I knew this would happen--We would get too busy and I wouldn't be able to keep up with this thing.  So here's a little overview of what's been happening:

Last Saturday we played in a town, about 2 1/2 hours from Copenhagen, called Svendborg.  The venue is this little basement club called Kahytten (did I spell that right?), pronounced sort of like "cah-hootun." Which means, "the cabin."  The night started out with a good little crowd then about halfway through the night things just went crazy!  People packed into the place and started sitting on the floor in front because there wasn't any room anywhere else.  People were dancing and shouting, cheering after every song.  One great big, bald guy with glasses said in broken english, "Just because I don't have hair on my head doesn't mean that I don't want to hear the black music," explaining to us that he wasn't a "skinhead."  He loved the music, telling us that he was from the southern part of Denmark, he was from "The South" so he could understand the music.  He wanted to hear gospel songs, but because it was so loud in there and he was drunk and his english was so-so, he shouted that he wanted to hear some, "Illegal spirits, illegal spirits!!!"  I later realized that he wanted to hear "negro spirituals." 

4/20/08
We drove another hour or so after Svendborg to Aarhus.  We got into Aarhus around 5a.m. and all fell asleep as the sun came up.  Got up around 11am and started getting ready for a day time gig at a "culture house" (like a community center...they've got them all over Denmark) which started at 2:30.  We picked up Ronni Boysen, an amazing guitarist who plays in Peder Nande's band and backs up James Harman when he's in Denmark, and drove an hour to the "culture house" in a town I don't remember the name of.  Did two sets there and drove back to Aarhus where we had another gig that night at a show that Ronni put together.  Ronni was a little nervous because he didn't know if anyone was going to show up and our pay and some of his expenses depended on it.  Ronni's crowd came through and the little place was packed with about 60 people all shouting and dancing and having great time.  Nathan and I opened the show with two sets then Ronni and the band started the next set with a jam that included Nathan and I and also some of Denmark's biggest blues musicians.  At the end of the night the neighbors were complaining and so we stopped before they could get the politi (cops) out to shut us down.  Mission accomplished.

4/21/08
Last night's gig was in the basement of a theater in a town called Horsens.  The show is presented by a little blues organization called the, roughly translated, "Blues Cartel."  We had a great little crowd and almost sold out of the box of CD's we brought.  We did two sets with the last one being a kind of question and answer time.  Some of the people are a little shy about asking questions because of the language differences, but as soon as one person volunteered every one was going.  Some of them had never seen a show like ours.  They weren't really familiar with all the folk instruments and the history of the music and were excited to find out.

I'm here in the library now because it was quiet and the internet was free and I didn't feel like having a fourth cup of coffee while writing some of this at the coffee place.  Tonight we've got a short, acoustic set at a little cafe where our host works, then onto some other venue I can't pronounce.  We should be out of there around midnight, then hitting the road for a 3 hour drive back to Copenhagen.  We've got a gig at a school at 11a.m. so we'll only get a few hours sleep.  Oh, and then there's a gig that night, too.  We didn't come over here for a vacation.  We came to work.

--B

Last night's gig in a town called Fredericia was the first of our tour here in Denmark.   Everyone told us it would be a two and a half hour drive, but they didn't take into account that Friday (today) was a Danish national holiday.  So everyone decided to take work off early yesterday and hit the road.  Let's just say our 2 1/2 hour drive turned into almost a 3 1/2.  We showed up late to the place with our heads hung low and apologizing over and over while we hurried to set up our stuff.

Nobody seemed to mind, though.  The place was called the Paket Hus or something like that.  It used to be an old warehouse or packing house.  It had thick white walls like adobe with heavy wood beams mounted into the walls and ceiling.  The place was small with long picnic tables running the length of the room.  A small bar was at the back and we were staged in the front corner.  There were about 25 people there and they had a ball!  One of the people, an American, was actually from San Diego, but had been living in Denmark for about 40 years now.

We finished the night in good spirits and made the trek back to Copenhagen.  Not a bad way to start.  Tonight we're playing in Copenhagen and tomorrow in a town called Svenborg.  I'm running on about 4 1/2 hours of sleep right now, so I'm gonna go take a nap before the gig.  Take care.
--B

After the jet lag subsided I ended up waking up around 5:30 a.m. and couldn't go back to sleep.  I read some more of a book that drummer Hal Smith (on our Sonny Leyland album) recommended to me by Elmore Leonard and decided about a half hour later that I was too hungry to stay in bed anymore.

I went into the kitchen and started to fix my usual breakfast, havegryn (oatmeal)--ask James Harman about our oatmeal breakfasts in Denmark.  I talked awhile with our host Peder and his wife Lena about things that were going on in the country recently and about our gig tonight.  I still have no idea where it is and am not really sure when it starts.  Peder's oldest boy, who's almost 7, sat at the table with us, eating oatmeal too and listening to the "men talk" in some language that he doesn't understand.  Peder said, "He's still a little shy, but he's very curious about the language and what we're saying."

I said, "It's like a secret code."
"One that he's trying to figure out." Peder said with a chuckle.

I finished breakfast and got dressed for a jog--running pants and a long sleeve shirt.  I left the flat and out onto the Han Christian Andersen Boulevard.  The air was cold and the sky was overcast and gray.  I dodged a few bicyclists on my way to the lakes.  The "lakes" are these four or five small man-made lakes, all in a row, that some Danish king had built to protect the city from invaders by slowing their advances.  The pools are fairly shallow, I think, and lined with ancient stone.  As I ran I looked out over the water and saw dozens of swans and herons fishing and digging food up off the bottom.

The trip around the entire lake area is about 2 1/2 miles and by the time I made it to the end I was exhausted.  Not used to running in the cold. 

Nathan was up by this time and we walked around downtown Copenhagen for awhile, getting some coffee and doing some grocery shopping.  We've spent enough time in Copenhagen now that we get around pretty easily. 

We'll be getting ready to leave for the first gig soon.  Check back in for another travel update later.

--Ben

(check out the photos from our tour on the "Photos" page,  we'll do our best to keep them updated as we go)

January 14th 2008  Carlsbad & Oceanside, CA

I left the house early around 5:30 a.m. so I could get to Nathan's around 6.  Our first gig was that same day in San Jose at 3 p.m. so we had to hit the road soon.  At that early hour the light in the sky looks the same as at dusk.  The blue hue at dawn and the blue hue at dusk.  Every thing comes full circle--the sun goes down and comes up again.

I thought about that as I drove to Nathan's.  In many ways we've come full circle.  This last  year has been good to us, we've put several feathers in our caps--won the International Blues Challenge in Memphis, made two trips to Europe, one to Asia, and performed festivals in between in the States.  Even with all that going on, it was like pulling on a stubborn mule to get the shows for this Northwest tour.  Some venues came through for us, some said they were interested, but the dates didn't work out, and others wanted to hire us and then changed their minds right before we were hitting the road.  I finally managed to scrap together a few shows for a two week trip. 


Jan. 13th The Poorhouse Bistro--San Jose, CA

This was our first show of the tour and it started out like an old car left out overnight in the cold.  We showed up and there were only two people hanging out in the area we were supposed to play.  Slowly, people started to file in and soon we had a pretty full little house.  I would personally like to recognize the owner of that establisment, Jay Meduri.  This guy sat right in front during the beginning of the show and watched almost the entire performance.  He even got up now and then and passed the tip jar around!  Finally a venue owner that seems to really understand the importance of preserving this old American music.

We have a couple of days off and will be staying with my old highschool buddy, Eric, in Sunnyvale, CA.


Jan. 15th  on the road to Sacramento, CA

The trip to Sacramento was nerve wracking.  There was some pretty powerful wind tonight, blowing across the freeway and jerking the van around like it was a toy. 

Jan. 16th  The Torch Club, Sacrameno, CA

The Torch Club is an historic venue in Sacramento.  It used to be a bar where famous boxers hung out, I guess.  There are dozens of old photographs of boxers that cover the walls and the booking agent's father is pictured in many of them.  My grandparents used to live in Sacramento and were playing tennis one day when the great Max Baer strolled up and complimented them on how competitive they were.  The bartender at the Torch said he used to come in there all the time. 

I had some old friends and a few relatives show up to the show which was nice because they made the place look a little more full.  The P.A. system kept shutting down on us intermittenly during the night.  I guess it wasn't used to all the primitive intruments that we were plugging into it.  We switched to a backup system they had on hand and finished out the night without anyone getting hurt.


Jan. 17th Bombay's--Redding, CA

We had a great night in Redding.  When we come to Redding we stay with the Sullivans.  They put us up at their house, feed us, and book, promote our gigs, and dance their asses off when we do play.  We started off the visit by stopping by Ron Sullivan's new record shop, Meteor Music.  If you collect LP's or 45's you GOT to stop by his shop.  I'm telling you the truth (the address is listed at the bottom of our home page). 

The Sullivan's took us out for a great steak dinner, and then we headed over to the club.  nathan and I eased into the first set--everyone still getting used to us.  By the end of the night the dance floor ws packed, people were gettin' down to some good old fashioned American music!  We played an encore, packed up our gear and headed back to the Sullivan's where we ate homemade cookies and listened to stacks of Ron's rare R&B 45's.  These are the times I look back on and realize how blessed I am to be doing what I'm doing.  It feels good being passionate  about something and sharing those moments with people who feel the same, like Rockin' Ron Sullivan.  That man lives and breathes this music.  He dances in front of his turntable when he puts on a hot 45.  His eyes light up during when he hears a piano or guitar solo that really gets him.  "Ohhh brother, that's hep!" he says.

I crawled into bed around 2 a.m. tired, but content.  We got up early and hit the road bound for Ashland, Oregon.

Nathan and I notice a lot of things when we're out playing shows.  Working in the kind of environments that we do, we see just about every facet of human psychology.  There is anger, humor, sadness, tragedy, pathetic-ness, and just plain bizarre behavior.  We have the ability to sort of step back, remove ourselves and observe and many times enjoy the situation.  There was a drunk guy that got angry with me and started cursing at me while we were playing a show in Long Beach years ago because he had reached across the stage and started beating on my washtub while we were in the middle of a song.  I told him not to do that, that he knew better than to behave like that and his response was, "F*** you!"  There have been many times that we've had to stop playing in the middle of a set and protect our instruments from being crushed by group of  "dudes" clearing the room to start fighting. 

Once, while we were on a break, a woman wanted us to play "Born On The Bayou", I guess because all the unique ragtime, country blues, gospel, and jug band music that she probably never hears wasn't good enough.  Nathan informed her, very cordially, that we didn't know that song and we don't play those kind of covers.  Well, the woman insisted that we did know that song and we should play it for her.  "It's a great song by a great rock band," Nathan replied. "But we just don't know it."  That wasn't the answer she wanted to hear.  "C'mon," she pleaded, "you know it, it goes like this: dum, dum, dum, dum, dee, dee..."  At that point her eyes kind of closed as if she had been transported back to some Creedence show in her mind.  Her hands and arms akwardly fell into "air guitar" position and she started rockin'.  Now during this time, as Nathan continued to inform her, still as politely as he could and almost talking to her like a child, that we didn't play that song; her husband kept pulling on her arm trying to get her to stop and return to their table.  Finally she blurted again, "No, c'mon, it's a really easy song.  I know you know it."  Nathan glanced over at me then back at the woman (she was still going on and on).  He held up his finger and said, "Shhhhh, ma'am, stop....I can't talk to you anymore," and walked past her.  Luckily, I was still standing there to see the reaction on her face--as if no one had ever done that before during one of her drunken rants.

Last night we were playing in Orange County, and although this incident didn't happen in the venue we were playing it was strange enough to put into this story. 

I had just pulled up across the street from the club, in front of the post office.  I was listening to an album that Troy Sandow (bassist and harmonica player) had loaned me: Aretha Franklin live at the Fillmore.  In the space next to me, a guy ,who looked like he was in his early forties, was blaring some teenage pop-punk or something, out of his windows and into my soul filled car.  It was like nails on a chalk board.  It was one of those bands that would be featured on the T.V. show "The O.C." or some MTV "reality" show.  A band whose lead singer's name is Tyler or Casey or Cody or Brett.

Anyway,  I stepped out of my car, grabbed an armload of equipment and headed into the club.  Nathan was there setting up and I remarked to him what a rude awakening it had been pulling up listening to the Queen and First Lady of Soul only to have her drowned out by the stuff that that guy was listening to.

We chuckled about it as we walked back outside to get more gear from our cars.  Then, as I approaced my car, I noticed the man who was listening to the "Aretha hating" music was standing there between the two automobiles waiting for me.  He was huge! At least 6' 4" built like an oak tree, with thinning blond hair and wearing these clear- lensed, sport glasses--you know, the kind that cyclists wear.

He stepped in front of me,  I could hear "Cody's" whiney vocals come out of the guy's stereo.  He said, "Do you think you could sing a song with words like that?"  I chuckled uncomfortably, not knowing what the heck "Tyler" was singing about.  All the while I was thinking that maybe he heard me trashin' his music and I pissed him off.  "Yeah, that's right," he continued. "Their singing about this fake war in Iraq." 

"Oh yeah?" I said, trying to play it cool.  Still thinking he had heard me bad-mounthing his tunes.

"Yeah,  they've got the balls to sing about it.  About how we're stealin' oil from some another country and givin' it to China.  They're with the people not the pussys.  You're either with the people or the pussys.  Do you have the balls sing about that stuff like they do?" he said intensely, pointing his finger at me.

"Well," I replied, looking up at him. "We'll just do the best we can."

And with that he turned and grunted, not too satisfied with me, I guess;  dropped his mail into the post office night box and jumped into his GIGANTIC, FULL-SIZE, GAS-GUZZLING TRUCK, and drove away.

--Ben