BC Campbell @ High Dive

Just a little short entry - BC and I played at the High Dive, it was a Nada Mucho event.  It was great to see Tom, Joy, and Mike out, and the swami made it just in time too!  The sound was great as always, great room to play.  It was very empty though. 

This was the first time in a while playing with BC, and we added a bunch of new songs, got to get those recorded soon, even just a rough version.  The duo show is coming together nicely though!  See you guys at the mix tonight, or the Rendezvous next Wednesday.

myspace.com/bccampbell

Catherine Cabeen @ Seattle Changing Room

It’s a strange thing to blog about a different kind of Farfetcher endeavor. But here I go…

May 21^st through 23^rd Catherine Cabeen put on a dance concert at the Seattle Changing Room. It was a great success, selling out every night, and last night (Sunday) there was a standing ovation that Catherine could not stop even as she tried to get attention to thank the audience and announce the post show q&a session. I was lucky enough to be involved not only for technical support – I also composed the music for the third piece performed “Composites.”

My good friend Jay McAleer, who used to work at On The Boards theatre with me as the technical director and master electrician was responsible for getting this project started, and for including me. I was honored to be asked; we had talked about working on a project together, but it was still a surprise to actually get down to doing it for real.

Jay approached Catherine about creating a piece, using a text he wrote. The intention was to sidestep the ways that text has been used before in dance, by avoiding literal references, and instead focusing on the syntax and rhythm of the words. Catherine took this perhaps too literally (haha) and began devising a phonetic movement vocabulary, with the intention of actually translating the words into a new language, word by word, even syllable by syllable! This turned out to be an amazing way to create dance abstracted from the meaning of the words, but still directly related to the text. At the same time though, it proved to be a very slow and difficult way to choreograph a piece. The 1^st, 5^th, and 12^th (last) sections used this method, but in the other sections Catherine returned to a less prolix method.

Jay and Catherine met once a week for rehearsals, in which he would read his words aloud as she worked through the movement she developed in her own practice earlier in the week. Jay and I also met up a few times and talked through the kind of music that would work, and in the spirit of not recreating the ways we had seen text used before, I suggested recording him reading, but then running his voice through synthesizers and processing to obscure the actual text while retaining the musical delivery of the words, the timing, and the rhythm. After our recording session I put together a first draft basically using every trick I had in the bag. We all met up at one of the Saturday afternoon sessions, and listened and discussed, eliminating some of the (ahem) bad ideas, and choosing the cooler stuff.

Back to the Farfetcher basement. The first section of the text refers to the “fife and drum” and to the fiddle, and here I was semi-literal myself! I pulled up samples of actually flute, African drums, and a pizzicato violin section.

In this vein I also dug into the sound effects library for these quotes:

Some sailing sounds - “If you must know, I was thinking of myself as sailed into Athens”

A train whistle - “During the 1870s, railroad companies in the United States maintained 50 different time zones”

Some rain – “All day long with the rain on the window, and the cracked teacup by the phone”

Jay meanwhile was adamantly stopping Catherine from being too literal in the dance, and he stayed the course with me too, reminding me to abstract more, to go for the moods, meter and feel of the text. I was being too…anti-metaphorical. Overall, the words we decided captured the overall vibe of the text were “the thick residue of experience,” and so everything got a bit darker. (I know I keep quoting from a text you don’t have – but you will have to buy the chapbook from Catherine’s site to get it, at least until Jay publishes it in another form.)

We added a typewriter sound (recorded with the laptop off and me beating away on the keyboard) and I reprised that sound later by playing snare drum samples on my midi keyboard as if I was typing. I used the flute to indicate the spaces between sentences for Catherine to cue off, since she was dancing to Jay reading, and now we were erasing huge sections of text from the mix. A few musical themes emerged, the characteristic flute punctuation, a pizzicato violin part, and a syncopated finger-picking pattern on my trusty Les Paul Special. I don’t know why, but the music turned up all basically in E though it drifts between major and minor. Catherine loved a rhythmic gated effect from the trial draft, but we moved it to a different section and I “technofied” it with an electronica snare roll and a dance style syncopated bass line.

My favorite cool trick may have been putting a gate on a wind sound, and then using Jay’s voice as a side chain, so that it came in only when he was speaking. I had a lot of fun with panning, delays and a truly massive reverb on the guitar. The “bro” turned up for the penultimate section (dobro I mean) – it’s a Gold Tone, tuned in bluegrass open G if you were wondering J

In the final section, Catherine spoke part of the text aloud in the room, which was then repeated by the recorded Jay. Remembering this sonic moment and its 3 dimensional performance reminds me that the piece is really all the parts, you have to see the dance, hear the text, and hear the music to really connect to this. Perhaps the video will be a viable approximation, and I promise to alert you when it turns up, until then – hopefully this tunepak (below) will work (or you can go to my reverb nation profile here). I had to break up the music into sections because of space limitations - anybody with a good free podcasting host please comment! Actually – all comments welcome, no-one has reviewed the show yet, so be critical and say what you feel. (I will delete spam and useless profanity though)

Thanks to Catherine and Jay for being incredibly fun to collaborate with! Thanks to Scott, Jay, BC, Tom & Joy, Rich and especially to my lady Anne for getting me through my art music debut!

The music is here: http://www.reverbnation.com/tunepak/2671983

Other links :

http://www.catherinecabeen.com/dancer.html

http://o.seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/thearts/2011913599_cabeen21.html

Sanchez & Hammer @ Café Racer - Hammer's Guest Blog!

Guest blog! Julian wasn’t able to be at the Sanchez/Hammer Tuesday Night Shindig’s 6th round (the last before a summer hiatus) until the end, so he offered it up to his lovely lady, Anne, and me to submit. I do not know what my co-bloggist will report. I look forward to our friendly collusion.

The 6th round, from an insider’s point of view, was a great way to end the current series and say hello to summer. The sun, or at least the brightness of it, streamed in the corner windows where we arrange the would-be stage. Tom and I arrived at 7pm to set up and settle in. Café Racer has been an accommodating venue for this fledgling series, not the usual haunt a la Ballard’s pubs and clubs. There’s a nice neighborhood vibe, almost Portland-ish, and the walks of life can be a little rougher around the edges. With framed, strange art covering the walls, a shiny mosaic scooter, an impossibly difficult Ms. Pac-Man game, and an adjacent barbershop dubbed “Café Razor”, the funky character of the place is welcoming.

As we set up, Shasta Bree breezed in with a lovely smile on her face, which would later prove to be a perfect complement to her lovely, crystalline voice. Shasta heads up The Scarlett Hearts here in town, a band that this blog’s creator is a member of, with his awesome, red Gibson guitar. Sanchez arrived to help complete set up, lugging in 3 stools to make less lonely the one in the corner. He likes an even-steven height of stools for the shindig, and it’s a quality that speaks to his style as a performer. If you’re going to do it, do it with style. And stools are stylish.

Michael Vermillion was the fourth to roll in. He has spent much of the winter on sabbatical in Austin, and though I don’t know him well, he seemed better for it. Calm and cool like cucumber. The shindig set off into the first long set, which has been the pattern. It was a nice audience in the room, some familiar faces , and a few new ones. It doesn’t take a lot to make the room feel populated, one of the advantages to this intimate affair. Sanchez kicked off the show with a request from the lovely couple who has made it to EVERY shindig thus far! He played the first cut from his Silverhands CD, a tune called “When You Weren’t Drinking.” Vermillion followed with a song I’ll bet has “Moses” in the title. He writes great tunes that are often streaked with a brooding, folk-noir sound, not far from a Tom Waits reference. The first time I heard him, it was live on KEXP, and I imagined an older, wizened man fresh off riding the rods. Which reminds me of a great old union song/poem called The Bum on the Rods.

Shasta Bree and I ended out the round, and Shasta sang a pretty song that reminded me of the sepia-toned sounds of Kate Wolf and Alela Diane. (insert note: it’s hard not to equate voices/styles with recognizable references, and I do so with the understanding that not all musicians like to be corralled into a comparison to identify their sound, at least not all the time. Including myself J ) Shasta’s gentle guitar-picking and mournful tune inspired me to play “Aloysius” which we released on The Starlings 2008 EP “Gravity” and will be including on our summer LP release as well. (this July!)

And so it went. Strong songwriting and distinctive vocal styles all around. The shindig always seems to warm up nicely around the 3^rd and 4^th rounds. More stories and anecdotes and one-liners seep in. Having been part of it for each round, I have to say how refreshing it is to be able to song-swap in a casual, open setting. The line-up is always different, so it creates its own flow each time. It’s never disappointing, and I always learn a lot by watching songwriters sing their own naked tunes. In a very true way, it’s what it all comes down to for me – the singer and the song. It’s the fundamental wellspring from where I started. The head waters.

Highlights for me included Vermillion’s cover of Blaze Foley’s “Clay Pigeons,” which is such a beautiful tune. Sanchez played a song about all the Tom’s he knows (assumed title: “I Once Knew a Fella Named Tom”) that I really hope makes it to an album someday. Such wordplay, such well-done humor, such effective cadence. Shasta’s dusted-off original from the past about that blasted unrequited love stuff. She has a way of hitting what I call “glass notes” that seem made out of, you know, glass. And for me, my personal highlight was my new-old Gibson guitar! It’s the second time I’ve played it at the shindig. It makes me play guitar differently, this late 30’s/early 40’s era acoustic archtop. It’s going to be a main instrument on my solo album that I’ll be tackling this fall, methinks. It compelled me to pull out a newbie song at the end of the evening, one that is slated for the solo record. I knew it would be shaky, most first-time presentations of new songs usually are. But I felt the boldness of the moment. Hopefully subsequent renditions will be doubly strong.

I’ll look forward to re-igniting the shindig this fall, when all summer feet have been re-sheathed, Sanchez returns from his own sabbatical in Espana, The Starlings return from an autumn tour, and the seasonal hunkering down begins.

Shasta Bree http://www.myspace.com/scarletthearts

Michael Vermillion http://www.myspace.com/michaelvermillion

http://www.myspace.com/silverhandsmusic

http://www.myspace.com/thestarlings

Lingo: the controversy continues!

After having a conversation with KT Niehoff and also reading Jeremy M. Barker's thoughtful article on Sunbreak, I realize that my own take on "Glimmer" wasn't much on substance. I think that's alright though, its a young blog yet!

The article is here

This is what I'm posting in the comments :

"Does the dance community deserve better from its reviewers?

I was intrigued by your (Jeremy's) quote from Joan Acocella, the idea that space in the paper is really determined by the "is there any news here?' question. Clearly a lot has changed in 18 years!

Wonderfully, in this case the "news" has been KT herself putting her opinion out there. Admittedly she has had to survive a certain amount of abuse, (where do you buy a thick skin in Seattle?), and it might be difficult to convince her or any other choreographer to speak out because of it, but I loved that she did speak, and that the Stranger printed it. Even the more mean spirited comments are to me an indication that people have an opinion. The dance audience has a reaction to something they read! About dance!

Back to the old idea of space: A print reviewer must build authority, gain some kind of respect, answering "what is this show?" in order to succeed in building an audience and keeping some space to write in. The critic (really this is likely to be the same person eh?) perhaps was trying to place art in a context and thus assign value "Was it any good and why not?"

The flip style of the Stranger (is "quip" the new "flip?") is I think, derived from blogs and emails, the competition that is driving print media out of business. The value of the blog is measured not in space, but in views, hits, and visits. The audience is as varied as the writers; the only required motivation is interest in a topic. The writing is casual, low on Expertise and Authority, high on impressions and thoughts. This kind of writing does not require the same level of education and knowledge about the work that say, a dancer has, or an art historian. Point is - going out and seeing the show has a similar lack of requirements.

Does the dance community deserve better from its reviewers? I say "No." My own review was ignorant, impressionistic and dismissive too. I hear and acknowledge however, that perhaps a reviewer who takes the space, discloses intention and perspective, and does the work of becoming more qualified to speak about the art, will both elevate the discussion and find an audience that craves that."

Note - I am not saying a blog can't be educated and knowledgable :) Still, I wonder what you think...

tinyrage in the morning Embracing the Inevitable in the afternoon

So… continuing the Northwest New Works Festival previews, today was for the Merrill Wright Mainstage Theatre, which seats about 200 more people than the studio. This adds a few problems as well as benefits, some of the intimacy is lost, there are now some people a lot further away, small is even smaller. On the other hand, there is the larger audience, the larger stage, more lights, louder sound, big is a bit bigger.

These are no-tech previews, so if you want to put yourself in place of the artists, imagine walking into a 60 by 40 stage, plugging your i-pod into a boom box, turning to face the 20 or so people (the tech crew, regional programs director Sean Ryan, artistic director, communications director, designer, press, photographers, family and friends perhaps), turn on your thang whatever it is and go. The light is work light. Any multimedia elements are on a TV screen and the boom box. Some of these pieces are being performed for the first time in public at all. It is a strange energy, but energy nonetheless.

Amy O/tiny rage Into the Fray – Amy O Neal leaves her usual appurtenances at home, no video, no live music, no Locust, it’s a solo bit. Her inspiration – ninjas (!) and “thinking about fights with yourself” and the piece will begin with a beat up Amy O, reenacting the fight. The small part of the overall 20 minutes she showed today expressed contained anger, performed in a limited space with a blindfold. She promises to reveal another side of herself as a performer, and I am intrigued to see how this plays out.

Danny Herter & The Invasive Species couloir (trek) – a couloir from the French for “corridor” is a gorge or a deep cleft in a mountain, and Danny’s “all terrain dance force” performs many marching, climbing and trekking movements in unison. There is text (uh oh!) but the dancers are quirky, charming, and funny. There is rap (Oh no!) but it is refreshingly original in its delivery and in the actual content. The use of costume (climbing gear, hooded jackets that zip together, goggles, backpacks) and the outer space references made this one of my favorite pieces.

Josephine’s Echopraxia stifle – Marissa Rae Niederhauser has made a powerful emotional dance, it got to me personally, and that is harder to do than it used to be before I got to be the jaded old bastard I am sometimes. Spencer Moody (Murder City Devils vocalist) has created an effective score, using rock guitars, piano and drums, mostly instrumental but with blues vocals at exactly the right moment. The piece may be inspired by Marissa’s brush with death but when the dancers move from the anguished distress at the beginning of the piece into frenetic unison, this dance is ultimately life affirming.

Mark Haim This Land is Your Land – Mark’s take on a country line dance, features a glorious variety of performers walking repeatedly, runway style up and down stage for nearly the full 20 minute limit for the festival. The transformation of this line over time is brilliant. I did wince when Trace Adkins (yes that badonkadonk song) immediately followed Hank Williams’ Cold Cold Heart but that is nothing to do with the piece, its just everyday sacrilege.

The Offshore Project The Buffoon – This piece features a 5 piece band and is inspired by Edward Gorey’s The Doubtful Guest in which a strange creature invades a home and stays for years, destroying things and brooding. Ezra Dickinson does a fantastic job of being the strange guest and playing with a chair.

Lingo Embracing the inevitable – KT Niehoff and Alia Swersky performed as a duet phrases learned from the other, and then each their own phrase simultaneously. My good friend Scott Colburn will create the music. KT spoke of being an experienced dancer, and how she was embracing the inevitable by accepting that her body is going to move only in the way that she has trained it for so long. Perhaps I’m not saying that well. The movement vocabulary was familiar, and I can see KT’s influence on and relationship with other Seattle dancers (see Amy O above). Nevertheless, we are talking about a great dancer. Perhaps there is a freshness to be found in acceptance, strength in working within perceived limits, both for KT and for those of us watching.

Corrie Befort Cut Chalk – This piece began today with Corrie singing, which was a surprise for her and us! The person who was to perform this part was not available, but it may be serendipitous. There is also rhythmic music performed by clapping and stomping from the dancers and musicians. Acoustic sounds performed by the dancers of in the voms of the theatre work really well, and I look forward to hearing integration with an electronic score from Tom Baker.

Laara Garcia/Pseudopod Interactive Sakura Rising – This is a live enactment of a video game, with multilevel projections, sound effects, martial arts, Kabuki style magic, and some great costumes. We didn’t get to see any of that. The no-tech format means that we really didn’t get to see the piece as it will be, and I hope the tech will give the support needed to the game character style choreography.

The Festival runs June 4-6 and 11-13 2010. The atmosphere is great, the energy and excitement is high, and I highly recommend you go and see it. Yes – I work at OTB. I’ll be running the sound. So I’ll see you there.

Links :

http://seattledances.blogspot.com/2010/05/otb-northwest-new-works-line-up.html

Risk and Reward - OTB NWNW preview

On The Boards Theatre’s Northwest New Works Festival has always been about bravery to me. It’s a chance for artists to put something new out there, often for the first time on a larger stage, or for the OTB audience – which (who) may be the most valuable thing about the festival. Mostly, no-one can predict how the audience will react, and the risk of it, is for me, the most exciting part.

In this spirit then, I will risk previewing instead of re-viewing. May the artists and audience prove me wrong, or right!

The Mint Collective Daughters of Air– is Kelli Corrado and Ivory Smith, with projections provided by Joe. The piece is based on the Little Mermaid, in particular the non-Disney death of said half-fish. She becomes a “daughter of air” or perhaps sea foam. There are 6 tulle jellyfish, and the projections so far are beautiful, like underwater bubbles moving like a school of tiny fish. If the rest of the lighting is as good, and the women get their music together this will be very good.

Paul Budraitis Not. Stable. (At. all.) – Paul does a solo performance, today the writing was solid, with great moments (I loved the description of other folks on the bus as Les Miserables). He was a little tense about the preview, and so all the characters were a little more agitated than I suspect they will end up, less Woody Allen on speed, less Lewis Black on crack. He has the presence to pull it off.

Mike Pham I Love You, I Hate You – The Helsinki Project’s right brain (or is it the left?) uses movement lifted from the winter Olympics, falling down hard, and some inspired video to create a struggle to the death worth watching. His dance is almost too good to be funny (or is it too funny to be good?)

The Cherdonna and Lou Show It’s a Salon – Jody Kuehner and Ricki Mason are so good on stage, that anything they do will be funny. There will also be substance. I predict they will take something beautiful and break it for you. Salami was also promised.

The Satori Group The Making of a Monster – this group theatre piece is based on Japanese Manga, uses the art of Kurogo - assistants are dressed all in black costume who technically animate parts of the set and perform lifts etc. The cartoon framing is bang on, as is the English version of Japanese cartoon voice. The costumes promise to be incredible, including an octopus! The script seemed a bit too after-school-special, (teen sex! Embarrassing!) but perhaps the total package will hold up.

Erin Leddy My Mind is Like an Open Meadow – I had no preview, so none for you either.

Lily Verlaine Magpie – described as a “non-consensual interaction.” Lily gets naked, dances, climbs in the audience. She is playing around with sex, burlesque, pornography and people. I’m not sure what it achieves. I ended up with lipstick on my collar – No really honey it was a performance artist! I think this one needs a full audience to work, if it will work at all.

Charles Smith Today I am a Zionist – Full disclosure – I work with Charles and consider him a friend. Nonetheless, this is clearly my favorite of the studio shows this festival. He plays the hammered dulcimer, sings, and delivers well written monologues with force and wit. There is Seattle history, there are some stunning slides, and there is archival footage of a long ago performance. Go and see this.

Hmm, reading back over this, I guess overall NWNW this year looking good so far. Tomorrow I get to see the previews for the upstairs theatre, so more bravery and blogging to come. Writing a blog about these performers, or really any show in particular, there is the tendency to critique, to assume a voice of authority, to assign value. I want to say to readers and artists alike that I believe that some work is good, some work is really bad, but that all the work is worth attempting. Failure is only a beginning, if you have bravery.

Lingo Dance

So tonight Anne and I drove down I5 and took the Union St exit, which I never do. I always figure out how to take Hwy 99 instead, and then drive through interminable downtown intersections gawking at the city. I come from a small town on a small island (Nassau, on New Providence, which is 21 miles long and 7 miles wide), and still enjoy the height of even a smaller city. Go ahead, call the guy from the Bahamas a “tourist.”

Anyway, we went to see Glimmer of hope or skin or light KT Niehoff / Lingo Dance’s piece showing at ACT in the beautiful Bullitt Theatre. I had multiple reasons to see this:

1. I have actually appeared in a KT piece - as a stagehand at OnTheBoards - go figure?

2. I am a fan of Ivory Smith’s crazy voice. Her band is on the stage.

3. Quadrophonic sound design from Jabon, aka Scott Colburn, the Audio Wizard.

We ran into Rob Witmer in the lobby, he was going to see On The Nature of Dust which he did the sound design for. Then we ran into choreographer Pat Graney, who is marvelous, calls me Julian Manoolian, and is one of very few people I have been to prison with. Spotted: Brett Fetzer, Dayna Hanson and Dave Proscia. On to the show!

As you walk in, you are greeted by dancers in wonderful costumes, and truly staggeringly makeup. They are flirting, touching shoulders, standing a little too close, these are the cabaret performers. Ivory in Iceworld is playing at background volume, I was impressed with the sound at this point. There are costumes hanging in the corners, and 3 dance floors in addition to the band’s stage. The lights dim, and the dance proper begins. The dancers move around the space and the audience follows, reminding me of Sara Michelson’s Daylight.

Highlights –

Scott Colburn’s music is really setting the mood. Some of the more rhythmic pieces would fit perfectly into one of Riz Rollin’s mixes.

KT sings with the band, and proves her ability as a performer yet again, she is intense! She and Ivory sing well together too. The punk rock surprise was VERY surprising.

The rest –

I found the show very difficult to engage with. All the dance and interactive elements felt unfinished and or improvised. Despite there being some of my favorite dancers in Seattle in the piece (Michael Rioux and Ricki Mason stand out) I just didn’t dig the dance itself.. Unfortunately this left the playing with sex and cabaret feeling gimmicky – I wanted to get into it, but mainly felt uncomfortable. The moving around ended up not working, though I did like the idea of being “in” the dance, the dancers having to ask people to move because the choreography was coming that way was distracting. As usual there were moments, some beautiful, some painful – a dancer falls down the stairs, a naked man is yelling Dennis Hopper quotes. Still it felt like a really good second draft.

Here’s some links

http://www.acttheatre.org

http://www.lingodance.com/

http://www.gravelvoice.com/jabon/

http://www.myspace.com/ivorysmith

Blog Roll

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/we-stink/Content?oid=3997027

http://seattledances.blogspot.com/2010/04/lingo-glimmer-opens-at-act-this-week.html

http://www.artdish.com/post/2010/04/28/A-Glimmer-of-Hope-or-Skin-or-Light.aspx

Double shot of Silverhands

Well, it’s a Monday night, and I am beat and wide awake at the same time. Maybe the next album will be called “Tired and Wired.” Strike last night at the theatre went til 1am which would have been just fine if we hadn’t rolled back into Seattle from Portland around 3am Sunday morning. Hold on, let me begin at the beginning.

Farfetcher was in sideman role for Silverhands on Friday and Saturday. It was a double shot gig with Cash’d Out, one hell of a Johnny Cash tribute band from San Diego. They took a liking to us a couple years back now, when we filled in for a disappearing opening act at the last minute down at the Tractor Tavern on good old Ballard Ave. Mike kept in touch, we played another gig with them, and I ran sound for them also one time. Suffice it to say, we get along just fine, and they invited us back, and to join them for the other NW stop in Portland.

The boss was kind enough to let me off the hook at OnTheBoards where Rimini Protokoll was doing their crazy social videogame thing – seriously, everyone in the audience gets a game controller and an avatar. 200 people then responding to game situations and questions like “do you want an army in this society?” Or “do you take the heroin?” Its Seattle so everyone said no, and yes. To all questions.

Anyways, I ran off on Friday and headed over to Greg’s for a little pre-show rehearsal. Yup! Greg from the Lost High Rollers (and also Tractor Tavern sound man) joined us on drums for both nights, which is a lot more rockin, than the 2 piece bit, and honestly decreases my noodle factor and ups the rhythm playing substantially. Now if we just could find a swingin bass player with the right curriculum vitae.

I had posted a guitar poll on facebook (thanks voters!) and the Yamaha Tele won out over the more often played (and better set up) Les Paul Special. Special mention to the Big Cat who managed to point out why the Tele was better without speaking the dread words “GIBSON????? PAUL REED SMITH!!!!!” Enough people told me the timing was too short – I’ll put the poll up earlier next gig J

On to the show! Sound check was easy enough, just switch out snare and cymbals and off we go. I left all the pedals at home, Tele through the Blues Jr is twangy and verby enough for the thing. Thanks to Kevin from Cash’d Out for reassuring me, and for the Tele Talk. Tuned by ear – suck it Antares – humans can do that you know!

The club was packed to the gills, and I was having a semi-severe case of the nerves, special thanks to the guy with arms crossed staring at my fingers the whole time. Got out of my head after a couple of choruses and then it was alright. As usual, the Cash’d Out crowd is expecting Johnny Cash tunes, and we have to win them over. It’s a bit easier with a drummer, but it was still hard to hear my guitar over the talking of 300+. Hmm, maybe I should get a Twin? Maybe this is the next FB poll. “Cornbread” went down well though, and Tom Parker came up to blow the hell out of a C harp. Yeh – tune is in G. Cross harp man. He also played on Orange Blossom Special with Cash’d Out which was balls out given the monitor situation.

Anne and I split to go home and watch Crazy Heart, which is a terrible movie. In North Carolina we say “Turr a Bull.” To (mis) quote Kris Kristofferson “that movie is to country music, what pantyhose is to finger fuckin.” Pardon my French. Go see Honeysuckle Rose.

Night two – after a lovely drive down to Portland, sunshine all the way, we wandered about the music stores, and I resisted a G&L Tele, and the Silvertone amp I was playing it through, despite the no sales tax thing. Greg bought a snare drum though, and it is awesome! Drummers - http://revivaldrumshop.com/

Danté’s is a killer club, with a fine sound system, Stevie the sound guy was punk rock fast, the cave of a green room is pretty great too, but turned us all into hunchbacks. We had Lefty, the one armed harmonica player and local rock star get up and blow in place of Tom, which got a good cheer from the locals. I pulled out the pedals again, I was missing the slapback, but the YahaTele played great, perhaps rewarding me for rejecting the G&L, or maybe it was the hour of warmup in the cave?

Cash’d Out rocked it out even better than at the Tractor, and the people were shouting along. Still as I pushed through with the gear headed for the van, there was plenty of backslaps and “good show man!” to go around. Lefty called us the Silverlads and was so dang happy to have played it made my night. The mighty Chad Hinman was in the house too – He’s at Club 915 on the 16^th. Here’s some links :

http://www.reverbnation.com/chadhinman

http://www.myspace.com/silverhandsmusic

http://www.myspace.com/cashdout

Here's a picture of a drink on a trash can.

Washington Hall Reopening

Man – it got busy in Farfetcher land, what with loading in the Rimini Protokoll show at OTB, and rehearsing up the Silverhands set for the sold out shows at the Tractor Tavern and Dante’s down in Portland. So this episode is running a bit behind (and a bit long, sorry) – hope I can remember everything that happened at the …

Washington Hall House Party

Washington Hall in Seattle’s Central District has been a dance hall and performance venue for over 100 years. The Danish Brotherhood built it in 1908, and were equal opportunity renters (Daughter’s of the Revolution and the Socialist Party!). Duke Ellington and Count Basie, Billie Holiday and Mahalia Jackson, even Jimi played here. Martin Luther King spoke here. It was also the old home of On The Boards, presenting works of Spalding Grey, Meredith Monk, Mark Morris etc.

Link here : http://www.washingtonhall.org/

Historic Seattle and 4Culture managed to purchase the hall (!) and yours truly was invited to do technical support and sound for the grand reopening of the space. Luckily (maybe) the Langston Hughes Center is closed (temporarily) for seismic upgrades (we live on a fault line, its called Interstate 5) and I went over and picked out any gear that seemed useful. The Historic Seattle team lugged it over and I started untangling cables and plugging things together. A few hours later, we have a PA! It sounds awful. The room is great, with an extremely live acoustic - that’s a long RT60 - **nerd stuff coming:

RT60 = k(V/Sa)

k= 0.049 (it’s a constant – this is for measurements in feet)

V=volume (or width x length x height)

Sa= the total surface absorption of the room S=surface area, a=coefficient of absorption)

=0.049((62x100x24)/1132.17 (a guess – plaster and lathe and lots of it)

=6.44 (!)

So it is taking over 6 seconds in theory for the reverberation to fall 60dB. I left out the windows and doors though. It really sounded more like 3 seconds. Still it was enough that it was hard to clearly make out speech more than a few feet away, and as the PA got louder, the room got muddier and murkier. **

So anyway, it’s horrible. I’m thinking about donning a disguise and changing my name in the flyers. All of them. By hand with a sharpie. Then people start showing up, lots of them, and the whole thing just fixes itself. Well maybe not fixes, but it got a bit better huh. On to the show –

Act I – Hadley Caliman Quintet

Jazz man. I mean that like “Jaaaaz, maaan” Mr Caliman is 77 years old, plays saxophone beautifully, in a no nonsense straight ahead style. Dawn Clement on keys, Dan O’Brien on bass, D’Vonne Lewis on drums and Thomas Marriott on trumpet. The usual effect, the audience mostly talked through and over the music, but still clapped whenever a solo finished. Now, I know this will piss of many of you, but this is partly an i-pod issue, and partly that Jazz is now mainly an academic music form. When you get too intellectual, you lose the people. I’m not saying intellectual is “bad”, I’m just saying no-one wants to listen to it. Oh, by “no-one” I mean me and Big Cat and Chunk, and RD and Lee, and so on, but I’m not throwing on the Miles at a party right after Beyoncé. You tell me how to get pop again, and I’ll jump on that train, because its got to make the pop better than it mostly is now. Oh look I talked through my own review. Seriously the players are wonderful musicians. Oh yeah, and 77 year old jazz guys are on myspace now :0

http://www.myspace.com/hadleycaliman

Act II

Richard Svensson played the 5 row Chromatic Button Accordion. Both player and instrument were made in Sweden, he had his first paying gig at the Hall in 1963. There was polka dancing (Looking at you Erin Jorgensen!) He was charming.

Lori Larsen gave a sweet and captivating tale of her family (3 generations have performed Sunday on Amager at the Hall) and then performed a duet with Victor Janusz who scored a kiss on stage and love from the audience.

Black Stax – featuring the all night MC Felicia Loud doing her Billie Holiday impression, then busting into some hip hop with Eccajace, Silas Black and Owuor Arunga on trumpet. They have talent, and skills, but the tracks needed mastering, too much boom and sting, just adding to the mud in the room. Tough on the sound guy, who was cringing. (Me I mean, not some other poor boob)

Dayna Hanson – showed yet another simple looking dance, that I dare you to try and do. Shannon Stewart joined her and they really classed up the joint. Today! (the band) played, minus Maggie (though she swung by), plus Dan Bernunzio, Paul Moore and Dave Proscia..

http://www.daynahanson.com/

Jim Kent, Mark Haim, and Ben Maestas pulled out the now ubiquitous (in Seattle it seems at least) “Put a Ring On it” dance – see the video link (coming soon)…

Cristina Orbé has a great voice, fabulous stage presence, and already has a fan base. Pretty theatrical musical style, she should do well in this town – http://cristinaorbe.bandcamp.com

Act III – brought to you by Hidmo.org (it’s a restaurant, it’s a cultural center, its really awesome)

Audio Couture – wow these guys can play anything! Mainly they play jazz and funk, totally danceable.

Sukutai – Dance and music from Zimbabwe. Some of the most amazing dancers I have seen in a long time hiding in this group, and trust me, at my job I see a shitload of amazing dancers. Rough gig man, rough gig. There is a little girl in Sukutai who moves so well, you can keep your bun heads man.

Yirim Seck – hip hop, energetic, nice tracks.

Brothers from Another – hip hop, young and cute, the highschoolers are screaming still.

Piece Kelly – hip hop, together young lady, better tracks, better stage vibe, and I noticed she had a picture of herself getting a hug from the Dalai Lama on her laptop wallpaper. So why not “Peace” Kelly I wonder?

http://piece.be

Jus Moni – Hip Hop and R&B vocals, young and earnest.

Sunday

Alley Oop – Folk guy with a guitar and a whole lot of different whistles for the kids.

Savoy Swing – duh. Casey McGill’s trio can rock it old school though – One mic centre stage, gather round and go. Cut a rug here –

http://blue4trio.com

Jimmy and Grace Holden – Ok I fell in love with Grace, who is 80 and sings so strong it made me cheer. Jimmy sang It’s a Wonderful World, and Georgia on my Mind, which made me cry. How can jazz get back to the pop? I want songs like these again please, and singers like these too. I wonder if I can get a lesson? Hmmm.

Kibibi Monié / Dark Divas – the stereotypical African American theatre, with mentions of slavery, lynching, use of fake southern accent, and a very little girl singing beautifully. There is also a very intelligent woman inside the caricature. Check.

I'm looking for, a song I heard today

Last night, Farfetcher, as promised went down to the Conor Byrne pub, and played a little Willie. Nelson that is – and sadly I must report the Willie jokes were of only lower caliber than the above hobbling horse. The evening was long (it was a tribute night) so I’ll forgo the usual listing of all the bands, and skip to the good (slightly better) bits.

First of all – Ballard Ave is now just about as bad as Capitol Hill on a Friday – there is nowhere to park, at all. Ride a bike people, take a bus. Oh right, the buses stop running too early and you can’t get home without dropping 30 bones on a cab. Fair enough, but would you mind trading in for a smaller car?

Anyways, Anne and I were traveling light, she in her tall and shiny boots, me tall, and shiny due to the western shirt Mike (Silverhands) gave me, not sequined but sort of shiny polka dotted. I had a capo, a guitar cable, and a set list.

Mike, Tom Parker (Starlings), and I used to get together every Tuesday, back before the infamous 6 month Starlings tour began, and play old country songs and folkie bits whilst consuming fifths of Jameson, Powers, or if someone was feeling rich we’d switch nations and share in the Aberlour. We call this grouping the ‘Pennylifters’ which is an Iowan term for ‘underwear thieves’, in the same way that what you may call a “Banana Hammock” is known as a “Budgie Smuggler” in Australia. This fine evening we were joined by BC Campbell on piano (a Pennylifters debut!) and Greg from Zoe Muth’s Lost High Rollers on the skins. The usual 3 guitar attack thus could be altered, meaning I was playing Tom’s Martin acoustic, Mike on the Fender Bass, and Tom on Hohner harps. A freakin band man!

We got up on stage, and said hello to Country Dave who was emcee. He managed to wait through all our faffing about as we got settled in, and then begin to rattle of ‘Willie Facts’ once we were ready to go. He figured it out eventually and off we went.

The sound out front was supposedly pretty good, but on stage it was actually funny how bad it was. I was grinning at Tom as I broke into “Mr Record Man” – my current favorite Willie Nelson song, and realized I could not hear myself at all. The fear in this situation of course is that you are sounding like a person singing along too loudly with headphones on – think Eddie Murphy doing “Roxanne” in what was that ‘The Golden Child’? At the same time, something was ringing in the monitors low, giving the impression of a windstorm on stage. Now I can truly say I understand why what you might call “Feedback” the British engineers call “Howlaround.”

We turned that crowd on anyways! ‘To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before’ got the dancers back up out of their seats, then ‘Good Hearted Woman’ had the sing along going. “Gone Gone Gone”, I have no idea if I played that lick right, but I was beating hell out of that guitar. Great fun, back slaps and handshakes as we climbed back down. Here’s a link:

http://www.myspace.com/pennylifters