Gigs on the West Coast, August?

[flatt]

I don't know if this should have gone in "Places to play"? I'm a songwriter, so looking more for places to share my songs rather than jam although I enjoy sessions too.
If anyone has suggestions of places to play? Places not to be missed? Good places to eat? Good places to stay? that would be great

I'm arriving in Vancouver BC from the UK on the 1st August. I plan to stop by in Portland OR., on the 4th and 5th to collect some CDs from CD Baby, so it would be great to find a place to play in the evenings.

I have a gig in Colfax (near Nevada City, CA.) on the 7th August and would like to find somewhere to play on the 8th/9th.

From then on it's "family holiday" (San Francisco and the coast) until maybe on the 15th August I would like to try and get to the Olalla Festival, near Seattle. On the 16th I play at the VFMS in Victoria, Vancouver Island.

Fly home on the 20th.

[flatt]

Is this in the wrong thread?

[mandopete]

Hey Chris,

I liked the video you have on You Tube - what kind of mandolin is that?

You might check with the Seattle Folklore Society (http://www.seafolklore.org/) and see if they can hook you up for something here the in Puget Sound area. There are numerous small venues that might be good for a solo performer here in our area.

[fred d]

Old time fiddlers meet in Orangevill on sun the 9 about 40 miles south of colfax play a virity of old new a d gospel songs they have a web site:redface:

[flatt]

Thanks Pete. It's a Hoyer - German about 1960, picked it up for "a song" in a car-boot sale (I don't know what you call them in the States) - it's not much of a players' instrument but fine if you tune it for each individual song. It's got a good rattley almost-resonator sound that is great for bluesy stuff.

Thanks for the suggestion of the Seattle Folklore Society; I will contact them and see what I can get.

If you're in the area I'll let you know if I get anything.

[mandroid]

You could stick to the I-5 corridor or as you say, 'Dual Carriageway', and hit major towns along the way Portland, Salem, Eugene, Corvallis, Ashland, in Oregon , all of them have a College or University in them, Many of them also have Brew-Pubs that are a live music venue.

some out on the Coast , which is rather off the Beaten track , so as its said ,
booking ahead when the local and other traveling bands have the weekend gigs scheduled already , for the summer, is another thing..

:popcorn:

[Rick Schmidlin]

Hello from Vancouver.

Contact: Garry Stevenson <garrystevenson@shaw.ca> and ask to be put on his upcoming list and you be completely informed on Vancouver musical haps' you asked for:mandosmiley:

This will do you perfectly and friendly.

[Jill McAuley]

Chris,
You might try contacting the Laurelthirst pub in Portland - I don't have contact info but if you google them you'll probably find a website and I know they have a myspace page too.

Also, I was up in Portland for a conference for work back in February - it was held at the Edgefield Hotel and there was ALOT of live music going on every single night (folk/oldtime/bluegrass/irish trad) at a variety of venues on their property. They're part of the McMenamins hotel group. If you go to www.mcmenamins.com and click on the sidebar link for "Edgefield" you'll get to the page for that hotel and hopefully find contact info for whoever books their venues. Keep us posted on how you get on.

Cheers,
Jill

[flatt]

Thanks for all your suggestions .. keep 'em coming!

[mandroid]

you need a booking agent, or at least to find who does that at each place ,

McMenamins in the Portland area, owns a bunch of bar-restaurants,

don't know if that booking is done centrally, or at each location, though,

they even own one out on the OR Coast, next to a Golf course.

[flatt]

Good suggestion about a booking agent: maybe when I return in Easter? This one's about testing the ground, playing my songs, having a ball, selling some CDs...

[Paul Kotapish]

Good luck, Chris.

It's very late to be trying to book anything for August--even little coffeehouses around here are booking late fall and winter at this point. Competition for gigs is very tight, but you might find some open mics along the way.

There's a venerable open-mic night at the Freight & Salvage in Berkeley, for example, but they are closed most of August while they move to new digs uptown:

http://www.thefreight.org/2009/0908-august/0908calendar.html

I'd recommend taking a look at the Folk Alliance Directory to get a list of potential venues along your route:

https://www.folk.org/_folk/about_fbd.php or http://www.folkalliance.org/