Laurette's Desk Notes

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Desk Notes:

April 24, 2005
   It's been a wet spring here in the upper Northwest of the lower 48. The
cattails are flourishing in the back yard and I face my annual decision about
cattails. Do I leave them for that cool blues swamp look, or do I cut them level to
the lawn, leaving my spot on earth looking slightly more groomed. There's a
window of opportunity to cut them now when they're soft, in a few monthes
they'll be timber and it becomes a major project. I know you can harvest and eat
ground cattails but I've never been hungry enough to try that! I do have an old
depression cook book that has the recipes for making and cooking with cattail
flour though...just in case our economy slides into another big one.

  I like weeds. I have several I purposefully planted here. Elderberry, wild roses,
chamomile, red clover, sticky wild sweet peas and campula all have a mind of
their own. It's fun to see where they'll do their thing each year. We dug up all the
dandelion roots one year, roasted them and ground them into powder. It was
years before enough dandelions reseeded themselves into the yard to do anything
with them. Looks like they're back this spring however.

   Yeah, yeah, I'll get off the subject of weeds and onto blues. But first (the
reader rolls their eyes) I'd like to mention that when you have to kill some
vegetation just use plain ole' vinegar in a spray bottle. Salt or boiling water will
do the job but can kill surrounding plants too. Vinegar's great for killing the
growth that lifts and destroys sidewalks and old brickwork.

   Okay, onto the blues: Got a phone call from Andy Koch at Bellingham's
Wild Buffalo asking me to host a monthly blues jam there. We did the first one
on April 12th, it went well, lots of fun with The Colonel on guitar and Rogue's
Gary B on drums. Folks around here really missed the old Buffalo Blues Jam
that was cancelled last year, and even if we only do it once a month they still are
willing to support it. If you'd like to know more about the monthly blues show
there's a jam page on the Rogue Paradsie Blues web site, Monthly Blues
Invitational. The show is happening the second Tuesday of each month.

   Spring 'tis the season to plan yer summer. I'm pretty excited to participate in
the July 9th Tacoma Old Town Blues Fest, a benefit for Breast Cancer Support.
A selection of electric blues bands perform at Old Town Park and I'm the
officious foot stompin' acoustic blues interluder between them. Then in the
evening I perform inside at Tullys Coffeehouse from 8:30 to 11pm. Ryan
Harder (who's got some roots in both Tacoma and Bellingham, WA) will be
hosting a daytime Open Mike stage indoors Saturday. It sounds like a great blues
day the whole family can go to!

    My older sisters and I spent time in Old Tacoma with our grandfather as
youngsters. He still lived in the duplex my mother spent years of her upbringing
in. The house always smelled wonderfully of burnt wood, tobacco and burnt
toast. I remember watching a pre-fireworks air show on July 4th when one of the
planes dove into the water. Folks sat on curbs near my Uncle Jimmy's house,
shivering in the evening air with news reports from a little transistor radio letting
us know the pilot had died.

   Tacoma was the destination town of choice for me and my friend David H. in
highschool when we'd run away from Chehalis for the day on the Greyhound
bus, in summer or skipping during the school year. I first learned about Victory
Music in Tacoma sipping a cup of hibiscus herbal tea, which I didn't really like
then, but I thought it made me look bohemian.

   My mother worked in downtown Tacoma during WWII and was downtown
when peace was declared. Her stories of that were a wonderful snapshot of
history. The first mall I ever went to was the Tacoma Mall. My aunt worked in
retail at a downtown department store, the death of the downtown district was
a hot family topic. I remember warning folks about Bellis Fair Mall and the
health of downtown Bellingham business. It was history repeating itself with
Sears, JC Penny's, The Bon Marche and Nordstroms all closing in the downtown
core, then many of the shops in between going under. Yet in Bellingham, as in
Tacoma, things recover after a few decades.

    Daddy Treetops, Trout Steve and myself did one particular outdoor blues
concert in sunny downtown Tacoma for the Tacoma Arts Commisions Summer
Series many years ago. Ed Smith was doing sound for us. Everything was going
great, I've still got some photos taken by my cousin Rosemary to prove it. I
remember a few raindrops falling. I was performing in a vintage pastel pink dress
and it was quickly becoming polka-dotted with dark spots. I remember Tree and
I making eye contact as we played, one of those "Okay, is this sprinkle almost
over?" looks. The blue sky suddenly became gray and the sky opened up,
deluge rain. I don't believe we even said anything into the mics, or did we?
Everyone on stage and in the audience made a run for it. The sound crew and Ed
Smith frantically shut everything electric off and tried covering everything up.
Instruments were rescued to a covered area. Undoubtably one of the quickest
roadie-duties in history! About 15 minutes later it was sunny again, but
equipment was broken down and the site was wet and deserted. We had other
performances, other years for the Tacoma Summer Pops series, but this one has
always stood out in my mind.

   The moral of the story? Covered stages in Washington State are a good idea no
matter how sunny the weather! And the quotable quote? Cattails make a great
blues musician privacy hedge when you live in a swamp.
LL

January 11, 2005
Well, I just deleted all of last years desk notes and have to admit that it's kind
of eerie watching all of those entries evaporate! It's also invigorating to see a
blank slate before me, who knows what lies on the ole' blues road ahead in 2005!

It's about 20 degrees outside as I write this, and it feels like maybe 27 degrees
inside! The woodstove is fired up but it takes a few hours for it to cozy up the
old Bellingham farmhouse. I'll be sorry to see the snow go, everything looks so
beautiful under it's blanket of white!

New stuff? The core folks of Rogue Paradise Blues have been emailing and
calling each other back and forth working out the various logistics of our 3rd
annual Capricorn Aquarius Blues Party held on the San Juan Islands January
21-22 at the China Pearl in Friday Harbor. Honorees are many and everyone is
welcome. Rogue friend and fan Angie Morrison's birthday is Saturday the 22nd
and mine is at midnight when it becomes the 23rd. Stumped for a gift? Diamonds
and rubies go with everything! But seriously friends, just show up and join in on
the fun! My band Rogue Paradise Blues will be performing both nights with a
great line-up.

Old stuff? For the record, I don't work at the Roadside anymore, I haven't since
autumn of 2004, though I still see my name used in promo's for the bar in
various places. Slowly but surely I'll have contacted everyone to attempt having
my name removed from those listings. Other myths regarding all that? No, I'm
not working on an open mike out in Sumas, although I did host Marvin J.'s
Playing With Your Friends show one night out there when he had a conflicting
gig. Guess that's how that rumor got started. No, I didn't decide to leave the
show, the owner decided to drop the roots and originals blues format and
included me with it. Yeah, it was an abrupt and poorly managed change of show
style...but it's history.

Well, guess it's time to bundle up, brave the elements and bring in some more
wood. Hope you're all keeping warm and enjoying winter!
LL

page created:
11-16-02
last update:
04-24-05

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