The Fruits of California

After being on tour with LAKE for almost two months, I got out of the van a day early in Arcata, CA and decided to get my misplaced hat mailed to me so I could hang it there for a couple of weeks. I spent the entire month of December in California, the latter half of which was spent on tour with my singing group Lazer Zeppelin. I ran into a lot of musicians on this trip and managed to get a few of them on tape. Here's a few of them.

The first morning I was there, Karl Blau was working on a last-minute arrangement of "Angel Band" for the project. We were at the Green House, a home-venue there, and Karl was using their old home entertainment organ. He brought bandmates Adam Oelsner and Eli Moore in to do backing vocals with us during the last 5 minutes of our stay.

I met a lady named Gracie from Eugene, OR while I had been in San Francisco, and she called me up to let me know that she was in Arcata as well, in fact right down the street from where I was staying. She put together a band called the Slippery Slopes at a friends' house, and called me up to come record their rendition of
"Sinking in The Lonesome Sea." I really liked the kazoo intro, and the way they sing "two hunderd dollars" in the third verse...

I asked my friends Lani and Tommi, who call their band Leviticus, if I could record them while I was in town. They told me no, that they did not perform in front of anybody, and while they almost exclusively played Carter tunes, no recording session would be arranged. Somewhat heartbroken, I respected their policy, and the very next day they handed me a tape they recorded especially for the project, with versions of "Chewing Gum" and "The Poor Orphan Child." I was overjoyed.

The next person I recorded in California was Maggie Morris. I was in San Francisco en route to my mother's place and stopped by her apartment to record her version of "I Shall Never Marry." She played it in her kitchen while I played with her cat on the floor.

More to come...