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!

10:00 AM. I awake to find Tim and Shaun missing, but there is a note waiting for me. They have gone to get brunch supplies. We are to do a series of tasks before they return, including “be awesome.” On it.

We have planned a Well Done Brunch. Invited: Bowerbirds, Megafaun, Hometapes crew.

We took this project pretty seriously. It’s the first-ever Well Done Brunch. We can’t let the people down. We have menus and everything.

Let me just give you the rundown of what we created.

Iced Coffees.

Mimosas.

Bloody Mary Bar.

Egg frittatas with bacon, white cheddar, garlic, herbs and veggies from the garden.

Blueberry corn pancakes, topped with maple butter.

Curry breakfast potatoes.

Roasted potatoes with garlic and rosemary. (compliments of Megafaun Brad)

Fruit salad.

Shaun was busy preparing a brisket to cook for the next seven hours, I played waitress and took everyone’s order, while Tim shelled out frittatas at a blinding rate. I’m not entirely sure how he did it. He has breakfast superpowers.

We ate like champions, then watched the boys play in the water hose. Just a typical day in tour land.

As if this wasn’t enough to call it a day at 4 PM, we all decide to drive to Washington state for the afternoon to play in the river and jump off cliffs. And that we did.

Finally, nighttime arrives, and it’s time to celebrate Adam’s birthday at the Hometapes abode. We run back to Shaun’s house and prepare yet another epic meal: beef brisket with raspberry BBQ sauce, sweet potato salad, brown sugar baked beans, cabbage slaw, gluten-free peanut butter cookies with fresh strawberry compote, and ice cream. This is getting ridiculous.

We head to the celebration. Brad has french braids in his hair. Mark is wearing Beth’s jorts. More eating like champions. Everyone is comatose by the end of it. We decide that the best day ever has to end at some point, and head back to Shaun’s to retire from yet another glorious night in Portland.

So that ends one of the best weekend of my entire life. Can’t we all just stay here forever?

END!

Shaun took me brisket shopping.

Such a large mass of meat is worthy of its own blog post.

END!

Day 2 began with Tim cooking the most epic breakfast from whatever he could find in Shaun’s kitchen and/or potted herb garden. Tim is known for his epic breakfast making, but this one really took the cake. I think we’ve earned our keep at Shaun’s house.

We spent the afternoon exploring the downtown Portland area with Shaun & Margaret, eating ice cream, touring giant bookstores, and enjoying gourmet happy hour treats (fried kalamata olives for one dollar? yes please).

We eventually head over to Porque No taco shack to meet Megafaun and the Hometapes crew. We are in the land of Hometapes, and we finally meet the staff of the label, including Sarah’s husband and label co-owner, Adam. I had a shrimp-chile-pineapple taco. I’m fairly sure it was the best taco I’ve ever had. Quite sure actually.

We swung on a tire for a bit, then headed to the venue.

Run-On Sentence:

Megafaun:

Bowerbirds:

The show was at Mississippi Studios. This was a big show, as it’s Hometapes territory, and the turnout was huge. Both bands played one of their best sets I had ever heard them play. The crowd was incredible. I tried to hover near the front and shoot as much as I could.

After the show, we did a quick visit to a neighborhood bar, then headed back to Shaun’s to make obscene amounts of iced coffee and make ridiculously detailed brunch plans until 4 in the morning. Totally normal.

Bed. Epic day of cooking begins in five hours.

END!

Driving out of Utah, we were faced with the decision to drive to Seattle, Anacortes, or Portland. All routes led us through Boise, so we just went to Boise.

I would have liked to see this city, as I’ve only been there for a day before this visit, but we arrived at 3 in the morning and just wanted to get a hotel and pass out. And that we did. We spent a couple of hours in the morning doing some work at an Idaho bookstore-coffeeshop, then headed onward to our destination of choice: Portland.

We chose Portland for a number of reasons.
- The drive was several hours shorter.
- There was no chance of being late to the show, because we’d be an entire day early.
- I had noticed a Portland-based design blog had mentioned our coverage of Megafaun. I sent him a message thanking him and informed him that we happened to be on our way to his city. He asked us if we had plans upon our arrival (we did not) and invited us to a BBQ he was hosting. Of course we said yes. Who doesn’t love BBQ-ing with strangers in Oregon? It sounded like an adventure in the making to me.

Nine hours later, we’re driving along the Gorge, surrounded by water and mountains and Christmas trees and windmills that resemble giant bladed alien probes. We arrived at Shaun’s house soon after.

Facts about Shaun:
- He is a Portland-based designer who spent years working with Wieden+Kennedy.
- He is moving to Raleigh-Durham (our hometown) in 10 days to work as art director for Travelocity.
- He was recently in Raleigh staying with my friend Grayson. Hanging out with my friends.
- He is best friends with the owners of Hometapes, Megafaun’s record label, who we’ve been touring with already.
- Basically, we were destined to meet him anyway.

I don’t think I can say enough how freaking small this world is.

So we dove right in. Lots of tasty drinks and grub waiting for us. It was a proper west-coast BBQ, a foodie’s haven. We quickly got acclimated to our new environment and finished up the night crashing our new temporary Portland abode with our new best friends, Shaun and Margaret.

We would end up living here for the next three days.

END!

6/4/2007 – Portland to Seattle

So it felt great arriving in the northwest, but I had forgotten how
much Seattle dominates any part of this region. Or.. well, I actually
didn’t know for sure, since I had never really been anywhere besides
Seattle, but I had a feeling it was the case.

The city was just as great as I remembered it (I spent a week in
Seattle in March, and I’ve been obsessed ever since). The weather was
great.. not sunny, but not rainy. Good northwest weather for sure.
Our venue, The Tractor Tavern, was located in the Ballard district, a
more artsy nook in the northern side of town. I hadn’t seen this part
of town before, and it was PERFECT. Full of restaurants and coffee
and art and sculpture and dogs. There were also Norwegian things
everywhere I turned, from flags to names of Norwegian cities carved in
the sidewalk. It makes sense.. last time I was in Seattle I spent a
long time talking to an old man in the hostel I was staying in, and he
explained to me how Seattle was once inhabited by 70% Scandinavians (I
could be totally off because I can’t quite remember, but I’m just
throwing that number out there), and now about 30% remain. Still a
lot of freaking Norwegians. It’s refreshing.

Also – People embrace their paleness here. Perhaps this is because
they never see the sun. Regardless, I found my kind and I was
pleased.

I was itching to take the boys downtown to see the EMP building
(experience music project – this building is the most awesomely
bizarre hodgepodge of architecture I have ever seen), Pike Place
Market (the waterfront market famous for the fish-throwing), and other
goodies I encountered last time I was in town. Traffic was a bit of a
bitch, and I forgot that we actually had to find parking, so we just
drove through town and I pointed out every point of interest and
restaurant I saw last time around. The boys are infatuated with they
city. It makes me happy. This entire time they have been wondering
why a simple mention of the city almost puts me into a seizure.

I didn’t do much photogging while I was in Seattle, mostly because I
had already taken so many during my last trip. Beej made up for it
though. I was also too busy taking the city back in.. I really cannot
express to you how much I love this place.

Eventually we made it back to Ballard, strolled around town, grabbed a
peppermint latte and some dinner, then headed back to The Tractor
Tavern for show time. This venue was definitely one of the best we
have played, if not the best. I spent a good bit of time in the
greenroom (many venues have lounges in the back for bands to hibernate
in before and after their set) reading the plethora of sharpied poop
references covering the wall. I’m guessing that the staff originally
wanted to add a little character to the rear décor, so they all ended
up covering the wall in what would resemble band signatures, but were
actually just enhanced band names… and by enhanced, I mean.. contained
the word poop (The Red Hot Chili Poopers, Death Cab for Poopie, Judas
Poop.. the list goes on). BJ signed AA’s name on the wall, and we
couldn’t really come up with a good way to effectively incorporate
poop, so we just wrote it directly above the signature with several
exclamation points. I feel like it counts by association.

We eventually started drinking and sat town to check out the opening
act, Barton Carroll. Once again, I remind you that we have played
with great acts such as Due East, Kid Hart, and Sonia Leigh, and
played with some god-awful acts (which I will refrain from naming)..
Barton set himself apart from everyone we have played with yet. I
can’t compare him to the other acts, simply because he was nothing
more than a one-man acoustic act devoid of any backing band, but his
songwriting was absolutely unreal. His song, “Shadow Man,” about
growing up in his older brother’s shadow, then losing him to cancer on
bad terms, left about half of the band bawling. This was the first
time I have EVER cried during a song.. and I can’t even usually cry
period, even if I want to. That says something. He was an amazing
storyteller (we later found out that “Shadow Man” was fictional), and
his music really was beautiful. We were all sold.

When the boys started their set, Barton spent some time chatting with
me at my merch perch, and he offered to take us in for the night.
Once again, Helena lands the team a place to stay. Rock. I have
noticed that musicians are usually the most hospitable people on tour,
simply because they are either going through the woes of tour or have
been through it several times already. They get it.

The boys played a great set and the right people were there to see it.
Apparently The Tractor Tavern has a close connection with KEXP, one
of Seattle’s most kickass radio stations. Radio is usually crap.
KEXP is not. If you combined the indie-ipod-playlists of all of my
musically-inclined friends in Raleigh, you’d get something similar to
a standard KEXP rotation. Their podcast has been #1 in the world, and
might still be. I don’t know. I actually spent an afternoon in the
station late time I was in Seattle.. they just rock. Anyway, the
owner of The Tractor Tavern apparently contacted KEXP and told them
how amaaaaaazing American Aquarium was (which is kind of a big deal,
because this venue is the northwest home for the top alt-country acts
in the nation). The music director immediately sent Beej an email
asking for a CD to put on rotation. This is a huge deal!!!!!! I
think so anyway.

After the show, we followed Barton to his lovely home on a hill that
he and his girlfriend share. We had to be sneaky, because she is a
2nd grade teacher and had to be up early in the morning for work. I
quickly found refuge on the kitchen floor. I had wanted to take the
boys up to Queen Anne’s Hill to see the INSANE view of the skyline,
but it looks like I’ll just have to wait until next time. There will
certainly be many more times if I can help it.