1 Comment »

I missed my exit on the way back from the city this morning so I had some time to recall the many places and people that made this past weekend as great as it was. While I was driving, I was listening to Beyonce of all things and just straight up missed my exit and ended up on a freeway to Sacramento. When I realized it, I was almost an hour in the other direction east. It was so weird. The drive I’ve done more than any other. Anyway, all good now.

We had the first rain of the season on saturday morning and the small storm brought great surf and sporatic inquisition of the weather. Joe said that the swell was at 15′ on saturday. We had a nice surf photo shoot and I’ll get to those images to upload soon.

Friday night was the Marin music and Film fest which hosted a show of bay area all-stars afterwards. I decided last minute not to attend, however, I sent an informant who updated me that Moonalice played and Trevor and Lebo sat in towards the end.

Arriving in the city on Saturday afternoon for A-Town and Tulay’s house warming party, an interesting night ensued. The party was wonderful and filled with lots of friends I hadn’t had the pleasure to kick it with for a while. The funny thing was that right next door, their neighbors were having a party to but theirs was set to polar opposite extreames. I went next door at some point in the night to see what it was about and it was pretty much a small rave. A DJ was in the main room and all of the others rooms were occupied by crazy wild things. At one point I picked up a disco ball and was playing with it for a few minutes before I realized that I sliced my hand in several places and was dripping blood all over the floor. I left shortly after that.

Bus stop. Bus never shows up. Cab ride. One of the best cab rides ever.

The festival in the park the next day couldn’t have been more perfect if it tried. A beautiful day and great music paired well with eachother. CA, Joe and I walked there and were singing songs the whole way there and it felt glorious to be belting out Garden 3 at the top of our lungs as we strolled through the city and through the park. It was a pretty epic way to wake up. There was a remarkable turnout in terms of the crew for the HSBG Festival in Golden Gate park. Being the first to arrive and the last to leave proved to be not only fun but a proactive endevor. The base camp was a great party. CA’s motivation and our choice location made our spot the best in the whole park and I could name all of the 50 familiar folks that surround me in my immediate domain and all the new aquaintances were wonderful additions to the festivities. It was like a day that the whole world was enjoying, simply enjoying.

It was a very proud event for all of us TLG fans as well as for all of San Francisco. We were very happy to feel the honor that the city bestowed upon Tea Leaf as the headine set of the festival on the closer day. And HSBG is not just any festival, it is one that is so good to the community. I love the shows in the park and this one really is the best. A free festival where everyone is a volenteer makes it real and it is also stripped of sponsorship and focuses on the meat of the music. What a concept. 

Saw Elvis Costello for the first time, Poor Man’s Whiskey, Iron and Wine, Peggi Young, The Waybacks and of course Tea Leaf Green! Eric McFadden sat in on E & S and Lebo on lap steel for Devil’s Pay. But honestly, my highlight of the festival was…..

Gogol Bordello – WTF!

Seeing a band live for the first time (via strong recomendation) and having them completely blow you away start to finish is quite a great thing to me. Absolute mayhem of a performance in the best way and thousands of people straight getting the f*ck down to this crazy gypsy rock punk emsemble in the middle of a field in the park. Ridiculous fun and incredible music taboot. Who are they? They’re Romane gypsies from The Ukrane. Lots of members in the band, everyone kinda freakin out, one playing guitar while climbing a rafter and the singer is like a ballistic bat. Some of the musicians on stage would randomly fall down to the beats of their song. It was madness and delicious. Check these guys out as soon as possible, check archive for a taste of the energy of their live shows and check youtube for visual. I am pretty much speechless after that.

I just heard of David Bromberg. Please, please, please…go right now and download the song “Sammy’s Song” I’ll be here when you get back. My goodness, the world needs to know more of this guys music. I just got to check out his album last night and I think we played it over and over for hours. Amazing tunes. Not sure why I just finally heard of him, he’s been around forever but I ain’t lookin’ back. He’s in with the likes of Jerry Jeff Walker and I need to brush up on him too.

Executive Meeting: Minutes emailed/ received. Data collection. PR release to follow…

Heading up to Eureka tomorrow for TLG. Crazy mission hopefully not in the rain but happily in the redwoods. Gonna be a gorgeous drive with Shaggy and the Transportation Director.

Just found out yesterday that my good friend Brent just bought The Red Fox, the venue in Arcata where we’ll catch the show mañana.

Details, details, details… I’ll keep up when I can.

Thanks for everything San Francisco, I love you!

-Mgmt

Filed under: General by phoreal