This is for the shut-ins

So, it's no surprise to many of my friends that if I go to a concert, more often than not I'm going to bring my camera with me. And, no... it's not just so that I can relive every single moment of the show and over and over again in the enjoyment of my own house, but... it's pretty much to be able to share the excellent music that I listen to live with folks all over the place. See... once I lived in a tiny coastal town that didn't get many concerts coming through. And, before that I lived in an even smaller midwestern town where the closest thing there was to live music was the neighbor kids to had band practice in their garage. So basically, there are a lot of isolated people out there in this great land.

This is for the shut-ins.

Basically, this is my 2009 in live music video footage:

Gregory Alan Iskaov & Brandi Carlile - Red & Gold

2.8.09, Bellingham, WA

Chris Pureka & Friends - Wagon Wheel

4.16.09, Mississippi Studios, Portland Oregon

(this video can also be seen on Chris's various sites)

Brandi Carlile - Folsom Prison (with GAI on banjo)

6.16.09, Aladdin, Portland, OR

(I've shot this video before, but with the fiddle and the banjo added, there was an energy that was present with this show that i hadn't noticed at other shows. Which is why, to film this was an afterthought - but a happy afterthought. They really hammered it!)

Iron & Wine - Such Great Heights

7.13.09 No Depression Festival, Seattle, WA

Gillian Welch & David Rawlings

7.13.09, No Depression Festival, Seattle, WA

(this hands down was one of my highlights of the summer)

Sera Cahoone - You Win Again (H.Williams Cover)

7.13.09, No Depression Festival, Seattle, WA

Justin Townes Earle - They Killed John Henry

7.13.09, No Depression Festival, Seattle, WA

Fences - Your Bones

9.28.09, MFNW, Portland, OR

(shot for the band, ps... Tegan Quin from Tegan and Sara, produced his new album coming out this year.)

Hey Marseilles - Rio

9.28.09, MFNW, Portland, Oregon

(shot for the band)

Chris Pureka - California

10.12.09, Portland Oregon

(shot for the band)

Katie Herzig & Brandi Carilie - Wish You Well

10.22.09, Portland Oregon

(a simply beautiful song... love love love)

Brandi Carlile - I Will

10.22.09, Portland, Oregon

I decided to post this one, because hands down... it has to be one of my favorite videos I've ever filmed. Brandi seemed so spot on for that song, as if she just channeled the feelings she was feeling when she initially wrote it. I've never been so moved from a singer giving a "performance" as I was for this moment.

Brandi Carlile - Mad World (cover)

10.22.09, Portland, Oregon

(everyone seems to love this one.)

Fences - From Russia With Love

12.09, Portland Oregon

(shot for the band)

-I shot a fair amount of video at other gigs as well that just hasn't made it to the youtube yet, but this pretty much some of my music highlights of the year (all aside from not bringing my camera to Neko Case).

-If you'd like to see more videos from some of the shows, just follow the links.

-My video of Brandi Carlile playing The Story at Mississippi Studios back in March of 07 is still going strong with about 1,182,000 views to date. Still, close to three years later it pops up in blogs all over the world and just last week, was on the nightly news in Seattle.

-My account is kind of in jeopardy at YouTube thanks to some "copy write infringements" over videos that I have of people singing covers of other songs. Most notably, no thanks to Sony. So, basically it's a "three strikes and you're out" policy and I already have two strikes. Meaning, if you are a subscriber to my account (and I have over 400 of them) you might want to stay tuned to where your favorite videos pop up next in the highly likely event that I'll get cancelled. I've got all of the hard copies saved, so losing the actual videos isn't a problem... I'm just not looking forward to losing all my viewers. Sure, I could remove videos and beat Sony to the punch, but all my account really is - is just videos from shows so pretty much everything I've posted, if folks want to be technical, is a copy write infringement. The way I see it is, I'm not making money off of posting videos or anything... I'm not playing it off as if it's my work, I just help share great music with people who can't be there to see it themselves. Hopefully, if folks can listen to music here and find something they like.... they'll be more likely to make it to a show or go out and buy an album (as to sit in front of the computer whenever you wanted to listen to music would get kinda boring and tedious).

-Shameless plug: As well, and as always... I'm available in the Portland area to film your stuff if needed be.

-And, more often than not, if you are a musician and you asked not to be filmed, I'll respect your wishes.

a pretty decent year

So, it's that time again when I rewind the past year and review some of my favorite moments, which..... luckily for me, I happen to capture many of those with my camera. Ideally, I don't know if I remember more events because I have photos of them and thereby can remember them with more accuracy than other events that seemingly fade into obscurity? I don't know... I can't remember those other events to know if they were worthy of having photos of or not.... hmm. Anyways, while I ponder that, I'll leave you with some of those memories from 2009, a pretty decent year in my book.

Bringing in the 09 New Year at Cindy's playing rock band with my softball girls.

Brandi played up in Bellingham, WA in early February and a few of us made the trek up there to take in the show.

And also to take advantage of boarding at Washington's Mt. Baker. And, it just so happened that an old school mate of mine that I haven't seen since we graduated from HS ten years ago was going to be there too. Hanging out with Natalie and her BF made for a fun day.

It just so happened that my 29th Birthday fell on a Tuesday this year. Which, if you live around Portland and spend time playing in the snow, you know this as "Ladies Night at Ski Bowl". So, a bunch of my friends all got together and went up. And, it just so happened that on this night, the first REAL GOOD snow of the season started falling. For many reasons, 2.10.09 was an eventful night.

That Friday, February 13th, I had the My House is Too Small for this Party, Party. Amazingly enough, throughout the course of the evening we crammed over 40 people in my tiny abode. Including singer-songwriter Anne Heaton who finished off my Newman O's.

In March, my ex bf and best friend in my later years of college, Jonathan, came from Finland to visit!

April pretty much started my year long efforts and pursuits of bike racing. I spent one whole weekend in The Dalles for the Cherry Blossom Stage Race. I learned here, that I hate hills and I love crits.

In May, my brother and mother came to visit. That was all sorts of fun!

We even had one of many summertime "porch parties at the sausage house" in their honor.

Memorial Day weekend, I went with some friends to climb my first fully covered glaciated peak at Oregon's South Sister. It was a fun weekend of building "snow camps", falling down hillsides with fully loaded packs and unstable snowshoes...

and photo-ops!

In June, my good old buddy Joanna Lane came out to visit for a softball recruiting thing and a few days later... her family joined in and were off for a little while on a PNW vacay. More of my friends should do this!

In early July, Sam and I left for the coast for a long holiday weekend head start which included camping and surfing... and then.....

the Tour De Franzia on the 4th...

followed by Lindsay's party bus birthday trip back to the coast for fireworks and bonfires on the beach. It was a great 4th of July!

I raced my bike ALOT this summer. At most, four to five times in one week! This photo is from the Swan Island Crit, one of my favorites!

Also in July, a few friends and I loaded in the car and headed up to Seattle to the No Depression fest which was chock full of great musicians. I was thrilled to see Sera Cahoone, Justin Townes Earle, Iron and Wine and one of my personal favorites... Gillian Welch.

On one steamy hot lazy summer day... I called Julie and convinced her to bring her dog and go to the Salmon River to hang out for the afternoon with me watching kayakers and rafters shoot the rapids. I sweetened the deal by throwing in a promise to swing by Hood River's Double Mt. to fill a growler. Let me just say... that water was COLD!

Every summer, one of the highlights hands down is the LCP softball tournament. Teams come in from all over the PNW and it basically turns into one large party/softball playing. This year... we pooled three teams together to make a massive encampment of fun that included grill outs and flippy cup. One of the best signs of a good LCP is fuzzy memories and sunburns.

At LCP, everyone knows where the action is and what teams to root for!

One sunny Sunday in August, we loaded up the car with our dogs and hiking gear and treked out to Mt. Hood to see the wildflowers in full bloom. Along the way, we met some older ladies who kicked our asses at hiking and we vowed to be just like them when we were in our 70's.

I really enjoyed the OBRA Crit Championship race this summer in Salem. Late in the summer I bought a brand new bike (as seen here) and while i wasn't that happy with my results in this race (I was still getting use to the new bike) I'm happy that overall for Cat 4 women I tied for a second overall placing in Crits this year!

Another highlight of the summer was proudly getting to attend my friends Kristen and Vanessa's wedding at the Ponzi Vineyards. It was a beautiful evening and such a great opportunity to enjoy in the special occasion with my friends.

Also this summer, on top of regular road bike racing, I also tried my hands at track bike racing at the velodrome. I fell in love with it. :)

One weekend, a bunch of friends and I went to Clear Lake near Mt. Hood for a interesting venture in camping and dealing with local red necks.

Labor Day Weekend, Lauren came to visit and she and Amy and Julie and I went for camping and surfing at the coast. It was an adventure in making sure our six person tent with two dogs didn't leak.

From there... it was then up to Seattle for the Raise the Roof benefit concert with Brandi Carlile. I designed the poster for the event and it was a lot of fun getting to see friends from near and far all in one place for one good cause. That weekend, I also went to Bumbershoot and met up with another friend of mine, Nick Teich who was in town for a conference. It was a loaded but fun weekend.

In late August, Sam and I headed south to Northern California for a few days to go camping and surfing in the Redwoods. It was a great trip! I felt like it was the equivalent of jamming four vacations into four days with the varied terrain we went through and experiences we had. Beware of things that go bump in the night when you're camping where you shouldn't be!

The beginning of October was a jammed packed as well. I had gotten into my first real live art show.... Artcrank, which kicked off the month long Oregon Manifest in Portland. Myself and about 30 other artists showed our bike related artwork at the First Thursday open house at the Ace Hotel.

From there, Sam, Amy, Julie and our dogs headed south to Bend for a weekend of camping and mountain biking.

Needless to say, we ran into some surprises from Mother Nature....

I also took Sam on a nice little hike up Dog Mountain this October, one of my favorite hikes. I'm glad Sam didn't kill me after that one as I forgot to mention to her how steep it is.

Obvy, I'm pretty good at making it up to her. :)

We celebrated Thanksgiving over at Sarah G's house with friends playing flag football with tube socks in the mud and playing rock band. It was all sorts of awesome.

Speaking of all sorts of awesome, so is playing paintball with about 1o of your friends.

After this point in the year... I had some problems with my camera which oddly enough... aside from going home for the holidays... provides very few memories. Hmm... I'll have to work on that next year. Happy 2010 everyone, to new friends and new adventures!

(note: blogger is pretty good about not making my photos smaller by itself. It's nothing that I'm taking the time to change... but somepeople get cropped out of the horizontal photos. So, if you'd like to see the whole photo and you're currently reading this on blogger... click on the photo to see the whole thing.)

A hella good listen!

What do you get when you have 40 top and upcoming artists donating their music for a hella good cause? A hella good listen!

1% for the Planet, who I've blogged about before, has just released a compilation of tunes where 100% of the proceeds from the sale go to help fund environmental non-profits. Included in the disc are fan favorites such as Jack Johnson, G. Love, Mason Jennings, Josh Ritter, Katie Herzig and my personal favorite... Brandi Carlile (singing a new unreleased tune!!!)

I picked it up yesterday early on amazon.com for $3.99, but apparently the cost of the compilation will be $10. You can find it on itunes, amazon, or select retail stores.

And, unlike other "save the world" music compilation cd's, this one happily isn't full of songs you'd never really want to listen to again. You know the type, songs about saving the whales and hugging trees don't exactly get top billing on my itunes playlists... but this one is full of acoustic chill worthy music. So, for 40 songs... it's worth a buy and a listen, over and over and over again.

The gift that keeps on giving....

Well, as many of you can see.... I've been a little MIA over the past few weeks. And I promise to fill you in on my Christmas, New Years and 2009 in Review, Resolutions, etc and all that fun stuff later (because I know you care), but right now I'll just leave you with my favorite holiday posting for the former festive season. I hope that everyone had a safe and happy holidays and New Year. Kudos to wiping away 2009 and bringing in 2010!

The gift that keeps on giving....

So, once again the holidays have come and gone and we can tell which gifts were successful and which were complete flops by the packages still resting under the tree. Usually it's the tin of stale popcorn, the matching umbrella and coupon wallet, and the fifteenth bottle of lotion that sits around the longest. I hate for a gift to be given and not used, it's seems like such a waste. Henceforth, when it comes to gift giving, I've made a resolution to give a gift that will never go unused and unappreciated. I am speaking of course, about the gift of toilet paper.

It's the little things that go unnoticed in your life and you don't realize they are important until they are gone; you know, like a loving family, a roof over your head, good bagels, and plenty of toilet paper on the roll. Really, when you think about it, in most modern societies, toilet paper is essential to a clean and functioning household. Some of the worst memories in my life have come from the end of the toilet paper roll.

Once, I lived in a house with male roommates and when it came to toilet paper, it was deemed as "community" (which means that we all used it and took turns buying it.) I always monitored the toilet paper supply and when it was my turn, I would immediately purchase more, this way we would never run-out. However, my experience in living with boys has led me to believe that they eat toilet paper for breakfast. It seems that no sooner would I buy a pack of toilet paper than we would be out of it. Unfortunately, my roommates did not have the foresight and priorities that I had, so days would go by without proper toilet paper representation. I would remind them, but no toilet paper ever greeted me when I walked in the door. Days turned into weeks, and I couldn't take it anymore. It scared me, what kind of people was I living with that didn't understand the need of toilet paper? No matter how badly I needed toilet paper though, I couldn't give-in and buy another roll out of turn. The boys would never learn that way, but something had to be done. So, when I could manage, I would buy a pack of toilet paper and place it in my closet, taking one roll out at a time and hiding it under my towels in the bathroom. My clever little plan worked for a while, the boys suffered from their own laziness, and I had my own happy stash of quilted toilet paper. The bliss was short lived though, eventually the boys wised up and realized I hadn't been complaining about the lack of toilet paper for a few weeks. As a result, they went on a household search and found my quilted toilet paper along with my collection of Wilson Phillips tapes.

Really, as much as I love using it, I hate buying toilet paper. In an ideal world, the government would issue toilet paper and toothpaste to the masses. It's part of a whole social services plan for good hygiene that would be covered by taxes. Depending on your tax bracket, you could get single ply, double-ply, or quilted. This way, you never have to be embarrassed when your grocery bag rips and toilet paper spills all over the sidewalk and you would never run out at inopportune times. I don't want better roads and safer schools; I want government issued toilet paper.

So until the day comes when the government freely distributes toilet paper, I will bring toilet paper to the masses. The next $10 gift exchange, I am going give something that my boss, my neighbor, and my grandma can use and appreciate. I'm going out and buying $10 worth of toilet paper. No more massive bars of chocolate, pink ear muffs, or tins of popcorn, give the gift that keeps on giving, a truly shitty gift, the gift of toilet paper.

kind and generous...

As most of you might know, last month on the day after Thanksgiving my snowboard was stolen while I was in eating lunch at Mt. Hood Meadows. In the weeks that followed, I asked my facebook friends to help me out by donating a dollar or any spare change to my "mean people suck" new snowboard fund. And well, what can I say... the kindness and generosity of my friends seriously left me speechless. In fact, I was able to greatly off-set the cost of a new setup and I even spent some money on a lock to make sure it wouldn't happen again.

Basically, my new board is the "bigger sister" to my former board, a Rome Blue 151. After extensive searching, I was able to find my old board style (147) on sale in someplace in Virginia, but the people at the shop were being tools about shipping it... so, instead I decided to upgrade in size and found the 151 version of my board from a seller on ebay. Brand new with free shipping, my new board was on it's way to me! The graphics are very similar, colors a little different, more bold and vibrant, and those few more inches make a difference in my turns and the float... but, I still get that same happy feeling when I look at my new board that I did with the prior one. However, this board warms my heart a little more than the other one since I know that so many of my friends pitched in to helped me get it.

So, when I take it for a spin in the mountains, in the deep powdery snow like I did last week on it's inaugural run... just know that even if many of you won't make it out to my home turf of Mt. Hood to board with me any time soon... every time I go snowboarding, you all are with me. And I thank you and vow to pay your kindness forward.

thank you thank you thank you!

a slow weekend at home

Shortest Day of the year: after this point… I can look forward to it not being dark when I ride my bike to ….. and from work. Speaking of which… Holy fucking headwind this morning batman! AND speaking of mornings, HELLO Monday!!! Apparently I forgot my spinach calazone in the fridge AND my SD card to upload the photos and video from Fences, that I shot at Mississippi Studios last night (Fences…. if you haven’t heard of them… and I’m thinking most of you haven’t, really you should.) AND, I also forgot to switch out the pedals on my bike. egad!

Weekend Recap:
FRIDAY NIGHT: I’m such a tool. I really wanted to go to my friend Steph and Bria’s open house and for some odd reason I thought it was Saturday night and I’d have to swing it between other events I had planned. No. Apparently it was tonight. And, while everyone was else was there enjoying the festive holiday spirit, Sam and Anna and I spent a relaxing evening on the sofa watching movies and eating experimental pad thai.

SATURDAY:
We had initially wanted to go snowboarding Saturday, but the weather turned warm which pretty much meant conditions would be shit and not worth the drive, so instead we slept in a little and woke up to thoughts ofGravy. In order to get to Gravy and not wait in line, we got there about 9am. I fucking love Gravy, not so much the dish… however, Gravy does have amazing gravy - i mean, if you’re gonna name your restaurant after an item on the menu, it better me good… and it is! - but the place. Most things are excellent, I love the challah bread french toast as it’s so tasty when you eat it then, and if you order the full order, it’s even just as tasty for leftovers. Also, the thing I love about Gravy is that with two people, it’s possible to order a little bit of everything tasty on the menu for a decent price. Can’t decide between eggs and french toast, order the eggs and get the french toast on the side… same with the gravy. Sam ordered a massively huge omelet with a side of french toast and I ordered a single biscuit with sausage gravy. Sam ate half of her omelet, half of my biscuit, while I ate the other half of my biscuit and half of the half order of french toast. In the end all, we both walked out with enough leftovers to feed us the following morning.

From there I still had some holiday shopping to do… so I went to Trendy Third street to gaze upon the holiday wares. I don’t really go shopping that much, and honestly, I don’t really ever buy much…. but I love looking.

At 2pm Fritts came over to my house and we donned our wet riding gear and set off to Tabor to do some hill repeats. On our way back home, we rode down to Mississippi Street to stop by the Sugar Cube. I love love love the Sugar Cube (i have a food crush) and this is the first time I’d been by since Kir opened in her new location at the Food Carts on Mississippi. I was happy that Kir recognized me and called me by name (we’re facebook friends afterall), sadly though, she was out of my favorite cupcake…Highway to Heaven, but… to alleviate our loss, she hooked us up with a delicious brownie with a chocolate ganache frosting drizzled with caramel and sea salt. DE-LI-I-CIOUS! I wanted to eat the wrapper. Sam went inside Proust, the german bar next door to the food cart and ordered some beers for us and we sat outside on the courtyard near our bikes eating brownies and drinking stouts. It was pretty much amazing.

Then, we rode home and cleaned up and Sam and I were out the door to the Wend Magazine Festivus Elefante Blanco Holiday Bash = Slamming Good Times. I was kinda nervous to go to the party since I didn’t really know too many people, but… what a great place to meet some really interesting folks! And let me tell you, the Wend people know how to throw a party! There was a big spread of food, wine, saki, and even a few kegs full of Nikasi IPA!!!! YUM!! In between a few pints of IPA, I met a pro adventure racer, a bike wheel builder, a pro kayaker, and even reconnected with my old friend from dragon boat racing, Nick. The best part about the party was the white elephant gift exchange. I had found this delightfully creepy ceramic good luck cat that you see at Chinese resturants and Sam found a massive western style belt buckle. It was great watching everyone open their random gifts: vodka, a hash pipe, Bibleology the board game, Sarah Palin’s new book, a snuggie, etc. My gift was an award for excellence in Risk Management from PSU in the shape of Oregon. It rocked.

By the time we left the party, it was much too late to make it to Steph and Bria’s (which was actually the day before)… so then Sam and I just jetted off to the Holocene to meet up with some friends and get some dancing under our belt.

SUNDAY:
I slept in. Sam came back from paddling practice and then we ate leftovers from Gravy the day before. Sam filled me in that I can join her for their sunday morning paddling practices at the pool and I can swim laps for free while they paddle. I love swimming and I can pretty much swim laps all day long, I never get tired of it. Sadly though, I don’t have easy access to a pool that has convenient open lap swim.

…..

Went to the gym around 3:30. Came back, packed for my trip home this week and putzed around the house till I left to go shoot Fences at Mississippi Studios. Christen had contacted me Saturday wanting to know if I could cover the show and get material for their EPK. I responded back with a yes before I realized my camera hasn’t been working the way it should. However, I had just bought some new batteries the night before so hopefully they’d last long enough to get some good material. And, praise the lord… it did. I love Mississippi Studios, the sound there is great and more often than not, the crowd is pretty respectful. As a result, some of my best video’s have come from there. Anyways, caught the show. Apparently the message for me to be on the Guest List wasn’t passed along, but I was able to sweet talk my way in to the sold out show. Fences had a great set and played with a few of the guys from Hey Marseilles. Afterwards, I stuck around to see a bit of the Cave Singers set, but I was getting tired and so it was off to bed for me.

Anyways, today is the shortest day of the year and I forgot my spinach calazone for lunch. FYI.