Quick rundown, left to right

Top row:
Merch case (my mom’s old suitcase, brand name “Lady Baltimore”)
My Blueridge acoustic, in a backpack-strap case.
Motorcycle jacket
Tent and bedroll

Second row:
“Bubba keg” water bottle
Camping pillow
Sleeping bag
Rain gear
Sleepwear
Helmet & gloves

Third row:
Vibram FiveFingers, for when I need to get those boots off
Danelectro Honeytone amplifier – great for busking!
4 pairs Socks
Jacket lining & facemask
4 shirts- two longsleeve, two shortsleeve
Base layer & workout clothes
1 pair Jeans

Fourth row:
Spare parts (bulbs, spark plugs, coil & reg/rect) and full toolkit
Headlamp, tire pump, fixaflat
Receipt folder for tax-deductible purchases
Tuner pedal, loop pedal, direct box, clip-on tuner, capo, microphone (Shure SM-58)
Instrument cables
Spare guitar strings & picks (shout out to my sponsor -http://www.knucklehead.com/)
Headphones, external hard drives
Toiletry bag

Fifth row:
power strip with charger for: MacBook, iPhone, Bluetooth, iPad
Macbook in sleeve

Time to get this all into my backpack & saddlebags. I test-loaded yesterday, so I know it will fit!

The post What goes with me on tour? appeared first on Michael McFarland - Writer, Rocker, Biker, Geek: Rhythmic Alt-Pop from Asheville, NC.

One of the last things on my lengthy to-do list for this tour was to obtain a full motorcycle endorsement on my driver’s license. Since, up to this point, I had been travelling only in North Carolina on the bike, my temps were quite sufficient. Many states, however, will not recognize out of state temporary permits, so I had to get legal!

There were two ways I could go about this: take the DMV’s “road test”, which involves navigating a series of obstacles in their parking lot, or take the Motorcycle Safety Foundation‘s Basic RiderCourse. As I have not had a readily available parking lot, or the measurements for placement of the obstacles, I was not confident that I could ace the DMV’s test. As they only run the test once a week, I didn’t want to take the chance of not passing and not obtaining my endorsement before hitting the road. I also thought that it might give my loved ones a little peace of mind about my tour. Finally, I’d heard great things, even from experienced riders, about the class. So, a month ago I enrolled in the Blue Ridge Community College and signed up for the April 6-8 BRC.

Without going into extensive detail about the course, I will say that it was well worthwhile, and I learned a huge amount about maneuvering, techniques, safety, and handling emergency situations. I’d highly recommend it to any rider, even if you already have your endorsement.

At one point during the weekend (the class spans 3 days – a Friday night, and all day Saturday and Sunday), during a bit of downtime, several of us students were standing around chatting with Julia, one of the “RiderCoach” instructors. We were all talking about what we currently ride, or what kind of bike we’re planning to get. When it came my turn, I said that I ride a ’74 Condor A350, and explained how it’s a Swiss military motorcycle with a Ducati motor, how there were only 3,000 manufactured, and some other fun facts. She grinned and said, “You know, I’m not surprised that you’re the one who’s riding something I’ve never heard of. You struck me as a ‘none of the above’ type.”

I chuckled and smiled, but on the inside the gears were turning in my head – I’d never really thought of myself in those terms, but it struck me as a wonderful encapsulation of the way I generally approach life. I’ve always found great pleasure in discovering a different way to do or think about things.

I guess that explains why I’m touring on a motorcycle.

One decision I made over the weekend is that before leaving on tour, I’m going to swap my current half-helmet for a full-face affair. While what I’ve been wearing would likely save my brain (which I value quite a bit) in case of a collision, my face might not fare so well. I’d prefer to avoid plastic surgery if possible… even if I could fulfill my life-long dream of looking like a young William Shatner. On the other hand, I’ll be opting for a helmet without a face-shield, so I’ll still be rocking the goggles. Hey, if it’s good enough for The Toecutter, it’s good enough for me…

The post On Motorcycle Safety, and being “None of the Above” appeared first on Michael McFarland - Writer, Rocker, Biker, Geek: Rhythmic Alt-Pop from Asheville, NC.

Over the past week, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to my online identity, and the archipelagic nature thereof. I’d been having a difficult time reconciling the different aspects of my personality, and the related interests, into one cohesive whole. I’m a singer-songwriter, whose roots are in rock music, who has a deep and abiding love for the english language and uses words like “archipelagic”, who rides a motorcycle, who has great pride in his Scottish heritage, who is a unabashed geek in many areas – technology, graphic design, science (fiction and real-world), music… you get the picture. At various times I felt like I was allowing myself to express one or two of these facets of my personality, but never truly showing the “real me”.

After a discussion with my new friend Loren Weisman at the Millennium Music Conference last weekend, I concluded that something needed to be done about this. The solution, I realized with Loren’s help, was to bring harmony to my interests by celebrating the contradictions that make me who I am. If you’re reading this blog on my website, you’ll see emblazoned in orange letters above this post the four Michael McFarlands that at various times will rear their head:

Writer. Rocker. Biker. Geek.

Within a few minutes of our first meeting, Loren was also berating me for the fact that I didn’t have a logo. I pointed to the hand-drawn logotype that I’ve been using for the past year and a half, since I released my first EP, which he dismissed with, “That’s just a font. It’s got character, but it doesn’t sum up who you are.” So I had another challenge: how do I sum up those four aspects of my personality in one cohesive logo. I found myself lying in bed that night rolling ideas around in my head, and then all of a sudden it hit me: The McFarland Crest.

As you can see to the right of this paragraph, the crest of Clan McFarland (also written MacFarland, MacFarlane, Mac Parlain) is a shirtless dude with an awesome beard, clutching a handful of arrows and pointing at a crown, encircled by a belt with the motto “This I’ll Defend.” Or to put it in the language of heraldry, “demi-savage proper, holding in his dexter hand a sheaf of arrows, and pointing with his sinister to an imperial crown, with the motto, This I’ll defend” (Thanks Wikipedia!)

I’ve been a fan of that motto ever since I first encountered it several years back, and thought it was pertinent to the idea of what I was doing with this logo – proudly claiming the various aspects of who I am, and that I will stand behind them. As heraldry is one of the earliest examples of logo design, what could be more appropriate than to use that as the basis for my logo? I decided to take the “writer, rocker, biker, geek” idea, and abstract each of those concepts into icons. The pen, the rock’n'roll “devil horns”, the goggles I wear on my motorcycle, and the Vulcan salute. Live long and prosper.

Bringing the logo to life:

Since Made a Mess, I’ve hand-drawn most of the artwork related to my music with felt-tip markers, but none of those pieces began that way. I’m far more comfortable designing on a computer than with a pencil in my hand, so I began my process (as I did with all those other pieces) by creating a vector-based design in Adobe Illustrator.

When I felt I had the design to a point where I was satisfied, I saved it to a PDF, which I opened on my iPad.

I then wrapped my poor iPad in tracing paper, which I taped to the back with electrical tape – my artist tape was nowhere to be found. You work with what you have!

I took a screen shot of the vector image, and set it as my lock screen – the touchscreen works through the tracing paper, and I didn’t want to the image moving all over the place. Voila! A digital light table.

Traced the image with a Sharpie finepoint marker – took about 15 minutes.


Scanned that back into the computer, did a bit of tweaking in Photoshop & Illustrator to get the colors right while maintaining the hand-drawn feel, and here’s my final result, soon to christen bathroom walls across the country!

The post This I’ll Defend: The Evolution of a Logo appeared first on Michael McFarland - Writer, Rocker, Biker, Geek: Rhythmic Alt-Pop from Asheville, NC.

My Condor A350, parked in my kitchen!

There is currently a 1974 Condor A350 motorcycle parked in my kitchen. It’s a motorcycle I bought a few months after moving to Asheville, North Carolina, in fulfillment of a desire I’d had for years. I’d ridden a few friends’ bikes in the past, but had never been able to justify purchasing one of my own. After moving to Asheville, I realized my situation had changed – I had paid off my car loan, as well as the last of my debt to my parents a few months earlier, my monthly expenses had decreased drastically, I was living only a few miles from the Blue Ridge Parkway (some of the best riding in the country), and was looking for an exciting new way to undertake my next tour. At last, I felt I could buy a motorcycle without a shred of guilt!

I looked into a lot of different types of bikes – Cafe Racers, Ural sTs, vintage Triumphs, Royal Enfields, and classic BMWs. Finally, I spotted a listing online for this motorcycle at a shop just outside of Atlanta. The next morning my roommate Chris & I got up bright & early and hit the road for Georgia. I fell in love with the Condor A350 immediately, and put a down payment on it that day. It took me the better part of a month to line up financing for the rest of the cost (that’s a whole other story, and would likely involve a good deal of griping and profanity), but finally I rented a motorcycle trailer from uHaul, and Chris & I made the trip back to Atlanta to bring her home.

A page from the newly-discovered manual

A few details for the motorcycle enthusiasts – it has a Ducati single motor in it, the same as was used in the late 60s Ducati Scramblers, but with a few tweaks to make it easier to service in the field. Dell’Orto carburetor, Marzocchi telescopic forks, drum brakes front & back. One neat feature is that the rear wheel can be removed without removing the chain, which should certainly make life easier in the case of a flat! It came with the original military-issue toolkit, which includes most everything necessary to work on the motorcycle. Also included was the most recent military logbook, with details on maintenance and records of every trip it made from 1991 until 2001, when it was finally taken out of service. I keep discovering new things about it, as well. After bringing it into the kitchen earlier today and starting to pull pieces off, I discovered a compartment in the bottom of the seat containing a tire pump and a leather pouch containing various documents and reference manuals – all in German, of course, but an undeniably cool discovery.

Oh, and I’m in possession of the first civilian title for this motorcycle. How I managed to get the state of North Carolina to finally issue me that title is another story fraught with weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Before anyone comments (hi big sis!), I always wear my helmet when riding.

Ah yes, but I still haven’t answered why this motorcycle is in my kitchen. As I alluded to earlier, I’ll be undertaking my spring tour entirely on the Condor, with my guitar strapped to my back. Call me a romantic, but that feels about as close to the ideal of the traveling minstrel as you’re likely to find, nowadays. I thought it would be prudent to give it an overhaul before taking it on a 3,600 mile journey, so Chris & I will be giving the engine a complete rebuild before I hit the road in late April, and will also be making a few additional tweaks to coax a little more power out of her. The only reasonable place we could find to do this was my kitchen!

I can’t wait to see you all out on the road!

The post Why is there a motorcycle in my kitchen? appeared first on Michael McFarland - Writer, Rocker, Biker, Geek: Rhythmic Alt-Pop from Asheville, NC.