Strange Trips

Clocking in for the first time in 2015. To say that my life has become totally foreign to me in the past 3 months would be a whopping understatement. But, you know... silver lining, oh-blah-di-oh-blah-dah, etc etc into infinity. So I'm moving. For a minute. 105 miles south. Then, who knows. Do you live in Portland, Oregon and have a bike you'd like to loan me for the month of March? I need to DO THINGS like haul records down to Beech Street Parlor for this real good time on Wednesday the 4th.

DJ HELL BOOKS (the one and only Chris Sutton) and DJ MISS U (points for creativity, I know!) will be playing all the hits and the non-hits and especially popular songs made weird on moog so they sound like outer space cartoon anthems. In heartbreaking news:

Rosebud departed earth to terrorize/entertain the afterlife. Very suddenly. One day she was being the insane Lumberjackal, and the next she was lackluster. Cancer everywhere. Two weeks from diagnosis to death. I loved her so.

She wasn't really allowed stuffed squeaky toys because she could eviscerate them in 5 minutes. Tennis balls and ropes were harder to destroy and seemed to suffice. But, in those past two weeks, she got every squeaky toy her little heart desired. Rosebuddy. Little Skookums. Baby. Rosebored. Rosebad. Rbud. Little Girl.

I went back to scrubby old Sun Valley, CA to scatter some of her ashes. In the thorny yard (complete with black widows) that she loved so much.

One of the first things she did after arriving as a foster puppy was eat an entire paddle off of the prickly pear. ROSEBUD!

Outside of the sadness of saying goodbye to my pup and my former life (the house is a studio now, so strange being back in my bedroom. I turned 30 there. Turning 40 this year), visiting LA was great as per usual. Check out these goofballs, all hopped up on adrenaline and LIES while playing the best punk dice game ever, Kariki.

And back in Olympia, I've been jamming with the Mona Reels, now featuring Corey + Bonus Mike of Vexx on drums and guitar, respectively. Love this group of people, and look at my old art studio! Gear debacle. Marshall storage unit. Cord chaos. Part of my life's blood.

Face broke/off/whatever

I consider myself an optimist. I mean, I'm a Virgo! So maybe I'm just reaching for optimism, but goddammit if I'm not gonna give that 110%! If I work and practice and work and practice, I'm gonna be GREAT (humbly, of course) at being positive.
Trauma's a real beast. Physical trauma is an interesting dog. I am almost healed from a severe hematoma, aka The Ugliest Black Eye ever, and now I broke my face again. Its perhaps no biggie: broken nose (my 3rd, the other two from being a kid). But I can't breathe right and have an even uglier flatenning/bigger bump. And it HURTS. Black eye looked awful but didn't hurt after the initial whack.. this one just throbs and calcifies into a bigger uglier mutant scar. Vanity is just that; my poor face. This is something different. A nagging depression that you're owed you're comeuppance from the universe. Why so many endless harsh lessons after lessons?
I'm lucky. I love my little family. I get to paint for a job. My friends are my greatest allies/mentors. But injury post injury, it is a drag. It just started pouring June rain as I typed this, my wishes answered, luck after all.

Kamilche Scene Report

Sooooo... all of these things happened recently.

1. I broke my face, but at least I match the buoy.

Seriously, its kinda no big deal. Its about a million times better than it was 4 days ago and the CT scan says I'm just fine. Freak accident.

2. I did a live painting demo in the window of my friend's shop, Psychic Sister. J-Tro accompanied me by playing some electronic music. Super fun! I painted a quick portrait from the cover of a Martin Denny record.. lettering is not my strong-suit.

Made this flyer for the event..

3. I painted this cat, Frankie, as a commission for my friend Bridget's birthday. (Excuse the barrel distortion).

here's a process shot:

4. I went to Arizona as a tourist for the most excellent wedding of a hilarious friend I've known for 20 years. And met my spirit instrument at the MIND BLOWING Musical Instrument Museum.

5. I painted this cat on commission, Leroy:

6. And this one, Freya (which I unfortunately did not take a very good picture of):

7. I hurtled myself down a mountain in a blizzard (like an actual blizzard, with 50+ mph winds, ouch).

8. Painted Vic the dog for Vic's Pizzeria (again, I take pretty bad pictures of my work, need to hire a pro).

9. Did I mention I broke my face? They wrapped my head in an old-timey bandage!

10. And.. coming soon: a new wine label for the super rad Deux Punx winos.

My Innards

Its official:

I'm made of bobby pins, earplugs, guitar picks and change.

Prints/Revolution

Ahhh.. yes! Found this one today. A print I made for an auction a while back. Thanks to the always inspiring Pat R. for the quote:

So many things going on lately. Stuff. Remnants. This n' Thats. Our last WH show is Friday:

New record in the can, not sure if it will see the light of day. The always tasteful Matt Buscher twiddled the knobs and I clocked in at the Oh Factory. Meaning I basically just sang 'Oh', 'Nah Nah Nah', and 'Lalalalalala' for a few hours, fine by me. And then the Huge Colossal Project happened:

WE DID IT!

WE PLAYED FOR TWO HOURS STRAIGHT TO THIS SOVIET MASTERPIECE! 'October: Ten Days That Shook The World', dir. Sergei Eisenstein, 1928. Dave, Rachel, Joaquin, Reuben and myself wearing our crazed 1973 commie freakazoid 'roller personas. Most fun I've had in a couple of years, honestly. 

WHALE

There's a whale in our inlet. Again. The last time was a real bad bummer, an injured whale that flopped around dying in front of our house, in the water, for a spell. Heartbreaking. This one is possibly a grey whale, and so might just be a little off course. Still, its eerie. I went out on the deck tonight and could hear it breathing. About every 45 seconds or so, the breath/blowhole/gasp would travel, thousands of feet to the north, until it was out of hearing range, just the shriek of angry seagulls to track its course. This is a map of the Puget Sound, and where we live. We live at the red arrow. Its the end, the end of the Sound, and so when whales come here, its worrisome.

Walk For Witches

Yesterday: Michelle, Stephie, Jennyrose and myself piled into the tiny silver Hyundai and hightailed it to Redmond, Washington. The skies were dumping rain all over Olympia when we left, we huddled in the open door of the record store in trepidation. Stephie: "This is, like, Biblical!". We brought plastic sacks for our shoes, and a shower curtain for.. a picnic blanket? Blasting Dusty Springfield and Subway Sect ("Life.. Is.. Chain.. Smoking") on the ride up. I think maybe we all stepped through a little rip in the time/space continuim, becoming 15 again. The skies cleared, the moon rose over a friendly, grassy little park in NE Seattle, and then she appeared:

Though I was excited to spend an evening being a goofball with my friends, I didn't really have any expectation for this show. X and Blondie. A great pal gave me 4 free front row tickets! I took a chance on 'reunions'. It payed off, big time. Besides Clem Burke KILLING it, destroying the drum kit and all drummers to come before and after him, Debbie Harry is so COOOOOOOOOOOOOL. I don't think there is enough room for me here to draw out that 'cool' into an apt description of this woman. If I have one shred, one speck of that at age 68, I'll be happy. Oh, and she came out wearing this robe and a black dunce cap? Setting the bar, setting the bar.

We tailgated it after the show, eating chevre and figs like all punks do in the parking lot. We waited until everyone left, why not? I don't think any of us wanted to go home just yet. And tonight, I'm doing it all over again, going to Seattle with JT for Neko Case. Its a full moon and I have a raging case of emotional vulnerability (aka 'pms'), so I'm listening to her music today and practicing holding back tears, because I hate crying in public, and its going to be a challenge. If you flex the muscles under your eyeballs and squint up and to the right, it staves them off a bit. Pro tip. 

Thank you Candice P. for the tickets!

Thirty-Great

I haven't found the inspiration to post on here in a while, but all of a sudden tons of exciting things are happening! First and foremost, over a year ago I sent a plea into the Universe for a Mustang bass, and left it at that: revisit here. Tomorrow she shall be mine! From a friend, for a very very very decent price. And why do I need a solid bass, since Western Hymn is breaking up and I'm actually a guitar player? Because I have signed up for an insane project:

I'm not a regular follower of my horoscope, but I gave it a glance the other day. It said something along the lines of 'an older man will offer you an interesting opportunity, and you should say yes'. Hmmmm, says me. And what do you know: the following morning I received a message from my old pal Dave, asking me to join a 5-piece band, on bass, for the sole purpose of playing a live soundtrack to an amazing 1920's silent Soviet film, October: Ten Days That Shook The World. 90 minutes of music, mostly original (but some apt glam covers thrown in when the revolution really gets going), on stage at the Capitol Theater during the Olympia Film Fest. November 10th. YIKES. Bonus: we will be wearing sparkly Soviet-influenced outfits. Joaquin, the singer, wears hot pants. So there's that.

Couple of quick graphics jobs, a flyer for the Broho and this letterpressed jobby for a fest called OOPS:

                         

It definitely needs some red on the left to balance, but I only had time to do two passes and if you're a printmaking nerd you'll know how the yellow sun and the capitol building occupied all of that space on the Vandercook with their big square linoleum block dimensions. But if I could, I would do one more layer with some red seagulls floating around the dome. And it was a volunteer gig, but I did score about 300 pieces of chipboard for future projects.

Also, my friend and bandmate Craig is moving to Los Angeles in November, so we're playing a string of final Western Hymn shows in late October/early November.. and recording an album! Best to get everything documented. The little band that could. J-Tro gave us a nice shout-out in this post.

And finally, I'll be celebrating turning 38 this weekend with my virtual Sept. 21st birthday buds. An eclectic mix, no? Early revelry begins tonight at Blondie/X in Seattle, and tomorrow at Neko Case. Busy times! Oh yeah, and I just took on a painting commission with a tight deadline. COFFEEEEEE.

Immortal Blobs

Played a show last night. Returned home to this scene:

Guitars snuggling on the guest bed. Cute. I've been working out on guitar lately.. trying to play at least one hour a day by myself. What have I been doing playing bass these past few years? Whoever said playing bass is easier than guitar (and that's why girls always play bass, blah blah blah) is crazy. Bass is way harder. Guitar is just easy breezy funtimes.

Speaking of funtimes, I have this giant surfboard-thing, its a 'paddleboard'. Because have you ever tried canoeing by yourself? Ridiculous! Hours and hours of paddling for a few inches of movement. And kayaks scare me.. that whole rolling thing. But, a paddleboard is just like piloting a (more aerodynamically shaped) raft. Huck Finn style. You can really cruise.

And so on the eve of the Supermoon, I plopped the board into Totten Inlet (my front yard, dreamy) and paddled to nowhere in particular. Somewhere along the way, I had the feeling I was being watched:

Acres of jellies! This photo doesn't really do the scene justice.. thousands of gelatinous umbrella-shaped animals, all out to worship the moon. I was hoping not to fall in.

So I just layed down for a while and floated around in the silence. Not a soul in sight. I made it back to the dock eventually, and walked home, and then read this depressing article. But then i read this fascinating article! And finally, I wondered what life would be like if your job title was 'Jellyfish Expert'. 

Echo People

Saw this on the interwebs tonight, cool time capsule:

 

One of my first official graphic design jobs (meaning I made the layers on the copy machine, and the offset printers figured out the rest) in 1995. Project Echo, a 7-inch compilation on cd for K Records. Calvin had some sort of idea that I should be let loose in the graphic room for a while. And then -- poof! -- 18 years later:

 

Couple of new posters for the Brotherhood, land of adult beverages and shuffleboard! Weights and grains. I'm still trapped in the luddite world of copy machines, but I kind-of love the limitations. I have so many of these now, the black and white jobbies for the Broho.. thinking about making a very limited edition zine compiling the past four years worth of show flyers. I've lost a few along the way, but I'm guessing Pit archived them all in his office cavern. Cheers to Olympia for giving me so many fun weird odd jobs! Old Part-Time Utter.

 *was just thinking about how often the circle comes up in imagery for me.. most of my paintings have a ton. prints too. its an attractive shape to me, apparently more captivating than the square or triangle. a quick search gleans this information: "Circles are often seen as protective symbols. Standing within a circle shields a person from supernatural dangers or influences outside of the circle. Conversely, a circle can also be containing, keeping that which is inside from been released" or, in sacred geometry, "recurrence, solar cycles, all cyclic motion, dynamism, endless movement, completion and fulfillment." Oooooooo. O. Oh, also: MOVIETIME!