The band arrived for our Alaskan tour last thursday night. We left Phoenix in the evening and flew through darkness up the coast. At around 11pm, through the aircraft window- looking north, I could start to see a faint light up ahead in the distance. As we continued the flight, the light grew brighter, like the dawn. Of course this was the Sun on the other side of the Earth starting to peek over the arctic circle, thus providing the 'midnight sun" over Alaska.
Following our arrival, we stopped in at our main venue, Chillkoot Charlies near downtown Anchorage, about an hour before closing. The band playing that night "Custom Deluxe" recognized us right away and called us up to play a few songs. Great guys and excellent players. The bass player, Monty, is this huge Tongan guy with a beautiful smooth tenor voice and a Stingray bass. I put his bass around me and it hung down to my knees. Turns out if you tell Monty you don't drink much, he'll order you many many shots of Makers' Mark whiskey, and supervise as you drink them. Our own Ryan, man of many indulgences, said he was proud of me- Yay!
Friday afternoon, the manager of Chilkoots, or "koots", as it's called locally- rented a huge RV and took our band about 5 hours south to Homer, AK -- a quaint drinking village with a small fishing problem. http://www.jmg-galleries.com/photo_a_day/images/070306_homer_ak_520c.jpg The owner of the club has a small fishing boat there which we took out into the ocean inlet for about 3 days of fishing (sleeping in the RV at night of course). Here, we could really experience the long hours of daylight (though it was mostly cloudy and gray out there). After many hours of fishing, boating, and drinking the sky was light- about what it would be like at about five o'clock at home. I looked at my watch to see it was 1130pm! It finally gets almost dark around 1230am or so.
There's an old sea faring tale that says one should never bring bananas onto a boat. That it brings bad luck, etc. The first day of fishing brought only one puny little Cod, caught by our Geoff. Additionally, the Ocean was rough in some spots and the waves brought some water onto the deck (not unusual for a boston whaler style boat). Turned out that the bilge pump wasn't working too well, then the back up was jammed a bit too. Great news...Well, of course everything worked out and the pump eventually kicked in. Then Big Mouth Geoff noticed a banana embroidered on my EastonAshe cap I was wearing (Ironically, our band's logo is a BANANA) and announced the discovery to all aboard. After I convinced them not to throw me over board, I promised to remove the patch before the next outing. When we got back to shore, I took a filet knife to the stitching, and we went out sans banana. Still the fish didn't bite the next day, and Matt gave me a good dirty look when I even mentioned the B word. Finally, the third day of fishing, the hat was gone, disappeared- nobody is talking and I somehow think I won't be seeing it again. That day we caught many fish, only keeping some. We caught a couple of these: http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/resources/tanya_dewey/Hemilepidotus_hemilepidotus.jpg/view.html
a very creepy monster that immediately puked up all over the deck of the boat as we reeled it up. Needless to say we didn't keep it. The Management of 'koots' has treated us so well, invited us into their homes and shared some great times and home cooking with us- the generosity of time and money for our accomodation is beyond compare. And it's only been a few days! We're looking forward to repaying the hospitality through our music and hopefully, our popularity with the Chilkoots crowd.
Tonight, Tuesday, 7.29, is our first night playing at the venue, and we're all looking forward to setting up and getting back to work. Chilkoot Charlies is huge, with about 10 bars within the place. The security is tight and the place is very well managed. It's been around for nearly 40 years and is known by many in the lower 48 as well.
Alaska is an incredibly beautiful place- unlike anything I've seen in my life. I've unfortunately forgot my camera cable for uploading, but I'll try to piece together some photos over the next few weeks. I've taken many, but can't post them yet.
More soon!
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