Flashback
11.12.25
I guess I was waiting for the posed photo to come through, but it never did. The Polka Cowboys played Sunol, we got band photos, it was great, I had a neat outfit. I had gone to Canyon on the Friday to load gear because Art had had emergency surgery and wasn’t supposed to lift more than 15 pounds–Art made dinner, I spent that night in my Westyhaven, we carpooled in the big Tesla to the gig, then got to set up and play, break down and load, and back to Canyon for another night, because we were too tired to pull all that equipment out. It was pretty sweet tho. Sputnik was recovering from shoulder surgery too, his arm in a sling, and played drums through it. Woah. Trooper.
A great band photo to come . . .
A couple of weeks ago I heard from Grif that he had found a VHS tape from our November 1990 performance on La Val’s downstairs stage–I forget what we called Down There. During two broken strings I shirked the opportunity to tell the very long story of how I worked at La Val’s from just after they opened in 1976 through early 1979; before I was playing music, when I was breaking up with Pilmer and hence nearly homeless, and via some strange interactions out in the street around a protest over the cancellation of Tim Yohannon’s show on KALX met up with the Frank Mooreons and thereby found myself playing drums at the Mabuhay Gardens weekly Thursday night dinner shows for four months with the Outrageous Beauty Review and the Superheroes . . Thus began my music and stage career.
After playing in some funky little garage combos I met Grif on Thanksgiving of 1984 at the new home of our ex-neighbor and mutual friend. Grif had brought about a dozen LP’s for entertainment, and I pored over them with surprise and delight–oh! yes!–HP Lovecraft, the Incredible String Band, and Oh, what’s this?? Robin Hitchcock! the Comsat Angels! He played guitar and wrote songs, so we arranged for me to bring my little Yamaha traps around the corner to his place and see what’s what. We hit it off, and found a bass player, and that was Tiger Swallowtail, which became Wingfinger, until Lou left after some random couple of years.. We designed logos and cassette covers and fliers.
La Val’s kitchen is where I met Melokie, and when they opened the basement as a venue we got to wait tables and see the music events, and when there was zero business we would hang out by the backdoor and smoke Export A’s. She and I would take off after work for San Francisco and the clubs on Broadway and thereabouts, or around campus to Cloyne Court or Barrington Hall or Berkeley Square or the International Cafe to see some really great bands of the era, the Mutants, Tuxedo Moon, the Avengers, the Jars, friends of ours. And then there was Rather Ripped Records, a small record shop where live bands would play, I think the Police played there, maybe Patti Smith? And on campus where there were free shows like the time Talking Heads played to a spillover crowd in Sproul Plaza. All this before I was a Musician per se.
Meanwhile I played with other groups as well, the bluegrass-influenced Magpies around 1985, and a jazzy trio where I met Stevie and joined him in the band INCHES–which would eventually become the Cavepainters, and further down the road, the Lost Hippies.
And there was Spent- a thrash combo of 22-year-old college students, who all graduated and left town that spring after a trip to Portland to play the Satyricon, and Gilman Street. And there was Zenarchy, and the Waterdogs, and a couple other opportunities to make the drums-to-bass transition.
Around the time of this gig at La Val’s Grif and I had been playing little cafes up on College Avenue or University, and too bad, we felt like just us just wasn’t enough. I had always wanted to play bass, and it appeared to be easier to find a drummer than a bass player. So it was sometime in spring of 1991 that I took $150 cash to Guitar Center and waved it around, and ended up with a pretty neat Japanese fake-Fender Jazz bass, gig bag, strap and cord. I taught myself to play–heck I knew these songs by heart, I played drums and sang harmonies on them for five years–so I plunked it out until I felt up to speed. I think the first tune I learned was Grif’s Big Dream. Then we did get a drummer, and another name, Hoddyman Dodd, after an English counting poem–and we put out a couple of cassette tape albums.
Somehow, another misspellable name on a marquee lead to a name change, and then we were the Ravines, with a key board player, and eventually another drummer. But that’s all written up elsewhere, perhaps.
Then there were the Silver Kittens, and that crazy year 2009 when everything broke up and the Possum Family Singers were born, and then the Lost Hippies . . . and that sad story. I could have gone on and on.
Looking back, though, this was a good show. Tight harmonies, good stage presence, catchy material. I could have told a good story in the break, or I could have mumbled inaudibly for three minutes, I dunno. Coulda been somebody, y’know. Still are, really.
Shout out to my friends John and Linda on cameras and master control.
Solsticial
June 23, 2025
It has been a long time . . . life is very strange lately, and I like it. I recently spent four days in Santa Rosa, visiting a human, and a dog who is enamored with me, shopping, making a pot roast, the usual. So happy to be home with my bed, my garden, my silence, my local routines.
I am seeing an acupuncturist, adjusting my diet, finally getting the diagnosis that concurs with my suspicion that my mercury fillings are the source of my tinnitus, ear infection, and leg discomfort. I am attempting to contact a recommended dentist to remove the leakiest of the three amalgam fillings that still remain. The dentist I am calling is Iranian–more’s the pity, with the war at fever pitch now.
I did a big detox, a fast, and was living on smoothies for a week. I returned to solid foods in anticipation of the Meadow Muffin, and thereupon helped kill three bottles of wine with my two invited guests on the first night. I also recall storming the stage with my Martin bass and jamming with Maaatt and another bass player for an hour that night. The next day Art and I played some of our repertoire, and Maaatt joined us to steamroll some Lost Hippies material. He takes all my vocal parts, so I can’t harmonize. If I do, he jumps the track and sings what I am singing. Ah well, just as well to be rid of it. On the Monday after, I went up on the bare stage alone, with my Martin, and sang a bunch of tunes while folks rolled wires and packed the sound gear away.
Art and I are getting on, as friends. We’ll play two festivals in August, the International Musical Saw Festival on the 10th, and the Cotati Accordion Festival with Greg on the 18th will pay for the gas it takes to get there. Oh yes, plus the yummy chicken BBQ lunch. I didn’t think there would be a time that I would be Okay with it again, but here we are.
There have been some odd dreams of late, as suggested by the current Jupiter/Neptune square. James had a wonderful NDE type dream of angel people who basically said, it’s all right, don’t worry. I had a dream about my studio at Howe Street. There was an actual ARTIST there (me??) taking up the full half of the two-car garage that I had 1/4 of, climbing over dog shit, furniture, paint cans and storage bins to access. An older (like me) guy, dramatic landscapes, must have been acrylics (or pastels?) because I don’t recall the smell of turps. There was a doorway, and a woodworker in the other half, so yay! Framing! and sawdust? I don’t recall that smell, either. Then we walked out to the street, which had become a road, overlooking the bridge through trees, and sparse traffic driving through knee high mist, with the City in the distance. At some point, he (me??) kissed me! Did I receive a blessing from the pastel gods?
I’m pining for those studios, sad to recall how appropriate both Howe Street and the Roofing House were for pastel dust, which I never realized. I had so much fun with my acrylics then, and just painting walls and building shelves and hanging lights and stenciling floors, all the prep work that goes into having a working space, only to be ejected, and abandoned. So frustrating. What can it all mean?
So I’m airing out my pastels, I bought some board to try, small panels that fit in a pouch I can carry about. I have a sheltered space and table in the garden to clear. There is so much junk I have been getting rid of lately, it’s groundbreaking, making space for me–even Steve’s circular saws and MAAP gas, out on the curb and snatched up in moments by someone who might actually use them. Not letting go of the jigsaw and Sawzall tho, yo.
So much time in the garden, and it’s feeling really settled. It’s all about letting things unfold, following the whim, letting the Crows be the birds in my garden, I can’t fight them. I put in two more raspberry plants, two more high bush blueberries, two thornless blackberries my neighbor had put on the street. I have cut the Insipid Pink Pearl back to three fruits, and there is more wood to take out to make room for the Pink Lady, which has its first apple this year. Every day I get out into the garden I make huge progress, with my worm box in place, and new attempts at weaving the patio chairs underway.
Gallery hopping
March 2025
I was morose last week, pining for my lost life as a musician, and all the peeps I will never see again. Sad, sad, blue beret. I didn’t know how deep it went, until a long phone call with E brought me near tears more than once at the memory, how hard it is to process or follow through. I have no urge to jaunt about to open mics, hang out in bars or drag myself home in the dark with gear, all alone. It does not spark joy. I have been sitting up at night in that same dark tho, playing the old toones on my reconfigured Stella Toy Bass. I remember it all, sing better than ever, even over the sketchy intonation and sometimes hitting a wall–what key was that in? and no muscle memory will save it without an intro by Ann.
I knew, the next day, that discharging emotion like that usually results in a breakthrough, and in fact is the only way through. So surprise, no surprise when I got a call out of the blue from PMav inviting me to a gallery show in San Francisco and nearby SFMOMA afterward. Looking into the gallery I am utterly shocked to see it is a show of Leonora Carrington, not so much for herself but because the gallery also represents Remedios Varo, and has had THREE solo shows of her work in the past decade or more.
Crazy coincidence, Grif had turned me on to her years ago (she had lived and died in Mexico City around the time he was there) and had used several of her images for band fliers for the Ravines. Full circle, somehow. There is also another link to Gordon Onslow Ford, who drifts in and out of my vision in odd ways, such as the book I was reading about poets that mentioned him living and painting on a houseboat owned by Alan Watts in SF Bay.
After the gallery, and an excellent Hunan lunch, we stopped in at SFMOMA, somewhat disappointing until we got into the permanent collections, and the book store, where I found they stock my favorite $3 paintbrush/pencil combo. Then off to Bart, and home by dark.
PMav asked me if I was painting, as he does, and I lapsed into my cover story: rebuilding sewing machines, the bobbin wheel adventure, constructing ski pants, that I just cleared from my work table. I have almost repopulated the watercolor layout and have empty pages open, and have got most of my vehicle paperwork cleared away, so here is hoping I will kick my own ass and start a new surge of painting, with an eye to something new and, maybe, original.
Sometimes it’s a struggle and doesn’t come naturally. It’s sad to scroll through my phone to see screenshots, ideas, other people’s work. It’s that bugaboo of originality that I beat myself up over. Ow! Stop that! There is the sense of being screw-tin-eyesed, or being graded. When I was young, drawing was a place to hide. Now it has become homework. All I want in life is to be able to goof off and get away with it. If I am painting to be judged, or to avoid being judged, what is the fun in that? I think the previous binge was a result of the practice of Bad Painting. That seemed to kick the dust off, and derail the demon at my ankles. We’ll see. . . Meanwhile, here is some old journal filler from the before times, endpapers, from Canyon, and maybe even BSPco. Horrors!
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