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morst's PITOWN 2008 (pt 5)
Saturday evening, Sept 13, 2008:

Gonna let the music and photos speak for themselves on this one. . . Suffice to say "ya had to be there," but I'll do what I can to convey the event with my little electronical relics. Most of the pictures are clickable links to my Pitown photo album if you want to see more.

Outdoor Stage 7:00 - 7:40 Citay
16 bit audio: http://www.archive.org/details/Citay2008-09-13.matrix
24-bit audio: http://www.archive.org/details/Citay2008-09-13.matrix-flac24


01. intro
02. First Fantasy
03. Nice Cuffs
04. Eye On The Dollar
05. banter - instrumentation switch
06. (?? I dunno- assistance appreciated for this title)
07. banter - nine more minutes
08. Little Kingdom

From pitown 08

Indoor Stage 7:40 - 8:10 Kenny Margolis Band
24-bit audio (bit torrent on dimeadozen.org) : http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=215040
16-bit audio (bit torrent): http://bt.etree.org/details.php?id=519747



Setlist:
01. Smithfield Blues
02. Where's My Money?
03. I'm Thinkin' 'bout You
04. If The Phone Don't Ring (Baby It's Me)
05. It's A Cryin' Shame
06. Jolie Fi
07. Rosalie
08. Goin' Up The Country




Lineup:
Kenny Margolis: Vocals, Accordion
Johnny Hickman: Guitar, vocals
Sal Maida: Bass, vocals
Frank Funaro: Drums, vocals

con-si-glie-re (kawn-see-lye-re)
-noun, plural -ri (ree)
-a member of a criminal organization or syndicate who serves as an adviser to the leader.


Outdoor Stage 8:10 - 9:00 Brant Bjork and the Bros
audio (bit torrent): http://bt.etree.org/details.php?id=520869



01. intro
02. Lazy Bones (aborted)
03. banter - continuous bass problems
04. Lazy Bones - Automatic Fantastic
05. Turn Yourself On
06. '73
07. Low Desert Punk
08. Too Many Chiefs and Not Enough Indians
09. Freaks Of Nature *
10. Dr. Special

* Special Guest vocalist: Sean Wheeler on Freaks Of Nature



Indoor Stage 9:00 - 9:30 Jonathan Segel
audio: http://www.archive.org/details/jsegel2008-09-13.flac16



01. Video (soundcheck)
02. Angels
03. Mirror Colored Thing
04. Can't Help It
05. Greedy
06. merch banter
07. Gravity - Little Blue Fish - Gravity
08. Scars

Jonathan Segel - Guitar, Vocal
Victor Krummenacher - Bass, Vocal
John Hanes - Drums
Alison Faith Levy - Keyboard, Tambourine, Vocal




Outdoor Stage 9:30 - 11:00 Cracker
audio: http://www.archive.org/details/Cracker2008-09-13.flac16



Disc 1 (44:53.63)
01. The Riverside
02. Teen Angst
03. 100 Flower Power Maximum
04. One Fine Day ->
05. Gimme One More Chance
06. The Man In Me (Bob Dylan)
07. Waiting For You Girl
08. This Is Cracker Soul
09. Mr. Wrong
10. Lonesome Johnny Blues


Disc 2 (49:30.74)
11. Low
12. Brides Of Neptune
13. Loser (Hunter/Garcia)
14. I Need Better Friends (The Ballad Of Chas M.)
15. Eurotrash Girl
16. Seven Days
17. encore break
18. Another Song About The Rain
19. aftershow crowd - music over PA
20. recordist's signout

From pitown 08

Indoor Stage 11:30 - 12:30 McCabe and Mrs. Miller
(Victor K. + Alison F.L.)
audio: http://www.archive.org/details/McCabeAndMrsMiller2008-09-13.flac16



Disc 1 (44:55.70)
01. intro
02. Union City Blues
03. Farewell Adios And Goodbye
04. banter - Come Back Home To Me intro
05. Come Back Home To Me
06. I Remember California
07. banter - time to get a little naughty
08. Playground In Your Heart
09. banter - the thanks portion
10. Forgiveness
11. banter - he very rarely has a point
12. Red Wine & Chocolate
13. banter - you can't quite tell what it is
14. Some Like You
15. Time For Leaving
16. Magic Fingers



Disc 2 (52:09.08)
17. banter - would Johnny Hickman wear this shirt?
18. The Cock Crows At Sunrise
19. The Southern Heights
20. banter - some fine bass players
21. Bittersweet
22. banter - a normal family in St Louis
23. My Baby's Brown Hair
24. encore break - ya gotta work for it if you want it!
25. banter - a bottle of whiskey and I wore black
26. I'll Meet You In Paradise
27. encore break 2
28. banter - I don't lighten up
29. Not Coming Back
30. outtro - lord knows what the fuck's a-gonna happen
31. after show music on PA
32. recordist's signout




Personnel:
Jonathan Segel - Violin, Mandolin, Vocal
Victor Krummenacher - Guitar, Vocal
John Hanes - Drums
Alison Faith Levy - Keyboard, Melodica, Tambourine, Vocal
Paul Olguin - Bass

and featuring on disc 2:
Greg Lisher - Guitar
Kenny Margolis - Accordian

From pitown 08

Labels: California, Cracker, Crampout, Pappy and Harriet's, Pioneertown

morst's PITOWN 2008 (pt 2)

Labels: Crampout, Greg Lisher, Jonathan Segel, Kenny Margolis, Pappy and Harriet's, Pioneertown, Victor Krummenacher

morst's PITOWN 2008 (pt 1)

Wednesday, Sept 10, 2008: Off to California for what has become my favorite annual ritual - The Cracker & Camper Van Beethoven campout in Pioneertown! Flew from Madison into Anaheim and was picked up at John Wayne field by Bethdalena, who took me over to Newport Beach, to the home of "The Host" - which would be Glenn. His beach house had been a bit of a raging bash as the site of my 2007 arrival, but when I rolled in for the 2008 fest, it was quite calm, as the early arrivals had already taken off for the desert. Guess we can fast forward over the rest of Wednesday, as it was very relaxing and I didn't take any photos once I arrived in California.

Labels: California, Camper Van Beethoven, Cracker, Crampout, Newport Beach, Pioneertown

morst's PITOWN 2007 (pt 7)
Late Night Saturday, Sept 8, 2007

Well, it's been 6 months since the campout, so we're closer to the 2008 one than the 2007 one. I guess it's about time to wrap up the 2007 blog. . .


By now you all know the scheme for these "Porchstock" deals, late night jams after Pappy and Harriet's closes, lots of audience participation, everyone havin' a ball just hanging out, not wanting the fun to end. Saturday night's 'stock was no exception. The Hackensaw and Dark Meat boys were rippin' it up with Johnny and the rest by the time I got there after Jason Molina's set. I had not seen Dark Meat's show due to being indoors with the Gerg, Jon, Victorbands, so I was a little surprised to see the slide trombone as the featured solo instrument. As usual, my photos are blurry and weird, but they do kinda capture the moment, especially when the moment is blurry and weird!






The porchstock festivities seemed to end when Johnny took off, but then a little bit later, he came back for more...
That was when the Hickman-Morst duo made our debut! Johnny and I sang several tunes together, and had a good 'ol time!


Some of it even sounds halfway decent on my audio recording, and I know there is at least one video of it too. As usual, I didn't get to sleep until the sun was already up, so I have some neat photos of the sunrise.

After getting some ZZZ's, while waiting for the traveling crew to achieve critical mass, I went over to P&H's for a view of the aftermath, and to snap some photos of the posters and other decorations on the walls there.

When we finally motivated, we headed down the hill, and didn't get farther than the excellent Mexican restaurant. One very good meal later, we headed down the hill and back out I-10 to the Redlands area, back to the first annual Fi-Stock at Lo-Fi Studios in lovely Loma Linda CA - home of the baby with the baboon heart!

Fi-Stock began with Maria Baglien giving the group a tour of the studio where Johnny recorded Palmhenge, then a short set of solo acoustic tunes from Chris LeRoy. It continued with a recorded discussion and storytelling session featuring the crumbs in attendance, for use as a podcast for Chris's "Songbook" page, and finished with a sing-along session, much like the Porchstock tradition, but this was recorded in multitrack digital audio by Maria! Of couse I also ran my two-track recorder, since I had gotten this far. . . so I have some fun excerpts to share. . . Let's see. .

First some setlists:
Porchstock IIIc:
01. tuning & banter
02. Hold My Drink While I Kiss Your Girlfriend (Johnny)
03. Hot Wet Tight Bald Pussy (sung by Casey, song by David Allan Coe)
04. tuning & banter
05. Friends (Johnny)
06. tuning & banter
07. Down By The River
08. Wild Horses
09. Wish You Were Here
10. Wasted
11. God Save The Queen (fragment)
12. Brown Sugar
13. Down On The Corner
14. tuning & banter
15. Mr. Wrong
16. Another Song About The Rain
17. Sedated
18. The Shape I'm In
19. Dixie Chicken (fragment)
20. You Shook Me All Night Long

21. Sweet Home Alabama
22. The Man In Me
23. Eurotrash Girl
24. Casey needs a smoke
25. San Bernardino Boy
26. Mama Tried
27. goodnight Johnny
28. the mournful trombone
29. drinkin' and talkin'
30. Dixie Chicken

31. Dan, Dan, the banana nut bread man
32. Southern Cal
33. WKPA station ID
34. Lucky
35. jamming on Dylan
36. Tangled Up In Blue
37. If You See Her, Say Hello

And Fi-Stock I:
Chris solo acoustic:
My Old Kentucky Home
Close Call
Wandering Around
Last Train
Let It Drown
London Girl
London Girl (better version)
The Promise (debut?)

interactive interview:
PiTown tales
Cracker chat
Musical memories
etc etc

Chris and Crumbs:
Whole Lot Of Trouble
Another Song About The Rain
Lucky

Labels: Cracker, Dark Meat, Father Dan, Johnny Hickman, Pappy and Harriet's, Pioneertown, Pioneertown Motel, Pitown, Porchstock Chaos Cowboy

morst's PITOWN 2007 (pt 6)
Saturday, Sept 8, 2007


Once again, Gram Rabbit has its lovers and its detractors- too much, or not enough!?! To be honest, after the enduring strength and beauty of the Victor, Gerg, and Jonathan solo sets, I took the opportunity to cut out back to my room at the PiTown Motel and make a sandwich, and dump my camera's memory chip into my roommate's laptop so I could shoot some more, and continue to enjoy the shows. I knew Gram Rabbit had gone on pretty late- evidently they took a LONG time to set up which, unfortunately, ate up a bunch of time on the outdoor stage. I didn't get a photo of their set, but recorded the audio. Last year, I didn't make much of an effort to get their permission to post their sets on archive.org. I mailed ted quinn a copy of their disc for him to give to Jesika Von Rabbit, and never heard back that they thought it was worth posting, so that was that. If a band doesn't want to have their sets posted on archive.org, I tend to get the impression that they aren't worth listening to. I'm sure that's not exactly the case, but if they really cared about their sound, each show should at least be worth listening to, and they should attract enough recordists to get a bunch of shows out there, in any case, so that the poor performances are outnumbered by the good one, and there will be something nice for fans to hear. In the absence of a 2006 set worth listening to, I took my opportunity for a break, and, though I did record the 2007 Gram Rabbit set, I have not played it back more than about twice. If you're interested, get in touch, I can send you a CD of it, but I'm not convinced it will make much of a splash on your stereo, let alone your ears. They are a very visual group. Cute to look at, but not really my cup of tea musically. YMMV, as we say on the inter-webbie-thingy.


Cracker- Now this was the anticipated biggus giggus of the weekend. They had announced in the press that they would be playing the entire Kerosene Hat album in it's entirety, and they did it. Unfortunately, by the time Gram Rabbit set up, played, and broke down, there was only time for Cracker to play the set as advertised, and then one encore song- One Fine Day. Funny stuff with the crowd counting the "blank tracks" in between the main portion and the originally hidden tracks, but much too short of set to really be considered a favorite of mine. Honestly, it was a little anti-climactic, considering that I had just heard them play 9 hot tunes and THEN the entire album in Racine just a couple weeks before as a Pitown warmup. I know there were very few people at McAuliffes Pub in Racine who attended the Pitown gig, and vice versa, but ask Steve© or Rock what they thought of the two sets, and I'll wager that they will tell ya that Ker-RACINE Hat was the hotter one. But that's OK, cause both recordings sound great. My buddy Steve Propp made a matrix mix of the soundboard and audience recordings of both the Crampout set and the Racine one, and they're well worth listening to. I don't know, maybe the Pitown version was a little tighter, but something about seeing a band you love in a small bar with 150 people in attendance is really cool. Sure there was some funky circuit-breaker breaking at the Racine gig, but that was actually pretty cool, since the band's stage amps stayed on, and so did the power to the soundboard.


Pitown Cracker Setlist: Kerosene Hat intro, Low, Movie Star, Get Off This, Kerosene Hat, Take Me Down To The Infirmary, Nostalgia, Sweet Potato, Sick Of Goodbyes, I Want Everything, Lonesome Johnny Blues, Let's Go For A Ride, Loser, Eurotrash Girl, I Ride My Bike, One Fine Day


Did I mention that I made a sticker out of Steve©'s oil painting, with Steve©'s help? Check it out and print it out on some sticker stock!



After the Cracker set ended, Jason Molina took the indoor stage, and played a very special solo set, featuring his voice and his Les Paul, and on the final song, his special guest, the lovely Page Campbell, from Dark Meat.








Magnolia Electric's archival team has not yet posted my recording of their set, or the Molina solo set on archive.org, but if you are able to download a BitTorrent, I posted the MECo set here and the Molina set here. Jason's list was as follows:


Lonesome Valley, Twilight Come, One Thin Dime, What Comes After The Blues, Bowery, I've Been Riding With The Ghost, The Farewell Transmission
(2009 update - this IS on the archive now - Click Here or if you prefer the MP3's, Click Here)

Labels: Cracker, Dark Meat, Evan Farrell, Gram Rabbit, Jason Molina, McAuliffe's Pub, Page Campbell, Pappy and Harriet's, Pioneertown, Racine