As I write this, the Shins are soundchecking Pink Floyd’s Breath at Red Rocks. I really hope they play it tonight. We’ve been opening for the Shins for a few days now, as well as Head And The Heart who are the main openers. This is the big time. None of the Shins have acknowledged our existence yet, aside from looking really annoyed when we variously used the bathrooms by their green room in Salt Lake City. They were the only ones though, so we had to. Sorry James Mercer.
Shins over SLC
We only play 30 minute sets for these shows, which is actually great because a) we only play our best songs and b) we’re off the stage by 7:30 every night. Last night at the Red Butte Amphitheater in SLC I went for a hike in the mountains and could hear The Shins as the sun set over the Great Salt Lake. Pretty awesome, until I found myself alone at the top of a very tall hill after dark. I found my way back though.
Tonight we’re at Red Rocks, setting for the personally seminal recording U2 Live Under A Blood Red Sky as well as the very entertaining Esteban guitar infomercial. What an honor.
Just got back from Blind Pilot tour rehearsal in Astoria. I’ve been in a cave of sorts since our Singapore show- remodeling three rooms in our house with new woodwork, fixtures, floor and wall tile, window frames, paint, etc. Working all day, every day on a project of this sort takes its tole: I’ve got to cut down on the audible conversations with myself, continue getting back in shape (despite how one feels at the end of the day, carpentry is not good cardiovascular activity), and start wearing clothes not covered in paint and sawdust (I get mistaken for a homeless man more and more frequently). After last tour I had big plans to buy a piano and do all kinds of composition and musical planning, but instead my like got taken over by sheetrock, wonderboard, tile, wood putty, and 1 by 6. This said, it is with great excitement that I prepare to embark on a tour that includes opening for The Shins and Dave Mathews and great slots at Sasquatch and Bonneroo. I’ll just need to be careful not to talk about home repair topics to the young fans, lest they realize how much less glamorous Blind Pilot is when I’m around.
There was a bit of music in the last two months- I got to play 4 Livewire gigs that included such great musical guests as Black Prairie, Storm Large, Alialujah Choir, and Laura Gibson. There was a lot of subbing in the house band due to Ralph’s month long gig on Broadway, so I got to reunite with Blue Cranes alto player and former fellow Dirty Mitten Reed Walsmith, Portland’s legendary steel and trumpet player Paul Brainard, and Vegabond Opera member Paul Evans. Here’s a fun clip from the show featuring myself on trumpet and drums, Reed on alto and keyboard and Jim on upright bass:
LW Blurb
alaska
Also, providing temporary respite from the construction, Blind Pilot flew up to Anchorage Alaska to play at the Beartooth Theater. It was a quick trip, but we happened to be sharing a hotel with the Alaska Republican convention. The douchey young Republicans in the lobby tended to lean toward Romney, while the rednecks were heavily Ron Paul. There was considerable band discussion of what we’d each do if we shared a chance elevator ride with Sarah Palin, but as far as I know the situation never arose. The other notable thing about the trip was the greenroom- a rented party bus whose insides contained black lighting, a stripper pole, black leather couches, and about 20 TV’s. It smelled quite heavily disinfected, so we opted to enjoy the unseasonably warm and sunny weather in the parking lot. It was a fun show though, and I’m looking forward to playing some more soon!
Remember that show we had at Tric, the fictional rock club full of twenty-somethings of high moral character just blowing off a little steam? Actually, it only existed in the realm of TV, and the episode aired the other night- the series finale of One Tree Hill, at least until they make the reunion movie. I remember it like yesterday- how I tried to ‘forget about’ that nice shirt they gave me from the costume department, but the lady with the clipboard and radio tracked me down at the last minute before our shuttle left to go back to the hotel. Mercifully, our three minutes of fame occurred at the very beginning of the episode- Kate and I weren’t sure if we could sit it out for 90 minutes. Here’s a link to the clip on youtube..
As mentioned just before I hit the road with Blind Pilot in January (here), my bandmates and I from Live Wire Radio‘s house band The Mutton Chops recorded 99 very short songs in two studio days. In the relatively short time I was gone, Jim and Ralph demonstrated impressive powers of diligence and planning- they mixed and mastered the songs (my one contribution was sequencing the tracks in a Pontiac Michigan green room, much to the annoyance of anyone within earshot), hired a designer for art, came up with a cool web concept, pressed CDs, and found representation. Pretty exciting! Here are a few samples:
As I played my borrowed Korg CX3 and tried to ignore the way it sounded in the monitors, it hit me that I was on a stage in Singapore. I knew this already, but it wasn’t until actually performing that it really sunk in that we had flown half way around the world and set aside a week of our lives to play these two 60 minute sets to about 150 people each. Weird. The room was a completely deadened sound stage and both audiences were totally silent except to politely clap after each song. It reminded me of auditioning for music school, sight reading orchestral excerpts in front of 5 unamused brass department professors. Apparently I responded by performing so stoically that upon watching some Youtube clips, my parents became worried that I was either hurt or very sick.
Singapore was a great adventure. The Festival folks provided very generous accommodations from which we explored the various parts of a city that provided the perfect introduction to Southeast Asian travel- a staggering mix of cultures with just enough English speaking familiarity to help us find our way. Kate and I spent time in Chinatown, Little India, the Arab Quarter, the National Museum of Singapore, the amazing zoo, and many jaw dropping malls and hocker markets. Downtown is ultramodern in an already dated 90′s sort of way, but the level of public works investment and “ocean reclamation” was pretty incredible. We learned that while good food can be very cheap in the right places, beer is painfully expensive- we came to view SG$5.50 22oz Tiger Beers as a great value. Nice to be back in Oregon for that..
(kate pic)
After the band headed home, Kate and I journeyed by bus and ferry into Malaysia to the island of Pulau Tiomon in the South China Sea. We spent several days doing nothing but living in a hut, sitting on the beach and occasionally snorkeling off a jetty. It was very nice, and we saw monkeys (they traveled via the power lines above our hut), a monitor lizard, barracudas, and a black tip reef shark in the wild. Narrowly avoiding being stranded by a late ferry as the tide receded, we found our return bus, made our way through the many miles of palm plantations to Singapore, and ultimately back on the plane for our 22 hour journey via Tokyo. Happily home and shaking the lingering jet lag, I am getting my trumpet chops back together (I went a week without practicing!!) for this Saturday’s taping Live Wire Radio. A non Blind Pilot gig? That will be pretty strange..
Well, we made it through the Winter tour and are back home for a few days. The last stretch across the far north of the country proved very temperate in climate. What a surprise to be walking around Missoula MT in a T-shirt in March! The small Wibaux show at Beaver Creek Brewery (their Beaver Tastes Better!) was a lot of fun and hanging out with the locals afterward was quite an eye opener. I learned all about the oil boom there, accepted a shot from a guy my age that I learned later was a hated “land man.” After climbing Sentinel Hill in Missoula in said T Shirt, I was delighted to find out that the Top Hat Club had a Hammond B3 sitting in the green room that was last used by Ivan Neville on a recent tour with his band Dumbstafunk. It screamed compared to my puny travel organ rig, but that Leslie definitely wouldn’t fit in the bus.
Here we are in St. Louis after quite a while in the South. We had a good number of days on the various beaches and poolsides of Florida, as evidenced by my peeling skin. There were dolphins and lots of retired people acting like teenagers. We camped at Fort DeSoto and enjoyed exploring the shrine to Henry Flagler that is St. Augustine. Athens, GA saw me crashing an old-lady-water-fitness class at the Holiday Inn in order to read my book in the hot tub. I don’t think they minded. It feels really good to be heading back toward Oregon now- we’re at that point in tour where it’s impossible to tell whether the shows are good or bad- they just tumble out one after another. Onward!
