Bev's Blender Brain Blog

The Texas Hill Country: a place like no other

I love Texas. I was born here. We moved to California when I was five, but every summer we came back for a couple of weeks. Since my parents built a house on Lake LBJ 15 years ago, I've come here to the Hill Country once or twice a year.

Let me take you on a little photographic tour of our day today...

We woke up, had some coffee and walked down to the dock. It was about 75 degrees and slightly breezy.

Today was bean picking day. This is my dad, Ed. These are pinto beans - bet you never thought of picking them before the beans mature, and cooking them like green beans, eh? I remember as a little girl, being served these strange flat cooked green beans. I pushed them around on my plate. Now I can't  get enough of them. They taste like home.

We went for a drive, turned down an empty road we hadn't been down before, and came across this prickly pear catus in bloom...

... and found one lone bluebonnet, even though the season has passed...

.... and found a field of black eyed susans next to the railroad track.

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Back at mom and dad's I grabbed a couple of frosty mugs from the freezer and filled them from the beer tap that comes out the side of my dad's downstairs refrigerator. We sat on the porch and enjoyed the late afternoon breeze and ate cheese, celery and nuts. Daddy killed a red wasp that was threatening to build a nest... the biggest worry of our day.

And if you look close at this last picture - click on it to enlarge it - you'll see a for sale sign. Yes, its time for my parents to sell the house and downsize. Have you ever wanted to live on a lake?

Peach cobbler and ice cream to top off a perfect day.

This is why I love Texas.

Day 11 NW Tour: Unity Portland, and heading South

Its always amazing to me to discover how our music resonates with our listeners.

We played our songs The Miracle and Now is What We are this morning as part of the services at Unity Portland, as well as a new a capella song that we simply call Prayer and Jan Garrett & JD Martin's song Down in My Soul. Everything came together to create a beautiful service. We so enjoyed playing and singing with the band at Unity.

We headed south right after the service, and here we are in Redding, almost home. The Vagabond Inn, however, may not have been the best choice for a place to stay. We had to go to the front desk to request a shower curtain. Maybe we were expecting too much?

Day 10 NW Tour: Artichoke Community Music

Here we are, on the last night of our tour. We had a nice show at Artichoke Community Music in Porland, where we reconnected with some friends that we met when we were here last fall for FAR-West.

Local Portland band The Bulldozers opened the show, with some fun songs - dogs, cats and our favorite, the Enchilada song.

Richard Columbo, pictured here with us, keeps the Artichoke Community going. He took over the reins from founders Kate Power & Steve Einhorn, as they are touring and creating their own music full time now. Its truly a wonderful music community.

Tomorrow we play at Unity Portland, then head home ...

Day 9 NW Tour: Clifford, Wild Art and River Ridge House Concert

We drove back to the Portland area on Friday April 25, making a couple of interesting stops along the way.

Near Olympia, we pulled off the freeway to find a Starbucks and encountered Clifford the Big Red Dog. 

Then, in Centralia we encountered the most fantastic array of yard sculpture we've ever seen. We asked someone in town about it and she harumphed a bit, and said "oh HIM, he's been here a long time. Do you know all that stuff is made of STYROFOAM!" - as if styrofoam was toxic. Oh well... maybe the locals don't appreciate it, but we certainly did. We're not the only ones... I found this blog post from last year when artist named Ellie also visited. She actually met the owner, Dick Tracy (for real). Her pictures are better than those I took.

Then we headed to West Linn to the home of Terry & Donna Davis, hosts of the River Ridge House Concert  Series. Terry & Donna opened the show with Kate Wolf's Give Yourself to Love, followed by a few of their own very sweet songs. We were glad to get to hear them live - their new CD Heaventown is quite nice.

We loved playing this unplugged show. We've been playing songs from our Any Doorway Will Do CD on this tour, as well as some new songs that will be on our next album, tentatively called Love Can Change the World.

Check the On the Road photo album for more pics from the concert and our travels throughout this tour... which will now be known as the "Cat Tour." We met Raku, of course, earlier in the week ...

... and at Terry & Donna's we met two more great cats... Ziggy is named for his zig-zag tail which is congenital, not from an injury ...

and the very sweet Pearl.

One more show at Artichoke Music, then Unity Portland Sunday morning and then... HOME!

Day 8 NW Tour: Crossroads Bellevue

Crossroads Bellevue gets the prize for most unique venue we've played so far. You walk through the mall doors between the Starbucks and the Cold Stone, pass the magazine stand and the Chinese food stand... and you see the Crossroads Stage. Its different, but it works! We had a great audience and really enjoyed the show.

The sound was great thanks to Bob, who'se been running sound at Crossroads for 16 years.

And we also caught up with some friends we met through Folk Alliance-Region West, songwriters Michael J. Morales and Wes Wedell, and Wes's girlfriend Jessica.

Days 6 & 7 NW Tour: Should have been sculpting, but nooooo

One of the things I was really looking forward to about this trip was hanging out with my good friend Sara who now lives in the Portland area. Sara designed the TrueWind logo and the package for Any Doorway Will Do - and more importantly, she was my sculpting teacher and mentor for three years.

I took Sarah's Creative Process Class out of curiosity about how it would affect my songwriting. In the end, I fell in love with working in clay. So every Friday morning I would head to Sara's to find out what wanted to come out through this wonderful new creative medium.

When Sara moved two years ago, I stopped sculpting. I had a few pieces left that had been bisqued, so I was going to bring them with me to glaze while I was here. Best laid plans and all... I forgot to pack them.

But we had fun hanging out together anyway. And Greg and I fell in love with Raku, the worlds best cat. Raku is not shy. He will paw the door to let you know its time to come out and play. We should all feel that free to let each other know exactly what we expect!

We're heading to the Ceramic Showcase at the Oregon Convention Center this weekend where Sara will have a couple of pieces in the galleries, and our friend Frank Gosar, DJ at KLCC in Eugene will have a booth as well.

Day 5 NW Tour: Songwriters & a future Congressman

We met up with the Portland Songwriters Association at their monthly Songwriters Showcase Night at the Gotham Tavern in Portland. I'd joined PSA last year after Lovers' Story was picked as a finalist in their annual song contest.

Host Tom Arnold, pictured at the far right, put this event together on a three-month trial basis and after  this third monthly event, Barry & Julie at Gotham Tavern gave it a thumbs up and agreed to continue the series, so that's great news!

Check out Sean M Garcia on MySpace - great voice, great tunes and what a presence!

And Will Hobbes played some sweet tunes. He's pictured the far left - as is appropriate. He's running for US Congress in Oregon's 1st District.

Day 4 NW Tour: Driving to Portland

Everyone has their own idea of the best way to travel from Bend to Portland when there's sure to be snow in the mountains. And when they are giving that adviced to Californian's sporting a Santa Cruz license plate frame, it takes on a whole different level.

After we stopped by the Starbucks (where else) in Bend, we just headed all the way up Hwy 97 through some of the most desolate, most beautiful country we've seen.

Then we followed the Columbia River to Portland... a beautiful and peaceful day.

Three Pines House Concert, Bend Oregon

House concerts, as we know all too well, are a labor of love. When we're preparing for a concert in our own TrueWind Music Series we always have a moment, usually around noon on Saturday as we're frantically cleaning dust bunnies and yelling at teenagers to clean the bathroom, when we say "why do we do this, again?"

But we know why. Its because of the magic that happens when you combine music written and performed by artists with integrity, with an appreciative and attentive audience that hungers for that connection. And the myriad house concert hosts across the country that make that happen week after week are a rare breed.

Jim and Susan Holmes are wonderful examples of this rare breed. They bought their house in Bend with house concerts in mind, and set out to book and promote some of the best acoustic artists on the circuit... Tracy Grammer, Stacy Earl & Mark Stuart, Craig Carothers, Kenny Edwards, Susan Werner... and the list goes on.

Our April 19 performance at Three Pines was another one of those magical evenings. About half the audience had never been to the Holmes' concerts before... its always fun to be a part of the widening of the circle.

This brings me to a very important point: the success of any concert series is a partnership between the hosts, the performer and the audience. We all work together to create this magic. It doesn't matter how long a performer has been touring or what they think their credentials are ... it all drops when you walk in the door because you have to make that connection with the audience each time, or the magic isn't there.

So thanks Jim & Susan for doing your part. Kudos, congratulations, carry on and on and on. Its people like you who give so much of yourselves to make this magic happen.

Day 3 NW Tour: Eugene, Bend & SNOW

The week before our tour I kept thinking I needed to get a new rain coat, going to the rainy Northwest and all. My friend Sara in Portland told me they'd been getting freezing temps at night... but it just didn't register.

So, here we are, the typical Californians just a wee bit out of our element.

Not to worry, we were in the car most of the time.

We drove from the Coos Bay area to Eugene to play live on KLCC, the NPR station for Central and Coastal Oregon. We had a great time with Frank Gosar, the host of the Saturday Cafe, and ran into Dorian Michael and Larry Pattis who were on live after us.

Heading to Bend, we were due live on KPOV at 3:30 pm, but Center Stage DJ Rick Miller called to make sure we didn't stress too much about it. The weather reports of snow over the passes were making things look a bit grim. In the end, we didn't encounter any trouble, and we were pulling into the station parking lot at 3:28pm.

Then it was on to meet our hosts Jim & Susan Holmes of the Three Pines House Concert Series. Jim & Susan moved to Bend from Santa Cruz a couple of years ago, and jumped into presenting house concerts with both feet. They have a beautiful set up complete with a stage for us and comfy seating for the audience.... more in a separate post about our Three Pines House concert on April 19.