Enter the Tenter

it was a dreamy time saturday night, such a treat to get to make an adult size play pen and invite lots of lovely people to come huddle and nuzzle...(nut ruzzle?). thank you for coming and gracing the tent. we neglected to put a mailing list sign up sheet, but if you would like to be kept abreast of future shows of the sort, email ribbonspublications@gmail.com.

some thanks:
thanks to Kelly Best for opening the doors to his home space to become an other space...if you ever need some rad furniture built, he is a man of absolute consideration, taste, and craft. A talented gentleman that I feel fortunate to have worked with and learned from.

thanks again to Conor Ottenweller for helping print the printed goods so good and for connecting me with Kelly (and thanks to Eli Reitz for putting me in touch with Conor, and for some speaker borrowing).

thanks to Aurora for the assistance in gathering the many lamps that gently lit the inner tent, keeping it as wombly as possible.

thanks to Andrew and the dudes at the Depot for Creative Reuse for the assistance in gathering all the fabric that kept the tent billowy and large.

thanks to Hannah for connecting me with the depot dudes (and for serving them delicious treats from bakesale betty to keep them happy), and for these photos and for all else, duh.

thanks to Leif for knowing what everyone needs and bringing delicious treats for all to enjoy in the tent.

thanks to Meara O'reilly for offering an enchanting and stunning performance.

thanks to Viking Moses and Golden Ghost for being our out of town guests and treating us to their out of town tunes.

and thanks thanks thanks to Daniela Gesundheit for wanting to work on this show and so many other shows together with such energy 'thusiasm and care. and love. and thank you for sharing your songs with this community these past few years; every event you've been a part of has gone next level as soon as you let the voice of yours out. you woooed us all. tender magic. this was such an honor to help host your pen-ultimate bay area show (for the time being...).

sigh.

the point is: it takes a village to build a tent. dreams happen. and we will miss daniela.

Tent Show

/\
/ \
/ \ TENT SHOW!
/ \ April 26th, 8pm /\
/ \ @WOULDS, (Kelly Best's new space) / \
/ \ 5861 San Pablo ave, Oakland / \


hopefully everyone who wanted a postcard invitation for this show we're hosting got one in the mail...if you did not get one and want one, please email your address (ribbonspublications@gmail.com), and do you know what we'll do? we'll mail one to you.
easy and breezy.

this show is going to be full of love...we're making a giant tent for everyone to gather inside. Cozy. we're celebrating the release of the new Snowblink album Long Live. Exciting. we're hosting two amazing talents: VIKING MOSES and AVOCET. Delightful. bottom line, there's a good time to be had here, and we hope to see you.

[thanks again to Conor O at Forthrite Printing for helping print these pretty cards...everyone should know that Forthrite is the place to print your pretty anything...and thanks to Alissa Anderson for the photo of Meara...and thanks to Hannah for the photo of Daniela...and thanks to the internet for the photo of Viking Moses...I don't know what I would do without any of you]

birthday hollabration

yes! today it is daniela sarah gesundheit's birthday... happy birthday amazing lady.

wanna celebrate with the crew?
please do:

tonight, Tuesday Abril 15, 2008, 9pm
at the LI PO Lounge
916 Grant Avenue
(at Washington St)
San Francisco, CA

SNOWBLINK*60 WATT KID*JOHN THILL*FANTASTIC MAGIC

oh, it's going to be a blast, I hear the Li Po Lounge is a strange place and that they make quite a Mai Tai.

{the above photo of daniela and her fiancé dan was taken this past sunday evening after a house show out at the Marin Headlands with Indianna Hale...seen below...wonderful wonderful. There is going to be an Earth Day musical celebration out there next saturday with Kacey Johansing and many others, and Open Studios at the Headlands Center for the Arts next sunday, so plan yourself a beach day and headlands outing, it'll be lovely.)

new color

last friday I returned to briones and finished this watercolor of those hills. I'm getting into this new practice of drawing the same thing over and over and over and over. The more your return, the more you learn.

new specimens

Last sunday I had the pleasure of sharing some new specimens from my collection with lovelies Tandra and Hannah W after eating some tacos in the backyard...whenever I get to share my stuffs i feel somewhere between an old man getting really ramped about his stamp collection and a young boy holding up two worms he just dug out of the dirt. A pretty good place to feel.


A few days ago I went out to my favorite place, Briones, (photographed above on my first visit 2 years ago), to revisit the spot where I made a big drawing last winter/spring and start a new water color. On my hike out there I walked through the deep cracks in the hills and saw the tip of an antler peaking out of the ground. Upon a bit of investigation I could see there was some treasure to be found so I set up shop and spent about an hour carefully digging out bones, plucking mushrooms, and gathering goodies to bring back home to draw and play with.
here's the lot:
these are ladybug pupa (the shells ladybug larvae form while they are going through ladybug puberty, having their bar mitzvahs and becoming ladybug adults). I actually found these on some rocks at the elementary school where I work, while hanging out with my 2nd grader friend Jared.
tubular mushrooms deep in the crack.
a beetle, a nut, and a little twig that had been home to some crew of little thing.
bud buds.
hardcore leaf skeleton.
my fourth antler.
cow vertebrae (notice the tubular mushroom on the bottom piece).
big bone. I started laughing when I dug this one up...who put this here? am i on candid camera?
jaw piece with tooth still intact. any guesses on the animal?
and finally, a coyote skull. I actually found this in Briones a month ago, the last night I hung out in the hill cracks. i love it.

name game

a show for you:

Wednesday April 2, 2008
Make Out Room, SF
Cairo Gang.....Family Trea....Painted Cakes


Family Trea is a project by dear Arvel Hernandez (pictured above, mid new years eve slur), and some other folks. They used to perform under the name BowerBird, but it turned out there is another band named Bowerbirds (who are kinda bigtime), and the doubling of a band name is just about the biggest band faux pas there is. You don't touch another dude's chick, and you don't touch another band's name. got it?

Painted Cakes is a solo project by Elias Reitz (pictured above, mid golden afternoon birthday celebration for frank...notice a sly martin gluing together both of these social events), however I've heard that he is not going to be slaying the percussion as he is best known (with Bright Black Morning Light, Gojogo, and Triangle), but playing guitar and orchestrating some exciting guest musicians.

and I don't know much about Cairo Gang except that it's the project of Emmett Kelly, who is known as a great guitarist, and is affiliated with Will Oldham (who's been making some guest appearances these days since he's based out of the the Marin Headlands Center for the Arts for a bit...so perhaps you'll get a chance to invite the Palace Prince along for an after show taco).

all this talk of bands and band names makes me want to do a quick inventory of all the bands I've been in. Each name represents so much of my impressions of what bands should be.

4th grade
-Powerline (solo, acoustic, instrumental, Heavy Metal act, inspired by Metallica and Sabbath)
-Outlaws of Metal (a hypothetical band with several members who agreed to start learning how to play instruments just for the sake of rock...we decided on the name in gym class after the gym teacher called us outlaws for sitting far away from the rest of the class. no joke.)

5th grade
-Trendy (second solo project. I started listening to "Alternative" music like Dinosaur Jr...my first experiences with irony and trying to weird)

8th grade
-N.A.D.S. (a real band with real members, Nate/Andy/Dave/Sloane, that had a bit of a ska, punk flavor...we even played a show at our friend Steve's birthday party at his father's church...we had the whole place chanting "Go NADS! Go NADS!")

9th grade
-Lunar Vaporizer (here's where the electronica movement kicks in...Orbital, Aphex Twin, Juno Reactor. i played drum machine through effect pedals while my friend Nate played "the computer". it was nerdy.)
-Atomic Week (this one was a big deal...this where the Tortoise style improv indie jam kicked in hard. This the band in which Andrew Connors and I became BFFs. we played through the rest of high school and even recorded some albums (Atomic Emissions 1 and 2). Actually, there was another band in the world named Atomic Week that somehow heard a recording of ours, which was a big deal, pre-Myspace, and they actually said we were better than them, and offered the name to us. True band chivalry.)

11th grade
-Get Caught (our friends jam band that I played drums in...a disaster)
-One Notch Looser (same band, one month into it)

College
-Stop Plate Tectonics (kind of like Atomic Week with better record collections and singing. the band where Max Goldberg and I became BFFs. This project featured our friend Ben Goldwasser who is currently getting famous with his band MGMT)
-untitled (a brief Hip Hop project...it found me)
-Eagle Eyes (a three piece art rock, rock opera project. the first time Frank and I played music together, along with our dear friend Jonah.)
-Gold (Frank and my next project, now becoming BFFs, more angular, more rowdy, if Erase Erata were boys. featuring Andrew VanWyngarden also of MGMT, now also totally famous)
-Snowblink (a second Hip Hop project)

Beyond grades
-Number Name (with Gibson from Lobot)
-Brothers (me and Max being two tall skinny dark haired jewish hunks)
-Circles (Martin Salata's project)
-Snowblink (oh daniela and her hip hop)
-Ship (at times also expressed as Manoeuvre and Yoga Lazer)

was that interesting for anyone but me? It kinda blows my mind how much BAND has been in my life. Hopefully when it comes time to name my child I'll be able to draw on all of this experience (Outlaw Wilson?).