Happy Humbug

It’s over!  Christmas is over!  You know, it wasn’t so bad this year.  Christmas day is always great actually…spending time with the fam.  We had Dungeness crab, that’s right…jealous much? AND, I got the best present ever…a fitted Detroit Tigers hat!  Go Tigers!!  Thanks, Mom.  I spent most of pre-Christmas pouring drinks for the stressed.  Not so bad.  I guess the only stressful time for me was contempating standing in line with 50 other people at Powells Bookstore the day before Christmas.  My own fault, I know.  A delicious Manhattan down the way seemed much more appropriate, and it was.  Anyway, Happy Humbug everyone.

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Blue Cranes are starting rehearsals again today for an exciting new year.  Things on the plate:  1.  Finish the record  2.  Write/learn/memorize new material and choice covers  3.  Find a manager/booking agent  4.  Tour/tour/tour  5.  Help my Detroit Tigers win the World Series in October.  Oh, and 6.  Make another record.  If you can help with any of these things, particularly the manager/booking agent part, let us know.  Thanks.

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RIP Vic Chesnutt

Sunday Update

So…I’m lazy.  I know that.  I’m trying to not be.  I changed the message that comes up on my phone when I turn it on to say DON’T BE LAZY!!.  First it said Be Kind, then just Discipline.  The Be Kind helped.  The Discipline just confused me so early in the morning.  I am easily confused, you see.  Though I find my constant state of confusion leads me down interesting paths of creativity.  It pays to be confused.  Anyway…tangent…which is another source of creativity…ok, stop.

I, Lazy Joe, have promised myself that I will post something, anything, on this blog at least every Sunday.  If I have more to report, great.  If not, you will still get something on Sunday.  Could be a beans and rice recipe.  Could be a love note to Jennifer Connelly.  Could be a recent report on my Detroit Tigers.  Hopefully it’s about something creative someone is working on.

Here’s a quick list of things and stuff:

Blue Cranes have finished recording our record.  Does anyone say record anymore?  I just did.  We are pretty excited about it.  Plenty of special guests playing and or singing.  Yes, singing.  Here is a link to some videos from the studio.  I look fat.  Time for a diet.  After the holidays, of course.

You may have seen Dr Theopolis on Comcast for the opening of the Trailblazers games.  Pretty cool.  I usually get a text or two when people see it.  We were invited to play at halftime of a game a couple weeks ago.  The game Greg Oden got hurt.  Not our fault.  We were all over the Jumbotron.  Wish I had pictures to prove it.  Hint, hint.

Reed and I have joined forces with Mary Sue Tobin and Tom Garcia to nerd out on some wicked saxophone quartet material.  Will have more info on this as it comes along.

What else…oh, yeah…went to see one of my favorite bands, Built To Spill, a while back and, just so you know, they are still badass.  Though I have to say, they looked bored out of their minds.  Stand in the back and everything will be fine.

I’m sure there’s more but it’ll have to wait.  Off to my work Christmas party.  Wish me luck.  Don’t know what that means either.  Happy Holidays, everyone…especially you, Jennifer Connelly.

Right??  Damn.

Stuff

Here are a few pictures from the Scott Pemberton Trio/Wayne Horvitz & Zony Mash show in Portland from a couple weeks ago:

Scott Pemberton Trio

Zony Mash horns

my fav guitar players Timothy Young & Scott Pemberton

photos by Craig Maynard Scott.

I ran into fellow Portlander Tucker Martine at the show. Check out this recent interview with Tucker on NPR. I had the pleasure of working with him on a Decemberists recording (that was never released, as far as I know) a couple years ago and may be working with him on something soon. Will let you know.

Check out this Ethan Iverson interview with my hero, Keith Jarrett.

Those who hustle.

Okay, okay…stop yelling at me!  Here’s a new post.  Geez.

Let’s see…it’s been almost two months.

On the Blue Cranes front:

1.  8/5/09  We played a beat battle in Portland where they took samples of our music and made beats out of them.  Pretty cool idea.  They gave each dude (where were the women beat makers??) an hour to create their beats.  I think it would be interesting to give them more time.  24 hours maybe?  Anyway, it was cool and we were honored to be chosen to do it.

2.  8/8/09 – 8/14/09  Tour.  It was great.  Highlights:  The goat farm outside Ashland, OR was super fun.  Recording, playing  and hanging with Elders and friends in Davis, CA was great, as usual.  Hanging out in San Francisco was weird and cool.  I finally got over to the legendary City Lights Books.  Pretty cool.  It was Ji’s birthday in Chico and our Davis friends surprised us by driving up for the show.  We love them.

3.  Played a couple other fun shows around Portland.  One at a new Portland venue called The Woods, which used to be a funeral home.  And one at a jazz club called Jimmy Mak’s.  We are not used to playing jazz clubs, so Ji and Rebecca wore homemade Jazz Fraud shirts to let everyone know the truth.  (See below)

4.  Keith has been on tour with The Stolen Sweets and Reed is out in Berlin, Germany making some beautiful noise.

5.  We are preparing for more shows and for going back into the studio at the end of October to record new songs and strings and percussion.  Yay!

The first three pictures were taken by Eric Redpath at the goat farm.  Happy Ji was taken by Derek Olsen, and the following three were taken by Craig Maynard Scott, all at Jimmy Maks.

More to come.  I’ve had some fun gigs outside of Blue Cranes that I’ll tell you about.

I’ll leave you with my favorite new quote…”Things may come to those who wait…but only the things left by those who hustle.”  -Abraham Lincoln

Vacation!

Back from a much needed vacation filled with beaches, hiking, euchre, reading (started A People’s History of the United States – Howard Zinn), great food, family, whales, and a shark! I got to spend time with my sister who lives in Michigan and my parents who live across the river in Vancouver. Was great fun.

Now, back to work:  I have a few new paintings to post. Writing a new song for a Blue Cranes/Elders collaboration we will hopefully be recording next week in Davis, CA.  Practicing keyboard parts for a gig with National Flower at Mississippi Studios in Portland on Friday.  Trying to memorize the new BC songs before we start tour next week.  Busy, busy.

Oh, and I started a diet yesterday.  Shooting for 20lbs.  Ugh.

Talk to you soon…real soon.

Blue Cranes rock the studio

So yeah, we were in the studio Monday & Tuesday.  So super great.  Our engineer, Jason Powers, at Type Foundry was great, as usual.  For those of you who have not been involved with recording in a studio situation, the engineer isn’t just a mic setter upper and a button pusher and slider.  He or she has to deal with all of the insecurities and issues brought on by the mental and physical stress of being in the studio for 12 straight hours.  Engineer/Occupational Psychiatrist?  Anyway, Jason was great.

Timothy Young!  We met Tim when we were lucky enough to play with Sweeter Than The Day (Wayne Horvitz’s band) in Portland.  He liked us and set up a show for us in Los Angeles on one of our tours.  I drunkenly asked him if he would be interested in recording with us and by some miracle (and a lot of work by Reed), it happened.  He came in on the second day and was super professional and totally awesome.  And he likes us!  I don’t have the proper vocabulary to express how great of a guitar player he is.  You’ll hear it on the record.

The great Timothy Young

I/We learned a few things:  1.  Don’t spend 12 straight hours in the studio (you want to get your money’s worth but after you cross that tired line, you’re pretty much useless)  2.  Be prepared (don’t show up with 3 songs you have only played once, the night before and 2 songs you have NEVER played)  3.  Wait as long as possible to take that first shot of tequila.

We ended up recording keepers of 7 songs (in reverse alphabetical order):

Yellow Ochre – A beautiful ballad by Reed.  We experimented with the form a little and by the time we settled on an arrangement, Tim was playing it like he wrote it 10 years ago.  One of my favorite performances by Ji on drums.

Ritchie Bros. – A super mathy thing by Reed that goes into a cool three part melody and then into a bitchin bass solo by Keith.  A future crowd pleaser for sure.  String overdubs to come.

Maddie Mae (was a good girl) – A song I wrote for Chamber of Commerce which is a band comprised of Blue Cranes and Portland jazzers Paxselin Quartet.  Chad Hensel from PQ came in to play the Bass Clarinet part and did a great job.  Tim played an amazing solo and overdubbed some tasty background nuggets.

Love, Love, Love – An amazing song by one of our heroes, Wayne Horvitz.  Already a crowd favorite.  Tim told us Wayne’s Father, Wayne Sr., died last week so we were sending our love, love, love his way.  Tim played on the original recording and Reed said he had a surreal moment watching the guy who played one of the best guitar solos he has ever heard (on the original) play the same song with us.

Happy Days – A song I wrote in response to all the slow and melancholy songs I had been writing.  A poppy little number with a Reed/Ji freakout in the middle.  Came out pretty cool.  Percussion and toy piano overdubs to come.

Freee Birdd – A little jazz ditty I wrote at the bar one night.  I wanted it to be a Charlie Parker (Bird) style melody in an Ornette Coleman style free jazz setting, hence Free Bird.  I wanted it to be more free than Bird, but I think it came out more Bird than free.  This is one of the songs we have never played for anyone.  Turns out it is really hard to play.  It was driving us all crazy the first night so we waited to do it first on the second day.  Nailed it.

Broken Windmills – A song of mine that we have been playing for a while now.  We have already made a recording of this that made the PDX Pop Now 2009 compilation but I wanted to do it with Tim.  String overdubs to come

More photos to come.

Blue Cranes studio prep

I am supposed to be writing out melodies for a new cover that Blue Cranes are recording for our new CD, so I have to make this quick.

We are heading into the studio this Monday and Tuesday with 8 new originals and 2, maybe 3 covers for our third CD.  Rehearsal time has been sparse since everyone is so busy.  We had to rehearse at 9am yesterday.  Being a bartender, I rarely see 9am.  It was nice.

Battle Hymns & Gardens

Today in St. Johns, OR for the NO. FEST.

Sly Pig – tenor sax, melodica

Tim DuRoche – drums, glockenspiel, stuff

Jonathan Sielaff – bass clarinet through stuff into an amp

Reed Wallsmith – alto sax

Painting #2

Zippy The Cat

I am still having a hard time figuring out how to show my paintings.  I am losing so much detail by taking a photo with my digital camera.   Maybe I should scan them?  Help!

Painting #1

I went into an art supply store here in Portland recently with the big news that I had decided to be a great (possibly the greatest) abstract painter.  After a few chuckles from the staff, a nice young lady showed me around the store, recommending some acrylic paints and setting me up with brushes and a pad of canvas paper.  I am pleased to present my first painting.  I have named it:

You’re a Loser but I Still Love You (dedicated to the Detroit Lions)

I know it’s a bad picture, but until I can figure out how to get a better shot, this is what you get.