Zeke and Fl!p are playing a rare Seattle house concert this coming Thursday evening, October 3rd, at our friends Dick & Karen Seymour’s home, up by the Woodland Park Zoo. We’d love to see you there! Concert at 7PM, potluck starts at 5:30.. For all the details, look at our calendar, right beside this blog. Or call us at (360)671-4511
I realized recently that one of the things that makes me & Zeke compatible is that neither of us can stand background music. And that the quiet background in our lives leaves room for everything to be a song cue. We live in a musical. Something happens; it reminds one or the other (or both of us) of song; we sing each other a snippet; and we chuckle and go on with our lives. The video above is a snippet that happened just that way.
There was an amazing lightning storm a few weeks ago. It sat over our neighborhood in Bellingham so intensely that it started several fires right in the ‘hood. There was a power line down in a road. Transformers were destroyed and power was out all over our side of town. Lots of sirens wailing. And zero time between brilliant flashes and deafening booms. LOTS of them! We had unplugged our computers, and the router was out, but my phone worked as an internet hotspot so I was able to keep in touch with my neighborhood. No one was injured, though some houses and trees had a hard time, and the Humane Society set up a system to help folks identify all the pets that wound up there.
But the SONGS! Bob Dylan’s “Chimes Of Freedom Flashing.” Steve Sellor’s “Against The Moon.” Both songs keep echoing in my mind even now. I’m trying to get them in good enough shape to bring to the concert. Songs can give us a solid place to stand to get a good look at changes in the world. Sometimes the best ones pick up new meanings as the world changes. I’ve sung Fred Small’s “Denmark 1943” for decades and gotten very relaxed with the intensity of the song. But these days I can’t get through it without tears about the changing world, though I’m getting closer again.
Zeke has newly written songs, old favorites, topical commentary, and some new instrumentals he’s excited about. Because of Zeke’s beloved Sousa marches, rags, and all the complex chords Zeke chooses as settings for his songs, I recently discovered that I can finally hear a Flat Six chord coming, and often nail it. Swing tunes like the one above are less overwhelming than they used to be, and seem more possible. I’m sixty nine, and still learning to play guitar!
We’d love to see you all. Call me if you need a personal invitation to the concert, or if you have any questions.