Every other week, a group of people gets together at Matilda and works on Writing the Rails over pasta, wine and buckets of Diet Coke. But just who are these people?

David Kav

We can’t have a tour without a musician and David Kav is our guy. One man with a guitar, he’ll be performing in every city and strumming a few tunes on the train in between. David ran the Chicago Marathon this year and is looking forward to playing music to the runners in the Memphis Marathon.

Theresa Carter

If a musician goes on tour and nobody blogs it, does it happen? We aren’t sure, so we are sending Theresa Carter, aka The Local Tourist, on the train with David. She’ll be writing and photographing the event - as well as doing a small bit of video. She’s an Emmy winning blogger and writer - how cool is that?

Leah Jones

I’m the one writing this post and the founder/owner of Natiiv Arts & Media. David Kav is a client of Natiiv and during our first session, we came up with the crazy idea of putting him on a train. It grew into the soon-to-be-tour series that is Writing the Rails.

Joanna Quargnali-Linsley

Nobody knows music business strategy like Joanna. She and her husband own Misery Loves Co where they do A&R, musician mentoring, design and business strategy. She is one of our task-masters and offers insight from years in the music business that keep this train moving.

Sandro Quargnali-Linsley

Like that guitar that becomes a train? That is Sandro’s quick design work. Sandro is the other half of Misery Loves Co - a designer and musician - who is going to keep up looking good.

Rev Billy

An amazing musician, Billy is one of our brainstormers, doers and will be touring on Writing the Rails: NOLA. When he and David aren’t in the studio collaborating, Rev Billy is in the studio collaborating with others. On top of music, his other secret power is that he’s an amazing hair stylist and keeps Leah’s locks rocking.

Tiff Tate

Tiff Tate, aka The Fem Geek, will be going on Writing the Rails: NOLA. She’s been helping us think about what video we need to capture on this trip to make her job documenting the next trip better. She’s teaching us a lot about documentary film and is the founder of Unscene Chicago.

Melissa Pierce

The producer of Life in Perpetual Beta, Melissa named Writing the Rails and saved us from some very bad names that I came up with. She’s a creative power-house that we might just drag along for NOLA.