I’ve been working on reformatting my website and blog once more, will be posting directly at www.karlifairbanks.com from now on as opposed to www.karlifairbanks.blogspot.com
Sorry for moving things around so much. Hopefully this will be a more permanent blogging solution!
San Luis Obispo treated us quite well with a nice dinner at the Holdgrafer family residence and good times catching up with old friends. It’s a pleasant town set in the middle of lovely california hills. Seems to be a place that you would never leave if you were born there. We spent our day off about town and the next day drove to Santa Barbara. The Santa Barbara show wasn’t much to talk about, but we ate some great burritos afterward. We continued further down into Socal and drove to stay with some friends in Huntington Beach that night. Waking up the next morning to sunny eighty degree weather was like waking up inside a dream. I can’t imagine living somewhere that holds summer weather all the way through what is supposed to be winter. Sometimes in the middle of February I wish very hard that I lived somewhere like that, but the grey melancholy of winter has grown to be a comfort to my soul.
Our next several days were in the sun. We drove back and forth between San Diego and Newport Beach a couple of times with a Sezio show in San Diego to a house show in Newport back to the Hotel Del Coronado for a Coast Keeper banquet. All three were very different and full of good friends and good music.
Our last show on the slate before heading home was set for Kennewick, Washington on Monday. With much debate and mile/hour crunching we decided to make one long drive all the way through California and up to Portland after playing at the Hotel in San Deigo. I took the first chunk of the trip and drove from San Diego to Sacramento through the night and saw some interesting things. Burning cars, burning hillsides, plenty of dead deer, layers of fog and a lovely sunrise. To stay awake I jotted some poetry in my tiny journal that ended up seeming a bit nonsensical once I read it during the daytime. Don’t worry though, we didn’t wreck or anything. I’m pretty good at writing without looking at the paper, it just ends up looking scribbly with the lines running together. And staying awake while driving on the freeway is much safer than focusing half of your attention on something else other than driving. Although, I don’t recommend driving through the night by any means, unless you have had some sort of graveyard work experience. And I definitely don’t endorse writing and driving at the same time. Just fyi.
So, we took California by the reigns and went from bottom to top. Then we took oregon as well. All with only one quick stop for some coffee and a few stops for gas. Portland was as lovely as ever when we arrived and the remainder of our day was filled with good friends and good music, as Portland always is. We got a chance to stop in at Nick Jaina’s album release show, which was such a fabulous treat and then we stopped by Jacob White’s show just down the road before finally resting our eyes for the night. I have not slept so deeply in a long time.
Stumptown and Powells were necessary stops before heading to Kennewick, since Shannon had not been to either. Weather had been perfect for our whole trip and Portland was no exception.
We got to the Red Room in Kennewick and once again thoroughly enjoyed their hospitality and grace in having us play on the bill. It filled my heart with joy to see a crowd of over 100 people there for the show. Shows there have really picked up some momentum and it was exciting to see the progression. Caroline and Ben came down from Spokane to give Shannon and I an extra boost of energy in our last show. I always sell the most cd’s when Caroline sings.
Clare and the Reasons and My Brightest Diamond were no letdown. Both sets were super entertaining full of silly gimmicks, tear jerking harmonies, awe striking costumes and a great puppet show finale. It was such an honor to be able to even watch both bands perform in such a cozy setting, let alone play within the same few hours as them.
Shannon and I drove back to Spokane after the show and went to our separate homes and separate beds with sighs of relief and let down knowing that we had arrived home for what could be a very long winter.
I always like to present a little thank you list at the end of a tour to acknowledge all the people who helped us out and offered so many blessings to us along the way. Thank you to everyone who was a part of making this such a fabulous time…this is going to be long…here we go…
First thanks to Shannon who learned the accordion and all my songs super fast and did such a good job coping with the new lifestyle of a road musician for 2 weeks. And for being a good friend to me through all of it. Caroline and Ben for supporting us and coming out to play the first and last show. Nick Jaina and William Joersz for being so damn good at what they do and for sacrificing some of their tour time to play shows with us and be friends with us. Bethany and Jed for Whidbey and tacos, Katelyn and Jenna for the futon and silly times, Laura for the sweet view, the Beautiful Clarks for rocking out in Seattle, the Sunset, Kinz for her car and love, the Adamo crew, Santa Lucia, Noah for setting up some shows and spending quality time, Garage Voice and their undying love and support and always progressing musical talent, Travis and the Sisters crew for an awesome and very memorable time in Oregon, Greg from Off the Air for adding us to the Modesto show, Nick Shattell and Chris Robley for their fine commitment to good music, Travis Vick and the whole Vick family, Dustin and Run On Sentence for a couple great performances, Cool As Folk for letting me be the very first Spokane artist to be a part of one of their shows, Khaia just for being the sweetest little thing ever and for letting us into her house for a show, Alana for playing with us, Spencer Brad and James for hanging out, the Holdgrafers for dinner, the Ramseys for their sweet house, Jeff for helping me set up the show in Santa Barbara, Joel for the shows and shared meals and time and space and friends, Andrew for breakfast and lots of directions, Ricky for being rad and parking my car when I was stressed out, the Richards for being so supportive, Drake and Betsy and Amber for the crazy blast from the past, Dad and Russ for driving so far to see us play, Kelly Bennett for playing with us on a few songs and melting my world with her strings, Mike and the beach house guys for one of our best shows of the whole tour, Shannon’s friends at Vanguard for being so joyful and welcoming and sweet, Marc for joining us at the beach house, Adam and Stew and Nic for the awesome jams, Anna and Tyler for playing, Stev-o and Bill for their hospitality, Carmen for joining us at the Hotel, Dave and the Coastkeeper people for making us feel welcomed and appreciated there, Karlee Ann for sharing her bed and songs on several occasions and for having the exact same name as me, Millie you are the cinnamon to my toast and Karlee is the sugar…yum, Caleb and Katie and everyone else at the Red Room for letting us finish out on such a wonderful note. And to everyone else that came to see us play and purchased cd’s to help us with gas money, we truly appreciate you and your support. Thanks thanks thank you!
phew, okay this is the longest blog post ever. Just a few more bits of info…Saturday is our homecoming show in Spokane at the Empyrean with Richard Henry, The Maldives and the Moondoggies both awesome bands from Seattle. Very kickin’ lineup. Hope you all can come out if you are around.
More videos from tour coming soon!
sincerely,
Karli
It tends to be the small things on a trip that make it so memorable. After leaving Oregon, where we happily filled up the gas tank on $1.99 a gallon for probably the last time in our lives, we entered into the state of California heading towards Modesto.
We were set to play an Off the Air show in Modesto and it was wonderful. I played at the same place in April and both shows were so great. It’s one of my favorite places to play. Greg from Off the Air has given me sooooo much booking help this year. Half the shows I’ve played in California would probably not have happened without his advice and planning.
That night after the show we went to the best taco truck ever and then to Manteca where they have a humongous bass fishing outlet? You can see it from the freeway. We were going to stop in but didn’t have time. Travis Vick and his wonderful family hosted us and gave us fresh homemade beef jerky, cereal and dry roasted spicy almonds for the road. Travis also burned us a few cd’s of music for the road. One of them happened to be some of his younger sister’s home recordings.
The day we left Manteca I had one of the most incredible experiences. We were driving on the freeway towards davis eating beef jerky from the Vick’s and listening to Taylor’s song called “Warm” where her and Travis sing together. You can hear it on her myspace page. The sun was also setting through thick clouds and all the colors were brilliant. Just all around an awesome conglomeration of things. It’s funny how some of the sweetest moments on a trip happen when you are traveling from one place to another. Shannon and I agreed that the Vick family sure has it made. I should have just titled this blog post…”the Vick’s are sick.”
But…I can’t devote all of my blog space to the Vick family, I must move forward and talk about the rest of our awesome day. We played a show in Davis presented by Cool as Folk with Run on Sentence from Portland. It was so nice playing our first several shows with some of my favorite Portland musicians. The show in Davis was small, but really fun and Shannon and I ate some of the best sushi of our lives. I can also now say that I’ve performed at a tattoo parlor. We were hoping for free ink as compensation, but no such luck.
From Davis we went to San Francisco, one of my favorite cities ever. Our friend Khaia goes to the Academy of Art and invited us to play a little show in her mansion/dorm. We spent the day out with her around town walking all the high hills. Shannon and I were excited to move after having been in a car for a whole week practically. We went to the Musee Mecanique and got rid of a ton of quarters on the fortune teller machines and little marionette entertainers. It was pretty awesome.
Dustin from Run on Sentence and another lovely talented lady from San Fran named Alan Sveta joined us at Khaia’s house to play a little show. It ended up being a really great spot and the girls in the house were really inspired to work on their art projects after we played.
We were sad to leave Khaia and such a great city, but stoked to move further south into sunny and warm territory. Giddy is about the only word that describes our trip down the coast to San Luis Obispo.
