July 30, 2010
Olly Neasham (pictured above), hailing from Bolton, UK (north of Manchester), is coming to the West Coast to do some shows.
Olly has played England’s edition of International Pop Overthrow Festival before, but now he would be travelling the West Coast. Following this whole “Underground Garden”, we-are-all-connected kinda vibe, the director of the IPO, David Bash, tagged me and said we might connect as this guy is looking to book some more shows to help fill up his calendar in the U.S. .
So…here’s what we got for him in the Fresno area:
He’s opening the show for the Post-ArtHop party at Tokyo Garden on Thursday, August 5th.(9:30ish?)
On FRIDAY, August 6th, with the gracious help of [musician, promoter, all-around-good-guy] Steve Ono and the Fresno Folk Society, we’ve got a show that
includes sets by myself, Steve, Omar of Ballad: The Memory, and, of course Olly Neasham.
Then, Neasham moves on to some IPO fest shows:
Los Angeles–Aug.7th
Portland–Aug.11
Seattle–Aug.18
Whichever area you live in….check this travelling songwriter out!
Hopefully, we’ll meet him again as The Trike Shop travels back to England in Late Spring 2011.
July 20, 2010
playing the IPO fest Sunday and will be on their new CD compilation!
I knew that this would be a busy summer.
I did it on purpose. I wanted to accomplish some things.
Spent the first 1/2 on the phone
and in the mail—trying to promote the new CD and
set up a bunch of gigs for the band.–and now, it’s
like we’re tipping over the first domino…and they’re all
starting to fall fast and furious.
We’re playing Los Angeles Sunday (July 25), and then Visalia
the Saturday after that (July 31)..and then some gigs
closer to home. (Oh yeah, and tonight I finished editing then delivered the
Spencer/Morris recordings I wrote about a couple posts
down the way…)
I think I need a Summer Vacation!
July 11, 2010
We’re at the beginning of a whole slew o’ gigs here in mid-summer.
An interesting one happened a week or so ago.
Part of Fresno’s “Art-Hop”…a First Thursday night of galleries staying
open and the unafraid-to-leave-the-northern-enclaves-of-suburbia
coming out to check out the pulse of downtown and the local arts.
We played in a new store called “All Things Fresno”.
Many folks cruised in and out…..but when some of your bestest pals come by…
that’s when it’s good.
Hats off to my friends (pictured above) Ron and Fran who can talk your ear off about
the value of true and authentic music…from the garage to the sweaty club stage…these
are two friends who know it, have lived it, and can tell us all a thing or three.
I’m more than thankful for such as these.—pictured just outside the venue on a break.
what else to say but….”God Save the Village Green” and “God Save the Kinks”!
June 24, 2010
Tony
Aileen
It’s always a mix between ’sadness’ and ‘thanksgiving for what was’ when a place
closes down. On one hand you wanna sigh and say ‘oh no’ because in a small and tight
community like ours, every little foothold is so important. On the other hand it’s a great
time in our ‘nothing lasts forever’ universe to show some gratitude for the work put it.
Aileen and Tony Imperatrice have run Ashtree Studios for around 8 years. In that time,
not only has the place facillitated and displayed their own work, but it’s been a venue
for the showing of other artists’ work, and, on occassion, a spot for performing artists.
The Rogue Festival made use of Ashtree as a performance venue and as a headquarters
for years and years.
Ashtree is closing it’s doors for now. There’ll be a chance to say ‘farewell’ and ‘thank you’
Saturday night fromo 6-10. It’s free. It’s a party. It’s a potluck.
There’ll be music (I know I’ll do an acoustic set from 7:45-8:15). There’ll be food. There’ll
be good company.
The Underground Garden project will receive it’s second showing.
Come on by! Everyone is more than welcome.
June 21, 2010
Thanks to Dale Stewart! He’s been coaching me on video editing.
One of the things I’ve been trying to do with this Underground Garden
Project is to document some of the stuff that goes on around here.
For me, that includes the history and the current work being done in
the arts/music scene here in the Fresno area.
I’ve shot a lot of raw footage, but was having a hard time uploading it,
and then editiing it.
Dale set me on the right path. I’m still a newbie…but it looks like I might finally
dive into the part of the Underground Garden Project that had been lying fallow:
short movies for YouTube etc.
June 14, 2010
Today I had the rare-for-me opportunity of recording someone else’s project.
Not that I haven’t been asked, but often time (the rarity of it) has stopped me.
Here’s my best shot at describing this piece o’ work: it’s a Folk-Rock Oratorio. I think
that’s accurate. It has 11 songs joined together by theme and by short narration bits.
It’s written and performed by a local duo made up of David Spencer and Randy Morris that
works under the name: Spencer/Morris.
A folk-rock oratorio? You mean that doesn’t sound like something that’s been a ‘Top Download’ on I-Robot-Tunes Dot Com? Oh brothers and sisters….this thing is both very odd and (I think) very good.
It’s a work about the 70’s. Yes….rom Gerald Ford to Jimmy Carter. From Underground FM to MOR. From
the Energy Crisis to Farah Fawcett . I dare sare there’s a sparkle of brilliance here. I mean, you KNOW you’ve
been itching to sing along on a song about Patty Hearst and the Symbionese Liberation Army!
So, after hearing the whole work two or three times at this years Rogue Festival, I told Mr.’s Spencer
and Morris. “I’d love to record this.” So we did.
We met this morning and ran through the whole thing. Each song live. Each song twice.
It’s now half-way finished. (Don’t ask about the second half….it hurts me to admit it. It was lost due to a hasty
button-pressing by me. Ouch. OK……we’ll finish it another day this week!
Watch for when it comes out. You’ll be glad you did.
June 6, 2010
The first few months of this year were a blizzard of activity, a long well-fought campaign, a big ol’
mess o’ gigs.
It’s time for cleaning up and organizing (literally, in the case of Whispermaphone Studios, figuritively in the case
of the collective mind of The Trike Shop) and then planning our next steps.
There are a lot of interesting opportunities floating our way, and we need to figure out which
ones to invest our time and energies into. The band is meeting Wednesday night.
In the meantime, look out for the second showing of the Underground Garden art piece at the farewell
party for Ashtree Studio near the end of this month.
May 11, 2010
more from the Stay Up Late sing-a-long
Poplord
Pieter Moerdyk
Leland, Martin and John of The Trike Shop
Aileen and Shannon milling around the Underground Garden art piece
May 2, 2010
Todd Severson (our Master of Ceremonies for the evening, announces songwriter George Rotalo
Andrew Bunnell joins Poplord on stage
Blake Jones & the Trike Shop
Joy Mohler, Robert Paul and Kate McKnight join in on the GroupSing for Brian and Lisa Kao
Ron "Doc" Morse leads the Trike Shop through "Cruel to Be Kind"
Big thanks to Pam Severson our photographer for the evening! (more great pix to come….)
April 30, 2010
underground garden artist picture
I’m going to have to ask Marcel how he does those thumbnail pic displays so I can post a whole bunch more of these fun pictures at once…..
but for now, here’s a small taste of the fun that was had last Saturday night at Audie’s Olympic at the Underground Garden CD Release Party! It’s a shot taken by….(I’m not sure who!) that I took off of Aileen Imperatrice’s facebook page. It’s a picture of a number of the artists who contributed to the Underground Garden Art Piece in front of the actual thing itself!
Over the weekend, I’ll be trying to figure the thumbnail thing AND the ‘ohmanthefileistoobig forthisblogtoaccept’ thing out. Big thanks to Pam Severson for taking pictures for us all evening! I look forward to getting them posted up here soon!