Recently in Music Category

This year we are going to attempt to start a new Christmas tradition: the Christmas blog post. As I write this, the snow is streaming down outside and the lovely Jakki is busy gluing things to other things for our entries in an Unfortunate Holiday Sweater contest. Without further ado, here’s what we did in 2010:

After much review of Facebook and Twitter, it appears that 2010 started off with head colds for everyone, and braces for Jakki’s teeth. The early part of the year contained much internet browsing and watching of TV. Such is life in the Inland Northwest in the first quarter.

After thawing out, March came along and brought a fabulous gig for the band I’m with: Fairmount Chase. St. Patrick’s Day tends to bring out our most loyal and hardcore fans. Fortunately, the more they drink, the better we sound.

As temperatures began to rise, camping became possible and we scooted up to Farragut State Park along Lake Pend Oreille to celebrate Jakki’s birthday. In attendance were our friends Chuck and Leann and some of her family. After raining on the way up, the weather cooperated until we left.

In July, Lake Sullivan in the extreme northeast corner of Washington became our camping destination. Bocephus (our Dodge truck) got a new canopy and was able to keep our gear dry despite rainy weather.

To celebrate our anniversary in August, we returned to Packwood, Mt. Rainier and Mount St. Helens; the site of our wedding five years prior. We found the tree we were married in front of in the Ohanapecosh camp ground (not surprising, since that tree is probably 700 years old).

The last part of the summer was punctuated with two quick gigs for the band, one outdoors at a neighborhood block party in North Spokane, and one at O’Doherty’s; a staple in Fairmount Chase’s venue menu.

In early fall, we took a trip over to Seattle to visit Grandma Flo, Bob & Linda, Jim & Phyllis and Kelsey, and take in a Seahawks game at Quest Field with our friends Chuck & Leann. The family visit was wonderful, but the performance of the Seahawks left a lot to be desired (they lost 41-7 to the NY Giants). We also managed to see some old friends: Charlotte, and His Holiness Gary (the padre who presided over our wedding), and Georgie & Roger and their son Brian.

During fall, after much excitement with broken garage door springs, Jakki and I managed to get two new garage doors installed on the house. This was fortunate, as the first snowfall of the season set an all-time record for the area in November. Which, of course, brought out the Snow Robots.

This year has been heavily dosed with visits with family and friends, completely lacking in stays in the hospital, and fueled with music and good cheer— and we couldn’t be happier. May the holiday season bring you and yours peace and happiness in the coming year!

-Much Love, Kelly & Jakki (and Tigger & Cleo)

My band, Fairmount Chase, played a benefit gig last night. We rented a room in a local tavern downtown and had some bins for the local food bank. Lots of work people and friends of band the band showed up. We played three sets and had dancers a-plenty. At the end of the night, we had to tear everything down and load it all out. A five-piece band has a lot of gear! Driving home, my feet were killing me. Today, I feel like I have been run over. And we still had to unload our stuff into our practice space in the basement of the VFW. It’s a lot of fun to play with these guys, and we draw fun and engaging crowds, but I wish we could hire some roadies. I suppose gigging in the future will be a lot easier: a band will just use the transporter (a la Star Trek) to beam there gear to the venue and back. Hopefully I will live that long.

Unfortunately, Jakki had to work, and my parents had a dancing engagement, so I don’t have any photos of the gig to the post. I’m thinking that I might need to ask Santa for a video camera, so I can begin building up a video library of the band to put on youtube for potential venue owners to look at.

Last night I played with a band for the first time in several years. It was lots of fun, and they are an easy-going bunch. My playing is still pretty rusty, but I was surprised I could keep up on songs I didn’t think I knew very well. It will be hard work to get back in shape for regular playing, but I’m looking forward to it— revisiting a large portion of my life is worth it to me. The band is called Fairmount Chase and hopefully we’ll be playing out in Spokane soon. Now I’m off to ice down my fingers again…

My new favorite band this week is the John Butler Trio.  Check 'em out.  He's a heckeva guitar player, accompanied by an upright bassman and drummer.  He mostly plays fingerstyle acoustic, sometimes through a wah-wah pedal.  But he did name his daughter "Banjo".  You can download his live shows at Archive.org.  Pretty cool, eh?  If I had a band, that's what I'd do...

While searching for more on Beattallica (link from Kevin Bryant), I stumbled across a new music festival:
Mamapalooza! The self-proclaimed festival for mom's that rock.

Apparently there is a whole Mom Rock Band movement that I, just now, am hearing about. This is waaay cool! Such artist include:

• The MyDols
• Placenta (Afterbirth Cometh Rock)
• Black Flamingo
• Frump
• Housewives On Prozac
• The Mothers (from the UK)
• Sin & Tonic
• Betty
• Pilley & Ila's Dress