Portland, OR - 20th October 2011

So this post finds me in a public library in Portland, Oregon, sitting across a desk from Adam Lipman.  We're on the 3rd date of this leg of the tour and apart from the fact that we're having a totally wonderful time, it's been a disaster.  So, really it hasn't been a disaster at all!  Adam is going to be my collaborator on this post, which will hopefully make up for the fact that I left my camera behind in Boise, Idaho so have no photos to share.  Hopefully.

Immediately after my last post I went out to meet Tom who gave me a ride up to Utah.  He's a very friendly and generous guy and it was fascinating and fun to hang out with him for a few hours.  He is a Mormon guy who works in IT but has a side-line selling and acting as an ambassador for a salt-water based health product which he is very passionate about.  Though he failed to convince me of its miraculous powers, it was interesting and kind surreal to hear him talk at such great length on the subject.  Tom was kind enough to drive out of his way and drop me off at the venue in Salt Lake City and I am extremely grateful to him for his help getting me out of a tight spot.

The show in Salt Lake City take place within a few hunderd yards of the Mormon temple, inside the Utah Pride Centre, which is a community and resource centre for people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer.  This juxtaposition was pretty fun for me and given that Mormons are not world-reknowned for their liberal attitudes towards sexuality, and that the one Mormon I have ever known personally had a real hard time coming out as gay, I was pleased to see this centre apparently thriving.  The show I played was with a girl called Sally Yoo, who had some pretty great songs, and the kids who came to the show were really fun to hang out with.  They took me to a fast-food eaterty called Del Taco after the show where I was able to try some outrageously American food: deep fried macaroni cheese bites!  Not quite as disgusting as I'd hoped for, but still plenty disgusting enough.  It was a lot of fun chatting with the members of the local band Prince Polo until it was time for me to catch the overnight train to Boise, Idaho.

I got to Boise very early in the morning and sat in an empty cafe until the sun rose and the town woke up.  My friend Travis (another person I met back in 2004) came to pick me up and chauffeured me around town so that I could buy myself some new socks (having apparently left a few pairs scattered across the USA).  We then went back to Travis' house where I was reunited with his lovely wife April and got to meet their great daughter Emma.  I spent the afternoon trying to be as American as possible; drinking cans of Miller Lite in front of the 'football' on TV (go Broncos!), then we headed over to the show at a place called Grandma's House.  There were some pretty funny high-concept acts playing on the bill and a lot of people hanging out, but when I played most people decided to stay outside and chat rather than watch me play.  Given how much I'd had to drink, maybe this was just as well and I'm sure my set veered the wrong side of the shambolic/charming divide that I probably stray too close to at the best of times.  It was a fun night though!

The next show was in Kennewick, WA which is a pretty small town with not a great deal going on, but the show was a success on all fronts.  Richard who put on the gig was a cool guy and he and his wife were very welcoming; there were some cool, friendly people in the audience and the other people who played were pretty good.  I also made enough money to swell my diminishing coffers, which was very timely.  I had a good night's sleep, a shower and some breakfast in the morning and caught the bus up to Bellingham feeling in pretty fine fettle.

Bellingham is right up by the Canadian border and is a beautiful area, with mountain and sea views and a nice kind of vibe to it as far as I could tell.  The show took place in a basement venue called 'Little Wisconsin' and was one of the most fun on the tour so far.  Everyone was hanging out drinking and chatting and there was the kind of party atmosphere that only a bunch of unemployed people can summon on a Monday night.  My show went over pretty well and the punk band Girl Guts played a barnstorming set which I enjoyed very much.  The next morning, my gracious host Andrew failed to find the place where we'd been promised free brunch, so we wondered aimlessly around until I had to leave town for Seattle.

Enter Adam Lipman:  Adam and I are going to write this section collaboratively which should be confusing and arduous given our track record of collaborative song-writing, but we'll come to that later.  Adam picked me up in Seattle and I proceeded to fail my first job as navigator, getting us lost instantly, but we eventually made it over to the venue, a joint called Cafe Racer.  We had a few hours to kill so we asked the bar tender for directions to a good record store and set out to find that.  It was closed, so we asked some hip looking kids if there were any other good places to go record shopping.  They suggested a place where we could buy "a load of crap". Trying to recall the name of the place, one friend asked another where "Brad" used to work.  Hugh, being the keen chap that we all know him for, heard Brad and assumed that it must be our friend Brad Dunn, who we were playing with that night. Hugh asked, and it was! Magical! And Brad had even told them about the show. They did not come to the show.  But after we'd established our credibility they told us about the actual cool record store in Seattle. We bought Spankmaster by Kool Keith. 3 bucks each.
     After eating, we headed to the venue where we found Clownhead, a real life bona-fide sad clown. We had seen him earlier hamming it up for the passers-by, smiles and all. We dutifully ignored him. At the bar, though, we said hello and toasted to his miseries. Girl troubles. Even the clowns got it!
     Brad Dunn showed up and I hadn't seen him in years. He had been drinking all day and practicing. or maybe his drinking was the practicing. He was great fun to see again. And we had some great laughs. Free beers all around! Ricky showed up as well and the show began. Me going first with Hugh accompanying me on guitar. Hugh got heckled by a man we had first noticed talkinga bout how he didnt much like swedes, norwegians, sri lankans. and he was making fun of his billy corgan look alike friend for wanting a girl who could go hiking and not complain. This ted nugent look a like mocked our practicing then shouted to Hugh to "oh god please make it stop!" A note here from adam and ricky. neither of us heard this. All we saw was hugh, in the middle of a song shouting in furious vengeance at the attacker.  Brad played a curious and noisy set of guitar instrumentals, which were pretty rad and the show, such as it was, was over.  We went back to Ricky's to drink some bad white wine and pore over his collection of schlocky VHS tapes before hitting the sack.  The next day, Ricky treated us to brunch, complete with bloody marys.  Thanks Ricky!

We drove down to Olympia, WA, marvelling at some famous indie street-signs on the way (Sleater-Kinney!  Martin Way!).  On arriving, we proceeded to spend 45 ridiculous minutes of umming and ahhing in a pretty fine record store, before eventually egging each other on to spend way more money than was sensible.  But we got some great records out of the deal and helped to stimulate the US economy.  Don't mention it, Barrack.

We met up with Adam's friend Ruth in her weird residence which is a sort of headquarters for community activists and crusty hangers-on.  We kicked back and relaxed for a couple of hours before heading over to the venue, Le Voyeur.  This was suspiciously empty, but we decided to hang out and take advantage of the free drinks on offer for performers while we waited for the crowd and the other band to show up.  The hours ticked by and Adam and I were having a blast, drinking and jawing, until it became painfully apparent that there was to be no other band and there was to be no audience.  In fact, there was to be no show.  We felt pretty guilty drinking all that free booze, but luckily the bar-staff felt guiltier that we'd come all that way for nothing and kept the drinks coming.  It was win-win.  We made our way back to Ruth's and stayed up too late trying to write country songs together.  We didn't write country songs, but we came up with something weird and have two tracks for our forthcoming LP.  Look out for it.

We said our fond farewells to the delightful Ruth Allison and our less fond farewells to the weirdo who hangs out in her house with a knife attached to his belt (!), then drove over to Portland where you now find us.

More adventures to come.  Hopefully more audience members too.

More soon.
Hugh and Adam
xx