Songs & Strings Tour Journal

Autumn 2002, West Coast
Michael DeLalla & Andrew McKnight

October 30, 2002: Thinking Outside the Box Canyon, Part 2

We awoke after a comfortable stay and great night's sleep at the Eagle House. Really, one could get spoiled with such digs as these, and Bliss Mansion. Weep for me.

Departing Eureka, I thought about the town, and my previous train of thought regarding box canyons. Whereas we were in town for less than 24 hours, we met such a diversity of people who call Eureka home. It seems to be a magnet for a lot of people who are escaping other parts of California, their box canyon, their final destination--artists, artisans, musicians, small businesspeople. It also seemed to attract a lot of people who almost seemed trapped here. Not with a sense of desperation--that would imply that they wish to leave. Resignation? Perhaps. I sensed a number of folks are resigned to being here, waiting it out like an animal trapped in a box canyon, who has forgotten the only way out is the way you come in.

We didn't need to be in Eugene OR until the evening, so we took a bit of a detour through Redwood National and State Parks, this time taking a hike through old-growth redwoods, whose path opened up out of the forest onto the craggy shore. What an intersection of my favorite terrains: mountain, forest, ocean. All of my basic place-needs met at once.

The show at Cafe Paradiso was a bit disappointing--a woefully small crowd served as a reminder that the work of audience-building for independent artists is much akin to the old saying, "all politics is local". It really struck a chord with me how much we rely on our listeners in each place we perform to spread the word. Ours is a grass-roots business, built one fan at a time, one connection from the stage to the listener. Then, it seems each of those folks tells others, who come to the shows... and with all of the modern technological tools we have at our disposal--email-lists, websites, MP3's--it still comes down to old-fashioned personal enthusiasm and the word-of-mouth it inspires (or word-of-email, or word-of-cellphone). Eugene made us really appreciate all the work our listeners do to help us build that base. May those efforts spread to Eugene the next time we come to town! We certainly will return and look forward to making some new friends. Ah, well. It would have been tough to go this entire tour without a slight setback. On to Marysville, our Washington redux.

Michael