For a long time Vienna held the record, until it was briefly usurped by Brooklyn, NY. But just a couple of months ago, I went on a mini-tour with my harmonica player, Kevin Raybon, and our final show of the weekend, in Seattle, blew everything else out of the water for me.
We had done a tour kick-off show at my favorite Portland venue, Jade Lounge, on Friday January 13th. The following day, we drove to Edmonds, WA for a photo shoot that I had scheduled with one of my favorite fashion and art photographers, Lars Giusti. Then Kevin picked me back up a few hours later and drove me to Monroe, WA, where we had our second show of the weekend. Kevin's family and some friends and fans of mine came out to support us and made the night pretty great. Then Kevin and I headed to Everett and spent the night in a divey motel downtown, but didn't have much time to rest up before another photo shoot for me the following day, in Kirkland, with another of my favorites, Chester West. But it was our final show of the weekend, the following night in Seattle, that took the cake.
We were scheduled to open the show that night at Hattie's Hat, a Ballard-area bar in Seattle where I had played at about a year before. When I played there last year, I was opening for an amazing blues man, Ray Cashman, who was on tour from Nashville. It was a treat for me to get to see him but we didn't have a very big crowd that night. But when I came back with Kevin, on January 15th of this year, we had a much better turn out. I cannot take the credit for this: there were a few people that I knew who came out to support us, but I'm fairly certain that most of the crowd was there to see the headliner, Natalie Quist. So what made this night so magical for me and Kevin, who now perform as Amy Bleu Duo? Well, a few things:
First of all, I had never met Natalie before, but I'd heard her name so many times. She tours the Northwest frequently, like I do, so I was always seeing that she was about to play some bar in some small town in Washington that I had just played, or that she had played some winery in Idaho the night before I would be there. So many times our paths nearly crossed. I heard from mutual friends that her music was incredible. Finally we got to meet at Hattie's, and she told me she had seen my name and heard so much about me for so long, too! We all got to the venue at about six PM that night for sound-check, and burgers. My friend, Charissa from Everett, hitched a ride with me and Kevin to help guarantee that it would be a fun night; Charissa always brings the fun. We were slated to open the show at 7 and Natalie would go on after, at 8 PM. A big crowd started filing in around 6:45.
This is the second thing that kicked ass about our night: the crowd came early, and they were quiet and respectful when Kevin and I took the stage. Their politeness seemed to melt into genuine interest pretty quickly. I played a few solo songs on my guitar, then invited Kevin up to play a song on his guitar while I sang back up and shook my egg shaker. Then he backed me up on harmonica for several songs. I belted out our cover of "Exes and Ohs", originally done by Elle King, and tapped my tambourine with my foot, while everyone bobbed their heads and tapped their toes along with us. Kevin absolutely killed it on the blues harp. Then he really brought the house down with his solo guitar-and-vocal performance of "Chelsea Hotel #2" by Leonard Cohen.
Another way that this night was a success was that we more than doubled our earnings in tips! After our set, we got sit back and relax and get mesmerized by the crafty lyrics, haunting vocals and crisp guitar sounds that Natalie provided. She had the crowd in the palm of her hand, and it was such a great feeling to know that we had also had them there. We connected with so many strangers that night! It was one of those nights that reminded me of why I follow my songs from town to town, when all the traveling and the photo shoots in between shows can be a lot of work, and the cost of being on the road is so great that sometimes you don't come home with much money.
As this series draws to a close (for now), I want to thank everyone who has been so hospitable and kind to me on the road. And I want to acknowledge that I have had way too many memorable shows in Portland, where I've lived for the past twelve years, and in Spokane, where I was born and where I returned to really begin my music career, in 2003. I couldn't pick my favorite out of shows where I sold out on CD release nights, where I had wardrobe malfunctions and gave the crowd more than they'd paid for with an eyeful of flesh, where I jammed with other musicians on their songs or they jumped in on mine and created a version of it that would only exist for that one moment in time. I will continue to play in Portland every month for a long time, if I am lucky, for the rest of my days. I will always come back and play my hometown, too, for as long as Spokane will have me back. So I challenge you, Spokane and Portland, give us our best show yet! I know you can.
Wednesday, March 22, 2017
Saturday, March 18, 2017
My Top Five, Part 4 (or My Second Best Show Ever)
In 2012, at the tender age of 31, I got into modeling. Actually, it was my best friend, Andrea Faith, who originally got me into it, when I was in my twenties. She was the first person to ever take a good photograph of me, when I was about 20. I was a young snow white, holding an apple, staring at the camera with my big eyes, asking the camera if it wants to bite the apple. Prior to that, everyone told me I was just not photogenic. I agreed with them, until Andrea changed my perspective and, really, my life, in this way.
Still, I didn't exactly know then how to parlay this into a living. I worked myriad minimum wage jobs, let the occasional lecher take my picture and played music at restaurants in exchange for free pizza and beer. Then I moved back to my hometown to live with a photographer boyfriend for a while. We dated for a year and he featured me in his gallery shows in local bars and coffee houses in Spokane -- until a nude photograph of me showed up in a coffee house I was performing music at, without my permission! It was classy and artistic but still, not what I wanted someone focusing on when they're supposed to be listening to my music.
There were some other artists I met along way who I modeled for, not for pay but in the name of art and friendship. There were a few random craigslist gigs for a small amount of beans. And then one day, just before I left for a six month long music tour, when I was 31, I realized that I needed to get serious about modeling, so that it could be my day job, while I lived on the road. It turned out to be the perfect day job: I could set my own hours and rates, I could shoot during the day and play my music at night, and I could find modeling gigs in every major city, and some smaller ones, too.
Flash forward four years: At age 35, I was modeling almost full time, on top of doing social work full time, and as for my music... I guess you could say I worked part time as a musician, but lived and breathed music all the time. I went to New York three times last year. Even after supporting myself for six months with modeling on my music tour in 2012, and going back to modeling on nights and weekends five weeks after I had my son, and making a really good living at it for the last couple years, I still never imagined that I would be in New York one day, modeling and playing music!
My friend Rosalee was another instrumental figure in my modeling career. I met her two years ago at a photographer's home studio near Seattle, but she turned out to live in Portland, just like I do. She attached to me quickly as she did not know many other models in the area, but I, on the other hand, but was intimidated at first by her beauty and also her street smarts about the industry. We did become fast friends though, and she has been more generous with her modeling contacts than any other model I've met. Whenever she works with a photographer that she likes, she tells them about me. So it was her idea that I should come to New York with her, in February of 2016, to meet and work with people that she knew there. Everyone she knew turned out to be unavailable to shoot with us, but we made some new contacts. I got to shoot in my lingerie on the Brooklyn Bridge and down on the streets of Manhattan in the early morning hours on a windy, chilly winter day, but I knew that I'd get a shot or two that would make it all worth it, and I did.
I looked for a music gig for months before our trip and finally found a venue that was willing to host me, with a caveat: I needed to book three other artists and build the whole show myself! Though this was daunting at first, I didn't balk because I had done the same thing in other towns like Seattle and Olympia, where I don't know many other musicians, but was able to find contacts by doing my research on Reverbnation.com.
Rather than searching for popular artists in New York in general, I refined my search and looked for singers specifically in Brooklyn, where I'd be playing. I met several popular Brooklyn-based artists online and, if they couldn't play, they referred me to other people whom I should talk to. Eventually I got my dream bill together: A pop goddess with a great following, an indie folk hero who had been featured on a popular late night television show, and a nationally touring artist who arrived just in time to headline after her band had finished opening for Ozzy Osbourne!
Rosalee was working as a promo model at a party that was running late that night, so she couldn't come to the show with me. I took the subway and ate a giant slice of pizza on my way to the show. I wasn't sure if anyone would be in the audience, if patrons would file in later to see only the artists that they had already heard. But the room quickly filled up as I was plugging in cables and gearing up for soundcheck. Damn, I should've taken a beta blocker but now it's too late in the game, I realized. Neurotic as ever, I started my set promptly at 9 PM. The room was one of those pin-drop quiet scenes, and a dark sea of faces with white shining eyes was facing me, hands clapping and then quieting so that their ears could hear more. Voices laughing in just the right spots on the funny songs, faces somber but sympathetic during sad songs. Right where you want them. My stomach felt a punch that wasn't unpleasant, like a rush after you've taken a pill and you know that intense euphoria is imminent.
Euphoria finally settled in as I heard the final round of applause, unplugged my instruments, and headed to the bar for a whiskey. The stage fright had nowhere to go but away. I didn't have to worry about fucking up any longer; all I had to think about was relaxing, listening to the other artists, sipping my whiskey and getting offered more whiskeys - along with compliments - from the denizens of the bar.
It was only after I returned back to the hotel that I realized that I had been buzzing all night from the adrenaline of playing a great show and connecting with audience members. The hotel room was so much quieter than the loud, dive bar, with my girl friend sleeping and the air conditioner humming. I suddenly felt exhausted and I figured that it was from expending so much energy at the show, adjusting to East Coast time, having a few whiskeys. Plus it was after midnight when I settled into my hotel bed to rest before I would wake up in the early morning hours for the aforementioned Brooklyn Bridge shoot. Little did I know, I was coming down with strep throat. But somehow I made out at six in the morning, with my weak cup of hotel coffee, into the February cold and hailed a cab, like it was no big deal.
Still, I didn't exactly know then how to parlay this into a living. I worked myriad minimum wage jobs, let the occasional lecher take my picture and played music at restaurants in exchange for free pizza and beer. Then I moved back to my hometown to live with a photographer boyfriend for a while. We dated for a year and he featured me in his gallery shows in local bars and coffee houses in Spokane -- until a nude photograph of me showed up in a coffee house I was performing music at, without my permission! It was classy and artistic but still, not what I wanted someone focusing on when they're supposed to be listening to my music.
There were some other artists I met along way who I modeled for, not for pay but in the name of art and friendship. There were a few random craigslist gigs for a small amount of beans. And then one day, just before I left for a six month long music tour, when I was 31, I realized that I needed to get serious about modeling, so that it could be my day job, while I lived on the road. It turned out to be the perfect day job: I could set my own hours and rates, I could shoot during the day and play my music at night, and I could find modeling gigs in every major city, and some smaller ones, too.
Flash forward four years: At age 35, I was modeling almost full time, on top of doing social work full time, and as for my music... I guess you could say I worked part time as a musician, but lived and breathed music all the time. I went to New York three times last year. Even after supporting myself for six months with modeling on my music tour in 2012, and going back to modeling on nights and weekends five weeks after I had my son, and making a really good living at it for the last couple years, I still never imagined that I would be in New York one day, modeling and playing music!
My friend Rosalee was another instrumental figure in my modeling career. I met her two years ago at a photographer's home studio near Seattle, but she turned out to live in Portland, just like I do. She attached to me quickly as she did not know many other models in the area, but I, on the other hand, but was intimidated at first by her beauty and also her street smarts about the industry. We did become fast friends though, and she has been more generous with her modeling contacts than any other model I've met. Whenever she works with a photographer that she likes, she tells them about me. So it was her idea that I should come to New York with her, in February of 2016, to meet and work with people that she knew there. Everyone she knew turned out to be unavailable to shoot with us, but we made some new contacts. I got to shoot in my lingerie on the Brooklyn Bridge and down on the streets of Manhattan in the early morning hours on a windy, chilly winter day, but I knew that I'd get a shot or two that would make it all worth it, and I did.
I looked for a music gig for months before our trip and finally found a venue that was willing to host me, with a caveat: I needed to book three other artists and build the whole show myself! Though this was daunting at first, I didn't balk because I had done the same thing in other towns like Seattle and Olympia, where I don't know many other musicians, but was able to find contacts by doing my research on Reverbnation.com.
Rather than searching for popular artists in New York in general, I refined my search and looked for singers specifically in Brooklyn, where I'd be playing. I met several popular Brooklyn-based artists online and, if they couldn't play, they referred me to other people whom I should talk to. Eventually I got my dream bill together: A pop goddess with a great following, an indie folk hero who had been featured on a popular late night television show, and a nationally touring artist who arrived just in time to headline after her band had finished opening for Ozzy Osbourne!
Rosalee was working as a promo model at a party that was running late that night, so she couldn't come to the show with me. I took the subway and ate a giant slice of pizza on my way to the show. I wasn't sure if anyone would be in the audience, if patrons would file in later to see only the artists that they had already heard. But the room quickly filled up as I was plugging in cables and gearing up for soundcheck. Damn, I should've taken a beta blocker but now it's too late in the game, I realized. Neurotic as ever, I started my set promptly at 9 PM. The room was one of those pin-drop quiet scenes, and a dark sea of faces with white shining eyes was facing me, hands clapping and then quieting so that their ears could hear more. Voices laughing in just the right spots on the funny songs, faces somber but sympathetic during sad songs. Right where you want them. My stomach felt a punch that wasn't unpleasant, like a rush after you've taken a pill and you know that intense euphoria is imminent.
Euphoria finally settled in as I heard the final round of applause, unplugged my instruments, and headed to the bar for a whiskey. The stage fright had nowhere to go but away. I didn't have to worry about fucking up any longer; all I had to think about was relaxing, listening to the other artists, sipping my whiskey and getting offered more whiskeys - along with compliments - from the denizens of the bar.
It was only after I returned back to the hotel that I realized that I had been buzzing all night from the adrenaline of playing a great show and connecting with audience members. The hotel room was so much quieter than the loud, dive bar, with my girl friend sleeping and the air conditioner humming. I suddenly felt exhausted and I figured that it was from expending so much energy at the show, adjusting to East Coast time, having a few whiskeys. Plus it was after midnight when I settled into my hotel bed to rest before I would wake up in the early morning hours for the aforementioned Brooklyn Bridge shoot. Little did I know, I was coming down with strep throat. But somehow I made out at six in the morning, with my weak cup of hotel coffee, into the February cold and hailed a cab, like it was no big deal.
My Top Five, Part 3
The first thing I can remember about my third greatest gig of all time is playing Madlibs in the car with my parents and brother on the way from Ljubljana, Slovenia to Vienna, Austria. It is the way that many good tours start out. Usually I’m suggesting dirty words to old friends or my band-mate these days; but my family was the original Madlib crew. My brother Jake was only a teenager, so he was the only one really age-appropriate for this game, but it worked for the rest of our gang with our combined emotional maturity levels.
There was a border with no one working at it when we crossed countries. I found it strange, but my parents said this was normal for that part of Europe. I suggested that we go to lunch at Cafe Landtmann, rumored to have been a favorite of Freud’s, when we reached Vienna. We knew that we would all generously be fed a vegetarian meal at the venue that I’d be playing at later, so we all agreed on soups and sandwiches at the famous cafe beforehand. A large hummingbird danced before our table, and we oohed and ahhed... until we noticed that he had antennae! He must be an exotic bug! Would he sting us?! we wondered, and we all screamed like crazy Americans and made everyone stare.The first thing I can remember about my third greatest gig of all time is playing Madlibs in the car with my parents and brother on the way from Ljubljana, Slovenia to Vienna, Austria. It is the way that many good tours start out. Usually I’m suggesting dirty words to old friends or my band-mate these days; but my family was the original Madlib crew. My brother Jake was only a teenager, so he was the only one really age-appropriate for this game, but it worked for the rest of our gang with our combined emotional maturity levels.
There was a border with no one working at it when we crossed countries. I found it strange, but my parents said this was normal for that part of Europe. I suggested that we go to lunch at Cafe Landtmann, rumored to have been a favorite of Freud’s, when we reached Vienna. We knew that we would all generously be fed a vegetarian meal at the venue that I’d be playing at later, so we all agreed on soups and sandwiches at the famous cafe beforehand. A large hummingbird danced before our table, and we oohed and ahhed... until we noticed that he had antennae! He must be an exotic bug! Would he sting us?! we wondered, and we all screamed like crazy Americans and made everyone stare.
My parents, being fairly reasonable people, rented someone’s apartment for the night for themselves and my brother, but I’d been promised a room at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, where I’d be performing at later. I saw my parents’ nice two-story town-home before the show, and they insisted that I could stay with them, but I said, “No way, a spare room at a strange college in a foreign country where I don’t know anyone else sounds way better!”
We all headed to the venue, called Tuwi, at BOKU (the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences) around dinner time. I got my soundcheck done and then joined my family and some new friends for vegan pasta and bread on picnic tables outside. It was a warm night in June of 2010. After dinner, we all went back inside the venue where they served all of us beer, even my brother, who was 14 at the time, but in all fairness, was super tall and had a full beard. Everyone smoked cigarettes and joints on the dance floor and they even danced to my music, which was something I had only seen children do before! I opened the set by greeting them with “Willkommen zur show!”and then apologizing for not knowing anymore German. My brother was standing around smoking and my parents were teasing him to go hit on college chicks because he looked so much older. Then my mom took pictures and videos of me playing, and the crowd asked for an encore. I teased them that they didn’t know yet that it was uncool to like me in America, and my mother asked me never to tell a crowd that ever again.
After my set, a jam band played, and then a DJ. My family retired to their own space for the night, but not before offering to take me back with them again. I insisted that I would be fine in the conference room that the staff had found for me to sleep in... with just a mattress on the floor... and no lock on the door. Never would this fly for 30-something me. But for just barely still 20-something me, it was apparently kosher. My family left so I tried some weed which I almost never did back then when I didn’t know the difference in strains and why some of them made me freak out! Smoke, dance, smoke, dance, repeat, all night, is what I did.
There were two African dudes fighting over me, who were both very handsome, but I was married. I wore a locket with his picture inside of it on that tour to remind me of how married I was, and to feel less lonely. One of these gentleman worked for the venue and kept supplying me with free beers all night, but I had to cut myself off and ask to be shown to my room. He led me to my room and explained how there was no lock and that he would check on me later. I didn’t like the sound of that. He tried to make a move but I showed him my locket. He waved at the picture and let out a tiny, “hello!” before leaving me alone.
After he left, I barricaded myself in the room, moving every piece of furniture I could find in front of the door. I didn’t want him or anyone else to try to come find me! The man who had shown me to my room told me that I would be paid for my performance the following day. I woke up and was grateful to find that everything was still in its place and that it did not look like anyone had tried to come into the conference room. Rubbed my eyes, gathered my things, and headed to the bathroom... Argh, no shower! I wrestled my grungy, kinky hair into two dirty pigtails and brushed my teeth in the sink. Then I headed downstairs in search of coffee and money.
In the cold, clear light of day, Tuwi was tranformed from a crazy night club / vegan restaurant, to just an ordinary hippie coffeehouse. I approached the counter and found a man working there, who hadn’t been at the show the night before. “Entschuldigen sie... Guten morgen. Wo ist Bridget?” I asked him. Bridget had booked me and I’d been told that she’d be paying me as well, so I had said “excuse me, good morning” and asked the man at the front counter where Bridget was.
The barista launched into a lengthy explanation, using way more German words than I understood. Geez, I really hadn’t thought this through. I backed up and asked him if he spoke English. He chuckled and confirmed that he did.
He poured me a cup of coffee and called Bridget on his phone. He spoke to her in more German and then got off the phone and addressed me. “Apparently there was a misunderstanding. Bridget thought that you were paid last night.” My forehead crinkled in concern and I’m sure my voice got squeaky, too. I asserted that I had not yet been paid, and he asked me if I could wait a few hours for Bridget to come in. I explained that my family was picking me up and that I had a plane to catch back to London, to begin my long journey back to the States. There was no way I could wait, and I needed to be paid before I left town.
The barista was very understanding and called Bridget again. She agreed that he could pay me out of the till as long as I could sign a receipt to verify that I’d received my full pay. He handed over a pile of Euros and I signed, and heaved a sigh of relief. My parents had left me with an emergency cell since I didn’t have a cell phone of my own back then. I called my parents and asked them to come pick me up. They arrived shortly after and more Madlibs were transcribed. I gave my brother a copy of my favorite book, 1984, which I had finished reading for the second time on that trip.
My parents and brother dropped me off at the small Ljubljana airport before they returned to their home there. I had one last pint of my favorite local beer that I had discovered when I had been visiting them and chilling out for a few days in Slovenia in between tour stops. I was almost too tired and partied out to finish that one last beer. Almost.
I took a plane to London, a plane to somewhere in between, and finally a plane to Portland. My husband arrived at the airport to pick me up. He didn’t drive but he’d wanted to meet me there and help me get home by shuttle or max train. He brought me a bouquet of flowers, and asked me all about my trip. I’d been gone for a couple of weeks, maybe just a week and a half, but it felt like we’d been apart for so long.
We decided to take a shuttle and I chattered on about my trip. When we got off and started walking home, he warned me that he had something unpleasant to tell me, but that he had wanted for me to be excited about my trip and to share it with him first. It was one of the kindest things that anyone had ever done for me.
When we reached our apartment, he broke the news to me, that one of my closest friends had died a couple days before I got home. Vanessa had been killed in a work accident. While she was working and passed away during the day on June 24th, 2010, it was night time in Vienna, and I was high and drunk but mostly jacked up on the good feeling of playing, at that time, the best show of my career. It felt paradoxical and impossible that these two things had happened at the exact same time. And then I didn’t want it to be one of my favorite shows anymore, for a while. Vanessa had been a performer as well: she opened for friends’ bands occasionally; she didn’t seem to pursue it as fiercely as I did. I felt guilt for having just finished my first European tour, and for having achieved some local success as well; I was touring the NW every other weekend those days. It was unnecessary guilt, my husband pointed out. If she had wanted it as badly, she would’ve pursued it harder. He reminded me how much she had loved being a welder, and how she died doing what she loved. It brought me peace, and it was another one of the kindest things he’d ever done for me.
Another friend told me, you make a space for her on stage and bring her with you. That is what I do now. And my fruit-loopy, sober, mountain dew-drinking, dancing-her-ass-off-at- any-opportune-moment friend, Vanessa, would have loved me playing in Vienna and I know she wouldn’t want me to feel bad for having fun that night, when I had no way of knowing what was happening back home. So I remember this show, and I always remember my family’s company, my audience’s ebullient response, my husband’s acts of kindness... and my friend, dancing, high on caffeine, as if she’d been in the crowd, or is now dancing in space.
My parents, being fairly reasonable people, rented someone’s apartment for the night for themselves and my brother, but I’d been promised a room at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, where I’d be performing at later. I saw my parents’ nice two-story town-home before the show, and they insisted that I could stay with them, but I said, “No way, a spare room at a strange college in a foreign country where I don’t know anyone else sounds way better!”
We all headed to the venue, called Tuwi, at BOKU (the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences) around dinner time. I got my soundcheck done and then joined my family and some new friends for vegan pasta and bread on picnic tables outside. It was a warm night in June of 2010. After dinner, we all went back inside the venue where they served all of us beer, even my brother, who was 14 at the time, but in all fairness, was super tall and had a full beard. Everyone smoked cigarettes and joints on the dance floor and they even danced to my music, which was something I had only seen children do before! I opened the set by greeting them with “Willkommen zur show!”and then apologizing for not knowing anymore German. My brother was standing around smoking and my parents were teasing him to go hit on college chicks because he looked so much older. Then my mom took pictures and videos of me playing, and the crowd asked for an encore. I teased them that they didn’t know yet that it was uncool to like me in America, and my mother asked me never to tell a crowd that ever again.
After my set, a jam band played, and then a DJ. My family retired to their own space for the night, but not before offering to take me back with them again. I insisted that I would be fine in the conference room that the staff had found for me to sleep in... with just a mattress on the floor... and no lock on the door. Never would this fly for 30-something me. But for just barely still 20-something me, it was apparently kosher. My family left so I tried some weed which I almost never did back then when I didn’t know the difference in strains and why some of them made me freak out! Smoke, dance, smoke, dance, repeat, all night, is what I did.
There were two African dudes fighting over me, who were both very handsome, but I was married. I wore a locket with his picture inside of it on that tour to remind me of how married I was, and to feel less lonely. One of these gentleman worked for the venue and kept supplying me with free beers all night, but I had to cut myself off and ask to be shown to my room. He led me to my room and explained how there was no lock and that he would check on me later. I didn’t like the sound of that. He tried to make a move but I showed him my locket. He waved at the picture and let out a tiny, “hello!” before leaving me alone.
After he left, I barricaded myself in the room, moving every piece of furniture I could find in front of the door. I didn’t want him or anyone else to try to come find me! The man who had shown me to my room told me that I would be paid for my performance the following day. I woke up and was grateful to find that everything was still in its place and that it did not look like anyone had tried to come into the conference room. Rubbed my eyes, gathered my things, and headed to the bathroom... Argh, no shower! I wrestled my grungy, kinky hair into two dirty pigtails and brushed my teeth in the sink. Then I headed downstairs in search of coffee and money.
In the cold, clear light of day, Tuwi was tranformed from a crazy night club / vegan restaurant, to just an ordinary hippie coffeehouse. I approached the counter and found a man working there, who hadn’t been at the show the night before. “Entschuldigen sie... Guten morgen. Wo ist Bridget?” I asked him. Bridget had booked me and I’d been told that she’d be paying me as well, so I had said “excuse me, good morning” and asked the man at the front counter where Bridget was.
The barista launched into a lengthy explanation, using way more German words than I understood. Geez, I really hadn’t thought this through. I backed up and asked him if he spoke English. He chuckled and confirmed that he did.
He poured me a cup of coffee and called Bridget on his phone. He spoke to her in more German and then got off the phone and addressed me. “Apparently there was a misunderstanding. Bridget thought that you were paid last night.” My forehead crinkled in concern and I’m sure my voice got squeaky, too. I asserted that I had not yet been paid, and he asked me if I could wait a few hours for Bridget to come in. I explained that my family was picking me up and that I had a plane to catch back to London, to begin my long journey back to the States. There was no way I could wait, and I needed to be paid before I left town.
The barista was very understanding and called Bridget again. She agreed that he could pay me out of the till as long as I could sign a receipt to verify that I’d received my full pay. He handed over a pile of Euros and I signed, and heaved a sigh of relief. My parents had left me with an emergency cell since I didn’t have a cell phone of my own back then. I called my parents and asked them to come pick me up. They arrived shortly after and more Madlibs were transcribed. I gave my brother a copy of my favorite book, 1984, which I had finished reading for the second time on that trip.
My parents and brother dropped me off at the small Ljubljana airport before they returned to their home there. I had one last pint of my favorite local beer that I had discovered when I had been visiting them and chilling out for a few days in Slovenia in between tour stops. I was almost too tired and partied out to finish that one last beer. Almost. I took a plane to London, a plane to somewhere in between, and finally a plane to Portland. My husband arrived at the airport to pick me up. He didn’t drive but he’d wanted to meet me there and help me get home by shuttle or max train. He brought me a bouquet of flowers, and asked me all about my trip. I’d been gone for a couple of weeks, maybe just a week and a half, but it felt like we’d been apart for so long.
We decided to take a shuttle and I chattered on about my trip. When we got off and started walking home, he warned me that he had something unpleasant to tell me, but that he had wanted for me to be excited about my trip and to share it with him first. It was one of the kindest things that anyone had ever done for me.
When we reached our apartment, he broke the news to me, that one of my closest friends had died a couple days before I got home. Vanessa had been killed in a work accident. While she was working and passed away during the day on June 24th, 2010, it was night time in Vienna, and I was high and drunk but mostly jacked up on the good feeling of playing, at that time, the best show of my career. It felt paradoxical and impossible that these two things had happened at the exact same time. And then I didn’t want it to be one of my favorite shows anymore, for a while. Vanessa had been a performer as well: she opened for friends’ bands occasionally; she didn’t seem to pursue it as fiercely as I did. I felt guilt for having just finished my first European tour, and for having achieved some local success as well; I was touring the NW every other weekend those days. It was unnecessary guilt, my husband pointed out. If she had wanted it as badly, she would’ve pursued it harder. He reminded me how much she had loved being a welder, and how she died doing what she loved. It brought me peace, and it was another one of the kindest things he’d ever done for me.
Another friend told me, you make a space for her on stage and bring her with you. That is what I do now. And my fruit-loopy, sober, mountain dew-drinking, dancing-her-ass-off-at- any-opportune-moment friend, Vanessa, would have loved me playing in Vienna and I know she wouldn’t want me to feel bad for having fun that night, when I had no way of knowing what was happening back home. So I remember this show, and I always remember my family’s company, my audience’s ebullient response, my husband’s acts of kindness... and my friend, dancing, high on caffeine, as if she’d been in the crowd, or is now dancing in space.
There was a border with no one working at it when we crossed countries. I found it strange, but my parents said this was normal for that part of Europe. I suggested that we go to lunch at Cafe Landtmann, rumored to have been a favorite of Freud’s, when we reached Vienna. We knew that we would all generously be fed a vegetarian meal at the venue that I’d be playing at later, so we all agreed on soups and sandwiches at the famous cafe beforehand. A large hummingbird danced before our table, and we oohed and ahhed... until we noticed that he had antennae! He must be an exotic bug! Would he sting us?! we wondered, and we all screamed like crazy Americans and made everyone stare.The first thing I can remember about my third greatest gig of all time is playing Madlibs in the car with my parents and brother on the way from Ljubljana, Slovenia to Vienna, Austria. It is the way that many good tours start out. Usually I’m suggesting dirty words to old friends or my band-mate these days; but my family was the original Madlib crew. My brother Jake was only a teenager, so he was the only one really age-appropriate for this game, but it worked for the rest of our gang with our combined emotional maturity levels.
There was a border with no one working at it when we crossed countries. I found it strange, but my parents said this was normal for that part of Europe. I suggested that we go to lunch at Cafe Landtmann, rumored to have been a favorite of Freud’s, when we reached Vienna. We knew that we would all generously be fed a vegetarian meal at the venue that I’d be playing at later, so we all agreed on soups and sandwiches at the famous cafe beforehand. A large hummingbird danced before our table, and we oohed and ahhed... until we noticed that he had antennae! He must be an exotic bug! Would he sting us?! we wondered, and we all screamed like crazy Americans and made everyone stare.
My parents, being fairly reasonable people, rented someone’s apartment for the night for themselves and my brother, but I’d been promised a room at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, where I’d be performing at later. I saw my parents’ nice two-story town-home before the show, and they insisted that I could stay with them, but I said, “No way, a spare room at a strange college in a foreign country where I don’t know anyone else sounds way better!”
We all headed to the venue, called Tuwi, at BOKU (the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences) around dinner time. I got my soundcheck done and then joined my family and some new friends for vegan pasta and bread on picnic tables outside. It was a warm night in June of 2010. After dinner, we all went back inside the venue where they served all of us beer, even my brother, who was 14 at the time, but in all fairness, was super tall and had a full beard. Everyone smoked cigarettes and joints on the dance floor and they even danced to my music, which was something I had only seen children do before! I opened the set by greeting them with “Willkommen zur show!”and then apologizing for not knowing anymore German. My brother was standing around smoking and my parents were teasing him to go hit on college chicks because he looked so much older. Then my mom took pictures and videos of me playing, and the crowd asked for an encore. I teased them that they didn’t know yet that it was uncool to like me in America, and my mother asked me never to tell a crowd that ever again.
After my set, a jam band played, and then a DJ. My family retired to their own space for the night, but not before offering to take me back with them again. I insisted that I would be fine in the conference room that the staff had found for me to sleep in... with just a mattress on the floor... and no lock on the door. Never would this fly for 30-something me. But for just barely still 20-something me, it was apparently kosher. My family left so I tried some weed which I almost never did back then when I didn’t know the difference in strains and why some of them made me freak out! Smoke, dance, smoke, dance, repeat, all night, is what I did.
There were two African dudes fighting over me, who were both very handsome, but I was married. I wore a locket with his picture inside of it on that tour to remind me of how married I was, and to feel less lonely. One of these gentleman worked for the venue and kept supplying me with free beers all night, but I had to cut myself off and ask to be shown to my room. He led me to my room and explained how there was no lock and that he would check on me later. I didn’t like the sound of that. He tried to make a move but I showed him my locket. He waved at the picture and let out a tiny, “hello!” before leaving me alone.
After he left, I barricaded myself in the room, moving every piece of furniture I could find in front of the door. I didn’t want him or anyone else to try to come find me! The man who had shown me to my room told me that I would be paid for my performance the following day. I woke up and was grateful to find that everything was still in its place and that it did not look like anyone had tried to come into the conference room. Rubbed my eyes, gathered my things, and headed to the bathroom... Argh, no shower! I wrestled my grungy, kinky hair into two dirty pigtails and brushed my teeth in the sink. Then I headed downstairs in search of coffee and money.
In the cold, clear light of day, Tuwi was tranformed from a crazy night club / vegan restaurant, to just an ordinary hippie coffeehouse. I approached the counter and found a man working there, who hadn’t been at the show the night before. “Entschuldigen sie... Guten morgen. Wo ist Bridget?” I asked him. Bridget had booked me and I’d been told that she’d be paying me as well, so I had said “excuse me, good morning” and asked the man at the front counter where Bridget was.
The barista launched into a lengthy explanation, using way more German words than I understood. Geez, I really hadn’t thought this through. I backed up and asked him if he spoke English. He chuckled and confirmed that he did.
He poured me a cup of coffee and called Bridget on his phone. He spoke to her in more German and then got off the phone and addressed me. “Apparently there was a misunderstanding. Bridget thought that you were paid last night.” My forehead crinkled in concern and I’m sure my voice got squeaky, too. I asserted that I had not yet been paid, and he asked me if I could wait a few hours for Bridget to come in. I explained that my family was picking me up and that I had a plane to catch back to London, to begin my long journey back to the States. There was no way I could wait, and I needed to be paid before I left town.
The barista was very understanding and called Bridget again. She agreed that he could pay me out of the till as long as I could sign a receipt to verify that I’d received my full pay. He handed over a pile of Euros and I signed, and heaved a sigh of relief. My parents had left me with an emergency cell since I didn’t have a cell phone of my own back then. I called my parents and asked them to come pick me up. They arrived shortly after and more Madlibs were transcribed. I gave my brother a copy of my favorite book, 1984, which I had finished reading for the second time on that trip.
My parents and brother dropped me off at the small Ljubljana airport before they returned to their home there. I had one last pint of my favorite local beer that I had discovered when I had been visiting them and chilling out for a few days in Slovenia in between tour stops. I was almost too tired and partied out to finish that one last beer. Almost.
I took a plane to London, a plane to somewhere in between, and finally a plane to Portland. My husband arrived at the airport to pick me up. He didn’t drive but he’d wanted to meet me there and help me get home by shuttle or max train. He brought me a bouquet of flowers, and asked me all about my trip. I’d been gone for a couple of weeks, maybe just a week and a half, but it felt like we’d been apart for so long.
We decided to take a shuttle and I chattered on about my trip. When we got off and started walking home, he warned me that he had something unpleasant to tell me, but that he had wanted for me to be excited about my trip and to share it with him first. It was one of the kindest things that anyone had ever done for me.
When we reached our apartment, he broke the news to me, that one of my closest friends had died a couple days before I got home. Vanessa had been killed in a work accident. While she was working and passed away during the day on June 24th, 2010, it was night time in Vienna, and I was high and drunk but mostly jacked up on the good feeling of playing, at that time, the best show of my career. It felt paradoxical and impossible that these two things had happened at the exact same time. And then I didn’t want it to be one of my favorite shows anymore, for a while. Vanessa had been a performer as well: she opened for friends’ bands occasionally; she didn’t seem to pursue it as fiercely as I did. I felt guilt for having just finished my first European tour, and for having achieved some local success as well; I was touring the NW every other weekend those days. It was unnecessary guilt, my husband pointed out. If she had wanted it as badly, she would’ve pursued it harder. He reminded me how much she had loved being a welder, and how she died doing what she loved. It brought me peace, and it was another one of the kindest things he’d ever done for me.
Another friend told me, you make a space for her on stage and bring her with you. That is what I do now. And my fruit-loopy, sober, mountain dew-drinking, dancing-her-ass-off-at- any-opportune-moment friend, Vanessa, would have loved me playing in Vienna and I know she wouldn’t want me to feel bad for having fun that night, when I had no way of knowing what was happening back home. So I remember this show, and I always remember my family’s company, my audience’s ebullient response, my husband’s acts of kindness... and my friend, dancing, high on caffeine, as if she’d been in the crowd, or is now dancing in space.
My parents, being fairly reasonable people, rented someone’s apartment for the night for themselves and my brother, but I’d been promised a room at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, where I’d be performing at later. I saw my parents’ nice two-story town-home before the show, and they insisted that I could stay with them, but I said, “No way, a spare room at a strange college in a foreign country where I don’t know anyone else sounds way better!”
We all headed to the venue, called Tuwi, at BOKU (the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences) around dinner time. I got my soundcheck done and then joined my family and some new friends for vegan pasta and bread on picnic tables outside. It was a warm night in June of 2010. After dinner, we all went back inside the venue where they served all of us beer, even my brother, who was 14 at the time, but in all fairness, was super tall and had a full beard. Everyone smoked cigarettes and joints on the dance floor and they even danced to my music, which was something I had only seen children do before! I opened the set by greeting them with “Willkommen zur show!”and then apologizing for not knowing anymore German. My brother was standing around smoking and my parents were teasing him to go hit on college chicks because he looked so much older. Then my mom took pictures and videos of me playing, and the crowd asked for an encore. I teased them that they didn’t know yet that it was uncool to like me in America, and my mother asked me never to tell a crowd that ever again.
After my set, a jam band played, and then a DJ. My family retired to their own space for the night, but not before offering to take me back with them again. I insisted that I would be fine in the conference room that the staff had found for me to sleep in... with just a mattress on the floor... and no lock on the door. Never would this fly for 30-something me. But for just barely still 20-something me, it was apparently kosher. My family left so I tried some weed which I almost never did back then when I didn’t know the difference in strains and why some of them made me freak out! Smoke, dance, smoke, dance, repeat, all night, is what I did.
There were two African dudes fighting over me, who were both very handsome, but I was married. I wore a locket with his picture inside of it on that tour to remind me of how married I was, and to feel less lonely. One of these gentleman worked for the venue and kept supplying me with free beers all night, but I had to cut myself off and ask to be shown to my room. He led me to my room and explained how there was no lock and that he would check on me later. I didn’t like the sound of that. He tried to make a move but I showed him my locket. He waved at the picture and let out a tiny, “hello!” before leaving me alone.
After he left, I barricaded myself in the room, moving every piece of furniture I could find in front of the door. I didn’t want him or anyone else to try to come find me! The man who had shown me to my room told me that I would be paid for my performance the following day. I woke up and was grateful to find that everything was still in its place and that it did not look like anyone had tried to come into the conference room. Rubbed my eyes, gathered my things, and headed to the bathroom... Argh, no shower! I wrestled my grungy, kinky hair into two dirty pigtails and brushed my teeth in the sink. Then I headed downstairs in search of coffee and money.
In the cold, clear light of day, Tuwi was tranformed from a crazy night club / vegan restaurant, to just an ordinary hippie coffeehouse. I approached the counter and found a man working there, who hadn’t been at the show the night before. “Entschuldigen sie... Guten morgen. Wo ist Bridget?” I asked him. Bridget had booked me and I’d been told that she’d be paying me as well, so I had said “excuse me, good morning” and asked the man at the front counter where Bridget was.
The barista launched into a lengthy explanation, using way more German words than I understood. Geez, I really hadn’t thought this through. I backed up and asked him if he spoke English. He chuckled and confirmed that he did.
He poured me a cup of coffee and called Bridget on his phone. He spoke to her in more German and then got off the phone and addressed me. “Apparently there was a misunderstanding. Bridget thought that you were paid last night.” My forehead crinkled in concern and I’m sure my voice got squeaky, too. I asserted that I had not yet been paid, and he asked me if I could wait a few hours for Bridget to come in. I explained that my family was picking me up and that I had a plane to catch back to London, to begin my long journey back to the States. There was no way I could wait, and I needed to be paid before I left town.
The barista was very understanding and called Bridget again. She agreed that he could pay me out of the till as long as I could sign a receipt to verify that I’d received my full pay. He handed over a pile of Euros and I signed, and heaved a sigh of relief. My parents had left me with an emergency cell since I didn’t have a cell phone of my own back then. I called my parents and asked them to come pick me up. They arrived shortly after and more Madlibs were transcribed. I gave my brother a copy of my favorite book, 1984, which I had finished reading for the second time on that trip.
My parents and brother dropped me off at the small Ljubljana airport before they returned to their home there. I had one last pint of my favorite local beer that I had discovered when I had been visiting them and chilling out for a few days in Slovenia in between tour stops. I was almost too tired and partied out to finish that one last beer. Almost. I took a plane to London, a plane to somewhere in between, and finally a plane to Portland. My husband arrived at the airport to pick me up. He didn’t drive but he’d wanted to meet me there and help me get home by shuttle or max train. He brought me a bouquet of flowers, and asked me all about my trip. I’d been gone for a couple of weeks, maybe just a week and a half, but it felt like we’d been apart for so long.
We decided to take a shuttle and I chattered on about my trip. When we got off and started walking home, he warned me that he had something unpleasant to tell me, but that he had wanted for me to be excited about my trip and to share it with him first. It was one of the kindest things that anyone had ever done for me.
When we reached our apartment, he broke the news to me, that one of my closest friends had died a couple days before I got home. Vanessa had been killed in a work accident. While she was working and passed away during the day on June 24th, 2010, it was night time in Vienna, and I was high and drunk but mostly jacked up on the good feeling of playing, at that time, the best show of my career. It felt paradoxical and impossible that these two things had happened at the exact same time. And then I didn’t want it to be one of my favorite shows anymore, for a while. Vanessa had been a performer as well: she opened for friends’ bands occasionally; she didn’t seem to pursue it as fiercely as I did. I felt guilt for having just finished my first European tour, and for having achieved some local success as well; I was touring the NW every other weekend those days. It was unnecessary guilt, my husband pointed out. If she had wanted it as badly, she would’ve pursued it harder. He reminded me how much she had loved being a welder, and how she died doing what she loved. It brought me peace, and it was another one of the kindest things he’d ever done for me.
Another friend told me, you make a space for her on stage and bring her with you. That is what I do now. And my fruit-loopy, sober, mountain dew-drinking, dancing-her-ass-off-at- any-opportune-moment friend, Vanessa, would have loved me playing in Vienna and I know she wouldn’t want me to feel bad for having fun that night, when I had no way of knowing what was happening back home. So I remember this show, and I always remember my family’s company, my audience’s ebullient response, my husband’s acts of kindness... and my friend, dancing, high on caffeine, as if she’d been in the crowd, or is now dancing in space.
Thursday, February 16, 2017
My Top Five, Part 2
My fourth most favorite show of all time took place in Amsterdam at the end of 2011, on my second European tour. I went to visit my family in the Hague, and then they delivered me to Amsterdam, where I flew out of on the following day. I remember it being an icy cold, windy day. The sky was gray and people were riding bikes everywhere and smoking pot all over the place, so I felt like I was right at home in Portland in some ways. But all of the buildings were older, and there were little canals and foot bridges and pot cafes that reminded you that you were somewhere else.
My family stood in line with me for one and a half, maybe two hours, outside in the freezing cold, waiting to get into the Anne Frank Museum. It was a touching act of kindness, since they had already been there, but they knew I wanted to go in. It was an incredible, grotesque and raw but important experience, going through and seeing these artifacts and proof of one of the most horrifying things that has happened in our history.
After we left the museum, we had dinner at the Hard Rock Amsterdam, because my family is American, so they like those old familiar comforts like chain restaurants. I don’t mind the Hard Rock at all, because I love seeing the memorabelia, and they usually have at least a veggie burger I can eat.
After dinner, my parents and brother needed to get back to the Hague; it was getting late. They dropped me off at my hotel, and I found another closet room waiting for me. It was clean and affordable so I had no complaints. I didn’t have a cell phone back then, so I had printed a map from the hotel to the train to the venue before I left my parents’ house. I had studied Dutch for a few months prior to my trip, to learn to say things like, “excuse me”, “hello”, “do you speak English” and “where is this?”
I got off of my train and was supposed to be looking out for the venue near a long bridge. I didn’t see it anywhere near the foot of the bridge, so I asked some passerby in Dutch, “excuse me, do you speak English? No? OK, where is this?” and pointed at my map. No one had seemed to have heard of this venue I was supposed to be playing. I started to get worried: I’d left with plenty of time to get to the venue early, but I hadn’t planned for getting this lost. Now I was walking back and forth across the bridge, looking for anything that vaguely resembled a bar. Asking people in Dutch, “where is this?” Asking some people who spoke Spanish, in the Spanish I know, which is very little and muy malo. “No se,” they responded.
I found some people who spoke English to ask for directions, but they were tourists, so they had no idea where anything was either. Seeing a line of house boats near the foot of the bridge, I took a chance. Roaming in the dark, passing boat after boat, felt futile. Then suddenly, I came across a boat with Christmas lights all over it and beer signs in the window. I noticed a small sign on the door that said, “Hannekes Boom”. This was it! I rushed into the venue, checking my watch just before I checked in at the bar. Oof, eight o’clock already! I never show up right when the show is meant to start; I always arrive early, to set up, so I felt pretty embarassed rolling in at 8.
“Don’t worry about it! Relax, have a beer!” said the bartender. She poured me a beer, asked me if I had any merchandise that I wanted to leave on the counter for her to sell for me. I hadn’t gone in with the proper working papers, but, being that it was the holiday season, I had figured out that if I wraped a pile of my own CDs in wrapping paper, customs would think they were just a gift. So I unwrapped my CDs and left them on the counter, selling out of the whole pile later that night.
I was opening for a jam band, and they had their own photographer with them. They had already set up their gear before I took the stage. I started playing my guitar and singing. Got about half way into set, when, one by one, members of the jam band began joining me on stage, without any provocation for me, and began playing their instruments along with my music. It felt serendipitous because they were all so tight and played so well by ear that they sounded like the back up band that I should have brought!
The band’s photographer took photos and we danced to the jam band together after my set. Everyone else in the room was just standing and nodding their heads slightly. “Why aren’t they dancing?” I asked Friso, the photographer. “ “They are Dutch,” he replied. “This is how they dance.”
“Ahh, I understand,” I said, thinking about white guys at concerts in Portland. Friso helped me through a hail storm and back to my hotel when the jam band was finished playing. I flew back to Portland the next morning, still buzzing from the warm reception in Amsterdam the night before. It was New Year’s Eve when I got home, and I was on my way to celebrate with my then-estranged-husband, and to start an exciting new chapter. The next year would bring a reconciliation, a six-month-long tour in the US, and a baby. What if I’d known when I was about to board that plane back to States? Would I have run toward it, or sat frozen, immobilized by the weight of the responsibility that all of those beautiful things would bring?
My family stood in line with me for one and a half, maybe two hours, outside in the freezing cold, waiting to get into the Anne Frank Museum. It was a touching act of kindness, since they had already been there, but they knew I wanted to go in. It was an incredible, grotesque and raw but important experience, going through and seeing these artifacts and proof of one of the most horrifying things that has happened in our history.
After we left the museum, we had dinner at the Hard Rock Amsterdam, because my family is American, so they like those old familiar comforts like chain restaurants. I don’t mind the Hard Rock at all, because I love seeing the memorabelia, and they usually have at least a veggie burger I can eat.
After dinner, my parents and brother needed to get back to the Hague; it was getting late. They dropped me off at my hotel, and I found another closet room waiting for me. It was clean and affordable so I had no complaints. I didn’t have a cell phone back then, so I had printed a map from the hotel to the train to the venue before I left my parents’ house. I had studied Dutch for a few months prior to my trip, to learn to say things like, “excuse me”, “hello”, “do you speak English” and “where is this?”
I got off of my train and was supposed to be looking out for the venue near a long bridge. I didn’t see it anywhere near the foot of the bridge, so I asked some passerby in Dutch, “excuse me, do you speak English? No? OK, where is this?” and pointed at my map. No one had seemed to have heard of this venue I was supposed to be playing. I started to get worried: I’d left with plenty of time to get to the venue early, but I hadn’t planned for getting this lost. Now I was walking back and forth across the bridge, looking for anything that vaguely resembled a bar. Asking people in Dutch, “where is this?” Asking some people who spoke Spanish, in the Spanish I know, which is very little and muy malo. “No se,” they responded.
I found some people who spoke English to ask for directions, but they were tourists, so they had no idea where anything was either. Seeing a line of house boats near the foot of the bridge, I took a chance. Roaming in the dark, passing boat after boat, felt futile. Then suddenly, I came across a boat with Christmas lights all over it and beer signs in the window. I noticed a small sign on the door that said, “Hannekes Boom”. This was it! I rushed into the venue, checking my watch just before I checked in at the bar. Oof, eight o’clock already! I never show up right when the show is meant to start; I always arrive early, to set up, so I felt pretty embarassed rolling in at 8.
“Don’t worry about it! Relax, have a beer!” said the bartender. She poured me a beer, asked me if I had any merchandise that I wanted to leave on the counter for her to sell for me. I hadn’t gone in with the proper working papers, but, being that it was the holiday season, I had figured out that if I wraped a pile of my own CDs in wrapping paper, customs would think they were just a gift. So I unwrapped my CDs and left them on the counter, selling out of the whole pile later that night.
I was opening for a jam band, and they had their own photographer with them. They had already set up their gear before I took the stage. I started playing my guitar and singing. Got about half way into set, when, one by one, members of the jam band began joining me on stage, without any provocation for me, and began playing their instruments along with my music. It felt serendipitous because they were all so tight and played so well by ear that they sounded like the back up band that I should have brought!
The band’s photographer took photos and we danced to the jam band together after my set. Everyone else in the room was just standing and nodding their heads slightly. “Why aren’t they dancing?” I asked Friso, the photographer. “ “They are Dutch,” he replied. “This is how they dance.”
“Ahh, I understand,” I said, thinking about white guys at concerts in Portland. Friso helped me through a hail storm and back to my hotel when the jam band was finished playing. I flew back to Portland the next morning, still buzzing from the warm reception in Amsterdam the night before. It was New Year’s Eve when I got home, and I was on my way to celebrate with my then-estranged-husband, and to start an exciting new chapter. The next year would bring a reconciliation, a six-month-long tour in the US, and a baby. What if I’d known when I was about to board that plane back to States? Would I have run toward it, or sat frozen, immobilized by the weight of the responsibility that all of those beautiful things would bring?
Tuesday, February 14, 2017
My Top Five, Part 1
People always ask me what my favorite performance was so far. But I am a list-marker so I have a top five. I want to record it here, so that I don’t forget one day, when I am old.
5. London, first European tour, in 2010: 10 years after I’d moved away, I returned to the city where I had lived for two years (end of high school/first and only year of college; I’d gone through a certificate program instead of doing four years). I had other places to visit on the trip, but I needed to be back in London first. London and Portland are my favorite places that I’ve ever lived, so I supposed I love places with gloomy weather, despite my seasonal affective disorder. In the middle of my long voyage, I switched planes somewhere. After having gone through the trouble of requesting vegetarian meals for each flight, and sleeping through the first flight, I was finally going to eat. A flight attendant brought me a sandwich. I was mid-sandwich, wondering, how did they slice this tofu so thin?, when I noticed on the wrapper it did not say “vegetarian”, but was marked “kosher/Muslim”. Yep, I was eating meat. And I was a hardcore vegan at the time (and not the sloppy vegetarian that I am now).
The second flight was the longest but I couldn’t sleep: I was getting too excited to be back in London and perform there for the first time (besides an a cappella performance I did at an open mic once when I lived there). After I arrived, I quickly found the train so that I could find my hotel and drop off my suitcase. My hotel was charmingly antiquated, and my room was the size of a closet. My shower was right over my toilet, and I’d never seen that before, but I was happier than a pig a shit, so who needs a shower? I was back in London, and I was on my first European music tour.
After dropping off my bag, I took my ukulele and hopped on the tube, and headed to the venue. It was June, and when I stepped outside I found that it was unusually warm and sunny. I had to take off my sweater! Everyone from around those parts can attest that you only get two days a year that are warm and sunny and not grey and foggy, and so I thanked my lucky stars.
By the time I got to the venue and started drinking my pre-show beer, I realized that I had been awake and not eating for 24 hours straight! My body did not know what time it was or when to feed it, because of changing time zones. Thankfully I didn’t get messed up from the combination of drinking one beer on an empty stomach. I nailed my performance, and even had the guts to play a very personal, and, at the time, brand new song, called “S&M”. Everyone in the pub was quiet and staring at me. It was the highest compliment: after having lived in London, I was more accustomed to the locals being quiet and extremely civilized on the streets during the day, and then getting loud and wild in the pubs at night. I was so flattered that they were quiet and took in everything I had to say. Afterwards many denizens of the pub asked me for CDs but regrettably I hadn’t figured out how to smuggle them into another country without paying for a work permit (more on that later). Many of them told me how brave they thought I was, to be singing about my sexual feelings, wearing sexy clothes, traveling alone, not having a back-up band to keep me company... Yikes! I thought, good points! It was midnight then, I realized. Time to take the tube back to my hotel and sleep, and head to Italy for the first time the next morning. A violinist from the opening band helped me find the right train to take.
Back in my closet room in some sketchy part of London I’d never visited before that afternoon, I tried to eat some falafel I’d bought from a little diner on my way back, but it was truly awful falafel. It was too hard to bite into. I turned on the TV, feeling wired, not knowing how I’d sleep when my internal clock still didn’t know what time it was. Then I found BBC news and it was like an old relative had come to read me a bedtime story: so soothing and familiar. I left it on and drifted off. I visited Piccadilly Circus quickly the next day since I hadn’t had time for any tourist activities when I was working and commuting the day before. And then I caught a quick puddle-jumper to Milan, the first place I would ever go where they didn’t speak my language. I had studied Italian off and on my whole life, but nothing prepared me for being surrounded by strangers who were only speaking Italian and not English. I got the worst culture shock... and then got drunk enough to get over it, and speak about a toddler’s level of Italian to all the hungry men who were out at the bars... but that is a story for another day.
5. London, first European tour, in 2010: 10 years after I’d moved away, I returned to the city where I had lived for two years (end of high school/first and only year of college; I’d gone through a certificate program instead of doing four years). I had other places to visit on the trip, but I needed to be back in London first. London and Portland are my favorite places that I’ve ever lived, so I supposed I love places with gloomy weather, despite my seasonal affective disorder. In the middle of my long voyage, I switched planes somewhere. After having gone through the trouble of requesting vegetarian meals for each flight, and sleeping through the first flight, I was finally going to eat. A flight attendant brought me a sandwich. I was mid-sandwich, wondering, how did they slice this tofu so thin?, when I noticed on the wrapper it did not say “vegetarian”, but was marked “kosher/Muslim”. Yep, I was eating meat. And I was a hardcore vegan at the time (and not the sloppy vegetarian that I am now).
The second flight was the longest but I couldn’t sleep: I was getting too excited to be back in London and perform there for the first time (besides an a cappella performance I did at an open mic once when I lived there). After I arrived, I quickly found the train so that I could find my hotel and drop off my suitcase. My hotel was charmingly antiquated, and my room was the size of a closet. My shower was right over my toilet, and I’d never seen that before, but I was happier than a pig a shit, so who needs a shower? I was back in London, and I was on my first European music tour.
After dropping off my bag, I took my ukulele and hopped on the tube, and headed to the venue. It was June, and when I stepped outside I found that it was unusually warm and sunny. I had to take off my sweater! Everyone from around those parts can attest that you only get two days a year that are warm and sunny and not grey and foggy, and so I thanked my lucky stars.
By the time I got to the venue and started drinking my pre-show beer, I realized that I had been awake and not eating for 24 hours straight! My body did not know what time it was or when to feed it, because of changing time zones. Thankfully I didn’t get messed up from the combination of drinking one beer on an empty stomach. I nailed my performance, and even had the guts to play a very personal, and, at the time, brand new song, called “S&M”. Everyone in the pub was quiet and staring at me. It was the highest compliment: after having lived in London, I was more accustomed to the locals being quiet and extremely civilized on the streets during the day, and then getting loud and wild in the pubs at night. I was so flattered that they were quiet and took in everything I had to say. Afterwards many denizens of the pub asked me for CDs but regrettably I hadn’t figured out how to smuggle them into another country without paying for a work permit (more on that later). Many of them told me how brave they thought I was, to be singing about my sexual feelings, wearing sexy clothes, traveling alone, not having a back-up band to keep me company... Yikes! I thought, good points! It was midnight then, I realized. Time to take the tube back to my hotel and sleep, and head to Italy for the first time the next morning. A violinist from the opening band helped me find the right train to take.
Back in my closet room in some sketchy part of London I’d never visited before that afternoon, I tried to eat some falafel I’d bought from a little diner on my way back, but it was truly awful falafel. It was too hard to bite into. I turned on the TV, feeling wired, not knowing how I’d sleep when my internal clock still didn’t know what time it was. Then I found BBC news and it was like an old relative had come to read me a bedtime story: so soothing and familiar. I left it on and drifted off. I visited Piccadilly Circus quickly the next day since I hadn’t had time for any tourist activities when I was working and commuting the day before. And then I caught a quick puddle-jumper to Milan, the first place I would ever go where they didn’t speak my language. I had studied Italian off and on my whole life, but nothing prepared me for being surrounded by strangers who were only speaking Italian and not English. I got the worst culture shock... and then got drunk enough to get over it, and speak about a toddler’s level of Italian to all the hungry men who were out at the bars... but that is a story for another day.
Friday, September 13, 2013
Akimbo
Here is one of my poems, which was originally published in Flatmancrooked's Slim Volume of Contemporary Poetics:
Akimbo
by Amy Bleu
I don’t like what you stand for
But I like the way you stand there
Arms akimbo
Dominating
Every space you inhabit
Confident enough to conquer
Every creature
Who extends a tender arm
Tentative as a tendril
In the vain hope
Of reaching
You.
Akimbo
by Amy Bleu
I don’t like what you stand for
But I like the way you stand there
Arms akimbo
Dominating
Every space you inhabit
Confident enough to conquer
Every creature
Who extends a tender arm
Tentative as a tendril
In the vain hope
Of reaching
You.
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Miss Fireball
I'm on a bus headed east, from the coast back to Portland. I've made my cup of coffee last from Astoria all the way to Cannon Beach, where the bus is currently pulling in so the driver can let a few people off. Yesterday I left Sebastien at home with my husband and a bunch of milk, and the first thing I decided to do when I got to Astoria was drink as much coffee as I wanted. I asked the girl who ran the the hotel/hostel if she could recommend a good coffee place.
"Well," she started, her big green eyes lighting up, "the coffee at 14th Street Coffee makes my heart sing!" She gave me directions and then finished checking me in. She handed me two keys on a ring. One, she said, was for the front door of the hotel. "I like to lock the door at about seven, to keep the crazies out, because that's important to me," she said in a cheerful voice. With her wide-eyed sincerity, she reminded me of a red-haired Zooey Deschanel. I took the keys, dropped off my bags in my room, and then headed out to find this coffee place she had touted. As I passed the front desk again I heard her telling another guest, in her bubbly voice, "Yeah, I'm almost finished with my funeral services degree and then I'm totally going to be embalming people." I ended up coming and going all day, and, every time I passed this lady, she flashed me a huge smile, but I kept envisioning her working on corpses.
I got a cafe au lait at 14th Street and the girl was right: it was damn fine coffee. I spilled a little bit on my dress. I hadn't brought another dress, just some boring clothes to wear home on the bus. I had thought, I'm not bringing the kid! I don't need to bring anything extra! Oh well. This was a great excuse to go shopping. I wandered into a place called Lola's and found a nice, maroon dress that wasn't very expensive. I took it back to the hotel so I could change and then practice my songs.
Even though I had a private room, it was a shared bathroom kind of situation. I took a break from practicing guitar and headed to the nearest bathroom. The door was closed but it said vacant on it, so I turned the knob. First I saw a pregnancy test on the floor, then a woman sitting on the floor, and then I saw the man sitting on the floor behind her, just for a second before he slammed the door shut. I couldn't believe my bad timing!
I decided to head out to the Fort George Brewery to work on my set list and have a beer. I had been to Astoria twice before, as a tourist, and I always like to go this brewery. Then at about seven, I walked over to the venue I was going to perform at. The owner was there and he was the person who had booked me as well, so I was glad to get to meet him and thank him in person. His wife was working there, too, and they really took care of me, giving me a large meal and copious amounts of booze. I started my first set with a beer, then started in on a pina colada during my second set. The crowd was great. They were mostly middle aged so I modified my set list on the fly in the hope of keeping them entertained. Bump up Fleetwood Mac, scratch Lady Gaga, add Johnny Cash. They seemed to dig it. I played some originals too. I guess it was the booze but I was feeling overly honest. Whenever I started telling a story between songs I'd think, Why am I sharing this? I played "Wear You Well", and then said, "Last year when I got pregnant I was playing songs like that one on the road, songs that were kinda racy, and I thought, 'Well, I'll have to stop singing some of these songs because I'm gonna be a mom.'" The crowd laughed. I went on. "Then I realized I was still gonna be a person, I'm still a woman." The audience applauded this, and one table of guys started saying things like, "And you're sexy, too!" Uh-oh, steer clear of those guys after the show.
I went up to the bar after my last set, intending to have one more drink. The owner was pouring for the guys at the table I was avoiding. It was a yellow liquor that didn't look familiar to me. I asked the bartender what it was. "Moonshine," he said, and then he poured a fourth shot and passed it to me. "Alright!" I said at first. "I've never tried this stuff!" But then I began to get nervous.
Another guy who worked there, Steve, was sitting at the bar with the owner's wife. He said to me, "It's good stuff!"
I admitted I was kind of scared. "I have seen this stuff really mess people up."
"Don't be scared," Steve said. "You'll be fine, I promise. Just do it!"
I threw it back. It was surprisingly sweet. Steve told me how he'd invented a drink at this bar, called the Fuck You Steve. "It's moonshine and tequila. I told the boss to mix them together and drink it, so he does it and then he goes, 'Fuck you, Steve, that's really good!'" We all laughed at this.
I told Steve, "I can't drink tequila. I did it once and it made me black out. Before that I just felt like I was high, not drunk."
The owner came back after serving the table full of men. "Well, half your songs sounded like they were about getting high! You must actually drink a lot of tequila," he teased. "What'll you have now?" he asked me.
I looked around the bar and noticed that they had fireball. I asked for a little bit of that. He poured me a shot in a tumbler glass. We stood there extolling the greatness of fireball whiskey. Then the owner stopped talking and asked the table full of guys, "Do I have something on my face? Why do you keep looking over here?"
"No, man," one of them responded, "we weren't looking at you, we were just looking at the fireball."
Steve leaned over to me and said, "I don't think they were talking about your drink." Maybe I am a fireball, I thought, but not in any way that they'll ever know.
I waited a while, let the creepers drive off first before leaving. Then I said goodnight to all the staff and grabbed my instruments, teetered back to the hotel in my heels. I unlocked the front door to the hotel. Some guy was asking me for help getting in, but at first I didn't realize that he was talking to me, as he'd addressed me as ma'am. My name isn't ma'am: it's Miss Fireball to you.
"Well," she started, her big green eyes lighting up, "the coffee at 14th Street Coffee makes my heart sing!" She gave me directions and then finished checking me in. She handed me two keys on a ring. One, she said, was for the front door of the hotel. "I like to lock the door at about seven, to keep the crazies out, because that's important to me," she said in a cheerful voice. With her wide-eyed sincerity, she reminded me of a red-haired Zooey Deschanel. I took the keys, dropped off my bags in my room, and then headed out to find this coffee place she had touted. As I passed the front desk again I heard her telling another guest, in her bubbly voice, "Yeah, I'm almost finished with my funeral services degree and then I'm totally going to be embalming people." I ended up coming and going all day, and, every time I passed this lady, she flashed me a huge smile, but I kept envisioning her working on corpses.
I got a cafe au lait at 14th Street and the girl was right: it was damn fine coffee. I spilled a little bit on my dress. I hadn't brought another dress, just some boring clothes to wear home on the bus. I had thought, I'm not bringing the kid! I don't need to bring anything extra! Oh well. This was a great excuse to go shopping. I wandered into a place called Lola's and found a nice, maroon dress that wasn't very expensive. I took it back to the hotel so I could change and then practice my songs.
Even though I had a private room, it was a shared bathroom kind of situation. I took a break from practicing guitar and headed to the nearest bathroom. The door was closed but it said vacant on it, so I turned the knob. First I saw a pregnancy test on the floor, then a woman sitting on the floor, and then I saw the man sitting on the floor behind her, just for a second before he slammed the door shut. I couldn't believe my bad timing!
I decided to head out to the Fort George Brewery to work on my set list and have a beer. I had been to Astoria twice before, as a tourist, and I always like to go this brewery. Then at about seven, I walked over to the venue I was going to perform at. The owner was there and he was the person who had booked me as well, so I was glad to get to meet him and thank him in person. His wife was working there, too, and they really took care of me, giving me a large meal and copious amounts of booze. I started my first set with a beer, then started in on a pina colada during my second set. The crowd was great. They were mostly middle aged so I modified my set list on the fly in the hope of keeping them entertained. Bump up Fleetwood Mac, scratch Lady Gaga, add Johnny Cash. They seemed to dig it. I played some originals too. I guess it was the booze but I was feeling overly honest. Whenever I started telling a story between songs I'd think, Why am I sharing this? I played "Wear You Well", and then said, "Last year when I got pregnant I was playing songs like that one on the road, songs that were kinda racy, and I thought, 'Well, I'll have to stop singing some of these songs because I'm gonna be a mom.'" The crowd laughed. I went on. "Then I realized I was still gonna be a person, I'm still a woman." The audience applauded this, and one table of guys started saying things like, "And you're sexy, too!" Uh-oh, steer clear of those guys after the show.
I went up to the bar after my last set, intending to have one more drink. The owner was pouring for the guys at the table I was avoiding. It was a yellow liquor that didn't look familiar to me. I asked the bartender what it was. "Moonshine," he said, and then he poured a fourth shot and passed it to me. "Alright!" I said at first. "I've never tried this stuff!" But then I began to get nervous.
Another guy who worked there, Steve, was sitting at the bar with the owner's wife. He said to me, "It's good stuff!"
I admitted I was kind of scared. "I have seen this stuff really mess people up."
"Don't be scared," Steve said. "You'll be fine, I promise. Just do it!"
I threw it back. It was surprisingly sweet. Steve told me how he'd invented a drink at this bar, called the Fuck You Steve. "It's moonshine and tequila. I told the boss to mix them together and drink it, so he does it and then he goes, 'Fuck you, Steve, that's really good!'" We all laughed at this.
I told Steve, "I can't drink tequila. I did it once and it made me black out. Before that I just felt like I was high, not drunk."
The owner came back after serving the table full of men. "Well, half your songs sounded like they were about getting high! You must actually drink a lot of tequila," he teased. "What'll you have now?" he asked me.
I looked around the bar and noticed that they had fireball. I asked for a little bit of that. He poured me a shot in a tumbler glass. We stood there extolling the greatness of fireball whiskey. Then the owner stopped talking and asked the table full of guys, "Do I have something on my face? Why do you keep looking over here?"
"No, man," one of them responded, "we weren't looking at you, we were just looking at the fireball."
Steve leaned over to me and said, "I don't think they were talking about your drink." Maybe I am a fireball, I thought, but not in any way that they'll ever know.
I waited a while, let the creepers drive off first before leaving. Then I said goodnight to all the staff and grabbed my instruments, teetered back to the hotel in my heels. I unlocked the front door to the hotel. Some guy was asking me for help getting in, but at first I didn't realize that he was talking to me, as he'd addressed me as ma'am. My name isn't ma'am: it's Miss Fireball to you.
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