Playlist - dateline Prosser, WA

Live

July 13, 2013
Courtney Marie Andrews
Mikey and Mattie
Shelby Earl - CD release party for Swift Arrows
Columbia City Theater, Seattle

And Are We Yet Alive?, the hymn sung every year at annual conference by the assembled United Methodist clergyfolk, speaks to those times in life when you realize that an ordeal has been survived and that you are wounded but healing, stronger and aware. For many, their 20s are such an ordeal, and finding yourself at the other end more completely adult is a grace and a glory. The stage this night was crowded with superb musicians, sharing with each other and with us their triumphs and tales.

Courtney Marie Andrews

I'm a sucker for finger-picking she-minstrels, and Courtney delivers all the musts of the type: wise, ingenuous, vulnerable, shy but comfortable enough in her own skin and voice to rival the presence of her awfully pretty guitar.

Mike and Matt Gervais are well known as the manic-happy front men of Curtains For You, and in previous guise as the engine behind True Bugs. It isn't surprising that they have now ventured off on their own with a superbly able crew lifted partly from the Seattle Rock Orchestra, and held in place by Faustine Hudson, perhaps the most melodically capable of Seattle rock drummers. One band is just not enough to hold this volume of creative energy.

Shelby pulls out all the stops - a perfectly attuned band, a wonderful venue, charismatic charm - and tries every trick in the book - songwriting chops beyond comparison and a jazz chanteuse's knack for hanging off unsuspected corners and lingering in newly discovered crannies of the beat - but there is really no hope. That voice will win.

Recorded

July 15, 2013
Banned Rehearsal 42 - (July 1985, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Meyer)

A rehearsal for that very evening's concert. Opacity of a howling blizzard. Neal's sister Karen was our test audience, before she and I became an item.

July 16, 2013
Banned Rehearsal 43- A Short and Simple Concert - (July 1985, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Meyer)

Our second live performance, at Brechemin Auditorium, School of Music, University of Washington, Seattle. Neal was a TA at the time, and the audience was beefed up with students from his theory classes.

July 17, 2013
Banned Seminar 1 - Banned Rehearsal

Eight tapes combined. A texture of textures shifting at a texture of shifting rates.

July 18, 2013
Banned Seminar 2 - Banned Rehearsal

An overabundant overlay of Funmaker fills the nooks and clogs the crannies. Un-poke-able.

In Session at the TintinabularyJuly 15, 2013
Fox Spit 1 - Keith Eisenbrey

Neal couldn't come over for Gradus, so I decided to practice tuning the guitar that my brother gave me - his first successful hand-made Fox Spit. Then I made this recording.