So, I figured that it would be a nice thing to briefly describe my regular gigs/venues for the discerning reader/listener. They can get to be a little bit of a tangle when taken in full, but each one has some nice things about them and so here we go.
First off is Andina Restaurant (http://www.andinarestaurant.com), where I play solo every Monday night. I begin with this gig, as it is my longest-standing residency. I've been performing at Andina for close to 8 years now, give or take. Andina is a family-run Peruvian restaurant located in NW Portland's Pearl district, down the block from a warehouse where I worked in the late 80's/early 90's, before it got all fancy down there. Andina is well known for their food, a mix of traditional and nuevo Peruvian dishes which are consistently elegant, interesting and excellent. They also treat their musicians very well, and have been a feather in my cap for a long time. I'm there every Monday form 7-10pm, playing solo in the bar -- mostly jazz… [Read More]

A few months ago TIME Magazine gave me a buzz to chat about Hazel's upcoming reunion performance at MusicFest NW here in Portland. Now that the hubbub is over I figured I'd post it, if for any other reason than to show my folks I was in a magazine they'd actually heard of...

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For a long time I've been working on a book about guitar playing and my philosophy of music and how it all relates, etc. I've started it about a dozen times and have scraps and bits and pieces lying around the house. One problem is that I am overthinking it. Another (major) problem is that I am struggling to define what exactly I want to talk about -- is it guitar playing, music theory, anecdotal zen musicianship, practical advice?
I am inspired by many things, but the work I come back to as getting close to what I'd like to emulate in spirit is a short book called the 'Curtis Creek Manifesto', written by a guy called Sheridan Anderson. It's about fly fishing. For awhile, whenever I mentioned that I was curious about learning how to fly fish, the response always started along the lines of, "Have you heard of this book 'the Curtis Creek Manifesto'? Everything you need to know is in there...". After buying the book and reading it in about an hour and half, I had to agree. It is a spare,… [Read More]

"As I was driving home from my gig tonight I passed a 'band van' with a trailer pulling out of the parking lot of one of the larger venues in SE Portland. It was a new Ford 350 towing an equally new matching cargo trailer. This got me thinking about a few things.
This wasn't a 'national act', I don't think. Probably just another band with another record out on another label from somewhere other than here. Maybe they were the greatest band in the world, but I wouldn't know about that because I'm old and out of the loop, and getting crotchety to boot. The driver, who looked like a bass player, was about 24. There were no stickers on the van, nor the trailer.

I've seen this same set-up in front of many, many clubs here in town on many, many night's drive home from this gig or that, nursing my beloved (but terminally ill) Volvo station wagon home on the rutted roads leading "North" and "East", like an old horse's memory carrying it's drunk, sleeping rider in the low moonlit… [Read More]

Friday, January 13th, I released my latest disc with a group I play with known as the Portland Playboys. The record is called 'Early Sessions', and is a mix of Western Swing, Honky-Tonk and Hillbilly Boogie. I'm capitalizing all three of these genre's names because I have great respect for the heritage of all three and am grateful that there's room in the closet there somewhere for a guy like me to dress up and occasionally play the part of the 50's cowboy radio star, at least in my own mind.

I've gathered four of the best musicians I've ever played with in this group -- David Langenes and Keith Brush from the Stolen Sweets and Ian Miller and Rusty Blake from (insert any hot shit retro hillbilly band you care to think of HERE). These guys get it. They swing, they rock the house, they're in the pocket. They're nice. They play because they love it, and they have found a way to transmit this to everybody in the room like all true great musicians can.

We got together… [Read More]

A couple of months ago I had a chance to play loud rock music with Jody Bleyle again. It had been at least a decade, maybe more (unless you count the Crystal Ballroom thumb your nose at the new crowd show we did with Crackerbash, et al). Along with Brady Smith and Fred Nemo, we played in a group called Hazel back in the day. Sort of a pop punk band that swung like a trainwreck and often smashed itself to pieces. We made it maybe 5 or 6 years and 2 1/2 albums before the hangover was too harsh to deal with, and we quit. Brady went to NYC, Jody to LA, Fred and I stayed in PDX and observed the fallout.

Hazel was (in retrospect) one of those perfect old kinds of bands -- built in a garage, then wheeled out to the schoolyard where it actually flew once we got the motor started and figured out how the controls kind of worked. It brought us many experiences and allowed us to live a little bit. Our heroes were the Minutemen, Husker Du and the Wipers.

During the intervening… [Read More]

About 20+ years ago I started gigging in the bars and taverns in and around my town.  I was pretty young in many ways back then and like a lot of people, stumbled into the work that later became my life.  My line of bullshit far outweighed my musical abilities and I initially hired on as a percussionist, even though I'd never really played before.  I had an old beat-up Leedy snare drum which I'd play with brushes and a homemade washboard set-up which was tied together with leather bootlaces.  I learned how to do it that way from my buddy Big Shorty, who learned himself from Washboard Sam back in the day. 

I mainly worked jobs with Tim and Neil, two older guys who I knew from a bar where I hung out.  Tim was the rock -- had the Econoline and arranged everything, all the business, and played bass.  Neil was the front man, a Cleveland Mick with the spirit of Bobby Bland, Booker T and a gospel preacher.  He played a old beat up Gibson 335.  We'd hop in Tim's van with… [Read More]