We had a fabulous time on our first official tour to New England and Virginia. We played some ecstatic packed houses in Cambridge, Saratoga Springs, Richmond and Charlottesville, as well as some more lonely, but oh so sweet plays in Burlington, Brooklyn and NYC. All par for the course with a first tour to new and uncharted regions. We met some really great people and can't wait till we can get back over there!

Here is a pic of Jacob jamming onstage with Bearfoot at the historic Caffe Lena in NY.



And here we are in Charlottesville and Cambridge.



This was also my first time to Manhattan and New England in general, so I had a great time checking out the landscape and being a little touristy. After our ten day tour, we ended up in Virginia where we got to hang with our friends the Honey Dewdrops and spend Thanksgiving with Jacob's family. Good times!

 After 5 months and a really intense final three weeks of slaving over the new album, Gold Rush Goddess is finally done and off to the presses, leaving me one last week in October to take a "sub" gig with one of my all-time favorite groups, Moira Smiley & VOCO.

Moira and I had crossed paths breifly before when I was directing AkaBella, but it wasn't until last fall at the Freight and Salvage that she mentioned possibly needing another voice in the wings to fill out the occasional quartet tour. Nine months later I auditioned via video and then went to work learning and memorizing VOCO's challenging repertoire. I flew to LA to rehearse with them, and then flew to Portland last week for a few days of rehearsal and then a short tour of Oregon.

Here's a pic of the cover of the new album (art by Marilee Bogaert) and a pic of VOCO (April, Moira, Emily & Me) at a barn concert in Sisters, OR on 10/28.


 

We spent last week at our second session up at the Old School Studio on the Mendocino coast of California, but we ducked out for one day to play three gigs in Humboldt County, driving a total of 300 miles round trip. We woke up at the Caspar Inn Friday morning at 7am and hightailed it to get breakfast in Fort Bragg to give ourselves a good hour to drive the 20 miles of super windy mountain road out to the 101 from Hwy 1 and then another hour to get to sound check at our first gig of the day: the Head to Head Grateful Dead Festival in Redway, CA. We made it there in plenty of time and opened up the whole festival at 11am with the Dead's "New Speedway Boogie" (a cautionary tale for a festie, but a favorite of ours). We had some amazing Korean tacos for lunch from Outlaw Kitchen that left my mouth watering for hours. 

After Head to Head we headed North to Ferndale, CA where KHUM is stationed. Just as we were headed into town behind some unusual daytime traffic, I realized that it just might be the season of the Humboldt County Fair, and sho' nuff, it was! After a quick interview and performance at the KHUM studio Larry hooked us up with some media passes to go hang at the fair for an hour. We had a great time checking out the crazy prize-winning livestock, exhibits and delicious Funnel Cake and Jacob even won me a stuffed animal, as is requisite for coupled-menfolk at the fair.




We checked in with our opening act, the T-Sisters and our headliner the Bucky Walters and made dinner plans to eat at 3 Foods Cafe in Arcata, where I used to play a weekly dinner gig with the Vintners' Daughters. Turns out it was a perfect night to play Arcata. The week before the college got back in session, an Arts Arcata Friday night, a $5 show on the plaza with Arcata's favorite bluegrass band headlining, and me written up in a feature in the Northcoast Journal all made for a great turn out. We had almost 200 people packed into the newly remodeled Jambalaya and it was the rowdiest and most fun acoustic duo set I've played in a long time. We opened that set with "New Speedway Boogie" too, and the Dead-lovin' Arcata audience soaked it up, singin' along to all the words. Everyone also loved the T-Sisters in their Arcata debut and the Bucky Walters brought the house down with their funkified newgrass grooves. It was epic.






Needless to say, it was a long long day, and we pretty much crashed out after the show and left the partying to our newly introduced mutual friends of Bucky and T. They had been in touch leading up to this show and actually scheduled a show together for the next night in Willits, CA. Always happy to bring musicians together. We geared up for the 3.5 hour drive back to Caspar in the morning after hitting up the massive Arcata Farmer's Market and getting our favorite coffee and croissants at Cafe Brio.



The Old School Studio experience with Calvin was as magical as ever and we recorded several of the new foundational tracks live as a duo. It took us over 20 takes, but we did a super sweet version of one of my papa's new songs and finally nailed it. We also did a hard slow rocker jam with Jacob on drums and vintage Kay bass and slide guitars. It was super fun and we can't wait to get our last couple of tracks down and get to mixing and mastering in September.

Jacob and I played a couple of really fun shows and made some new friends in Alaska...

Musical couple Mandy and Andy hooked up a place to stay in Anchorage, and joined us at the Tap Root with their old school country band, Dangertown.

Then, when we played Talkeetna we met Jay and Olivia: another duo on tour from Boston. We jammed with them at their late-night Fairview bar gig and had quite a time.
The love duo rules again! Play on, family bands!




After our plays up north, we flew to Cordova, AK ('cause there ain't no road!) to teach, jam and play all week at a sweet little bluegrass day camp for kiddies.
I taught songwriting and Jacob and I got to coach a student band together. Our prize student Selma rocked mando and vocals on Iko Iko and some Bob Marley. Here are some pics from the camp...

When Jacob and I showed up for our set at a small private music festival in Lake County, CA we had no idea what to expect or who we might be playing for... or with...



Turns out activist folk-rock legend Bruce Cockburn was in attendance, and while he wasn't there to "work" officially, he had agreed to perform a few songs in a "song swap" with us after dinner. We were, of course, honored and even had an hour or so during sound check to work out some harmonies and collaborations with Bruce on his songs and ours. We went back and forth, trading tunes and getting the audience of 200 to sing and clap along. The ending number, Bruce's "Waiting For A Miracle", was truly magical; Jacob took an epic mandolin solo and we even managed a sweet little 3-part harmony on the choruses.

We got to hang with Bruce and his partner MJ a bit more at breakfast the next morning and heard some amazing stories. Needless to say it was a fortuitous and inspiring turn of events and we were so glad to have been invited into the experience.

We were happy to get to play not one, but two shows in two weeks with the acclaimed acoustic songwriting duo Misner & Smith. Definitely a good match! You'll be seeing us again together soon. Check out their website and like their facebook page, wont you? www.misnerandsmith.com   www.facebook.com/pages/Misner-Smith/49065442549

We had a great time at SYLA Presents, a new-ish house concert venue in the Oakland Hills. They had a gorgeous view of both bridges and the city and a warm little crowd of neighbors and friends to watch us play. Many thanks to Cindy and Eric Canup for opening their home and community to us.



The night before that, we had teamed up with my old childhood brother-from-another-mother, Jon Williams and his band the Quicksand Marching Band in his home town of Livermore. A rowdy downtown wine bar called the Wild Vine Lounge served us delicious White Crane reds while we sang our hearts out to the crowd. Here's a pic from that night, and a picture of a great old family photo of me and Jon as babies at the Strawberry Music Festival in classic 80's Good Old Persons shirts!

We were stoked to finally get to see Tony Furtado live with his band, and even more stokeder to get to sit in on a final jam with him. The song was John Prine's "Paradise" and here's a picture of that special moment. 

Friday morning I decided to tag along with Jacob and his other band, The Real Nasty, on a 600 mile round trip to Arcata. It had been 9 months since I moved from the Humboldt Bay Area back to the San Francisco Bay Area, and we needed to do a little promo work for the show on the 8th, so I hopped in the van and offered to sell merch. We stopped at KHUM in Ferndale to sing a few songs on the air with Larry and then cruised up through Eureka to the bucolic college town of Arcata, CA.

After burgers at Humbrews, a short jam at the "Bucky House" and an even shorter nap, the boys were off to soundcheck and I was off to my alma mater to see my old bandmate Amanda (of Vintners' Daughters) sing with the HSU Jazz Orchestra before heading back to the Jambalaya to see more old friends. The Real Nasty and Afromassive played till two and, try as we might have, we still didn't get to sleep until four. In the morning, a quick jaunt around the Farmers' Market found Nola (also of Vintners' Daughters) selling specialty salad greens (not the other kind), so I gave her a CD and a hug and then we hit the road home.

Whereas it might have been a good idea to crash out and get some sleep before hauling over to Livermore in the morning, we had all gotten comp tickets to see lady-folk group Blame Sally at the Great American Music Hall Saturday night, so we shunned sleep for a chance to schmooze. The show was great, the Vietnamese food on Larkin was tasty and luckily, I did get a chance to meet producer Jim Greer who works with Cyndi Harvell. He had some great insights into working at Old School Studio, where we will be recording in June, and offered to lend a seasoned ear. Score!

So finally, the next morning, after a wham-bam weekend of non-stop travel and late-night shows we found ourselves at Two Day Town, a small community music festival in the hills above Livermore, CA. I had actually played one of my first gigs here as a fifteen-year-old, and have made it back a few times since then. Jacob and I played a short set on the main stage at 1:00 and then I started grabbing drums and drummers to teach a samba workshop at 3:00. Check out some photos from the festival (taken by Brian Walker).

Played a pretty awesome and fun gig last weekend on "Barkissimo", a floating house concert venue at the Emeryville marina. Canadian songwriter Bill Bourne was the headliner. Check him out, he was jaw droppingly amazing. Here's a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zgy8e89_ufI  He has a very unique vibrato and such an eclectic enchanting performance style. He moved every single person in that room. What an inspiration.

Here's a little link to a photo gallery from the show: http://www.meetup.com/Music-on-the-water-concert-series/photos/1355312/22840/



The show was recorded too, so there should be audio coming my way soon. I will try to post a track or two once I get a hold of it.