Band of Brothers / Blackout!

Tuesday we went to Manhattan, KS. We drove through endless fields of sunflowers and sleeping cows, only to reach this tiny oasis of a town filled with college bookstores and bars. Our show was at Auntie Mae’s Parlor, a decent-sized bar with a tiny corner stage. Tiger Saw performed first. This was a late booking, and no one really knew who we were. We played to an attentive front of the room, and a chatty back of the room. I got a few people to sing along on our last song. We played with a fun no-wave dance rock band called The Olympics, who dedicated their cover of ‘I Would Die 4 U’ to me. They must have seen the Prince button on my jacket! A fellow who calls his one-man band Jonathan closed the evening. He played guitar along with backing tracks. It was very loud, and very mid-nineties college rock sounding. Nice dude. After the show, we stayed at the Ghost Parlor, a many-gabled house where the kids from the Olympics sometimes put on shows.

From Kansas, we drove to Denver, CO. We got to town early, so we walked around the neighborhood. There’s a nice park called Chessman Park, that has fountains and weird Greek architecture. Lots of nice red flowers as well. We went back to the house where we are playing, Le Crunk. It a pretty nice house, full of instruments and friendly kids. They cooked us some dinner, and we hung out for a while before the show. Berries opened the show. It was their fourth show ever. They are a three-piece who switch instruments, and play a sort of charming, sloppy, trippy folk music. Tiger Saw played, and we had a really good show. The audience was really into singing along, and mid-set, we decided that we’d come back here in two weeks, and everyone present would be in the band for the show. People can bring whatever instruments they can muster up, and everyone can sing. We’ll have an early practice, then we’ll have dinner together and do a show. Everyone’s really excited for our return! After the set, someone broke a piñata, and we all ate candy while listening to a Nedelle record. Great kids here in Denver. Can’t wait to come back.

TSaw Posse

The next day, we drove to Grand Junction. It was a beautiful drive. We got to town, and it was raining. Our friend Ryan took us downtown, and we had pizza at the cool place where he works. The show is at Coffee Muggers, where I had played with Casey this summer, and normally the shows are outside under a tree, but the rain moved the show inside. We played a short quiet, set, then a noise / dance act played super-loud through a bunch of amps and two P.A.’s. There was supposed to be another band from Portland, but they got stuck in Arizona. We’ve been lucky to be able to get where we need to be each day.

house show on the moon

Not New England...

After spending the night at Ryan’s, we drove to Provo, Utah, and got to Starry Night. We showed up, and no one was there. It looked closed, and there were no posters at the club for any shows since August. We worried that there was some sort of miscommunication, and that there was no show. It was raining still, too, and we didn’t know what to do. After a while, Matt, who is running the club showed up . He just took over Starry Night from another promoter, and things seem to be in a transition here. Matt is really nice though, his wife made us pasta, and he was really hospitable. Our friend Parker, The Grizzly Prospector opened the show. He has a timeless, crooner voice, but he plays stripped down folk songs with a classical guitar. It’s always nice to see him. We played second, and people were really receptive to our set. A trio called TaughtMe closed the show. I have heard about them for years, and it was cool to be able to finally see them. They play guitars, bass, and electronics, with are really expressive, emotive singer. The songs are dynamic and sexy, and they look good playing them. Everyone in the audience loves them, and I think they have a good show. All around, it was a lovely night. We stayed with Parker’s brother, and got up at 6am for our drive to Seattle.

Starry Night kids

Grizzly P's got the Shining!

like a Red Door show...

The sun coming up in the Utah mountains was breathtaking. We were tired, and spent all day in the car. It ended up being a thirteen hour drive to Seattle. We listened to some good songs, had some good talks, and drove though rain and hail, but we got there… And there was a blackout! The whole area where the Conor Byrne Pub is was dark. We met up with our drummer Gregg Porter and the guys from The Hotel Alexis and Unbunny, and we got some food. Everyone was trying to figure out what to do. We all decided that we’d play some sort of acoustic set, lit by candles. I think that sounds nice, and not that different than some of the shows of this tour already. So we set up to play- I borrowed an acoustic guitar, Gregg played his drums, and Chris played an upright piano that was onstage. We played three songs, and it sounded decent. Then, boom, the power came on! Everyone cheered, and it became a noisy bar again. We tried to play another song with this same setup, but somehow it didn’t work with the lights back on. People were emboldened and the room was too noisy to play sans amps. So we took a little break, and got some mics and amps set up, and finished our set. Now we played really loudly, and Chris’ piano was drowned out. We finished, as usual, with ‘Postcards & Letters’, and I sang the last part walking through the crowd and out the front door…

The Hotel Alexis played next. Dave from Testface is filling in on bass for these dates. They played all older songs, and sounded really tight and heavy. It’s a good lineup, and Sid ripped some awesome guitar solos. I joked later that they played a grunge set because we were in Seattle. (We’ve heard Nirvana twice on the radio since we’ve been here.) Towards the end of their set, the power actually went out again, and Sid improvised on the piano in the dark. It seems appropriate, as he has a lyric in a song about playing a piano in the dark. It was cool to see the sort of unpredictable, weird side of the Hotel Alexis come out in the blackout, after such a solid, rock set that they played with the lights on.

Hotel Alexis grunge set

El Sid

"play piano in the dark / look away..."

Testface and Unbunny played afterwards. Testface was a more rockin’ version than I had seen before, but they sounded good. And Unbunny played a tight set as a power trio. All these bands that I have seen as spacey folk acts were in full-on pub rockin’ mode. Except for Tiger Saw- we were just confused and thrown off by the night. It’s still great to see everyone, and everyone did sound great. It’ll be interesting to see all the bands play in different kinds of rooms, see how they adapt to different situations. Hearing the Hotel Alexis play made me miss playing with them. (I played guitar and melodica on their first album, and played out with them for a while). After the show was over, we stayed at my friend Carlos’ apartment. We stayed up talking ‘til three, then it was time for much-needed sleep.

Unbunny in unfocus

Uh-oh, I missed breakfast with the guys at ten. I slept until 1pm. I never sleep that late! Yesterday really caught up with me. But it felt good. Carlos took us out for pho, which was delicious, then we hit the road for Portland. We met up with our friends Nire, who are perhaps the nicest people in Portland. We went to Amnesia, a cool barbecue bar for dinner, then headed off to the Green House, a green house where the show is held. Chris and I played as a duo tonight, as Gregg stayed behind to record with the Hotel Alexis. A nice fellow named Yonathan Gat played first. He’s from Tel-Aviv, Israel, and is on tour in the Northwest for a little while. Nire played a great set. They played some new songs that I hadn’t heard before, and this small, basement room was the perfect setting for their hushed, intimate music. Junkface (not to be confused with last night’s Testface) played a strange pop set, and Tiger Saw closed the evening to a pretty small crowd who seemed to enjoy it. There was a fellow who came to the show who makes his living by attending house shows in the Portland area and selling his micro brewed beer. He calls his business Captured by Porches, and is sometimes featured on show fliers as if he were a band. A funny idea, but a good one. We had intended to sell cookies at shows, but that’s only happened once so far. After the show, we went back to Nire’s house, and Erin made us popcorn and tea, and we hung out with their nice, big dogs.

Nire on Fire