The Suitcase Junket at Redwood Curtain and more...

Welcome back to the blogosphere, well thanks. Been away for awhile. Today I attended a very inspirational talk by Andrew Davis of tippingpoint labs where he shared ideas of how Humboldt County is failing in terms of promoting ourselves (yes I'm included in that), what the 'outside world' knows of us, and a little insight on what we need to do as a community whole to promote ourselves better.

Being a new business owner with very little business savvy, it was interesting to hear a perspective other than trying to get page hits and unique viewers to our websites. Really, isn't that how we win? I've dabbled quite a bit on this world wide internet and have come across so much information of people toting their page hit medals, but lack a real strategy. Wow, I'm probably boring the heck out of you right now. Really it's all interesting stuff that goes beyond your web presence but in your content. And for that, I've been a bit inspired to share a little about what happens around here behind the Redwood Curtain (a term in which I got to share with Andrew personally).

Andrew is from Boston on the east coast, and it turns out the next fella is also from 'round them parts. This all happened by accident really, as a friend an myself were headed down to Redwood Curtain Brewing for a nice refreshing IPA on happy day Tuesday. It turned out that a one man band by the name of The Suitcase Junket was in town and performing shortly after we arrived. Somehow I must've known that my camera would be needed and just happened to be slung around my shoulder along with my trust sb-600 flash and a little flash stand. I love when I'm prepared.


The Suitcase Junket has a rather interesting style that I really dug. Using three foot pedals, of which one slapped a traditional style bass hammer on a non-traditional style suitcase that he was sitting on, one for a top-hat symbol, and the other for a baby shoe against a metal gas can.



Unfortunately I didn't get any up close shots of his instrumentation, mostly because I was generally into just watching and listening (and enjoying the best IPA in Humboldt County of course). His songs were original and mixed with a sort of "flailing" guitar, that he often would turn into a more bluesy sound with the help of a glass slide.


Probably the most interesting for me was the Tuvan like throat singing that he busted out. I've always been a fan of Tuvan throat singing but never heard anything quite like his. The Junket had a much more high pitched beautiful whistle sound that I felt worked very well with his Tom Waits covers and his original folky jams.


If you want to learn more about The Suitcase Junket visit his website. Thanks to Redwood Curtain Brewing Company for bringing in a great, and surprising show. Hopefully more music like this will appear in the future.