Cinder Bridge atop the mountain

Sunday afternoon, from noon to 1:45, Cinder Bridge will be playing Music on the Mountain.

What is Music on the Mountain, you ask? It's a concert series put together by LAVA (Live Acoustic Venue Association), and it happens at the top of a mountain. Specifically, Mt. Lemmon in Tucson, Arizona.

Here are a few features bundled with MOTM events:

1. Significantly cooler air
   
2. The smell of fresh pine needles
   
3. Good food & libations (try a La Indita popover -- you will thank me)

To get there, drive up Catalina Highway and keep going 'til you reach the top.

The awesome Amber Norgaard takes the stage after we do and plays until 5 p.m. If you haven’t heard her yet, now’s the perfect opportunity.

Oh, and according to the weather forecasts, there's a chance of rain. Whatever. The musicians play under a big freakin' tentlike structure, and the audience listens to us under same. Rain or shine, we'll all stay dry.

Chatting on the air

Thanks to everyone who tuned in to the Cinder Bridge interview on KXCI this Wednesday.

The whole thing went off much more smoothly than I expected. In general, I am not particularly good at coming up with witty responses in high-pressure situations. If I can get through one of these things without mispronouncing my own name, I consider it a success.

But Wednesday's Live at 5 wasn't a high-pressure situation at all. Instead of firing a succession of questions in our general direction, DJ Cathy Rivers just ... talked with us. It felt like we were simply continuing the conversation we'd started before the show, only now there were other people listening.

We also found out, before we went live, that Cathy Rivers' mother has ME/CFS. So she was more than happy to give some discussion time to "Everybody Knows About Me," our song about living with the disease.

The only thing I'd do differently, if I had it to do over again, would be to emphasize the most serious physical symptoms of ME/CFS -- for instance, the fact that people who have it tend to die earlier. Cathy Rivers said something about how sufferers have low cortisol, which makes it impossible for them to cope with stress. I riffed on that for a while. Now I'm hoping that listeners didn't take what I said the wrong way, thinking stress causes ME/CFS instead of the other way around.

For the record, listeners, stress doesn't cause ME/CFS. The disease is in no way, shape, or form psychological.

Other than that, everything went swimmingly. I can't wait for us to do it again. And I hope you enjoyed hearing us babble as much as we enjoyed babbling.

Before the broadcast

The more Ron the Drummer and I promote a Cinder Bridge event, the more nervous I get. What if it turns out we can't play at the last minute? What if the gig gets cancelled and there's no time to tell everyone?

We promoted the holy hell out of yesterday's Live at 5 radio interview. Through it all, I kept my fingers crossed. I hoped they wouldn't need to change the date on us again. I hoped I wouldn't come down with laryngitis. I hoped that if everything else went OK, I wouldn't forget all the words to our songs as we played live on the air.

Most of all, I hoped we wouldn't run out of time before we got to play "Everybody Knows About Me," about living with ME/CFS. I'd tried my hardest to get word out to the ME/CFS community that we'd be on the air with this song.

My worst fear almost came to pass.

Just before Ron and I were about to load up our equipment, he got a call from the station. Turns out KXCI's board was fried. They could still interview us and play songs from our album, Highways and Hiking Shoes, but we wouldn't be able to perform.

Talk about close calls. The station had a copy of our album, but not "Everybody Knows About Me." If they hadn't caught us before we hit the road, we would have left without it.

Compared to all the work and worrying, the actual interview was a breeze.

* * *

Next time: The actual interview.

(Almost) Live at 5

Well, we weren't able to play our songs in the studio due to technical difficulties. However, DJ Cathy Rivers played four of our recorded songs on the air and interviewed us live. Good times. I'll give more details later.

For now, let me just say: DJ Cathy Rivers is da bomb.

A couple more broadcast notes

Two things I should mention before Wednesday's Live at 5 broadcast:

First, I've already said that this will take place between 5 and 6 p.m. What I failed to say is that this is 5–6 p.m. MST. So if you're in California, start listening at 5. If you're on Mountain Daylight Time, tune in at 6. If you're on Central Time, tune in at 7. If you're on the East Coast, tune in at 8 p.m.

Sorry, I realize that this is a ridiculous level of detail. It's just, listening to some radio show at the wrong time because I forgot about the whole time zone concept? That's exactly the kind of thing I would do.

Second, we plan to play "Everybody Knows About Me" -- our song about living with undiagnosed ME/CFS -- during this broadcast. Barring unforeseen scheduling weirdness, it will probably be the second of three songs we perform live. Time permitting, we hope to be able to talk a little about the song during the interview too.

So, if you blog about ME/CFS or other diseases in the same invisible illness boat, please, let people know about this. You and your devoted followers can tune in from wherever you are in the world by going here.

Cinder Bridge on air on WEDNESDAY

Due to some scheduling changes at KXCI, Cinder Bridge is now doing Live at 5 on Wednesday, August 19. That's tomorrow at this writing.

We will play three songs, and there will also be an interview. They'll broadcast us sometime between 5 and 6 p.m. If you turn on at 5 and don't hear us right away, hang in there.

To listen on the radio (from Tucson), tune in to 91.3 FM.

To listen online, do this:

1. Go to KXCI's "listen now" page at http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kxci/ppr/index.shtml
   
   
2. Click one of the two "play" options.

If you can't tell by looking which play option to choose, just try one; if it doesn't work, try the other.

And if you haven't done this sort of thing before, try following the instructions before Wednesday 5 p.m. Everything should work smoothly, but a little preparation never hurts.

Cinder Bridge on KXCI: Where and when

Next FridayWednesday, KXCI is going to broadcast Cinder Bridge playing music and answering interview questions as wittily as possible. Here's all the info you'll need to tune in.

Where

KXCI is a Tucson community radio station. To hear us via radio, go to 91.3 on the dial.

If you're out of KXCI's broadcast range (or if they happen to sound fuzzy in your corner of Tucson), don't despair. You can listen on the Web:

1. Go to KXCI's "listen now" page at http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kxci/ppr/index.shtml
   
   
2. To launch the streaming music, click one of the two "play" options. (If you can't tell by looking which option to choose, just try one; if it doesn't work, try the other.)
   
   
3. When the show is over and you don't want to listen to KXCI anymore, close the application the site launched to play it. (Closing the browser window itself won't help.)

When

Day: Friday, August 21Wednesday, August 19
Time: between 5 and 6.

That last bit is important. The show is called Live at 5, but exactly when we start is up for grabs. Also, the show doesn't always happen all at once. Sometimes they play other people's songs in between.

Whee!