The drive to Eugene from San Francisco was beautiful,
and it was long. In the end, it was raining, it was the mountains, one of our (already milky) headlights burnt out, we got pulled over, and the van's serpentine belt slipped off.
The van limped into Eugene and pooped out for real about four blocks from the venue. Actually making it to the show felt like a miracle. We were late, but the small group of guests at the Jazz Station were waiting patiently. They had crackers and wine and a cauldron with apples floating in water, since it's almost Halloween. Bryan did a set with Sabrina Siegel. They'd collaborated through mail before on a recording project, but this is the first time they'd met in person. Sabrina vocalizes and plays the electric guitar with rocks. It was cool to see. I played a good set too. We had made it there.
And it looks like, in the dark and the weariness and the loading of our gear from the venue to the van four blocks away, and in limping the van over to a residential neighborhood so we wouldn't get a ticket, moving our stuff into Sabrina's car and then driving to her house, the guitar disappeared. It's not at the Jazz Station or at Sabrina's. And we didn't realize it was gone until opened the van to load in outside the Waypost in Portland. And now who knows.
On the up side, we have a nifty new tool. Through our serpentine belt adventures (it seems to slip off in wet weather), we discovered that a special wrench is needed for the singular task of installing a serpentine belt, as the opening to reach the belt tensioner is so narrow. Since we'd had so many problems we finally went to Autozone and bought one of these things. Now have our very own Serpentine Belt Tool and the power to fix this problem on our own if we get stuck again.
I don't really have photos from Eugene. Back in Chicago something happened to the display screen in my digital camera, it's all covered in psychedelic colors now but you can't see the image except for a tiny corner of the screen. In Eugene it had an error message of some sort and without seeing the screen we couldn't figure it out. But someone was taking photos at the show, if they send them to me I'll post them here later on. But here are some photos on the road from Eugene to Portland after we got the camera working again.
Borrowed a guitar for the Portland show from Ohioan. The Waypost is a sprawling coffee house/bar in Portland, with bicycle-part art adorning their garden gate.
I played with Ohioan and with Hearsay and Hyperbole, the solo project of Alexis Powell (she's half of the sister-duo Festival). Alexis creates her music with vocal loops; she had a couple of friends join in for the last few songs.
Ohioan is slow psychedelic country with guitar, bass, a couple of drums, saxophone, fiddle, organ and piano; great sound.
Many old friends have migrated to the Portland and came to the show; they were all so good to see.
Not sure what to do about the guitar situation, with two weeks of tour to go. Also lost in that case a really cool strap that Bryan got me for Christmas, a nice Fishman pickup I'd broken down and purchased in Philly after my old pickup crapped out, the tuner I bought (also in Philly) after I lost my nice one in New York, a capo and sundry picks, and all the stickers I'd picked up on the guitar case during this trip. I don't have a backup guitar anymore, as I sold my extras this spring. Trying not to think about it. Show in Olympia, Washington tonight.
When in Oly, shred yr cardigan!
ReplyDelete