I had a fabulous, whirlwind trip to Portland last week in November for 5 days.
It came about from a job
opportunity to perform at the retirement party of an old
friend/colleague with the stage name Joe Strong. I took the
opportunity to schedule "reunion shows" for 2 bands I used
to lead: the Hot Club of Hawthorne (gypsy jazz/vintage swing), and
Train River (bluegrass). I was fortunate to get to stay in the house
of my old housemate/bandmate Rob Roy, and I had a fun jam with him
and old buds/bandmate Andrew Clapp and Dave Nicolardi; the 3 of them
have a cool improv synth band now. How fun to catch up with these
folks, up to 20+ years later!
Back in the aughts, I used to
help Joe Strong chart out his songs to facilitate playing at the
"Sonic Forum" live-band-open-mike at the Goodfoot Lounge,
hosted by Scott Pemberton and Ji Tanzer. Later there were 2 CDs
produced in Scott's studio, to which I contributed tracks -- the
albums are excellent, so I recommend finding them streaming online --
and in 2010 did a CD release party performance at the Goodfoot. The
recent party performance was ambitious: we had to fill a large
ballroom with sound, and we included some backing tracks in the mix,
which requires careful logistics and practice. We did well. Joe is
actually a renowned structural engineer and professor with a long and
celebrated history of teaching at PSU; his colleagues in attendance
did not know he was a musician, so they were blown away! To be a part
of that was an honor and delight.
The Train River show took
place at a new venue called Covert Cafe on 82nd; it's co-managed by
my old friend/bandmate Joe Mishkin. It's a great little space and
they have excellent facilities with instruments, a sound system, and
audio/video recording capability. You can find the videos of the
whole show on their YouTube channel at
https://www.youtube.com/@CovertCafe
Especially fun was that
several folks who used to hang -- and probably first met -- at the
old Snake & Weasel circa 2000, were in attendance!
The Hot
Club of Hawthorne show took place at Mississippi Pizza, which was
perhaps the venue I've performed at more than anywhere else. We
packed in over 12 musicians over the show, in two sets, and soundman
champion Carter Hill heroically hooked us up, and recorded the whole
thing too (audio forthcoming soon!) There was a perfect sized crowd,
including swing dancers, and lots of old friends and fans. There are
some audience videos we'll get on YouTube and the FB page soon. Big
thanks to Dave Brooks for loaning me my old gypsy guitar, which I
sold to him before leaving for Mexico! (He's husband of my oldest
friend in the world, from kindergarten, Kori; we had a lovely visit
and catchup too.)
I also enjoyed bussing around Portland and
seeing the sights again. I do miss the place -- but, I would rather
not live there! It seems too big now...and expensive, of course. I
love my sunny, friendly, artsy Mexican new life.
Sorry I
couldn't spend more time with all the friends that came out! Running
the shows required much attention. And for the friends that didn't
get the memos, I'll try to do better. It's hard when contact info is
so discombobulated these days.
The whole trip was pretty
late-booked -- I was on the fence about going at all for a time... --
and it could have been better planned, but things came together
magically. I'm emboldened to do it again at a future date; maybe even
annually or something!
