Hey y'all,

Here's a new recording and video:
http://soupgreens.com/2009/03/20/pompey-ran-away/

That's a really old tune with a crazy history.  This recording is on electric
guitar instead of the original fiddle or gourd banjo.

And here's the bookings for the month --

At 10PM most Wednesdays in April I'll play Taix in Madame Pamita's band.  Pam's
thing rules and she'll be all fired up for the CD release that we'll be
celebrating.  I almost always get there early to eat and then hang out to chat
after the set. That's 4/1, 4/8, 4/22, and 4/29. (But not 4/15).

On Thursday April 9 I'll play a solo set at the Hyperion Tavern. Dunno the time
yet, most likely around 10PM. I'll do the new electric guitar stuff that I've
been working out in the Cinema Bar gigs over the past couple months. Hyperion
Tavern is a great room for relaxing and cooling out to low key music. There's no
obvious place to eat right by the bar, because Casita del Campo across the
street is really wretched, but there are some spots up Hyperion Ave toward
Glendale.

On Friday April 10 and Friday April 24 I'll play an early set at Cinema Bar in
Culver City for the after-work drinkers. TGIF, a couple Coronas, killer tacos at
Tito's next door, and some vintage americana music.

On Monday April 27 I'll play from 7:45 to 8:45 at the Talking Stick coffeehouse
in Venice Beach. It's on Lincoln a couple blocks south of Air Conditioned
lounge. Real nice room where it's easy both to talk to people or to pull into
your own head and do some laptopping.

So, lots of shows, which is good because playing more gets me into a nice flow
and the music comes out well. Also: always always always feel free to ping me
about drinks or food on gig nights. It's all about the socializing.

On Thursday night I'll do a show with lots of friends at Cinema Bar in
Culver City.  It'll be a good bill at a good bar, and on the west side
of LA for once.

I'll open up around 8:30 and do a mini set.  Suzy Williams and Stormin
Norman will rock it from 9 or so for 30-45 minutes.  Around 9:45 I'll
come back and play a little, joined by Joan Renner to tell about the
tragic cold hearted murder of little Marion Parker by the cold hearted
murderer Edward Hickman.  Then Madame Pamita will do a mini set with
me backing her up.  And then I'll play out whatever time is left for
the night, with Blind Pony sitting on on harp for one or two numbers.

Here's Suzy and Norman hamming up a Valentine song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vtiZ1x9NKA

So what's it all mean, well, ok, so, here's the story.  There's beer
AND music.  Suzy's a fun hammy singer and Norman is a fun hammy piano
player.  There's a show tune influence.  Maybe some big band or Randy
Newman.  They have put out records and played in big time places.
Suzy and I live in the same neighborhood, which is how I got her to do
a bit of slumming.

Joan is a trash history buff who does the groovy Vintage Powder Room blog:
http://vintagepowderroom.com/

Pam, I mean Madame Pamita, does mystical prognostickeration and raw
old hillbilly tunes:
http://madamepamita.com

In his day job, Blind Pony is a repo man, so best not drive your own car:
http://bit.ly/DjPot

And all of this costs NO MONEY whatsoever.  It is free as a bird.

I'll be doing two half-hour sets on Saturday night at a new-depression
themed party/festival at the A+D Museum, 5900 Wilshire Blvd. (across
from LACMA): On the hooverville (plaza) mainstage from 8:30-9 and then
on the plaza sidestage from 9:30-10 too. The mainstage is a
"stop-and-look" situation and the sidestage is more atmospheric for
passerby (unless it's way packed with people, in which case there'll
probably be a stop-and-look crowd in both locations).

It'll be a huge party with stellar people-watching in an atmosphere of
depression-era decadence, including sexy flappers, tons of booze, and
electronica DJs.  Here's how the organizers describe it:

     Inspired by the similarity of the economic crisis of 2008 to the
Market Crash of 1929, artists will seek to immerse our merrymakers in
the excess of the privileged elite and the grit of bohemian urchins below.

     In the ballroom our fatcat partygoers will dance and celebrate in
luxury while sipping fine beverages, watching burlesque beauties tease
them to the awesome grooves of ANACRON, and reveling in decadence and
excess. Outside on the plaza, partygoers will slum it with Hooverville
tramps and bum cigarettes from Vaudeville acts as they listen to a
junkyard band. All around them will be performance environments from
dozens of LA's most innovative companies. The evening culminates in a
dynamic ballroom finale where past and present collide in a mash-up
not to be missed. All Angelinos are invited to discover their inner
tycoon amidst the largest economic downturn since the Great Depression.


Where: at the A+D Museum, 5900 Wilshire Blvd. (across from LACMA)
Saturday, Dec. 13, 2008 8pm-2am. $20 admission, $10 open bar access

I'll do a solo set at 10:30 tomorrow night at the Hyperion Tavern at
1941 Hyperion Ave, in Silverlake, Los Angeles, California. Also on the
bill: Dick and Jane (before me) and the Homebillies (after me).

There'll be sheet music of my transcription of "Living Easy" by Irving
Jones to give out to anybody who wants to learn the song, and of
course I'll play the thing myself. This song disappeared almost
instantly on publication in 1899, was never recorded as far as I can
tell, and has left only three impressions in the historical record:

1) Charles Ives recalled having heard it in the early 1890s, sometime
around the birth of ragtime in 1893.

2) In the mid-1890s when Scott Joplin lived in Sedalia, Missouri there
was a local band named after a line in the song — the "Pork Chops
Greazy Quartette." ("Grea_z_y" isn't a typo, that's how it was spelled
in the sheet music. This is low culture and proud of it.)

3) Copyrighted and published in 1899.

And that's it. It was a hot underground ragtime tune very early on,
and as soon as it got a bit of commercial support it went *poof*.
Until tomorrow night in Silverlake in the year 2008, 109 years later.

Musically I've been on a roll lately, and if I don't break my streak
it'll be a fine night of hella old music, so c'mon by. If you haven't
done one of these Hyperion shows the thing to know is that it's a tiny
place with cheap beers, no cover, and no electricity to to amplify the
music and drown out your conversation, which is better for you than me
but what the hell. Dick and Jane and the Homebillies and myself all
play there regularly, and the crowd is generally heavy on musicians
and people in the music business. The situation is low key to an extreme.