Hello everybody
Yogoman Buring Band's first tour was a success, so thank you!
Thursday . 8/9/07 . Summer Meltdown . Darrington, WA
Friday . 8/10/07 . Subdued Stringband Jamboree . Deming, WA
Saturday . 8/11/07 . Totalfest . Missoula, MT
Monday . 8/13/07 . Someday Lounge . Portland, OR (w/ Apeshape)
Tuesday . 8/14/07 . Roger's Zoo . North Bend, OR
Wednesday . 8/15/07 . Jambalya . Arcata, CA (w/ DJ Downbeat)
Thursday . 8/16/07 . Sacramento, CA
Friday . 8/17/07 . Rickshaw Stop . San Francisco, CA
Saturday . 8/18/07 . Miramar Fish Grotto . Santa Cruz, CA
Thursday . 8/23/07 . Franklin Park . Yakima, WA
Friday . 8/24/07 . Yakima Sports Center . Yakima, WA .
The first three days of tour starts off with three festivals, all of a different nature. From earthy to stringy to grimy, hippy to old time to punk. First the Flow Motion Summer Meltdown, a.k.a. the hippyfest. We turned this peaceful campground in to a musical dustbowl that required the campers to jump in the closest river and re-douse themselves in patchouli oil. Great show in Darrington, WA and thanks to the Bellingham contingent for showin' the region how we get down and dirty.
Then over to the Subdued Stringband Jamboree at the Deming Logshow Fairgrounds where I felt the need to point out that we have a bassist and two guitar players in the Burning Band, that's 16 strings all together, so don't ask me why we played this festival, just dance to the music. Big fun and I must say that Hoss kicked mucho ass on Friday, sounding like they came straight outta Sun Studios back in the Tenessee Two era. Great vibe at the Jamboree and always a comfortable place to get down with your Bellingham posse listening to pickin' circles until the dawn.
Lastly of the festivals was Total fest in Missoula Montana. Didn't know how our band would fit in here either but I knew it wouldn't sound remotely like anything else on the roster (as with the Jamboree), and folks appreciated that. Mainly a punk/indie/rock festival, Totalfest was held indoors at the Badlander, which was a diverse venue with three stages revolving bands to keep it moving along. Totalfest felt like a retreat for freaks and geeks of the musical underbelly, a world I'm quite familiar with from playing in Behead the Prophet No Lord Shall Live in the 90's. Saw a lot of familiar faces from around the country and the Trucks set before we went on made me proud to be of the Bellingham contingent, they rocked! Totalfest began my task of verbally encouraging people to get ridiculous and dance throughout the tour. I knew Bellingham would spoil me. Thanks to Wantage Josh for doing Totalfest and Brian and his family for putting us up in Missoula.
On the long drive from Missoula to Portland we stopped off to camp on the Washington side of the Columbia River along the Washington/Oregon border. There was a meteor shower that night that sent burning embers across the sky against the darkness of the rural highway with sage growing wildly, it's fragrance mixed with dust cooling down from the days dry heat. We stayed at an unofficial campout next to a Native American private lot where Migrant fruit pickers were rumored to stay over the years from the locals watching the meteor shower nearby. After a swim in the mighty Columbia the next day we were off to Portland where we played had a good crowd dancing on a Monday night with Portland's own Apeshape (their last show). Thanks to Lars for hosting us.
Tuesday was our southern Oregon show that came through at the last minute in North Bend/Coos Bay at Roger's Zoo. Run by Roger, a salty old pizza makin shit talkin' music lovin' son of a gun, the zoo housed a pizza joint in one room and a bar on the other where the music happened. We played to a crowd aged somewhere between mid 20's to 60 years old that was a surprising refresher on the tour when we least expected it. Thank you to Kathleen and John for setting up the show and hosting us like family in North Bend.
In to the Redwood country we played Jambalaya in Arcata to a seriously stoned crowd. They didn't understand (or didn't care) that Pass the O (even with a vivid tutorial from Thomas) was a dance move. The O and the I were absorbed more subconsciously through the wall of THC that permeated the blood cells of those in attendance. Regardless, the Arcata crowd, in my opinion, had some of the best dancers, style and moves wise, of the whole tour (probably because they weren't thinking about it). Supposedly we got the attention and praise of some of the local dancehall afficianados not received by many. Thank you to DJ Downbeat for hosting and setting up the show.
The Sacramento show was located at what I would describe as a Burning Man compound that was in a different time/space continuum than the rest of the world. I kept thinking David Bowie or Tom Waits would come around a corner at any moment and ask me for a light. Due to a noise complaint across the river, our set was cut short to 4 songs of pure gold. It was good to see some fresh faces and old friends alike. Among my old Sacto pals were Armed Forces Radio that played right before us. AFR are comprised of Anna, Tom, Burt and James who go way back in Sacto punk history to the groups the Pope Smashers and the Phlemings. Great people and great sounds. My good friend and ex-northwester Josh Ploeg was our host and chef of course. Josh was the flaming lyricist in the punk/hardcore/noise explosion I played drums in years ago called Behead the Prophet No Lord Shall Live. Thank you Josh for the show coordination and hospitality.
San Francisco's show was at a unique place called the Rickshaw Stop that you could barely tell existed until the doors were opened. Best sound of the tour other than Yakima. This was the show our fearless and highly praised manager John Tosch of Pool or Pond records put together and hosted for us. It took the SanFranciscans a little Bellingham nudge from a few of our proud transplants that live there now, but once that happened the party was on. Great partying with Burning Band and Tosch that night at the 500 club! Thank you Tosch for all the work you do for us.
Because of our 7-piece ensemble and tour support via Peter (Norah's sweetheart) and Theodore (Norah and Peter's 7 month old boy which I will now refer to as TheO), we had to split up into two cars. One car being my family's Volvo wagon with our gear hitched to it in a 4X8 U-haul trailer, which contained myself, the ridiculous and sleep deprived drummer/singer Yogoman, the bright eyed, ultra-cute, savage beast TheO, the simultaneously aloof and intelligent Peter, the quiet but deadly Bass player/singer Norah and the Zen master of packing, financing and tolerating everyone's shit along with wailing on the saxophone, Thomas. In the other car owned by and containing our Gamesmaster, white-socked, Cargo short wearin', Trombone player with a giddy laugh Mars, also included the Pasta Factory which consists of Stell and Dan the Noodlers, or guitar players that are a consistent and relentless shit talking machine that are barely separated at the hip, but do get the laughs a rolling undoubtably. That leaves Mr. Joel Ricci our mighty trumpetier who seemed to be swayed by the allure of the Pasta Factory's incessant humor but at the same time broken down to the core by the Pasta's making him the brunt of much of their comic routine. Mars was no exception to the Pasta's hammering either. There were a couple times I looked at Joel and Mars off guard and saw a blank stare off into the horizon which must have been a relief from laughter and humiliation from the Pasta's burgeoning attacks.
After San Fran, we headed over to Santa Cruz, the place of my birth. I didn't grow up there but have always enjoyed the warm visits to the lovely beached town with a laid back pace, waves and the famous Santa Cruz Boardwalk. We played outside at a restaurant called the Miramar on the warf facing the beach by the Boardwalk. It was great because we got to stretch out into our songs because of our 3 hour time slot and I bought a pair of used timbales to bang on that nearly everyone in the Burning Band took a whack at during our sets. We had people on the sidewalk rockin' out and folks at the tables groovin' down to the sounds. Mars, Joel and the Pasta's headed back in the LeSabre to Bellingham and Peter, Norah, TheO, Thomas and I stayed an extra day in Santa Cruz to enjoy the local amenities and beautiful weather. So nice! Thank you to Lishana and Mike for letting us kick it at your deluxe pad for the extra day.
Upon arriving back in our lovely hometown of Bellingham, we were back only long enough to say hello to our loved ones and then head over to Yakima, WA for a two shows in two days on the 23rd and 24th, which was really the end of our tour. The first Yakima show was in Franklin Park as part of the Summer Concert series. Evidently, folks don't typically dance at this festival traditionally in Yakima, they usually just lay back in their lawn chairs and groove out. This is not why I play music in this band and so I strongly encouraged the crowd to get up offa that thing and dance cus you'll feel better. To the few hundred people in attendance, we had only about 10 dancers until our last song, Pass the O, when another 30 folks jumped up and passed it with us. Thank god.
The next day in Yakima we played the Yakima Sports Center which is not what it sounds like. The Yakima Sports Center used to be a hub for sportsman, or more specifically hunters. Now a club that is about 250 max occupancy, YSC hosts a wide variety of touring acts from around the region because of the local music importer Dan Craig (God Bless you Dan). They have great food and excellent drinks to boot. Our show there was my favorite of the tour really. We were musically at the top of our game and really improvised more in our songs than we ever had before. Kyle, a Bellingham local from Wapato (town nearby Yakima) was in the house and came to show the Yakima locals how we get down in Bellingham. Kyle always comes dressed to the nines in his Miami Vice lookin' get ups. He sweated his ass off and really got the dance party started. We got way down and dirty into the music that night and had a good time hangin' with the locals outside after the show. Thanks again to Dan Craig and his family for hosting us and to the people of Yakima. We'll be back in the Spring or Summer of 2008.
Seriously the trip was a success and we still get along as a band and are able to work through our issues as a 7 piece combo, which to me is a success and proved to ourselves that we can hang together and are ready for the next episode. Talk of a tour of England is our hope next summer of 2008. I will be researching booking, publishing and legal assistance in the coming months. We are due to head into the studio to record our second album this fall/winter and I am interested in doing some remixes of our self-titled debut c.d. I am also wanting to get our debut release pressed to vinyl, at least a limited run if anyone is interested in releasing that. Let me know. Kudos and thanks for supporting Yogoman Burning Band. Thank you to all that attended our shows and had a great time dancing and listening on our first tour of the west coast, U.S.A. Much Love- Jordan Rain/Yogoman.