Flew in to PDX thursday night... W+K Radio interview the next morning (W+K Radio interview)... rehearsal, rehearsal, bbq, rehearsal...first show madness... gearing up for night 2... more to come...

K~

Hosted By:
The Bottesini Project

When:
Friday, May 15, 2009

Where:
The Starry Plough
3101 Shattuck Ave
Berkeley
94705

Description:
Paul Riola's Bottesini Project is a a fluid lineup of musicians dedicated to free improvisation, featuring talented artists from around the world. For the collective's SF debut, saxophonist Riola is joined by drummer Scott Amendola (Charlie Hunter), guitarist Fred Frith, violinist Carla Kihlstedt (Tin Hat Trio), pedal-steel player Glenn Taylor, and bassist Keenan Wayne (sutro). May 15 at The Starry Plough

Click Here To View Event

Hello from Sutroville~

We've been on a bit of a hiatus for a few months, what with T&P relocating to the joy, pain, sunshine and rain of first time home ownership in Portland. We have new recordings for you, but they still need a little primping before they can go out on the town. That won't stop us from sticking our musical elbows in your ears, though. We had such a good response with the Re:fected remix EP, we thought we'd give you another one. This time, it's for an old favorite, Temptress. You'll get all the deets later, but for now, enjoy one of our fav mixes by SF Bay Area up and comer Frost Raven.

The Temptress Remixes will be available for download on October 21.

Salut,
K~

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0l5FSjqM9UI

This is it - last night of our minicalitour , culminating at the Rubber Rose Mature Audience Stage at the San Diego Indie Music Fest. Yes, the "Mature" stage... At first (last year) we thought we’d be performing with Michael Bolton and Enya clones. Then we looked up the Rubber Rose, and it turns out to be SD’s version of Good Vibrations. Now we’re thinking some kind of latex clad go-go girls, or dominatrix performance art... who knows? Last year we got neither, and were slightly disappointed. This year, we finally realized how clueless we can be. Other than P’s occasional IPA, non of us are beer drinkers. It’s like we’ve had pavlovian conditioning, and any time there are signs for beer, they don’t register. Therefore, none of us really paid attention to the fact that the entrance to the Rubber Rose was through the festivals only "beer garden," where you have to be 21 to enter. Hence, the "mature audience." Sooo not-professional.

Alright, 2008. Rubber Rose. SDIMF. We were recognized by a few of the festival organizers, which is always nice - and a little surreal. The fantastic vox/DJ/keys trio Una enthralled the crowd with a rather challenging set, seeing that they had several technical difficulties and were following a punk band. A couple of bands had to drop out at the last minute, leaving us to close the night out for that stage- not an enviable time-slot for a satellite stage at an all-day festival, but oh well.

The crowd was attentive, and gave us a great response after each song, but ear fatigue seemed to be setting in, and we had a few trickling out at the same time. People seemed into it while they watched, and they waited till a song was over before they exited. No one was running out in the middle songs, throwing beer bottles over their shoulders, but it’s still dispiriting to lose an audience. On the plus side, we had the pleasure of meeting Kid Beyond in the green room beforehand, and he came by to catch the last half of our set before taking off to headline the main stage.

Now all that’s left is a mole at El Agave.

Can. Not. Wait.

OK... LA traffic sucks. Everyone knows this. We plan for it.

Doesn’t mean anyone will ever stop complaining about it. Seriously, how do people live here?

We drove in from SLO around 3, but still couldn’t get across town to our hotel till 5. >:-(

After staying in a corporate hotel in SLO, we were looking forward to the boutique hotel in LA. It was clear on the other end of town from the Derby, but because of spring break, everything else was ridiculously expensive. So, the hotel was hustling, there was a photoshoot going on in the lobby, and the concierge had an unidentifiable accent. All pretty swell, so far...

...but the devil is in the details. For instance:

...when serving toast, you usually bring butter, or honey, preserves, jam, jelly- something, right? I got nothing, and when I asked, they brought a little dish of butter, some orange marmalade, and...

ketchup?

...or, when we sat down to the bar and heard a horrendous crash, turned, and saw every dish in a cupboard sliding out, as the hapless waitstaff member stood under the porcelain shower, not knowing what to do.

definitely. not. professional.

But if it wasn’t for the music, I wouldn’t be writing this blog - so...

The Derby

Apparently, this used to be a swing club in the 90’s. Well, that’s unfair to the true history of the Derby. It was place to be seen in the Hollywood heyday. Sinatra, Monroe, Gable, Bogart, Hayworth, and so forth. The last popular incarnation was inspired by the movie Swingers, which the Derby for a main set. Swing dancing is not what it used to used to be again, so the bookers have to branch out a few nights a week.

Enter Sutro.

Kickin’ ass for a select crowd of friends and family... Bringing in our old friend and collaborator, JMG... A 505 reunion for P (JMG, P, & Ian), and a high school reunion for me, with Gray-ham (17 years is a long damn time).

I have to ask, though... What do you think of a promoter who kicks a band off stage early because she wants to yodel with Jesus Christ Superstar?

Doesn’t matter, we had a good time, and ended up $5.50 ahead at the end of the night. How, you ask? That’s another story, which will have to wait until after San Diego.

First off, a brief note of sincere apology- The locals in San Luis Obispo refer to their city as SLO, as in the word "slow," not the letters S-L-O. Tyler asks to be excused for her ignorance, as San Franciscans are apt to get offended when outsiders call our city "Frisco." Ignorance is bliss, and so was our time in SLO.

We hit SLO around 1:30, running on fumes. There was an Arco right off the highway on the way to our hotel, but after trying for 5 minutes to get their self serve credit card machine to work, found that they were cash only. Um, Mr . Peabody, did you set the Wayback Machine without telling us? What gas station is cash only?

Whatever, there’s always another gas station.

Hotel- ready to check in, but they aren’t ready for us. We stashed our gear in a closet, and went off to meet our hostess for the day.

My friend (since high school, as she will tell anyone who will listen) Shea Kelly, who is a rockstar, radio DJ, and "not a professional" ;-) was meeting us at Big Sky. Which is not Blue Sky, as will become vaguely important later. After a much needed lunch, Shea took us to KCPR, where we had our first radio interview. (Whoever you are that called during Temptress gets a big hug from all of us). Personal highlight, using the restroom where Weird Al Yankovic recorded the vocals for "Like a Surgeon."

All right- interview over, back to the hotel to check-in, get the gear, change, and get to the Frog & Peach, where we were playing.

If you are reading this, you probably know who we are and what we do, and that we are not a rock band, so when we walk into a pub/tavern/sports-bar to play a show for a crowd that is watching March Madness, we might feel a slight sense of trepidation. (Although, I do have my reasons for watching the archival footage of boxing matches ;-) Of course, after the first song and a couple of quizzical looks, the resident version of Norm from Cheers started nodding his head and tapping the bar, universal signal for "these guys are OK in my book." Special thanks to Rustin for engineering that show.

Shea’s band, the Dirty Pink Slips followed us on stage, and ripped it up, and left the crowd wanting more.

With show finished, it was time for dinner, which was made difficult by the fact that most everything in SLO closes early. We tried to go to the restaurant next door, but the kitchen was already closed. They maitre d’ suggested we go to Blue.

But we went to Blue Sky for lunch?
It isn’t Blue Sky, it’s Big Sky.
Still, we went there for lunch.
No, we went to Big Sky for lunch, and they’re saying Blue for dinner.
Blue Sky?
No, just Blue.

We made it to Blue (no sky), which turned out to be one of the chic-er places in SLO and sat down for a nosh. The server suggested a local wine from the Ortman vineyard, which was fantastic, but the music was AWFUL! Not like in the kitschy, nostalgic cheese sort of way, but in the "this is making my wine taste bad" sort of way. We actually had to ask them to turn it down. Toto has it’s time and place, which is before or after we are there. Luckily, the meal was excellent, which made up for any aural inconvenience.

Time for a mid-tour night’s sleep, then on to LA...

K~

Harlot is an ubercool venue owned by Martel & Nabiel, long time SF promoters and supporters of nightlife in SF, whom T&P have known for years. We’ve been trying to do something in collaboration with them for a while, and finally when they opened Harlot, it seemed to just be a matter of time.

So, we were told that the only way we could get a soundcheck was to get in at 2pm. When we got there at 2:30, they told us there was a special event going on at the restaurant next door, and could we wait until 3 to do our soundcheck. I was taking a long lunch to do this, sooo...

no

It was great to be up on stage after a few months away, and we were able to debut our first remotely written song, Feels Like Yesterday.

You may or may not know, Patrick and Tyler bought a house in Portland last year, and our band had to become bi-locational. "Yesterday" was our first experiment in writing remotely. Tyler woke up one morning with the song pretty much finished in her head. She recorded scratch vox, keys and beats, then sent the file to me in SF that night. Unfortunately, I liked the song so much I had to stay up till 2 in the morning working out a bass part. That got recorded and sent back, where Patrick added in his guitar part. The first time the 3 of us played the song together was at soundcheck. Ain’t technology grand?

Harlot was the first night of our Calitour, and we had to do a little something special, so, we asked Nick Phillips, trumpetist, producer, Grammy nominee, and VP of A&R for Concord Jazz to sit in with us. He had lain down a little horn for us in the studio late last year, and was gracious enough to come by and blow for a couple of tunes. Our other special guest was Tyler’s brother, in from Ottawa for a rare appearance.

Ooo... we’ve been bad myspacers :(

There hasn’t been a Sutro blog since 2006! So much has happened, and we need to be better about sharing.

Right now, we are in a hotel in San Luis Obispo, the morning after the most fun I’ve had in a small town sports bar/tavern/pub type place in years.

So yeah, we are on the road, having reached the halfway mark of the "tour." In few minutes, T,P and I will pile in the SUV, and point our noses towards LA.

Along the way (and after a cup of coffee), I’ll spin the tale of our tour till today.

More to come...

K~

A few weeks ago I had the great pleasure to have a whirlwind trip to Denver for a recording session and show centered around experimental/jazz/punk/whatchamacallit guitarist Nels Cline. For those who don't know him, he has spent the past 20 years playing with the likes of Charlie Haden, Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth), Banyan (w/Stephen Perkins [Jane's Addiction] & Mike Watt), his own band- the Nels Cline Singers, and currently taking on lead guitar duties for some band called Wilco. It was 57 hours of non-stop madness of the most wonderful order- put together by Paul Riola, otherwise known as "my best friend Paulie."

I could ramble on about every detail of the trip- how cool and easy going Nels is, how great Paul and his family are, the "feels like home" vibe of Colin Bricker's studio, the amazing architecture of the new Denver art museum, where to get good Chinese food, where not to try to drop in for sushi without reservations, and why airport security thinks I travel with a big gun- but I'd rather you just went to Paul's profile http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=13249779 and listened to what we did.

What's there is from the set by the Bottesini Project (plus me) which opened for Nels. There was also a recording session earlier in the day with a slightly different group including Nels. That, you'll have to wait for, but I think there's enough for anyone to digest at one sitting already

enjoy,
K~