Tag Archives: Accordion

Music

Video of Parking Lot Jam At Eccentrik Festival

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While searching for Nicki Jaine videos on youtube this morning, I ran across this. At Eccentrik Festival, there were a few moments when I dragged a bunch of people out into the parking lot to play impromptu songs. Personally, these were the highlight of the event for me and really opened my eyes to collaborative music. Sadly, these videos are only 30 second snippets, but I think they’re fun. There’s another of everyone and then a third that’s just valerie and I playing accordions.

Eccentrik Festival was utterly magical, and downright transformative for me. Playing with the musicians I played with did something really good for my heart. I’ve met an unfortunate number of musicians who are kind of… aloof? arrogant? something like that. But these people, Nicki Jaine, Jill Tracy, The Ghosts Project, Hellblinki Sextet, who I got to hang out and play music with, these are good people.

Events

Show Tonight In Baltimore!

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Okay, so this is pretty damn last minute, as in, three hours before I play, but I’ll be playing a benefit show tonight for the RNC arrestees. These are the folks who are being charged as terrorists for organizing anarchist responses to the Republican National Convention, and whether you can come tonight or not, they need your support. The show is at Checkpoint Charlie, at 2638 N. Charles St. in Baltimore, MD. I’ll be playing with my friends Iris and Ryan Harvey, so check it out if you’re in the area. Doors are at 8.

Events, Photo Essay

Photos from Sunday’s Show

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I’m pleased as hell with these photos that came out of sunday’s show. Just as a word of warning, the show in question was at an erotic arts theatre, so like half the pictures of me have a painting of a lady wearing pasties (and not too much else) behind me. If you know me, you know that I would rather that not be the case. But at least it’s a well executed painting.

Anyhow, there are pictures from:
Libby Bulloff [my favorite of myself declares me the patron saint of gibberish].
And Daniel McManus [my favorite of myself.]
And of course, I posted twopictures of setup to my flickr.

Music

My New (old) Accordion!

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In preparation for a return to a wandering lifestyle, I had to come to some decisions in regards to my accordion… namely, my old accordion—a full-size 120 bass monster with three voices (7 switches) on the treble side and and two voices (3 switches) on the bass side—was too large to travel with. I had a small, broken, 80 bass accordion that was wet-tuned (and out of tune), which one portland repair place told me wasn’t worth fixing. But I took it to a second opinion, and I’m glad I did. Eileen Hagen’s Accordion Center fixed it up. If you’re in Portland, she’s the lady to see for repairs. Her prices are reasonable, she sells accordions for good prices, she takes trades, and she—as far as I know—treats people right. She (or rather, her technician) fixed my accordion in less than 24 hours… retuning most of it, putting in a missing reed, putting on new straps, back plate, etc., and I’m pretty happy with it. So now I have one voice on each side but damn it’s light. and all I’m giving up is some volume and the diminished chords.

As soon as I got off the bus to walk to the train station though, the leather of the handle ripped out of my hand and I ended up carrying the damn thing on my shoulder. Sigh. Making a new one of webbing.