Who needs a drummer? (Kate photo)
Last week was a whirlwind, but I had a great time and it felt good to be working so hard at something I enjoy so much. On Wednesday, The Very Foundation’s webcast went well, albeit with a little too much wine. I haven’t had the courage to watch the archived footage, but it’s here if you want to.
Thursday’s show with Rachel Robinson was a delightful surprise- we played as a three piece comprised of Rachel on guitar and vocals, myself on Rhodes and trumpet, and Mark Orton on guitar, Dobro, and slide steal. A full time composer, film scorer and founding member of the fantastic Tin Hat Trio, Mark got some truly amazing sounds out of his instruments that blended very sweetly with Rachel’s voice and my Rhodes volume swells.
Friday’s show was my first as a member of Ralph Huntley and the Mutton Chops, Live Wire’s house band. I had a great time and learned a lot in both the preparation for and the execution of this precision operation. Our musical selections had to be timed perfectly, and I think we delivered quite well. The guests, including the actor that plays the tall burglar in Home Alone and some Family Guy writers, were very amusing to watch. I look forward to playing more Live Wire shows in the near future.
The Mutton Chops
Saturday’s Portland Center Stage show was my last, at least for now, with Jim Brunberg and Jonathan Newsome. These weekly gigs have been a lot of fun- a wide variety of material, quite low key, and surprisingly well recieved. I will miss next Saturday’s show due to a trip to Seattle to catch a Medeski Martin and Wood concert, and I’m looking forward to being on the audience side of things for a change.
Categories: gigs
Tagged: Live Wire, Medeski Martin and Wood, Rachel Robinson, The Very Foundation
This week is going to be even busier than normal on the musical front:
On Wednesday 2/17, I’ll be participating in a live webcast with my old friends The Very Foundation. Word is that in addition to playing some songs from their new record (I’ll be playing my trumpet parts as well as covering Decemberist Jenny Conlee’s organ parts from the record), there will be fondue and some sort of fondue-related drinking game. Should be interesting; tune in on Wednesday at 7:30 pacific.
On Thursday, I’ll be playing at venerable Portland haunt (actually an old hotel rumored to be quite haunted) The White Eagle with Rachel Starshine Robinson.
On Friday, I’ll be joining Ralph Huntley and Jim Brunberg to perform house band duties for a live recording of two LiveWire Radio episodes at the Mission Theater. For those that haven’t heard it (it’s still local), LiveWire could be summed up as an racier, younger, more Portland-esque version of A Prairie Home Companion. I’m quite excited about this gig- we’ve been meeting to compose new inter-segment music selections (aka bumps) and have already had a lot of fun working together. The shows air on Saturday nights on Oregon Public Broadcasting and can be streamed worldwide.
Finally, on Saturday I will be playing my last of a series of weekly gigs at the Portland Center Stage Theater with Jim Brunberg and Jonathan Newsome. We play from 5 to 7 pm in the cavernous lobby of the beautifully restored Portland Armory building. It’s worth a trip to see the building alone.
Should be a crazy week!
Categories: gigs
View from stage at the Doug Fir
It’s been quite a busy week with music. The Dirty Mittens show at the Doug Fir went very well- we filled up the club on a Wednesday night and I got to see first hand what the kids mean when they talk about a ‘dance party.’ There was lots of crowd dancing during our set, culminating with audience members crowding on stage for the last song and the encore. One of the members of the second band, Princeton (from LA) busted me reading my Warren Buffet biography before sound check. It turned out that he had majored in economics and was clearly quite excited to have an audience as he expounded on Adam Smith, John Maynard Keynes and Milton Friedman.
The scene at the beginning of the PCS gig
After two hurried rehearsals, Jim Brunberg, Jonathan Newsome, and myself played our first of a month’s worth of Saturday evening gigs in the lobby of the Portland Center Stage theater. We played two sets between the matinee and the evening performances of Snow Falling On Cedars, with material comprised of old standards and some original pop songs. It is a fun group consisting of Jim and Jonathan trading off on bass, guitar, and vocals and me playing Wurlitzer, trumpet, and some brushes-on-cardboard box percussion. At the beginning of the gig, the caverous lobby was mostly empty and we felt quite self conscious. By the end, however, there were several hundred people knocking back glasses of wine before entering the evening show.
Categories: gigs
Tagged: Dirty Mittens, Portland Center Stage, Warren Buffet
Dirty Mittens at RonTom's
The Dirty Mittens show at Ron Tom’s was really fun. The club itself was packed so full of early-20’s hipsters that I could barely get in the door. Despite the other great bands on the bill, we opted to hang out at the dive bar down the block until it was actually time to play. Much more comfortable. Over 30, married, and aware of the need to save for retirement, I am definitely no longer able to blend in with the hipsters. Tonight we’ll do it all again at Doug Fir. At least there’s a green room there.
Categories: gigs
Tagged: Dirty Mittens, rontoms
January 29, 2010 · 1 Comment
This week I started rehearsing with a band called Dirty Mittens. I met them through a recording session back in October for their soon-to-be released album, and their catchy songs stuck with me for quite some time. Now that I’m off the road, I’ve taken up a position as their trumpet player and will be performing my first show with them this Sunday, as part of RonTom’s 100th show party. The band has a great dynamic, is made up of very talented players, and seems very motivated yet upbeat. I’m looking forward to experiencing their live dynamic and seeing how crowds react to the band’s soulful dance-pop.
Sunday’s show marks the 100th that Rontom’s bar has put on since it opened a few years ago. Ron Toms, owner and creative agency ex-pat, built this club from the ground up and has managed to not only run a successful bar (hard to do in Portland), but also to continually present a live music night that doesn’t drive away business (even harder to manage). Sunday night live shows at Rontoms have done so well comparatively because they’ve remained free and consistently high quality. This Sunday’s show starts at 5:00 and features 8 bands, including Nick Jaina and Jared Mees. Should be a good time!
Categories: gigs
Tagged: Dirty Mittens, rontoms
January 22, 2010 · 1 Comment
When I was new to Portland back in 2001, I got a job as a bank teller for Wells Fargo at their Moreland Sellwood branch. Just across the street stood the old Wilhelm Funeral Home, an eerie looking place complete with a built in crematorium. Every day, either Old Man Wilhelm himself or his young blond secretary would bring their deposit across the street- a pile of checks that each represented one dead person. I had long forgotten all of this, but over the course of 2009 while Blind Pilot was on the road, the funeral home was sold and converted into a music venue called The Woods. Then last night, things came full circle when I played The Woods as part of Rachel Starshine Robinson’s band. Although it was really just another gig, I couldn’t help but reflect on how odd life’s chronology can be as I looked out the window at my old workplace while warming up in the green room.
Categories: gigs
Tagged: The Woods Portland, Wells Fargo, Wilhelm Funeral Home
Harmonium, dissected
2010 has been surprisingly busy so far. The harmonium restoration has proved to be a much larger task than initially estimated- so far I have cleaned the rust and gunk from all of the key posts, replaced the balance rail felts, and lubed the keys so that the action is quite smooth. I still have some structural work to do on the cabinet and the bellows mechanism, which is literally a system of 1×2’s pivoting on dowels. The work is slow, but I’ve got to keep at it, as I’ve already committed the instrument to a gig.
Also with the new year, I started teaching trumpet lessons. Things are going well at this early stage- in addition to looking forward to helping some folks enjoy the instrument, I stand to learn a lot about clearly communicating musical ideas. Having dug into the new generation of trumpet lesson books (my favorite is Arturo Sandoval’s Method), I have already found myself rethinking my own approach to practicing and playing.
My old friend and former bandmate (Magic City- Madison, WI) Pete Surla and I have begun a film scoring and TV licensing music project. It’s quite fun so far- we spontaneously create one song per session with an emphasis on ear worms and catchy hooks. Over the next month or so, I will also be playing gigs with Jim Brunberg, Rachel Robinson, and the band Dirty Mittens. I’m very excited to collaborate with all of these bands’ great players. It will be quite a fun change of pace to play some intimate rooms again, and hopefully learning three band’s worth of material in the next few weeks should shake a few cobwebs out upstairs. In the meantime, this week it’s off to Northern Minnesota’s cold and snow.
Categories: Keyboard Projects · Recording Projects · gigs · trumpet lessons
Tagged: Dirty Mittens, Harmonium, Jim Brunberg, Rachel Starshine Robinson, trumpet lessons
Blind Pilot released an EP that is available only on iTunes last week. We recorded the material at Portland’s fantastic Jackpot! studios with Tucker Martine (Decemberists, Death Cab, etc) manning the boards. Most of the songs are from 3 Rounds And A Sound- just rerecorded with the touring band all included-however there is a new tune and a Gillian Welsh cover. The most memorable thing about these sessions for me was Tucker’s complimenting the sound of my home-made mini Rhodes piano. Bringing a homemade instrument into a recording studio is pretty nerve wracking because you never know what sort of previously overlooked sonic defects Protools will bring to light. Buy it here.
Categories: Ever Evolving Blind Pilot Tour · Recording Projects
Tagged: Blind Pilot, iTunes Sessions, Jackpot Studio, Rhodes
As a temporarily unemployed musician, I am privileged with a greater than average amount of time to view and respond to craigslist ads. Here is my first prize: a circa 1880 Boosey & Co harmonium. I got it for a song and it’s largely in working condition. The cabinet is beautifully built of hardwood and the leather bellows have been well taken care of.
Since touring with The Low Anthem, I have been eager to get my hands on one of these instruments- the drones that they produce by sucking air through tuned brass reeds are haunting and beautiful. I plan to mount a microphone near the reeds and run a line out to an amplifier so that a bit of overdrive can add to the haunting sound. Other exciting uses for this instrument include applying it in Blind Pilot, playing weddings, and a host of exciting recording scenarios.
Categories: Keyboard Projects
Tagged: Harmonium, The Low Anthem
MLB Part 1
MLB Part 2
MLB Part 3
While in New York with Blind Pilot in November, I ended up doing an interview for Major League Baseball’s website. It was quite last minute- for some reason I was the only band member that could make it- but it turned out to be a lot of fun. I got a chance to give some lip service to Wisconsin, The Brewers, Kieskagato, my family, and my wife; and I managed to avoid betraying Milwaukee’s true feelings about the new Brewers stadium.
Categories: Ever Evolving Blind Pilot Tour
Tagged: Blind Pilot, Dave Jorgensen, major league baseball, Milwaukee Brewers
