Dessa's tour diary, Vol. 1

Photo by Steve Cohen

​We are pleased to host an ongoing tour diary by Doomtree emcee and solo artist Dessa, who is currently on the road with P.O.S. This is Dessa's first installment.

Last Tuesday, the Every Never is Now tour left Minneapolis in P.O.S's white van. The night before we left, I stayed up late, wrapping cords and folding laundry for seven weeks on the road.  I had a checklist scribbled on two index cards, I had eggs cooking on the stove, and I had a dozen last-minute concerns running through my head. As it turned out, I had very little awareness of what my body was doing while my mind was so preoccupied. I looked down to find that I had wrapped my cell phone in a plastic sandwich bag and was moving to place it in the crisper drawer of my refrigerator.

We're now four shows into a 39-day run. Backstage in Salt Lake City, I can hear P.O.S finishing his set. As is par for his course, P.O.S is slaughtering. If you have a mind, and you bring it to a P.O.S show, it will be blown. Be prepared to take it home in your backpack. During his performance in Colorado, a piece of the ceiling fell on my head.

For the first half of this run, our touring party includes Stef (P.O.S); Grieves and his collaborator Budo; Isaac the Cameraman; Stacey the tour manager; and me. DJ Paper Tiger played the first four shows, Plain Ole Bill is at the helm for the rest of the dates. In a few weeks, Grieves will head to Europe and Astronautalis will fill his seat.

Some parts of each day are the same: We pile into the van, find the venue, cart our gear inside, check our microphones and turn tables, then set off to find a restaurant willing to cater to disheveled vegetarians who are obviously from out of town. Isaac the Cameraman--in an indisputable act of brilliance--brought a jump rope on tour. So most days, we'll jump rope outside the van. I can cross my arms and ankles while jumping, but Stef can do a backwards double under. Anybody's game really.

For most of these guys, tour is a familiar routine. For me, this constitutes the first thorough routing across the country. I've played a lot of shows in the past six years, but this tour already feels different--bigger and sometimes daunting. I'm following the advice I've been given: Eat your vegetables, don't drink too much, take your vitamins. Bring your own mic.  Play it hard, each and every night. And I'm trying, even when my brain wants to spin off in a flurry of speculation or apprehension, to pay attention to what my body is doing. For the next month and a half, it's riding in the backseat of a van, traveling across the country to play music in a new city with my friends. I can't tell how sentimental this all sounds (although I imagine that if Sims is reading, he's making a concerned face by now), but I've always been sort of sentimental about Doomtree--can't help it.

So there you have it--the report from Week One. By the next installment, if I can't do a triple under, I'll have the shinsplints to prove I tried.


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