beautiful, funny, sad & true

On my way home from a three-day trip to my dad’s house at the coast this weekend, I drove back through Astoria because the other beach highway, across the river in Washington, is normally much faster, but this time was beleaguered by a series of construction projects, which added about an hour to the trip over.  I love Astoria anyway, so it doesn’t take much for me to want to drive through it.

I drove over the bridge this time, which I rarely do, because A) it goes to a part of Washington that I rarely visit, so driving over it is unnecessary, and B) it’s frickin’ HUGE, and kinda makes me nervous if the weather is anything less than perfect.  Next time I go over it, I want to mount my little camera onto my car’s dashboard or windshield somehow, in order to make a video of the river crossing.  It takes about five or six minutes (at freeway speed!) to drive across the bridge, and when you go up the span and start pulling into Astoria, you are rewarded with a beautiful and unusual view of the town as you go around the curves.  It’s really stunning, but you can’t really drive a stick-shift car around a bunch of curves, pay attention to traffic, and operate a camera all at the same time.

This time, the Astoria Column was finally open, after being closed for renovation for the last two years.  Climbing the steps to the top can really make you dizzy if you’re not careful.  I got up there, took a quick picture for Facebook. . .

. . .and enjoyed the beautiful scenery (but the pictures weren’t very exciting this time), then climbed back down to find something to eat.  Spent a while at a grocery store, but the deli was ridiculously expensive for what you got, so I headed down the road to a pizza place.  On the way, I heard barking coming from the river, so after I got my pizza, I turned back and headed for the marina.  I drove my car onto the pier (which is allowed, by the way; there were many others out there too) and found a group of sea lions sunning themselves on one of the smaller piers.  Most seemed to be asleep, but some were fighting and knocking each other off the pier, and others were awake and enjoying the warmth of the beautiful sunshine.

The weather was perfect, and it was so nice to just walk or drive to the different ends of the huge cement pier and enjoy the views of the town and the river from out there.

Got home and spent the next two or three hours working on Iron Horse songs.  I had to go through our old tapes to find things I can use as part of a retrospective we’re going to make, and I also was looking for our old studio tapes, which are divided up into individual tracks (guitar, drums, vocals, etc.) to use as sound effects for one of the songs we’re recording.  It’ll be hilarious and cool if it all works out, which I have every reason to believe that it will.

In other news, I have two rehearsals (three, if you count the one that happened yesterday morning) and three gigs this week, as well as meeting up with three or four friends (on different days), AND another day trip to the beach on Friday to see some friends from California.  So I’ll try to keep up on BFS&T, but don’t be too surprised if it’s another few-day stretch before I’m back here again.

It’s been another of THOSE weeks, hence the silence around these parts.

Engagement party, lots of ‘party’ parties, movie night or two, tons of recording, it’s just been a blur.  Last night was a friend’s birthday party, which was followed by a ‘party’ party, and tonight is two friends’ wedding (You may remember the bachelor party from a couple weeks ago. . .?), which is to be followed by – what else – a huge party.  The vast majority of people who will be there are also professional musicians, so I’m anticipating a ‘jam’ of acoustic instruments of all kinds.  I’ll be bringing my accordion, for sure, and my camera as well.

I don’t usually talk about this, but the weather here in Portland has been stunningly beautiful lately.  One day it was so lovely that I ditched rescheduled a rehearsal and hit the road in the afternoon so that I could go for a hike instead.  I ended up at Beacon Rock, which is along the Washington side of the Columbia river, about an hour’s drive from here.

It’s 850 feet high, and you get to the top by way of a steep trail that was engineered by one of the people who built the Historic Columbia River Highway.  The trail is about a mile and a half long, and it’s a surprisingly difficult walk.

Nothing like a bunch of tasteless graffiti (“dick juice”) to bring you back to reality.  Anyway, here’s what the view from the top was like, on that particular day.  This one is looking downriver, toward Portland. . .

. . .and this one is looking upriver, uh, away from Portland.

There’s a plaque at the bottom of the rock which tells an Anglicized version of the rock’s history.

It was a lovely day, and a lovely random trip.

And now it’s time to get ready for the wedding.  I have to leave in an hour and a half, and I still need to shower and all that.  Today is equally beautiful, and the ceremony is being held out in the forest.  It promises to be a really great night.

Ummmm, hi.

Yeah.

I’m alive and well.  And busy.  Gosh. . .where to start. . .?

I’ve been doing lots of recording, with my friends from my first band ever.

I went on a random little day trip up the Columbia gorge with RockShowGirl, and we hiked to one of the many waterfalls and enjoyed the scenery along the curvy old highway.  On the way back, we stopped in Cascade Locks, where we ate the best bacon burgers either of us had eaten in our entire lives.  I suppose that means I’ll have to stop calling myself a ‘quasi-vegetarian epicure’ pretty soon, yeah?

I went to see an unbelievably amazing show; a double-headliner bill featuring Butterfly Boucher AND Emilie Simon.  Both are supremely talented (not to mention beautiful), and I got the chance to meet both of them afterwards.  I told Butterfly that I’d love to play cello with her the next time she’s in town, and she seemed like she was into the idea.

I did something I’ve never done before, and thought that I’d never do; I went to a minor-league basketball game.   [I will now pause for your exclamations of shock and horror.]   Ordinarily, I find most sporting events mind-numbingly boring, so I volunteered to take pictures (with someone else’s digital camera, which is much slower and less responsive than mine) of the game.  I took about two hundred, and I would guess that about three actually came out.  It was pretty funny.

I went to an amazing restaurant called Trébol with Jeannie-wa.  It was stellar, and I can’t wait to go back again.

I went to an amazing restaurant called Indish with BoringFish.  It was stellar, and I can’t wait to go back again.

I had a gig with IrishBand, which ended up being IrishDuo that night, because Violinist was in MileHighState.  It was the first time we’ve ever done a duo show like that, and it was actually quite fun.  I brought the accordion, and someone asked if we knew any Beatles songs.  I couldn’t help myself, and blurted out, “Yeah, I know all of them.”  This was their cue to throw obscure songs at me, to try and stump me, which didn’t happen.  “I Don’t Want To Spoil the Party”, “Let It Be”, “Blue Jay Way”, “Real Love”, all were par for the course.  It was super fun, and we may actually incorporate that sort of Beatles sing-along set into some of our future shows.  If anybody got pictures of that, I haven’t seen them.

I’ll spare you the technical details, but I bought some equipment for my cello which makes it possible to plug it directly into a PA channel, instead of having to mic it when I’m on stage.  It may have been a small step for mankind, but it was a giant leap for my cello career.

I went to a friend’s bachelor party, which lasted until six o’clock in the morning.   At around quarter to five, a neighbor called the cops to complain about the noise in general, but ‘in specific’, I’m sure it had to do with our hilariously horrible drunken guitar playing.  The cop couldn’t have been any nicer, actually.  He was great, and totally cool about it.  It was a super-fun party.  I spent the next day in bed, and got up around three-thirty to take a shower and make the hour-long drive up to SeaBird’s family’s home in the middle of a cedar grove on the edge of a hill, to eat incredible food, marvel over the kids, watch the neighbors’ enormous fireworks display, and celebrate a birthday, an anniversary, and the founding of our country.  They are my surrogate parents, and I always come away feeling rejuvenated after spending time with them.  People like that are very rare and special.

Yesterday, I bought new heads for my drums, installed them, tuned them up, and then recorded drum tracks for three songs in our FirstBand project.  I started working on a fourth song, but it was trickier than the other three, and I didn’t get a take that I was satisfied with, so I’m going to give it its due today.

So yeah.  Been all busy all the time lately, but I haven’t forgotten about you.  It’s nice to finally have spare minutes to let you know what’s been happening.  This is just an overview, too.  There’s been plenty more, such as going to movies and sushi with LJ and SeaBird, for example.

Today I woke up at nine and edited audio tracks, even before I’d had coffee, in order to get ready for today’s recording session.  It promises to be another good, productive day.  There’s certainly been a lack of ennui around here lately.

Okay.  Deep breath, diving back in now. . .

I just came across an interview in the L.A. Weekly with Jon Brion, who is the biggest influence (aside from the Beatles) on my musical life and career.  He’s the one from whom I learned what it means to be a producer and collaborator, and how to try and make your way in a creative life.

I’m posting the link to the article here because I want to be able to revisit it every so often, in the dark times, to renew my inspiration.  If you’re interested in music, and movies, and twentieth-century pop culture, I think you’ll appreciate this article.

Enjoy!

The Indigo Girls were interviewed on NPR this morning.  Naturally, they also took the opportunity to play a couple of songs, one of which was “Closer to Fine” and the other was this one. . .

. . .called “Sugar Tongue.”  Loveitloveitloveitloveit.

It was just the two women and their guitars, and it was absolutely stellar.  This version has the electric piano, too, which is okay and all, but I found this acoustic version much more compelling than the ‘rock’ version from the CD (with the drums and everything), but discussing why I feel that way is actually a huge story in itself, all about music production, and the way I think about instrumentation and creating parts and textures, and all that kind of stuff.

That would be much too long a discussion, especially for a simple little entry saying that I love this song and that I want to share it with you.