Chapter 4 Now that I could play music for tips, I spent more of my time in Athens rather than Nelsonville. I would spend the majority of my day busking outside of Witt's, right at the corner of Court and Union. A couple of my friends, Tristan and Ryan, we're also homeless and would busk with me sometimes, although they also spent much of their time at the Smiling Skull Saloon while I busked alone, especially in the mornings. We didn't have a name yet, but we're often playing and practicing together as a street band.

One of my friends in the local music scene helped me record Ohio Outlaw. He also gave me my first real show, playing a set during his band's set break at the Smiling Skull Saloon.

After the 2016 Nelsonville Music Festival, we (Tristan, Ryan, and I) went down to West Virginia for a Rail Yard Ghosts show at Kamp Krusty. I showed up too late to catch the show, but stayed the night at the venue, an old church that had been converted for punk shows.

The plan had been to hitch down to South Carolina for a Days N Daze show afterward, but while hanging out with the Rail Yard Ghosts the next day, they invited my friends and I to jump in their caravan for a few more shows, including one with The Hills and the Rivers at Owl Hollow in Pittsburgh.

After the Rail Yard Ghosts dropped us off, we busked up some cash that included a fake $100 bill, although we didn't know it was fake yet, then hitched a ride to Philly. One of the days we were there, we made $120 busking from only two kickdowns, both from the same person, the only person who tipped us at all that day. She tipped us $20 during the day, then after we realized the $100 bill we had was fake while at a McDonald's, Ryan said, "Don't worry guys, we'll just go busk again and make another," so we did and that woman came back up to us and tipped us the $100 she'd just made playing a show.

We were in Philly several days longer than we wanted to be, as a train had derailed in a tunnel in Baltimore and stopped freight traffic, something we didn't even know until a couple taggers came into the yard and told us, and by that time the problem had been solved and we caught the southbound IM early the next morning. Our train blew right through Savannah, and we had to ride it all the way to Jacksonville, arriving about 26 hours after leaving Philly. We walked to a nearby gas station after getting off the train and got lucky enough to catch a ride to Savannah with Tristan's stepdad, whom was already on his way there from Florida.

We stayed at Tristan's mom's for the majority of the time we were in Savannah. Tristan and Ryan's friend Kyle met up with us to join our band on banjo, and we finally decided on the name Appalachian Soup Company, a name Ryan's dad had previously suggested.

We were in Savannah for at least a couple weeks. While there, we would occasionally visit some of Tristan's friends, also dirty kids. One of those friends had another friend who had come down from and was leaving back to Tennessee. He gave us a ride to Nashville.

While in "Music City", we stayed in some bushes at the park down by the river. Ryan left his sleeping bag in the bushes and cleaning crew threw it away and he had to use a big, orange trash bag we each got from an old lady who had to kick us out from under a building we were using for shelter from a rain storm as his sleeping bag for awhile.

We spent most of the day busking up and down the main strip. Sometimes the cops would leave us alone, while other times they kept running us off, especially right before and on the 4th of July. On the 4th we couldn't busk anywhere for any amount of time before the cops were telling us we could not there.

The park where we slept was right by the amphitheater, and from the park we were able to listen to concerts by Bare Naked Ladies and Sheryl Crow. Of course, the bars all along the main street we're also always overflowing with music, although they were usually just cover bands. There was seriously one time I walked down the main street and heard more than three different bands playing "Wagon Wheel" out of different bars - all at the same time. I've always joked about that moment, saying Nashville is actually "Cover Music City".

While we were split into two groups - Tristan and Kyle, and Ryan and I - Tristan and Kyle got a $100 kickdown, which they used to get Ryan a new mandolin. Ryan's old mandolin was an actual old mandolin from the 1930s. Ryan gave the old mandolin to a friendly rail worker in the train yard when we were on our way out of town. We were in the wrong spot at first when he spotted us and we talked to him for awhile about the trains and where they go.

We eventually caught our ride to Chicago, rolling in just before the sun came up. We got off the train a little before we probably needed to, still a bit outside the city, but we had rolled into a yard and wanted to play it safe. Once out of the yard, we walked down to a nearby gas station and Tristan got in touch with one of his friends in the area, Heather.

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