Friday
10:00 Coffee House Suzanne Millsaps Memorial Coffee House
11:55-12:50 Concerts in Your Home Showcase
Saturday
10:30 Cassidy Showcase
11:00 Crazy Coyote
12:40 Burnside Distribution Showcase
1:50 Seattle Sounds
Well I guess I should update this while I can. After all I am just sitting here in the airport in Phoenix waiting for a shuttle up to north. Angrily, the gods have forsaken this land and anyone dwelling here, that does not realize this, deserves their fate.
This is a land where they’ll serve a bagel in a Styrofoam clam shell large enough to accommodate a substantial amount of Chicken Lo Mein without batting an eye..
This is not North Dakota where generations of knowledge have taught the people to survive the harsh climes. These people move here from there, their survival skills amounting to a low mortgage and a credit limit. This joint is built with drywall, chicken wire and Freon.. An apocalyptic sandstorm will blow it apart one day and the developers can sell it again.
This is a place where ten bucks at the right thrift store makes you the height of fashion. Joe Camel promotional shirts. Dale Earnhardt jackets. Vegas without the glitz, LA without the beach. God why am I wasting so much time with it? Back to the real world.
October began with a four day band tour starting in Bend and Ending in Goble. Goble? Yeah Goble man, check it. In between we opened for Fred Eaglesmith in Tacoma. Fred is unknowingly (now he knows) a great source of personal influence and creative theft for me. I rank him high amongst contemporary songwriter types. He is also the ultimate do-it-yourself-the-way-you-want-to-do-it guy. If you are unawares, check him out. It was a great honor. Boy that sounded lame. Also Chris Corbell put us on the bill for his cd release. Check him out!
Next Cougar (or the Tiger Rockets) and I made our triumphant return to the Arcata/Eureka area. We narrowly escaped an incident with the law in our rented Chevy aveo. A car that was dipped in gay. We saw them drop it in the vat and suspected a little might have splashed on our arms, so we took off each other shirts and gave each other a good loofa. Kidding Cougar, kidding!
I’d be a fool not to mention Tizley’s Europub in Poulsbo. Rob and Tammy are pumping some nightlife into this quaint Bavarian downtown. I missed the ferry that night and slept in the back of the truck. It was cold too. I had to inoculate myself with several cocktails at a local karaoke bar. I awoke with perhaps the worst hangover of my life that I can only attribute to declining Robs late night Schnitzel offer. I was rendered useless the next day being barely able to make the drive to the taco stand.
I also want to mention a thing called “In the Round” that they hold at the Fremont Abbey in Seattle. It is a cool event and the videos at the bottom of the home page are from that night. Incidentally all these links are still posted on my calendar page.
A couple weeks later I shagged ass out east to play a couple gigs in VT and MA. Along the way I hooked up with Johnny Nighttrain, Knuckles Novo and some other key players. I played a night in NYC and rode the Chinese bus to Boston. The Chinese bus has oh shit handles on the seatbacks. The drivers pass cars like they are standing still. There are no shock absorbers on the Chinese bus.
One night in the city after Nighttrain fed me a whole bunch of cough syrup to shut me up so he could sleep; I wandered down to seventy fifth and Broadway and saw the Rolling Stones coming out of a hotel room. They did not recognize me however.
I am going to cut this short and pick up in mid November as soon as I can. It has been a great couple months. I have met some great people and had some enriching experiences. Check back soon for more….
I don’t now I far I will get with the news right now but i guess it is now or NEVER. Obviously I have fallen far behind but a tumble off a ladder last week has allowed me much needed down time to catch up on such frivolities as website blogging. You know, “hey look at me, I’m so fascinating you should sit in front a dumb screen and hear about it”. Look at me. It’s Saturday night and I am sitting around with complex lacerations on my shins typing. What a jerk.
Its October 1 and the summer has faded like my tan lines. In early August I played at something called Woofstock in Cheney Stadium in Tacoma. It was a dog benefit. In between the musical acts they had dog races where they would jump hurdles. There was a terrier that was, from what I could tell, unstoppable. Like the Mike Tyson of dog hurdling.
After Woofstock I ferried across to Vashon Island for the Island Earth Fair which was a great event. There were a lot of hippies running around. A lot of great music. It was a wonderful weekend. This is where I come back to the tan lines. I wore the same tank top for three days in the burning sun and by the time I peeled the thing off I had a beautiful tan with bronze arms and neck and a pale white imprint of where the cloth had been. It was gorgeous. Like a tank top in negative space. Please, ladies, please.
In the middle of August we played another weekend in Yakima. We closed out the summer series in Franklin Park. Some guy video taped it and it is cool on the tape because there is a shirtless jogger that keeps streaking by behind the stage. He must have been run about 14 laps. It’s nice to see people take pride in their bodies.
The next night we played with Baby Gramps at the wonderful Yakima Sports Center, which was a thrill and an honor. If you live in the NW and have not seen Gramps then I have nothing to say to you.
They also kicked us free food at Mercedes for mentioning them as the best Taqueria in all of Yakima. Thanks Mercedes! Thanks Yakima!
Oh yeah and back in July we played with Pat MacDonald in Ashland. Well, he followed me home and crashed at my place on Portland for a week or so. He’s a great guy and a great musician and you should go see him anytime he is in your town. And pick up his new album Troubador of Stomp. He took me to Striparaoke at Devil’s Point. I owe him my life. You do a great service Valentine, more about this later.
The end of August I played Vashon again and coming back I ran out of gas on the Alaskan Way Viaduct. Ask anyone from Seattle they will tell you it is a real drag place to run out of gas. I had to walk the harrowing plankway in a remarkably hungover (still drunk) state. I gouged open my foot on a piece of stray rebar and then dropped down into the railyard and got chased by a guy that thought I was trying to hop freights. It has not been a good summer for feet and legs. I wrenched my ankle back in June in Twisp and then re-aggrevated a couple other times. More about leg injuries later.
Well some other stuff happened but let’s get to September.
I played the Tumbleweed Folk Fest in Richland, Wa. It is an awesome folk festival on the banks of the Columbia. A real traditionalist feel to it. A lot great music, great people, and late night jam sessions. Everybody knows sea shanties and they gather at houses, restaurants,wherever, and exchange these great old songs.
I had a horrible incident with faulty plumbing in a strangers house the morning after one of these jam sessions but nobody wants to hear about that. Let’s just say, I had to go in with the hand.
The following weekend, I went to the Sisters Folk Festival where I was selected as a finalist for the Dave Carter Memorial Songwriting Contest. Of course I lost. You need to ask? But I went down in a blaze of glory and Christ almighty I had a good time and met some unbelieveably great musicians and great people. Too much to go into but just to revisit the notion of Striparoake, I rolled with Jonathan McEuen a little. His pops was of course in the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Jonathon absolutely rules. Such a good musician, such a nice guy. He said he knew Dave Mason and I said, “man that is weird because I sang one of his songs at Striparoake a little with ago and the stripper Valentine said how much she liked the song and I whole heartedly agreed.” So Jonathon calls up Dave Mason on my cell phone to tell him. Man, life is weird.
Alright time to wrap up this nonsense. I met Ruthie Foster at Sister’s also and she surprised me by coming to my gig in Bellingham and singing a couple songs. She blew that room away and then I proceeded to….well just blow….God I sucked that night, sorry Ruthie, sorry Bellingham!
I followed that up with a great swing across the border (see calendar) and over to Port Townsend which is one of the coolest towns around.
So the grand conclusion to the summer. It was a good one. Full of great moments and some sorrowful departures. A inordinately bizarre amount of tragedy and broken hearts but…. it is a good life we live. Am I right?
I turfed it off a ladder last week and landed on the ground and looked down and saw muscle and bone in my shins. That is how I ended September. Supine. With bandages like leg warmers. God damned if I did not get lucky. I cancelled the weekends gigs but I’ll be back next week. I have seen my insides. I am not a whiskey fueled automaton as previously suspected. As Seger says, “dammit I’m a man”.
People I have seen the dark side of Kettle Korn. It exists. I tasted it myself at the Silverton farmers market on the first day of July. A day that seems so long ago now. A guy kicked me down a bag of grape flavored. It was a vile experience. I hope he does not read this.
Later we got lost hiking and ended up on a highway miles from our car. If it hadn’t been for a Mexican couple in a pickup we never would have made it back in time for my gig at the Oregon Trader in Albany. The Oregon Trader is nice and within it congregrate maybe the only sane people in all of Albany, Or. It was a harrowing first day of month.
Next came the Yakima folk fest. Chris and Kubby, of the great Chuckanut Drive, and I played a side stage, the main stage and Bob’s Keg and Cork all the same day. I love Yakima. The people are great. The food is great. The bars are fun. We got a nice write up in the Yakima Herald (thanks Kim) and a certificate for receiving to most votes from the committee that decides who is to play (thanks committee!)
Kubby got his wallet and camera stolen on the way out of town (no thanks to you thieves of the world, without you we would not need cops! It’s your fault!)
*Side note:I lost my cherished Switzerland visor, if anyone found it drop it off to the sound guys in The Sportscenter or email me. It was like a child to me.
The next weekend the excellent LA Fahy came in from Lawrence, KS and we proceeded to rock together from Portland to the Willamette Valley. Then he split town and the great Miles Nowhere blew in from Az and we along with Chris Corbell proceeded to rock the Green Room in NW Portland.
Johnny Nighttrain blew into town with with his lovely gal Danielle and with the fully capable Nick Vroman behind the camera we began filming the tragic love story that is the The Rise and Fall of Johnny Nighttrain, a recent ballad I wrote about the world’s 15th greatest karaoke singer.
Next week I am heading down to Northern California with the mighty Camp 3 for a couple dates including Sunday the 31 with Pat MacDonald of Timbuk 3 fame. I should be honored to be in the presence of such greatness.
It’s been a hell of a month and it ain’t over yet. The bookings continue. The songwriting continues and the Whiskey usage maintains…..
“How I Came To Cry These Tears Of Cool” has been picked up by Burnside Distribution so there are even more ways to purchase this majestic piece of work. We also began recording at Haywire Studios in Portland recently. We laid down 16 tracks in 6 hours tentatively called…..oh I better not say. Of course those 16 tracks will be revisited I am sure. I also recorded eight more solo for a total of, oh you do the math, I’m an english guy.
Hopefully I can crank out a few more this week if I can get a little peace and quiet around this joint. It has been a fantastic summer so far, full of automobile malfunctions, quick repair, small towns, big characters, lots of yucks, lots of good times.
Thanks to the 12 tribes for letting me on the bus and giving me that cookie. It was pretty incredible.
Thanks to the drunk hairdresser at Whistlin’ Jacks, I will try to learn some Ricky Martin for the next time around.
Thanks to Gig Harbor, Tacoma, Jazzbones and the Farmers Market in the rain with the wonderful 80 year old that stood and watched in the pouring rain. Confidential to SK, stay off that junk can’t you see you’re breaking your mothers heart.
Thanks to Aaron and the Twisp River Pub. Stop by in the Methow Valley. It is beautiful and the beer is amongst the best I’ve had and I am an alcoh, er….connoisseur.
Thanks to the Pirates of Ilwaco, the great people of the Astoria and the outlying regions. You know who you are. (Except for that one waitress, what the hell did I do to you? I never met you before in my life, you’re kind of jerk. You’re a jercules and that means you are harnessing the power of ten thousand jerks).
And always thanks to Corvallis, Seattle, Portland, and Yakima you are the golden triangle with and extra stop of my existence.
And of course thanks to Lonesome Dewey, “Hell, Might As Well” Denell, Dr. Hess and his Evil Keys….and the mighty Kwab for filling in at Folklife…..and everyone else!
Look at the calendar, come to a show
It has been a long time since I updated this I know, but those on the mailing list know that I have been playing a lot of shows and bouncing around too much to sit in front of this soul sucking box for too long.
With the help of Billy “Lonesome Dewey” Miller on upright bass and “What the Hell” Denell Fahy on accordian we have formed a collective rock and roll operation called the Modern Conveniences. We have been playing in around Portland for a couple months now. I consistently continue doing solo shows and have been writing more new material than I can sometimes keep up with.
I hope to start recording again to document the new material before it loses its freshness depending on my economical viability in the current market place that is my empty pockets.
I was recently added to Northwest Folklife. I am playing on May 28th at 11:00 AM on the Fountain Lawn with the Sangster Brothers and Kwab Copeland. Also look for the Modern Conveniences at the Fremont Fair wedged (ha ha!) somewhere near the nude bicycle riders.
You probably noticed the new videos on the home page. If not go back and watch Lonesome Dewey and I as we open for John Doe in Seattle. I should have a myspace video up shortly too.
Also I got a nice review on All Music from John D. Luerssen the author of a recent biography of the band Weezer that has received much acclaim! Thanks John!
Check the schedule, come to a show and say hello. HELLO!