Monday, April 29, 2013

Recent musical happenings and Obligatory Commercial Outreach (Links to Demos within)

 It was my great pleasure to open up the musical festivities at the PSU Farmers Market this year. I'll be back there on June 24th at 11 am.
Special thanks to Yurs Bar & Grill, for hosting Sunday night music and to Tommy Suitcase for pushing that particular wheelbarrow.

I'm overjoyed to be approaching local venues once again looking for opportunities to bring my live music to their patrons. Rooted in Chicago and  Delta Blues, I play songs from a wide variety of sources, reimagined for resophonic slide guitar. Here's a link to a Soundcloud clip of me playing one of my favorite songs, Alberta, during a recent live online broadcast.
https://soundcloud.com/danlange/alberta-broadcast-1


   Short clips from my CD releases can be heard here, and of course the CD's and the MP3's can be purchased here http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/DanLange
I'm looking to contact interested venues in the Portland and Beaverton areas and can be best reached through my Email, danandjane@yahoo.com. Mention the name of the venue in the Subject please.







Saturday, April 27, 2013

Sitting on the Hogline



 That's Hogline fishing, on the Willamette not far from our Beaverton home. A chummy bunch, with several generations of one area family distributed in boats around the hog line known as "The Welfare Line".

Saw the Patriarch of the river clan lose a salmon to a sea lion - who nabbed it right off of the line and ate his prize in plain sight of us, clearly gloating. Caught the first salmon of my life, having angled for trout  on the Pennypack prepared me for the theory but in practice, the first fish I reeled in was a whole other thing. A large native fish, without the notch that shows a hatchery fish.  Steve, that's my neighbor, quickly returns the shining flash of fish to the river. Steve has been bringing me out on his boat lately.I'm liking the new neighborhood.
Some hours later, I reeled in the tasty looking Chinook seen here. The first fillets were eaten with a bottle of Crement - bubbly to celebrate my first salmon.

Monday, April 01, 2013

A tight spot

Yesterday was a spectacular spring day, and we came into Portland to take a walk up the hill to the Japanese Garden, then to wind our way up to the Maxx station by the Zoo.



We got off the Maxx train at the ballpark, and noticed an unusually noisy flock of crows. While saying things like 'huh, wonder what's got them riled up" we crossed the street - and a thump impacted against Jane's backpack. Looking down - a fat, dead pigeon on the ground. Looking up into the boughs of a small, leafless tree - an angry, frightened kestrel who had bitten off more than he could chew. The crows were mobbing the tree, keeping the small bird of prey trapped. They'd swarm at the tree, back off, regroup and fly back at the tree, karking and squawking as they swirled in flight. The kestrel's head darted this way and that, then centered his gaze, focused on distance. I was right there with the kestrel as we stood under the tree watching him. Surrounded by enemies, stuck in a tight place. How long could the crows stake the tree out? I thought that the only way out would be split second timing, waiting until the crows were at their most dispersed and - at that moment, like an arrow from an archers bow, the kestrel took off, west, with the alarmed, murderous crows in truly hot pursuit.

A few minutes later, as we approached the trailhead on Burnside, we saw the crows harrying a Red Tail. I imagine that the kestrel got away, and hope he had better luck hunting on the other side of the hills.