2003-10-16 - 10:02 a.m.
The drive down to Portland is a beauty. First you see the massive and beautiful Mt. Ranier as you leave Seattle. Rolling, forested hills interspersed with lush farms follow. Then you see the majestic Mt. Hood as it overlooks Portland. Each mountain seems a sentinel, protecting each city. Of course, in reality, each could be the destroyer of the protected as these mountain are actually slumbering volcanoes.
Dante’s is the venue dujour. The interior of the club is predominately red so it feels like a Dante’s. There’s a cool music store across the street and I go over and play some old electric guitars I can’t afford. Once again we find ourselves in a neighborhood that’s a combination of chic and sleaze. Up the street is an absolutely fantastic bookstore called Powell’s. I find a copy of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche and a copy of The Shipwrecked Sailor by Gabriel Garcia Marquez that I’d been looking for for quite some time. I rounded out my purchases with a nice little edition of Whitman poems. The place is massive, filled with an equal amount of used and new books. Needless to say I could have spent much more.
It was a decent sized crowd of semi-enthusiastic listeners. So far the crowds in Washington and Oregon are not as vocal as they are in, let’s say, Colorado. Perhaps we are just not familiar enough to them. After the show I talk with some of the folks and they all seemed to really enjoy themselves, which is the most important thing.
On to Eugene and the WOW Hall. Cool old venue that was a union hall of some kind for lumber workers I think. Rumors that the show was going to be a sellout proved over ambitious, as the attendance was more like 1/3 capacity. All they had was beer and wine so I shared some of Cho Jos’s whiskey. We have our love of the brown liquid and fly fishing to go with our violin playing as things we have in common. Some of us sat in with the Waybacks. That was a lot of fun. Once again the audience didn’t seem to really be all that engaged. It was a fun time playing those three shows with the Waybacks. They’re a great bunch of guys and great players.
We had a drive day and a day off and decided to make the push to Sacramento. That way we would have 3 nights in the same rooms and we all could get out of the van for a while. It was nice to have a day to do absolutely nothing. On our third day there we head up to Constable Jacks in Newcastle, CA. Newcastle is a very small town located on top of a hill. I took a walk around town and pretty much walked around it in less than a ½ hour. Photos of blues legends and not quite legends adorn the walls of Constable Jacks. It has a biker bar feel about it and it’s obviously a “local” watering hole. Everyone seems to know everyone else. I notice some familiar faces in the crowd as we play. Some of these folks were at Quail Hollow when we played there. The owner seemed surprised there was a decent amount of people out to see us. It was a real fun show.
After the show we hang out with my friend Ohm back at the hotel. Ohm has a unique lifestyle. He travels to various shows and with various tours and makes burritos to sell to the music lovers. I went to school with his cousin Tony and knew Ohm on the periphery as he went to a different school than the rest of us. He came up to me at Merlefest 2 years ago and I recognized him right away even though I hadn’t seen him in thirty years and he now has a huge beard. He turned us on to some of his excellent burritos
On to Santa Cruz and Moe’s Alley. Our friend Brad is promoting this one. He helped put on the infamous Quail Hollow show so we’re looking forward to a great time. We weren’t disappointed. It was a great crowd and Cho Jo showed up and sat in on a few tunes. The Oakland A’s conveniently waited until we were done before placing the suicide squeeze bunt down that beat the Red Sox in the opening round of the playoffs. We went to a smashing after show party with the Happy Brigade and then spent the night in a yurt. A yurt is a round building made of thick cloth. From the outside it doesn’t look all that big but they’re cool as hell on the inside. I definitely want a yurt! We have the next day off and we spend it lounging around this beautiful piece of property in Ben Lomand. This is a town I could get used to living in. Nestled in the redwood, forested hills above Santa Cruz, its geology features some flora and fauna totally unique to this area. We can see across the entire valley from here with only one house in view. There’s a pool and hot tub (not currently functioning) set in a small grove of Pacific Coastal Live Oaks. We feast on barbeque (Fritz brought out the good beef!) and I get to watch the Yankees opening game of the playoffs. There’s good scotch, good food and good people to share it all with. It was a perfect day off. Tomorrow we play the fantastic Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. It’s gonna be great.
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