Eccentrik Festival
Alrighty, I said I'd update about Eccentrik Fest and lo and behold, I am. It was an amazing time and I'd like to start out by thanking Nathan( nathan_fhtagn ) for inviting me to play his tunes with him. I hadn't shared a stage with Nathan since the Abney Park show for Convergence XIII down in Portland. Not until he started doing his solo stuff. You can read about our first foray at live performance (HERE.)
So, yeah. We went to North Carolina to play the festival along with Paul Mercer's band, The Ghosts Project. We also shared a night with Jill Tracy, Nicki Jaine, and Magpie Killjoy. I'll try and remember everything but I'm sure I'll leave something out because we packed two weeks worth of music and fun into those three days. Ok, let's see...
Nathan and I caught a flight out of Seattle on Thursday, the 23rd. I work for Alaska Airlines and I guess I'm spoiled to their level of service. We took USAir out and had to transfer in Philly. USAir charges $15.00 for your FIRST checked bag! At Alaska it's free. I don't usually check anything. I usually have a carry-on bag and my bass. But this time I packed Nathan's Pod Line 6 effects board with me since I travel light and had room, but I needed a bigger suitcase for it to fit and had to check it. Also, at Alaska, you can do what's called a claim at gate check for musical instruments. That's where they put an orange tag on your item at the aircraft door and bring it back to the aircraft door when you arrive. I prefer to do that when making connections so that my things make it to the next flight. I just grab them and bring them to my next gate myself. Plus I don't like my instruments banging around in baggage carts. USAir would only do that if we were traveling 1st class. I was shocked by that. I had to check my bass at the gate and hope to Christ it got to NC in one piece and on time for the festival. The airline gods smiled on me, but I was sweating it.
We met some cool people in Philly that were from the area in NC that we were headed to. They filled us in on where everything was, distances from the venue to the hotel, stuff like that. Nice small talk. Made waiting for the next flight go quickly.
We got into Raleigh/Durham around 11ish I think and Davis Peterson, the drummer for The Ghosts Project and Valerie Meiss, Vocals/Accordion for The Hellblinki Sextet, came and picked us up. Davis I had met before. He, Nathan and I jammed in my jam room at my house, along with Magpie, a couple of times before. First time I had met Valerie though. Holy crap I love that girl! There are some people that you meet for the first time and instantly fall completely in love with. That happened when I met Libby Bulloff(carpe_jugulum) at C13 and it happened when I met Valerie at the airport. Actually, it happened when Davis first showed up at my house as well. I think one of the best parts of playing music is meeting all of the other creative people doing what we all do. There's something to be said for the whole kindred spirit thing for sure.
We all piled into Davis' car and headed off to the venue. Rachel(melantha71 ) was there partying down and so we wanted to go say hi and check the place out. Wasn't that huge of a place, but the vibe was good and lots of people there, even though we showed up after last call. That boded well for the crowd the next night when we would play. We didn't stay long as we had to get to the hotel and unload all of our crap. Davis got a bit lost finding the hotel, but we made it and both he and Valerie crashed out in our room.
The next morning we went out to brunch at this really good breakfast place to hang with Emma, the promoter and the other bands. We met Nicki in the hallway of the hotel and basically kidnapped her into going to breakfast with us. We performers have to stick together after all. We also met The Ghosts Projects singer Minka Wiltz but she didn't go to breakfast with us. We had a great time chatting and the food was good. Rachel was good enough to drive us around after breakfast, so she, Nathan, me and Paul went to this really awesome electric violin store. Seriously, they have every kick ass electric violin you could ever want. Even a cool seven string one that you could play death metal on. Paul and Nathan were in heaven! In the back of the store is where the owner's wife ran a woodwind / drum music store. I grabbed a hand drum, Valerie and Magpie busted out the accordions and Rachel snagged a recorder and random music ensued. Then Rachel drove us back to the hotel so that we could get ready and go to soundcheck.
I must say that I was really happy for the chance to get to know Rachel better. She's someone I've known for quite awhile, but kind of in passing. One of those things where we know all of the same people but somehow never really hung out while she lived in Seattle. In fact, I first met her face to face at an Abney Park show when she was still in the band. They played The Catwalk (as it was known then) and I had planned on going because Krysztof(charmed_art) was showing art there. Plus Thomas Thompson was playing bass with Abney Park at the time and I was friends of both him and Kryzstof from Sinforosa and Josette's Eye playing gigs together. I maybe said five words to her at that time. I next saw Rachel in person at Convergence XIII, and again, I perhaps said five words to her because she looked like she wasn't feeling too hot. We've talked off and on online over the years though, but still. This time though, we got to hang quite a bit. I want it on the official record that I think Rachel is AWESOME!!! Seriously, one of the coolest people you will ever hang out with. I really hope to chill with her in person again sometime soon. I've already said that since she acted as our chauffeur for most of the time we were there, I'll have to return the favor should she come visit Washington again soon. Actually, does it count as chauffeur if she got other people to do the driving even though it was her car? LOL! No worries. I'll hook you up if you make it out here Rachel!
So we get to soundcheck, and we're told the sound guy has to leave at 8pm or he loses his hotel room. I forget what time we showed up...around six I think. Needless to say, he was distracted. We had to line check and get levels for all the acts in like an hour and a half. Right. Basically, if we got a noise out of an instrument or microphone, he was satisfied. I started running interference between the performers and him to make sure he dialed everything in correctly. Jill Tracy was especially appreciative of that. She actually asked if I'd just run the board. But it wasn't my board, and I couldn't run it from stage. I didn't want to piss the guy off. The sound guy can really screw up your show if you make him mad enough. Still, as much as I sympathized with the guy, I'm all about the sound being good and couldn't make myself care too much if he didn't check in on time. I'm a bastard I know. During soundcheck Minka was sitting off by herself not really saying much. I almost forgot she was there. Then she got on the mic to sing and OH. My. GAWD!!! I'd never heard anything like it! Her voice is just as strong as Mel's, but in all other ways it's completely different. Minka is an amazing improviser with instincts of where the music is going that knows no bounds. Holy crap her voice is beautiful. She's a vocalist extraordinaire. And without a single ounce of ego. My jaw just hit the floor when she opened her mouth. I was amazed.
So then we finally get to perform! We went up to do Nathan's project first. This was Nathan on violin, me on bass, Rachel on flute, Davis on drums and Magpie on accordion. What do you call you solo project Nathan? Anyway, we went into it and it was awesome! Just before we went on, we're outside the venue learning a new song and we opened the night with it. Crazy I know. It feels good to play with people that you can trust to just go with the flow and know what to do. In fact Davis learned the song on the stage! LOL! Nathan is like, "we're going to start with a song that our drummer has never heard before." Davis looks at us like "you bastards" and off we went. It sounded awesome. This was also the first time we'd played the songs with Rachel. Well, not counting soundcheck. The flute added soooo much to the music. The songs are very rhythmic. Since they were written for a troupe of belly dancers that's to be expected. But the flute added some much needed fluidity to the songs. It helped the flow of the songs and really helped tie the rhythmic aspects together. I'm proud of her. She hasn't performed in this kind of capacity in like five years. She's still got it though. It's also really cool playing the songs with a real drummer. We've been practicing the songs with the sequenced drum tracks. It's so much easier to play with a real human on the skins. We extended the songs at some points and, especially for the last one, we changed up the rhythms to suit the mood. I really funked that last one up. All because of what Davis was doing. It called for it and everyone followed.
The Ghosts Project was next. This was Nathan again on violin and guitar, Paul Mercer on violin, Davis on drums and Minka on vocals. Extremely moving music. Especially with Minka singing. What I like about The Ghosts Project is that Paul's really open and giving with his music. If there's other players around that he likes then he'll invite them up on stage and let them go to town with his tunes. So he had Magpie up for a bit and he had me up for three songs on bass. It's fun to watch Paul play because he just goes into these trance-like states and lets it all flow out. I loved playing on the song called "War Zulu" because it's so driving and powerful. You just dig in on that one and feel the emotion. Beautiful. And then I played on one that we just called "The Sad One." We all just pulled it out of our asses right there on stage and I just cut loose on that one. My natural style on bass if very melodic/groove oriented. And I just let it fly with some crazy D minor harmonic weirdness. The crowd were all moving and seemed really into everything we played.
I believe Nicki went next. She sings, plays guitar and musical saw. During soundcheck she and Valerie and Magpie came up with a song to do together and it was great! The whole night should've been billed as one band actually. We all seemed to be playing on each others stuff. This is because we all became such instant but great friends. I loved the saw playing. The saw is eerie sounding. And with Valerie singing along with it, it was very haunting. We were very lucky to have so many great vocalists this time. Nicki has a really beautiful, sweet voice that she uses to sing tawdry songs in German. Not all of them, but those were my favorites.
Jill was last up. She had Paul and Nathan up as well. Paul on violin and Nathan playing my bass. He knows her songs and they're more structured than the rest of the stuff so it's best if he does the bass with her. I just love Jill's songs. Again, you can read my description of her stuff from when I played with her before. She's incredible.
After the gig, Josh from Vernian Process started DJ'ing and he spun some really kick ass tunes! All of us that played got out on the dance floor to cut it up til we closed the place out. Then we went back to the hotel to sleep. Rachel was staying with friends, but it was really late so she just crashed out in me and Nathan's room. Along with Magpie and Davis. Rachel got in Nathan's pants! LOL! Actually she borrowed his jeans to sleep in because she was still wearing her gown from the evening. She borrowed my Johnny The Homicidal Maniac shirt to sleep in as well. We just say that Rachel got in Nathan's pants to creep out Nathan's brother Peter. LOL!
The next day we had breakfast at the same place we did the first time. Although some of us split off to go have Ethiopian food. When we got back to the hotel we discovered a zombie convention being held in one of the hotel conference rooms. Nathan had this little monitor thing with him so I grabbed my bass and Minka, Rachel, Nathen and I bogarted their meeting and started jamming. We did a couple of Nathan's songs and a few freeform jams. Nathan was on mandolin this time. If it has strings on it, Nathan can play it. I'm in love with Rachel's flute. I'm really going to miss the flute with the tunes next time we play them. And Minka is super awesome at improvising! Lyrics just come out of her and her singing is amazing. I can't state that enough. So yes, we played for a bunch of zombies. Does it get any better?
Why yes, yes it does. After playing with the zombies, we were heading for a coffee shop when Valerie texts us and says they can't get in the venue for their soundcheck. Since we're nearby we show up and start busking in the streets. This time we have Valerie and Magpie on accordion and Valerie's bandmate Andrew on guitar to join in as well. Came up with some really beautiful stuff. We left after the Hellblinki's got in for soundcheck and made it to the coffee shop. When we got back, we started with more busking, but this time, Rachel pulled out one of her hula-hoops out of her car and treated everyone to a hoop dance exhibition out in the parking lot. Beautiful! I've never been able to keep a hula-hoop going, and Rachel is able to move them up and down her body, around her neck, up her arms, everything! And she looks really hot doing it! LOL! I can't believe how much music we crammed into the weekend! It was beyond fantastic!
So we go into the venue next to see The Hellblinki Sextet play. I absolutely loved them! Their look is similar to my friends' band Stolen Babies. And the music has a cool carnival vibe like a lot of Stolen Babies' music does, but that's where the similarities end. We've got Valerie doing vocals, accordion and toy piano. Andrew doing vocals, drums and guitar...ALL AT THE SAME TIME!! Seriously. You have to see him to believe it. They have a really cool guy named Brad on bass, but I understand he plays accordion as well. Who knew the accordion would overtake the guitar as the cool instrument to play? It was just those three but I guess they are a sextet with horn players and what not a lot of the time. It sure didn't lack anything with just the three of them though. They really had the crowd moving! They know how to really get the audience involved. I still have one of the noise makers Valerie threw out into the audience. I think I learned a lot from the Hellblinki's about putting on a show.
After the second night of festivities, I talked everybody into going to The Waffle House for drunken munchies. My drummer Tim is from Alabama and Florida and I guess Waffle Houses are on every corner in the south. Like Starbucks are here in Washington. He wanted me to go there and steal him a menu, so I dragged everyone there and drunk dialed Tim to let him know we were there. Jill Tracy was telling some of the funniest/fucked up stories you've ever heard! When you first meet her, she seems like such a super proper, mannered sophisticated lady. Which she is actually. But DAMN! She's funny! I'd feel just fine taking her into the raunchiest dive bar ever and know she'd be right at home.
So, after that, we went back to our room. We had Davis, Magpie, Rachel, me and Nathan there at first. And then Andrew, Valerie and Brad showed up with bourbon. Nathan and I had to leave at 5am to catch a flight back to Seattle and so we just all stayed up all night with everyone in our room and partied. Magpie kept everyone entertained with his stories of traveling as a street kid all around Europe and America. Magpie is one of my favorite people. His life would make several great movies.
So that was how I spent my last weekend. Sometimes it's just incredibly awesome being me! Now as far as stuff coming up...I'll be switching back to guitar tomorrow night. Civita is playing a Halloween party in Olympia. And then we'll be playing World Famous Bob's Java Jive in Tacoma with Blackbird Orchestra. That's on Friday, November 21st. Then on December 6th Civita will be playing again at the High Dive in Seattle with Ghost Town Riot. Next, I'm back to bass and doing Nathan's stuff at The Rendezvous in Seattle. Civita's drummer Tim may do drums for it if Nathan doesn't have someone else lined up for it. That's on December 20th. After that it's Civita again on January 9th with Blackbird Orchestra again. That one is also at the Rendezvous. Civita will also likely be cutting a single at this new studio that wants to use us to showcase their facility. That's not in stone yet. So lots of music happening and I couldn't be happier about it. If you forget any of the upcoming dates, just go to http://www.civitaband.com/civita_shows.htm and you'll be in the know.
So, yeah. We went to North Carolina to play the festival along with Paul Mercer's band, The Ghosts Project. We also shared a night with Jill Tracy, Nicki Jaine, and Magpie Killjoy. I'll try and remember everything but I'm sure I'll leave something out because we packed two weeks worth of music and fun into those three days. Ok, let's see...
Nathan and I caught a flight out of Seattle on Thursday, the 23rd. I work for Alaska Airlines and I guess I'm spoiled to their level of service. We took USAir out and had to transfer in Philly. USAir charges $15.00 for your FIRST checked bag! At Alaska it's free. I don't usually check anything. I usually have a carry-on bag and my bass. But this time I packed Nathan's Pod Line 6 effects board with me since I travel light and had room, but I needed a bigger suitcase for it to fit and had to check it. Also, at Alaska, you can do what's called a claim at gate check for musical instruments. That's where they put an orange tag on your item at the aircraft door and bring it back to the aircraft door when you arrive. I prefer to do that when making connections so that my things make it to the next flight. I just grab them and bring them to my next gate myself. Plus I don't like my instruments banging around in baggage carts. USAir would only do that if we were traveling 1st class. I was shocked by that. I had to check my bass at the gate and hope to Christ it got to NC in one piece and on time for the festival. The airline gods smiled on me, but I was sweating it.
We met some cool people in Philly that were from the area in NC that we were headed to. They filled us in on where everything was, distances from the venue to the hotel, stuff like that. Nice small talk. Made waiting for the next flight go quickly.
We got into Raleigh/Durham around 11ish I think and Davis Peterson, the drummer for The Ghosts Project and Valerie Meiss, Vocals/Accordion for The Hellblinki Sextet, came and picked us up. Davis I had met before. He, Nathan and I jammed in my jam room at my house, along with Magpie, a couple of times before. First time I had met Valerie though. Holy crap I love that girl! There are some people that you meet for the first time and instantly fall completely in love with. That happened when I met Libby Bulloff(carpe_jugulum) at C13 and it happened when I met Valerie at the airport. Actually, it happened when Davis first showed up at my house as well. I think one of the best parts of playing music is meeting all of the other creative people doing what we all do. There's something to be said for the whole kindred spirit thing for sure.
We all piled into Davis' car and headed off to the venue. Rachel(melantha71 ) was there partying down and so we wanted to go say hi and check the place out. Wasn't that huge of a place, but the vibe was good and lots of people there, even though we showed up after last call. That boded well for the crowd the next night when we would play. We didn't stay long as we had to get to the hotel and unload all of our crap. Davis got a bit lost finding the hotel, but we made it and both he and Valerie crashed out in our room.
The next morning we went out to brunch at this really good breakfast place to hang with Emma, the promoter and the other bands. We met Nicki in the hallway of the hotel and basically kidnapped her into going to breakfast with us. We performers have to stick together after all. We also met The Ghosts Projects singer Minka Wiltz but she didn't go to breakfast with us. We had a great time chatting and the food was good. Rachel was good enough to drive us around after breakfast, so she, Nathan, me and Paul went to this really awesome electric violin store. Seriously, they have every kick ass electric violin you could ever want. Even a cool seven string one that you could play death metal on. Paul and Nathan were in heaven! In the back of the store is where the owner's wife ran a woodwind / drum music store. I grabbed a hand drum, Valerie and Magpie busted out the accordions and Rachel snagged a recorder and random music ensued. Then Rachel drove us back to the hotel so that we could get ready and go to soundcheck.
I must say that I was really happy for the chance to get to know Rachel better. She's someone I've known for quite awhile, but kind of in passing. One of those things where we know all of the same people but somehow never really hung out while she lived in Seattle. In fact, I first met her face to face at an Abney Park show when she was still in the band. They played The Catwalk (as it was known then) and I had planned on going because Krysztof(charmed_art) was showing art there. Plus Thomas Thompson was playing bass with Abney Park at the time and I was friends of both him and Kryzstof from Sinforosa and Josette's Eye playing gigs together. I maybe said five words to her at that time. I next saw Rachel in person at Convergence XIII, and again, I perhaps said five words to her because she looked like she wasn't feeling too hot. We've talked off and on online over the years though, but still. This time though, we got to hang quite a bit. I want it on the official record that I think Rachel is AWESOME!!! Seriously, one of the coolest people you will ever hang out with. I really hope to chill with her in person again sometime soon. I've already said that since she acted as our chauffeur for most of the time we were there, I'll have to return the favor should she come visit Washington again soon. Actually, does it count as chauffeur if she got other people to do the driving even though it was her car? LOL! No worries. I'll hook you up if you make it out here Rachel!
So we get to soundcheck, and we're told the sound guy has to leave at 8pm or he loses his hotel room. I forget what time we showed up...around six I think. Needless to say, he was distracted. We had to line check and get levels for all the acts in like an hour and a half. Right. Basically, if we got a noise out of an instrument or microphone, he was satisfied. I started running interference between the performers and him to make sure he dialed everything in correctly. Jill Tracy was especially appreciative of that. She actually asked if I'd just run the board. But it wasn't my board, and I couldn't run it from stage. I didn't want to piss the guy off. The sound guy can really screw up your show if you make him mad enough. Still, as much as I sympathized with the guy, I'm all about the sound being good and couldn't make myself care too much if he didn't check in on time. I'm a bastard I know. During soundcheck Minka was sitting off by herself not really saying much. I almost forgot she was there. Then she got on the mic to sing and OH. My. GAWD!!! I'd never heard anything like it! Her voice is just as strong as Mel's, but in all other ways it's completely different. Minka is an amazing improviser with instincts of where the music is going that knows no bounds. Holy crap her voice is beautiful. She's a vocalist extraordinaire. And without a single ounce of ego. My jaw just hit the floor when she opened her mouth. I was amazed.
So then we finally get to perform! We went up to do Nathan's project first. This was Nathan on violin, me on bass, Rachel on flute, Davis on drums and Magpie on accordion. What do you call you solo project Nathan? Anyway, we went into it and it was awesome! Just before we went on, we're outside the venue learning a new song and we opened the night with it. Crazy I know. It feels good to play with people that you can trust to just go with the flow and know what to do. In fact Davis learned the song on the stage! LOL! Nathan is like, "we're going to start with a song that our drummer has never heard before." Davis looks at us like "you bastards" and off we went. It sounded awesome. This was also the first time we'd played the songs with Rachel. Well, not counting soundcheck. The flute added soooo much to the music. The songs are very rhythmic. Since they were written for a troupe of belly dancers that's to be expected. But the flute added some much needed fluidity to the songs. It helped the flow of the songs and really helped tie the rhythmic aspects together. I'm proud of her. She hasn't performed in this kind of capacity in like five years. She's still got it though. It's also really cool playing the songs with a real drummer. We've been practicing the songs with the sequenced drum tracks. It's so much easier to play with a real human on the skins. We extended the songs at some points and, especially for the last one, we changed up the rhythms to suit the mood. I really funked that last one up. All because of what Davis was doing. It called for it and everyone followed.
The Ghosts Project was next. This was Nathan again on violin and guitar, Paul Mercer on violin, Davis on drums and Minka on vocals. Extremely moving music. Especially with Minka singing. What I like about The Ghosts Project is that Paul's really open and giving with his music. If there's other players around that he likes then he'll invite them up on stage and let them go to town with his tunes. So he had Magpie up for a bit and he had me up for three songs on bass. It's fun to watch Paul play because he just goes into these trance-like states and lets it all flow out. I loved playing on the song called "War Zulu" because it's so driving and powerful. You just dig in on that one and feel the emotion. Beautiful. And then I played on one that we just called "The Sad One." We all just pulled it out of our asses right there on stage and I just cut loose on that one. My natural style on bass if very melodic/groove oriented. And I just let it fly with some crazy D minor harmonic weirdness. The crowd were all moving and seemed really into everything we played.
I believe Nicki went next. She sings, plays guitar and musical saw. During soundcheck she and Valerie and Magpie came up with a song to do together and it was great! The whole night should've been billed as one band actually. We all seemed to be playing on each others stuff. This is because we all became such instant but great friends. I loved the saw playing. The saw is eerie sounding. And with Valerie singing along with it, it was very haunting. We were very lucky to have so many great vocalists this time. Nicki has a really beautiful, sweet voice that she uses to sing tawdry songs in German. Not all of them, but those were my favorites.
Jill was last up. She had Paul and Nathan up as well. Paul on violin and Nathan playing my bass. He knows her songs and they're more structured than the rest of the stuff so it's best if he does the bass with her. I just love Jill's songs. Again, you can read my description of her stuff from when I played with her before. She's incredible.
After the gig, Josh from Vernian Process started DJ'ing and he spun some really kick ass tunes! All of us that played got out on the dance floor to cut it up til we closed the place out. Then we went back to the hotel to sleep. Rachel was staying with friends, but it was really late so she just crashed out in me and Nathan's room. Along with Magpie and Davis. Rachel got in Nathan's pants! LOL! Actually she borrowed his jeans to sleep in because she was still wearing her gown from the evening. She borrowed my Johnny The Homicidal Maniac shirt to sleep in as well. We just say that Rachel got in Nathan's pants to creep out Nathan's brother Peter. LOL!
The next day we had breakfast at the same place we did the first time. Although some of us split off to go have Ethiopian food. When we got back to the hotel we discovered a zombie convention being held in one of the hotel conference rooms. Nathan had this little monitor thing with him so I grabbed my bass and Minka, Rachel, Nathen and I bogarted their meeting and started jamming. We did a couple of Nathan's songs and a few freeform jams. Nathan was on mandolin this time. If it has strings on it, Nathan can play it. I'm in love with Rachel's flute. I'm really going to miss the flute with the tunes next time we play them. And Minka is super awesome at improvising! Lyrics just come out of her and her singing is amazing. I can't state that enough. So yes, we played for a bunch of zombies. Does it get any better?
Why yes, yes it does. After playing with the zombies, we were heading for a coffee shop when Valerie texts us and says they can't get in the venue for their soundcheck. Since we're nearby we show up and start busking in the streets. This time we have Valerie and Magpie on accordion and Valerie's bandmate Andrew on guitar to join in as well. Came up with some really beautiful stuff. We left after the Hellblinki's got in for soundcheck and made it to the coffee shop. When we got back, we started with more busking, but this time, Rachel pulled out one of her hula-hoops out of her car and treated everyone to a hoop dance exhibition out in the parking lot. Beautiful! I've never been able to keep a hula-hoop going, and Rachel is able to move them up and down her body, around her neck, up her arms, everything! And she looks really hot doing it! LOL! I can't believe how much music we crammed into the weekend! It was beyond fantastic!
So we go into the venue next to see The Hellblinki Sextet play. I absolutely loved them! Their look is similar to my friends' band Stolen Babies. And the music has a cool carnival vibe like a lot of Stolen Babies' music does, but that's where the similarities end. We've got Valerie doing vocals, accordion and toy piano. Andrew doing vocals, drums and guitar...ALL AT THE SAME TIME!! Seriously. You have to see him to believe it. They have a really cool guy named Brad on bass, but I understand he plays accordion as well. Who knew the accordion would overtake the guitar as the cool instrument to play? It was just those three but I guess they are a sextet with horn players and what not a lot of the time. It sure didn't lack anything with just the three of them though. They really had the crowd moving! They know how to really get the audience involved. I still have one of the noise makers Valerie threw out into the audience. I think I learned a lot from the Hellblinki's about putting on a show.
After the second night of festivities, I talked everybody into going to The Waffle House for drunken munchies. My drummer Tim is from Alabama and Florida and I guess Waffle Houses are on every corner in the south. Like Starbucks are here in Washington. He wanted me to go there and steal him a menu, so I dragged everyone there and drunk dialed Tim to let him know we were there. Jill Tracy was telling some of the funniest/fucked up stories you've ever heard! When you first meet her, she seems like such a super proper, mannered sophisticated lady. Which she is actually. But DAMN! She's funny! I'd feel just fine taking her into the raunchiest dive bar ever and know she'd be right at home.
So, after that, we went back to our room. We had Davis, Magpie, Rachel, me and Nathan there at first. And then Andrew, Valerie and Brad showed up with bourbon. Nathan and I had to leave at 5am to catch a flight back to Seattle and so we just all stayed up all night with everyone in our room and partied. Magpie kept everyone entertained with his stories of traveling as a street kid all around Europe and America. Magpie is one of my favorite people. His life would make several great movies.
So that was how I spent my last weekend. Sometimes it's just incredibly awesome being me! Now as far as stuff coming up...I'll be switching back to guitar tomorrow night. Civita is playing a Halloween party in Olympia. And then we'll be playing World Famous Bob's Java Jive in Tacoma with Blackbird Orchestra. That's on Friday, November 21st. Then on December 6th Civita will be playing again at the High Dive in Seattle with Ghost Town Riot. Next, I'm back to bass and doing Nathan's stuff at The Rendezvous in Seattle. Civita's drummer Tim may do drums for it if Nathan doesn't have someone else lined up for it. That's on December 20th. After that it's Civita again on January 9th with Blackbird Orchestra again. That one is also at the Rendezvous. Civita will also likely be cutting a single at this new studio that wants to use us to showcase their facility. That's not in stone yet. So lots of music happening and I couldn't be happier about it. If you forget any of the upcoming dates, just go to http://www.civitaband.com/civita_shows.htm and you'll be in the know.