Jason Webley – Page 3

Only Just Beginning

December 10, 2019March 24, 2004 by Michael Hanscom

I got notification this in my inbox not long ago…

‘Only Just Beginning’ CD Release

April 30 – Town Hall Seattle
1119 Eighth Ave (at Seneca St)
8 pm – \$9 – All Ages

Come celebrate the release of Jason’s 4th album. For this concert, Jason will be joined on-stage by all of the incredible Seattle musicians who recorded with him on the new release: Michael McQuilken, Jherek Bischoff, Seth Warren, Liz Sprout Guy, Taryn Webber, Brant Campbell, Fred Hawkinson and Gary Luke. This will be Jason’s first concert of 2004. Perhaps something special will happen.

Perhaps, indeed.

iTunes: “Oberkorn (It’s a Small Town)” by Depeche Mode from the album Meaning of Love, The (1982, 4:10).

Only Just Beginning

December 9, 2019February 2, 2004 by Michael Hanscom

Jason Webley has a new CD coming out.

There once was a boy who remembered that his heart did not ever really belong to him.

So he tried to give it back to the sky.

The CD will be in stores May 11th, with a CD release party April 30th kicking off this summer’s round of touring.

(via Mike [See you at the release party?])

Jason gets his heart back

December 9, 2019January 20, 2004 by Michael Hanscom

Last November, I went to Jason Webley’s ‘Deathday’ performance. At the end of the performance, he removed the heart from a puppet figure of himself, which was soon attached to balloons and sent flying off over downtown Seattle. That puppet eventually landed in an alleyway downtown, and was rescued by an appreciative fan…

Chris Jr.: Something landed in front of me on the way back to the Ferry terminal…

Well, we saw the balloons land in the alley so we rushed to get them. They were in the alley, so we cut Jason free from the balloons. I have the puppet, along with the heart. I seemed to have lost the flag. I didn’t want someone who wasn’t at the show to take the puppet and wonder what the hell it was.

I was just going through the guestbook on Jason’s site, and it turns out that on Dec. 30th, Chris received an unusual package in the mail…

I just got a package today (Dec. 30th), and a weird one, at that! So I opened it to find Webley’s clothing!!! And instructions which read:

Remove heart from wire web.

Carefully open chest.

Gently place heart in chest.

Light a candle. Rest.

All of this is to be done on the eve of February 1st.

I’m sure Jason’s happy to have his heart back.

Now we’ve just got to wait until spring to see what else might be in store.

iTunes: “Sleeping Jiva” by Kula Shaker from the album K (1996, 2:02).

Jason Webley Deathday 2003

December 10, 2019November 2, 2003 by Michael Hanscom

Last night was Jason Webley‘s Deathday concert. Incredible, beautiful, fun, funny, and moving — everything I’ve come to expect from Webley’s shows.

The show was held at the Town Hall, which is just kitty-corner across the street from my apartment building. Just a little after 6pm, Prairie glanced out my kitchen window and noticed that something was glowing outside of Town Hall. Curious, I opened the window and poked my head out. The glow was easy to identify as a Jack O’ Lantern. What I hadn’t expected to see (though perhaps I should have) was the line that was already starting to form. Hoping to get good seats for the show, we decided that we’d go join the line, bundled up, and headed downstairs and across the street.

We found a spot in line right at the corner, and spent the next hour or so watching people play, identifying costumes, and chatting with the people in front of us — a cute girl with red dreadlocks and her boyfriend. We never did catch their names (even after mentioning at one point that we didn’t know each other), but they made for a fun way to pass the time as we waited, talking about everything from lemmings being thrown over cliffs to whether or not I liked artichokes (I don’t).

Eventually we made it inside, stood in line for a while longer waiting for the doors to the auditorium to open, and finally getting in and finding seats. We ended up getting great seats — the auditorium has a staircase in the center of the hall leading down and out, and we were just one row back behind the stairs, with a perfect view of the stage. Town Hall was perfect for the show, too. Huge (around 900 seats), and I’d guess the audience was between 700 and 800 people, primarily “alternative”/punk/goth kids in their late teens and early twenties, but a sizeable number of adults, also. One of the things I’ve always liked about Jason Webley is how well he attracts a wide range of fans, and that’s always obvious at shows such as these.

Not long after we all filed in, the musicians took the stage, and the show began…

The lights went down, and the auditorium went silent. A door opened on the side of the stage, and Jason entered — in puppet form. As a gorgeously done Jason Webley puppet, controlled by two puppeteers wearing all black, he walked to the front of the stage, guitar case in hand. He sat down, pulled out the guitar, and played the first song (recorded…as good as the puppet was, its fingers weren’t quite that dextrous).

Once the song was done, he walked back offstage, and the black clad assistants came back onstage. There had been a large box covered by a sheet at center stage, and they proceeded to remove the sheet to reveal a large trunk. They unlocked the trunk, opened the lid — and helped Jason (the real flesh-and-blood Jason this time) out of the box, clad only in loose yellow pants. As he came to life, he was given his trenchcoat and hat, and finally, his accordion, and the main part of the show began.

The show was incredible. The accompanying musicians were expanded this year to include a string quartet of two cello and two violin, in addition to the brass band, drums, and Jason switching among accordion, guitar, and piano (and occasional shovel). The addition of the fuller, more orchestral background was wonderful, filling out his songs and allowing for some beautiful background music for some of the more performance-art sets of the show.

Because Town Hall presented a more formal setting for the show than some other venues, like last year’s Deathday show at the Paradox, after the first few songs Jason took a moment to break the ice and loosen things up again by leading us all in a rousing sing-along of “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean,” with everyone either standing up or sitting down again at every word that started with a “B”. This was fun, and got a good deal of giggles going through the audience, but apparently that wasn’t enough for Jason, as he decided to teach us another dance — the Gnomie.

Now, the Gnomie is quite easy to do. Inspired by those little lawn gnomes seen in the front yards of homes, all you have to do is get a sheepish grin on your face, pull your shirt over the back of your head, and then wiggle your arms (now pulled up a bit by the shirt) as you bounce around a bit. Have you ever seen a crowd of 700-some people doing the Gnomie? We almost didn’t, as there’s always some people a bit too shy to do something quite this silly. But Jason implored us to get everyone involved. After all, one doesn’t get too many chances to do the Gnomie, and so he asked us all to turn to anyone we could see who wasn’t joining in, look deep into their eyes, and sing to them, “If you don’t Gnomie by now….” The general mood loosened up a lot after that!

This year, love, the heart, and flight were the running themes of the show, and the thematic elements of the performance were nicely woven between the more upbeat, sillier moments. Three stories were told during the course of the show: The Boy With Wings on His Heart, The Boy With A Ball of String for a Heart, and The Boy With A Balloon For A Heart. Each story was about our relationships with love — for each other, for home, for what we see in this world. I’m really hoping that someone who was taping the performance was able to catch these stories on tape, they were wonderfully written and performed.

During the last half of the show, red balloons were occasionally tossed into the crowd. Small heart-shaped balloons, larger round balloons, and a couple really large round balloons (easily two feet in diameter). These would fly around the audience, bouncing from one person to the next. They’d disappear for the quieter songs, then as the energy ramped up again, they’d reemerge from underneath seats or more would be brought out, and the air would soon fill with red balloons again.

For each of Jason’s stories, he used a small doll (the child’s doll with a soft body and plastic head, arms, and legs) to illustrate the story as he told it. For The Boy With A Balloon for a Heart, the story told of a boy who’s heart would expand each time he saw something he liked, each time he saw something that made him sad — anything that made him love. This doll had had its body replaced with stocking fabric around a balloon, and each time the boy’s heart grew, Jason blew the balloon up a bit. Eventually, as the story ended, he had a (truth to tell) somewhat disturbing looking swollen baby doll, which he handed to the audience. Seeing as how we were already batting large red balloons around…well, the baby just got added into the mix. I’m not entirely sure if that was Jason’s intent or not, but for the rest of the evening, you’d see three or four balloons fly in front of your face, followed by a balloon baby careening through the audience.

Eventually, after a good collection of old Webley standards and some new songs (perhaps there’s a new album in the works?), a mass audience tickle fight, and everyone “getting wasted” for the Drinking Song by pointing at the roof, looking at their fingers, and spinning in circles twenty times or so, the show started to wind down.

Jason took off his coat and hat, and one of the assistance appeared in the audience with a doll version of Jason hanging from a pole with wings strapped to his arms, flying around the room, and eventually onto the stage. After a few flights around the stage, the doll Jason descended into Jason’s arms. Gently cradling the doll in his arms, Jason stood there, the auditorium dead silent — when the crack of snapping wood filled the hall, and the wings, shattered, fell to the ground. Anguish washing over his face, Jason gently reached into the doll and removed its heart.

Two white-clad pallbearers came on stage, bearing a small coffin between them. Setting it down on the stage and removing its lid, they reached up and coaxed the doll from Jason’s arms, laying it to rest within the coffin. One then turned and took the heart from Jason, placing it back in the body of the doll. They then stood back up and slowly left the stage, bearing the doll away and out of the auditorium down the central staircase, leaving Jason collapsed in grief on the stage. The two black-clad assistants then came back, gently picked Jason up, put him back into the trunk, closed and locked it, and covered it with the sheet again. The band played gently as we all got up and quietly left the auditorium, filed outside, and gathered in the rain outside of Town Hall, waiting to see what would happen next.

Eventually, someone caught wind of the next part of the night’s activities (for Jason’s big shows are never entirely done just because we’re no longer watching him onstage), and everyone started walking a block down the street to the closest entrance to Freeway Park. As we all entered the park we passed people with large bunches of balloons, handing everyone a single balloon. We got ours and continued on into the park, following the paths until we got to one of the large plaza areas next to the Convention Center. Here, the two pallbearers were standing next to a small stone cairn, still bearing the coffin with Jason’s (doll) body in it.

We gathered in a circle around them, each of us holding the balloon we had been given, talking quietly, reliving the show we had just seen, talking about prior Deathdays, and waiting to see what would happen next.

Eventually, people came back through the crowd, gathering all the balloons together again. We each tied our balloon onto one of the bunches, then all the bunches were gathered together in the center of the circle. Not long after that, the balloons started to rise, with Jason (in doll form) tied to the bottom of the bunch, to let him fly away into the night. Unfortunately, here the night hit a slight snag, to the amusement of the gathered fans. As there was a light rain that evening, the balloons were becoming slightly weighted down with water, and couldn’t get enough lift to fly away!

Jason floated gently above our heads, but wasn’t able to get much lift beyond that, and our cheers of encouragement as he floated above us quickly turned into laughs as he drifted first into one of the park lamps, then into one tree, and then into another. Each time, someone would extricate Jason from his predicament, knock some of the water off of the balloons they could reach, let him go again, we’d all cheer — and then watch him find another tree. After the third time, someone pulled the bunch of balloons down and those of us closest to the bunch, laughing and cheering, jumped up into the balloons, doing what we could to knock as much rain off as possible.

One last launch. Cheers and cries of encouragement. “Go, Jason!” “Fly away!” And fly away he did, finally rising above us, floating away over downtown Seattle, to wherever Jason goes during these long winter months.

And so Jason Webley has died. Until next spring and his rebirth…we’ll all miss you.

“Goodbye forever, once again…”

Update: More Webley links…

His website
The Yahoo! Jason Webley Forum
Seattle Times: ‘Happy Death Day’ with Jason Webley
The Stranger: Jason’s Dead
Karen Olsen’s review: Wings and Strings on the Heart (Or, It’s Midnight, and There’s a Puppet Floating in Your Office Window!)
The texts to all three “boy with a heart…” stories are now posted on Jason’s website.
Mike at Whybark.com’s Jason Webley Interviews:
1. Interview one: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.
2. Interview two: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, and Part 7.
Mike at Whybark.com’s Jason Webley concert .mp3s
Habits of Waste: Jason Webley: A Man with an Accordion
From last year’s Halloween show: Waiting for the show to start

Goodbye forever, once again

December 10, 2019November 7, 2002 by Michael Hanscom

Last Saturday, as part of the birthday celebration for Prairie, myself, Prairie, her sisters H and K, and H’s boyfriend P went to see local artist Jason Webley‘s final concert of the year. I first discovered Jason during Bumbershoot the first year I was here, and have been a fan ever since. I managed to talk Prairie into going to his last show with me, and she got everyone else to go along as well. Made me a bit nervous, as everyone was going just on my word, but I wasn’t too worried.

While I’d not yet been able to make it to any of Jason’s big shows, I’d been captivated by Karen Olsen’s writeup of his Halloween 2001 performance.

At last, the Last Song (still my absolute favorite of all Jasons songs) began to play, and the band members and other cronies brought the giant puppet to a standing position, its arms looming over Jasons head, while flanking him with two candelabras of small homemade candles and the cardboard signs. People linked arms and held up joined hands and a few cigarette lighters as the house lights went down, and Jason began to sing the song that has held many of us together during the recent times of crisis:

And we say that the world isnt dying, And we pray that the world isnt dying, And just maybe the world isnt dying Maybe shes heavy with child.

The chorus rang out with hundreds of voices, clapping hands and stomping feet, while noisemaker bottles were tossed out to us by Ishan who dragged a plastic sack of them forward at the last moment. Harmonies broke out all over, and were taken up by the band members as well. At the end came the chant of Igga-di igga-di igga-digga-dup which went on and on, growing into six- or eight-part harmonies as we began to follow Jason up the aisles and process out of the theater en masse, and it was the sweetest thing youd ever want to hear. I rushed as quickly as possible to grab my sweatshirt, trenchcoat, cloth bag and bodhrn (I can never seem to learn to travel light), and exit along with the rest of the crowd, fearing that I might miss something if I didnt hurry.

After reading that (and the rest of the review), I was determined not to miss this year’s final show, and the added benefit of being able to introduce some more people to Jason at the same time just made it all the better.

Suffice to say, the show was incredible. Jason’s bigger shows are generally somewhere between performance and performance art, and involve a lot of crowd participation, sometimes blurring the line between performer and audience. Absolutely incredible stuff, we all enjoyed the show, and it was most definitely well worth the time. As with last year, Karen has written a wonderful recap of the night’s events…

The last line is taken up by the crowd, with one harmony line over another over another, just as we did at the May Day concert, only with many more voices this time. We sing it on and on as if to make the moment stand still and last as long as possible, and that one line, We row the boat ashore, Hallelujah interlaces our hearts together like Celtic knotwork, with Jason and with each other. Jason stands back and listens, grinning rapturously at what he has helped to create and nurture. What music has joined together, let no one put asunder As the boat chorus goes on, Maureen and another woman, now both in white satin gowns, pilot small boats topped with candles, and feathers hanging over the side, through the crowd; people eventually figure out that they are to take the feathers joined with cards and connected with soft twine that looks and feels like fake hair. Finally, Last Song breaks in, with the crowd and band joining in on the verses as well as the chorus. Jason attacks the song with his entire being; by now, hes been singing his heart and soul out for at least two and a half hours. A box above the hanging knife begins to sprinkle feathers like snow on Jasons head as he sings, One day, the snow began to fall

People are singing so joyously, many arm in arm, that they are not prepared for what happens when the song finally ends. Jasons attendants remove his hat with a feather stuck in it, his kimono, shoes and socks, and finally the loose orange trousers. All he is wearing now is the burlap loincloth from May Day. He drinks a glass of red wine that has been handed him. The knife begins to be lowered toward him, and the two ghosts raise a white screen in front of him, showing Jason in silhouette with the knife slowly descending closer and closer. As the knife reaches his head, fake blood is splashed on the screen, and someone yells, NO! Jason’s silhouetted hand slaps against the blood-drenched sheet.

When the screen is removed, the nearly naked Jason stands alone, looking stricken and speechless, as if all the musical energy has gone out of him. Three women in white tie ropes about his chest and arms, connected to ropes anchored to the speakers on either side of the stage, as incidental music drones louder and louder from the band. Jason is raised into the air and hangs suspended, in a posture of crucifixion, several feet above the stage. One of the women loops another rope about his knees, which is connected somewhere near the back of the theater, and he is raised higher, in a horizontal prone position, and drawn off the stage and above the aisle, as several people, including Josh, carry a narrow, rectangular beam toward him. He is lowered onto the beam on his back, nearly falls off of it, and is secured to it with numerous ropes before being carried out of the theater and into the frigid night air. The music is crashing down on us in a pitiless monotone, in the mood of a death march. I grab everything I brought with me, not bothering to put on my jacket and sweatshirt, which I removed when it began to get crowded and hot in the theater. Thus I end up outside in just teeshirt and jeans, after the long push by the crowd to exit for the procession. Not everyone joins in. Not everyone has left alive. Once outside, I look north and can just see the main procession disappearing up University Way. Feeling exhilarated in the cold, fresh air, I run into the street with dozens of others who are trying to catch up, wondering what drivers and others in the vicinity must be thinking about this spectacle.

Incredible stuff. Even without the theatrics, the music itself is wonderful, amazing, stuff. You really should get your own copies. Trust me on this. You won’t regret it.

Bumbershoot ’02

December 10, 2019September 3, 2002 by Michael Hanscom

It’s taken me a couple days to get to this, and it’s not going to be nearly as long as last year’s opus — but I did get to spend last Saturday out at this year’s [Bumbershoot1. Unfortunately, I could only hit one day this year, so I decided to go Saturday, as it seemed to have the best lineup of artists I knew I wanted to see.

I started the day by walking down to the Seattle Center from my apartment. I’d originally planned on taking the monorail from Westlake Center, but the day was nice enough that I figured I’d just go ahead and walk it. When I got to the entrance, there was a street performer who had a boombox playing Jimi Hendrix tunes, and a (I believe) homemade Jimi marionette doing a really impressive show. I grabbed my ticket, and wandered in to explore what this year had to offer.

I was supposed to meet Chad at the Flag Pavillion at 2pm, so I started by heading that direction. Unfortunately, as it turns out, there is no Flag Pavillion anymore! A new pavillion has been built, that had been designated the “Tiki Terrace” and “Lagoon Lounge”. Made it fairly difficult to find Chad, so I just kept up my wandering, figuring we’d run into each other eventually. The new building’s pretty nice, though…not quite finished yet, but it’s close.

While I was down by the new pavillion, one of the frequent mini-parades through the grounds was getting started, led off by the Zambola drum and dance troupe. I have no idea if any of them were professionals or not — I kind of got the impression that they were all doing it just because they really enjoyed it — but it was a lot of fun (and not to shabby to look at, either!).

A lot of the fun of wandering the grounds is the multitudes of smaller acts, street performers that have come in and set up shop somewhere on the grounds. There were a couple guys with a juggling act that had just found an audience volunteer — a 9-year old girl who was having a blast being the center of the show for a few minutes. After dressing her up in a clip-on tie and bowler (so that she’d look “just like her dad”), they had her hold onto a couple posts, and set two spinning balls balancing on them…and she was a star!

In one of the less-packed areas of the grounds, I came across a really fascinating performer. He was standing on a box, playing a truly unusual instrument that had a very ethereal, resonating sound to it. Turns out that he’d created the instrument himself after seeing it in a dream, and taught himself how to play it, after welding it together from a lot of metal bars and a couple extra large steel salad bowls. Really interesting stuff (and I just found the artist’s website, including an article where about halfway through he discusses the creation of the Stamenphone).

Eventually I wandered over to the Rhythm Stage and sat down to watch Si*Sé, a ‘latin/electronica’ band that I ended up really liking (enough to pick up their CD later on in the night, even). While I was enjoying them, who should walk up, but Chad and not just Chad, but Aimee and Marty, too! Very cool — so now that we’d found each other, the four of us wandered around for the next few hours.

We wandered the grounds for a bit, then headed into the stadium to snag a place on the floor to see Ani DiFranco perform. Chad, Marty and I pretty much stayed about halfway back, while Aimee bounced around, doing her best to get a better view of Ani during the show. Ani did a pretty good job, though apparently she wasn’t too thrilled about being stuck in “that damn stadium”…still, the audience loved her, and she put on a good show.

After Ani we had a couple hours to kill before seeing Concrete Blonde (my primary reason for choosing Saturday over the rest of the weekend), so it was off to wandering again. We ran into Kate and a friend of hers for a few minutes at one point — it was great to see her again! We all talked for a few minutes, then she and her friend headed off to get something cool to drink. Chad, Marty and I spent a fair amount of the next hour people watching while Aimee dove into (seemingly) every booth we passed to see what they had available…certainly not a problem, though, we weren’t exactly in a hurry to get anywhere. Besides, standing in one place for a while makes it easy to run into friends — like Jory and Adri, who were down for the weekend. That was kind of funny — the last time I’d seen them was last Bumbershoot, when they were down for their honeymoon!

Aimee at one point had to run off to get money out of an ATM, and after waiting fo a while, Chad and I decided that we really didn’t want to miss the Concrete Blonde show, and left Marty to wait for Aimee while we headed into Key Arena. We found my friend Laura and her friend Renee in there, and so the four of us stuck together during the Concrete Blonde show — which was flat-out incredible. After having listened to Concrete Blonde for years, it’s so great to be able to see them live — especially since this was the second time in a year I’ve been able to do so! Both shows have been incredible, and I’m definitely looking forward to any more I can catch.

After Concrete Blonde, we all split up — Laura and Renee went off to find food, Chad headed home, and I headed into the Wherehouse booth to pick up Si*Sé’s CD. I also on a whim picked up a CD by Blackalicious, a hip-hop group that had played earlier that I hadn’t been able to see, but had heard a lot of good things about, so I figured it was worth a shot. Then I started working my way home…and managed to catch just the tail end of a performance by Jason Webley, one of my favorite local artists that I’ve found yet (though I’ve not been able to catch any of his shows). He’s got a new CD out, so I picked that up also, and then — finally — made it out the gates, and walked my skinny lil’ butt home.

All in all, a very good day. It’s a bummer that I wasn’t able to go for the full weekend again, as I did last year, but hey — there’s always next year, right?

A ghost closing his mouth after a long summer’s yawn

November 25, 2019October 31, 2001 by Michael Hanscom

From time to time we meet certain companions.
We walk with them, we carry on conversations,
We sing the old songs, we play card games.
It takes time to suspect that something is fishy,
That the person at our side is merely an echo,
Of something that came before.

Now as the last leaves release their grip from the tree,
And the ghosts conclude their brief shore leave,
We must remain on earth.

Our new companion is winter.
And as we prepare to enter this new dialogue,
We light a candle,
And we hold on to our seed.
In case, by some miracle,
Spring should surprise us once again.

— Jason Webley

Bumbershoot ’01 – Saturday, Sep. 1st

December 10, 2019September 1, 2001 by Michael Hanscom

The day started on something of a sad note — Dad called to let me know that Grandmother died early in the morning. It’s sad, but hardly tragic — she died peacefully, got quite a few more years of life than we all expected a few years back, and we all got to visit last November. Due to timing and finances, neither Mom, Kevin, nor myself will be able to be at the funeral, but Dad will be in Indiana this week for that.

And with that start to the day, I headed off to Bumbershoot….

Walked in and watched Jason Webley — very cool. Accordion, percussion via coins in a plastic bottle, gravelly voice. I know I’ve heard the style before, but don’t know the name — think Tom Waits. Going to go ahead and spend some money picking up his CD’s.

Jason’s drinking song:

When the glass is full, drink up, drink up
this may be the last time we see this cup
if God wanted us sober
he’d knock the glass over
so while it is full
we drink up, drink up!

Drumming workshops go on all day, every day. Now this is a drum circle!

Took a 3-shot panorama of the fountain and the people around it (I don’t have the panorama stitched together yet, however, so it’s not getting posted up here just yet. I’ll be busy enough tonight just getting all this typed in).

Wandered out for a few minutes for some cheap food.

Back in, sitting at Meshell Ndegéocello in the stadium. Sun’s finally starting to break through the clouds — been grey and cloudy all morning until now.

Lots of eye candy out today.

Can’t get any pictures here — no photography allowed in the stadium. No biggie — lots of other chances to get good pics.

Meshell just ended — time to wander around a bit. Loretta Lynn will be on here in the stadium in an hour and a half, planning on being here for that.

Sitting and watching kids play in the fountain. Darting in to try and touch the base without getting drenched. Doesn’t work very often. The spouts keep turning on and off, getting stronger and weaker. Makes it very hard to predict where the next open spot is going to be. The kids love it. Got one picture of a girl trying to use an umbrella to stay dry — that didn’t work too well either. Umbrellas are good for rain — not streams of gallons of water suddenly dropping onto you.

Nice background noise coming from the drum circle off somewhere behind me.

Sun disappeared again, though. Looks like it might stay cloudy the rest of the day — but with Seattle weather, who can tell?

Just saw a kid — couldn’t have been more than 18 or so — lie on a bed of nails. Then his partner put a cinderblock on his chest, and smashed it with a sledgehammer. The block broke, the kid survived — but he had a look on his face like eve he’d been surprised by the hit. Kind of amusing.

Listening to bagpipes now.

Wandered into the Electrodeck (the area focusing on dj’ing and electronic music) to see what was going on in there. According to the schedule, I hit the end of Brian Lyons’ set. I didn’t have a clue who it was at the time, it was just some decent house music. Since I still had some time to kill before the next performer I wanted to hit, I danced there for a few minutes.

Was a pretty interesting atmosphere. Since it’s in the middle of this huge music festival, even though it had the general ambiance of your standard rave, there was a much wider range of people wandering through than you’d normally see in that kind of environment. It was mostly the kids you’d expect to see gravitating towards it, but you also had everything from “normals,” hippies, even whole families checking it out — mom and dad standing against the wall or sitting in the building’s beer garden while their kids bounced around to the music.

After about 20 minutes or so I wandered out again. Went back across the center to the stadium to catch Loretta Lynn’s show. Sitting here just slightly over halfway back on the stadium field, I can’t really see the stage — it’s a little far away, and there’s a good sized crowd standing between me and the stage — but I can hear it fine, which is good enough for me at this point. If I hadn’t brought my backpack I might have tried to work my way through the crowd, but with the day looking grey when I left the house, I wanted to be sure to have my umbrella and a sweater along in case things got chilly.

I’m glad I did, too — I started off wearing the bowling shirt I got while I was at TimeFrame, and it’s been on and off all day as the sun appears and disappears. Haven’t had to break out the sweater yet, though.

It’s funny. I just brought this little journal along to jot down some quick notes of what I did, who I saw, and what pictures I took to help me get it all posted on the webpage next time I make it over to Casey’s. Friday’s notes are just that — barely over a page of quick sentences jotted down, and only about two-thirds of that even deals with Bumbershoot.

Today started out the same way, but each time I’ve stopped to put something in here, it’s been less and less just notes and more straight prose. Maybe it’s not quite ‘natural’ for me to just keep quick notes like I started to. Probably an outgrowth of my inability to say in less than 50 words what can probably be said in 5 — a tendencey I definitely get from Dad.

Since I dont have daily access to my computer to keep up the weblog there, maybe I’ll just keep carrying this book around. It’ll let me keep better track of what I do each day for when I do get to Casey’s to post on the page. I’ll have to see whether or not I actually keep up with this, but I may actually have started keeping a journal again. Every time I’ve done something like this in the past it’s been on a trip of some sort, and I’ve never kept it up much beyond the length of the the trip, if I even make it all the way through without letting the journal fall by the wayside.

You could probably see starting this one during Bumbershoot weekend as the same basic idea as starting one on my various trips, but maybe the fact that I’m not actually on a trip this time will prompt me to keep scribbling in here. Don’t quite know yet — guess I’ll find out in a few weeks if I’m still going.

Just got done watching the Red Elvises, and am sitting at the fountain again. It’s proving to be my favorite between-show spot to sit, scribble in this, and figure out what I’m doing next.

The Red Elvises put on a great show. Theoretically, they’re from Siberia (though I have no clue whether that’s true or not), and play a kind of rockabilly/surf combo. Very cool, and lots of fun. The three of them are constantly switching off who’s playing which instrument (bass, guitar, and drums), and they’re all equally proficient at each. During “I Wanna See You Bellydance” they brought a line of bellydancers onstage, and at one point a couple songs later, they all grabbed drumsticks and split the drumset in thirds — made for a very cool percussive section.

Anyway, great show — good enough that I hit the Wherehouse music stand afterwards and picked up a 2-CD live album from them.

I’ve got some time to kill now, and am thinking about wandering off to find some food — it’s coming up on 7pm, and the last show I want to hit tonight won’t be over until 11pm or so. Time to wander….

I’ll see how legible this is later. I’m sitting on the field in the stadium waiting for the Black Crows to start, and there’s not a whole lot of light. Hopefully I’ll be able to read this.

Before I went off to find food, I watched some of Clinton Fearon and the Boogie Brown Band’s set. It was good, but downtempo raggae is more Kevin’s style than mine, and it was relaxing enough that I was starting to yawn. Decided that would be a good time to get moving again.

The Black Crows just got onstage — better see how quickly I can get through this!

Anyway, wandered off-site for food again (much cheaper than in the festival). Since the stage that Clinton Fearon was on was right on the outside edge of the festival grounds, I got to hear more of their set while I was walking. They picked up the tempo towards the end — good stuff.

Since I still had about 40 minutes before the Crows, it seemed like a good time to check out the Electrodeck again. Like before, I didn’t know who was spinning — and it’s too dark for me to try and look it up now — but the music was good. Better than the first time I stopped in today, actually. Dancing kept me occupied for about another half hour, then I wandered here to the stadium.

I had sat down next to a family in the stadium field, and they’ve been kind enough to let me squat down on part of the blanket they had spread out.

So now — time to quit babbling and watch the show.

Okay — last time I could hardly see what I was writing. Now I’m trying to write on the #2 bus back home. As if my handwriting isn’t bad enough already.

Kinda cool, though –the #2 bus goes from a block away from my apartment to a block away from the Seattle Center. Makes getting back and forth amazingly easy.

The Black Crows put on a great show. They’ve been playing long enough and have enough albums out that filling an hour and a half plus a bit for an encore is easy to do. Since the only album of theirs I’ve ever picked up is their first, those were the only songs I really knew, but even when I don’t know it by heart, straight-up blues-based rock-n-roll makes for a good show. “Hard to Handle” came in about halfway through, and “She Talks to Angels” was the first song of the encore, so I got to hear both of the songs I was hoping they’d play.

After they got done I started heading for the exit that is next to the stop for the bus, but then ran into Jason Webley giving another performance. This guy is rapidly becoming one of my favorite artists here, and he’s not even one of the main acts. Just a born entertainer, with great songs and a gift for working his audience. I’m hoping to run into him again tomorrow — he got shut down by the event staff before he had time to finish off with the drinking song, to the great disappointment of his audience.

After Jason stopped, I headed for the bus stop again, and on the way ran into Serafina/Amber, one of Anchorage’s old rave kids. Apparently she came down here about a year ago and is a preschool (or did she say kindergarten?) teacher, and mixing in her spare time. Unfortunately, we didn’t get much time to chat as the police were shuttling everyone off the grounds as fast as they could.

Eventually, I made it to the bus, and am working my way home now. Time to get some sleep and rest up for another full day tomorrow!