What a great trip I had in Oregon. I guess I'll have to come back sooner than later as I just had the best time and such wonderful support here.
We added a last minute, weds. wild card gig at a place called the Clockworks Cafe in downtown Salem. It's the nucleus of a recently opened but still evovling cultural center which my friend Erika is involved with. So we rolled into town around 2pm, by seven I was watching the Candelaria Choir performance including one of Erika's little girls Zoe, and by 8pm ish, Nick and I were playing music to an audience on this beautiful little stage downtown. The amazing thing was, in the audience was my friend Mark Nassar, host of Salem House Concerts which is a star on my lapel from the last tour. He and Melanie just happened to be there at the cafe inquiring about music. We had just confirmed the show a half an hour earlier so the barristas there informed them that it was a Rachel Someone. They asked "Does she drive a big schoolbus?", "Yeah, that's her", so I was so pleasantly suprised at how things can come together when they're not quite as together as you'd like. ;) Sometimes fate picks up the slack.
We played Mississippi pizza on thursday night which is a very cool pizza place in the hip Mississippi neighborhood and although I didn't have any of my peole in the audience, we had a bunch of families that came out to enjoy live music and pizza with the little ones. Adam the bartender in the back was great and had the Laker game on so I could go back at set break and check the score. A wonderful room, I will surely come back to on my next trip and hope to pack the room with all my new Portland friends plus one or two each huh?
Friday night was the house concert at Jen & Kona's place near the 39th & Hamilton area of Portland. Jen wasn't so sure about the turnout as she had not one RSVP, but they all showed up, they eat, they drank, they sang along and they danced. I finally got to meet Donna and Peter, as I had been hearing about them for years. You see, one of my very best and closest friend's Shelly is Jen's sister. I took Shelly to her first High Sierra which has become a tradition for her family. I've been unable to make the festival for the past several years when the whole clan was getting together. But I have met just about the whole family now and was happy to also get some time to hang with Shelly's daughter Destiny as well as cousin Emily. Very cool.
Satuday morning I drove to Canby, the birthplace of this Zigler/Haas families and was thrilled that Shelly's father in law Bill Haas Sr. came to see me at the Farmer's Market and introduced himself. So I'm even covering more branches of this family's tree. What's more is that my friend Darryl's folks that live in Oregon also came to check me out. I was proud to give his father a tour of Patience and he was pleasantly surprised and 100% behind the dream with me. So, I had a real taste of home.
Saturday night we reconnected with Erika and her two grils Zoe and Vega, at a spot in an RV park in Wilsonville where we plugged in, swam in the pool and ate sandwiches and snacks while we watched a movie in the back of the bus. The next morning I got all sorts of chores done, flushing out the holding tanks really well, wrapping up cords properly, reinforcing the ducttape on my windshield wiper and sweeping the bus out. Thanks so much to my friend Erika for helping out, I really appreciated it.
Sunday I returned to Jen & Kona's, stopped by Mississippi Pizza to rescue a mic stand that had been left behind and inquired at a couple tattoo parlors about a small tattoo I've been threatening to get for about the past 5 years. They wanted too much money for what'd be just a bit smaller than a dime so, we skipped that on this trip. But I did get to see much of Portland from the back seat of Destiny's new car. We spent the night hanging out and playing music, giving a couple bus tours and laughing our asses off, that can happen around Jen especially, and we topped it off with a late night pizza delivery.
This morning is Memorial Day and as I sit here in my bus, catching up on my blog and adding the new names to my email list, I hope that we can all give some thought to the fallen soldiers today and remember that Memorial Day is more than a holiday weekend but a tribute to those that have given their life in service of this great country. Tonight, I'll head into WA and try to park the bus somewhere within walking distance of the Seattle Children's hospital where we'll play a 10 am set on Tuesday morning before heading to KBCS for a spot on Richard Gillman's show.
So I promise to travel safe and catch you up on all the developments next time. xoxoxox
We added a last minute, weds. wild card gig at a place called the Clockworks Cafe in downtown Salem. It's the nucleus of a recently opened but still evovling cultural center which my friend Erika is involved with. So we rolled into town around 2pm, by seven I was watching the Candelaria Choir performance including one of Erika's little girls Zoe, and by 8pm ish, Nick and I were playing music to an audience on this beautiful little stage downtown. The amazing thing was, in the audience was my friend Mark Nassar, host of Salem House Concerts which is a star on my lapel from the last tour. He and Melanie just happened to be there at the cafe inquiring about music. We had just confirmed the show a half an hour earlier so the barristas there informed them that it was a Rachel Someone. They asked "Does she drive a big schoolbus?", "Yeah, that's her", so I was so pleasantly suprised at how things can come together when they're not quite as together as you'd like. ;) Sometimes fate picks up the slack.
We played Mississippi pizza on thursday night which is a very cool pizza place in the hip Mississippi neighborhood and although I didn't have any of my peole in the audience, we had a bunch of families that came out to enjoy live music and pizza with the little ones. Adam the bartender in the back was great and had the Laker game on so I could go back at set break and check the score. A wonderful room, I will surely come back to on my next trip and hope to pack the room with all my new Portland friends plus one or two each huh?
Friday night was the house concert at Jen & Kona's place near the 39th & Hamilton area of Portland. Jen wasn't so sure about the turnout as she had not one RSVP, but they all showed up, they eat, they drank, they sang along and they danced. I finally got to meet Donna and Peter, as I had been hearing about them for years. You see, one of my very best and closest friend's Shelly is Jen's sister. I took Shelly to her first High Sierra which has become a tradition for her family. I've been unable to make the festival for the past several years when the whole clan was getting together. But I have met just about the whole family now and was happy to also get some time to hang with Shelly's daughter Destiny as well as cousin Emily. Very cool.
Satuday morning I drove to Canby, the birthplace of this Zigler/Haas families and was thrilled that Shelly's father in law Bill Haas Sr. came to see me at the Farmer's Market and introduced himself. So I'm even covering more branches of this family's tree. What's more is that my friend Darryl's folks that live in Oregon also came to check me out. I was proud to give his father a tour of Patience and he was pleasantly surprised and 100% behind the dream with me. So, I had a real taste of home.
Saturday night we reconnected with Erika and her two grils Zoe and Vega, at a spot in an RV park in Wilsonville where we plugged in, swam in the pool and ate sandwiches and snacks while we watched a movie in the back of the bus. The next morning I got all sorts of chores done, flushing out the holding tanks really well, wrapping up cords properly, reinforcing the ducttape on my windshield wiper and sweeping the bus out. Thanks so much to my friend Erika for helping out, I really appreciated it.
Sunday I returned to Jen & Kona's, stopped by Mississippi Pizza to rescue a mic stand that had been left behind and inquired at a couple tattoo parlors about a small tattoo I've been threatening to get for about the past 5 years. They wanted too much money for what'd be just a bit smaller than a dime so, we skipped that on this trip. But I did get to see much of Portland from the back seat of Destiny's new car. We spent the night hanging out and playing music, giving a couple bus tours and laughing our asses off, that can happen around Jen especially, and we topped it off with a late night pizza delivery.
This morning is Memorial Day and as I sit here in my bus, catching up on my blog and adding the new names to my email list, I hope that we can all give some thought to the fallen soldiers today and remember that Memorial Day is more than a holiday weekend but a tribute to those that have given their life in service of this great country. Tonight, I'll head into WA and try to park the bus somewhere within walking distance of the Seattle Children's hospital where we'll play a 10 am set on Tuesday morning before heading to KBCS for a spot on Richard Gillman's show.
So I promise to travel safe and catch you up on all the developments next time. xoxoxox