Songwriters at Play Tribute to Lucinda Williams- Tues, March 7th, 2017

Lucinda Williams is the daughter of a Southern poet, a prolific recording artist, and a relentlessly touring performer. She's also a writer covered by Mary Chapin Carpenter (Passionate Kisses), Tom Petty (Change the Locks) and Emmylou Harris (Sweet Old World). We'll cover her hits, bluesy rockers and ballads in this night of joyous, righteous Americana. The all-star lineup includes L.A.'s Mick Rhodes, Deborah Crooks from the Bay Area, and local favorites Girls & Boys, Kristen Black, Noach Tangeras, John Sandoval, Amie Richie, Holly Ann Lewis, and Lauren Riffle. Your host Steve Key kicks it off at 6:30pm.

This special event runs 6:30-9pm at Morro Bay Wine Seller, 601 Embarcadero, Morro Bay, (805) 772-8388. No cover charge, but we pass the tip bucket, shared by all of the performers. 21 & Over Only. Come early for a good seat (OK to bring your own food, but the venue does have sandwiches and snacks).

Morro Bay Wine Seller

A Morro Bay Tribute to Lucinda Williams - 6:30-9:00pm

601 Embarcadero
Morro Bay, CA 93442

Price: Free!

Songwriters Deborah Crooks and Michael McNevin at The Lost Church Friday, February 17, 2017 7:30pm

A bright spot on the calendar this Friday, February 17, 2017, when I'll be doing a show at The Lost Church in San Francisco, with my friend, the imitable, and great, songwriter Michael McNevin. The show is also a celebration of our respective February birthdays, so we'll be playing songs covering the spectrum of our songwriting lives. We'll even have cake or pie (or both!) to celebrate that much more, and I'll be playing with a full band (yay!). Finally, we LOVE The Lost Church, one of San Francisco's best, intimate listening venues, and we LOVE YOU. Please join us (and save $5) by picking up tickets in advance! Your presence completes the evening. 

Tickets for $15 via tickefly HERE/$20 at the door. 

* I'll have a limited number of these awesome Nemo-designed posters, available for $5, as well. 

Today I mourn, tomorrow I march: "Another Test"

Sad day, this inauguration day. I woke up at 4am to a large thunderclap, a low cloud going over our house crackling lightning and thunder, and then a downpour. It felt ominous, and it's taken half a day for me to snap out of a dark mood. In the meantime, the music has gone on. Bay Station has played a couple of fun shows in the past week, and we just shared a song we wrote in response to Black Lives Matter more than a year ago. Today "Another Test" just feels that much more timely. Today I mourn, tomorrow I march.

Summer Sailstice is This Weekend June 18-19

Ahoy! Bay Station is playing 2pm -3:30pm 'poolside' at the Encinal Yacht Club as part of this weekend's Sailstice in San Francisco (Sailstice is a national happening!). 

It's a free event with all sorts of boat stuff happening. Be there, there being Alameda, CA, this Saturday, June 18 11am-6pm

Encinal Yacht Club
1251 Pacific Marina
Alameda, CA 94501

Boat Building Contest I New EYC Lifejacket Pool Plunge l Visit Historic Schooner 'Alma' I Historic Classic Sailing Vessels I Plein Aire Paint Out l  Small Boat Racing l Exhbitors l Entertainment All Day l Sailboat Rides l Seminars l

Songwriters in the Round at The Octopus Literary Salon March 16, 2016 with Annie Bacon, Maurice Tani, Matt Langlois and Deborah Crooks

The second of a new series featuring Bay Area and touring music artists. This month features:
Annie Bacon
www.anniebacon.me/
Matt Langlois
http://welcomemattsf.com/
Maurice Tani
www.mauricetani.com/
host Deborah Crooks
www.deborahcrooks.com

The Octopus is a literary salon,* re-interpreted in the 21st Century to engage and entertain readers, writers, musicians, artists of all ages in Uptown Oakland, California. The Octopus Literary Salon includes a most excellent café with delicious food, beer & wine, a small-scale specialty used and new bookstore (we sell used records too!), and a space for public readings and discussions as well as other literary spontaneity and, of course music performance.

Bird Songs II: "I Like Birds" "Broken Wings Heal" and "Proud Penguin"

More selections from the world of contemporary bird-referencing songs. 

"I Like Birds" by The Eels
This punchy number caught my ear more than a decade ago when a friend turned me on to The Eels. No birder pretension here, just simple bird appreciation:

"I can't look at the rocket launch
The trophy wives of the astronauts
And I won't listen to their words
'Cause I like birds

I don't care for walking downtown
Crazy auto-car gonna mow me down
Look at all the people like cows in a herd
Well, I like birds

If you're small and on a search
I've got a feeder for you to perch on"

"Razor Wire" by Carolyn Aiken
There are bird references all over Aiken's latest recording, Broken Wings Heal, and the title track itself is a confident ode to healing. But "Razor Wire" is the heartbreaking gut punch of the album, a song I first heard live at The Freight a last summer:
"behind razor wire
sings a song bird
her heart beats strong
her spirit flies free
undaunted and sublime
she sings to the sun and the wind and the trees
she remembers in her dreams
Outside her confines
she knows what it’s like
flying tandem with her kind
free to dive and climb and be
and she…dreams
of the time she will fly
and readies her wings
calming her mind
knowing that all that stands between her and the sky
is time."

 
"Proud Penguin" by Jamie Purnell
Purnell is a Bay Area songwriter I met at FAR-West. He performed this song live the other night at the KC  Turner Presents Shhhongwriters Open Mic at Doc's Lab. A shorty and powerful ditty about flying, swimming, being only who you can be and self acceptance, I couldn't help but love it. 
"hey there seagull, it's fun to swim in the sea/I may not be able to fly, but I'm happy to be me."

Know of a fairly-recent (post-2000) "bird song" I should hear? Please email me! 

Songwriters in the Round at Oakland's The Octopus Literary Salon, January 20, 2016

A new series at this heart-of-Oakland center for the arts! Every other month, featuring Bay Area and touring artists playing their music in the round. January's lineup is great!:

Melissa Phillips (with James DePrato)
www.melissaphillipsmusic.com/
Michael McNevin
www.michaelmcnevin.com/
Paul Griffiths
www.paulgriffithsmusic.com
host Deborah Crooks
www.deborahcrooks.com

The Octopus is a literary salon,* re-interpreted in the 21st Century to engage and entertain readers, writers, musicians, artists of all ages in Uptown Oakland, California. The Octopus Literary Salon includes a most excellent café with delicious food, beer & wine, a small-scale specialty used and new bookstore (we sell used records too!), and a space for public readings and discussions as well as other literary spontaneity and, of course music performance.

Bird Songs: "All Over Ohio", "Birds Fly South" & "Scarecrow"

photo by Don McCullough

As I'm one of those lifelong bird people (I considered a bird-related career path in college, studying natural history and working to release peregrine falcons for the Predatory Bird Research Group) I notice the actual and metaphorical birds wherever I am, and birds tend to show up routinely in my own writing. But even music lovers who are the most disinclined to ornithology know many bird-related songs: The Beatles "Blackbird," Bob Marley's "Three Little Birds" and Skynyrd's "Freebird" (like it or not) are pretty much of the modern-day canon. At a concert last summer, I was struck again at how often birds appear in lyrics, even among songwriters that aren't really "birders." The past few months I've started "collecting" contemporary (post-2000) bird-referencing songs, and will be sharing my favorites here. Know of a fairly-recent "bird song" I should hear? Please email me. 
In the meantime, here's a sampling of some of my recent favorites: 
 
"All Over Ohio" by Over the Rhine
I swoon over the sensibilities of Over the Rhine in general, who call an Ohio farm home between their own musical peregrinations,  and whose lyrics bespeak their deep connection to place. They know their land deeply, as well as the creatures who share it. "All Over Ohio," sung in duet, is a long, lovely tour both of place and the birdly need to come and go: 

"And the starlings they were flying
Earlier today
Doing their maneuvers
Clouds of feathers on display
Makes me wanna kneel in prayer but
I’ve forgotten what to say
I’ll just name all the birds in Ohio
...

All I wanna be is a thousand black birds*
Bursting from a tree into the blue
Love – let it be not just a feeling
But the broken beauty
Of what we choose to do"

*Listen to an actual blackbird call HERE.
 

"Birds Fly South" by The Mastersons  
The Mastersons, an Austin-based duo, also evoke bird migration in the title track of their 2012 release, a song about their own need to move, the pull of the heart, the mystery and reasons  of why humans and animals pick up and go when they do. 
Birds fly south, before the cold
all night, I'm going to drive
New York's getting me down
run out of reason to hang around
that's why birds fly south, 
when it all comes down 
All night, I'm going to drive
Will you be, right by my side?


"Scarecrow" by Michael McNevin 
This is one of my all-time favorite songs for a lot of reasons: not only it it a great evocation of the behavior of gulls* (the species of sea bird I've projected upon this song), its a beautiful love song, period. I believe its won some awards, and I've a CD containing the song, but it's hard to find online to easily share.  Fortunately, for these purposes, there's this video (Track McNevin down at one of his shows or hit him up at Muddpuddle Music if you want your own copy.) I heard him sing it the first time I saw him perform and became an insta-fan. 
She's a sea bird I'm a scarecrow
She came to rest upon my elbow
She flys fast I watch the corn grow
Will she come back, well damned if I know
Damned if I know
 ...
She's a sea bird I'm a scarecrow
Will I turn to driftwood in the shallows?
Damned if I know, damned if I know

*Listen to an actual California gull call HERE.

 
(McNevin's also got a song called "Early Bird" worth giving a listen)

Hawk Hill Gypsy

One of my favorite 'reset' buttons is getting up to Hawk Hill in Marin County every couple weeks as a volunteer for Golden Gate Raptor Observatory. A 360-degree view of the Bay Area will put nearly everything back in perspective (plus helping track the Golden Gate Raptor migration not only restores my wonder but allows me to utilize some of my college-accredited field & ornithological skills). After a very full, long, fun weekend of music at FAR-West, I was back on the Hawk Hill Monday. Yesterday, our hours of counting were capped off by the release of a Red-Tail Hawk dubbed 'Gypsy' who will be tracked via Telemetry for clues on just how hawk spend their time. Hawk migration season runs into early December. Get up on the hill if you can! And find out more about GGRO at http://www.parksconservancy.org/programs/ggro/

A photo posted by Deborah Crooks (@deborahrcrooks) on Oct 19, 2015 at 4:31pm PDT

Then today I heard a great broadcast on NPR, with Terry Gross talking to wildlife photographer Gerrit Vyn and essayist Scott Weidensaul about some of the remarkable abilities of birds. Vyn and Weidensaul contributed to a new book about North American birds. Flights Of Fancy: Exploring The Songs And Pathways Of 'The Living Bird' http://n.pr/1KkI1HW

The Living Bird: 100 Years of Listening to Nature, by Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Gerrit Vyn, Barbara Kingsolver, Scott Weidensaul and Lyanda Lynn Haupt

 

Natural Necessity: Radical Conservation

 “The loss of a keystone species is like a drill accidentally striking a power line. It causes lights to go out all over.” — E.O. Wilson 

The natural world has always been my go-to, for solace, for perspective, for a sheer hit of beauty. And I'm fortunate to live in an area surrounded by slices of natural land and open space. I got out for a brief hour of beach and open space time yesterday and was delighted to see a host of avian wildlife (snowy plover, migrating hawks, harbor seals) and felt, for a moment, that there's plenty of hope for this beleaguered planet after all, even as I know how precarious as it is. So I more than heartily applaud evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson's proposal to permanently set aside half the earth for the 10 million plus species of wildlife with whom we share the planet. It's a bold challenge (and some say arrogant) but really, given the high rate of extinctions happening as I write this, mainly due to human caused climate change, deforestation, pollution and generally rampant environmental abuse, why not try?
Here are some conservation success stories and other conservation networks taking inspiring actions to make a difference:

The Conservation Alliance

Costa Rica Eco-Cultural Success

Turtle Runways and Pronghorn Highways

Western Wildway

KCDC Band Live in Alameda September 26

This Saturday, KCDC breaks out the electric guitars to perform our cowritten tunes at High Street Station Cafe in Alameda. Come on down and hear songs from the Your Own Reaction CD plus new KCDC originals. Kwame and I had a great time 'boat-shedding' many of these songs live on Espresso this past weekend, and we're looking forward to plugging in and playing with our band on terra firma! We’ll be joined by Steve Waters (guitars), Andrew Gibson (bass) & Mike Stevens (drums). Plus our fellow Alamedan Paul Manousos will kick things off with a set of his dynamic music.

 High Street Station is located at 1303 High St (@Encinal) in Alameda, CA. Call High Street to reserve a table 510-995-8049. Tickets are available in advance for $10 through Brown Paper Tickets.

 

KCDC Love the Bay Recap

KCDC completed our inaugural sail and play around the San Francisco Bay/Love the Bay tour experiment with bright sun, warm skies and just enough wind to get us back to Alameda. Thanks to Treasure Island Bar & Grill for hosting us Thursday, our pals Christie & Martin for taking care of us so well in Sausalito, and to those who tuned into our Concert Window broadcasts from Espresso. We learned much about taking gear on a boat, live-streaming and what works and what doesn't for such an expedition, plus had some magic moments around our beautiful Bay (Harbor porpoises! Seals! Osprey! Sunsets!) We hope to do this again in 2016. Stay tuned. In the meantime, we're taking the full band back to High Street Station in Alameda on Saturday, Sept. 26. Real inputs, mics and amplification! Woo-hoo! Please join us.

A photo posted by Deborah Crooks (@deborahrcrooks) on Sep 19, 2015 at 1:22pm PDT

KCDC Love the Bay Tour Sept 17-20

Just to keep things interesting, we're going to sail to our next gig! We're often playing instruments while sailing on board our boat Espresso, so we thought we'd make it more formal. September 17-20 we'll be both sailing around the San Francisco Bay, and playing gigs on board and off. Plus we'll be doing Concert Window broadcasts from our various ports.
 More information and schedule via kcdcmusic.tumblr.com and ConcertWindow.com/DeborahCrooks

Something Special EP Official Release

Big thank yous to those who helped me celebrate the release of the Something Special EP a few nights ago at Awaken Cafe in Oakland It was a great night of music and friends, with sterling performances by my billmates, Loretta Lynch and Yours Truly, Michele, and a great band at my back. Capped off with a big ole supermoon sighting at the end of my set, it really did feel like something special. Today is the EP's official release date, and its now available via iTunes, CDBaby and other digital outlets (as well as at my shows.) I invite you to take a listen, leave a review and share with your friends! Much gratitude for your continued support of independent music. 

Something Special (EP) Sept. 1, 2015. By Deborah Crooks, featuring Kwame Copeland (guitars); Andrew Gibson (bass) & Mike Stevens (drums) Recorded, mixed & engineered by Stevens at Lost Monkey Studio; art by Rebecca Stees; design by Alicia Buelow.

'Something Special' EP Release August 29 at Awaken Cafe

EP Release Party: Saturday, August 29th, 2015 in Oakland, with Deborah Crooks, Yours Truly, Michele, and Loretta Lynch 

Awaken Cafe

"Something Special" EP Release - 8pm

1429 Broadway (@ 15th Street)

Oakland, CA 94612

Price: $7 adv/$10 dos

I'm so looking forward to playing with the band in celebration of my Something Special  EP. Please join me, Saturday, August 29,  as I showcase songs from the EP on a bill with two of my favorite bands Loretta Lynch and Yours Truly, Michele.

Loretta Lynch: 8pm With dreamy three-part harmonies, raucous, surf-tinged guitar and more than a bit of tongue in cheek, the East Bay Area’s own alt-country outfit Loretta Lynch’s stirring songs reach the shady grove in all of us. A little tear in your beer, a little knife in the back – think "O Brother Where Art Thou" meets the Andrews Sisters’ disreputable cousins at a warehouse hoedown. It’s Americana Noir.

Yours Truly, Michele: 9pm Michele Kappel-Stone began singing onstage as a teenager, when she donned a head-to-toe white leotard and crooned “Sex in Wetsuits” as part of the multi-media avant theater company Impossible Industrial Action. The Baltimore native’s latest venture, Yours Truly, Michele, may best capture the heady mix of influences and experiences she can bring to any party simply by showing up.  With a sound infused with 60s pop and soul and infected by Americana Roots-Rock, YTM can evoke Debbie Harry, Erin McKeown, and Patsy Cline.

Deborah Crook: 10pm Deborah recorded Something Special earlier this year at Lost Monkey Studio in Hayward with Mike Stevens on drums, Kwame Copeland on guitars and Andrew Gibson on bass. The songs on the EP cover such topics as seeking transcendence in the myth of Bigfoot; recovering from a breakup in a 50s era LA Travelodge, and keeping the faith while being lost. Come take a listen!

Hear “India Street: on Soundcloud:

Read.Eat.Listen: Water & Weather

Some mornings are worth everything. Such was the case today, when after dropping Kwame at the airport, I stopped for a walk by "the birds" on the way home. That's what we've come to call the Elsie B Roemer Sanctuary on the west side of the east side of the island. The sun wasn't quite up, and everything was blue and pink, the only other folks on the trail were far and few between. The Sanctuary, however, was going off, a riot of Pelicans souring, Canada Geese honking, terns twittering and oyster catchers hueeping past. Alameda is a good place to be if you're not-so-secretly a bird geek.

I make a determination every week or so to get out to "the birds"  daily, but as I don't live in easy walking distance anymore, I often forget. The world is a wonder if you pause a moment to take it in. I'm reminding myself this as much as anyone else, who often forgets that all that I love is close by. Times like this morning are usually when I make the determination anew.

In the wake of the latest spate of climate change news  — thank you Obama for the Clean Power Plan — I've been reading up on sea level rise in California again. Many people have been trying to alert the masses to this eventuality for a few years now, and now word is really out. It's hard to imagine what this will mean for the place I call home. On a flood map, our little patch of island, is still that, an island, but the shore will be much closer. Then it will be easier to get out to "the birds"... if the birds are still having any of it...

Read: "Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life" by William Finnegan. I've only surfed (or tried to) a couple of times— alas, even growing up in Santa Cruz County I never lost my fear of the cold, changeable ocean. That said, I love the ocean, its coast and have always loved surf culture...and I LOVE this book, and have barely been able to put it down this week. I get the feeling Finnegan, a longtime writer for The New Yorker who has had a life-long push-pull affair with surfing, could rewrite a phone book so it was engaging, but this really is a notable memoir. Anyone whose spent time on the California coast or in Hawaii will appreciate the insider's view Finnegan depicts so well, from the people, to the waters to the tortures and rewards of loving something deeply. 

Eat: Japanese Sweet Potato. A humble vegetable that gives. I can and do eat them straight up. This is a recipe that splits the difference: Roasted Japanese Sweet Potatoes

Listen: We saw Ray Wylie Hubbard at The Freight last week, my first time seeing this Texas musician. Been there, seen it all, looked-under-every-rock, not-afraid-to-say-anything gritty goodness.

Saturday: KCDC at The Bazaar Cafe

Saturday, August 8th, 2015 

Bazaar Cafe 

KCDC Acoustic w/Alex Walsh 7pm-9pm 

5927 California St San Francisco, CA 94114

Once upon a time, many years ago ago, I made a weekly visit to The Bazaar Cafe in the Richmond, where songwriters gathered (and still gather) to play their latest songs at the Open Mic. It was a nerve-wracking experience, playing in front of the other songwriters, kind of like an unofficial adult school of songwriting. Plus the Bazaar is unplugged, and acoustic. No PA, no microphone, no nada. I often broke out into cold sweats before and after, but somehow, over time,  I got better at holding it together to play my songs in front of people, and a I met some long-term friends. 

A very large percentage of Bay Area songwriters have come through its unassuming doors to play and listen over the years. It has a living room feel and at this point, it would be very interesting to hear what its walls would say if they could talk. 

We still play there once or twice a year, and this weekend, we're up, offering an all-acoustic set of KCDC songs from our "Your Own Reaction" CD and new material for our next one. Alex Walsh joins us for a set and to play guitar and we'll have Andrew Gibson on bass.  Plus...there's pie!

Read.Eat.Listen: Big Pictures

Another benefit to road-trips/tours is the capsule that the car becomes, be it for listening to music closely, having long conversations or reading. Last week's run up and down the 5, to Washington State and back for shows and family visits contained all of that. The passenger gets to be reader, sometimes to oneself, sometimes aloud, and much of my time on this trip was consumed with news and long-form essays on big picture issues. On the way North, it was climate change, on the way down I scared the bejesus out of us, reading aloud from the New Yorker article about the Cascadia Fault, while driving through the very landscape which would be irrevocably altered by a mega-earthquake. By the last day, we were in outer space, marvelling over the NASA reports about Pluto. I'm not sure why I'm seeking solace in geologic and space time, time where I'm small, a speck of animated dust just holding on like a bee in a hive, working for the honey. Part of it might be the sheer wow-factor: all this big science reminds me of how wondrous the facts, including our little lives, are. And part of it, I think, is that as much as I find the thought of huge earthquakes and tsunamis terrifying, I'm always glad to know the earth knows how to take care of itself even as we humans so often fail it.

Read: "The Earthquake That Will Devastate Seattle" by Kathryn Schulz, in The New Yorker. 
"When the End of Human Civilization Is Your Day Job"by John H Richardson, Esquire
A view of the worlds around us With the fly-by of Pluto, we now can visualize all of the planets in our solar system. Here's a two-minute tour of the sun and the nine planets. Posted by Los Angeles Times on Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Eat: Healthy eats at Harlow PDX

Portland was the food winner on this trip, and how nice we were staying walking distance from gluten-free veggie Harlow. Just read their menu and get the idea.

Listen: Kwame's brother Kwab Copeland is another fine musician writing and playing "raw, rustic verse set to rollicking badland bomp" (Chris Estey) out of Seattle. He, aka The Demon Rind, just released a winner in "Love Is Perfect":

KCDC duo NW Mini-Tour

Read.Eat.Listen: Tides & Vistas

In addition to mornings, views are one of my favorite things about life. Sometimes, I think I live for the long view: the broad expanse of sea and sky from a high mountaintop, the sweeping view of the East Bay from the 980 when you come off the Bay Bridge, the seemingly endless terrain of desert in the Mojave. There's no question, no answer, just that. A couple of weeks ago, we were up on Mt. Tam to play the Father's Day brunch and everything suddenly made sense again.
Of course a high wouldn't be a high without a low. The tides of peaks and valleys, dark and light go in and out, and I followed up that weekend with a few days holed away, looking back, while scanning a genealogy book my great-aunt put together. My aunt had chronicled six generations on my father's side, before passing away in 1998, and the book has languished on various relatives shelves til getting to my hands a couple of years ago. I don't know what finally clicked, but I finally turned toward it, and began the process of archiving her materials. I was struck, as I went through each page, by how much detail she had amassed pre-Internet,  and how much of the story of my family is a tide running back and forth between fighting wars and going back to the land to farm/ranch/homestead, inching East to Wests, with stops in the South and in the Rockies, and finally to California, over a couple of centuries. There are also many gaps and question marks about particular characters in this narrative – where did the great-grandfather get to between St. Louis and Oakland? Who was my aunt's first husband? Questions, questions. Suddenly I'm back in the fog.
Read:  And so All The Wild That Remains: Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner, and the American West by David Gessner feels like a friend this week, detailing the lives of two authors/activist I read avidly while in college, while traveling much of the terrain I knew well when I lived in Boulder, asking questions about motive and character, our relationship to land and our seemingly inevitable exploitation of its resources.  
Eat: Mint and summer just go together and throwing a bunch of fresh mint into a salad can be especially satisfying: "Kale/Tomato/Feta/Mint Salad"
Listen:Veruca Salt is back at it after a long break from recording.