Tonight I fly to Buenos Aires. There will be two days of rehearsals, then we start a brief tour of Argentina, Chile, and Brasil. It's been ages since I've done more than a single out-of-town show but because my “day job” has always involved a lot of travel, I'm comfortable with being on the move.

There are a few key things to making it through a few weeks of work travel, either as a musician or as a business “road warrior” (how I hate that term). And I learn more every trip.

1. Pack sensibly. Start with enough socks. Then one fewer on the underwear. Then one fewer still for shirts, and finally two pair of trousers and one rain jacket. It's quick and easy to wash things in the sink or tub and let them dry overnight, and the lighter your load, the better.
2. Musically, the things that matter to me are reliability, and then… well, reliability. I'm packing one guitar, a couple cables, and a tiny digital modeling pedalboard with its power supply. Finally, there's the luxury of my own vocal mic as house mics might as well be biohazard sites. The guitar is my Boss GS-1, which is versatile, comfortable, and stays in tune. Save the exotic vintage pieces of art for the living room.
3. Physical health is vital. I nap when I can, stay hydrated, avoid junk food, and don't drink. A couple days of living carefree is okay, but it catches up with you fast. I also go for as many walks as I can, which is related to my last point…
4. Mental health. Go for a walk in each new city if you possibly can, and see some nature, art, or parks. Get away from the people you travel with, no matter how much you normally adore each other. I know I need solo time, just to switch off my brain. And remember there's more to life than the gig, or the job. It's good to read a book, do some sketches, write in your journal, or just watch an old movie on your phone. 

See ya soon,

/EW

 1.⁠ ⁠I don't want to live chasing my footprints. 
When I am what I am, God appears in me.

 2.⁠ ⁠Not defining myself defines me.

 3.⁠ ⁠My soul lives outside my body. 
Thought begins in my feet.

 4.⁠ ⁠Fire, you warm, you illuminate, without knowing that you are fire.

 5.⁠ ⁠The best of gifts, one more day!

 6.⁠ ⁠Behind me there is a point, in front of me a comma.

 7.⁠ ⁠Moonless night. 
A single firefly lights up the whole sky.

 8.⁠ ⁠I die without dying in myself. 
Goodbye leeches of the I was.

 9.⁠ ⁠I love you "because yes" and not "because of".

10.⁠ ⁠So that things do not possess us, we possess things.

11.⁠ ⁠You want that because you are that. 
The exterior is your interior.

12.⁠ ⁠Memory? Bitter traces oozing destinies.

13.⁠ ⁠Many, at their commands and prohibitions, call love.

14.⁠ ⁠In vain, I wanted to change my face. When I transformed my memory, I only changed my mask.

…

If you celebrate the light of the fire, respect what is consumed.
I transform my search into receiving…
Thank you very much!
Alejandro

…

/VR

Time seems very elastic, doesn't it? Particularly when you're looking forward to a series of gigs in new places. Weeks crawl by, but then accelerate madly as you realize you need to somehow…

• Squeeze three weeks of clothes, a guitar, some cables, and a pedalboard into airline-approved parcels
• Figure how to keep the guitar from being damaged and/or stolen going between countries
• Realize you need to do a lot of laundry in the shower because no way you can bring that many clothes
• Remember you don't speak Portugese and your Spanish is terrible
• Experiment with packing an acoustic guitar case with your clothes, then an electric guitar, and more clothes on top
• Start cramming Duolingo

Still, this should be a fun three weeks. I've traveled so much for work and music that I'm not that bothered waking up unsure of which city I'm in, and it's great to meet people united by love of music. Plus, it's summer in South America, which will be a shock after the winter solstice here in the north. 

Finally, there's no substitute for playing a lot, in different rooms with different sound systems, and in front of new audiences. It sharpens your skills and brings performers and listeners closer, making the music better. And, with that strange elasticity of time, those minutes on stage seem to at once last forever and evaporate in a moment.

See you,

/EW

On October 16, 2024, our first single and the accompanying video will be released. It's pretty - rewarding? satisfying? - to have made it this far, and while we have begun writing more songs for the next album, it's also kind of nice to just take a deep breath.

We can't breathe for too long. We have some announcements coming soon, more songs, videos, a complete album, and what looks like an international tour. The energy we share doesn't seem to be waning, so let's keep moving… when you stop moving you stop living.

/EW

Cold, rainy and windy winter days in Buenos Aires. We have been listening to the mixes and masters of the album, (we sent messages to each other to see what each other listens to, and what things could be improved.) It's very difficult to do this from a distance!

Now it's sounding great, Eric is doing a very good job!

I'm writing the scores and harmonic chords of the 8 songs so that their are ready with the release of the album, although it can be a bit hard work, I like doing it because it's getting to know the songs even more thoroughly. 

I always think it's like registering them like when someone is born. 

Also have been doing networking and social media. 

/VR

VR and I joke that we're not really writing these songs, but that we're just working for some spirit called Aerolinea, which tells us what to do. But it's not entirely a joke. When we first talked about trying to make a song together, it was in a series of Instagram messages. And it seemed interesting, but not realistic. Still, it's fun to try a new challenge. 

The first thing we wrote together will of course be on the album, and I think we were both surprised at how easily it went. We had full permission to chop up, remove, modify, or add to the other's ideas, and we've certainly done that. 

In the early days of Aerolinea, I asked Che Aimee Dorval how she succeeded in her collaboration with Devin Townsend, Casualties of Cool. She said you had to release the sense of ownership of your ideas: that once you shared it with your collaborator, it was no longer yours to control. 

We send recordings of ideas back and forth. They can be anything from a melody and words sung into a phone on a beach (really) to a chord progression, to a half-finished song idea with multiple tracks. Because we both play a few instruments, sing, and engineer, we then sit down in our home studios to build some demos, taking these first ideas and interpreting them. 

Oddly, some of these demo tracks have ended up on the album. For instance, there is a little guitar solo in What Moves You that was my first take, and completely improvised. I never thought of anything that fit better, so it stays on the album. And VR has a talent for getting vocals the first take, which makes recording easy because then you have the luxury of trying other moods or styles for later takes, while knowing you have a good one already.

Gigs when living on different continents are going to be an adventure. We have some showcases in the works…

/EW

My first time in US was in March 2024. I had scheduled a series of solo performances with my own songs,
met many friendly and wonderful musicians in the local scene of Miami, AND (after a year of working a lot remotely) I met Eric personally, who drove from Atlanta to Florida where I was. The first time we met was a bit strange, but we immediately felt comfortable, and we got to work, we recorded all the vocals for the album in less than a week.  It was really easy and natural.  Aerolinea feels something that really needs to happen … /VR

Eric came to Buenos Aires for the first time this month . That was really awesome, we could rehearse all our songs, worked on the album cover painting on acrylic (we decided to only use red black and white), and we did a bunch of videos, a live session and a video clip . I also wanted to show him the city a little when we had some time off , (I m not really a good touristic guide so that challenged me)…things are so different here than from the US ! 
But he catches up very quick.

Aerolinea is really alive now, setting up the latest details to release our first album, named “All We Need”…soon ❤️ i m excited to share this work

/VR

It's only been ten days since I came back from Buenos Aires, but it at once seems like yesterday and like a lifetime ago. We had a flurry of rehearsals. We worked out the details of the last song for our album. We created album art, and shot so much video: some of a live performance, and what we think will be a beautiful representation of the single from the album.

We also just took pics and video around the city, capturing moments and thoughts. It was a crash course in cooperation, and proof that Aerolinea has a real spark, some kind of energy we don't completely understand but won't question. I'm glad you're here to join us.

/EW