Summer of Rock

Boy howdy, what a week!

Andrew was in town town for our gigs and we kicked off the fab weekend with a wee set at the Dolores Park Cafe gay pride celebration. What a party! The room was packed with writhing screaming happy partying San Franciscans (and guests from afar in town for the very special festivities) who were clearly pretty dang happy to see/hear us. I hasten to add that the feeling was mutual. There were sets from Dianne Nola, Judea Eden, Amy Meyers, and The Pam & Jeri Show... and many more, too numerous to enumerate. A pleasantly cozy & sweaty night of love, rock, and high spririts was had by all.

But there is more--even closer to home (cuz I live four blocks from this gig) on Tuesday we played at 12 Galaxies opening for The Bonedrivers CD Release Party (for their excellent new disc: Roadhouse Manifesto). We played a few songs that have been neglected as of late--"4 Encores" and "Desperate and Dumb" AND we played the spanking new tunes: "Juggler's Progress" and "500 Years". Cuz, you know, you gotta toss it out there & see what sticks...

On Wednesday we participated in yet another fabulous event: the ridiculously cool (and somewhat under-appreciated) Poser's Lounge at Red Devil Lounge. This month's artist was Elvis Costello, so we played (of course) "Deep Dark Truthful Mirror " (cuz we are true) and "Veronica". True Margrit, being one of the few "regular" bands, got to play one original as well (we chose to trot out our new hit, "The Opposite Man"). Members of many bands joined together in various Elvis-ified supergroups, notably the supergroup quartet, "MacManus" which featured our very own Gary Hobishishish, Joel Elrod, and Kevin Seal & Xifer Fortier of the perpetually superb GRIDDLE.

But the question of the evening was: what would Elvis do? We did our best to answer.

well...

Chris Stroffolino said in his piece in The Big Takeover that True Margrit is like Laura Nyro--which is awful sweet! But he goes on to say that I claim to have never heard of her --which would have been FALSE MARGRIT of me ( if I had actually said it). In fact, I had the good fortune of seeing LN perform at the Great American Music Hall here in SF before she died!

...perhaps I was misapprehended by Mr. Stroffolino...

The Big Takeover List including the (purportedly) Laura Nyro-ish True Margrit--plus Chuck Prophet, Jolie Holland, and more (Scroll down! You'll see us at #7)

It's always an honor...

...when someone compares the music of True Margrit to that of the great Laura Nyro (if a bit of a conceit when we do it ourselves...).

Ran across this 2001 feature from the CBS Morning News on the release of music that Laura recorded shortly before her death in 1997. Thought you'd dig it. Enjoy.

Actually...

Ok, now the more complete truth:

The "fan" pictured in the below posting is indeed a fan of True Margrit--he digs SEAWORTHY. Beyond that, he's my FAMOUS HOUSEMATE: THE FABULOUS PAINTER, DAVID GREMARD ROMERO!

Go see his big show on Friday, June 23rd at Bucheon Gallery (next to Citizen Cake--yum!) This is NOT TO BE MISSED!
All about David's Show!

(and you could also drop by Dolores Park Cafe {18th & Dolores} before or after David's show cuz I am playing a tune or two that night--along with a host of performers including but not limited to: Dianne Nola, Judea Eden, Amy Meyers, and The Pam & Jeri Show and uh, also...we will be back there at Dolores Park Cafe on July 28--remember? My birthday show!) Oh dear god, what am I thinking? If you really wanna know about our gigs you can go here to our gig page, after all...sheesh!

Meanwhile:

I have been working on scoring the trailer for Sarah Dunham's awesome film The Girl in the Ground which is a lusciously shot black & white feature film & Victorian thriller about Thomas Eakins and Walt Whitman and a mysterious and possibly malevolent doctor played by Iowa rockstar, Trailer Records artist, Dave Zollo. The trailer will be unveiled this summer--the thrills the chills, ooh!.


Also, I am recording some solo tracks and having a field day--do I, perhaps, mean throwing the discus, running the 40-yard-dash, swimming the butterfly, high-diving??? WHY, YES! Yes, I do! (Which REALLY means I've been feeling creatively frisky/risky and I am therefore putting the mental back into experimental & I even played some drums and guitar along with piano & vocals and triangle.) Some songs that never made it into the band's live setlist, or Seaworthy (or the new CD that will follow after Seaworthy, for that matter) will get their moment being affixed in flux--well, that's "analog tape-talk"-- let me re-phrase that, they will get their moment in the sound-file folder. And who knows what may happen? Perhaps a bonus disc of it all will later this year be available at gigs.

& Wonder of wonders! I got to see my spectacular sister (Mim Eichler Rivas) yesterday! She was in town for one day only, for a panel with: Chris Gardner (about his new book that she was involved in writing!)


The event was at the stunning new San Francisco museum:Museum of the African Diaspora

My sister's own book: Beautiful Jim Key is now out in paperback!!! Get it, y'all!! It's an amazing yarn that's all true. You will love it.

I do.