SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT NEW YORK CITY vs OLYMPIA, WASHINGTON Well...I just got back yesterday to my home in Olympia after a three week tour of New York City. I only had a handful of gigs organized before going but just by meeting people at those gigs and some other random places I received many invitations to perform at other events, and so I ended up doing some kind of performance, rehearsal, recording session or radio interview almost every single day I was in town. These last minute bookings werent the result of having to email a bunch of people, wait three days to a week for them to reply, then send a bio or link, wait longer to confirm a gig- they were almost all INSTANTLY confirmed by person to person agreement, face to face- hey, do you want to play a show tomorrow? Yes I do! That was really amazing to me, that it could happen so consistently and synchronistically, having nothing to do with internet booking at all. When I try setting up even just a house show in Olympia, I feel like I have to deal with such abhorrent flakiness I dont even want to bother playing here sometimes. I couch surfed pretty much the entire time, with various friends who lived all over the place from Bushwick to Green Point to Carol Garden etc. Sometimes I stayed with people who wanted to stay up really really late. Sometimes I stayed with people who had to get their kids to school early in the morning. Today I slept for more than twelve hours, just to catch up because I feel like I didnt sleep at all the entire time in NY. I really enjoy having a house here in a nice neighborhood near the State Capitol. I dont pay even close in rent to what some of my friends in NY pay for spaces a fraction of the size. The art studio space I rent in downtown Olympia is bigger than some of the apartments I stayed in. Its also really beautiful here in the Pacific Northwest, you know, all the trees and water and air and stuff. Today I made myself a smoothie with blueberries I picked and froze last month. A couple days ago I paid ten dollars for a smoothie that had pretty much all the same stuff in it. Sometimes the salad bar at the Olympia Food Co-op seems kind of boring, but I like when they have the lamb stew. At the bodegas in Bushwick they have little plastic containers with quinoa and organic pasta and all that, most of it tasted kind of shitty though, and one of the sushi containers I got had a piece of fish that was completely frozen in the middle. But I also went to a real sushi restaurant that was really good. I also got to print my new book at an amazing screenprinting studio, the Bushwick Print Lab- it ended up being a little bit more expensive to produce than I was expecting, but working with them was such a great experience. Ive tried to work with print studios locally (and Seattle/Portland) but some of them have given me a lot of real shit attitude when I try to explain what I am doing, making a multi-colored fine art book using traditional screenprinting supplies, like theyd rather just stick to printing shirts for bands or sports teams than collaborate with an internationally known artist who even offers them money to let them rent out studio time. So...just a few random thoughts really. I had such a great time in NY. A lot of people I met at concerts and the drawing performance had such nice things to say about my art and music, that also felt really good. Thank you so much for the kind words and encouragement, everybody! I would thank everyone individually by tagging your names here but then Id feel really bad if I left anyone out by mistake- there would be dozens of names too! I love you all and hope to see you again soon!
Posted on: Tue, 07 Oct 2014 02:04:14 +0000