Pink Canoes California April 2007

Over the past few weeks the Pink Canoes have played a string of dates from SF to Davis to LA. Things went well - we played all of the dates with a trio from LA called DSS - Aaron Drake, Phil Stearns and Cassia Streb - no input mixers, radio transmissions, viola. The first night was at G3 on the west side of SF at Geary and 3rd Ave - it's a place that has a weekly noise show on wednesday nights - in a slightly strange club that normally has karaoke. They did have a pretty impressive lighting system - we didn't take advantage of it, but did use a small little enclosure designed for private parties to set up our amps and play like in a music box. Second night was at the Luggage Store in downtown SF and the next we made the hour drive up to Davis to play at Delta of Venus, which had a nice outside seating area for folk. Out two groups were joined by young Solomon on laptop playing his first solo show - it went well. The Canoes all got a little antsy as we notice people trickling out - Friday night in a college town around 10:30 gets people thinking about the closest keg party probably. We played probably are best set I can remember - lots of energy, lots of interaction with each other - and the twenty or so folk that stuck around were into it
We drove back to the Bay that night, watching the Big Lebowski on Noah's video pod. The next night we set up shop at the Revolution Cafe up on 22nd street in the Mission. This place is a popular place - has good Belgian beer and one of the few outdoor patios in SF. We weren't sure how we would fit in the tight performance space but we did and I think the closeness to the crowd was a big benefit - it almost always is. We played that night with Reptet, a jazz group from Seattle who Zack is friends with. Their set began and ended with the horns marching from the street to the stage - good use of the great outdoors....
Last weekend the Canoes drove down to LA as a quartet for the BentFest, a festival going on in NYC and LA this year. The six hour drive down I-5 was actually kind of relaxing - We played at Il Corral on a bill with five groups including DSS, John Richards (UK), Toy Junkies and a duo that blew out the low end of the PA with their Moog ad Doepfer synths - too bad. They did manage to finish out their set pretty well with just the high frequencies.
All in all it was a good time - the music shared qualities every night, I think our interactions with each other improved in each set. We're playing on May 1st as part of a spate of band at a benefit at SF Arts.

Allbee/Shelton/Walter 21 Grand

Last night played at 21 Grand with Liz Allbee and Weasel Walter - I've been meaning to play in a trio with these two since we've played in quintet version before + Damon Smith and Aurora Josephson. I also asked Liz to bring her electronics and Weasel to bring another instrument - he brought a bass clarinet. I brought my electronics along too - more options. I wrote three pieces for us to play through - lots of improvising within, but some chords to be played together to set up tonalities - little melodic phrases to act as points where we could meet up again. Weasel sounded good on bass clarinet - he studied it for a few years back in the early nineties. That's the blessing of woodwinds - maintaining the ol' embouchure isn't as important as on brasses. It was a good group to play with - looking forward to doing it again - the possibilities with all the sounds we can bring are pretty open.... Ben Bracken played with Jackie from JapJap - a piece with contact mics on cymbals, some feedback through contact mics, some amplification and processing though electronics.
If Volition Then played first - Jason Hoopes, Amanda Schoofs, Michael Dale, Andy Strain and Jordan Glenn. They've been improvising alot together and definitely have a concept bringing their music together. Sounded good.