Gig-O-Rama!

Ahhh, there’s nothing like a road trip… And there are few things in life that I enjoy more. What makes the ultimate road trip for me, however, is when it involves playing gigs along the way. Throw in a couple of great friends and a trip to my hometown and you can’t go wrong! BUT – when you throw in 5 shows in a little over 36 hours, things can start to get a bit dodgy…

I was born in the town of Yakima, Washington. I moved away to the Tri-Cities (Also affectionately known as the Dry-Shitties…) when I was 7. However, I’ve always considered myself more of a Yakima girl… Close to the mountains, closer to Seattle – just a little more my style…. SO – when I got the opportunity to play a few shows in Yakima, I was very excited. I haven’t played a show there since I was in high school and well, that was a while ago… And since that show was a lovely display of cheesy, high school jazz choir stuff, I was hoping to make this show a little more compelling.

I am currently playing bass with Carrie Clark. We have a great time playing together and have had many, crazy adventures together. We’ve crowded in a van with a couple of other bands to drive up and down the Coast. We’ve crowded in a Honda CRV to drive back and forth to Texas. We’ve crowded into numerous friends’ homes to sleep on their floors… We’ve been going on crazy, musical adventures for a few years now and we still seem to like each other! I guess if it ain’t broke… And it is because we have had so many fun and successful adventures together that I was completely willing to sign on for this current undertaking. However, it indeed had the making of some road trippin’ craziness.

Carrie got an invitation to play at the Yakima Folk Festival. We have a full band we regularly play with, but since this called for a more mellow approach, we decided to go as a duo. We have actually played many shows with just the two of us and it’s always a lot of fun. It’s cool to be able to present the music in different ways. Mixes things up a bit – no one gets bored… Anyway – we agreed to play the festival. As our very talented friend, Camille Bloom was also invited to play, we decided to drive down together. WOO – a carpoolin’ road trip!

What we didn’t realize was that we were going to end up playing multiple shows at the festival. When Carrie received the final line-up info, we found that we were listed three times in one day! However, since we’ve never played in that area and it was just the two of us, we figured ‘what the hell.’ Additionally, the festival was putting us up in a hotel, so we didn’t have to drive home that night after the gigs. Granted, we could always pay for a hotel ourselves, but we’re not really into the ‘pay to play’ deal. We could’ve also driven over to the Tri-Cities to stay with my family, but driving for an hour after you’ve played all day is never the greatest of things to do. Anyway – no worries, we thought – we had a free place to stay. Three shows in 8 hours – bring it on!

Well, that was a great plan until we got another two shows lined up for the next day. Carrie got a call for us to do a show at the Paragon in Seattle on Sunday night. Since it’s a nice place and we liked the other bands we’d be playing with, why not?! We knew we’d be tired, but whatever – we can represent! THEN - Camille was going to be playing an art festival in Tacoma on Sunday afternoon and asked if we’d be interested in playing as well. Hey – WHY NOT?! We’ve gotta go back early anyway – why not play a show when we get home!? So yeah, we were now at 5 shows in 36 hours.

The two nights before we left for the shows were a bit crazy, so it made getting up on Saturday morning to leave for the trip a touch painful. It was our good friend Zach’s birthday, so we HAD to help him celebrate. Never mind that we took two evenings to do so – birthdays are important! And we had to allow extra time for the bunny ears and spanking machine… Duh. Some things are just that important… So anyway – Suffice it to say, I was a bit tired on Saturday morning. Nevertheless, I got up and we were ready to hit the road to Eastern WA at 7:00 in the freakin’ morning. We threw our gear into the car and we were ready to rock! Or at least play some music appropriate for a folk festival…

As is usually the case, it was beautiful, sunny and HOT in Eastern WA. The weather is usually the polar opposite of Western WA. We get rain. They get sun. However, as I grew up with those 100 degree + temperatures and flat, brown, tumbleweed-ridden land, I’ve always appreciated the rainy days of Seattle. BUT – I’ve gotta admit that I was really craving some sunshine and when we rolled into Yakima, I was not to be disappointed.

The drive over Snoqualmie Pass was beautiful that day as well. Normally, it’s not my favorite pass. I’ve driven that pass wwwwaaaayyyyy too many times and there are just so many other more beautiful drives to Eastern WA. But, since we were in a hurry, it’s the quickest route to take. Luckily, the usual barrage of semis was absent that morning and the drive was really nice. And yes, we stopped in Ellensburg. As I’ve discussed in a previous post, ALL ROADS LEAD TO ELLENSBURG. It’s a simple fact.

As my parents live an hour away from Yakima, they were going to drive up and meet us for the shows. Since my parents don’t live near Seattle and we hadn’t gotten over to the Tri-Cities to play, they had never actually heard Carrie and I perform. Granted, they have sat through NUMEROUS dorky performances of mine through the years – too many to count - but they hadn’t seen me play with Carrie. I was glad that they were going to finally get a chance to hear us. It’s also a project that I don’t remotely consider dorky, so even better!! AND – since it was in Yakima, a place where we had lived for many years, better yet.

It’s always weird to return to your hometown. Well, at least it was for me, in this instance. I’ve spent a lot of time in Yakima, but I’ve usually always been with my family and I’m usually not the one navigating. Granted, I wasn’t driving this time, but I was attempting to be the navigator. I have a fairly decent sense of direction, but I was a bit nervous to be completely responsible for getting us where we needed to go. Whenever I’m in Yakima, I feel like I’m a kid again and hey – kids don’t usually give you a lot of driving directions…

ANYhoo - We successfully got into town and located our hotel. We attempted to weasel an early check-in out of the hotel staff, but that wasn’t happenin’. So, we hopped back in the car and set off to locate all the places we’d be performing. It was so weird driving around town. Everywhere we went I was having flashbacks of driving around with my mom, doing errands… Or going to visit my grandma or dad at work… Or going to eat at some random restaurant… Anyway – I was trying not to get distracted as I was attempting to figure out exactly where we needed to be. We drove around the historical district of Yakima and found our evening show locations and moved on to find the main park where the festival was taking place. Downtown Yakima is very nice, by the way. They’ve done a good job of restoring some of the older buildings and it was great to see them again…

After taking a quick detour to drive by my Grandma and Grandpa Smith’s old house, we located the park and pulled in to unload our gear. I was SO excited to see this park again. Not only had I spent a lot of time in that area while growing up, but the park was home to the very FIRST museum I ever visited. Now, if I haven’t mentioned this before, but I will now: I am a museum superfreak. It’s a fact that I’ve come to accept about myself and I am FINE with it. I have spent much time and money over the years and have had many adventures while seeking out museums around the world. And the museum of which I was now standing in front, was the cause of my geeky obsession. (I mean, come on – they had dinosaur bones AND paintings! I was five - It kicked ass!!! What a nerd…)

After I shed a private, nerd tear at seeing the museum again, we found the stage where we were to perform. We then noticed that the sound guy was busting out a LOVELY array of 80’s hair-band tuneage. Awesome. While I will admit that it was initially amusing to be setting up for the ol’ folk festival while listening to Motley Crue, the novelty began to fade. I think it was also scaring off potential audience members, which was annoying. After he finally dialed down his tribute to ‘Girls, Girls, Girls,’ the first guy took the stage.

While the first guy was ‘performing,’ I went to go look for my parents. They are usually early and I thought it was odd they weren’t there yet. It’s not like they didn’t know how to get to the park… When I found them, they had set up camp at one of the other stages. What a bunch of traitors! In reality, they hadn’t seen the stage we were performing at. At least that was their story… Hmmm… They’re kinda shifty – didn’t know if I should believe them… But regardless, we gathered up their stuff and went over to the other stage.

A frustrating thing about playing at festivals and ANYwhere, for that matter, can be the quality of sound and setup. Since this festival had volunteer sound engineers and our sound guy seemed to be a little too into 80’s rock for the impending folk festival scene, things were a bit wonky while setting up. Don’t get me wrong - I think it’s great that people volunteer their time to help out… HOWEVER, it ain’t rocket science to set up two people on stage. We’ve got a pretty simple setup going and I didn’t see the reason for all the technical difficulties we ended up having. Oh well – smile and nod – the show must go on.

And go on, it did. We played our set. There was some craziness with the sound throughout, but it all sorta worked out. We did, however, have to compete with one of the other stages and it got very annoying. They had the sound on the other stage CRANKED and it kept bleeding over to our area. I can imagine that the audience didn’t know WHAT band to listen to after a while… Whatever – guess the other stage’s sound guy got everything hooked up right…

Camille was up next, so we hung out and listened to her perform. As always, she sounded great. She’s a great performer and I always have fun listening to her. Always has a good story to tell… If you haven’t checked her out, I highly recommend it.

When she was finished, I commenced hanging out with my parents. Had to go check out the scene at the festival… And eat some REALLY greasy food… We walked around for a bit and it was nice. It’s a great park and it was nice to be in the area again. Carrie and Camille decided to go back to the hotel for a bit and I made plans to drive around town with my parents. A bit of a ‘return to the homeland’ tour, if you will…

It’s been a LONG time since it was just my parents and I driving around Yakima. I have two younger brothers and the last time I spent a lot of time on the Yakima scene with just my parents, I was about 4. It was very surreal to be an adult, sitting in the backseat as my parents shuttled me around Yakima… But at the same time, it was very cool. I honestly felt like I was 4 again. We drove by all the places that my parents used to work, our old houses, schools, church, homes of relatives and places we went to eat and go shopping. We also drove by a few places where my parents lived before I was born and places they had gone to on dates. I had never actually seen any of these areas, so it was really cool. It was very interesting and surreal to see how the area had changed and how, in many ways, it had stayed the same. The apple orchards are still everywhere. The hop fields are still everywhere. Good stuff…

After cruising around town for a couple of hours, it was time to meet up with Carrie and Camille for the first of our evening gigs. We were playing at an Italian place downtown, located in a grouping of renovated railcars. The last time I had been to this part of town was when I was 19 and I was living with my Grandma Brown for the summer… Weird…

Anyway, we got there first and we walked up to the place where we’d be playing. When I got up to the front of the restaurant, I noticed a VERY small stage with a single chair and microphone. There was also a veeeery cute little set of speakers on the stage and a cute little sound board to go with them. There was NO way that one of us was going to fit on this stage, let alone the both of us. Additionally, it was a fairly high stage for the surroundings and if we were to stand up on the stage, we’d hit our heads on the eaves. ACK! So, I went inside to see what I could do.

As luck would have it, the owners were very nice and they totally accommodated us. They moved the stage completely out of the way and bent over backwards trying to get things situated for us. It was very sweet. Carrie and Camille got there and we got everything set up and ready to go. Camille was playing at a place across the way, so she took off to do her show.

There was a good turnout for the show and we met some very nice people. I will say this – audiences in smaller towns are usually ALWAYS more friendly and into the music. I love playing in Seattle and in bigger cities in general, but the audiences are usually always a bit more jaded. There are so many entertainment options on any given night and you’re just part of the list… In smaller towns, it’s always more of an event when someone gives a show. Especially someone from out of town - How exotic! Well, at least that’s how I always felt when I was living in small town Eastern WA… Anyway, we met a lot of really nice people and Carrie sold quite a few cds. Which was good, as we needed gas money to get home…

The next show was basically IMMEDIATELY after the last and it was kind of hard. Everyone was so nice after we played and they wanted to chat with us about the music and whatnot, but we had to break down our gear and head to the next show. There is definitely a very fine line to walk while trying to get to the next show on time, but still trying to appreciate the fact that the current audience appreciated you. ACK! I’d like to hope that we somewhat accomplished this act as some of the audience actually followed us over to the next show! And some of them had already been at our first show in the park earlier! I thought that was pretty cool… And no, I’m not referring to my parents - although they were there for all three shows, too.

I learned something really cool about the next place we were playing. As I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, my dad is also a musician and when I was growing up in Yakima and before I was born, he was regularly gigging around town. What I found out about the next place we played was that my dad had actually played in the same spot, thirty years earlier! It was under a different name at the time, but it was still the same place. I thought it was cool he was coming to now watch me play in the same spot… Weird… Especially since none of us actually live in Yakima anymore.

This next show went alright, minus the obligatory sound problems. Again, it’s not rocket science – there are only TWO of us… Sigh… Oh well – it all worked out. Also, for whatever reason, they didn’t feel the need to put any lights up for the show. We were playing outside in this beer garden sort of area. As we went on after 9:00, by the time we were halfway into our set, it was totally dark out. We couldn’t really see anything and I seriously doubt that the audience could really see us. For that matter, I don’t even know if they could hear us very well, either… Whatever – we played the show and we were good to go. We also had Camille open up our set for us as there wasn’t a big crowd at her last show and she was a bit bummed. As we had JUST finished playing, we were happy to have her play a few songs. And she’s great, so that was just one more opportunity for us to hang out and listen.

After the show, we decided that we were much in need of beer. Duh. There was a place around the corner from where we played that was still open, so we decided to go. As it was one of the only places left open, it was packed! It was a really cool, older building with high ceilings and ‘lots of brick. AND a good beer selection! Ya can’t go wrong…We stayed and listened a really cool solo act and had a couple of beers. There were also a few people who had seen us perform earlier and they said hello. Again, people were really friendly… I ended up in a very amusing and innocuous conversation about fishing in Eastern WA with this guy and he bought me a beer. Umm, I don’t know a lot about fishing, but whatever – he bought me a beer and that was nice. And it wasn’t a creepy sort of, ‘Heeeeey – you look like you could use a beer, honey.’ sort of thing… I’m tellin’ ya – people were just being really nice…

After wrappin’ it up at the bar, we went over to the hotel. (And yes, we were fine to drive…) We were rather beat after the day’s events and the fact that we had to load all of our gear up a flight of stairs was NOT a good thing. The last load was Carrie and I taking her keyboard and my bass up the stairs. That about killed us… We got back up to the room and that was it. No more energy. HOWEVER, Carrie still managed enough strength to steamroll Camille. What is steamrolling, you might ask? Well – it’s Carrie’s special way of making sure that everyone has a restful slumber. She believes that by jumping up from her bed, yelling ‘STEAMROLL’ and then jumping on the next bed and rolling over the top of everyone in the bed, they will all have a muuuuch better sleep. Hmmm… The jury’s still out on this one, but she seems quite convinced of its effectiveness. Anyway – Carrie took time out to initiate Camille into the secret society of steamrolling and THEN we were able to pass out. One day, Carrie. One day… You’re not gonna see or hear it comin’… You’ll get yours… >;-)

The next morning (or shall I say, a few hours later…) came VERY early. We managed to all successfully get out of bed and we actually got on the road on time. The hotel coffee was vile, however, and we had to face the tragedy of getting on the road without our morning caffeine. We were, however, able to make the half hour trek to… ELLENSBURG, where we were able to stop and get some coffee. See? I wasn’t lying… ALL ROADS…

It was a pretty mellow trip back over the Pass and as we got closer to Western WA, the skies of COURSE started to turn grey and cloudy. Sigh… I suppose that was a good thing as I had once again, managed to get sunburned. I even had sun-block on that day. I think it’s because I got burned camping and now, whenever I get any sun, those places show it first. Great. Red knees are HOT! (Literally.)

We made great time and arrived in Tacoma around Noon. We weren’t playing until 2:00, so we had some time to kill. As none of us had really eaten anything substantial in the last 24 hours, we were kind of hungry. We had no TIME to eat anything substantial the day before… So, we went to this great restaurant/coffee shop next to the stage where we’d be performing and it was awesome. Check it out if you’re in Tacoma – It’s called Shakabrah Java and it’s great! I had a great huevos rancheros sort of thing– yum.

As we went on to play, it started to rain. However, I gotta give it up to Western WA audiences – they don’t let a bit of rain cancel the parade. People totally stood out in the rain and listened to us play. It was awesome. Granted, we were all nice and dry under the stage tent, but whatever. >;-) Camille played next and her full band joined her. They sounded great. We had our drummer, Larry come down to meet us as well and it was nice. It was good to have a bigger sound from what we had been doing the day prior. Allowed us all to rock out a little more…

After the show, we quickly packed up and headed for home. We still had one more show to go and crap! I had to get some laundry done beforehand… (Yeah, so much for the glamour of our mini-tour… I had to go home and do laundry in the middle of it…) Anyway – we made our way back to Seattle and tried to reconcile ourselves to the fact that our day was NOT over with yet…

When I got home, I brought all my crap in and sat down on the couch. Ahhhhh… I’m going to stay here all night… Wait. No I’m not. I have to do laundry. I have to get up, get ready and go play another show! Woo!!! OH well – I agreed to the schedule. I ENJOY playing music… People are actually coming to see us play. It’s all good… I can’t complain. But at that point in time, I felt like it… Waaaaaa… What a big baby. After doing some laundry and hangin’ out for a bit, it was time to meet up with Carrie at the Paragon. Time to drag myself off of the couch…

I like the Paragon – it’s a nice place. However, it can be a bit scenesterish (that’s a real word) at times and is definitely a bit pricey for the atmosphere. For instance, the fish tacos are freakin’ $19! What the hell!?!? It’s fish, rice, and tortilla!! COME ON! Whatever… They’re pretty good, at least. Anyway – we played the show and had a good time. And the sound was actually decent! YAY!! Well, that was because we ran our OWN freakin’ sound. HA! And we weren’t blasting anyone out with Motley Crue, either… Next time.

It was a nice night. There was actually a good crowd out for a Sunday night and a group of our friends showed up as well. I have to say – we are lucky. Our friends are very supportive and always come to our shows. (Suckas) But seriously – it’s very nice and it makes it all worthwhile. Well, except if I happen to be having a BAD show and then it just sucks that people I know are witnessing it… But whatever… Anyway, it was a really great evening, in SPITE of the fact that we were on our last legs. It was a good way to end the crazy adventure of our weekend. Playing in a nice, local spot with our friends around… Good stuff, indeed.

Welp – until next time. Ciao!