Well it has been really amazing getting to work with The Gentry this past year. I’ve been able to realize some loud rock dreams with those guys in tow and I’m really grateful for the time they spent working to prepare for our tour together this Summer and all the time spent traveling around the U.S. with me in a van. We had some really magical moments on and off stage. I was finally able to move past some fairly long-standing stage fright and found freedom in the band format, having just been a singing DJ up to that point. I have Gino, Steve & AC to thanks for that.
We have had our share of disasters along the way as well…much of which revolved around our drummer’s body slowly breaking bone by bone. Dude broke his hand in San Francisco (and just kept playing) then he broke his foot 4 days before the big farewell show at Mississippi Studios in Portland and had surgery on his foot (metal plate anyone?) THE DAY BEFORE. He’s an animal.
At any rate, we made some last minute adjustments to the show obviously because he couldn’t play the entire hour long set. One such change was a bit of a throwback to my humble singing DJ beginnings from years back. It was fun to play some of the new stuff and have it just be pop. If my lighting guy had remembered to bring his board to go along with the lights we lugged to the venue it would have been a lot better…or maybe not. It ended up being very intimate, very bare bones, unmasked & vulnerable. It seemed like a very appropriate way to leave things. Here’s a clip from the karaoke portion of last week’s final show:
Next up is a clip from our secret show at this year’s Salem Pride Festival. It ended up being one of the best shows of the entire Summer. Sadly, the camera was right in front of Gino’s guitar amp so the sound of this video is way more fucked up than it usually is but it was such a good day I figured I’d post it anyway.
Here we are rehearsing for tour at The Odditorium last week. Oh, and just so you know: It’s not lost on me how fucking cool it is that we get to do stuff like this in the Warhol palace. I have much to be grateful for by way of awesome stuff happening in Musicworld these days, you guys.
Thanks again to everybody who came out to our Summer Tour kick-off/warm-up show at Doug Fir last week in Portland!!! It was really fun to see you and the night was just what we needed to send us off right! Also: Big thanks to Fleshtone and DoublePlusGood for being so awesome before our band(s) took the stage. More fun like that, please.
For those of you who missed it, you can watch the video below. This is one of the new songs from my upcoming record that, until now, nobody has really heard. Sorry in advance for the shitty ass camera microphone sound quality.
In case you missed us playing the new version of “Write It On My Left Arm” LIVE on KGW Newschannel 8 last night on TV (via the show “Live at 7“) you can watch the video from the broadcast just below. Pretty fun!!!
Thanks so much to all of you who came out to Berbati’s in Portland this weekend. “Cars and Trains” and I had a great time and it meant a LOT that you picked my show over Ben Gibbard’s. For those of you who missed it, Samuel Thomas (of The Portland FREE Music Project) got “Bottom Your Way To The Top” on video (which is posted below) and I uploaded tons of photos from the evening on Myspace and Facebook. All 3 of the opening bands were AMAZING. If you haven’t already heard of “Yeah Great Fine”, “Swallows”, and “Winnie Byrd”, click on their names and check them out. You won’t be sorry.
(…and I quote…) “This is one of my religious songs. It’s about God and stuff. Actually…It’s about getting FUCKED.” (Somebody should really turn my microphone off in-between songs. I also introduced “Bleed Him Out” with “This next song is about smoking crack and getting the shit kicked out of you.” ha ha ha)
