Eleven Songs & a Cloud of Dust!

Well, the Orton Park Festival was something else. Looking out into the crowd, we saw a lot of the usual suspects. That was comforting because we also saw a lot of people...Sitting, waiting patiently...To be rocked.

I though, OK, we can handle this. We wanted to make the most out of our 45 minutes so we picked only our fast songs and agreed to transition from tune to tune as smoothly as possible (eliminating my normal wit and charming banter). We started of with a Buzzcocks cover to wake everybody up...We got the crowd's attention. We finished our tenth song, realized we had extra time and performed an eleventh. People were dancing and asking for more! But, we weren't the last band and it wouldn't be right for us to go over our time allotment.

As we were breaking down equipment we learned that we were supposed to have played for an hour. D'oh! Our stupid manager fed us the wrong information!! We promptly fired her ass and apologized to the festival organizers. Now we need a new manager.

We go through managers like most bands go through drummers.

Folk rock!!!?

Not that there's anything wrong with folk, but, calling us "folk rock" is like:

calling Pink Floyd upbeat
or
calling Bananarama deep
or
calling Mick Jagger fat

In other words.....WRONG! Please try again....

The MP's Make Music History

Pam and I have done a couple of "unplugged" gigs recently and they have been a real hoot. We played at the Great Taste of the Midwest for about 40 minutes, despite the UW Marching Band and rain and drunken fans(gawkers). We were joined by Ellie from the Dirt Floor/Tin Ceiling collective and sounded pretty spif if I might say so myself. Eventually we put the gear away and just drank great beer. A good afternoon for sure. Sunday we played at the closing ceremony for Trudy's Cafe. Pretty low key afair. Good food and appreciative fans. Jim James (of Dame Shames fame) was also performing and I enjoyed sitting in with him on his set. We almost had Gordon from the Gomers join us too, but somehow that got derailed. DON'T YOU DARE call this outing Folk Rock because it isn't! Watch for more MPs Unplugged gigs in the future. Busking on State Street is a probability.

For your reading pleasure, our latest press release:

Hello you little MoTOr PriMivItE

On August 6th, we managed to play a full show outside
without a major mishap (no rain, high winds, snow,
locust, etc…).

We’re goin’ for a “two-fer” with an appearance at the
fabled Orton Park Festival. That’s right kids! The
Motor Primitives are playing on Saturday, August 27th
at 3:30pm. The full, three-day music line up can be
found here:

http://www.marquette-neighborhood.org/ortsched2005.html
The rain day back-up location is the High Noon Saloon

Other notable events this week in rock history:
1968 - The Who's drummer, Keith Moon, drives a Lincoln
into the pool of a Holiday Inn in Flint, Michigan.

1969 - The Rolling Stones enjoy their fifth American
chart topper with "Honky Tonk Women". The record also
made #1 in the UK. It was the last hit that included
original guitarist Brian Jones, who had drowned in his
swimming pool on July 3rd.

1970 - Four former session musicians who called
themselves Bread, topped the Hot 100 with "Make It
With You", a song written by their lead singer, David
Gates. It made #5 in the UK.

1978 - Comedian Steve Martin was awarded a gold record
for "King Tut".

1979 - Nine weeks after being released, The Knack's
infectious tune "My Sharona" reached the top of the
Billboard Hot 100 where it would remain for six weeks.
Billboard would later name the record as the number
one single of 1979. In the UK, it reached number six.

2005 – The Motor Primitives play the Orton Park
Festival. All went well until bassist Matthew Sanborn
lights patchouly stuffed clay effigies of the green
man hidden in Robin’s bass drum, resulting in a
stunning pyrotechnic display and stinking up the
neighborhood for weeks.

See you there!

KATROBINPAMMAT

Words, words, words, words....

There are definite reasons why I don't normally offer up "meanings" of songs that I have written.The main reason is that I want you, the listener, to make up your own meaning. That's what makes the song special to you ('cause it's already special to me). Once we put the song out there, it's fair game for you to make it anything you want. Now....if I tell you what I was thinking about when I wrote the song....will it ruin it for you?

Sad Sack Blogging

What kind of a blog is this? No one ever posts anything here. So, why would anyone keep checking?

Sad sack blog!!!

Things had better change around here or else!

Well, in other news, we actually managed to play an outside show without a tornado threatening to carry us off to Oz. We opened The Atwood Summerfest (thanks to Rokker and the Maximum Ink folks) and people were even awake and wandering around at the early hour of noon.

Now, we're gearing up for the Orton Park Festival (one of my personal favorites). We play at 3:30 on Saturday, Aug 27th. We're just before Cris Plata and a couple of hours before Robbie Fulks. We're also playing right after "unannounced special guest" I hear they're really good, exotic and mighty hot! It oughta be gurrrrreat!

The full 3 day schedule can be found at http://www.marquette-neighborhood.org/ortsched2005.html

By the way...Did you ever wonder what all those songs we play are all about? Maybe I'll come clean and tell you some day....