November 26, 2012
THE JASON TRAEGER SHOW  OLYMPIA 2000  My Stand-up comedy career can be divided into three periods. As a child I made a practice of memorizing routines and bits by Cheech and Chong, Steve Martin and George Carlin to perform for my friends and classmates. In fact my first performance in front of an audience was in 1977 when I did a medley of bits culled from Steve Martin’s classic albums of that era in front of my fourth grade class at Moorlands Elementary School in Bothell, Wa.  I was a big hit with the kids but my teacher was less approving. She was especially upset when I did the joke “…when a person asks me in a restaurant ‘mind if I smoke?’, I ask them ‘mind if I fart?’” Of course the joke that drew the most ire from my teacher got the biggest laugh of all from the kids. I was hooked! As a nine year old stand-up in the late 70’s I found it exceedingly difficult to make a career of it. This was, after all, a few years before the comedy explosion of the 80’s and at the time I wasn’t allowed to stay up past 9pm so it was tough. Once I’d exhausted all the audiences in my immediate surroundings I put my comedy dreams on the back burner to pursue the completion of my primary school education. It wasn’t until about 25 years later while living in Olympia, WA. that I got back into Stand-up. I don’t remember exactly what inspired me to start hitting open mics at that time. I do remember feeling inspired after seeing Mitch Hedberg and Marc Maron a few months apart at a club in Oly that briefly hosted comedy around that time. I think those shows helped push me to give it another go. The time was right. This second, middle-era of my Stand-up career started primarily at Seattle’s Comedy Underground and at Giggles out in the U District and then at Comedy Underground’s Tacoma location. I eventually moved back to California (I’d lived there in the 80’s and 90’s) spending sometime in SF performing at places like Brainwash, then in LA performing at various spots around town most frequently at the Lucy’s Laundromat on Sunset in Silverlake. This era culminated with a national tour I did doing Stand-up as an opener for musical acts Scout Niblett and Swearing at Motorists. I learned a lot on that tour. Among other things I learned that doing Stand-up in Baton Rouge, LA. at a biker/frat bar is not for the faint of heart. I also learned that while it seems like a bad idea to do a fistful of magic mushrooms before going onstage in front of hundreds in Dallas, TX., it’s not as bad an idea as you might think. When I got back to LA after that tour I didn’t know which way was up and I’d pretty much lost the trail completely in my life. I just didn’t have the center of gravity to do much of anything so I moved back to the Northwest, bounced around a little, went to art school, studied painting, blew through some money, played music, got jobs, left jobs, lost jobs, I was in a fantastic art collective called Oregon Painting Society that did comedy shows from time to time, did tons of shows with OPS, performed at the Tate Modern in London, quit drugs and alcohol, did a couple Stand-up shows in art-world settings, and all kinds of other stuff. About five months ago I started doing Stand-up again here in Portland. This begins the third chapter of my career. I don’t know why I started back up exactly. It’s true I was running out of patience with the vagaries of the art world, I couldn’t afford to throw every penny toward a painting career that got plenty of attention but almost no sales at all, I also was transitioning into being single again, and I was frankly a little bored with music. I wanted a form of expression that was compatible with working a lot and being strapped for cash. More than anything else though I just felt a calling to get back into it. In Portland I’ve found Stand-up comedy heaven. It’s a great scene with tons of open mics in a bunch of great rooms. There are a slew of talented young and not-so young comics, the scene is creative, fresh, friendly and I can’t imagine it’s not at the beginning of a comedy explosion of sorts. All the pieces are in place. I am more excited by and engaged in comedy than I’ve ever been and it feels great.  I’ve also been able to combine my love of visual art with my comedy career by sketching the ever changing faces and places of Portland comedy. I show my drawings on my Portland Stand-up Comedy Sketchbook Tumblr. The above flyer is from a show at the ABC house in Olympia that was a held as a fundraising benefit prior to my move to California. I’m a little unsure as to what year that would’ve been. 2000 maybe? The flyer was drawn by my dear friend and brilliant artist Tae Won Yu. The bill featured my friends Lindsay Arnold who was making the rounds as a Stand-up at the time and Jared Warren of KARP, The Whip, Big Business and Melvins fame. Jared was between bands and was another one of my Stand-up Comedy mates for my trips up to Seattle to The Comedy Underground. Both Jared and Lindsay were and still are hilarious. Lindsay is a lawyer now and Jared is a rockstar still.  Me? I’m a Stand-up comic! If you wanna see me do my thing go to almost any open mic in Portland. If I’m not on stage just look for the guy with the sketchbook. (The Jason Traeger Show flyer by Tae Won Yu from my personal archives.)

THE JASON TRAEGER SHOW  OLYMPIA 2000 

My Stand-up comedy career can be divided into three periods.

As a child I made a practice of memorizing routines and bits by Cheech and Chong, Steve Martin and George Carlin to perform for my friends and classmates. In fact my first performance in front of an audience was in 1977 when I did a medley of bits culled from Steve Martin’s classic albums of that era in front of my fourth grade class at Moorlands Elementary School in Bothell, Wa. 

I was a big hit with the kids but my teacher was less approving. She was especially upset when I did the joke “…when a person asks me in a restaurant ‘mind if I smoke?’, I ask them ‘mind if I fart?’” Of course the joke that drew the most ire from my teacher got the biggest laugh of all from the kids. I was hooked!

As a nine year old stand-up in the late 70’s I found it exceedingly difficult to make a career of it. This was, after all, a few years before the comedy explosion of the 80’s and at the time I wasn’t allowed to stay up past 9pm so it was tough. Once I’d exhausted all the audiences in my immediate surroundings I put my comedy dreams on the back burner to pursue the completion of my primary school education.

It wasn’t until about 25 years later while living in Olympia, WA. that I got back into Stand-up. I don’t remember exactly what inspired me to start hitting open mics at that time. I do remember feeling inspired after seeing Mitch Hedberg and Marc Maron a few months apart at a club in Oly that briefly hosted comedy around that time. I think those shows helped push me to give it another go. The time was right.

This second, middle-era of my Stand-up career started primarily at Seattle’s Comedy Underground and at Giggles out in the U District and then at Comedy Underground’s Tacoma location. I eventually moved back to California (I’d lived there in the 80’s and 90’s) spending sometime in SF performing at places like Brainwash, then in LA performing at various spots around town most frequently at the Lucy’s Laundromat on Sunset in Silverlake. This era culminated with a national tour I did doing Stand-up as an opener for musical acts Scout Niblett and Swearing at Motorists. I learned a lot on that tour. Among other things I learned that doing Stand-up in Baton Rouge, LA. at a biker/frat bar is not for the faint of heart. I also learned that while it seems like a bad idea to do a fistful of magic mushrooms before going onstage in front of hundreds in Dallas, TX., it’s not as bad an idea as you might think.

When I got back to LA after that tour I didn’t know which way was up and I’d pretty much lost the trail completely in my life. I just didn’t have the center of gravity to do much of anything so I moved back to the Northwest, bounced around a little, went to art school, studied painting, blew through some money, played music, got jobs, left jobs, lost jobs, I was in a fantastic art collective called Oregon Painting Society that did comedy shows from time to time, did tons of shows with OPS, performed at the Tate Modern in London, quit drugs and alcohol, did a couple Stand-up shows in art-world settings, and all kinds of other stuff.

About five months ago I started doing Stand-up again here in Portland. This begins the third chapter of my career. I don’t know why I started back up exactly. It’s true I was running out of patience with the vagaries of the art world, I couldn’t afford to throw every penny toward a painting career that got plenty of attention but almost no sales at all, I also was transitioning into being single again, and I was frankly a little bored with music. I wanted a form of expression that was compatible with working a lot and being strapped for cash. More than anything else though I just felt a calling to get back into it.

In Portland I’ve found Stand-up comedy heaven. It’s a great scene with tons of open mics in a bunch of great rooms. There are a slew of talented young and not-so young comics, the scene is creative, fresh, friendly and I can’t imagine it’s not at the beginning of a comedy explosion of sorts. All the pieces are in place. I am more excited by and engaged in comedy than I’ve ever been and it feels great. 

I’ve also been able to combine my love of visual art with my comedy career by sketching the ever changing faces and places of Portland comedy. I show my drawings on my Portland Stand-up Comedy Sketchbook Tumblr.

The above flyer is from a show at the ABC house in Olympia that was a held as a fundraising benefit prior to my move to California. I’m a little unsure as to what year that would’ve been. 2000 maybe? The flyer was drawn by my dear friend and brilliant artist Tae Won Yu. The bill featured my friends Lindsay Arnold who was making the rounds as a Stand-up at the time and Jared Warren of KARP, The Whip, Big Business and Melvins fame. Jared was between bands and was another one of my Stand-up Comedy mates for my trips up to Seattle to The Comedy Underground. Both Jared and Lindsay were and still are hilarious. Lindsay is a lawyer now and Jared is a rockstar still. 

Me? I’m a Stand-up comic! If you wanna see me do my thing go to almost any open mic in Portland. If I’m not on stage just look for the guy with the sketchbook.

(The Jason Traeger Show flyer by Tae Won Yu from my personal archives.)

4:10pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zl8DhvY73cX5
(Notes: 8)
  
Filed under: Jared Warren abc house karp karp lives melvins metal olympia polar bears punk tae won yu tight bros from way back when stand up comedy open mic portland san francisco lucy's laundry mart mitch hedberg marc maron 
June 20, 2012
HISTORY OF MANKIND SOUVENIR STAND  OLYMPIA 1990’S I love this photo. My old friend Tae Won Yu took it at Olympia’s annual Lakefair festival sometime in the 90’s.  The composition is awesome. I dig the Joycean array of motifs in toy cluster behind me: “grey alien” figures from the nighttime visitations of our collective unconscious, next to what are certainly bootlegged Minnie and Mickey Mouses from our premier American corporate myth maker Walt Disney. A rodent Adam and Eve. The smallest, meekest little creatures whose image has conquered the planet in our age of hyper media saturated globalization. They hang below a big bunch of electric guitars, the instrument that changed the world in the latter half of the 20th Century. The wandering minstrel’s lute gone space-age insane. A super-charged catalyst to countless revolutions and revelations. From Hendrix’s Star Spangled Banner out into a million directions. These totems are themselves situated next to a cluster of baseball bats, the tool that generates the propulsion that is essential to the game that at least once was referred to as America’s pastime. The cartoonish proportions of the bats also suggest a caveman’s club, which to my mind evokes Stanley Kubrick’s vision of man’s violent first step toward the stars in the opening scene of his masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey. A film which incidentally my mother saw upon its release in a theater with me in her womb in 1968. Above the clubs hang the equally cartoonish spiky ball of a battle flail from the middle ages, a weapon only slightly more sophisticated in its no nonsense brutality. The flail was a weapon specially designed to penetrate a knight’s steel armor. This technological one-upmanship represents an early example of the arms race dynamic that would centuries later push our species to the brink of total annihilation in the nuclear age. The flails are situated next to an oversized first generation cellphone. A tool that at the time this photo was taken was an object worthy of a child’s fetishistic coveting but which today is so common a child would likely have little interest in a toy facsimile and would instead demand the real thing. That real thing of course is usually no longer just a phone but rather it is a computer connected to a global web of servers and other computers that taken as a whole resembles a neural network containing and sharing something akin to the totality of man’s aspirations, machinations, and information at lightning speed.  Finally to my left you can see an upside down hand mirror reflecting the world back at itself. This mirror represents to me the self reflective nature of our species. A trait that seems to be the only thing that truly makes us an anomaly in the animal kingdom. There you have it: the journey of homo sapiens on this planet from the monolith to the starship represented in one souvenir stand, at one summer festival, in one small city.  What do I do in the face of such visual poetry? I goof around and ham it up for the camera of course! After all if we’re indeed made of star stuff, and we’re perhaps destined for the stars, why not make like you’re a flippin’ star and shine a little while you’re here? (Photo of me at Lakefair by Tae Won Yu from my personal archives)

HISTORY OF MANKIND SOUVENIR STAND  OLYMPIA 1990’S

I love this photo. My old friend Tae Won Yu took it at Olympia’s annual Lakefair festival sometime in the 90’s.  The composition is awesome.

I dig the Joycean array of motifs in toy cluster behind me: “grey alien” figures from the nighttime visitations of our collective unconscious, next to what are certainly bootlegged Minnie and Mickey Mouses from our premier American corporate myth maker Walt Disney. A rodent Adam and Eve. The smallest, meekest little creatures whose image has conquered the planet in our age of hyper media saturated globalization.

They hang below a big bunch of electric guitars, the instrument that changed the world in the latter half of the 20th Century. The wandering minstrel’s lute gone space-age insane. A super-charged catalyst to countless revolutions and revelations. From Hendrix’s Star Spangled Banner out into a million directions. These totems are themselves situated next to a cluster of baseball bats, the tool that generates the propulsion that is essential to the game that at least once was referred to as America’s pastime.

The cartoonish proportions of the bats also suggest a caveman’s club, which to my mind evokes Stanley Kubrick’s vision of man’s violent first step toward the stars in the opening scene of his masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey. A film which incidentally my mother saw upon its release in a theater with me in her womb in 1968. Above the clubs hang the equally cartoonish spiky ball of a battle flail from the middle ages, a weapon only slightly more sophisticated in its no nonsense brutality. The flail was a weapon specially designed to penetrate a knight’s steel armor. This technological one-upmanship represents an early example of the arms race dynamic that would centuries later push our species to the brink of total annihilation in the nuclear age.

The flails are situated next to an oversized first generation cellphone. A tool that at the time this photo was taken was an object worthy of a child’s fetishistic coveting but which today is so common a child would likely have little interest in a toy facsimile and would instead demand the real thing. That real thing of course is usually no longer just a phone but rather it is a computer connected to a global web of servers and other computers that taken as a whole resembles a neural network containing and sharing something akin to the totality of man’s aspirations, machinations, and information at lightning speed. 

Finally to my left you can see an upside down hand mirror reflecting the world back at itself. This mirror represents to me the self reflective nature of our species. A trait that seems to be the only thing that truly makes us an anomaly in the animal kingdom.

There you have it: the journey of homo sapiens on this planet from the monolith to the starship represented in one souvenir stand, at one summer festival, in one small city. 

What do I do in the face of such visual poetry? I goof around and ham it up for the camera of course! After all if we’re indeed made of star stuff, and we’re perhaps destined for the stars, why not make like you’re a flippin’ star and shine a little while you’re here?

(Photo of me at Lakefair by Tae Won Yu from my personal archives)

3:31am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zl8DhvNlon1L
(Notes: 6)
  
Filed under: Jason Traeger LAKEFAIR grey alien olympia tae won yu stanley kubrick 2001: A Space Odyssey middle ages internet disney mickey mouse hendrix star spangled banner woodstock cuban missle crisis nuclear age adam and eve 
April 28, 2012
YU AND ME UNDER THE BLOSSOMING APPLE TREE   OLYMPIA 1995 Sorry about the title of this one Tae. I had to do it. If you enjoy this blog you might want to thank my old friend Tae Won Yu the next time you see him because he’s the one who convinced me to get started doing it. If you must thank me, you can save your breath and send some cold hard cash my way via the Paypal button above. So far I’ve given all the money that’s been donated to other worthy causes. It’s all part of what I call my ”pay-it-forward plan to stay broke forever”. Yes, I’m crazy and thank you very much! I’d like to thank Tae myself, and also my friends Tobi Vail and John Goff who had both  suggested on different occasions that I ought to share my story in a public way sometime. I’m grateful to them for getting the idea of writing rattling around in my head because now that I’m doing it this project has turned out to be something of a revelatory experience for me in a few different and powerful ways.  The first and most immediate thing I’ve learned by doing it is that I like to write. I didn’t really know this before. Almost all the writing experiences I’ve had in the last 15 years have taken place either within an academic or art professional context and while those experiences convinced me that I was capable of writing they did little to make me like writing. As everyone knows being capable of doing something and actually enjoying doing it are two completely different things. Don’t get me wrong, I love writing grants (and not getting them) as much as the next guy, and artist statements are certainly helpful if you want to take all the pesky magic out of the mystery of creative endeavor by analyzing it to death. Writing short bios for an artist’s press release is one of the best forums I know of for condensing the infinite fractal experience of a life wildly lived into several easily ignored paragraphs, and college writing assignments have a long, illustrious reputation for producing some of literature’s greatest…bibliographies.  I’m being silly about it of course and I’m glad to have been a part of these lineages of wordsmithery. Those writing tasks are all unavoidable, practical exercises that are part and parcel to the field I’ve found myself struggling in. I probably could’ve made some of them into something great if I’d applied myself and tried harder. Who knows maybe some of them were okay. I did get good grades in college but I still haven’t ever won a grant!  For me the difference between that kind of writing and this kind of writing has to do with the storytelling aspect of it. This stuff doesn’t write itself but it feels like it does a lot of the time.  There is a fun, flowing quality to it and that’s enough to keep me going. Another meaningful thing I’ve discovered while working on this blog is that I have something to say. I have some stories to tell and some insights that are worth sharing. This understanding had eluded me until now. Maybe I needed to reach some critical mass of pent-up narrative pressure before the dam could burst. It could be that for whatever reason I just decided now is as good a time as any to let someone else, and maybe most importantly myself, in on the secret: my life has been interesting. It has been hyper non-linear, almost totally devoid of anything resembling a plan, weird as f-ck, financially ridiculous, trippy as a trippy hippie, and a completely intuitive exploration of the limits of human stamina to withstand the pressures of uncertainty, frustration, and bewilderment. The madness of it all has bit me on the tail so many times I’m surprised it hasn’t been gnawed clean off but at least it hasn’t been boring. I am very lucky to have survived it all mentally and physically intact. It should be said I only did so with the help, love, and companionship of an army of angels, deities, and heroes…my family and friends. I love you all! I have done a lot of sh-t. I’ve seen a lot of sh-t. I’ve known a lot of people. I’ve given it all great consideration and in doing so I’ve arrived at a few conclusions and I’ve been confronted with a hell of a lot more questions. My conclusions are living, breathing, hard-won works of art that have a life of their own and an innate desire to fly the coop. My questions, like almost all questions, are inherently worth asking. So that’s what I’m doing here: asking, telling, listening and relating. I kept journals for many years starting in my late teens, through my twenties, and into my early thirties. I wrote all kinds of stuff, boring minutiae, poetry, dreams I remembered, to do lists and anything and everything else. I don’t know why I stopped exactly, I probably just got sick of writing similar things for the same audience of one over and over. For whatever reason, I just outgrew the process somewhere along the line. Maybe journaling didn’t die at all, it just morphed into my current practice of sketchbookeeping.   One of the things I dig about this web-centric  “bioblographical”  writing are all the things it isn’t. It’s not a bunch of illegible words written in blue ink that will only get musty while taking up space in the attic until  the day they’re either read or tossed out after I’m dead and gone. This isn’t an email or a letter to a friend and it isn’t a wisp of conversation floating around in a coffee shop either. This is a public record, an account, a distillation of my experience, a love letter to my past, present, and future, a plea for forgiveness, a chance to brag a little, a chance to give some shout outs to some deserving folks and ultimately it’s a message in a bottle addressed to a mystery reader.  Sometimes I imagine I’m tossing that bottle into cyberspace but then I realize I’m really just putting this stuff out in front of your eyes and my eyes because it feels right and because I can. Like all art forms with any vitality, its a reaching in as a means of reaching out. Thanks so much for reading! This photo of Tae and I was probably taken around 1995. The two of us are crouched under the blossoming apple tree in Calvin Johnson’s front yard in Olympia, WA. I lived at Calvin’s house two different times in the 90’s and it’s a place I love very much. For all you rock trivia nerds, this apple tree is the same one Beck is swinging from on the back cover photo of his One Foot in the Grave L.P. He recorded that record in the basement of the house while I was living there in 1993-4. I did an interview with him when he was staying with us but I never got around to publishing it. If I can find the that tape maybe I’ll transcribe it and make that a future post. Photo of Tae Won Yu and myself in front of the apple tree in Calvin Johnson’s front yard.

YU AND ME UNDER THE BLOSSOMING APPLE TREE   OLYMPIA 1995

Sorry about the title of this one Tae. I had to do it.

If you enjoy this blog you might want to thank my old friend Tae Won Yu the next time you see him because he’s the one who convinced me to get started doing it. If you must thank me, you can save your breath and send some cold hard cash my way via the Paypal button above.

So far I’ve given all the money that’s been donated to other worthy causes. It’s all part of what I call my ”pay-it-forward plan to stay broke forever”. Yes, I’m crazy and thank you very much!

I’d like to thank Tae myself, and also my friends Tobi Vail and John Goff who had both  suggested on different occasions that I ought to share my story in a public way sometime. I’m grateful to them for getting the idea of writing rattling around in my head because now that I’m doing it this project has turned out to be something of a revelatory experience for me in a few different and powerful ways. 

The first and most immediate thing I’ve learned by doing it is that I like to write. I didn’t really know this before. Almost all the writing experiences I’ve had in the last 15 years have taken place either within an academic or art professional context and while those experiences convinced me that I was capable of writing they did little to make me like writing. As everyone knows being capable of doing something and actually enjoying doing it are two completely different things.

Don’t get me wrong, I love writing grants (and not getting them) as much as the next guy, and artist statements are certainly helpful if you want to take all the pesky magic out of the mystery of creative endeavor by analyzing it to death. Writing short bios for an artist’s press release is one of the best forums I know of for condensing the infinite fractal experience of a life wildly lived into several easily ignored paragraphs, and college writing assignments have a long, illustrious reputation for producing some of literature’s greatest…bibliographies. 

I’m being silly about it of course and I’m glad to have been a part of these lineages of wordsmithery. Those writing tasks are all unavoidable, practical exercises that are part and parcel to the field I’ve found myself struggling in. I probably could’ve made some of them into something great if I’d applied myself and tried harder. Who knows maybe some of them were okay. I did get good grades in college but I still haven’t ever won a grant! 

For me the difference between that kind of writing and this kind of writing has to do with the storytelling aspect of it. This stuff doesn’t write itself but it feels like it does a lot of the time.  There is a fun, flowing quality to it and that’s enough to keep me going.

Another meaningful thing I’ve discovered while working on this blog is that I have something to say. I have some stories to tell and some insights that are worth sharing. This understanding had eluded me until now. Maybe I needed to reach some critical mass of pent-up narrative pressure before the dam could burst.

It could be that for whatever reason I just decided now is as good a time as any to let someone else, and maybe most importantly myself, in on the secret: my life has been interesting. It has been hyper non-linear, almost totally devoid of anything resembling a plan, weird as f-ck, financially ridiculous, trippy as a trippy hippie, and a completely intuitive exploration of the limits of human stamina to withstand the pressures of uncertainty, frustration, and bewilderment.

The madness of it all has bit me on the tail so many times I’m surprised it hasn’t been gnawed clean off but at least it hasn’t been boring. I am very lucky to have survived it all mentally and physically intact. It should be said I only did so with the help, love, and companionship of an army of angels, deities, and heroes…my family and friends. I love you all!

I have done a lot of sh-t. I’ve seen a lot of sh-t. I’ve known a lot of people. I’ve given it all great consideration and in doing so I’ve arrived at a few conclusions and I’ve been confronted with a hell of a lot more questions. My conclusions are living, breathing, hard-won works of art that have a life of their own and an innate desire to fly the coop. My questions, like almost all questions, are inherently worth asking.

So that’s what I’m doing here: asking, telling, listening and relating.

I kept journals for many years starting in my late teens, through my twenties, and into my early thirties. I wrote all kinds of stuff, boring minutiae, poetry, dreams I remembered, to do lists and anything and everything else. I don’t know why I stopped exactly, I probably just got sick of writing similar things for the same audience of one over and over. For whatever reason, I just outgrew the process somewhere along the line. Maybe journaling didn’t die at all, it just morphed into my current practice of sketchbookeeping.  

One of the things I dig about this web-centric  “bioblographical”  writing are all the things it isn’t. It’s not a bunch of illegible words written in blue ink that will only get musty while taking up space in the attic until  the day they’re either read or tossed out after I’m dead and gone. This isn’t an email or a letter to a friend and it isn’t a wisp of conversation floating around in a coffee shop either.

This is a public record, an account, a distillation of my experience, a love letter to my past, present, and future, a plea for forgiveness, a chance to brag a little, a chance to give some shout outs to some deserving folks and ultimately it’s a message in a bottle addressed to a mystery reader. 

Sometimes I imagine I’m tossing that bottle into cyberspace but then I realize I’m really just putting this stuff out in front of your eyes and my eyes because it feels right and because I can. Like all art forms with any vitality, its a reaching in as a means of reaching out.

Thanks so much for reading!

This photo of Tae and I was probably taken around 1995. The two of us are crouched under the blossoming apple tree in Calvin Johnson’s front yard in Olympia, WA. I lived at Calvin’s house two different times in the 90’s and it’s a place I love very much. For all you rock trivia nerds, this apple tree is the same one Beck is swinging from on the back cover photo of his One Foot in the Grave L.P. He recorded that record in the basement of the house while I was living there in 1993-4. I did an interview with him when he was staying with us but I never got around to publishing it. If I can find the that tape maybe I’ll transcribe it and make that a future post.

Photo of Tae Won Yu and myself in front of the apple tree in Calvin Johnson’s front yard.


9:55am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zl8DhvKUTbWa
(Notes: 3)
  
Filed under: calvin johnson john goff olympia tae won yu tobi vail beck one foot in the grave 
March 22, 2012
SARAH UTTER/BANGS/SEAN KELLY HOUSE SHOW OLYMPIA  2000 Sarah Utter of Bangs playing a house show in Olympia 2000. The handsome Irishman holding the mic stand is Sean Kelly (Tight Bros from Way back When) who I’ve been down with since we met at San Dieguito High School after my mom and I relocated from San Diego city proper up to Encinitas in North County. Is that Chris Smith from KARP looking down from the top of the frame? I sold Sarah that white Gibson SG for $300.00 if I remember correctly*. She still plays it to this day. This picture made me think about how essential house shows were to the scene in Olympia and in towns like it all over the country in the post hardcore/indy era. I’ll write more about the role the house show has played and continues to play in grass roots music in future posts. My good friend Tae Won Yu took this picture. * Sarah has since told me she remembers paying $500 for the SG so we decided it was actually $400 that got her that great guitar. A guitar that Ian MacKaye and Chris Smith also had eyes on buying at various times I might add.  Tae Won Yu on Flickr.

SARAH UTTER/BANGS/SEAN KELLY HOUSE SHOW OLYMPIA  2000

Sarah Utter of Bangs playing a house show in Olympia 2000. The handsome Irishman holding the mic stand is Sean Kelly (Tight Bros from Way back When) who I’ve been down with since we met at San Dieguito High School after my mom and I relocated from San Diego city proper up to Encinitas in North County.

Is that Chris Smith from KARP looking down from the top of the frame? I sold Sarah that white Gibson SG for $300.00 if I remember correctly*. She still plays it to this day.

This picture made me think about how essential house shows were to the scene in Olympia and in towns like it all over the country in the post hardcore/indy era. I’ll write more about the role the house show has played and continues to play in grass roots music in future posts.

My good friend Tae Won Yu took this picture.

* Sarah has since told me she remembers paying $500 for the SG so we decided it was actually $400 that got her that great guitar. A guitar that Ian MacKaye and Chris Smith also had eyes on buying at various times I might add.

 Tae Won Yu on Flickr.

(Source: thirstysurfer)

5:23pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zl8DhvIPgKXr
(Notes: 2)
  
Filed under: Sarah Utter bangs karp olympia sean Kelly tae won yu tight bros from way back when ian mac Kaye gibson SG 
March 20, 2012
PEOPLE PARTY OLYMPIA 1990’s Some party in Olympia mid 90’s. Clockwise from left: Brian Boswell, Jason Traeger, Jared Warren, Sean Kelly, Mike Kunka, Jessica Espeleta, Brent Claude Turner, Tina Herschelman, Candace Pedersen, Scott Plouf, Chad Quierolo, Star Seifert, Tae Won Yu.

PEOPLE PARTY OLYMPIA 1990’s

Some party in Olympia mid 90’s. Clockwise from left: Brian Boswell, Jason Traeger, Jared Warren, Sean Kelly, Mike Kunka, Jessica Espeleta, Brent Claude Turner, Tina Herschelman, Candace Pedersen, Scott Plouf, Chad Quierolo, Star Seifert, Tae Won Yu.

3:55pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zl8DhvIJ5vre
(Notes: 1)
  
Filed under: candace pedersen chad quierolo jared warren scotty plouf sean kelly tae won yu KARP tight bros showbox built to spill spinanes k records kicking giant godheadsilo