Ashland, SF, SM, and LiB

Back on the bus again, this time we were heading down to the Lightning in a Bottle music festival in Santa Barbara, making stops in Ashland, San Francisco and Santa Monica to rock the house down briefly before moving on.
First stop, Ashland! We played in a place called the Inner Child, a café dedicated solely to children. The place is filled with playhouses and fun couches and things for kids to play on. The audience was lots of kids and lots of adults too… we marched in and played a fun set, it kind of seemed like we were a cartoon band!
After a restful night in an amazing house lent to us for the night by our gracious host Freddy, the original maker of Dagoba Chocolate…yum! (I personally had a more snuggly place to crash in Ashland) and bellies full of bacon and eggs we were southbound once again on the Mad Wretching Spam Boat, getting our sea legs back after a long land stay. We had a brief delay due to the fact that Russ, our trumpet AND saxophone player woke up with an unbearably painful arm, and he had to be taken to the hospital to get it checked out. He left with a diagnosis of nerve inflammation and was handed a cortisone shot and a bottle of pain pills and was sent on his way, $300 poorer. Normally not an ideal situation but the show must go on. Next stop, the Rickshaw Stop in San Francisco. This show was particularly exciting for me because I got to see some of my best friends, Shalene, Cortt, Hilary, and Ryan. They had never seen March Fourth before and I think we put on a pretty good show for them! We played there with the Loyd Family Players, a post punk/ghettotech/samba band from Oakland, CA. We had played with them at High Sierra last year and instantly fell in love, so this show was a match made in heaven! After the show they let us crash at their warehouse space. This place was so crazy and amazing! There were so many rooms and each one had a totally different vibe. The main space was cement floored but there was art all around and super cushy beds here and there spread throughout the room. Upstairs was an elegant kitchen complete with couches to lounge on and a huge dining room table. Another room was all white, and looked like some sort of workshop. Through that room was a little set of stairs that led to another room clad in pink (this would be my room if I lived there, of course) and you could step right out of that room onto a balcony of sorts that looked over the whole space! After a somewhat restful night (ha!) we answered bus call at 9am and we were off to La La land…
When we rolled into Santa Monica we were all a little unsure of how this show was going to go. We weren’t really sure what our LA crowd looked like and LA on a Friday night has a LOT of options… also we were going on at 9, before a couple of hip hop shows! Apparently in LA when you come in to a club you say at the door what band you’re coming to see, and your cover money goes to that band. And people usually come to see their band, and then leave. Or don’t show up until their band is on. When we got there the place was empty, and that sight always makes me a little nervous.. the place was called the Temple bar, a beautiful dimly lit red and black velvet joint that felt very intimate and slightly spiritual with statues of Ganesh and altars all around. It stayed empty until the moment we came on, and then all of a sudden it filled up and there was just the right mixture to create some rockin’ energy! The dancers had to dance on the floor but there was a nice little dance square there that was just the right size. Ya know the ones, like the little wooden checkered dance floor you might find yourself on while rockin out to your favorite wedding Dj ☺
After the show we stepped out the back door to find that it was raining! This did not bode well for our upcoming weekend campout. We loaded up all the gear and got ready to head straight to Lightning in a Bottle. We had a parade at 12 the next day and figured it would be better just to get there rather than try to get up early and make the drive. A few M4thers stayed in the Temple Bar for a few minutes to catch some of the next band, apparently they were off the hook! I missed it because I was busy taking off all my makeup and getting warm, but I heard I missed out. Then we headed out and had a really fun ride to Santa Barbara, everyone a little tipsy and high off the energy we had just gathered. I spent most of the ride at a table with Dom, LaTisha, and Andy, discussing exactly what ‘cock blocking’ means and how to use it in context. The mobile party rolled into LIB around 3 am, where we continued our party at the gate while waiting for our passes and such. My friend Wally came to see me and we got to have about 10 minutes of hugs and love before he had to head off to bed, he was leaving the next morning for Flipside, the Austin regional burn. Rockstar!! After a long process of calling out names one by one and cheering (my name got called first, and I jumped up like I was on the Price is Right…. And the mayhem, just got sillier and sillier), we got our bracelets and drove off to find our spot. We were parked right behind the main stage, a perfect spot! Most of us just did the things we needed to do and headed off to bed, we had to get up at a reasonable hour the next day. In the morning we were all a little bleary eyed for the parade, I think a few of us were even sleep marching. But it was a great hit, and an amazing way for me to first lay my eyes on the land and the festival! It was a really cool piece of land, wooded with oak trees and next to a river. Off in the distance there were beautiful rocky hills. The only thing that was kind of a bummer was there were little ground squirrels peeking out of their holes, and as cute as they are, I felt really horrible that we were invading their homes with rowdy people, cars, and extremely loud grinding bass till all hours of the night. Poor little things… I bet they are glad we’re gone now.
After the parade we were free to do whatever we wanted until 8:00 the next evening. Our bus was parked right next to the Yard Dogs, some of our great friends! We shared a communal space with them and had meals together. This time we had Yvonne and Sabrina with us and they made us the most delicious food. The festival was out of control! I have never seen so many beautiful people concentrated into one space. And the clothing! The fashion was completely off the hook… the longer the festival went the more outrageous the fashion got, with people buying up stuff left and right and immediately adding it to their already multi layered leathered n feathered garb. Crazy. I managed to save my duckets, there was a LOT of stuff I wanted to buy but with no income flowin I didn’t really feel that it would be the best thing for me right now…. Pat pat pat (that’s my back) it was tough, easy to get swept up in the fashion frenzy of this culture.
The ambiance of the place was so beautiful, particularly the treehouse stage, a multi teared Dr. Seuss like treehouse dripping with Edward Goreyian found objects. When I first saw it I almost cried with joy over the talent, creativity, and imagination of our kind. And of course all the hot Dj’s were there, Tipper, Ana Sia, Glitch Mob, Bassnectar, etc… the place was goin off every moment of music hours. At some points there were hordes of tribally scantily clad ladies and gents on every tier and platform, dancing the glitchy writhy hot sexy feathery raw dance of this generation, and all I could think of was MTv’s spring break: counter culture….
Sunday evening we had our stage set on the main stage… we marched in playing SubSwarma, Luke’s new tune. We marched in acoustic and when the awesome bass line came in John was already on stage and played from there, it hit so hard and I think the audience all of a sudden realized what they were in for.. it was an incredible show! The band was on fire, the dancers had great space and lighting (makes all the difference) and the crowd was drinkin it up! For the first half they didn’t even dance, they just watched in wonder… then they started to get down and do they know how to get down! After our set Cirque Berzerk did a show at our stage and I became entranced in their awesome talent. After that I feasted my eyes and ears on Zilla, so nice to see them again and they had some great guest performers including Anahata, Kyrian, Lynx, SoulEye, and Spiral, an AMAZING hula hooper that I had the great fortune to get to know a little bit. Sunday evening was sweet as Sunday evenings often are at festivals, probly my best evening there. Saturday night was a bit intense for me…. So many people getting so crazy, it’s a bit overwhelming.

Monday morning early it was time to get back on the road and we spent 16 hours on our steed, heading north and bombarding gas station mini marts at various points along the way. Though exhausting, sometimes the bus rides are the most amazing and revealing aspects of our journey. This is where we REALLY get to know each other. I got to play a two hour round of Spades with Nayana, LaTisha, and Scarlett. And thank you Aspen for the most amazing massage, I needed it so bad.
Now I am back in Ashland, getting pampered by Chad and rejuvenating myself with lots of sleepin, lovin, and plenty of chai. I’ll be back in Portland in a few days and I look forward to snuggling with my kitty and seeing all my friends there! Hey, anyone have any ideas on what I should do next? I’m taking suggestions. I really need to start generating income!
Sadly, I have no pictures because I lost my camera on the way to Louisiana last month. There’s lots of fun ones out there though!

Special thanks to:
Aaron (AKA Breathalizer) for driving our asses around and all the many other things that you did including helping me pour the 5 gallon buckets of pepper brew repeatedly into ½ gallon jugs ( I went around to camps and gave away cups of Mate Fire.. they loved it!)
Yvonne and Sabrina for making us scrumptious food.
Robin for making me hula hoop on stage at LiB when I didn’t want to because I was intimidated by all the kick ass hoopers there.
Alix for making me the most awesome hat ever!!!!
M4 managers for keeping us in line and making sure we all got fed, etc.. you guys do amazing work, you are an inspiration.
Aspen for giving me said massage. Aaaahhhhhhhhh!
Chad for driving to Shasta in the middle of the night to pick me up so I didn’t have to camp in the rain on the last night when I was exhausted and filthy.

Until next time! (Reno 4th of July/High Sierra)

falling in love with the band...again

As I sit in my bed with my kitty curled up next to me I can only think of one word to sum up the weekend in Louisiana… epic. Oh my god! I can’t believe I experienced what I just experienced. I will try to get it down into words as best I can.
When I last left off we were resting up for our big show on main stage Friday night. It’s actually hard to rest when there is so much fun stuff going on around you, I tried to but I think I ended up just eating more and hanging out with new friends. And I did some partner yoga with Katie out on the grass while these little bugs called ‘love bugs’ flew around (they were attached at the tail end, in a perpetual state of bliss) and the gentle melody of Russ’s flute and Taylor’s saxophone caressed our ears. So we headed out to the festival in our trusty white vans and did the main stage show. it was so awesome! The sides of the stage were crowded with cameras and video cameras, and our show went famously. The crowd was super excited and the kids up front were going crazy. After the stage set we paraded around the grounds, gathering a flock of people. Keith’s friend Richard from New Orleans was there and he was doing fire blasts as we marched along. We ended in this little grassy field where we wooed them with Nicoletta and then killed it with Lesley Metal. I love the looks on people faces when you storm into a scene and they totally get it. After that I had a wicked headache and all I wanted to do was go back to the hotel. I couldn’t find an advil anywhere but someone gave me a midol… these were dire times. Babylon Circus (the AWESOME headliner band) had asked the dancers to join them on stage for their final song. It was an amazing opportunity so I took the midol and got on with it. Their set was incredible!!! They had the most amazing stage presence, they owned that stage for every second of their set. Plus their band ROCKS, it’s kind of ska/jazz/French circus or something. Totally wicked. M4thers kept trickling in backstage so that when they finally called us on stage we all just bombarded on dancing around and generally freaking out. The crown went totally crazy when we got on stage, and it was complete and total mayhem, strobe lights and all. This was a uniquely epic experience unto itself. But it did nothing for my headache. At this point it was pounding to the point of nausea so I decided it was time to head back to the hotel. On the van ride home a few of us met a band called Samarabalouf, and Francois asked me if I would like to sit in with them the next day. They are from Paris and play Gypsy Jazz. I had never heard them and they had never seen me hoop but we shook on it anyway. So this is how it happens!

When we got back to the hotel I jumped out of the van only to find Mamadou Diabate playing the kora by the pool, accompanied by his Marimba (not really a marimba but it looks like one and I keep forgetting the name) player and the drummer from Habib Koite’s band on jambay. It was so amazing, I forgot all notion of a headache and sat out there for hours clapping and singing along. That night was the sweetest of all for hotel partying, everyone was in rare form and people just kept trickling out to the pool. I made great friends with a band from Quebec called Benwala…. Everyone just got completely toasty, it was like a great big musician/dancer mixer. It was actually kind of funny because most of the bands are all men, we were the only band that had any women except for the tour manager for Benwala, and the all women group Voom that didn’t really make many appearances. And everyone was so damn HOT! I think my head hit the pillow around 4am, which was to be the trend for the next few days.
In the morning I woke up and jumped out of bed, straight into my costume. Robin and I caught the early van out to the festival, I was to go on with Samarabalouf at 1:00. It was SOOOOOoooo fun! They are a trio, and I got to hoop right in the middle of them to a song called BoogieWoogie. The crowd loved it and the guys were so happy… Robin got it all on video so maybe I’ll post it somewhere. The rest of that day we just spent going from stage to stage seeing amazing music and receiving adoration from fans. It was pretty incredible how many people had seen us and came up to us wanting pictures and telling us how much they had loved us. It actually got to a point where we felt like hiding because we were so exhausted from talking to people. I really wanted to see Habib Koite so I figured I had just enough time to see part of his set before our parade at 4:30. Right around 4 I got this feeling that I should head over to the meeting spot, and when we got there no one else was there. As the fear feeling started to grow in my belly we looked to see that the parade was actually at 4:00 across the festival. Shit! We were running through the crowded streets, almost perishing with heat exhaustion. When we made it to the parade we were about halfway late. Oops! After that I was super tired but of course there was too much good music to slow down! There was good down time to be had in the hospitality tent, there was always amazing food flowing and all the artists were there so it was a good time to connect with people. That night we had and incredible parade. There was this one moment where we were stopped by this gorgeous fountain, I ran to the other side of the fountain so I could hoop for some folks and I looked back and saw the fountain with M4 in the background, the stilters in silhouette, the crowd jumping up and down… uh! It was so amazing. Then we proceeded to this little acoustic stage where we ROCKED IT until long after the horn players lips were fatiguing and the stilters legs were shakin…. It was totally epic. After that I think more partying ensued at the hotel… I can’t quite remember. It all becomes a blur at some point. I do know that it was another 4amer though…
The next day we were headed off to New Orleans. Our drive there was…. Wet. It was raining so incredibly hard I thought our van might wash away. We had rented two vans and a box truck to get us around while in the Big Easy. At one point we drove over this really cool bridge through the swamplands, it was 10 miles long. Once again I thought of Louis and Lestat, hangin out there dumping bodies after they have had their fill. I can’t help it, I learned all I know about New Orleans from Anne Rice..When we drove over Lake Pontacharain I recognized it from last time we were there. We had a fat pad to crash, our friend Josh and his gracious housemates let us throw down air mattresses on the floor and generally take over their house for a few days. Jazz fest was going on and we were planning on going and doing a little renegade show there but the weather was totally ikky and the band was suffering from general fatigue, so we decided to nap a bit before our big night. Naptime flew by, as it often does, and suddenly it was time to head in to the city and do our thang. Our gig was in a section of town called the Marinee, across Esplanade St. from the French Quarter. Our plan was to play outside for a bit to gather some people and then go into the venue. When we got there a brass band was already playing on the corner.. we enjoyed them for awhile and even joined in, it felt like a classic NOLA experience. We then decided it would be best to do a march. People around there are definitely looking for a spectacle…. And they found one! As the band was getting ready I started warming up by hula hoopin, and the crowd trickled in until it was a rather large crowd, taking pictures and doing the usual tourist thing… it was pretty cool! At a certain point though I was ready for the band to start, I didn’t want to stop and lose our crowd! It’s easy to work up a sweat in that humidity, I find that I do not have as much stamina as I am used to. They started in the nick of time, they played one song and then the cars that were being blocked by the crowd started to get impatient and started honking, so we decided it was time to march. We marched down the sidewalk in two lines. I took the back right in front of the bass amp. As I looked at my band in two perfect lines in front of me I fell in love again. How many times have I fallen in love with the band? Countless. It was incredible. We marched onto Esplanade St and stopped in a little alcove and played a few songs. The people were flowing into the street and across the street in the median. It was one of the greatest moments of my life thus far. It is extremely hard to capture the moment in words but I just felt like I was the luckiest person in the world to be a part of this project. And in this moment a man who lives in Portland and happened to be at Jazz Fest this weekend came up to me and offered me a job! Ask and the universe shall provide. We passed the hat and made over $400. We marched back to the venue and played a raging set. No room for dance pieces but it was one of my most fun March Fourth shows regardless. And after the show we all poured into the street and enjoyed the brass band on the corner, bought veggie burittos from the roaming buritto prophet, and enjoyed moments of mystery from the burlesque girl selling moments of mysteries in little plastic eggs. Russ jammed with a keyboard player right on the sidewalk. It was one of those nights that you never want to end. But of course 4:00 rolls around and everything starts to feel a little slooooooooow. I think I slept really good that night. A few people had flights that morning so they went straight from the Josh’s abode after party to the airport, tequila breath and all…
The next day a few of us decided to take a little tourist trip to the French Quarter (even though I vowed not to go back there since I spent 3 days there last time) but I just needed to stop by the lingerie store there and buy a couple more ruffle butts. They have such good ones! We wandered around for awhile and then it was time to head back home to go to the airport. After a series of unfortunate events which I will not go into here because it is long and boring (unlike this blog), I ended up missing my flight out by 1 MINUTE!!! Luckily they got me on a flight the next morning so I hung my head and called John and Dan to come pick me back up…. Bonus night!!! There were a few stragglers flying out either today or Wednesday so I had some partners in crime. Me, Dan, Aspen, John, Jenny, Richard, Taylor, Scarlett, Russ, and Babs headed out to Tipitinas where there was an allstar lineup of Little feat, Galactic, and the Rebirth Brass Band. Unfortunately you had to be a millionaire to actually get in the show but they had closed off the street and there was a New Orleans band and a block party. It was pretty fun. Then we headed over to Babs’ sweet pad downtown and chilled there for awhile before going to the Marinee and shakin our butts to the Klezmer Allstars, an incredible klezmer/funk group that has been together something like 18 years. Oops! 3am… better get home, I had a cab picking me up at 7:45 the next morning to get to the airport… (I set 3 alarms!) oh.. glad I remembered, I better turn those off…. Needless to say I made it to the airport and zonked out all the way home. I woke up to ‘flight attendants, please prepare the cabin for landing…..crosscheck!’
And again, I will sum it with…. Epic. So epic. I can’t believe how incredibly lucky I am.
Thanks for reading this far, I commend you for your dedication to the life and times of a March Fourth hula hooper…. Until next time~

Festival International de Louisiane

The start of this trip suddenly finds me jobless and a little perplexed at the state of affairs, but I’m feelin good just back from an energizing trip down to Ashland where I got to watch Mary Poppins and take in a play at one of the many beautiful theatres. All too quickly I watched the Chai Hut disappear through my rearview mirror and I was off on another crazy M4 adventure. 4:30Am found Me, Robin, Benny, and Jenny Pancake on the early bird cocaine express to the airport, where they confiscated my yogurt at security ☹ ‘it’s considered a crème’ she says... bah! I will get you with my yogurt!!!!! The flight to Dallas was uneventful but it was made up for in the propeller plane from Dallas to Lafayette, Louisiana. I thought we might be done for when we started to fishtail as we landed, but spirit had other plans in store for these M4thrs. When we got here it was 80 degrees and about 88% humidity, not too bad but definitely a little h-o-t... we were picked up at the tiny airport by Ted, who would soon prove himself to be our trusty driver, and he whisked us away to the hotel, which has been transformed for this weekend into the ‘hospitality village’, ALL the bands from this festival are staying here. It’s pretty cool, though most of the bands are French or African so there’s a lot of languages being thrown around and I often feel in the minority... it’s great! We are staying 3 to a room, and it seems to be working out pretty well. We are all in the same section of the hotel and all the doors lead to the outside so everyone brought out their tables and chairs and we just have a block party all the time.
When we got here we had about 4 hours till showtime, which really means 1 ½ hours to relax, 1 hour to get ready, and then 1 ½ hour to hang out backstage and wait to go on. Having only managed a couple hours sleep the night before I was ready for a nap but no such luck. We have a couple of big ol vans that cart us all around. When we arrived at the stage there was absolutely no one there! I think I saw some tumbleweed roll by... but, we figured no one knew us and we were opening up the show so... oh well. As soon as we started to play people started to show up and all of a sudden the place was packed and they were SO diggin it! People seemed genuinely surprised to see us there. After the show when we went into the crowd I got some of the best feedback ever! Then we had a chance to really check out the festival, and it was so much more amazing than I expected. They have closed off like 10 city blocks and the festival is right in the middle of it all. The town of Lafayette is very cute and the people are especially gregarious. The festival sees 350,000 people! Most of the bands are French or French influenced. Last night after our show we watched the Mamadou Diabate Ensemble from Mali, they were fantastic. As typical of March Fourth there was much partying going on both at the festival and back in hotel land, but I was genuinely tuckered so I headed off to bed around midnight (I know!! Can you BELIEVE it?) complete with earplugs and facemask, I had a great night’s sleep. Which is good because we were roused at 8:00 iN THE MORNING to get up and go play a kids show! I don’t know what we were expecting but I think it was bigger than we expected! It was at the main stage which is a huge stage with a huge soundsystem with a HUGE crowd! They had bussed kids in from all over the place to come see us... we put on an awesome show and I think I spent a half an hour after the show in the crowd answering kids’ questions getting in pictures, giving them hugs and receiving their adoration. One kid said ‘last year, this wasn’t good. This year, it was good!’ I thought that a supreme compliment. It is so incredibly sticky here, if you are not just out of the shower then you wish you were. During the shows the sweat just comes pouring down, no real way around it. And I find that no matter how much I eat, I am instantly starving after a show. Right now everyone is resting up because we are playing tonight on the main stage, a slightly daunting but exciting opportunity. Then after tht we are marching around the whole festival for an hour or so. Ok I’m going to go rest up now.... I’ll let you know how it goes. And pictures to come!