeared into the woods for hours. He finally came back, smoked a huge joint, then proceeded to finish the album. 

Michael Hedges pretty much invented a new style of playing guitar which culminated with this album. It went on to inspire a whole generation of wannabes (including yours truly). 

2. Black Sabbath  - Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

This album has two of my favorite things: Ozzy Osbourne and metal. If I could only listen to one metal album, it might as well be the progenitor of all that is dark and heavy.

3. Kate Bush - Hounds of Love

Before there was Regina Spektor there was Tori Amos, and before her there was Kate Bush. What can I say, it took a lot of balls to put out a concept album in the 80's. 

4. Jeff Buckley - Grace

He only finished this one album before he died, but it still has a lasting impact almost two decades later. For better or worse, we probably owe the prevalence of modern male sopranos like James Blunt, Ben Bridwell (Band of Horses), Chis Martin and really just about every male pop singer today to Jeff Buckley and this album. 

Jeff Buckley made it cool to sound like a eunuch again.

5. Stevie Ray Vaughan - Couldn't Stand the Weather

Steve Ray Vaughan: The last guitar hero. This dude had guitar tone so thick you could cut it with a sawzall. Just try not to get chills whille listening to his cover of Vodoo Chile. Plus it has a picture of a tornado on the front, so, you know...

R.I.P. S.R.V.

Runners Up

The Cure - Disintegration

P.J. Harvey - Stories From the City Stories From the Sea

Prince  - Purple Rain

and many more...

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After our gig at The Independent, we headed to our friend Brenda's place near St. George, Ga. She is a yoga instructor whom Nikki had met through working and playing at Magnolia Fest over the years. We spent most of the evening touring her property and hanging out in the yurt that she had built in May of 2011. Later that night, she made us some quinoa with sauted vegetables and toasted pumpkin seeds. It was nice to get a look inside an actual yurt as me and Nikki are thinking about building one on the mountain property someday if we can ever squirl enough money away.

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The next morning she gave us a free yoga instruction. This was my first time ever doing any kind of structured routine. Let's just say it's not as easy as it looks, and I'll probably be sore for a few days. 

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We woke up this morning after sleeping in the Morgan Creek Grill parking lot and decided to head on down to Jacksonville for the European Street Cafe show. We were heading out from the Charleston, SC area so we took I-95 South the whole way down. It just so happened that a strong cold front was sweeping through the area and was firing off some pretty nasty thunderstorms, some of which had tornadoes embedded. Given what happened the prior day with the same system, we decided to hunker down for a bit at a nearby rest area. I do have a background in meteorology and I get excited over such things, but I've never been one to seek out imminent danger. 

We made it to the venue intact and did the usual: eat a quick dinner, set up, play, breakdown and head to wherever we're sleeping (not the van tonight). Magnolia Fest folks came out and were as enthusiastic as usual. 

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Blue Bell kept us safe again last nigt in the parking lot of the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Mount Pleasant. This is starting to become our routine now: pull into the parking lot, go in and buy whatever essentials we need for the night, then wait for the other RV's to pull in. It makes us feel a little more safe. It's a strength in numbers kind of thing, and the RV's are usually bigger than Blue Bell, so it's like the older brother pulled into the neigborhood to keep the bullies away. It's strange, we rarely ever see the people driving them, but we still feel a real camaraderie with the folks inside. They're almost always gone by the time wake up in the morning. We never get a chance to thank them, not that we would anyway.

We headed over to our favorite Starbucks in the area to do some booking; however, Nikki was still feeling under the weather so she mostly slept in the van. We had a gig at Morgan Creek Grill in the evening so we headed over around 4'ish to take advantage of the free meal they were throwing our way. We managed to push through a 4-hour gig with Nikki's throat just barely staying intact by the time we were done. They let us park the van in the restaurant parking lot overnight to sleep....got a five-hour drive tomorrow morning.

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We returned to the barn jam tonight in Awendaw, SC. Nikki was part of a songwriter-in-the-round segment. Closing out the night was our friends
Megan Jean and the KFB

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