Back from a short trip up the West Coast to Portland, OR to visit my buddy, Fritz Richmond. (I'll leave the June, Alaska "what's up" at the end of this short piece.)
Although I booked a few gigs for the Portland jaunt, the two weeks I was on the road was really about people... friends old and new... without whom guys like me would slowly turn into motel rooms, much like Spike Milligan in the film where he slowly turns into a Bed Sitting Room. (you have to see this film)
My first gig on the way up from LA was at The Freight and Salvage in Berkeley. I did a show with my new partner in crime, Larry Hanks and it went real well... both of us playing solo acoustic sets. Larry's recently joined The Fountain of Youth String Band. That's the Bay Area group I'm in with Eric and Suzy Thompson and Tony Marcus. So now we're a quintet. We'll be playing at The Freight on December 3rd this year. These guys are a joy. They actually play for fun!
After the Freight I headed to Santa Cruz for a gig at Don Quixote's for The Fiddlin' Cricket Society of San Jose. A new friend of mine, John Coon - and his wife Lynn - helped promote this gig - not an easy task or an early Sunday evening in a heat wave in the middle of the summer. But, Man, they packed the place!.... ah, success. Good folks help troubador. Mmmm.... troubador like.
From Santa Cruz, I headed up the coast to Ashland, Oregon. Stephen Gagne and his wife, Cindy, welcomed me into their home and put together a real nice house concert for me. I don't usually do house concerts (this was my third) but Ashland is so 'on the way' to Portland it really fit... and I was happy to have it. Barbara Mendelsohn, Ellie Hutgren and Sylvia Thomas helped alert the community and all went well. This is a place I hope to get back to. Hey, did you know that when you live in Ashland, your high-speed internet access is part of your utility bill at a real cheap price? Do you care?
After a stop in Eugene to stay with old friends (and drop them off a pittesporum) I headed up to Portland. This town has got to be one of the great places, a workin' town... just the right size...and in the summer it's unbeatable... sunny....blooming... roses... everyone out cycling... having fun. They've got about three months to enjoy the outdoors before the rains return and their bouts of depression set in.
The afternoon of my gig I took a ride in Fritz's incredible flame-orange 1932 hotrod coupe. It's got a hemi engine in it and boy, does it go! Got to tell you... when we were in Kanazawa, Japan a couple of springs ago, Fritz bought some wafer-thin sheets of platinum. I think he already knew what he would do with them. He brought them home and eventually used them for the pinstriping on the side of his hotrod... very coooooool!
That night, I played a new place (at least for me) called Mississippi Studios, a perfecto little performance space. The staff was hip and helpful and the place was full of 'my folks'. I loved it. The next day I got together with Fritz again and we loaded up the backseat of my car with some rough sawn myrtlewood.... a gift from Fritz to me. With a little work, I ought to get a small table top out of the deal.
So, that's it....short and sweet...I headed back to LA from Portland with some rent money and a little myrtlewood.
Next a few local LA area gigs then off to the East Coast in September and October... then Texas in November and in late January, Germany, Holland and Paris (les huitres!!) Holland will be a first for me and I'm very much looking forward to it... hoping to see Alet again and the other good folks that came over the border to hear me in Germany last February.
Life is good. All for now.
Geoff