Scott Andrew - lo-fi acoustic pop superhero!

In 1982, I was attending junior high in West Virginia. Despite being small and rural, our school was not immune from the Thriller mania gripping the nation.

I was one of the first kids who figured out how to moonwalk.

Other, bigger kids wanted to learn. I taught them and in return they did not beat me up.

R.I.P. King of Pop!

John Riedel is biking from San Francisco to L.A. as part of the AIDS/LifeCycle 8 charity event, and he’s used a few of my tunes in the videos he’s posting along the way. I have to say I never envisioned “Gravel Road Requiem” playing behind scenes of bearded men in pink tutus welcoming cyclists to the Otter Pop Stop, but hey, it’s a song about travelin’.

Watch at YouTube.
Watch more of John’s videos here.

Elsewhere, professor Dan Willingham used a snippet of “Happy For Me” for his latest video on fairness in teacher salaries:

Watch at YouTube.

You can grab songs for your own video or multimedia projects from the music page. Make sure to drop me a line (or submit a link to your project here) so I can link to it. You can also find a few instrumental mixes here.

Not a solo gig, but my second gig with Explone, at the Brick Tavern in Roslyn, WA. Astute readers familiar with early 90s pop culture may recognize the Brick as the local bar from the TV series Northern Exposure. That’s because it’s the same bar. Well, at least I’m sure they used it for exterior shots. Roslyn is Cicely AK.

Anyway, based on Patrick’s earlier experiences playing the Brick with Red Jacket Mine, we were prepared for a so-so turnout. But then three shuttles from the nearby Suncadia resort arrived earlier and disgorged 40 drunken birthday revelers. Between them, the Roslyn locals, college students from Ellensburg and a few rough-looking dudes in sleeveless tees and cowboy hats, we had a packed house without even trying all that hard. We played for an hour, Josh punched a hole in his kick drum head, and I got a rock blister. Good times. Thanks to Will Wakefield and his band for the opening slot.

Here’s a little stop-motion video I made from shots Megan took during the gig:

Watch at YouTube.

gale-force winds mauling the trees overhead
neighborhood raccoon scooting over my fence
a bit of sprinkling rain
awesome sunset, subsiding winds
ominous clouds
ominous faces in aforementioned clouds
twilight
mysterious column of light to the northwest (probably top of Key Arena)
clearing clouds, rustling trees
neighbor teens smoking weed in nearby driveway
a few bats flitting about in the sky
the North Star
the Big Dipper
prowling cats
three pieces of orbiting space junk
one very bright meteor
mysterious howling unnervingly close by (coyote? wild dog? jackalope?)
Megan! With the keys!

I have to say I dig the cover art. Do you see this chain? The chain means DUDE I WILL TOTALLY THROW YOU OFF THIS TRAIN.

That’s Jim Santanella, who you might remember as the guy who helped me record my last album. Jim’s released an MP3 single of Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler”, all punked up East Coast style.

It’s also “double-sided” MP3 single since there’s also an rocked-out electric version of “Sketches” (from his earlier EP Cold Rain) available. Them big scronky guitars are worth a listen.

Hey, I know that font!

Irrational anxiety aside, I have to say my gig at Folklife couldn’t have gone any better. Great weather + happy, attentive crowd + mistake-free performance = yay!

Of course they still got my name wrong (the MC fixed it a bit later):

The sunshine and 70-degree temps brought out a ton of people. I had a full capacity crowd (more were crowded off to the back and sides):

Since I was playing solo I decided to be brave and pull out the looper pedal so I could accompany myself with some smack-thwap! guitar-beatboxing. The red pedal on the lower left is the LoopStation:

Overall the gig was great — not too shabby for having not performed in seven months.

The setlist:

1. One Sure Thing
2. Brickyard Bend
3. Everything They Say
4. Holding Back
5. At The Airport
6. More Good Days

(Thanks Megan for the pics.)

We didn’t hang around hot, crowded Seattle Center very long after the show, but we did wander up to the Narrative Stage to see Nukariik perform some otherworldly-sounding Inuit throat singing:

Back home, Megan and I had a nice sunshine-y walk through the Seward Park neighborhood that ended with arugula pizza and Manny’s Pale Ale at the Flying Squirrel. Highly recommended:

If we ever have to leave Seattle I’ll have to find a way to bring Manny’s with us, or curl up into a ball and sob.

Overall, an awesome start to summer.

This Saturday May 23 I’ll be rolling down to Seattle Center to perform a solo show at the 2009 Northwest Folklife Festival. I’ll be at the Alki Court Stage, in the breezeway west of the crazy-big International Fountain lawn.

I haven’t played a solo gig since last October so yeah, I’m nervous. I know I’ll get through the set just fine, but I’m out-of-practice when it comes to being witty and not saying embarrassing things between songs.

Check out the newly-redesigned Folklife website (yay, no more PDFs!) for the whole weekend schedule. Folklife is always a craaazy time, drawing thousands of people and featuring tons of performers, and that doesn’t even include the kabillions of random street musicians (last year I learned quickly that I’m no match for a six-piece improv bluegrass band or an African drum ensemble). And unlike previous years, we’re supposed to have fantastic, sunny, completely non-Northwest weather. Hello. summertime!

I have no idea why it took well over a year, but my album Save You From Yourself is finally — finally! — available at Emusic.

Also, I just found out I’m playing Folklife again this year. I wonder if my calendar app will crash and die from surprise when I add it.

Thanks for the well-wishes regarding my recent appendix removal via email and the social twitterwebs. I was back on my feet the morning after surgery with three tiny incisions that today look more like rose thorn scratches than locations from which they removed one of my organs. Pretty amazing, still not fun.

(Also: thank god for health insurance. I know it’s romantic and stuff to be a broke-ass musician and suffer for your art, but geez guys, what if you get what you think is food poisoning and they end up taking out your appendix? Please, get some coverage. Please.)

Things have been quieter on This Old Blog than I intended. I have a backlog of songs I’m not working on, and plans for some EP releases later this year that I’ve mapped out but haven’t taken much action on. Things should pick up again next month, I hope.

Not even an emergency appendectomy could keep Explone from rocking our first live gig at the High Dive last night.

(In many ways it was the ideal rock star life for me. Percoset? Check. People to carry my rig? Check. Ride to and from the venue? Check. All that was missing was the worldwide fame and riches.)

Great crowd and good times. Can’t wait to do it again.

(N.B.: I joined the band Explone last year as their bassist.)

I’ll be playing my first live gig with Explone on April 4th at the High Dive in Seattle. We go on early, 9pm sharp. We’ll be back at Litho recording the rest of our album the week before, so we should be especially tight for this gig (one hopes).

Hard to believe I’ve been with these guys for over a year! It still feels like a new thing to me.

I haven’t played a gig (solo or otherwise) since last October so I cannot wait to get onstage again.