Olympia, Washington is a fitting place to be on Halloween, or the Saturday night right before it. The Westside Arts Walk was on, 17 house shows in one night. My show was downtown instead, at Le Voyeur, but I did play a short set at the Square One house venue, right before the Olympia Free Choir.
We stopped at another of the house shows and viewed The Haunted Hot Dog Zombie Zoo From Hell. Click to enlarge.
Caitlin, with whom I'd perform later that night, took us to Hall of the Woods, an old barn or church (it's unclear) in the forest near Black Lake. At Hall of the Woods they were having a ceremony for the dead involving a beautiful altar made of fallen leaves. We ate vegan soup and hash with the hall's residents and friends in the glowingly warm kitchen.
After that we went down to Le Voyeur for the show.
The performance space is in a madly graffitied back room. The venue takes an unapologetic version of the very hands-off approach to shows I've seen at many quirky dive bars. This was vividly illustrated by the back room's amusing sound board. Actually I didn't see the sound board, as the mixer is padlocked inside a wooden box, with a sign that says the levels are pre-set and that you just need to turn on the power strip below. XLR and quarter-inch cables escape from the box through holes drilled in one side. The bar staff explained that this eliminates the need for a sound man, but still prevents bands from blowing the speakers, as they might were they to have access to the controls.
The back room was draped in dead corn stalks, for the season. I played first.
Caitlin played next; her project is called Autococoon. Her music is friendly/aggressive/strange.
The last band, Making Love, introduced a crazy old regular named Dan Avery to be their pre-show. Dan told a story (true??!?!?) about his father forcing his brother to kill their childhood dog by pouring acid onto the dogs head. Holy shit. Making Love, also, was a trip.
This was a very entertaining evening. To be honest, though, I was still upset about losing my guitar in Eugene. Here I am am attempting to find a quiet moment in a corner of the bar, hiding among all the trippy bric-a-brac of Le Voyeur.
I kept trying to take pictures of all the wild costumes parading down the streets outside, but the pictures all turned out blurry. No Masks In Store.
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