We’ll be at the Blue Rock Shoot in Saratoga Saturday night with our friends The Toes, come by if you can!
Pernikoff Brothers
November 9, 2008 – 12:26 am
These guys are really good. Funky bass, tight sibling harmonies, guitar and banjo, creative covers… very tasty. The MySpace doesn’t do them justice - fortunately they’re recording more this week - but try “I See You” or this Afro-pop-styled live video on YouTube. This one’s pretty good too.
They’ve got a weekly gig, noon Saturdays at Red Rock Coffee in Mountain View. If you can, catch them tomorrow - they’ve got a drummer visiting from Boston who really adds to the dynamic.
FAR-West
October 28, 2008 – 1:30 pm
We’re back from the Folk Alliance Region West conference in Mesa, AZ, where two floors of the Marriott were transformed into a miniature Sixth Street, beds shoved aside to make every room its own little unplugged concert venue. (Lots of other important stuff happened, like panels and workshops, but it’s the “guerrilla showcases” that are really striking.) I’m sure to snub someone here by forgetting them, but I can’t help mentioning a few of our favorite musicians from the conference, like Sarah Sample, Driftwood Fire, Dayan Kai, Rachel Garlin, and our friends Michael Morales and Bev and Greg. And the best time I had all weekend, hanging out and playing bass (and a little mandolin) at the Joni Mitchell song circle.
new videos
August 14, 2008 – 5:21 pm
Our friend Geoff from orchestra6 just posted videos of our own Dave Allender singing From Galway to Graceland and The Galway Girl, with Geoff on Dobro, at the Red Rock Coffee open mike.
I’ve been collecting live videos of us and our friends over on YouTube. All the ones I know about are here. Let me know if I missed anything.
tour blog 3: Bellingham, Redmond, Portland
July 13, 2008 – 3:13 am
1. In Bellingham I had the best coffee of the tour, at The Black Drop. Tom bought records at Aladdin’s Lamp - we had to drag him out. Dave looked for a belt, but left unfulfilled. The show at the Green Frog might have been the first time on the tour that people we didn’t already know came to see us, on purpose. Bellingham gets the Tin Cat seal of approval. Here’s an old cafe:
tour blog 2: Portland, Olympia
July 10, 2008 – 12:18 pm
1. The window’s not… fixed, exactly. There’s a part we couldn’t get. It’s fine as long as Dave doesn’t roll the window down. Which he keeps doing.
2. We didn’t have a show in Portland. The show’s coming up on Saturday. Tuesday night we played an open mike at Albina Green, a restaurant with a great lawn:
tour blog 1: Ashland
July 8, 2008 – 12:36 pm
Let’s see how long this lasts.
1. We didn’t actually put together the CDs in the truck. We unbundled at a sweltering rest stop and, after berries and peanut butter, formed a loose assembly line at a picnic table.
2. When we got to the Kat Wok, the maitre d’ led us along a narrow corridor to the stained, sunken pit that serves as dance floor and stage. I thought, “This looks more like a dungeon than anywhere we’ve ever played.”
Later we had delicious pan-Asian food and watched Chris Parreira, the local folk singer who set up the show and opened for us.
We made a CD
July 1, 2008 – 6:24 am
That’s one (1) CD.
All the recording is done. It’s been mixed, it’s been mastered. The art and design are done, except the label has to be revised. I picked out some cardstock options at Kelly Paper, printed some samples at Kinko’s, burned some CDs at home, and put them all together. After we all agreed on which paper to use, I sent that one off to a radio station in Bellingham whose music director said “Sure, send me your CD and I’ll give it a listen.” We’re playing there in… ten days? I don’t think he’s going to get to it, but having a goal helped me get it all together.
Now we just have to buy more paper, print more inserts, fix the label, print the labels, burn the CDs… and put them all together in Dave’s truck, on the way to our first show in Ashland, a week from tonight.
Excitement!
that cd we promised
April 29, 2008 – 1:23 pm
… is finally mixed just the way we want it. I am just jumping for the chance to get it out into other people’s hands, but first we have to get it mastered and, you know, make a bunch of copies. But still: EXCITING.
I went to see Peter Mulvey last night at Don Quixote’s. He plays the guitar and he changes the tuning a lot and while he’s tuning the guitar he talks, and sometimes he talks a lot longer than he tunes, my point is, he tells STORIES, oh, the stories he tells, funny and wise and unexpected, and last night he played for almost two hours, and in that time he told a lot of stories, and I’ve seen this guy going on dozens of times, and still, last night, of all the stories he told, there were only two I’d heard before: The one about the Jesuit priests and the Liberace scholarship (but even in that one there were new developments), and the one about Dynamite Bill.
Coming up we’ve got a three-hour show, featuring the first-ever Tin Cat Dance Party, this Thursday in Campbell; a lunchtime set at the San Gregorio General Store on May 18; and on May 23, we’re playing at the Catalyst–”congratulations,” my friend Barry said, “you’re playing at a place I’ve heard of!” So-called “friend”.
vermillion lies
February 9, 2008 – 3:53 am
Hey, the new Vermillion Lies CD is out! Or at least they’re taking preorders. Of course I went and listened to all the tracks I played accordion on. (I’m so vain, I probably think this album is about me.) But my favorite track is actually “Bone Yard”–what are those spooky bells?
You, too, can listen to the whole album for free.
Oh, and here’s their MySpace.