I’m writing from Japantown in San Francisco where it is, of course, another perfect day. We had to stay on a bit after Saturday night’s show to see if it is ALWAYS perfect here (it is) and to do a buttload of laundry at Dave Triebwasser’s house in the East Bay. Dave was the drummer for Portland based Pond, one of the best bands I’ve ever heard. They opened for Throwing Muses on the Red Heaven tour and just played their last show in September. Billy and I watched a fan recorded video of that show yesterday (we missed the actual show, as it was the same night 50FootWave played the KEXP Crocodile Cafe show in Seattle).
What I wouldn’t give to see Pond play just one more time — though sharing Thai food with Dave and his beautiful wife Erika while our kids colored on their kitchen floor was pretty good, too. And we scored a CD of Dave’s garage jazz band, Vrbata. Now Billy wants to play it as lead-in music at solo shows before I go on…it’s a very cool, off-kilter sound.
Billy and I were also thrilled to meet the amazing Moore Brothers on this trip. Paula Frazer invited them to sing with her at the Swedish American Hall — as if Paula’s voice wasn’t gorgeous enough on it’s own. We’ve been huge fans of the Moore Brothers ever since Dave Triebwasser turned us on to them 3 years ago on the 2003 Throwing Muses tour and, like most quality musicians, they turned out to be lovely people.
Lauren Shera, the 17 year old songstress who opened the first night at Tangier in LA and played before Paula in San Francisco was an impressive surprise. So many women sing like little girls and this little girl (well, 17-year-old anyway) sings like a woman — a woman with a story. I’m really intigued to hear what she does in the future. The Good Listeners, who played the 2nd night at Tangier, were also a treat-2 guys who sound like 10. I have their CD ready to go when I get into the van in a few minutes.
The love fest that was the LA shows warmed my heart enough to head back into the northeast winter and included Wavers Bernie and Rob; our producers, Ethan Allen and Mudrock; our videographer, Orrin Anderson and photographer/videographer Lisa Fletcher. What a crew!
Leaving California is never a good thing, but I have a teen aged (for a couple of months more at least) son and a half finished record waiting for me in snowy Rhode Island and I seem to have crammed a lifetime of perfect days into a few weeks, so I’m good.
And now we drive…
Love,
Kristin