Bowerbirds visit! Hooray!

Phil and Beth are homies from Raleigh, NC (the town from which I moved to come here). They were part of a wonderful friend group who made summer 2009 the best I’ve had yet. They play in a band called Bowerbirds, and they are good. Very, very good.

They were to play The Independent on Thursday, and I happen to live a couple of blocks from it. Perfect grounds for reunion sleepover time.

The show was lovely. Julie Doiran opened, and this photo does a good job of describing her. Her voice is absolutely beautiful and she is hilarious. She apparently got her boots from North Carolina. I am not one bit surprised.

The birds have a new addition – Dan “Yan” Westerlund. I had not met him before tonight, but I traveled around the country with his brother this summer, who is in Megafaun, who was touring with the Bowerbirds at the time. I have also stayed with his best friend in Tuscon, Arizona. Worlds colliding.

Will Hackney from Trekky Records also came along to tour manage and guest on mandolin and vocals. I had never met him before, but we both weren’t sure how this was possible, as we shared many many friends while I lived in NC.

We spent the rest of the night having a slumber party, drinking white russians and catching up on life. Come morning, we were up and ready for adventure.

All of us except Phil and Beth, that is. After a couple of hours of waiting for them to rise, we decided to greet them at the bedroom door with a morning song about breakfast. They finally got up.

We grabbed a tasty breakfast at Kate’s Kitchen, passing by Beth’s new favorite store – Silky Touch. Then we headed to Alamo Square, a block away from my house, to run around and reminisce about Full House.

We tumbled down the hill for a while.

As we all got back home, Beth and I went out into my jungle yard and I photographed her new dress and bonnet, compliments of artist Monica Canilao, while the boys packed.

With that, I reluctantly sent them off to continue their trek across the US. It was difficult not to jump in the van with them.

Seriously, go listen to them right now. bowerbirds.org. That is all.

END!

Seattle is one of of my favorite cities on the planet. Not that I’ve been to many places on the planet. But Seattle currently stands as a favorite regardless.

In college, I would take my spring breaks and, instead of going to the beach or on a cruise like everyone else, I would go to Seattle. I cared much more about the inevitable adventure I’d encounter in an unfamiliar city than the inevitable sun poisoning I’d acquire after being on a beach for more than four hours. You can read about some of my old washington adventures in my old blog entries.

I hear the weather is pretty shoddy in Seattle. I have never really had issues with it. For the most part, it was beautiful every time I was there.

Anyway. Seattle greets us with black skies and freezing rain. This must be what I’ve been hearing about all these years. I don’t care. This city is still amazing. We head straight to the house that is to host us for the night – The Beery House, which apparently hosts many great shows for Seattle music lovers. Tonight we are the guests of honor.

We enter the house to find a feast waiting for us.

I was too busy with smoked salmon to notice the 40 or 50 extra people that had filled the living area by the time I looked up.

I don’t have much experience with house shows. But I like them. It’s so fascinating to me. People opening up their home to dozens of total strangers (the majority of these people were here for Mark alone and had no personal connection whatsoever to the owners of the house), offering food and drinks, and hosting guests after the show. Door is (in our case) donation based, and people are way more generous than I could have fathomed. Musicians can easily surpass what they would make in earnings from a traditional music venue (not to discourage you from playing them – I’m just saying, there are options out there).

So yeah, that being said, the show went incredibly well.

More highlights of our stay in Seattle:
- Being told to go into the Beery House bathroom and pick any rock that I want to take with me. I picked a nice orange slug-shaped one. Apparently it was a gift from Brazil. It’s sitting in my orange room now.
- Waking up to a giant pile of bacon + a breakfast torte that measured what seemed like 2′ in diameter.
- Mark’s great + talented friend Billy joining us for breakfast, and bringing pear butter with him. Pear freaking butter. Who knew?
- Mark receiving a complimentary trumpet and hand-sewn bird (carrying a miniature banjo) as a going-away gift.

Thank you Beery House! Now, off to Portland.

I feel like I would normally pack a significantly larger amount of observation in my descriptions of these places, but it is a winter tour, and everything is dark, all the time.

Highlights of Portland:

- Eating an overwhelming amount of home-cooked chicken parmesan, fruit, oysters, cheese, bread, salad and cheesecake at new friend Justin Mackewich’s house. Justin has actually known Alex for years… me only for a few hours or so. It was great hanging out with his wife and family nonetheless.
- Mississippi Studios. One of my favorite venues to pass through. The space is spacious and complex, the lighting is great for photos, and the music I hear here is always incredible. 3 Leg Torso opened and blew. my. mind. Apparently the bassist, Mike, was playing his last show before moving to Los Angeles. (update – Mark and Mike now play together regularly in LA).
- Having Justin play violin on stage with Mark and Alex for the set, having only been told he would do this a day ago. How you manage to master that amount of material that quickly without being dysfunctionally nervous, I will never know. I was so impressed. Preston Howard, a Chico-based friend who recently moved to Portland, joined in on Uillean pipes. Wow.
- A quoteable point from our friend/host Genia: “Moby’s not a great DJ.” “He probably not a great long-distance runner either, but that’s irrelevant, isn’t it.” Well said, Genia, well said.
- Meeting Genia’s incredible little lady, who is already holding intelligent conversations at 18 months. Yeesh.

We say our goodbyes to Portland, then head south. Next stop: home.

We drop Mark off halfway at his Thanksgiving retreat in Northern California. I fall back asleep immediately. I dream that I am in a high-speed car chase for the next few hours until I wake up at my front door, much earlier than expected. Apparently Alex hauled ass to get us back to San Fran so he could finally meet back with his ladies at home.

Another tour ended. I’ve gotta say, I’ve never toured with a more appreciative, kind couple of fellas. They were great company and it was great to get back on the road again. I met so many interesting people and can’t wait to cross paths with them again next time I’m wandering around the PNW.

If you haven’t yet, check out Mark HERE and Alex HERE.

END!

It finally happened.

The event I’ve been working my tail off for, along with producer Will Chase, Porto Franco Records, among others.

Mark Growden’s CD Release was Friday. The sponsorships were secured, the programs were designed & printed, the last promotional waves were complete. I could relax… sort of.

Relax enough to go receive my mother and her boyfriend, Barry Barrington (yes that is really his name) into town, as they were flying in from NC to visit for the weekend. I figured I could grab a quick fabulous German dinner with them at Suppenkuche, then head to the venue with time to spare before showtime.

(PC: Barry Barrington. Yes, I am aware that she looks like she should be my sister, not my mother. Let’s hope those genes translate.)

Well, I knew something ironic was bound to happen before the night was over. It just came sooner than I expected.

Long story short:
Head toward bus stop
Receive text message requesting that I find metallic sharpie pens for show
Ponder where the hell to find metallic sharpie pens
Run to Walgreens, find metallic sharpie pens
Return to house with pens to meet mother and Barry Barrington
Head to bus stop
Wait for 15 minutes at the wrong bus stop
Wait 15 minutes at the correct bus stop
Decide to call a cab, walk away from bus stop
Watch correct bus pass us as we walk away
Wait for cab in front of house for 20 minutes
Call to check in, as said cab is nowhere to be found
Receive information that cab has forgotten about us
Finally get cab 15 minutes later.

I arrive at the venue at 7:56. The show starts at 8. I still need to find my sponsors and give provide them with their well-deserved treats. This should be interesting.

Fortunately, I managed to find my sponsors prior to the set starting, and I settled down in time to catch the whole show.

The set was beautiful. The 350-person crowd knew every word. John Law (oh, you know, just the founder of Burning Man & renowned pioneer the SF arts scene as we know it) hopped on stage and gave a kind speech about Mark’s talent and quality as a musician and human being. It was definitely a notable night in the San Francisco arts community.

I happened to snap some photos from my seat.

Oh, and as for the sort-of-major career updates – I have been offered a position by Porto Franco Records. For those of you who already thought I was working for them, I wasn’t. I happened to be working on the same team as them for this event, which was a contracted freelance gig that I am EXTREMELY fortunate to have had the opportunity to work on. But Porto Franco seemed to dig the work I did, and want me to join their production team.

I don’t think I can begin to explain to you how perfect this job is for me. I will still be doing freelance stuff here and there, but this is a project I know I’ll be putting 200% into, because I absolutely love what they’re doing. My brain is on fire. I can’t wait to get this rolling.

So yeah, things are good. Really freaking good.

I’ll have more photos from this weekend coming up later.

For now… END!

If you kept up with my blogs over the summer, you know I spent a good portion of it touring the country with Tim Lytvinenko, Bowerbirds and Megafaun. It was quite an adventure. Tim and I took countless photos and recounted all of our adventures on welldonetour.com, the photo-site we created for the tour.

It really doesn’t seem like long since tour ended, but Megafaun has already made their way all the way around the country and back to the west coast, this time touring with Bon Iver.

This was a big tour for them, as not only were the venues gigantic (and packed full of fans), but there was a huge history between these bands that made the tour particularly special.

See, there was this band. They were around long ago, and based in Raleigh, NC. Their name was DeYarmond Edison, and they were incredible. However, after a couple of albums, the band broke up, and two separate resulting bands formed: Justin went to form Bon Iver, and Bill, Brad, and Joe went to form Megafaun. This tour is a reunion that not only the bands, but a lot of folks, including myself, have been waiting for.

I went to catch the show at the Fox Theatre in Oakland. Seeing the boys playing a sold-out show in such an epically beautiful structure was wonderful. I’m so proud to see how far they have come in just a few months, and my heart was aching to be on the road again. I felt like dropping out of school and hopping on the tour bus and never coming back. One more beer and I may have been crying in the crowd.

(That’s Justin from Bon Iver playing bass in the background.)

Seriously, go listen to them right now.
Megafaun
Bon Iver

Thanks. END!