Of course, Best is a biased word. Nothing I write below will compare to the majority of the world’s experience with Rush – arguably much ‘better’ than my favorite bands. But what the hell…

Saturday featured a super-fun triple birthday party for my boy Oliver, daughter Madrona, and myself. At one point in the night, a group of us were sitting together outside making great music. It started out with a few requests from Oliver – Take me out to the ballgame, Happy Birthday, and Bad Moon Rising. Looking around, I realized that almost everybody was participating. And not just the standard obligatory singing. Kids were jamming on drums and recorders while parents sang, banged away, strummed strings, and beatboxed. What made this awesome was the amount and variety of participation. Not only the variety of instruments but the fact that 2 year olds as well as 50 year olds were all getting down!

Sunday night at Pies and Pints was another example of an awesome band. Though much more polished and focused than a group sing-along, it was just as inspiring. By the end of the night, Pat, Tom, Johnny and I were playing tunes as fast as we possibly could and still not hitting any speed limits. The harmonies were tight and the dynamics were even super dynamic ;)

I must note that this was originally inspired by a video Michal took during a visit by Taly, Liam, Ben, and Ari. All the kids (5 and under) had hold of a different instrument and were thoroughly jamming along. The family band: my dream in the making…

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After all the dust settled, somebody put it perfectly:

2 wardrobe changes, 3 locations, we laid down some tracks for somebody else’s project, and ended up knee-deep in Greenlake. All in just over 2 hours!

Always an adventure, Allison Tullos, Ken Nottingham, Dave Forrrester, James Apollo, Caithey, and myself met up at Sam & Jame’s house for a whirlwind photo-shoot for various upcoming Harborrats releases. Some photos in the house, on the porch, and in the backyard. Then on our way to Crackle and Pop studio to take more shots and redub some gang vocals on James’ new album (a recovery of choir tracks that were erased unkowingly), and finally to Greenlake where we got wet waitstaff style.

Highlights: Jamming on the front porch and answerring the Greenlake public phone only to be asked if we wanted special favors.

Thanks again Sam for leading us in fun adventure.

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My buddy Dave Delmar is the center of a collective called Ocean Tone, which “…is a West Coast artist network… exploring new horizons in collaborative expression”. He posts music and visual art from various people in the community. He recently called for music submissions, so I polished off a couple of tunes that had been lying around and submitted them. These songs are all roughly connected by various phantasmophonic stains – or impressions – and are available here for your listening pleasure.

Wet Town
1/2 written in Seattle, 1/2 written in Boston. Drums: Cutty Foster, Bass: Adam Cat.

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Hole in my Bed
Written several years ago after inspiring Folklife weekend. Re-recorded with Johnny Fitzpatrick and Tom Rooney.

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Space Camp
A night alone with some strings, a keyboard, and lots of switches. Inspired by nature.

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Bob Replay (previously posted – this is different mix)
I downloaded 24-track masters of three Bob Marley songs. I muted everything except for the kick and snare drums. Recorded a bunch of guitar parts over the drums. Turned on the vocals (original Marley and backups) and everything jived perfectly!

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Georgetown Carnival – what a event! Nice & interesting folks. Saw a few great friends I haven’t seen for a while. What a great thing, bringing lots of people together. Good beer, interesting booths and attractions.

Creeping Time played first at 1:15. Really nice folks and didn’t seem to mind when our kids ate all the fruit and we fed our families. Though does it count if we played our hearts out? Felt really natural playing with everybody. The set ended 10 minutes early when Dave told us we had one song left. Apparently he misread somebody’s signal and we still had 15 minutes remaining. We definitely tried playing it like it was the last song ever.

Here are some Flickr pics.

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This is the New Music poster that stands at the entrance to Barnes & Nobles music department.

Hmmm, is this 2011 or 1972? Let’s see, Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Robert Plant, and Santana…

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