A Crazy Month ... and Moving Forward

   It's been a rough patch here. I went to two memorial services in a week, and another within a fortnight. It's good to be together with friends, to remember someone's life with joy and dignity, but enough is enough. I'd like to be affirming life while it's still happening, but I can barely keep up with the passings. So hang in there, everyone!

   Then there was the bad news from Wisconsin: Scott Walker survived a grass roots recall effort, thanks to the $30 million, primarily from outside Wisconsin that put him over the top. It's disturbing to me on several fronts. For one thing, it's just bad news. Walker didn't run on a union-busting platform, but taking his orders from conservative planning groups, he used his majority in the state ledge to eliminate public workers' rights to collective bargaining. Surviving the pushback will only make these efforts stronger. And they will spread to other states. Open season on unions, workers, pensions and health care. It's not going to be pretty.

   Even more unsettling is what this says about the election process. Elections ARE bought and sold, in this case by people who don't even live in the affected area. The Koch brothers can't vote in Wisconsin, but they can sway an election there because they have SO MUCH MONEY. How can we call it "free speech" when some of us have so much more of it than others? As the guy said, how much money will it take for us to get served poop and call it chocolate? We're about to find out.

  There's a great deal of solidarity among millionaires. If you go to bat for them they will bail you out when the time comes. I'm hoping the rest of us learn the same, so we can be there for each other, in numbers if not in wealth.

  Summer has a beautiful sense of timelessness, a stillness in the air. But we're only a couple of calendar page flips away from turning leaves. I'll be mostly in Oregon and the midwest this summer and fall. Woody Guthrie's 100th birthday will be July 14, '12. We have Woody events (including a Woody sing-along on 7/15 at Sam Bond's Garage) in our community and I hope you do too. Woody changed the way we write songs, and the way we listen to them. His heritage is huge and continues to unfold (with continued relevance) today.

  I'm involved in planning some community-oriented music events at the Reality Kitchen here in Eugene. Check out their website and watch for new events in August. I'm also involved in some noncommercial guerrilla music projects. Fun and mischief. And Chico's Hydrogen Jukebox will make its formal entry into the fray at Territorial Vineyards in Eugene on July 20. Whoo hoo!

  Time to get outdoors!

P.S. - Here's my latest newsletter just sent to my mailing list: "No More Manouche Noir and Other Happs"

Summer's here (kinda, sorta) and there's a lot going on in town.

For starters, this Friday is the Last Friday Art Walk in the Whiteaker neighborhood. The LOW TIDE DRIFTERS will be holding forth on the lawn in front of the CALC office (across Blair Blvd from the World Cafe) from 6-7:30 pm. Stop by and say hi.

I will NOT be playing with Manouche Noir at Territorial Vineyards that evening, nor at subsequent shows. I am no longer affiliated with that group.

Next Friday (July 6) is the Downtown First Friday Art Walk. David Andersen and I will be playing a plethora of instruments at NEW ZONE GALLERY, starting at 5:30.

Tuesday, July 10 is Reality Kitchen's WOODY GUTHRIE CENTENNIAL BLOCK PARTY in honor of Woody's 100th birthday. Anne Feeney, Mark Ross, Chris Chandler, etc. Wow!

Sunday, July 15 is the WOODY GUTHRIE SING-ALONG at SAM BOND'S GARAGE at 8:30 pm. Songs led by KATE DOWNING, NATHAN MOORE and myself (and anyone else who wants to lead one). Celebrating as Woody woulda.

Wednesday, July 18 at Perugino's (on Willamette): a small group of friends has started to play some Irish music there and we'll be there then. Not an open jam, not a performance... what IS it?

Friday, July 20, 7-10 pm at TERRITORIAL VINEYARDS is the big debut of CHICO'S HYDROGEN JUKEBOX. GEORGE FILGATE on drums, DAVID ANDERSEN on guitar, tenor guitar and bass, and me on SEVEN instruments, playing everything we can think of from Brazilian jazz to bluegrass. My songs and a few from Woody, Townes and Eddie Cochran. It's barbecue night with cooking out front. I'd love to play here regularly, so show up and make us look good with your presence. No cover.

peace,

chico

...the force for healing and growth is palpable...

  A couple of weeks ago I burned my hand on the oven. Moving too fast and not paying attention. It got pretty ugly at first but started healing almost immediately. As the days passed it was like watching a movie. The dead parts were swept up and compressed, a protective scab formed and around the edges, new skin began to grow. The new growth took over more and more of the wound and gradually took on the pores and wrinkles that make skin look like skin. It was amazing to watch the body repair itself, at high speed and without any help from me. It was humbling to realize that nature is way smarter and stronger than I am and highly motivated enough to produce new life right before my eyes.

  The scraggly apple tree in my front yard burst into bloom last week, suddenly, like flicking a switch. Spring is here and there's no going back. New growth is all around and the force for healing and growth is palpable. As people, we're part of nature too, hard as we may try to separate ourselves from it. And sometimes I open my eyes and see growth and healing even in the human world. Even in the cynical world we share with newscasters and candidates. A friend was talking about the  anti-war, back-to-the-land, anarchist collective good old days of his youth, asking, "Where's that energy gone?" "It's in Tunisia," I said.

  Sure, we live in a world where NPR thinks that reporting about televised political ads passes for discussion, where fear-driven violence makes the world as dangerous for a young person of color as it was a hundred years ago. But another state just revoked the death penalty, and half a dozen states (including mine) have moratoria on executions. And Vermont has universal health care. Sure we're disappointed that it hasn't happened for the rest of us already. But we expect too much of elected officials. None of the really big movements in America, Women's Suffrage, the Civil Rights movement, the Labor movement, Abolition, were top-down decisions. None of them were created by Congress or a president. People created those movements, and not because anyone told them to, but because our urge for healing is greater than our fear.

Spring Time in Oregon

Played a really interesting space Monday night. I was at the Last Stand Coffee House in Eugene, Oregon, in the historic and off-center Whiteaker Neighborhood. The proprietor roasts coffee in mini batches (like five pounds) rolling the beans in a human powered roaster bin. The whole thing looks incredibly steam-punk, built, with suitable metalwork, on the frame of a hundred year old sewing machine. There's a free-form bar, and a piano, a washtub bass and some rasty guitars in a corner so people can just play.

  This place is on the north end of the diagonal Blair Boulevard. Used to be a bike shop called Revolution Cycles (a name that gets better the more you think about it). It's right next to Eugene's only Eastern Orthodox Tea Room / Reading Room. "The Way of the Pilgrim" and "Franny and Zooey." Just a block or two from the J.E.S.C.O. Club, a Recovery social club. Block or so from the Ninkasi operation. My world is small but infinitely detailed.

  I was there for an art class. These folks, some regulars, some drop-ins, get together once a month and chip in to hire a musician to be a model-in-motion. They're not only drawing/painting/pasteling the musician, but drawing in real time with the music being played. And you won't ever get a more focused audience. At the break it was fun to go around and see what I sound like looks like, if you know what I mean.

  My electricity bill came the other day. It's been cold lately and it was higher than I thought it would be. I'm thinking I should write back and tell them that their plan has been changed (by me) and now there's a deductible and I won't pay the first $2000 I agreed to pay them. If that's such an outrageous suggestion, how come my insurance company can do that?

  It's spring time in Oregon. Hailstones among the daffodils. They say if you don't like the weather, wait a minute, it'll change. But my buddy Sean says the opposite: if you LIKE the weather, DON'T WAIT -- go for a walk, jump on your bike. The time is now.

ETA 3-21-12:

  Well, hailstones among the daffodils has turned to forsythia-in-the-snowbank. The second day of spring dawned to six inches of snow in the usually snow-free Valley.  Power lines down all over and thousands without electricity. (Why don't we bury the power lines like they do in Scandinavia? -- because we're cheap!) Schools are closed, finals cancelled at the University, meeting postponed. Here I am, snowed in with all these musical instruments! Dang.

chico

...people I meet are still saying Happy New Year...

Here we are, almost a month into 2012 and people I meet are still saying Happy New Year. I'm not surprised, really. I don't usually pay much attention to the calendar change, but this year is different. Twenty-eleven (I will miss saying that name; it's sounds like fun, like something a pre-schooler would make up) was a great year. Five entrenched dictators, with millions at their disposal and armies at their command were toppled by popular movements, movements without leaders or budgets or the cover of somebody's empire, but with awesome legitimacy. Not one power structure replacing another, but power being removed without being seized. Over and over. This is big news for everyone who loves or aspires to democracy, because it flies in the face of cynicism and complacency. It can be done.

And at home, Americans are learning the lessons that the Casbah and Tahrir Square. The Occupy movement started as a fire drill in organizing. And while it remains a drill we saw what grass roots organizing can do. Close down a major port. Get Bank of America to drop its transaction charges. Start a national discussion on economic justice that the media have dodged for years. And in the process, replacing the old hierarchical, ideological "Left,"  with something far more democratic and responsive to the current times.

Vermont has universal health care! Didn't know that? Maybe the folks on the radio are too busy talking about Newt Gingrich's latest bs to let you know about it. Yep, another grass roots movement. Universal health care will happen like every other major movement in American history, like Abolition and Women's Suffrage, state by state and learning from each other. Vermont is the first state through the gate. Not surprising as it was the first state to abolish slavery.

Yeah, it's been a good year. And next year will be even better. After last year's surprises, who knows what we can do? So let's get started making it better. Get a bike light. Register to vote. Visit some outfit that's making a difference in your world and see if you can contribute in some way. Find what works for you.

And have a Happy New Year.

Update at Winter's Solstice

Days are getting shorter, and I feel us rushing into winter, blown like leaves. On the 21st it will be the dark of the moon nearest the dark of the sun, and the serious candle lighting will begin. After four shows in two days, and a stretch of lessons, student recitals and the like before that, I had a Day Off yesterday. Imagine that! In fact as I write this I'm wearing a red and black checked flannel shirt and Carhartt bib overalls.

Tonight it's back to show #3 of our annual holiday show, my only commitment for the next few days. Then it's time off until 2012. My first show of 2012 will be a triple header at Eugene's Oak Street Speakeasy with a fantastic sisters-harmony group, the Douglas County Daughters, the Low Tide Drifters and the Alder Street All Stars. String band music for the New Millennium.

2011 has been a fun year. It's even fun to say: twenty-eleven, twenty-eleven. Sounds like something a five year old would make up. But how the world has changed in serious ways. Decades-long dictatorships in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya are gone. The Occupy movement raises questions without seeking to take power. The farther away from the real world our politicians go, the more irrelevant they turn out to be. Despite the failure of anyone in office to even understand, we are closer to universal health care than ever. Look what happened in Vermont. Whoo hoo!

I've spent a couple of inspiring evenings playing instrumental guitar at the Egan Warming centers, where a wonderful crew of volunteers provides soup and a warm place to sleep when the mercury drops below 30 degrees Fahrenheit. Named for Major Tom Egan, a veteran who froze to death on a street not far from my house two years ago, the centers are a great example of a community working together to maximize the effect of limited resources. Warms me just to be there.

My website, www.chicoschwall.net is sort of in stasis. The merch page is not functioning and the calendar won't update. I lost my web guy to a real job (tragic loss), but I have a New maven lined up and we'll be back in business as soon as we can. Thanks for your patience.

Hope you're warm inside and out wherever you are, that the holidays bring you some peace and relaxation,  some loving contact with others, and whatever else you want from life. Health and abundance in the New Year! (clink)

chico

Hubert Sumlin Passes

Blues legend Hubert Sumlin passed on December 4 at age 80. While he fronted his own groups and worked with others in Chicago, he is best known as the guitar "voice" on Howlin' Wolf's records and live shows. There was nothing standard or conventional about anything he played. He is instantly recognizable and endlessly inventive. His guitar is like a voice print. Check out the classic Chess recordings and be amazed. Rest in Peace, Mr. Sumlin.

chico schwall

Welcome to Chico's Imagine Nation

Dear Friends,

Welcome to Imagine Nation, where I'll try to keep up with news and comments on the way it all Looks From Here. Fall flew by in a flash and winter's upon us. In October I co-directed the regional conference for Folk Alliance International's western U.S. region. And last month I released my third CD to a cozy full house at Eugene, Oregon's Culture Shop: Tsunami Book Store. We had snacks and wine and a beautiful evening of music. About the album: mostly what I want to say is, "It's done."

It's recorded, (started in 2010, derailed by real life, and restarted). It's mixed (twice even!). Mastered in real time under my watchful ear. Glorified visually by Dave Snider's artwork. Replicated in fine style at AtoZ media in PDX. And it's ready for you.

"Then What's It For?" is the new CD. It's a big departure from the last one. "Driving by Moonlight" was a real personal album, all but one track were my songs/tunes. And it was a sonic playground: guitar choirs, overdubs, lap steels and doubled parts. This one's real stripped down. Ninety per cent of the guitar is one guitar. One banjo. I borrowed a mandolin.  At the same time its focus is bigger. Five of my songs/tunes join a lot of the music that informs my life. Turlough O'Carolan and Howlin' Wolf. Joe Hill and southern gospel. The old and the new. It's a bit daunting, standing next to classic material, but I think it works. So actually, it's an even MORE personal album. Who knew?

Getting ready, with actor David Stuart Bull and fiddler Linda Danielson for our annual Celtic Holiday show. It's an orchestrated reading of Dylan Thomas' classic "A Child's Christmas in Wales," plus a set of pan-Celtic music, Irish jigs and reels, songs in Welsh and English and the lot with fiddle, guitar and cittern.

Whatever you do to renew at the Solstice Time, I hope it brings you joy, love, enthusiasm for beginning again, and some relaxation. It's a Big World and there's lots to do.

cheers,

chico