Saturday, March 19, 2011

This has been a busy week or so, culminating with a fancy birthday for me today. I played a gig on 3/10 with Ezra Holbrook and his band at The Granary in Eugene, then got to sit in on a couple songs with the Portland Country Underground at Sam Bond's the next night. I hacked us through "Tall Tall Trees" and "Country Is" and that was pretty fun. Got to see Michael Hurley perform a short set--what a thrill. The next night was The Alberta Street Pub w/ Boulder singer-songwriter Danny Schafer and Peter Wilde. That is a great room for troobadoring. Getting back in the swing of solo shows made me want to do that for a month straight in different towns.

Today started with a run at the Amazon track followed by a trip to Webfoot Printing to pick up Golden Motors t-shirts (thanks Chris Ross) and then to the new Red Lobster w/ Scott K. That was pretty damn good, though not as decadent as yesterday's Applebie's birthday blowout with Snider. Big gig tonight at Sam Bond's w/ Unicron and LSD & D. I think it may function as an after-party type event for the Roller Derby today...could be wild.

Last night I watched Together, a Swedish ensemble flick that was kind of Altmanesque in ways, alot of zooming camera intimacy with a large cast veering at times toward shambles....it was about a commune in the mid-70's, very funny with alot of drama too. I truly felt the presence of my friend Reynold Rydberg sitting next to me giggling. He did American commune life in the 70's, had all sorts of stories about people trying so hard to be good. He would have laughed at the earnest young man who did not want to have sex until his eager partner discussed socialism with him, and the kids sneaking off to play with war toys.

I also watched Aguirre, The Wrath of God, another mission near-impossible film featuring intense Europeans, this time set in the Amazon rather than in the psychological hothouse of commune living. This was synchronistic with my reading of The Lost City of Z, which mentions Pizarro's missions. Combine that with a reading of The Beach and our ongoing project of watching Lost, and I have a heavy dose of exploring, settling, sudden community, and survival stories. Next up, Spraypaint the Walls, a history of Black Flag, whose touring in the early 80's was once compared to the intensity of Herzog's films, I forget where, but that makes sense.