Astoria
Inside the bus
Astoria practice space
At the photo shoot
We headed out to Astoria on Memorial Day to meet up with the band at Luke’s mom’s house and practice some new arrangements for the week’s upcoming mini-recording session. The weather was beautiful as we drove out on US 30 along the Columbia. As we turned off the highway on the east side of town and headed up the hill and past the Goonies house, we were first greeted by the Blind Pilot bus. It was sitting in a driveway getting its floor ripped out. The bus is a 1971 Crown that will someday, theoretically, act as our tour vehicle. Heading inside Luke’s house for the first time, I was delighted with a whirlwind of books, paintings, instruments, tools, childhood artifacts, and animals- everything that Luke’s place of growing up should have. We practiced for some hours in the dining room, working on some new tunes and cover ideas. The next morning a woman from the Astoria’s HipFish weekly newspaper came to shoot a cover photo for our upcoming feature in that paper. We took some pictures both outside and inside of the bus, and after a few more hours of practice, drove back to Portland.
