Truly Me Club 11/06
played a show 11/06 with the truly me club at a new bar in portland called the someday lounge, where they’ve got a streaming live video feed. their website has archive of the show. however, their video mask is a bit lacking – doesn’t give you the whole view of what was shot that night (jason, songwriter of truly me, is cropped out), nor does it give you a timeline control, so you have to watch the entire show from start to finish. i know, pickypickypicky. to see the whole thing, here’s a link to the streaming video unskinned, as they say in that techy speak. probably will launch your quicktime player, but then you can resize it, move the timeline about (hint: we play at around 2:15), see the entire stage, etc. enjoy . . .
3/7/06
11/3/05
just finished a one-off show with norfolk, opening up for the decemberists.
a week before, we had a fun video shoot (click on photo for bigger pic).
10/18/05
home again. 3k+ miles in one week, longest stretch was last night, getting from san luis obispo back home, 12 plus hour drive . . . thanks to james and courtney for the hospitality in slo, and the rest of you for the putting us up in the three different states we stopped at . . .
10/14/05
la went off better than expected, as several of rob’s friends made their way out on a thursday to catch the early show, first a standup duo followed by a new yorker with attitude singing of bad relationships and whiskey, then us . . . played for one drink ticket and nothing else, as the club had a guarantee for the ny guy, then didn’t make enough money to start dolling out the minimal dollars to pay us. similar to what happened last time i played, if i recall correctly . . .. they had four different music shows going on that night at the knitting factory . . . driving to tucson tonight, either a 7 hour or 10 hour drive to get there, depending on traffic, though so far it’s been pretty smooth . . . rob’s friends we stayed at in la – i had a double take moment of a picture of a couple on their fridge, then i remembered who they were. turns out rob’s friends had officiated this couple’s wedding, one of whom is a cousin of a friend up in Portland, whom we’d stayed at a few times in san Francisco, making for a smaller world. california, driving through the desert on 10 east, a big oasis of a casino along with the chain standards clumped about it like tumbleweed. wonder how much different a casino is than a prison, looking at the walls surrounding it and trying to keep all of the occupants inside through any means necessary.
looks like they take all their cars and drive them down a dirt road, then leave them there for the vultures to strip away the tires and the seats, leave the roofs and hood ornaments to slowly rust. rest stop in the middle of nowhere part 2 (a few miles past the sign that said state prison: do not pick up any hitchhikers): eric’s comments on the bathroom’s cleanliness: if you washed your hands, they’d be dirtier than if you didn’t. rob asked, “did you notice the dead chicken?” . . . The next turnoff down the road: Neighbors Boulevard. now passing into lightning storm, looking like it’s touching down on the road 10 miles ahead. mini thunderstorms on our right, and strips of tires like discarded snake skins on the medium . . .
10/12/05
first leg of long trip, going from eugene to san francisco, an eight hour drive in normal conditions, and today is looking pretty good, blue patches alternating with high cotton ball clouds, no threat of rain . . . driving in a rental, as rob opted out on putting 2k + miles on his car with the off chance of it breaking down. nice ride, much more comfortable then the ride we would have been in, though of course we have more stuff now, a few extra guitars and such . . . remembered a morning several months ago. was biking to work, going down sidestreets, moving west in the southeast, which means the houses get nicer every block. it was around seven thirty – sometimes i wake up earlier than normal and can’t get back to sleep, and rather than toss and turn all night, i get up and go to work – and saw her walking barefoot down one of those streets that are unpaved and full of potholes, barefoot in a nightgown and walking, who know from where or to where. i can’t seem to remember the look on her face, which means it might have been something that wasn’t too memorable, though you would have expected the face would have told a story, but there was no story in her eyes. reading a nice collection of stories from mcsweeney’s, which makes for great touring reading. small snippets of absurd stories that help punctuate the miles of clouds and thick green forests of southern oregon. read a passage, ruminate on the thoughts of the impossibility of the reality of the trash compactor in the death star from the first star wars.
testface in eugene house shows – nice playing them, as opposed to playing some random bar in some random town. much more personable, similar to a speakeasy in the sense that people there that come are all friends or friends of friends, and they come for that reason, as opposed to small clumps of people sprinkled at a bar. or worse, no one there at all, and you’re playing to the sound guy and the first band, who are wishing the had loaded out their equipment and escape out the back during the middle of the song. some nights are like that. stayed at dave from testface in eugene. nice, as last time we stayed there, he was working on his garage into a work studio, while i was working on mine. he did a nice job, installed a loft with a few futons that we slept in. nice workspace, great place to shut the door and lose track of time . . .
and the weird thing about writing, and damning thing is that you need to stop when the editing voice kicks in, even after you’ve turned off the spellcheck and are typing with your eyes closed to get the flow and rhythm of breathing into the words and damn they typos and dropped commas,etc, when you find yourself obsessing over getting the words typed correctly and backspacing ad deleting the past sentencewordparagaph, questioning the words and thoughts, that’s when the thread is lost and you’re falling. there’s a time for writing, there’s a time for editing, there’s a time for recording, there’s a time for editing and mixing. . . . and there are stranger things, diving into the past. i have a box full of dozens of notebooks filled with ramblings and rantings and sketches and such over the past fifteen years, and i keep thinking after i get in the accident that leaves me to convalesce for six months, i will dive into this box, and start copying and scanning in the good parts and burn the rest. there’s usually a couple of good lines or ideas per page, and the rest is garbage. then there’s the words typed into the computer years ago, then backed up on another system, the usual just-in-case sort of thing. and this computer’s got words from eight years ago and newer, filled with dusty memories . . . there are the birds at night. this one outside, it tries out two or three patterns or jingles, then tries some different melody. and there are patterns he/she tries out, variations of the same pattern, not unlike a coltrane searching about in the key of a for the right sequence.
a bird flew by, making a sound like a pair of denim jeans running by overhead.
killing henry, and other practical matters
stealing home, and other practical matters
midnight in a minor key
and other thoughts, of passing time and obsessing over relationships, of wondering how lobotomies are performed, and remembering past roommates. there was one whom I wrote a song about, he was a firefighter, not the kind who would be at the station playing cards in the rec room in the middle of another 24 hour shift of waiting for something bad to happen, the a/c kicking on silently overhead, pushing the cold air into the room quietly from the corner. no, he was the kind that worked the forest fires, ridge runners, digging trenches, clearing the brush, trying to impede the advance. he had stories to tell of snafus of being caught in the path and of lying under blankets huddling, hearing the pass by him with a great crackling and blistering and heat, and of some not making it out. of passing out on cots on break, sweltering in the gear while the flames continued their assault upon the trees. as it works most everywhere, the more he worked, the more he got paid, and the overtime is what made it really lucrative, save for the minor job pitfalls. but anyhow, the song was about how he was saving up to bring his wife over from Japan, which is another song in itself. anyhow, he laughed about needing more work to bring her over sooner, and i thought it would make for a beautiful warped love song about this person who started forest fires all for love, along with all the disturbing thoughts not mentioned, kind of like a whitewashed disney-esque tale that in the end has the two in love together, but doesn’t go into detail with the number of animal, plant, and humans that died, or the arrogance of love that makes killing all these alright for one’s own desires. other digressions: an experiment that I was going to try and perform to see if I could go a week without oral communication, to test out the theory whether a member in society could function without opening his or her mouth except for consumption. This written when I was unmarried and was lot more free to explore these thoughts.
“to remember you i drink and i’ve been thinking of you all night”
late aug 05
wedded . . . thanks to james moore of defunkt theatre here in Portland for the shout out in this month’s edition of the Portland Monthly. Besides being one of the best playwrights on this side of the hemisphere, I googled James and found he’s also a percussion instructor with the ohio state university marching band, founder and ceo of geopartners research, and a doctoral candidate in the learning and teaching area of the harvard graduate school of education, among other things. Crazy . . .
late june 05
what you’ve heard is true.
early june 05
have a few new rough sketches of ideas in the sounds section. let me know if there’s anything worthy . . . probably need to get some of the pics i’ve been taking over the past half year too, have a bit of a backlog going on.
late may 05
been busy recording with beltline as well as my own thing. playing around with midi, for better and worse . . . weather finally warming up to a nice portland summer . . .
mid feb 05
spring is around the bend, and keeping busy planting, as well as finishing up a small studio in the back of our house; keep recording’s compilation is now at, with some great tracks from beltline, dolorean, and charlie parr among others. pick it up at keep recordings website . . . just picked up the graves’ new album finally as well as corrinna repps album, both available on hush records, and have been really liking the stuff. hopefully they’ll be touring in your area soon; corrinna apparently is working on a new album, recording at type foundry with adam . . . starting to book solo shows for march and april, so check back for that . . . have posted up reviews of the past two albums. check them out on the keep site or go to the reviews page on this site.
eve before the election
the time has finally come to elect a president, hopefully. other than that, the newest edition of comes with a smile (issue #16), as put out by the very nice folks at hinah records, should be hitting the newstands within the week, though it sounds like there was some gremlins at the print shop . . . this edition will be featuring an alternate track of mine from grand & failing as sung by the wonderful shelley short, formerly of portland, now of chicago, as well as tracks from giant sand, the decemberists, mark eitzel, and tara jane o’ neil.
near halloween time, 2004
news of late: playing a few solo shows in october, november, and january; check the norfolk site for that sorta info . . . will be doing a quick n dirty oregon-nor-cal tour, playing with the illustrious beltline. Thursday, Nov. 4th – Eugene, OR @ Lucky’s w/ Testface and The Woods, Friday, Nov. 5th – Redding, CA w/ Kelly Bauman , Saturday, Nov. 6th – Chico, CA @ Moxies w/ West By Swan . . . that’s all for now.
somewhere in time
i have long been away from this writing, but am back, at least for tonite . . . many things to update; new release on keep recordings has been getting some great reviews, thanks to the hard work of jeff out in tucson for all his time and energy. i should be compiling a list of the review and posting it in the near future, as well as getting a few more shows lined up, which will be posted on the norfolk and western site for now . . . more thanks to chad over at hush records for putting the new album in his newsletter, and for putting out some damn fine records over the past few years, with more to come . . . a recent collaboration with a filmmaker, ted davee, has been made into a short film that will be shown over here in portland. ted created this great award film called crowfilm – try and find it if you can . . . for the piece, i collected a variety of noises screeches and such that he mixed into his piece, a film on pipes and tunnels, made from actual video footage of sewers that i believe the city of portland have done in the past. hopefully he’ll make a performance piece out of it, and we can do a live sound installation piece to accompany his film . . . geez, what else? . . .
late-jan 04
the snow has melted almost, though there are still ugly rock-looking clumps of black snow piled up here and there. now it is trying to avoid falling on the loose gravel that is on the bike lanes everywhere . . . had second solo show ever, which went moderately well if i was cat power (hah!). a few technical mishaps kind of threw of the whole rhythm, but that’s good in itself, otherwise i’d be a smooth operator, which i never will claim to be . . . some nice reviews of leftovers from a wake have come about thanks to jeff’s handiwork. they can be found at delusions of adequacy and blue mag. thanks for the kinds words on that one . . .
jan 04
the snow has arrived here in portland, and the norfolk album is out on hush records! also, the kind jeff over in the the sunny tucson land has put out leftovers from a wake on his new label keep records, so please check out the new design package, as well as the other artists on his very nice site . . . and what else? a new homebrew collection of songs/’scapes is available, entitled grand & failing, which I can mail off to you after gluing up the home-packaging job here at grand & failing household. thanks to all for their comments and opinions on putting it together . . . maybe be doing a re-do of the willy wonka soundtrack with norfolk, after the new year’s settles in, then hopefully start doing some shows for the newest album . . .
aug 03
norfolk album should be arriving any day now; release date is coming up through the mighty fine folk at hush records. . . . and yes it is true, there are tshirts available through them . . . norfolk to be playing the music northwest showcase in early september with other film guerrero bands. adam and rachel will be out touring the east coast in september, then adam will be doing a solo tour out in europe for all of october while rachel tours the states with her other band, the decemberists. then norfolk will be touring the west coast in november. busy busy busy, eh? . . . i’ve got some solo things works that i’ve got recording at type foundry under adam’s care; hope to have finished by november, when the band will be back in portland to cool their heels and hopefully start work on another album . . . other than that, trying to milk the last days of summer before i go into hibernation mode, and start writing and recording for the next eight to nine months, and see what comes of it . . .
may 03
norfolk album finished! adam has had it mastered, and advance copies are available at the norfolk website . . . I’ve been working with several non-profits in the Portland area, developing some print and web material for them, which has been great . . . west coast tour coming up in the end of June for norfolk and western playing with the mighty fine band, the decemberists. traveling from vancouver to los angeles and back . . .
april 03
have returned from the norfolk west coast tour and recording shindig that lasted a little over a week. i think we traveled in the van for over 50 hours in that short time period. a wee bit exhausting, but managed to make it back, in one or two pieces, definitely in need of a little repair here and there . . . word from barcelona is that every night at ten the folks turn off all the power, open the windows and begin banging and hollering at our president’s actions. wish there were more people like that here, rather than being sucked into the bs that cnn and the official line that is being spoonfed to people out here. one of many thoughts of the past few months: how many countries have we ever truly “liberated” to democracy? and how many countries have we given arms to or trained (and currently train, read about the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation – sounds a bit like al qaeda here, only in an official classroom rather than the lo-fi desert that the other terrorists use) in the use of weapons/counter-insurgency/torture/murder/etc for “democracy”? . . . perhaps i should get off the soapbox, but seems like there needs to be some clanging inside our own country to fight the official bs line of saving democracy for the free world. we should stop the creation of dictators and terrorism here at home first.
march 03
time is going by quickly . . . i am honored to be working on a collaborative piece with Luca, a flash designer out in Italy (who has got some great stuff on his site) for born magazine (mission statement from their homepage: “…an experimental venue marrying literary arts and interactive media. Original projects are brought to life every three months through creative collaboration between writers and artists.”); i am the sound designer for the piece. hopefully i will have the url to post on that soon; i believe it should be the end of this month. . . . norfolk going on tour at the end of this month, and to record at Wavelab Studios out in Tucson. we’ll have some hairy fifteen hour drives ahead of us, but should be good fun . . . donna and toots version one has just been launched, which is clothing design sweatshop here in portland oregon (owned by my girlfriend, aww shucks, draw shapes with toe in sand).
jan 03
happy new years . . . new site posted. hope you like . . . norfolk going on tour in feb up to seattle, and a west coaster in late march, if things work out . . .
oct 02
just got back from a brief nw tour with norfolk and western. played here in portland, oregon, then up in anacortes and seattle, washington, up to vancouver bc, then back to olympia. met some very nice people who gave us space to sleep, namely the Department of Safety in Anacortes (check out their website, see some shows, sleep at their hostel), Stef’s house in Seattle, and Adam n Jason over the border for lending their floors. norfolk and western also has their site launched as of now. more content coming in daily. big news has been that we’ve been invited on the Sparklehorse european tour in november. 4 out of 5 can go on the bus, so i’ve elected to stay home, man the posts, and save a bit more money. i still plan on putting up mp3s really really soon, but have been bogged down working too much and preparing for the euro tour, but should have some free time in november to put things up, now that there is a whole lotta web space available for posting.
aug o2
finishing up a few projects this month and september, then will turn my attention back to updating this site with the past half year of projects and such . . . norfolk and western will be playing a few shows in early october in portland, seattle, and hopefully olympia and vancouver, bc . . . apr 02 norfolk and western have returned from the brief tour with johnathan richman up in the northwest. we had a good time playing up here at the aladdin, showbox in seattle, and in olympia. found another old jc higgins bike in seattle that i couldn’t turn down. norfolk and western have been selected to perform at the first annual meeting of tape op, the recording magazine that should be by your bedside, if it’s not already. the show will be in sacramento in may, playing with several great bands, including calexico. mar 02 i have returned from the mward/gorky’s zygotic mynci tour in one piece, more or less. drove 2800 miles or so in less than a week, from los angeles california to vancouver bc . . . sf music hall is probably the nicest place in america i have played in. great staff, sound, food, everything . . . nice to be home, though it feels like the road is still moving underneath my feet. also, the official norfolk and western cd release was on march 8 at the blackbird here in portland oregon. if you are looking to get one, they should be available at all music stores here in portland, or you can contact john at filmguerrero recently had a show on march 9th with mward and jordan, opening up for theplanetthe and the jicks, stephen malkamus’ band, here in portland at the crystal ballroom. quite nice show. bert is still around, though with a few more gray whiskers on his chinny chin chin. i’ve got the pictures posted from the 2001 ward euro trip, along with past pics and other assorted stuff.
