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Pacific Northwest Tour: Day 6 and 7

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Days 6 and 7. Why does it have to end?

So much happened in seven days, I’ll never be able to describe the whole tour in a blog. Overall, it was an exciting adventure for all of us.

We are very indebted to the folks that helped us get the heck out of town and offered encouragement from home. Just knowing that they were home keeping track of where we were and how we were doing and cheering us on helped give us tons of confidence. Thank you!

And then to all the folks we met on the road, at shows, at pubs, on the streets, cafés, gas stations, etc., and came out to connect with our music, you’re the reason why we packed that SUV to the point where we were all smashed in and drove too many hours in a day without knowing where we would be sleeping, eating, showering, peeing or pooping. We love playing music for you, plain and simple. We LOVE it.

It was really great to get out of LA for a week and meet and play for folks in NorCal and Oregon. I really like what they have going on in their towns and cities. The vibe they create is laid back, fun, kind, the food and beer is delicious, the scenery is gorgeous with all the trees, mountains, and rivers, and they really value music in their lives. The venues we played were friendly, professional, and committed to getting good music for their patrons. LA venues can learn a lot from the venues up north.

NorCal and Oregon, we’re coming back soon. I promise. We love your beer, we love your little hippie enclaves, we love your food, we love your vibe.

See you soon!

Love,

SJ

Pacific Northwest Tour: Day 5

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Day 5, still alive!!!

Today was another sightseeing day. Gabriel and Emma went to a museum while Luca and I went eating and drinking. That’s not exactly true, but not exactly false either.

My friend Greg who lives in Portland came by and picked up me and Luca and we went to a couple of cool bars. We also tried some food at these carts that Portland has all around town, kind of like how Venice Beach has the food trucks that swarm around on popular nights. But these carts are here all the time. Surprisingly tasty and inexpensive, which is good for poor gypsies like ourselves.

One of the bars we went to had a large outdoor seating area with wooden beer hall style tables. Right where I sat down someone had carved a “Venice 13” skull into the table. It was nice to have a little taste of home defaced coincidentally(?) right in front of me.

Our last show in Portland was interesting. We met one of the other bands and they graciously offered to put us up for the night. Ghost Town Waltz, you guys rock! One of our previous cellists was also in town by coincidence and she came to our show at the Ash Street Saloon. Meghan, it was great to see you! We really have liked everyone we’ve met in Portland so far, really good folks.

We’re off to Eugene for our last show up North on this tour. It’s a place called Sam Bond’s Garage and we’ve heard lots of great things about it so we’re looking forward to another fun show. I love living in Venice Beach, but LA just doesn’t have the great vibe for music that Portland does. Portland, rock on with what you’ve got, we’ll see you again soon!

All the best,

SJ

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Pacific Northwest Tour: Day 4

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Day 4 of the tour. The best yet. We had some time to wander around Portland, meet a lot of folks, get into a little trouble, play a couple of shows, etc.

First off, if you haven’t ever been to Portland, you have to go to Powell’s Books. It’s the biggest bookstore I’ve ever seen, it pretty much takes up a city block. They have everything, including free WiFi for me to update our tour journal right now.

We also found a great toy store which kept us occupied for about an hour with great stuff. Pictures attached.

The highlights of the day were our shows of course though. We had only planned one show at the Goodfoot Pub, which was a full set in-between a really great open mic night. The other players were much better than you’d see at any open mic in Los Angeles. After that show we hung out and met a bunch of cool folks and had some delicious local micro-brew beers and a slice of pizza that almost convinced me to only eat pizza for the rest of my life.

We then hightailed it over to another pub a few miles a way that we heard was having a great jam session that night. It was better than great, it was magical. The pub was called the Pub At The End Of The Universe. The layout of the place was so interesting with odd little rooms that led into each other and each one had really laid back folks just hanging out. Everyone was so friendly and eager to hear about Venice and I was interested to hear about what they all have going on in Portland. it was 1AM on a Monday night, and the place was packed with neighborhood folks just out for a good night. So good.

Oh, and the pub also had a delicious veggie lasagna with garlic bread and more micro-brews. Yes, I had two dinners.

Talk to you tomorrow, I hope the beginning of your Summer has been as fun as ours.

Cheers!

SJ

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Pacific Northwest Tour: Day 3

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Day 3. Holy smokes, this was the longest, most action-packed, draining, and rewarding day on the tour so far.

It started off with me waking up before everyone else and making tea. And when I say “making tea”, I mean “almost burning down our host’s home”. Fortunately, Gabriel woke up and saw the smoke coming off the stove and saved the day. The tea was still lovely.

We packed the SUV to head up from San Francisco to go to Portland. It was an 11 hour drive, and we saw some beautiful rivers, lakes, mountains, volcanoes, etc. Luca made more room in the back so we didn’t have to hear him complain as much. However, the Italian football team tied with New Zealand (congrats to all my Kiwi friends, great match!) and was despondent for the next couple of hours. We’re sure Italy will come back in the next match for a win…

We arrived in Portland and hung out at the venue for a bit. They had a vending machine for musicians with guitar strings, drum sticks, guitar cables, etc etc. Super cool. They also had Galaga, pinball machines, and really great local folks. Some of the other folks playing that night were exceptionally weird and wonderful (including a performance piece about the first monkey in space from the perspective of the monkey). The venue (Slabtown) asked us to come back and play a residency there and considering how much we really like Portland it sounds very very tempting.

Totally exhausted from the drive and the show we rolled back to the motel. Gabriel and I pretended to be a gay couple and then sneaked Emma and Luca in after so we didn’t have to pay extra. Touring on the cheap is not for the faint of heart.

We’re getting much tighter as a band, playing our derriers off, and having a lot of fun, which is exactly why we’re here.

Tomorrow we have the day off from traveling so we’ll have some time to explore Portland before our show that night.

All the best,

SJ

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Pacific Northwest Tour: Day 2

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Day two, muolto successful. We had a great time with our host family and headed later in the day to San Francisco. SF is such a great city, we need to come back many, many, many times. The Brain Wash was a bar/diner/laundromat (in the back). Just like SF, the Brain Wash was totally eclectic.

Emma should never be allowed to parallel park, unless of course we have an extra 3 hours to kill.

The crowd at the Brain Wash was really fun, dancing, grooving, drunk, young, old, just cool. After the show we headed out and Gabriel ate a whole pizza by himself. We’ll be heading out to by some larger pants for him tomorrow.

Sorry I don’t have more pictures, we had some technical difficulties with our camera. But we’ll definitely take more tomorrow on our way to Portland, Oregon.

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Talk to you tomorrow!

SJ

PS. If you want to check out when/where we’re playing on this tour, go here: https://www.sjatr.com/shows

Pacific Northwest Tour: Day 1

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Day 1 of our first tour was pretty rad. Emma tetris-ed all the gear in to the SUV miraculously, leaving Luca smashed into his seat. He’s actually about four inches shorter now from being squished in the back for so long.

We arrived in Berkeley and immediately headed over to Rasputin’s Record Shop and Amoeba Records. I spent about 2 hours going through the $1 vinyl bins. Oh man, they had some super good stuff.

We got to the venue and met some of the locals, super cool folks. One of my favourites was John, a gentleman that looked like an older version of my brother, he even acted a bit like him. He’s one of those guys that’s at the bar every night, playing darts and generally holding the walls up. The show at the Starry Plough was brilliant. It was Paul McCartney’s birthday so we made sure that we rocked ‘Why Don’t We Do It In The Road’ for a bit. The crowd was awesome and they made us feel like we were home.

After milling about after the show meeting folks and signing CDs etc., we headed over to Emma’s Aunt’s house, our host family for the Bay Area shows. Her little daughters drew a super cute welcome sign and put it up on the door for us. They were all lovely and super cool. They had chickens and mice and a dog and hermit crabs and fish. We had eggs for breakfast the next day laid by their chickens, really cool.

We’re getting ready for our Day 2 show, will update more soon.

Wish us luck!

Best,

SJ

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