Revisiting the Filibuster release show

I had forgotten about this video — shot by Isamu Jordan at the release party for The Filibuster back in August — until my father dug it up on YouTube this week. It features the Hands of Plenty (Mark Ward, Parker Moosman, Dan Spalding, Bryan Coats), plus Kim Wescott on viola.

Pig Out - "Power"

Back to the grind

Being back home with friends and loved ones, sleeping in my own bed, riding my bike — all good things. Being back at the office with 340 new emails — that's another story.

Oh Columbia

Back in Washington...

Adorable...

The last night these two will be sharing a bed. (Or is it?)

California, there we go

This license plate was affixed to a car down the street from the house in Sacramento where we played the final show of our tour last night. It really sums up the experience of the show.

We played in the back yard of this palatial house in the burbs, for a private party celebrating the safe homecoming of a soldier friend who had been in Iraq. Very nice people all. Plenty of free food and booze. So, all the makings of a fun party but hardly the right conditions for a Hands of Plenty show. The audience was all either over 45 or under 12. And no one paid us much mind. And we learned that we play pretty poorly beyond a certain level of intoxication. So it was quite a way to end this string of shows.

But whaatev - California has been good to us. Sure, Arcata sucked (much to the consternation of our once-Arcata-based friends), but San Francisco was wonderful (the show, the company, the city), Davis felt like a recharging of our batteries, with a ravenous crowd and wonderful people to relax with.

The show in Sacramento was equally good, but in yet another kind of way. When we arrived at Luna's, we greeted somewhat brusquely by the owner who, due to some communication breakdown somewhere along the line, was expecting just me and my guitar to grace his tiny stage - not five smelly dudes with four amps and a drum set. We could see his eyes bulge from their sockets when Dan wheeled in his enormous, coffin-like bass cab.

But i think we won him over in the end. We played between two very talented local songwriters, Vinnie Guidera (pictured) and Scott Bartenhagen. The place was tiny and so packed, with Jesse and Lisa, some of Dan's local entourage and bunch of other folks. So instead of going the Sophia's route, we played it cool and quiet, starting with Telephone and Empty Bed and easing ever so slowly into the more uptempo numbers.

And as the dance-happy crowd in Davis pushed to get dancier and happier, this small, polite audience pushed us to be ever more intimate. I loved it. I reflected on the idea of terroir that I wrote about here a couple days ago - the idea that there are still things that you have to go the source to find, that you can't have delivered to you. For an example, I slow-jammed a number of excerpts from the wall in the men's restroom.

A few samples:

"I just want to be a good father - bu the bitch won't let me."

And:

"The problem with poetry is that nothing rhymes with scrotum." (Though an older audience member rightly pointed out that "totem" fits.)

At any rate, while these were sentiments you might find expressed in any bathroom stall anywhere, these particular ones existed only in the men's room at Luna's in Sacramento, Cal. I'm struggling to articulate for myself just why that's important, but it has seemed almost magically so on this trip.

We crossed the border as I've been writing this. So hello again to Oregon and thanks to California for one of the best musical weeks of my life.

Whoa

The biggest biscuit I've ever seen, from the Black Bear Diner in Willows, Calif.

So... tired...

They ought to treat people with sleeping disorders by driving them up I-5 through northern California. Less than an hour into our homeward drive from Sacramento, Dan got drowsy and had to be relieved. I took the helm but now, after only 15 minutes, I'm already starting to nod off.

Yeesh. This could be a long day.

Flat stuff

Flat stuff between Davis and Sacramento

Days 6 and 7

Portland was great on Saturday, but I think our show in San Francisco might go down as the best of this tour, with Davis a close second.

It’s not that our performance at the Bollyhood was even that great. In fact, at our scheduled start time, things were looking decidedly grim. Aside from the bar staff, us and the headlining band, the place was empty. We thought it might down as another Seattle/Arcata experience. And we were only so-so for most of our performance — songs were a little sluggish, my energy level was down.

But as we played, the place started to fill — with friends from Sandpoint and Redlands, with parents of friends from Spokane, and with the loyal, passionate and remarkably international and multilingual fans of Diana Gameros and Makru. The latter were a boisterous crowd, and very supportive — even though our brand of white-bread, twangy pop felt a little out of place.

But everything came together at the end. I played my two San Francisco songs. (Singing “sorry that you led me to the Mission” in the middle of the Mission was exceedingly satisfying.) Then Makru broke out their battery of percussion instruments and joined us for our last two songs — “The Alligator’s New Skin” and Mark’s ukulele song.

It was utter magic. The band followed along beautifully, the crowd beat out a clap that was more sophisticated than we could even keep up with. The place was pounding. I felt like my soul left my body. I could’ve died happy, there on the dance floor.

Then Makru took the stage, with a fiery set of Latin barn-burners that had the entire crowd, including a flamenco-dancing cross dresser, on their feet. We clapped until our hands were raw. Moving on the dance floor, looking at the Benetton ad swinging around me, I thought, “This is what music is supposed to be.” Moving, laughing, singing, clapping, sharing the experience together.

Bringing people to the table to eat, essentially. That’s what I’ve likened it to since one especially moving homecoming show in Redlands around 2004. My friend Jesse Pizzitola — at whose kitchen table in Davis I’m now writing — came to that show, and we were talking about his love of food and farming. What was it about that drove him, that animated him? He told me that the toil and the sweat were worth it when, at the end of the day, you could get people around the table to share a meal together. There’s something innately human about that.

Brian Estes, a gardener for a CSA in Spokane, told me the same thing, when I interviewed him for a profile in The Inlander a few weeks ago. “It’s hard not to recognize someone’s humanity [at the dinner table],” he said. “Eating is so fundamental to who we are, and it’s so fundamentally pleasurable. It’s hard not to find yourself a more compassionate person when you have to look another person in the eyes to pass them something across the table.”

It’s the same with music, I think. It doesn’t matter what wind blew you onto the stage or dance floor, or from which direction, when you start dancing and clapping and singing and having fun together. I know that’s an impossibly simplistic, idealistic thing to say, and it’s not really an answer for anything. But it seems like a seed for something.

Last night in Davis was different. Not the romantic experience of San Francisco, but such a solid show. We played on the packed front porch of Sophia’s Thai Kitchen, a very hip and very happening place packed with college students and really nice people who were ready to dance. The venue is booked by Michael Leahy, a middle school counselor and the host of a popular Davis radio station. He’s connected to several of my musical friends from Portland and Spokane, and he’s such a sweet guy. Exceedingly nice. Very easy-going.

We played a short set, cutting out the slow tunes and hyping up the dancey numbers. People seemed to love it. And we made $200, which is nothing to sniff at. And we took another round of Fernet-Branca. And we met some very nice people afterwards (Brian was especially sociable last night…).

Today, we’re relaxing at the house of Jesse and his lovely wife Lisa, who is out stringing up tomatoes in the garden while we thumb through books and prepare for a swim in the pool across the street.

We’ll head to Sacramento this evening, for our penultimate show. I think the prospect of the tour ending is a little foreboding for all of us, but on a day like this, with such good company, and two really lovely shows behind us, it’s hard to worry about the future.

Yikes

Let me never be this guy...

(Also, as Joe Varela, pointed out, aren't most banjo players one-man banjo players? Have you ever seen two people play a banjo?)

Holy moly. Diana Gameros and Makru are out-of-my-mind good. Tonight was one of the highlights of my musical career. More later.

Driving through the Redwoods south of Eureka.

The highlight of our otherwise dismal time in Arcata. The show went on way too early. None of the handful of people at the coffee shop listened particularly attentively. We were accosted by super dirty hippies. A bro in a Mercedes circled around the block seven times, glaring and grimacing at us. We made $3. And every hotel in the area was completely booked up.

You suck, Arcata.