Monthly Archives: August 2003

Not Good News

We have a ’90 Toyota extcab pickup.. it is our main vehicle. Russel needs it for work and we need it to drive out to our home in the hills. I have a ’71 VW bus that is still running but stays close to home (town house). The Toyota was showered with funds earlier this year..just to make it better, nothing was broke.

Now though, it has an oil leak, we thought rear-main seal…ouch $800..but NOOOOOOOOOO… it’s leaking in the head gaskets…. we’re ok as long as we keep the oil up, and it stays leaking where it is, down a gully in the engine wall and out the back, but to fix… a new rebuilt engine is $5 grand. 🙁

We are not happy.
We cannot buy a new car.
We will have to fix this one.

That’s my petty gripe for the month i think.

This means that I can put away plans for the new computer..
this one is a PII 233mz (slow) 4gig hd 314 ram. Old. Dinosaur. Not even a cd burner (I may have to change that though if no new system is in sight). I need storage for my digital photos.. I have a zip drive, but those little buggers are expensive too, and fill up fast as I only have 100mbs ones.

This means that the trip to visit 82 year old Dad in Michigan (i am in California) won’t be happening any time soon either.

Oh well, I know it could be much worse .. it’s only money and only a truck. But it does suck.

Reggae on the River 2003

I spent a bit of time validating all my templates and tweaking the new background color. Was ready to upload some reggae pictures when I realized none were very good at ‘capturing’ what reggae was all about, so they will have to wait until i have my photoblog up.

[edited to add: Kim Sallaway Photo Archive ]

Reggae on the River-aerial 2003 - Photo by Kim Sallaway

Reggae on the River -Unity-Photo by Kim Sallaway

A few thoughts about this years reggae, considering I have only missed 3 out of the last 20, was that this years crowd was a lot of what appeared to be ‘college kids’ with lots of money, not into the hippie, tie-dye, rasta, dead-head apparel which is usually predominate there. They also smoked more tobacco at this years event than I have seen at Reggae in a very long time. They also didn’t seem to care if they were polluting someone else’s air space with it, with a few exceptions who left the ‘parachute area’ when asked.

The weather was very different, as generally speaking a 90 degree temp is considered cool, this year it was maybe 80 on Friday, cloudy with RAIN showers and cool on Saturday until finally on Sunday the sun appeared and the temps rose to high 80’s…. which is my preferred way of experiencing the event.

Notice i am not talking of the bands so much? Well Sunday’s lineup was great roots reggae, but Saturdays with a few exceptions, was some sort of hip-hop, rap stuff where the lyrics leave ya wondering if these people know any words besides F*** and M*****F***** and Suck My D*** and Slap My B****!!!

ome one said I am getting ‘old’ and my response was that even when I was young i wanted music to SAY something. I use the F word plenty, i am no prude, and often my language leaves something to be desired, so that is not the issue here. If you haven’t heard this type of ‘music’ you can’t begin to understand what i am talking about.

Any way, I saw people I haven’t seen in a year, some in 15 years, and met a new friend…. a local KMUD news-reporter. They were making a DVD of this years 20th Anniversary of Reggae..
it should be interesting to see just what they include on it.

Mateel Aikido, Russel’s Aikido school always puts up a booth to sell burritos at Reggae, as many of the non-profits do here, to raise money for the year.

Mateel Aikido's burrito booth Reggae on the River 2003

Russel Wisby with student Ruby at Reggae on the River 2003

Bruce Cockburn Mystic-2003 part2

Bruce Cockburn at the Mystic – Part 2

When I knew i would be going to the Mystic show, I asked Suzanne, as editor of the Cockburn Project, to contact Bernie Finkelstein, Bruce’s manager, and ask for a photography pass, so I could take pictures at the Mystic for the CockburnProject. He granted that pass, and I got it at will call, no problem, the night of the show. I had even called ahead to confirm all was well, as I did not want to be hassled by security the night of the gig.

So I bring my new Canon G3. Earlier in the afternoon we run into Steve Lucas, bass player touring with Bruce. We chatted a bit about his new cd, Gamma Jazz, a techno-jazz-fusion-jungle sound, coming out soon on www.cdbaby.com. He graciously stood still for a picture with Russel, my husband.

I also was able to talk with Bruce just before sound check when he walked past our table at McNears resturant. I wrote a bit about this here and
here.

Standing in line and in the theater waiting for the show to start, meeting lots of fans, and trading ‘how we became Bruce fans’ stories was really fun. (If the husband & wife team of doctors from Sonoma County read this, please contact us, we so enjoyed meeting and talking with you.) We grabbed seats, second row, left of center, for a great view of Bruce and guitar.

Then Bruce walks onstage to a standing ovation for just being there.
I start taking pictures, taking great care to make sure all the metering lights are off, the flash is off, i have the right (as best i can figure out) settings (TV- shutter priority 1/15). I took a few shots during the first song, Tried and Tested.
And was really enjoying the second song, Mighty Trucks Of Midnight, when someone was trying to grab my camera out of my hands!

I tried to show him my pass, but he was still putting his hands on my NEW CANON G3… i tried to explain, he would hear none of it, so we left the concert area, I told him Bernie had given me permission, but he didn’t know who Bernie was, and he said ‘they’ say absolutely no pictures, and i ask who they are and he says the band managers. So he took my id (bz cards for the Cockburn Project) and went in search of someone, came back and said, ok .. I said, “is that an apology?” he said yeah, but i don’t think he meant it. I asked if any one else would jump on me now for taking pictures and he said no.

But it really did throw me off center. Russel kept after me to shoot more pictures, and i did, but my heart wasn’t as into it by this time. I thought i had done every thing to make that NOT HAPPEN, but in looking back i guess i should of contacted someone else as well. Or Bernie should of contacted the guys handling the ‘band’ on the road. I don’t know, but it felt awful. And the questions about it during intermission didn’t help.

Then the unspeakable happened, just after intermission, the flash went off on a shot!! I could of vanished into the floor.. I don’t really know what happened, obviously something had become ‘unset’ on the camera, even though i check for no flash on each shot. But it did, and i put the camera away after that, as it was taking too much of my focus.

This is that shot, cropped & re-sized :

Here is a link to the setlist of this show.

Another wonderful thing happened at this show. In my early days of getting into Bruce (early 80’s) I lived in Boulder, Colorado and then Marin County, California, where i met a kindred spirit, Bobby Parrs, and we became good friends and enjoyed our connection often thru Bruce.

Bruce Cockburn - Bobbi Wisby - Bobby Parrs - Zellerbach Berkley 1988

That’s me looking like I was caught at something *lol*, Bruce, and Bobby, after show at the Zellerbach in Berkley, 1988.

Well, after the concert and most of the theater had left, we made our way to the lobby and I turned and looked over my shoulder and there he was!! … we haven’t seen each other in about 14 years! , as he moved to Maui and I moved to Humboldt County. Reconnecting is great. We went backstage to say our thanks to Bruce and exchanged info.

Bobby and I reconnected again a few days later at Reggae on the River! More on that story in another post.

That’s about it for my stories of Bruce at the Mystic. Did i happen to mention the music? It was wonderful…high energy, intimate, and fun. Bruce and band enjoyed it as well as we did. This crowd loves this man.. and it shows… and he gives it all right back to us. If you ever have the opportunity to attend a show by Bruce, go for it, you won’t be sorry.

Here is a link to Bruce at the Mystic part 1.

Bruce Cockburn at the Mystic-2003

Back from the Mystic

There is a lot to tell about our trip to Petaluma to see Bruce Cockburn at the Mystic. I have focused all my energy so far on updating the front page of the CockburnProject, (this story is now
here ) with the last few gigs. I am going to write out a full report on this show from my personal point of view very soon. But this part explains the following photo:

‘A little bit later, Bruce comes walking by, right next to us and I just say “Hi Bruce”. He comes to our table and we chat a bit, my husband says I work for the CockburnProject, and Bruce responds that he ‘now has a face to go with that.’ We talk about what the Project does, and he mentioned that Julie Wolf, keyboard player, downloaded the song lyrics she needed to learn for the tour from the CockburnProject. I asked a favor, for him to sign an autograph on a picture that was taken of us in the late ’80s. It was sort of odd, us both looking at a 15 year old picture of ourselves, we commented on how we had changed, and Bruce was trying to recall when he was wearing ‘that coat’. Then he needed to go get ready for sound check. He is always so gracious and kind. There never seems to be the words to express how much he and his work mean to me, perhaps that is why I work so hard on the Project, it is my way of saying thanks.’

Taken in ’88 or ’89 at the Luther Burbank Center:

Bruce Cockburn and Bobbi Wisby at Luther Burbank Center late 80's autographed in 2003

More photos from the Mystic Show:

I have lots of stories to tell and photos to put up..but time is short and
Reggae on the River is upon us here in southern Humboldt County… gotta go, be back Monday!

Here is a link to the setlist of this show. And this is a link to Bruce at the Mystic part2.

On My Beat

Living in the hills of southern Humboldt