The Whole Chinchilla Day Commercial Thing

The odious and ghastly exploitation of the Chinchillas is historical. All existing wild species are endangered and at least one species has been hunted to extinction. No small wonder that Madison Avenue has seized on the rodents' angst to engender a sort of revolutionary fervor in which to pander to the violent tendencies in humans. Chinchilla Day indeed! The Chinchillas have not had their day, oh no dearest reader, nay! There will come a time when the flayed gassed-to-death zombiesque carcasses of our brethren will literally rise from their tormented graves to exact the revenge from these "Mad Men" that have so callously and casually , portrayed this affable, curious, gentle friend of humanity, this fuzzy imp as a dangerous gun-toting "bandito".

Yes, take some time off in Las Vegas. Go lose your shirt, as it were. You won't be needing it. What goes on in Las Vegas... The loved ones hiding in their stolen stoles will not be safe from these vengeful devils. They have been lying chin-chilled without their comfy coats and they want their covers back. Only then will our namesakes find peace in the whirling dust bath of infinity.

"But it's all in fun" you say, "...just a commercial" Well I suppose you are correct. But later on as you slumber if you hear a scurrying about in the pantry, a gnawing on some fallen tid-bit, don't be alarmed. It's already too late! Hah hahah ha hahah ha ha...

Autumn Colors and the Soothing Sound of Surrender

The group has been busy. Recent gigs include The Redwood Valley Farmers Market, The Westport KOA and an elaborate birthday party at the Frey Vineyard Ranch. Upcoming events are The Annual Frey Vineyard Ranch Autumn Festival and a stint as the contra dance band at the local Methodist Church Contra Dance. Another festival for the non-profit Cloud Forest Institute on Saturday, October 31 is in negotiation.

One of the more significant recent events was not a gig, but a private workshop with John Beatty, local sound reinforcement expert. We surrendered our egos as he led us through the steps needed to operate our sound system by ourselves when we don't have, well an expert like John Beatty on-site. Since then our sound has improved greatly and it has alleviated a lot of tension among the members. We are able to use the monitors without ear-shattering feedback. (at least most of the time) It really has made a world of difference and we are grateful to John for the guidance and the patience to endure our ineptitude as well as our generally raspy sense of humor (I speak for myself here{Cal G.}).

Scroll Down for Music Samples, Podcasts, Email and promo-pics

'09 Update

We've had a slow winter but the Summer finds us busy with The Redwood Valley Farmers Market and private parties. We're working on New tunes and resurrecting some old faves as a sort of priority. Our new PA is working out and we are trying to get the monitors to our liking. We hope you like the "freshening-up" of the website. Please let us know what we could do better.
Below please find some "new" podcasts of old material. As I've said before I will try to make it all available eventually.

A Clash of Wallpaper

When in the course of Chinchilla events it becomes necessary to take any job that's available we will occasionally take a gig that is euphemistically classified as wallpaper music. This in essence means that we have lost complete creative control over the situation and are actually asking people to not pay attention. (Not that I'm complaining, we love to play and will do just about anything to show off.) We must scour the repertoire for non-music as I like to call it, you know, background stuff. And then we have to play it longer than we have originally prepared and so it changes! Again that's OK as well because we like to jam sometimes. (just another way to show off really, that is if anyone is listening)
But something happened at The Saturday Afternoon Club on...wait for it..Saturday Afternoon! People began listening! Oh, yeah, we were surprised too. But for some reason the songs we had chosen were going over nicely and so we broke the cardinal rule of wallpaper and it was getting sticky. More and more people were listening and then it happened at the end of a song...wait for it...ovation! That's right folks, it started with just the sound of one hand clapping and then suddenly that hand came in contact with another. (Thus the clapping sound arose) and it was repeated and then again and again until the clapping became applause and all the imprisoned people in abject poverty were fed and freed of their bondage and peace settled over the earth and the forces of evil were once more reduced to their slinking away into the darkness to plot and plan their next assault. They will just have to wait until the applause dies down... and who knows just how long that will take?