Day 9

Flying is a pain of life, but absolutely essential for the world traveling Troubadour who must peruse his oyster from time to time. As I stood in the cattle line @ SAS flight desk, Sea-Tac airport the other day trying to think of a Plan B, being jostled by baggage handlers and tourist alike, I was hoping that this would all end in a nonfrustrating way. "May I upgrade to business class?" and she answered "Yes, for 10,000 bonus points." Since I fly this airline at least 4 to 6 times a year, I had plenty of points and promply spent the next 4 hours watching the sun set into the western hemisphere and the next 5 hours sleeping in comfortable slumber. All in all, a great flight and here I am in Germany for the next 4 and a half months.

First gig: Somewhere out near the Rhine river with my trio, Janie and voice and Ralf on the fiddle. A little cold but great food. The next couple of daze I spend getting climatized and every morning taking a long walk through these great Beech woods and reconnecting to the continent. By the first week I am even sleeping like everyone else in this time zone and head off to the Texas Saloon, where I am special guest with the House Band and Chris Maldener and Helt Oncale, where I play a set and a half with this great band, who do wonders to my own origenal music. Great packed house, too. Beers after the gig in the company of a few was very mellow.

Food is going to be the main theme of my writings for the next months due to the abundance of the stuff. Today, Thurs. 12 th May, I managed to get invited to three sqares and an ice cream cone. What will I do with all this extra poundage?

All this will be answered soon, so stay tuned...

Day 8

These last 12 hours before flight SAS 936, Seattle-Copenhagen, will be a little hectic, but nothing out of the ordinary. It is almost like getting on a bus nowadaze, with the major difference that it is a lot longer, cramped, and stuffier.

Not to mention that I normally do not down packaged nuts, three Absolutes, cardboard chicken, and a coffee Bailey's on the bus.

With a small stop in Kopenhagen, where I enjoy a Carlsbad Lager, I will arrive in Germany @ 3:45 PM   about 20 hours later.

The tour is set up, the equipment is ready, and I hope the transportation is reserved. Musically I am thoroughly ready and looking forward to some really beautiful gigs.

This trip I plan on not only keeping my Journal updated, but also write  my new book about my early Rock'nRoll years, filled with the antics of a young guitar slinger fresh out of High School and on the road to ruin and debauchery.  Something I know a little about.  I really look forward to this creative endeavor.

So, kids, it is almost time to buckle up and reach for the sky's...the Journey Begins...

Day 7

A lot has happened this past week, for one I have now completed what I had considered my most daunting task these past 5 week. A goal that I had set for myself and put off in my own inimitable fashion and yet while it has been haunting me in it's unfinished state it did provide time for me to work on in my mind and work out details that over time solved themselves. I am talking about a script for a screenplay that I have been asked to submit to MES Productions in Wiesbaden , Germany .

I met Frank and his director @ a video shoot this March and I was able to pitch my short story of a gold prospector and his adventures in a cave with an Indian spirit. Easier said then done, but now it is done and it took 8 hours of grueling labor as well as 4 hours of rewrites and I was able to map out the screenplay in a somewhat script style. Spellchecked and laid out in scenes and dialogue.

Tomorrow I will have it checked out by Rene Rudge who has loads of experience in screenplays and hopefully will clue me in on proper outline needs.

Aside from this great progress on a project that has been looming over me for months, I pulled off some great gigging to boot.

Saturday I set up in front of the Serendipity Gallery in La Conner, WA from 12:00 to 4:00 PM and played enticing new age instrumental music to the passing Tulip worshipers, drove south to Lynnwood where I played another 4 hours @ the Buzz Inn to a packed house of very appreciative revelers who really got into my own music as well as some tasty covers. I brought my friend Norm along for the ride, he doesn't get out of the house too often and enjoyed five Guinness's and a trip out to the parking lot for a little '60s style enlightenment. The nest morning I raced down to South Seattle for the annual Vintage Guitar Show and @ 10:40 proceeded to hit the freeway again, bound for La Conner and another 4 hours of playing my guitar in the open air and selling a record number of CD's.

All in all a great week came to a close when I showered and slipped into bed Sunday night. What now lies ahead for me is the last week of prep before I fly off to Germany

Day 6

Last nights Jam @ the Horseshoe Saloon for Jim McLaughlin's birthday party was an unmitigated success ( I hope that is the correct use of that word, since I have never felt compelled to use it). Aside from the pasta and salad and the exquisite bar several Seattle blues bands came in their entirety and grooved all night with special guests and a jam to be remembered for years. I dropped by W.D.'s house for a bowl and picked up his guitar, since he chose to ride "Lucille" to the venue (a beautiful Heritage Softail in turquoise and white-must be seen to behold).  Plenty of old and trusted friends were there and it was quite a reunion for me since I am on the rode about 8 months of the year.

As a matter of fact, I am out of here in 10 daze and that hardly seems enough time to take care of all the krap I need to do, not to mention conclude that flirtation I have been having with that Takamine up in Smokey Point (I saw her again last night).  But I do have a new international drivers license,  I still have to drive down to Bellevue and American music the only place that carries Adamas 12 Strings anymore in the entire area.

Good news from Germany, Kat, vocalist in the Dave Lee Howard Band has released her own CD on Freerecords called "Poaroid of Truth" and it is doing well. Felix the Standup bass player who just completed a two year tour with Dick Brave and the Backbeats as well as a two month vacation in an RV all across the US, well the important places like Memphis and Nashville. Look forward to seeing him.  And Paul, out drummer has been pl;aying for the Monster Musical Hit Jesus Christ Superstar in Wurzburg for the past months.  I love them all and hope to see'em soon.  Ralf the super fiddler starred in two ZauberKuerbis videos for the childrens channel kika, once with the Mummy and once with the Dave Lee Howard composition "Scare Dance."  Well if you surround yourself with genius...

Day 5

Studio Hell Fire and Brimstone. After the past many weeks of liquid sunshine the real stuff shows up and quess who is going to spend the day indoors...yep, me!

JC Smith and I have collaborated on projects for over ten years. He is an old time musician from way back and lots of fun to work with. You might say we are on the same track. Which really helps when you plan on spending the next eight hours on six or seven tracks.

My mission: to record about 12 minutes of a Spanish flavored music piece I have been contracted to write and record for Joseph Pelc of Pullman City in Eging am See where he performs a daily trick lasso show @ this Western Town. He also does some pretty tricky stuff with a whip, but let's not go there right at this time.

The piece needs to be about 12 minutes to accommodate the flow of his show and for the past week I have been writing and arranging the parts that need to be in this. The problem is that I can keep a nice flow happening for 6 minutes but 12? We immediately solve that one by doubling it in the edit.

First I lay down a rousing rhythm track consisting of a solo instrumental intro that goes into the dominate chord progression and finally spazzes out into pandemonium before the end where it calms down into a closing figure. I record two different versions of this and then proceed to overdub, where I immediately hear where I am going to get into trouble with this rather improvised arrangement, but after a couple of falters I proceed into the beef of the song.

During a key change, I switch from my trusty Fender 12 String (27 years old) in C# tuning to my new Tacoma 12 in concert tuning and play the main theme in E major, the effect is cool, then I transpose back to the original key and it is off to the races. Miraculously we all come in together. I go back and edit out some obvious frapolas and Bob's Your Uncle. It is done. I am more surprised at these results than you and JC. But we mix down to CD, fly it over to the computer and massage the hell out of it in a mastering program designed to boost the levels and compress the peaks and raise the gain as well as clip the beginning and end of any extemporaneous noise, I can't believe we pulled it off and I hope Joseph will be able to swing the rope to this tune.

Thanks JC, have a great time in Nashville next week, where he will be shopping 4 of his songs and my "Margaritas Made in Hell" to music city publishing contacts.

Day 4

What a weekend, torrential rains and Friday traffic in the Puget Sound area, but eventually we made it to Issaquah for the gigs this weekend. My sidekick and musical companion, Dale Ayote, who I usually ref err to as the Coyote on the Keys, play a mean piano and organ and sings great harmonies. He is constantly bringing new material to the bandstand and delivering it with passion and humor. The poor guy needs a sense of humor to play next to me, first of all we do not use a set list, I call the numbers according to the crowd reaction or level of pandemonium dancers. I constantly will start a number with one, two, Gee, Four , in other words, if he is listening he will catch the tempo and the Key of the song in four syllables. But every night is a muscial adventure and we manage to play at least 50% origenal music. Thanks Dale, he is also heard on "Silver Dreams" and "Gypsy soul"

Next week it is off to La Conner @ the Staion House where we rock out to locals and visiters for some of the funnest gigs ever.

Day 3

Well, you know it is not really the actual day three but it is the second day that I sit down and write about the ins and outs, complications and situations, both gratifying and hard pressed. The main thing is to stay in touch with myself and whoever should be interested enough to follow these adventures in literature.

Let us skip to Thursday, one day before the dreaded April 15 th when all of America stands in line @ the post office to make sure their IRS returns get off before midnight. Against every grain of lazy living I managed to hand mine over to the clerk @ the Smokey Point PO and headed on over to the Bigfoot Music store to get my hands on that beautiful Takamine 12 String that I have had my eye and fingers on ever since I returned home from Europe in March. It plays wonderfully and has great tone, though I still have not tried it through an amplifier. I guess I am holding off because my flight with SAS is going to cost me well over the price of the axe and I have to show some fiscal responsibility. Most Americans are in debt up to their gills, myself included, and the price of gas is no help, but I have to put on the breaks when it comes to instruments or else I would buy one a week.

Next it is off to a meeting with JC and Sharon at Shade Tree Sound where I have been recording for over six years. We chat for a while and make some plans and I am off to do about an hour and ½ of Yoga in Snohomish. This town about 5 miles form my place in Lake Stevens could have been the seat of state government but Olympia put up more cash about 150 years ago so now it is a really quaint Victorian style town with lots of antique shops and bars. Out of the 20 or so bars in town I have played in at least 10 of them over the years and been thrown out of the rest. But those daze are over and I join Karen for a great session of stretching and flow and some great relaxation @ the end and I am ready to head off to Everett where there is an open mic @ the Public Library hosted by AmericanoExpresso every other Thursday and I settle down for some great tunes and musicians. I really enjoyed this old timers version of "7 Beers with the Wrong Woman," I played a rousing version of "Albatross" and ended with a killer "Spanish Ommlette," sold some CD's and headed off to the Tavern across from Hot Lix Music with Willow and Hawkeye where we had dinner and beers and jammed for tips in this great local watering hole on Hewitt.

Not bad for a day in the life...

Day 2

Some mornings I have real trouble getting out of bed, especially when the rain is dripping off the roof and it is overcast and I am so snuggly wuggly that I really want to just cocoon myself into oblivion. Ever since I got off the plane 22 March it has rained and rained, everyone was telling me how warm it was while I was gone (freezing my ass off, literally, in Germany with 6 weeks of sub zero Centigrade and snow every other day) 60 degrees Fahrenheit and sunny enough to fool the trees to go into full bloom (my yard was alive, see picture) and almost tropical. This happens every time, the past four summers have had record warm daze and I'm on the road where it is either too hot or to wet. I have been contemplating on capitalizing on this...approaching the Washington State Legislature and passing a bill that I collect bucks when I leave the state!

But I make it up, do some yoga, pluck my face and pray for a good hair day and head off to Kevin Beach, my longtime friend and photographer, who has captured my image since the release of Brindizi in 1995, his work is really cut out for him since I am a @ the age of diminishing physical assets, meaning "I ain't as cute as I used to be!" But Kevin has a great talent to keep you relaxed and in the spotlight and low and behold 180 shots later there seems to be quite a few pictures that could be used in my 2005 promo campaign. What a fun session and to have results too is truly amazing.

Let me digress into a little tale about Kevin, who is one of the greatest Wedding Photographers in our state as well as a super talented Landscape artist (his shots of Arizona are on "Silver Dreams" and the Grand Canyon is on "Messenger" So check him out @ kevinbeachphotography.com .

He also enjoys road trips with his 1976 80` Custom Ridged Hardtail Harley Davidson. In his old location he had a reoccurring problem with an unscrupulous neighbor who let her dog bark up the high heavens @ 5 in the Morning. Don't get mad, Kevin, just fire up your bike @ 3 AM and let her get the picture in the spirit she would understand. Of course his other neighbors were in on it, that's the kind of guy he is.

So when we were done with the shots and over a couple of Scuttlebutts we narrowed the picture choices down to 7 of which 3 were very promising....would it not be great if my friends on the internet could help my choose the right shots for this years promotion? Go ahead and pick your favorite!

Day 1

I am sitting @ a desk in Everett, my friends from Northwest Networking are helping me upgrade and expand my site and content thereof. It looks like everything is going to work out pretty groovey, too.

Without getting too personal I will try to keep a running journal going and cover the week to week and maybe even day to day events in the life and career of a songwriting globe trotting rapidily aging guitar slinger ( get the picture ).

Last weekends gig in Issaquah (correct pronouciation would be Iss-Ah-qua with accent on the second syllable) turned out great, especially with the audience reaction and feedback. I really enjoyed riding home and listening to KZOK radio in Seattle and rocking out to The Who as well as Led Zepplin ( I hardly noticed that I was a good 15 miles over the limit, but I drive a soccer Mom Plymouth Voyager Mini Van, which is invisable to the State Patrol and possibly even bullet proof, depending on which neighborhood I am passing through.)

One more opening thought...every time I am on the road in Europe, the state of Washington enjoys record great weather, would it be possible to capitalize on this...big bucks to stay out of the state.