Where have I been?

• South of the 45th Parallel.
• Eating hot dogs with racecar driver Ed and his partner Nancy at a rest stop
• Safe and sound in Eugene ensconsed with Andra and Sandra and Jana! who are awesome for putting me up and up with me. Thanks so much! ^_^
• Redmond, Oregon, which had an obelisk and also high winds cancelling the event I was playing! After I got there, just before my showtime. Everybody left. But a bunch of kids came out to play in the amphitheatre fountain, so I thought, “Y’know what? The amphitheatre isn’t leaving due to wind, and these kids aren’t either, so neither am I.” And I played a free gig for a big ol’ gaggle of children, who came up after and gave me their pennies, and I gave them stickers, and we all had a good time. Take that, wind!
• Nomming Mexican food in the Oregon high desert town of Burns, with Fred! Yay! Thanks, Fred! More people should go visit Fred in Burns. He’s an archeologist!
• Glass Butte, which pretty much just handed me obsidian. Glass Butte does not lie. Also, there are elk.
• Being ambushed by a river spirit. Or possibly wind. But I prefer the former.
• Government Camp Lift and Mt. Hood, with chipmunks.
• Through the remnants of Highway 99 in northern Oregon, along with a bunch of other old, twisty roads, the best kinds.

Where’m I now?

• Back in Kenmore, Washington, tired but happy, for SEKRIT MEETINGS (disclaimer: not actually sekrit) and a Juanita Bay gig at 5pm on Friday.

More on that tomorrow. Now, I sleep.

Well, I’m all packed and ready for Oregon. Shower tonight, drop overnight stuff in the bag, and off I go. If you’re in Oregon, near Bend, c’mon up to Redmond for my 1pm show on Monday the 12th! Centennial Amphitheatre, Centennial Park, Redmond. Sample musics at the top level of this site, like you’d expect.

This one’s different. Why is it different? Because this is far and away the farthest I’ve gone solely for a gig. I’ve played further away, sure, but I’ve had other business; this is just a gig trip. It’s my first overnight, it’s my first this far south, it’s a lot of little firsts like that which kind of add up, at least, in my head.

I’m not taking the laptop. Everything else in the world, yes; laptop, no. If you’re coming, awesome – I’ll see you in Redmond! If you’re not, wish me luck, and I’ll see you… when I see you.

I dropped the car off for long-overdue work in Bothell yesterday – I don’t drive much but I’m driving to this Oregon gig, and I tend to forget things like, idk, oil changes for six or eight or nine months – and on a whim decided I’d just walk home instead of catching the bus. It’s about five miles, but it was still morning and kind of pleasant. I sang a lot of way, got a good vocal workout.

On the way, I wandered by a pawn shop, went in on another whim, and it just happened to have a little battery powered combo amp for sale, used. I could kinda use one of these – a lot – because I’ve got two gigs later this summer which normally have power but currently don’t because of construction, so it was kind of switching from “gig” to “billed busking,” which has too much derp derp derp for my tastes, and I’ve wanted a solution. So I went home, did some research, came back today, and after some negotiations, it was also just barely affordable! I think it’ll double as a monitor for my main PA, too, which makes me extra happy. ^_^ It needs a little work (there’s some hiss on channel one that implies a needed capacitor swap, and since it’s made in China I need to examine all of them for capacitor plague) – but so far, it’s usable as-is!

So, hopefully, I just got lucky. Let’s hope that holds all the way through Oregon! ^_^

Well, that was fun! Gave out lots of cards, Anna sold CDs and sang along a couple of tracks, I talked to a lot of people – I got compliments on my voice, which is a new and awesome thing to be getting, and several people grabbed me after the show to say nice things, too. Thanks for having me, Inger and Tone! See you next year. ^_^

NEXT SHOW: July 12th, 2010: Centennial Park Amphitheatre in Redmond, Oregon; 1pm-2:45pm.

So tomorrow’s the Everett show, I’ve been getting ready – I’ve already pre-loaded the PA into the car, I’ve got the setlists made up, I’m about to run through them again (in radio station format – start, skip to the end, see how it fits together) so I have as little as possible to do tomorrow morning.

C’mon out, if you can. Everett Market at Everett Marina, at 1pm.

One of the problems with studio work is that your performance skills get flabby. They really do, and it’s a little disturbing how flabby they can get how quickly. So this week is all about getting back into shape for the Everett show (Everett Marina, 1pm) coming up on the 4th of July. There are a few songs I won’t want to play at a 4th of July show, but I’ve got plenty of new ones to make up for it – I’m getting some old traditionals back into shape, for example.

I have no idea of playlist order yet. I’m leaning towards two longish sets of vocal pieces and a small set in the middle of instrumentals. How’s that sound to you?

I should go to bed now. Oh, my intent in releasing Shout at the Desert was to get a new song out there for the show. So if you didn’t play it last week, here it is again:

And it’s just turned Canada Day. Happy Canada Day, everybody!

NEW RELEASE!

As “Stay Away” is a song for the desperate, an inverted and half-disguised last desperate plea for help, “Shout at the Desert” is a song for the lost – it is a shout at the desert, a howl made terrified that no one is listening, screamed out anyway.

I learned a lot recording this one, as I talked about a couple of days ago. I think it really shows. It’s best played with better speakers and/or a headset, particularly for the organ. Loud is recommended.

Been working on “Shout at the Desert” for the last couple of weeks now. Along with “Stay Away,” it’s one of the songs I use if I want to make a God Damned Impression in a short period of time. “Two songs: one for the desperate. One for the lost.” But recording it has been tricky.

I’ve never recorded and then taken back out as much as I have here. Original bassline? Gone, replaced with one much simpler. Original keyboard track? Gone, replaced with… well, technically two, but much simpler. Original two bodhran tracks? Gone, and spooled off to storage, not replaced. They all sounded awesome alone, or with just the zouk, or even when being recorded; and they all sounded like ass – the original bass line like spastic colon ass – put with the rest of the song. Seriously, I’d be listening and I’d think, ‘how the hell did this happen?’ and hit the SOLO button and it’d sound awesome again, and then back into the mix… and death.

The only percussion in this thing is struck mandolin, and that’s slightly off-timed, on purpose. Most of the timing in this thing is crazy precise, and the zouk and regular mandolin carry the beat. I played with a kokiriko track and some bamboo slap work and and other percussion and never even recorded any of it.

It’s teaching me… discipline, I think. It’s a scary little monster of a song. I think that fits.

I played an open mic tonight at Hopvine Pub on Capital Hill; damn that’s a little stage! But nice crowd; I had fun! I’ll probably do it again, maybe with more warning. (A dancer appeared to Stay Away again! <3 <3 <3 dancers!)

I also played the Soul Food Books open mic back on the 5th; they [had] archived video [now removed]; my bit starts 8:28ish in. Sadly, the levels weren’t very high this time, and you can hear instrument, but not much of vocals. These are the first recordings of “Where Are You (My Love)” and “Something’s Coming” – it’s kind of my habit to show up with new songs for Soul Food. When you see me reaching for a chord over and over again on Where Are You? It’s a modified G chord that has a difficult note five frets down. I made it up! It’s hard to play but I’ll get it eventually. ^_^