Seattle Honk West
Another travelog from me. I do stuff that is interesting day to day but I am bad about recording it here.
Last year I went out to my favorite west coast city Seattle for one of my favorite events Honk. I had a great time that was largely just me wandering in and out of fun places and making last minute plans with people I knew.
This year I went with a plan. I found a band that I really like and tagged along with them. I have described Emperor Norton's Stationary Marching Band as a punk brass band having stolen your ipod and re-creating your favorite play list. I still stand by that, but they are so much more as musicians, entertainers and people. I contact their fearless leader who I know from previous honks and we decide that having a helicon (turkish battle tuba pre-dating the sousaphone) would round out the ensemble able to fly out this year. I then go to the music store and buy 3 flip books to hold all the 3 sets of 10 songs they want to play this year. Practicing them would have been the best next action as the GTD crowd would say but I had some soldering to do for Iluminopolis. (which is one of those things I should write about too)
Flying with a tuba wasn't as bad of an experience as I thought, the tuba isn't large as tubas go but was still oversized. Delta has clearly posted rules for special items that allow for oversized musical instruments to be stowed at normal checked baggage prices. I built a custom cardboard box and stuff it with clothes for padding because the horn is really a lot of empty space. I bought a flat pack rolling cart and head off to the airport on the light rail happy that I didn't have to bother anyone for a ride or pay for a cab. Check in was pretty easy after I got the "Of course it is" look from the counter agent when she asked what the special item listed for the check in was. Un encumbered I breeze through security to the gate.
My loose plan was to fly in, get to Seattle at 11 and find a cheep hotel to stay in and re-evaluate the day by mid morning before check out. It was a simple plan that allowed for contingencies, recovery time and didn't inconvenience anyone if things changed last minute. Delta offered me one better. They had overbooked and were offering a $400 voucher, meal tickets and a hotel room for anyone who would take the next flight out. I gladly accepted knowing that I needed the quiet time to get things together and read through the music, and time away from the pollen explosion.
The hotel they put me up in was like an Ikea or a night club. glossy pine and smoked glass with light elements, baffling minimalist signs and a lobby pumping dance mixes of pop tunes. The room had a pretty big flat screen tv, printed cow hide panel above the headboard and the shower stall had a smoked glass partition that you could see in the room. All kind of fantastic and will look completely ridiculous in a few years, then cycle between seedy and retro before the whole thing de-laminates and chips away before being bulldozed. I wish I followed my own advice and packed swim trunks.
I get up on the sucky side of early AM and get the shuttle to the terminal and I walk straight to the gate with only a pause for security as my tuba was already checked. One of the niceties they did was to put me in the emergency exit isle with extra legroom. The flight out took me through Detroit which has a pretty nice airport that has a monorail inside the terminal. Detroit is only an hour away by plane, if I ever wanted to do something there.
Seatac is an airport I'm familiar with so I hit the ground and exit pretty quickly and find my way to where ENSMB is staying so I can get a practice in before the show that night. I get to the place everyone is staying at about the same time as they are. I say hi and try to be helpful and out of the way where possible. Unpacking my horn makes this kind of difficult.
Being clever, I took the valves out before packing because I could see the airline bumping them and making a jam that would need to be re-ground. What I didn't notice is that the springs that make the valve go up and down wasn't attached like the more modern trumpets I have and one spring got lost out of my cardboard and ductape box. As far as problems I have had with instruments this isn't bad. This time I get to pick which valve I don't use. D Eb and Ab are good notes but I need the rest of them more so the third valve gets the tape to hold it up.
Everyone gets in and sets up kind of leisurely and I get to soak in the personalities of the people I am going to spend the weekend with. I didn't think I would have any conflicts, but it was nice to find that I really like them and I feel welcomed to the group. Their new trumpet player sat in with BBO at Honk East before joining ENSMB
Practice was hasty but the only feedback I get is to keep playing the baseline through the solos, no show stopping mistakes. ENSMB has a ringer tuba player with them along with everyone else being super skilled and I can get along with my site reading.
Because of their airline adventures we have to get dressed and head right out to the show that night. I realize that I am prepared in the variety of what I packed but I'm overwhelmed by choices so I solicit advice for which band jacket. I lend out some goggles, because I brought a selection.
We then take off for the show in a minivan and the only rental vehicle available at the time that would fit the band: a 8 mile old Escalade. The XM radio is tuned to oldschool hiphop and it just feels right to be a little thug all dressed up in steampunk marching band outfits.
Parking is confusing but we make our way to where the roads are closed in Ballard and catch the tail end of Extraordinary Rendition who I met at Honk East. We join in singing "War" (Edwin Starr) with them and we play along with their last song.
ENSMB sets are a brass band street riot. The band pushes up to the audience and runs around. I start off trying to the side of the other tuba trying to listen but after getting a near bell to the face I back off and try to find a safe spot. ER is behind us rocking out to the whole set and I see other bands I know coming down to dance with us. ENSMB is a bands band.
Not having eaten I get in line to the BBQ cart that is a streamline trailer modified to look like a metal pig. The guy in front of me is a West Coast style burned out oldschool hippy that I have a long and circular conversation that I think was summed up as he likes music and is better at lead guitar than rhythm guitar. I notice that every tuba player is checking out my horn. Over the weekend I think I talked to almost everyone with a horn bigger than a baritone . The BBQ is pretty tasty and just the right thing.
Last year the shows were in bars which made a kind of weird vibe for this type of music. This year is closed down streets and a big open air party. I see lots of kids with their hands over their ears, either standing right up in front of the band staring in awe or hiding behind their parents dancing away.
I get a text from my friend right before the second set that she is in a tree watching us. Second set was a little harder because it's darker and I still need to read the music and play but is just as much fun as the first performance. I catch up with my friends as ENSMB's fearless leader is giving them a postcard for the new album and having a conversation about fonts. It's hard to hug people while wearing a tuba.
With all the confusion of the day I miss meeting up with my friends who I had planned on staying with that night so I join in wandering around meeting up with other band friends and trying to find the after party. We get a rough address and head out to what is a birthday party for one of the organizers. A pickup band of Orkestar Slivovitz, the houses african percussion collection and any other honk bands who brought their instruments in play an almost Fela Kuti meets Boban Markovits jam.
I end up back at the band house, not prepared for camping in the living room, so I am kind of cold and with that many people someone is always snoring, coughing or getting up and going to the bathroom (I'm sorry Steve and Donna for being the one who snored). I survive the night and we do a group breakfast with the other bands and go play some neighborhoods. This is a low pressure shake down runs for songs that the band needs to work on. We stuffed everyone on a traffic island and rocked out for a bit. A car stopped at a green light to watch us finish a song. We get back and watch Orkestar Slivovitz play a really amazing low key Balkan set in the back yard of a housing project where someone had been setting up a family picnic. I have a picture of them behind the barbed wire fence hanging out with the family and the guy with the grill out.
We head out for the group lunch of some Ethiopian like food that was vegetarian and delicious. We play our next set which we start to notice that as we push towards the audience and the crowd gathers they start spilling out into the road. After each song we go back 10-15 feet and get everyone to follow us.
I check out some of the bands I like and then to get some away time I wander off to explore and find supplies which is one of my favorite things to do in a new city. I was about to go to the first cafe I saw when I noticed the opposite side of the street has a Stump Town which is where the good stuff is from. I get a cappuccino and big smiles from the barista as I do the lip smackey taste test of it.
Just up the street was an independently owned hardware store where I poked around for a spring for the tuba and some misc screws that ENSMB could use for their travel gear. I walk back with just enough time to pack up and head out to George town for shows. The spring I got was too strong. I could push the valve down if I used my left hand, even trying with my ring finger sent shooting pains up my arms that still kid of hurt.
At Georgetown the local recording school was open for honk bands to record at. They asked for a joke while they adjusted the board and for the second time that day I heard a Phillip Glass joke. Just another sign I was in good company. I sat out of the first song, because I didn't have any music for it. The other song I played confidently, but quietly.
The next set got buzzed by a Blue Angle jet from the Boing field just up the way, which is quite an experience, but we kept going through it. I get a generous handful of post cards so I put my band face on and schmooze a bit. The dinner of choice was the last Chicago style polish kielbasa from a hotdog cart. I need someone to start doing this in Baltimore or we will never be a world class city. Sure, a half smoke in DC is good but a whole sweet pickle on the dog is something completely missing from here.
Between sets I check the local stores which are all open lake for the Honk crowd. The local music store didn't have anything for brass instruments in their repair shop. I poked around in their hand percussion section for something to play during drum breaks and I found a pair of finger cymbals with the hand written tag saying "Get your Gypsy on!". I used the $4 gift certificate they gave all the honk musicians for a $3.99 castanet. I felt guilty about that so I gave him $2 to cover the actual cost of them. They had a theremin that I played with for a while and gave way too detailed answers about the history and electronics about when they asked out loud near me.
The last set of the night was a great scene. We were pushed right up against a porch by the crowd who were all dancing. There was also a panty cannon in play so there was underwear being thrown at the audience, thrown back at us and being draped on each other while we were playing. We made it through the crowd to end the set in the parking lot out back.
Last year I missed the after party because it was in an industrial part of town that no cab would bother to go to if there was an easy fair to pick up elsewhere, but this year hitting the Hazard Factory was a point on my itinerary. I watched some flaming tether ball and got to say hi to the proprietor who I have exchanged emails in the past about power tool drag racing. Multi band jam sessions inside and outside and a nice laid back party all around. I think the iconic image of the night was the empty pizza box with a cowbell in it. On the way home I get ENDMB to drop me off at a friends house to spend the night.
After a real night's sleep and a shower with out waiting in line I find my self helping separate eggs for waffle batter at a membership drive breakfast for Jigsaw Renaissance, a kind of hacker space which has a brand new spot. I get to be quasi-famous as being from another hacker space in the far off land of Baltimore, of which everyone has a friend from or grew up in Maryland at some point. I get stuffed full of great breakfast foods and to visit with my friends in a new exciting place before I was whisked off for the final set of the weekend.
ENSB played for their last scheduled performance a kind of pickup band with friends from other bands playing for members who had already left for the airport. The best thing to do for that is put subtly aside and go for broke with the sound. We had people dancing in the streets blocking traffic, it was amazing.
After we are done I stop into a store for a drink and the old lady behind the counter was railing at how disappointed she was because she was told it was a marching band festival, she played baritone in school and this "wasn't music". One customer was trying to tell her about the New Orleans second line traditions and about Balkan Brass bands. She told me when I got to the counter and saw the stunned look on my face that "Maybe it's music for some people, but not for me... I like normal things". I could only reply with "Wow..." as I payed for my drink. I think she was the only unhappy person I saw around Honk the whole weekend.
I think over the weekend I heard bands cover every song I have ever wanted BBO to play (except for Rock Lobster. Back off, thats mine!) and styles incorporating every musical tradition. What a sad life "normal things" must be.
EE had everyone sit in for Natural Anthem, which was intense and awesome as the first time I saw them do it. I find my group and head off for dinner with them. I got a fish taco, because that is the thing to do when you are on the West Coast and a tongue taco, which is the best texture for shredded meat.
The remaining groups all meet up by the Space Needle for the blowout end jam. We immediately wander into a Wedding photo and play Bubamara for them. Further on we get a birthday request and we do a pretty good Happy Birthday and at the end a trombone player hit the "They say it's your birthday" riff from the Beetles. The whole group picks it up in 2 bars and we rock on that for a while. Then we took over the tiltawhirl. The guy was going to give us a free ride while we played but the supervisor came out and put a stop to that, so all of us just hung out on it, playing and spinning for a bit. We then went around an amazing fountain playing some good walking music. There was a solo acoustic guitar guy playing some sort of vigil and we picked up that song too and did a way more amazingly beautiful version of it than I thought could happen from that many brass instruments with no practice.
I had to make a tough choice, see Faith and the Muse with a Tyko drum section or see Orkestar Zirkonium who I found out were the musicians behind Circus Contraption. Faith will be by in a few weeks and Orkestar Zirkonium don't have any dates so that was the best choice.
We saw more of ENSMB off and started packing and coordinating getting rental instruments back. I ended up leading the last of the group on the bus where some of the locals found our tired banter to be really amusing.
OZ is a 15 piece brass ensemble that I noticed used every instrument exactly to the right potential of the song. This weekend all the bands were cranked up to 11 most of the time, which was the right energy for the crowd but OZ were just as loud as they needed to be, perfectly balanced and every instrument could be heard clearly and still have the same intensity and insane dancing crowd of a punk band. I can't quite reconcile the huge personality of the characters in the recordings of Circus Contraption with the pure musicianship of OZ.
The way back we got stuffed into the back of an open pickup truck and we were freezing, ducking from cops and having a great little party back there.
We found a slightly better crash space for the dwindling band, I got an over sized beanbag chair and a really good blanket. As soon as the blanket went over my head and it was dark I fell asleep instantly.
I saw everyone off in the morning and got to hang out with our hostess, a friend from last year who is a street band sceenester if there is such a thing.
I had a red-eye out just so I could get the extra Seattle time in so I met friends for dimsum and bubble tea in the International District. Seattle has amazingly beautifully dyed hair freaks but I still managed to get the stink eye stare waiting on the corner with my box-o-tuba.
Needing some quiet I hung around Jigsaw while my friends did their daily business. Jigsaw is such a great inviting space to be in. I bet there are a lot of great projects coming out of there soon. I got to hang out for a planing meeting. Meetings are more fun when you know that you are not going to get tasked with your own fool ideas.
Then I tagged along for the local Steam-Rat meet up at this great cafe which was all about sci-fi fantasy references but mostly Firefly. I had an Inara sandwich with tomatoes. The Iocane latte sounded good but I went for my second cappuccino because I miss them from Bluehouse. The meet up was fantastically larper nerdy, but I really enjoyed just hanging out and watching. I didn't have to interact or start into my tirade about how gears need to mesh and have reason, so that was good.
My hosts for the evening, trying to sell me on moving out to Seattle took me to a family owned drive in dinner that looks like it did in the 50's and has organic, locally sourced beef, fresh fries and shakes that can't been drunk through a straw. Then off to Remedy tea with it's hundreds of tea choices before dropping me off at the airport with promise of deep fried lemons next time I'm in town.
I check my bag and chat with another band flying out. I get to choose the emergency exit row and I sleep on and off to Memphis where the airport is from the 70's and smells like bacon.
I sleep on the flight from Memphis until I hear the attendant ask on the PA "Is there a doctor on the flight?". We make a landing in Dullas and the passenger is taken off in the ambulance. my row mate has a meeting in DC that he is going to miss but the attendant says that he can't get off. We joke about Baltimore having the better hospitals because of the crime rate and Hopkins. I tell him about how the first shock trama were started in Baltimore. We then joke about being sick or me hitting him so he can get off at Dullas instead of Baltimore and taking a train back like his original itinerary was. After the sick passenger is taken care of the flight attendants let him and a few others go. I nap while they get things in line to take off to BWI.
I bet you never knew where airplane fuel is dispatched from. It is dispatched from Atlanta. Atlanta had thunderstorms and power outages today. Also there is a 15:1 paperwork filing time to air time for flying from Dullas to BWI if there are ambulances involved. So 3 hours later and some time in line for take off we fly 12 minutes up the road to BWI.
Home in time to make the Fluid Movement directors meeting and tell them how FM is valuable social currency when you travel.
and now I am home and functioning on West Coast time, need to take out the trash and shower...
the end.
Last year I went out to my favorite west coast city Seattle for one of my favorite events Honk. I had a great time that was largely just me wandering in and out of fun places and making last minute plans with people I knew.
This year I went with a plan. I found a band that I really like and tagged along with them. I have described Emperor Norton's Stationary Marching Band as a punk brass band having stolen your ipod and re-creating your favorite play list. I still stand by that, but they are so much more as musicians, entertainers and people. I contact their fearless leader who I know from previous honks and we decide that having a helicon (turkish battle tuba pre-dating the sousaphone) would round out the ensemble able to fly out this year. I then go to the music store and buy 3 flip books to hold all the 3 sets of 10 songs they want to play this year. Practicing them would have been the best next action as the GTD crowd would say but I had some soldering to do for Iluminopolis. (which is one of those things I should write about too)
Flying with a tuba wasn't as bad of an experience as I thought, the tuba isn't large as tubas go but was still oversized. Delta has clearly posted rules for special items that allow for oversized musical instruments to be stowed at normal checked baggage prices. I built a custom cardboard box and stuff it with clothes for padding because the horn is really a lot of empty space. I bought a flat pack rolling cart and head off to the airport on the light rail happy that I didn't have to bother anyone for a ride or pay for a cab. Check in was pretty easy after I got the "Of course it is" look from the counter agent when she asked what the special item listed for the check in was. Un encumbered I breeze through security to the gate.
My loose plan was to fly in, get to Seattle at 11 and find a cheep hotel to stay in and re-evaluate the day by mid morning before check out. It was a simple plan that allowed for contingencies, recovery time and didn't inconvenience anyone if things changed last minute. Delta offered me one better. They had overbooked and were offering a $400 voucher, meal tickets and a hotel room for anyone who would take the next flight out. I gladly accepted knowing that I needed the quiet time to get things together and read through the music, and time away from the pollen explosion.
The hotel they put me up in was like an Ikea or a night club. glossy pine and smoked glass with light elements, baffling minimalist signs and a lobby pumping dance mixes of pop tunes. The room had a pretty big flat screen tv, printed cow hide panel above the headboard and the shower stall had a smoked glass partition that you could see in the room. All kind of fantastic and will look completely ridiculous in a few years, then cycle between seedy and retro before the whole thing de-laminates and chips away before being bulldozed. I wish I followed my own advice and packed swim trunks.
I get up on the sucky side of early AM and get the shuttle to the terminal and I walk straight to the gate with only a pause for security as my tuba was already checked. One of the niceties they did was to put me in the emergency exit isle with extra legroom. The flight out took me through Detroit which has a pretty nice airport that has a monorail inside the terminal. Detroit is only an hour away by plane, if I ever wanted to do something there.
Seatac is an airport I'm familiar with so I hit the ground and exit pretty quickly and find my way to where ENSMB is staying so I can get a practice in before the show that night. I get to the place everyone is staying at about the same time as they are. I say hi and try to be helpful and out of the way where possible. Unpacking my horn makes this kind of difficult.
Being clever, I took the valves out before packing because I could see the airline bumping them and making a jam that would need to be re-ground. What I didn't notice is that the springs that make the valve go up and down wasn't attached like the more modern trumpets I have and one spring got lost out of my cardboard and ductape box. As far as problems I have had with instruments this isn't bad. This time I get to pick which valve I don't use. D Eb and Ab are good notes but I need the rest of them more so the third valve gets the tape to hold it up.
Everyone gets in and sets up kind of leisurely and I get to soak in the personalities of the people I am going to spend the weekend with. I didn't think I would have any conflicts, but it was nice to find that I really like them and I feel welcomed to the group. Their new trumpet player sat in with BBO at Honk East before joining ENSMB
Practice was hasty but the only feedback I get is to keep playing the baseline through the solos, no show stopping mistakes. ENSMB has a ringer tuba player with them along with everyone else being super skilled and I can get along with my site reading.
Because of their airline adventures we have to get dressed and head right out to the show that night. I realize that I am prepared in the variety of what I packed but I'm overwhelmed by choices so I solicit advice for which band jacket. I lend out some goggles, because I brought a selection.
We then take off for the show in a minivan and the only rental vehicle available at the time that would fit the band: a 8 mile old Escalade. The XM radio is tuned to oldschool hiphop and it just feels right to be a little thug all dressed up in steampunk marching band outfits.
Parking is confusing but we make our way to where the roads are closed in Ballard and catch the tail end of Extraordinary Rendition who I met at Honk East. We join in singing "War" (Edwin Starr) with them and we play along with their last song.
ENSMB sets are a brass band street riot. The band pushes up to the audience and runs around. I start off trying to the side of the other tuba trying to listen but after getting a near bell to the face I back off and try to find a safe spot. ER is behind us rocking out to the whole set and I see other bands I know coming down to dance with us. ENSMB is a bands band.
Not having eaten I get in line to the BBQ cart that is a streamline trailer modified to look like a metal pig. The guy in front of me is a West Coast style burned out oldschool hippy that I have a long and circular conversation that I think was summed up as he likes music and is better at lead guitar than rhythm guitar. I notice that every tuba player is checking out my horn. Over the weekend I think I talked to almost everyone with a horn bigger than a baritone . The BBQ is pretty tasty and just the right thing.
Last year the shows were in bars which made a kind of weird vibe for this type of music. This year is closed down streets and a big open air party. I see lots of kids with their hands over their ears, either standing right up in front of the band staring in awe or hiding behind their parents dancing away.
I get a text from my friend right before the second set that she is in a tree watching us. Second set was a little harder because it's darker and I still need to read the music and play but is just as much fun as the first performance. I catch up with my friends as ENSMB's fearless leader is giving them a postcard for the new album and having a conversation about fonts. It's hard to hug people while wearing a tuba.
With all the confusion of the day I miss meeting up with my friends who I had planned on staying with that night so I join in wandering around meeting up with other band friends and trying to find the after party. We get a rough address and head out to what is a birthday party for one of the organizers. A pickup band of Orkestar Slivovitz, the houses african percussion collection and any other honk bands who brought their instruments in play an almost Fela Kuti meets Boban Markovits jam.
I end up back at the band house, not prepared for camping in the living room, so I am kind of cold and with that many people someone is always snoring, coughing or getting up and going to the bathroom (I'm sorry Steve and Donna for being the one who snored). I survive the night and we do a group breakfast with the other bands and go play some neighborhoods. This is a low pressure shake down runs for songs that the band needs to work on. We stuffed everyone on a traffic island and rocked out for a bit. A car stopped at a green light to watch us finish a song. We get back and watch Orkestar Slivovitz play a really amazing low key Balkan set in the back yard of a housing project where someone had been setting up a family picnic. I have a picture of them behind the barbed wire fence hanging out with the family and the guy with the grill out.
We head out for the group lunch of some Ethiopian like food that was vegetarian and delicious. We play our next set which we start to notice that as we push towards the audience and the crowd gathers they start spilling out into the road. After each song we go back 10-15 feet and get everyone to follow us.
I check out some of the bands I like and then to get some away time I wander off to explore and find supplies which is one of my favorite things to do in a new city. I was about to go to the first cafe I saw when I noticed the opposite side of the street has a Stump Town which is where the good stuff is from. I get a cappuccino and big smiles from the barista as I do the lip smackey taste test of it.
Just up the street was an independently owned hardware store where I poked around for a spring for the tuba and some misc screws that ENSMB could use for their travel gear. I walk back with just enough time to pack up and head out to George town for shows. The spring I got was too strong. I could push the valve down if I used my left hand, even trying with my ring finger sent shooting pains up my arms that still kid of hurt.
At Georgetown the local recording school was open for honk bands to record at. They asked for a joke while they adjusted the board and for the second time that day I heard a Phillip Glass joke. Just another sign I was in good company. I sat out of the first song, because I didn't have any music for it. The other song I played confidently, but quietly.
The next set got buzzed by a Blue Angle jet from the Boing field just up the way, which is quite an experience, but we kept going through it. I get a generous handful of post cards so I put my band face on and schmooze a bit. The dinner of choice was the last Chicago style polish kielbasa from a hotdog cart. I need someone to start doing this in Baltimore or we will never be a world class city. Sure, a half smoke in DC is good but a whole sweet pickle on the dog is something completely missing from here.
Between sets I check the local stores which are all open lake for the Honk crowd. The local music store didn't have anything for brass instruments in their repair shop. I poked around in their hand percussion section for something to play during drum breaks and I found a pair of finger cymbals with the hand written tag saying "Get your Gypsy on!". I used the $4 gift certificate they gave all the honk musicians for a $3.99 castanet. I felt guilty about that so I gave him $2 to cover the actual cost of them. They had a theremin that I played with for a while and gave way too detailed answers about the history and electronics about when they asked out loud near me.
The last set of the night was a great scene. We were pushed right up against a porch by the crowd who were all dancing. There was also a panty cannon in play so there was underwear being thrown at the audience, thrown back at us and being draped on each other while we were playing. We made it through the crowd to end the set in the parking lot out back.
Last year I missed the after party because it was in an industrial part of town that no cab would bother to go to if there was an easy fair to pick up elsewhere, but this year hitting the Hazard Factory was a point on my itinerary. I watched some flaming tether ball and got to say hi to the proprietor who I have exchanged emails in the past about power tool drag racing. Multi band jam sessions inside and outside and a nice laid back party all around. I think the iconic image of the night was the empty pizza box with a cowbell in it. On the way home I get ENDMB to drop me off at a friends house to spend the night.
After a real night's sleep and a shower with out waiting in line I find my self helping separate eggs for waffle batter at a membership drive breakfast for Jigsaw Renaissance, a kind of hacker space which has a brand new spot. I get to be quasi-famous as being from another hacker space in the far off land of Baltimore, of which everyone has a friend from or grew up in Maryland at some point. I get stuffed full of great breakfast foods and to visit with my friends in a new exciting place before I was whisked off for the final set of the weekend.
ENSB played for their last scheduled performance a kind of pickup band with friends from other bands playing for members who had already left for the airport. The best thing to do for that is put subtly aside and go for broke with the sound. We had people dancing in the streets blocking traffic, it was amazing.
After we are done I stop into a store for a drink and the old lady behind the counter was railing at how disappointed she was because she was told it was a marching band festival, she played baritone in school and this "wasn't music". One customer was trying to tell her about the New Orleans second line traditions and about Balkan Brass bands. She told me when I got to the counter and saw the stunned look on my face that "Maybe it's music for some people, but not for me... I like normal things". I could only reply with "Wow..." as I payed for my drink. I think she was the only unhappy person I saw around Honk the whole weekend.
I think over the weekend I heard bands cover every song I have ever wanted BBO to play (except for Rock Lobster. Back off, thats mine!) and styles incorporating every musical tradition. What a sad life "normal things" must be.
EE had everyone sit in for Natural Anthem, which was intense and awesome as the first time I saw them do it. I find my group and head off for dinner with them. I got a fish taco, because that is the thing to do when you are on the West Coast and a tongue taco, which is the best texture for shredded meat.
The remaining groups all meet up by the Space Needle for the blowout end jam. We immediately wander into a Wedding photo and play Bubamara for them. Further on we get a birthday request and we do a pretty good Happy Birthday and at the end a trombone player hit the "They say it's your birthday" riff from the Beetles. The whole group picks it up in 2 bars and we rock on that for a while. Then we took over the tiltawhirl. The guy was going to give us a free ride while we played but the supervisor came out and put a stop to that, so all of us just hung out on it, playing and spinning for a bit. We then went around an amazing fountain playing some good walking music. There was a solo acoustic guitar guy playing some sort of vigil and we picked up that song too and did a way more amazingly beautiful version of it than I thought could happen from that many brass instruments with no practice.
I had to make a tough choice, see Faith and the Muse with a Tyko drum section or see Orkestar Zirkonium who I found out were the musicians behind Circus Contraption. Faith will be by in a few weeks and Orkestar Zirkonium don't have any dates so that was the best choice.
We saw more of ENSMB off and started packing and coordinating getting rental instruments back. I ended up leading the last of the group on the bus where some of the locals found our tired banter to be really amusing.
OZ is a 15 piece brass ensemble that I noticed used every instrument exactly to the right potential of the song. This weekend all the bands were cranked up to 11 most of the time, which was the right energy for the crowd but OZ were just as loud as they needed to be, perfectly balanced and every instrument could be heard clearly and still have the same intensity and insane dancing crowd of a punk band. I can't quite reconcile the huge personality of the characters in the recordings of Circus Contraption with the pure musicianship of OZ.
The way back we got stuffed into the back of an open pickup truck and we were freezing, ducking from cops and having a great little party back there.
We found a slightly better crash space for the dwindling band, I got an over sized beanbag chair and a really good blanket. As soon as the blanket went over my head and it was dark I fell asleep instantly.
I saw everyone off in the morning and got to hang out with our hostess, a friend from last year who is a street band sceenester if there is such a thing.
I had a red-eye out just so I could get the extra Seattle time in so I met friends for dimsum and bubble tea in the International District. Seattle has amazingly beautifully dyed hair freaks but I still managed to get the stink eye stare waiting on the corner with my box-o-tuba.
Needing some quiet I hung around Jigsaw while my friends did their daily business. Jigsaw is such a great inviting space to be in. I bet there are a lot of great projects coming out of there soon. I got to hang out for a planing meeting. Meetings are more fun when you know that you are not going to get tasked with your own fool ideas.
Then I tagged along for the local Steam-Rat meet up at this great cafe which was all about sci-fi fantasy references but mostly Firefly. I had an Inara sandwich with tomatoes. The Iocane latte sounded good but I went for my second cappuccino because I miss them from Bluehouse. The meet up was fantastically larper nerdy, but I really enjoyed just hanging out and watching. I didn't have to interact or start into my tirade about how gears need to mesh and have reason, so that was good.
My hosts for the evening, trying to sell me on moving out to Seattle took me to a family owned drive in dinner that looks like it did in the 50's and has organic, locally sourced beef, fresh fries and shakes that can't been drunk through a straw. Then off to Remedy tea with it's hundreds of tea choices before dropping me off at the airport with promise of deep fried lemons next time I'm in town.
I check my bag and chat with another band flying out. I get to choose the emergency exit row and I sleep on and off to Memphis where the airport is from the 70's and smells like bacon.
I sleep on the flight from Memphis until I hear the attendant ask on the PA "Is there a doctor on the flight?". We make a landing in Dullas and the passenger is taken off in the ambulance. my row mate has a meeting in DC that he is going to miss but the attendant says that he can't get off. We joke about Baltimore having the better hospitals because of the crime rate and Hopkins. I tell him about how the first shock trama were started in Baltimore. We then joke about being sick or me hitting him so he can get off at Dullas instead of Baltimore and taking a train back like his original itinerary was. After the sick passenger is taken care of the flight attendants let him and a few others go. I nap while they get things in line to take off to BWI.
I bet you never knew where airplane fuel is dispatched from. It is dispatched from Atlanta. Atlanta had thunderstorms and power outages today. Also there is a 15:1 paperwork filing time to air time for flying from Dullas to BWI if there are ambulances involved. So 3 hours later and some time in line for take off we fly 12 minutes up the road to BWI.
Home in time to make the Fluid Movement directors meeting and tell them how FM is valuable social currency when you travel.
and now I am home and functioning on West Coast time, need to take out the trash and shower...
the end.