All is well... in Seattle tonight. (The Portland show turned out fine.) Happy Memorial Day. Love, Chris

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! Stress, fear, loathing, insecurity, and hay fever all at once. I'm in Portland, Oregon tonight with a towel over my shoulder to blow my nose with. Nobody has shown up and it's show-time. I'm hiding in the "green room" and chewing stale gum. This is my world now. The ranching life is starting to look good for the first time in fifteen years.

I am in Chico, CA waiting my turn to play. We're at Moxie's Coffee House and a rapper named M.C. Orville just finished his set. Now it's Ivan's time to shine.

I'm too fascinated by the constantly curving, swirling existence of tour-life to be bored. Never-the-less... I'm excited to return to my homes in Olympia, Montana, and North Dakota in these next couple weeks! Yay!!!

California has been swell. The Oakland show last night was awesome-- I sold $160 in merch after a twenty-minute set. The house-show before that in Santa Cruz was inspired, but poorly attended. The same goes for the San Luis Obispo show. However, in SLO I had one fan who was so enthusiastic that he bought all my cds and he didn't even own a cd-player. He was a true character: 54, Hispanic, into fixing up hot-rods, taking care of his dying mother. He couldn't stop raving about my music and almost started crying during "Go Easy on Me Boss (My Heart is Breakin')". Anyway, the road is filled with these connections and it's sad to have to let them go each evening... or morning.

Our show in L.A. was off the chain. I don't know where to start in describing it except to say it took place on one of the tallest hills in Hollywood and overlooked the ocean of lights that comprise the Los Angeles valley. And miraculously a lot of people found there way up the steep hill and crowded onto the spacious lawn. The highlight of the night for me was the crew of teen-age Latino anarchist kids that showed up with their 40-dogs of Olde English and mingled with the more glamorously-dressed. During the show they crowded up front and one beautiful young woman from that crew kept repeating after every song: "I loooove you Sandman!" That was the most heart-breaking thing I think I've ever heard.

Anyway, it's time for me to go play for these college kids. Ivan just rocked the house. I don't really feel like entertaining tonight, but I'll try my best.

Ivan and I have survived southern California and today we are in Santa Cruz.

In Hollywood... amazing show last night.

Tucson is a sauna. I like their public library; it's nice and cool, and the librarians are friendly. I appreciate librarians, except for the one dude in San Luis Obispo last year who threatened to call the cops on me for spending too much time in the rest-room. He didn't understand the concept of constipation and it there was much verbal jarring to be had while I helplessly sat on the porcelain throne. Anyway... Tucson is hot today.

I liked our El Paso show at Moontime Pizza. I sold lots of merch and enjoyed the headlining band, the Weary Boys. The drives have been long and I like being back in the West! The cacti are blooming abundantly.

I am truly too exhausted to write more than this: Tonight I am in Austin, Texas.

In three days I will be in California.

In three weeks I will be in Minneapolis.

In three months I will be insane. (In a good way.)

We have some long drives ahead of us this week. I look forward to playing Little Rock, Arkansas tonight since I've never been there. Both the Murfreesboro and Nashville shows went well enough. I especially enjoyed Nashville as Camo joined me for a couple songs that I can only do with him, and the band that headlined was amazing-- Moe Raw and Supergroup. They were funky to the extreme and brought with them an African-American contingent who responded enthusiastically to my/our songs.

Gawd dannngnit-- there is so little time to communicate via the web! I could really use three hours a day on this thing rather than one hour every three days.

Ok, here's the news in brief:

We are in Charlottesville, Virginia tonight. Our show in D.C. went excellent due to my friend Nana. She flyered the town and then sent out three emailings to her many friends who then brought their friends. Again, like in Maine, I wasn't necessarily in my "zone" but the crowd liked the show anyway and I impressed the owner with my (Nana's, actually) drawing power. The band that played before us was called Michael McDermott and the bass player was one of the ex-Go Go's-- Belinda Carlisle, I think.

The Baltimore gig was good in spite of the low turnout. Lots of adventures there; don't know where to begin...

Philadelphia was strange. The house-party we were supposed to play at didn't happen because nobody was home! Fortunately my friends Jessica, James, Jan, and Michael arrived and saved the day by talking the owner of an anarchist bar across the street into letting us play. We didn't get paid but I sold a fair amount of merchandise and enjoyed myself. We stayed with Jessica and James and I got to hold their one-year-old, Aiden, who'd been born the day I arrived during last year's tour. He's beautiful. We awoke to a sunny Mother's Day...

Manhattan was marvelous on all accounts. The show at the Sidewalk Cafe rocked-- mostly because a bunch of musician friends from other cities randomly converged upon my midnight set which set me in a great mood. There was Karl Blau who happened to be on tour with Laura Veirs who had just played a few blocks down from the Sidewalk, Jonny Corndawg who had just finished a show in Brooklyn, Carmaig DeForest who was also on a mini-tour of the East-coast, Owen Money and Mariah who had driven down from Maine...

Ivan and I stayed with his friend Shara in Brooklyn that night and I awoke the next morning to a delicious french-toast breakfast she'd cooked. I then hopped a train back to Manhattan and met up with my friend Elizabeth whom I'd recently, officially, met at the Chicago show two weeks earlier and who had just flown into NYC that morning for the screening of a film she'd worked on. (She'd coincidentally seen me three years ago at another venue in Chicago when I'd toured with Andras!) Anyhow, she was with her friend Monica, and we drank smoothies and then I put on a mini-acapella-rap-show in the park for them. The elderly ladies feeding the birds seemed entertained by my presentation of "Persian Den of Sin" and "The Prophet". Too soon, too soon, I had to get back to Brooklyn to meet back up with Ivan.

The New Haven show two day's earlier was my least favorite of the tour. The venue was a yuppified coffee house next to Yale University sparsely filled with mostly bored looking people. We drove straight to Brooklyn after the show and stayed with Shoan One and his girlfriend.

Boston, the day before all that, was spectacular as I already mentioned.

I'm happy to be heading west again. I'd better go now and prepare for the Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar show.

Baltimore is a really beautiful town. I like everything about this place. Gotta go now-- our nation's capitol beckons... I look forward to having time to recount my latest adventures, and hope it won't be long.

Hello from Boston! Our pace has not slowed an iota... The show at Midway Cafe far exceeded my expectations. The place was packed with attentive young people who seemed to hang on every word. I sold lots of merch and made lots of new fans. What more can you ask? Afterwards Ivan and I drove to Nima and Amanda's and slept our hearts out, (after gorging on Nima's stash of delicious Iranian candies).

The show in Portland, Maine was a special one, too. Although I felt out of the "zone" performance-wise, a fair crowd showed up to the venue which is this beautiful, ancient structure on Congress Street. I saw the show as good practice for the bigger, folkier crowds which I'm aiming my vessel towards during the next year. The show was also notable in that I'd never been to Maine before. We stayed with my friend Doug out in the country.

The show before that in Vermont was amazing. I felt like I'd been transported back to 1952 and my name was Gary Snyder or Jack Kerouac. I don't have any more time to expound on the magical experience, unfortunately, but it's true that life is rich in the hidden hills near Middlebury. Wild turkeys, frogs, sheep with un-docked tails, anarchy, spilled wine, orgies (just kidding)... but you get the picture a little perhaps.

Here's a review for tomorrow's show in Maine: Go!

Alas, we were stopped at the border for much too long and didn't make it to Burlington in time to play at Radio Bean. Just as well. My vocal chords need rest... The Lennoxville show was a flop but Ivan got some good video-footage of me singing to a basically empty room.

The U.S. border patrol were obnoxious and I'm pretty sure they borrowed some of my money which I naively left in various pockets amongst the merchandise they pillaged. After an hour waiting for them to go through every pillow-case, it took awhile longer for us to reorganize our belongings. We arrived in Burlington at 2:30 a.m. and slept in the stair-well of an old, Catholic church.

Now we're in Middlebury catching up with emails before our house concert at Anais'.

Exhaustion is setting in. We're in Ottawa tonight-- Canada's Capitol... the government buildings look like ginormous, ancient castles! Last night's Toronto experience was too much (in a good way). We ended up playing four mini-shows... the final one in front of Neko Case and the Sadies at a 4 a.m. house party. Toronto is the greatest city I think I've ever experienced, but I hear that Montreal will be even better.

I'm in Madison, Wisconsin! Ivan and I have played two shows together so far and both have been good. After leaving my folks' place on Thursday morning (with a full belly of french toast and eggs), I drove fourteen hours to Winona, Minnesota. The drive was grueling and I was shaky as I took the stage at the Green Lantern. Ivan was just finishing his set so I didn't have much time to rest or prepare, but my delirium fit the mood of the venue and due to the enthusiastic crowd response I ended up playing two sets, and afterwards sold lots of merch. We crashed at Samuel's pad and the next morning I transferred all my things into Ivan's parents' black Taurus stationwagon. I bade somber farewell to "Joe" and left the key with Alex so he could park it in his parent's garage for the next seven weeks.

Last night we journeyed to Milwaukee where I'd never been and rocked a college coffee-house with Charlemagne. We didn't make too much money there, but someone now owns a "Sandman" pillow-case that didn't before and another person has a CD.

By the way, I haven't been wearing my cowboy hat at these shows. It just doesn't feel right for some reason...

Oofda... greetings from the west side of North Dakota. At 2 a.m. yesterday morning I was still in Olympia... basically drove all night to Livingston, Montana (except for a three-hour stop in Ellensburg, WA, to rest and have breakfast with my good pal Aaron). Then I drove to Spokane and had lunch with Melissa who treated me to a gourmet lunch at the Elk. By day's end I was at Earl and Susan's outside of Livingston. They had bought some land and built a house since the last time I saw them, so now they have to keep busy with their horseshoeing business. Their land is intense, with views of three jagged mountain ranges: the Crazies, the Bridgers, and the Absarokas. I arrived while they were asleep and woke up early to join them for a breakfast of biscuits and eggs. Earl filled a clawfoot tub out in the field with hot water and I soaked and listened to the morning meadowlarks before heading to Killdeer, ND, which is where I am now, at my parents' house. They just bought it for only $32,000 from the bank. It's old and big and nice. We cooked a venison dinner and invited Grandma and Grandpa Sand over, and then we had some ice-cream. I'd better get to sleep. I've been burning the candle a little too hot this last week.

I am in the bottleneck of tour-preparation... soon I will be released. It's a good thing I got that $1000 loan, 'cause I've already spent it on tour-necessities. My house-mates are a little ticked at me for not paying my back-rent, which is the original reason I got the loan. The thing is, I need to go on tour to be able to keep paying my future rent... so I guess they can't argue with me there. Although, they could decide to just kick my ass out and save themselves a lot of trouble.

Now it's Monday. Yesterday was Easter. Check out this funny e-card that my friend sent me: bunnies.

But I have an even greater link for you to peruse that relates to my pseudo record-label: Loner, or L-one-R Records. My friends in the bands Log Hog and Jesus Chords put out a spit-release 7" record and asked me if they could slap "Loner" on it for fun. I, of course, said 'Yes' because not only are both bands awesome and my friends, but one of them is country (Jesus Chords) and the other is hip hop (Log Hog) and that particular union of styles is my steeze, my special talent, my quirky trademark. These two great American genres have been unjustly separated and regularly ridiculed by bourgeois society for classist, racist and wholly outrageous reasons! Unto these philistines I say, "Listen to this 7-inch as a primer for cultural revolution so you may be prepared for the coming upheavals in rhythm and sound!" And to you, sweet reader, please scan this loving record-review of It's the Music which appears on the front page of this month's Splendid. Long live Jesus Chords and Log Hog!

Today has been a very good day. I layed in the sun and stretched. I played frisbee at the park with Giles. I drank a smoothie and cooked a healthy meal for lunch. The air smells delicious yet the pollen is not too thick. The flies are buzzing but not yet in their bothersome swarms. Even the tour feels under control! My shack is clean. My old emails have been organized and/or deleted. I shaved. My clothes are all clean. My athlete's foot is under control. My dandruff has disappeared. 319-JOE has new tires and a fresh oil-change. I have lots of girlfriends. The lawn got mowed. Richard Clarke is exposing the ineptitude of the Bush administration. My poker skills are improving...

Happy Easter Saturday everyone!

I've lost my mind. In spite of that smiling picture to your left, I have lost my friggin' mind!! My brain has completely melted and all I can do is stare blankly at this screen. I have so many emails now with little chunks of information and so many files saved on various floppy disks with various addresses and phone numbers and mailing lists that I literally have become a zombie. Ivan is much better at this than I am. I would like to cry now and go home.

I think Ashley Judd has a crush on me.

CrimeThinc. is doing a good job promoting me-- looky here.

Happy Passover!!! A good little holiday if ever there was one.

It's late and I am pulling my hair out trying to find all the information I want concerning each show-- the radio stations, their music director's email and phone #, the weeklies, their journalists emails and addresses, yada yada yada. Eff that!! I'm going to bed. I have a damn phone-interview to give in seven hours, and I have to drive home from this creepy college which takes twenty-minutes each time. Back and forth all week. My butt hurts. These boxers are too small or something. They creep and crawl.

Booking a tour is super time-consuming. I've been bug-eyed for weeks! If I get paid a dollar for every hour I'm putting into this I'd have all my debts paid off.

This website is up my alley: H2H. I'm going to another barbecue now; it's 72 degrees out!

Everybody, check out Ivan's new webthing: www.ivanokay.com. He's officially changed his stage name to Ivan Okay. Listen to his new hit single-- "Time is a Trap". It's off the chain!!!

p.s. Ivan will be my tour partner for the next couple months for those who do not know...

Scroll down to March 29th to see the rewritten bio. Thanks to Mom and Melissa for your help!

Now I'm off to a barbecue.

I just bought a leather visor and belt at a yard sale on the Evergreen campus. The visor says "Montana: Big Sky Country". I miss you Miss Montana. The belt is old and thin and about to tear, but looks good for now. I also bought some athlete's foot spray.

Today is sunny. The show in Seattle went well last night; I sold four cds and made $15. Better news, though, is that I've joined a low-income credit union and they approved my loan-request for $1000! Now I can pay the last month of rent and most of next month's. I can front Andras some money for the booking work he's been doing for me. And I can send the $375 that's due in five days to the Minneapolis Fringe Fest. In related news, Shawn and Jonah (from Log Hog) have agreed to join me for the five performances of A Year in the Life of Slippery Goodstuff in Minneapolis and pay for half the costs. Shawn (aka "Zardoz" or "Nerviz") produced the tracks for it and will act as "hype-man" for me, i.e. back me up while I rap-- and hype the crowd. Jonah (aka "Blandow") will dee jay: a true hip hopera in the heartland. I'm thrilled!!!

Now if I can get Cindy and Sarah and Susan and Anna and Jen and Khaela involved it will be ON. Full effect. No doubt. Raptacular. Hot... and soooooooooo Slippery.

Here is a new bio I've composed.

SANDMAN: Montana’s Rappin’ Cowboy

Sandman’s music has many facets, but country and rap shine clearest. The influence that drew these two sounds together for him was cowboy poetry, which he heard growing up in Montana and North Dakota. Perhaps the poetry's absence of "music" allowed him to pay closer attention to subtler sounds in the environment, such as the rich vocal inflections of his ranch relatives, the bellowing of Hereford bulls, and his barking Border collie, Heidi. Sometimes the space between the willows and the barbed wire roared the loudest. Sometimes the bludgeoning rhythm of the tractor and post-pounder caught his attention.

Sand lived most of his childhood on the Flathead Indian Reservation in western Montana, where his maternal great-grandparents homesteaded in the early 1900’s. He lived in the country seven miles from where he attended school. Hip hop culture hit "the Rez" in 1983, which began with Michael Jackson’s moonwalk and ended with Boogaloo Shrimp’s gravity-defying head-spins. Chris and his 6th-grade friends enthusiastically practiced break dancing, but by the next year most of his pals had lost interest. Sand was hooked on the lyrics and soul, however, and he transferred his passion diagonally to rap. When working with his dad, he'd listen to George Strait and Alabama, but in his spare moments he'd crank Run-DMC and Chaka Khan.

As he progressed through high school, Sand became frustrated with country isolation. Luckily, he discovered both Bob Dylan and Ice T. This music, and the unlikely discovery of early-'70's reggae, allowed him to persevere and finally graduate.

College followed, as did Sand's first rap band, "DJ Dave and Sandman." DJ Dave eventually moved back east, and Sandman, well he fought some forest fires, traveled, and learned to play guitar. In 1993 he moved to Olympia, Washington, to finish college at Evergreen. While there he mingled with the love-punks, anarchists, and riot grrrls, and found himself a home away from home.

Since then Sand has put out fifteen-or-so tapes and CDs and done some touring, sharing bills with acts ranging from Spearhead to Mirah. Sandman makes a lot of people happy and some people angry. His music is political, sexual, and distinctly western. He has reclaimed the word "cowboy" and made it mean something vivid again--something beyond rodeo and Marlboros, Texas oil barons and Toby Keith.

Perhaps Sand has stepped in enough cow manure and listened to enough songs to know that music isn't necessarily more worthwhile than a good night’s rest, a tall glass of water, or silence. It's just another good thing in a world full of many good things. If you're ever in the mood to hear cowboy philosophy and music through the filter of a post-modern troubadour’s hip hop heart, you’ll want to meet Chris Sand, AKA “Sandman”-- Montana’s rappin’ cowboy.

It's 72 degrees outside! I've had a great week-- through the rain and shine.

While it was raining I holed up in my newly-scrubbed shack and read a 750-page novel, Cloudsplitter. Actually, I still have 100 pages to go. It's such a great, great book that I can barely put it down. It's a fictionalized account of the abolitionist John Brown and his endeavors to end slavery. It feels pertinent to the present era because he, like many of us today, worried that his nation was not doing what it was "supposed to" in making the world a better place to live for all humans. I remember while reading the Autobiography of Malcolm X, Mr. Shabazz proclaimed that John Brown was the only white person he'd ever trust. By that point, John Brown had been dead for ninety-seven years. I recommend both people, and books.

Ivan and my tour is coming together winningly and I've not been very stressed at all about it this week. Wish you were here. ; )

Durn, I'm uninspired again. Or maybe I'm just too inspired by the nice weather to waste any more time in front of this screen than I have to.