Too busy to post again lately. What have I been up to? By way of an answer, I’ll show you a few pictures, and give you the quick run-down.
I played one of the best and most memorable shows I’ve ever had. . .
. . .I went to see some friends play a very cool night of cello music, and might have come away with a new instructor (it doesn’t hurt that she’s incredibly cute, too!). . .
. . .I made a new friend, who’s a friend of friend. My friend in question told me that she is “Japanese, and a pianist, and she’s looking for new musical friends. I thought of you.” She came to the IrishBand show in StateCapitol last Wednesday, and then came up here to Portland on Saturday night. No pics of her yet, unfortunately. . .
. . .IrishBand’s Violinist and I played our first wedding, and had a blast during the extra-curricular activities as well. . .
. . .I got me a good ol’ 4-track cassette recorder for archiving FirstBand’s tapes. . .
. . .I recorded some new tracks (using the computer, not the 4-track!) on IrishBand’s theme song. . .
. . .I created a fairly esoteric (but fun!) new blog, which you probably wouldn’t be interested in, and which I will not be posting a link to. . .
. . .and I went out for dinner, a walk, and coffee with a friend who I haven’t seen in months, and took some nice pictures along the way.
Times have been good, overall, I’d say.
Tonight, I think a friend and I are going to hit the Last Thursday art ‘scene’ on Alberta Street. I haven’t had the chance to do that in ages, because I always seem to have gigs on both First AND Last Thursdays.
So there you go; you’re all caught up now, and I feel much better too.
I went to see Flogging Molly last night, for the first time, and I have to say that it was the most fun show I’ve ever been to. I’ve never danced so much, or sweated so much before. I was wearing three layers of shirts (undershirt and the T-shirt I was wearing, plus the FM T-shirt I bought last night) and they were all drenched by my own sweat and that of a myriad of other people. Even my jeans were soaked clear through. It was a total blast. My friends and I were about four or five rows from the front, just to the left of center, and just on the edge of the mosh pit. It was the perfect spot.
A different friend who came on her own (we weren’t able to find each other at the show) was brave enough to bring her camera and take a couple of pictures, and here they are.
She was to the right of me, and a tiny bit further back, but it seems like she had a better view.
She must have walked around a bit, because this was about what my view was like.  After I told her where I was, she sent me this picture and said there’s a decent chance I may be in it, based on my description. So I like to think I’m in there somewhere. :)
Man, I really smell horrible today, after the sweat-a-thon show last night. I can smell myself as I’m sitting here. I need to go take a shower now. Yeesh.
IrishBand is playing a show down in StateCapitol tonight, for the first time, and we’re very much looking forward to it.
In other news, i may be getting a Tascam 4-track cassette recorder this weekend, for all of the archiving of Iron Horse (my first band) songs on my computer. Very exciting! How 1989 of me. Hey, if it’s good enough for DJ Shadow, it’s certainly good enough for Iron Horse.
Last night, IrishBand had a great show at a venue called the Virgo and Pisces, and one of my friends drove up from his home on the coast to come see us. He drove to town, got himself situated in his hotel room, and then called a cab to come pick him up. He got a Russian cab driver, with a thick Russian accent.
Driver:Â “Where you want to go?”
Friend:Â “Virgo and Pisces.”
Driver:Â “I do not know these streets.”
Friend: “(takes a beat) Oh, jeez, of course. That’s the venue. THE Virgo and Pisces. (laughs) Twenty-first and Glisan is the intersection.”
Driver: “Oh yes. I know these streets.”
Funny how something so linguistically simple can be completely overlooked and misconstrued sometimes. It’s all about context, which can be found somewhere near the intersection of Virgo and Pisces.
This weekend was full of gigs and parties and recording, so all I wanted to do today was drink water and do healthy, relaxing things. I walked over to check out the new Irvington Farmers’ Market, which just started a couple of weeks ago, and is small but really great. I bought some chicken tacos and a boysenberry soda, and sat in a chair listening to a quartet of musicians play while I ate. I walked home and one of my friends called to tell me that he’d gone to the Rose Garden this morning (the actual rose garden, in Washington Park, not the stadium), and that sounded like the perfect thing to me too. I grabbed my camera, jumped in the car, and headed across town.
As luck would have it, I happened to be there at the perfect time. After I’d been there about fifteen minutes or so, I heard some sort of tribal drumming from the opposite end of the Garden. Since the Japanese Garden is right near there, I thought maybe Portland Taiko was giving a performance, although the music didn’t sound Japanese at all. I curtailed my rose activities and went over to investigate.
Coming down the steps were about thirty people in long white and green robes, singing, chanting, clapping and dancing to the rhythms of two large hand drums. They had arrived in a white Hummer stretch limousine, and everyone in the garden was enthralled by them. A few of us were standing around watching, since it seemed to be both public and private, if you see what I mean, so it took a while for us rubberneck photographers to see how close we could get without being intrusive.
Finally the groom and bride appeared, and it became obvious that the ceremony was a wedding. The group was clearly African, and I thought I recognized the language as being Ethiopian. Two women came to stand near me, and we chatted a bit about how beautiful it all was, and how lucky we felt to be there.
The group started in the main entrance to the garden, and slowly made their way to a handful of other locations. The bride and groom were often separated from the party, talking privately with the man who appeared to be the equivalent of the celebrant. When they took a turn and came toward me, in the direction of the steps, I saw that I was in the perfect position for some interesting photos. The wedding photographer walked next to me, and I said to him, “Can I ask where you’re from? Are you guys Ethiopian?” He said yes, they were, and he gave me a I-can’t-believe-you-actually-know-about-Ethiopia smile.
I didn’t realize until they came closer just how exquisite and ornate their clothes were. Look at all the little details and layers. They must have been roasting under all that. It was about eighty degrees today.
I was even lucky enough to capture the two of them in one of the rare moments when they weren’t completely surrounded by people, and had a moment to themselves. It was a nice moment. After this shot, I put down my camera and congratulated them as they walked by, and was rewarded with radiant smiles from both of them.
They led the wedding party down the steps, and by this time there was quite a crowd of people gathered around to watch, and to take pictures and videos, so I didn’t have to be stealthy anymore. I saw an opportunity to get in front of the group as they came down the steps, and I took it.
In the back left of the pictures below, you can clearly see that the couple are off on their own, while the group is carrying on with the singing and chanting. Also, it’s a bit hard to tell from these pictures, but the teal color of the womens’ dresses was absolutely stunning in the sun. There was a multitude of hues of greens and blues, and the women shimmered as they walked and danced.
At this point I decided to take a little video, because even the best pictures can’t convey the movement and volume of what was happening. Like i said, every single other person in the busy garden was enthralled by this group.
You can see in the video that the bride and groom came around the back of the frame, and slowly led the party to the next location, and that’s when I decided to leave them. I figured that I’d bothered them enough, and I was very excited to come home and see how the pictures came out. That’s when I noticed that I’d lost the extra battery for my camera. I retraced my steps as best I could, but the garden is like a maze, so I never did find the battery.  Maybe if you find it you could let me know? Thanks. It’s a Canon, about an inch across, and it looks like this.
Anyway. That was the only small downside to this otherwise wonderful day. I feel very lucky to have been where I was, and to be able to witness such a beautiful and captivating event.
Oh yeah. . .I would be remiss not to add the picture of the stretch Hummer, which was parked right behind my car. I can’t even imagine how difficult it must have been to navigate that monstrosity through the narrow, winding roads of Washington Park.
Just got home from a gig in Whitefish, Montana. First time I’ve ever been there, and I have to start by saying that it’s a supremely beautiful little town. It was my first gig with ModeratelyFamousBanjoPlayer, and despite the fact that it was very loose and unrehearsed (I’d never even met the drummer before, let alone played with him before), AND despite the fact that Southwest Airlines’ baggage handlers banged up my accordion enough that it needs to be repaired now, AND despite the fact that the stage was a truck trailer which bounced around so much that my acoustic guitar fell off it and got a nice big war wound on it, AND despite the fact that we got up at 5:30 a.m. (Mountain Time, which felt like 4:30 Pacific Time!) this morning to drive back to the airport at Spokane, AND despite the fact that I got stung by a bee (how random is that?) at the rental car place in Spokane. . .it was a triumphant show.
No pictures to speak of, unfortunately, because we were on such a tight schedule the entire time, and we were always either in the car, at the gig, or in the hotel room. Okay, well, here’s what I mean. This is Mount St. Helens from the airplane. . .
. . .and here’s ModeratelyFamousBanjoPlayer in his solo set.
After he was done, we all ate dinner (of delicious fish tacos!) and then set up the rest of the equipment for the full-band evening show. I have to give extra-special thanks to SoundGuyToby, who came through with an accordion for me after I found that mine had been damaged by Southwest Airlines’ rough handling during the flight over. He absolutely saved the gig for me. The show would have been accordion-free without Toby.
Oh yeah, and the guitar. The stage was a truck trailer, which bounced around like crazy while we were playing. My acoustic guitar was sitting next to the edge of the stage, and and one point it tipped right off and landed directly on the metal bar that connects to the hitch. So it has a huge wound on it, right on the front corner, in one of the most visible places it could possibly have a wound. I hope to gawd that it can be fixed. I’ll never be able to sell it for anything close to what I paid for it now. SUCKS. It still plays fine, though, and that’s what counts, but that just sucks. Combine that with the accordion repair and this one gig is really gonna set me back.
I also need to mention the people we met. They were sweet, accommodating, friendly, drunken, and a metric ton of fun. After the show, we got a lot of handshakes and “Oh MAN you guys were great. Thanks so much for coming all the way out here! We had a blast. . .”, etc. We also got invited to quite a few parties afterwards (“There are bikes enough for everyone!”) which we had to respectfully decline, unfortunately. It seems like a great town, especially if you’re an outdoorsy person.
We got to our hotel rooms around 10:30 p.m., then I took a shower and spent the next four hours watching a TV show I’d never seen before called Ice Road Truckers. You’d think it would be the most boring show in the world, and maybe it was just my mental and physical state at the time, but I was riveted to that crazy show. It was surprisingly suspenseful.
Oh yeah. In the four hours during which I actually slept, I had a horrible dream in which three different friends (each of whom I know in real life) told me either to fuck off or “Y’know what? Go fuck yourself,” and gave me some very specific reasons why they thought I should do that. One even went so far as to add, “God, it feels so good to say that!”  It wasn’t the best dream I’ve ever had.
So I napped in the car, and then we flew home. A very nice couple from Spokane sat next to me on the plane, and the guy was actually from Whitefish, so that was a nice coincidence. They even gave me a copy of Rolling Stone magazine (“Would you like this? It’s a good one. . .”) just before we landed. It’s one of the issues with Barack Obama on the cover.
So that was pretty cool.
I’m just glad to be home. Usually when I’m traveling, I’m much more ‘in the moment’ than I was this weekend, but it was busy enough, and with all the instrument issues it was stressful enough, that I was emotionally done last night. I wasn’t bummed out or anything, I just wanted to be home so that I could take care of these things that need to be taken care of, and now I can do just that.
I’m going to start with myself. First a nap, then a shower, then I’m going to a dinner party with a couple of friends. I’ll worry about the accordion tomorrow.
