oregon

Apple Jam

A picture I don't really remember taking...

OHHHH MAN, Apple Jam was awesome! For those who don’t know, Apple Jam is a 3 day music festival outside of Ashland, Oregon and put on by our friends in the band Karrgo Bossajova. We had the pleasure and honor of opening up this year’s festivities with a killer 2 hour set. After getting everyone amped for the weekend, we proceeded to get wild and crazy dancing around the festival bonfire and mingling with the other musicians and festival-goers.

We left the fest to play a show (see later post) and came back to enjoy another night of partying. On Sunday there was a scheduled “free jam” but the sound engineer for the festival had to go, so we came to the rescue and set up our PA to project the sounds for the day. Unfortunately rain ended the jamming early, but by then I was pretty much cashed anyways after seeing the sun rise only a few hours before. The weekend overall was super fun, and I can’t wait to come back next year!

PS We have recordings from this show…if you want to get a copy write a comment or email us at booking@achachay.com and tell us a good (creative) reason why we should send you a copy for free!

Hello Portland!

Today we got to visit a city I’ve wanted to visit for quite some time… Portland, Oregon!  We had a day to hang out in Portland and check out the city.  We spent some time in the most amazing book store.  Powell’s Books is a huge bookstore downtown Portland.  There are multiple floors of what seems like miles of bookshelves.  It was really incredible checking out the book selection and of course enjoying some coffee (the NW is proud of their coffee).  We stayed with the Kanagy’s and they were awesome.  They fed us and made us feel like we were at home away from home.  We played a show at ‘The Twilight Room’ near The University of Portland campus.  There was a decent crowd and as always we played a great show.  After the show we watched the worst movie I’ve ever seen.  It’s called Robot Holocaust. We expected it to be bad… but it turned out to be the worst movie I’ve ever seen… But other than the terrible movie everything was amazing in Portland.  Oregon is beautiful and Portland is no different.  The trees, hills, and friendly people make it a great town.  All that’s left to say is good-bye Oregon! I can’t wait to see you again. Hello Washington!

Salem – should the only other band on the bill stay for a your show?

Hooch at the capitol in Salem, Oregon

We continued our tour of Oregon by playing a show in the capital, Salem. The town itself is a little small and quaint. Everyone we encountered along the way told us that many people work in Salem and commute from Portland or other nearby towns. We spent maybe 5 hours total in Salem, so I’m not going to act like I really got to know the town, but from what I saw I thought it was cool enough. We played at this small venue called The Space. It was a independently owned venue, purely around to support live music. The cool thing about The Space is that even though its a very small venue, the stage was not small by any means. I always enjoy a venue that puts the music-needs ahead of most everything else. The venue was run by a guy named John (Jean?)- Paul who was dubbed “the Pope of Salem”.

Originally we were slotted to open the night for a local-ish band (I say local-ish because I think members from the band lived all over that part of Oregon) called Jamalia, but they insisted on going first and we obliged. This ended up being a very selfish move on their part. Most of the people who came out to see them, or just to see music, left by the time we started. This was a direct result of Jamalia ending their set late– they fucking played for around an hour and a half. I typically don’t care about this sort of thing, and I didn’t at the time, until all of the people left before our set (almost all at least) and even every member of Jamalia left long before we finished. I don’t know, maybe I live by some higher-code which I’ve fabricated out of the Rock-Lore in my brain, but out of respect to the other bands I think one should hang around for their set unless absolutely necessary. Whatever. For those who did stay, we rocked it as if there were thousands in attendance. We sold a few cds and a t-shirt so I can’t really complain.

I ask you, the reader, musician or not: Is there an unwritten law that says out of respect you should stay for the other bands playing that night? Discuss amongst yourselves…