featuring Woody (acoustic guitar) and 5-Track (acoustic guitar)

1A

3

1B

click here to listen:
http://www.archive.org/details/5-Track2010-03-05.VientoYAguaglassgoblins

For the evening of March 4 we assembled a group including Jef Hogan (electric bass), Jon Franco (drums), Jennifer Ng (percussion), Woody (acoustic guitar) and myself (acoustic wah-wah guitar).

I had one rehearsal with Jef and John (who also play bass and drums for Greg Franco’s Rough Church), one run-through with Woody, and a loose jam with Jennifer, in the few days before the show. Many of the band members had not met each other until they arrived at the venue. This is less unusual for me than might be suspected.

Viento y Agua in Long Beach is a “coffee house” with wonderful energy, constantly changing art on the walls, the occasional model skeleton, many books, and a warm and inviting stage (and sound system) which was conceived and assembled by Angie Evans. I’ve played a few shows there, by myself and also with Cricket and with Amanda, and every time I’ve felt good and played well.

This was the first time I’d played some of this material in a long time, and the first time I’d ever played some of it with a band. The two acoustic guitars kept the energy closer to the ground than usual, and the songs and improvs worked together for a change instead of fighting for space. The existence of dual percussionists also contributed to the effortless momentum of this group’s sound. We had momentum without frightful velocity.

Good show. Hope we do it again.

Today is back to the studio with Rough Church. We have four more songs to record, plus a soundscape. It’s raining, so I’m feeling Seattle, which ought to be right for these tunes … one is a punky cover from New Zealand, two are moody electric guitar grooves slid back behind the beat, one is (sort of) in the style of a 1950s-r&b throwback, there’s a little acoustic guitar duo tune (it’s part A of one of the grooves) and then the soundscape, which will be noise and found sound, so all in all a Seattle-y batch of material. I’ve even got plans involving droning open tunings.

Which reminds me, my earlier report that spring had arrived on January 30th has borne fruit … almost a month later we have flowers blooming and birds singing (and it’s raining for the 2nd time this month) … and I ran into a Southern California native who agrees (volunteers, even) that Los Angeles has distinct weather, you just have to know where to look … she hipped me to a day to watch for in the fall, weather-wise, and I will report on that when it comes around.

It rained again, less dramatically, for a couple-few days. No tornadoes, little in the way of mudslides, the mania all wrought out in the first go rounds.

It was a spring rain. It was a subtle difference. It had less of a density to it, not so much in the way of sodden snowpants and slightly more along the line of still-wearing-those-wet-clothes-are-you?

Then it got clear, like it does. Best air here is right after a rain. I go outside just to breathe.

It got hot. I had heard it was going to, and then it happened, in the middle of the night. I could tell cos I woke up sweaty and had to take some clothes off. Sure sign of a heat wave.

And the next two days of February in southern California were as hot as Vermont ever gets in July (maybe a couple of hotter days in August). The heat was nice – got my first light sunburn of the year, it passed quickly when I applied Aloe, or Arnica, or Something – but also a reminder that it ONLY GETS HOTTER FROM HERE, HA HAAAAA!!!

Then two days that could be described as relatively cool (even bordering on chilly on at least one evening) and now it is raining again.

A return to the One.

Yesterday was a hair on the chilly side, tho not unpleasant… like Seattle in the spring. Like there’s a mild, debatably damp bite in the air. But not overtly damp. And not a nip. No teeth to it. Just a chill. And besides, it was sunny. I was outside mainly in the late afternoon, just before sunset, attempting to contend with what turns out to be a double-filament bulb in our 1999 Nissan Altima’s tail/brake-lights. Hassle upon hassle - but pleasant enough to deal with until you get a fix-it ticket. Which we haven’t got, so rite on it is.

Was also out briefly driving to Greg’s for Rough Church rehearsal. It was nice enough up his way, but not spectacularly so (measured by that I didn’t notice, and I usually do). I mean, it was clear and the air and temperature were pleasant. I just didn’t get any sense of the cosmic ambience. Which could in itself be telling.

Previous afternoon I was rehearsing on Simon’s Drum Satellite with Cricket & The 2:19. I brought an extra shirt thinking I’d need one. Didn’t really, though it wasn’t too much either. Also pleasant and cool, but a little drier in the air. Like, micro-clicks drier. Notably unnotable, also, except in relations to the days surrounding.

Micro-clicks of individuation are, I suspect, what I am after.

Today it is raining again. I haven’t been out yet. I will soon be on my way back to Greg’s, but I don’t see much to sample today in the way of meteorological micro-clicks. It is wet, and probably a bit chilly. I don’t mind.

Jon Franco said (words to the effect of) “Hey guys, you know what? Me and my roommate Josh were thinking we should have a benefit, you know? For, like, Haiti? Since we’re all musicians and this is a way we could do what we do and try to make a difference. You know? Guys?”

So we all said, “Sure, go for it!”

And Scott Keil said, “Oh, hey, you got it man,” and he went and found a venue (Los Angeles Music Academy, in Pasadena, where Scott went to school and where he is now employed) and some sponsors (Red Cross, Habitat For Humanities) and set up about twenty bands, who were generally amazing (I was in three of them, and I had friends in a few more, and then there were these amazing 70s-era samba-funk people from Brazil called “Muamba” and some great locals called “Big Moves” … and on and on…) and there was food and two stages in different rooms and … wow … what a solid cool day. Mad thanks to everyone who put it together.

I’m pretty sure John Boyd got Cricket’s and Amanda Jo’s sets on video, so those might show up online eventually. Amanda’s set included debut performances of her songs “Get It On Up” and “Ho Dogs Rocka Rocka Anybody See Them” and also guest performances by Jef Hogan (electric bass guitar) and Jym “Snake” Fahey (harmonica).

Also, I believe it was the first day of spring.

Sodden palm fronds line the pavement like drowned monkeys, figments of last week’s rain, and I believe yesterday was the 1st day of spring.

Which is a radical thing to say about January 30th. But this is Los Angeles, and I can feel it. There is said to be more rain yet to come. But I’m putting it on the line right here and now that it is going to be a spring rain.

OK, so in terms of my thesis re: the subtleties of Los Angeles weather I could not have picked a worse time to begin. The weather here this past week+ has been nothing if not DRAMATIC. One 40-something Los Angeles native and lifelong resident told me this was the wildest set of storms he’s ever encountered here - before embarking on a rant about the misnomer that is “global warming” … hence, I advised, the increasing usage of the more accurate term, “global climate change” … and there we are.

The last few days have been cool, mellow, round, pleasant, the sun not showing it’s face until late morning but then coming out in strength … but a benign strength, and the air has been very clear, tasty and breathable. We’ve been up in the canyon a part of the time, where it’s just bound to be nice … but it’s been nice down below, too. I was there.

Yesterday it rained a bunch more. I took a couple of mid-length walks in it, to the library and to the rekkid store (more on that later I magine). A pleasant woman working as security on a media shoot of some description (I mean, they were filming something … not that they were shooting at the media, fortunately or un-) asked me where my umbrella was, and I replied that I am from Seattle … which is true, although more by inclination than by birth. It felt good to say it, and not at all dishonest, and it is in fact probably why I don’t use an umbrella.

But as I explained to my climate-concerned friend, although it does rain most days in Seattle, it does not DELUGE or DOWNPOUR so very often, and it almost never rains ALL DAY.

OK, and as for the effects of the aberrant weather on the Los Angeles population:

There was a woman pacing up and down on the sidewalk across the street from my apartment. It was not an even pace. She tended to cover ten to fifteen feet at a circuit, but not always the same ten to fifteen feet, meandering up and down over thirty yards on a five minute cycle (yeah, I paid way too much attention to this). She was blonde, pudgily proportioned in a lump and unhealthy way as if she had been stuffed badly, wearing mainly a shapeless black dress and little white heels, carrying an umbrella and talking on a cellular phone into which she was hollering:

“WEEAUUGGGGHHHH! WHOA! YEEOWW!”

Each exclamation punctuated with a wobbly marionette-like dip of one knee.

“God is ANGRY!!! Get thee behind me, Satan! YAAAUUGHH!!”

… And on and on, some of it less intelligible than other.

From time to time, either she lost her phone connection or she got hung up on. When this happened she would calmly and quietly, picture of normalcy, stop her pacing, examine the phone, re-dial, and then pick up right where she’d left off, pacing and kicking and glossolating.

When it rain down here, the crazies come out.

That was thunder as big as I’ve ever heard, set off car alarms on our street, sent the qat under the bed, I barely counted to 6 between the flash and the bang … Whee!

* EDIT *

… and now there are tornado warnings in Long Beach! Of all things.