gale-force winds mauling the trees overhead
neighborhood raccoon scooting over my fence
a bit of sprinkling rain
awesome sunset, subsiding winds
ominous clouds
ominous faces in aforementioned clouds
twilight
mysterious column of light to the northwest (probably top of Key Arena)
clearing clouds, rustling trees
neighbor teens smoking weed in nearby driveway
a few bats flitting about in the sky
the North Star
the Big Dipper
prowling cats
three pieces of orbiting space junk
one very bright meteor
mysterious howling unnervingly close by (coyote? wild dog? jackalope?)
Megan! With the keys!
It's also "double-sided" MP3 single since there's also an rocked-out electric version of "Sketches" (from his earlier EP Cold Rain) available. Them big scronky guitars are worth a listen.
Irrational anxiety aside, I have to say my gig at Folklife couldn't have gone any better. Great weather + happy, attentive crowd + mistake-free performance = yay!
Of course they still got my name wrong (the MC fixed it a bit later):
The sunshine and 70-degree temps brought out a ton of people. I had a full capacity crowd (more were crowded off to the back and sides):
Since I was playing solo I decided to be brave and pull out the looper pedal so I could accompany myself with some smack-thwap! guitar-beatboxing. The red pedal on the lower left is the LoopStation:
Overall the gig was great -- not too shabby for having not performed in seven months.
We didn't hang around hot, crowded Seattle Center very long after the show, but we did wander up to the Narrative Stage to see Nukariik perform some otherworldly-sounding Inuit throat singing:
Back home, Megan and I had a nice sunshine-y walk through the Seward Park neighborhood that ended with arugula pizza and Manny's Pale Ale at the Flying Squirrel. Highly recommended:
If we ever have to leave Seattle I'll have to find a way to bring Manny's with us, or curl up into a ball and sob.
This Saturday May 23 I'll be rolling down to Seattle Center to perform a solo show at the 2009 Northwest Folklife Festival. I'll be at the Alki Court Stage, in the breezeway west of the crazy-big International Fountain lawn.
I haven't played a solo gig since last October so yeah, I'm nervous. I know I'll get through the set just fine, but I'm out-of-practice when it comes to being witty and not saying embarrassing things between songs.
Check out the newly-redesigned Folklife website (yay, no more PDFs!) for the whole weekend schedule. Folklife is always a craaazy time, drawing thousands of people and featuring tons of performers, and that doesn't even include the kabillions of random street musicians (last year I learned quickly that I'm no match for a six-piece improv bluegrass band or an African drum ensemble). And unlike previous years, we're supposed to have fantastic, sunny, completely non-Northwest weather. Hello. summertime!
I have no idea why it took well over a year, but my album Save You From Yourself is finally -- finally! -- available at Emusic.
Also, I just found out I'm playing Folklife again this year. I wonder if my calendar app will crash and die from surprise when I add it.
Thanks for the well-wishes regarding my recent appendix removal via email and the social twitterwebs. I was back on my feet the morning after surgery with three tiny incisions that today look more like rose thorn scratches than locations from which they removed one of my organs. Pretty amazing, still not fun.
(Also: thank god for health insurance. I know it's romantic and stuff to be a broke-ass musician and suffer for your art, but geez guys, what if you get what you think is food poisoning and they end up taking out your appendix? Please, get some coverage. Please.)
Things have been quieter on This Old Blog than I intended. I have a backlog of songs I'm not working on, and plans for some EP releases later this year that I've mapped out but haven't taken much action on. Things should pick up again next month, I hope.
(In many ways it was the ideal rock star life for me. Percoset? Check. People to carry my rig? Check. Ride to and from the venue? Check. All that was missing was the worldwide fame and riches.)
Great crowd and good times. Can't wait to do it again.
(N.B.: I joined the band Explone last year as their bassist.)
I'll be playing my first live gig with Explone on April 4th at the High Dive in Seattle. We go on early, 9pm sharp. We'll be back at Litho recording the rest of our album the week before, so we should be especially tight for this gig (one hopes).
Hard to believe I've been with these guys for over a year! It still feels like a new thing to me.
I haven't played a gig (solo or otherwise) since last October so I cannot wait to get onstage again.
Apropos of nothing, I've started a Tumblr blog to hold everything else in my brain that isn't a song-in-progress. Join me there for all the stuff that used to be here but isn't anymore.
My bud and occasional gigging partner Jerin Falkner (aka J-Frazz, aka Jer-Fizzle) has started recording her new record, and it looks like she's veering away from the folksy stuff and experimenting with a more electronic-y sound. Yeah!
To raise funds for the studio, she's launched a pre-order program, similar to the one we used to get my last album off the ground. Jerin's taking it a step further by offering access to a behind-the-scenes blog with videos and audio. You can see the first video here, where she talks about voting songs off the island.
Jerin is one of the most prolific and talented songwriters I've met, so I'm mad curious about her new direction. Preorder her new record here, then come back and hear Jerin sing with me on "You Are Loved" here.
(FYI: I joined the band Explone last year as their new bassist.)
Some really great and unexpected news: the new Explone tune "St. Yesterday" will be the KEXP Song Of The Day on Friday 1/23. Go here to subscribe to KEXP's Song Of The Day podcast, and/or go here to stream or download "St. Yesterday" from the KEXP homepage on Friday.
We've also got three more new songs up on the Explone MySpace page for your enjoyment. This is the first batch of tunes we recorded last June, and the first to feature yours truly on the four-string Riddle Of Steel. That's me in the photo, at Studio Litho last year.
Album news? Yup'm, the new Explone full-length will be called Dreamers and should be ready to go by early summer. We've got another recording session slated for March, then it's all mixing, mastering and production stuff.
And me? I've got a few tricks up my sleeve myself for 2009...
I have no idea why it took well over a year, but my album Save You From Yourself is finally -- finally! -- 
(FYI: I joined the band