Oregon Music News

Lewi Longmire

Lewi Longmire sat on a park bench in a part at the end of Skidmore Street overlooking the rail yards watching the freight cars get added and subtracted to trains. The coupling process was both dreamy and and noisy. Each car was pushed by the train and then let go to roll on slowly until it stopped a few hundred yards away and then let crash into another car, coupling them together.

If you had to pigeon-hole him, he would be comfortable being known as a Roots-Rocker. Rock n Roll is not a negative.  Besides his own band he has a few side projects and seems to be everywhere playing with every Roots band in town. He also books the music that you hear at the venerable Laurelthirst Pub in Northeast Portland.

Listen to “Whatchoo Gonna Do About.” Longmire (acoustic and electric guitar, keys, and lead vocals), Bill Rudolph (bass and harmony vocals), Ned Folkerth (drums)

Longmire, who is 39, turned to me and told me he had a relative who had been a railroad hobo. He pointed out to the rail yard and said, “The Portland airport used to be out here,” as the train bells clanged  and the engine roared.

Do you ever write music up here?

I have come out here to play a little. There tends to be a fair amount of people that hang out here. I get a little self-conscious at times. I will strum and get some musical ideas.

Do you need solitude to write?

I prefer it if I’m alone n the house. I can go down in the house and be pretty separate from anyone in  it but I prefer it if there’s no one home at all. I don’t know why that is.

Nobody does. Do you write on guitar?

Guitar and piano. I got a little upright that was given to me my Morgan Grace. It’s painted green. It’s been a great tool because it’s always there. I’ve been learning recently the value of having a guitar out on a stand or the piano there open and present all the time because sometimes the amount of work it takes to go get a guitar out of the closet and open up the case, sometimes that’s just enough to make it not happen as often as it could. And I’ve only just recently been learning to really take the time go work on it when some sort of inspiration hits me. For years…I dunno if I was too lazy or what you would call it but some sort of inspiration would hit and, “Well, you know, I’ll remember that later, work on it later. Now I’m learning that if it hits you to just take the time to bang on it a little bit, mold it into shape.

It might not pass this way again. How are things going in the booking Laurelthirst department.

That’s my day job. It’s good. I’m thankful to be in that position. I feel like I got a pretty good handle on what sort of music works well in the room and what sort of audience works well. You almost couldn’t pay me enough money to do a job like that if it was just about making a living. It’s the perks on the spiritual side of working that job. Making sure the music gets in front of people and that audiences get in front of bands.

There have been a couple of experiences that have….things I’ve booked…Nick Jaina was doing a residency last December. It was just fantastic, they’re all so nice, the way they run themselves as musicians is so honorable the way they respect the whole concept of being performers. Nick was bringing in guests to do spots in the middle of his thing. One week he brought in this opera singer who he found in a coffee shop who was in town from Europe to do somethings for a couple of months.

He brought her down to play at the Laurelthirst. It was the Wednesday before Christmas and she worked out a traditional French Christmas carol with the band and she sang that. And then she was, “I’m an opera singer and I really wanted to bring you some of my opera but I couldn’t work out anything with the band, so if you’ll permit me this indulgence…” She had a CD and it was like opera karaoke, she played the backing tracks over the house system. We turned her mic off and she was just standing there on the stage singing.

Here was the Laurelthirst, a room that had already sort of cross-cultural crowd…there’s the sort of older freaks who hang out and the roots music people and the young hipster types…all mixed together. And then to watch that whole room of drinking people packed together, absolutely dead quiet while this woman sang a beautiful aria without a p.a., and watching these hippies and scenesters and they’re all just staring at her and being quiet and attentive.

I thought to myself, “I’m listening to opera being sung live at the Laurelthirst and everybody is loving it…this is just the best.”

What’s your concept of what you think the place should be..or is?

I’ve been booking it three or four years. I try and keep the concept of business out of it as much as I can. The place has a few strongholds of music where it’s been strong consistently for years, since long before I came in there…Freak Mountain Ramblers, Kung Pao Chickens, anything Billy Kennedy has to do with. It’s just cool to have it as a real populist place, for the everyman.

It’s a balancing act for me to find new young and energetic and hungry bands who are the right sort of people. They don’t mind running the p.a. by themselves, they don’t need a big lighting rig and it’s not about attitude or image…they just want to get in an intimate place and play music, right up there next to the people. I think that’s what the audience really digs too. I can tell pretty quickly when I’m dealing with musicians in the communications during booking whether they’re the right personality who’s really gonna get it.

It works best with people who have been there to  see shows and already have an understanding of the sort-of cafe nature of the place and want to be a part of that because it’s not the sort of room where you’re gonna build a huge career. But if you want to just get rid of anything that separates performer from performance as much as possible. It’s almost a living room vibe.

Lewi in musical exstacy

Is that what it’s like for you when you play there?

Totally. It’s a fine line. I feel like it’s such a second home to me, I’ve been playing there so long…I guess with some regularity, for seven or eight years. James Low brought me in there. I was playing there long before I was booking there. It’s like going in and plugging in in my basement. It like that I have that comfort but I don’t want to lose the vibe that I’m really honoring the fact that I have a weekly gig there and people come an listen to me every week. It would be easy to start phoning it in, just playing the same songs every week. I don’t ever want to disrespect the people like that. People who come hear you play week after week, that’s a lot of time out of someone’s life, man. That’s dedication and I want to make sure that I’m doing everything that I can that they’re getting an energetic return on their investment of presence.

But like with kids watching movies, fans want to hear the same songs over and over.

Got to play the hits! (Laughing) I’m thankful for that. It keeps me employed. I’m lucky because in my band, there’s enough of an improvisational nature to the whole thing that it never quite comes out the same way twice. Whenever people are asking for something I wrote myself, it’s still an incredible honor.

I can understand that Paul Simon gets sick of playing “Homeward Bound” in every concert after forty or fifty years but, I’m thankful for it. At some point I may get tired of it, but I’m thankful that anyone would want to hear a tune of mine.

Listen to “Baby Would You Take Me Home:”

Is there one that they ask for a lot?

A tune called “This Time,” several years old now, but it’s often asked for. That’s a hit single. (laughing)

Lewi Longmire band R to L Bill Rudolph, Lewi Longmire, Ned Folkreth

Tell me about the guys in the Lewi Longmire Band.

Myself with Bill Rudolph on bass and vocals and Ned Folkerth on drums. We’ve been together for over five years. It’s been a curse for me to not be able to come up with a name for the band. Calling it the Lewi Longmire Band is a bit of a disservice to them because what we’re doing now has as much to do with them as it does with me. I’m glad that they’re not complaining about it but it seems ridiculous to call it the Lewi Longmire Band. If either of them were different, it would be a distinctly different thing going on.

Listen to “Disappear”

In playing with a power trio, everyone is filling up a certain space. Everyone has to be playing at the top of their game in order for it to sound full. They are so intuitive. We know the songs really well and our styles really well. I can go ape-shit in a solo, really playing other things and I’ll be hinting at rhythms and they will shore up with me. We can create a swirling mass and all come out of it at the same moment, like telepathy. You can’t buy a thing like that, it’s just chemistry and time.

“Voluntary Martyr,” Lewi, Bill Rudolph, Ned Folkerth and Bingo) playing live on the “Recycled Music NW” cable access show in June 2007.

They both sing and Bill has a great high-harmony voice, so solid. We’ve been doing a lot of gigs with guest players. It’s fun now that we’re established to mix up the formula. As a guitarist, I like playing solos and getting my ya-ya’s out, but I really like backing up another soloist. I get tired of listening to myself play leads. I live inside my musical ideas so whereas they may feel fresh to someone else…if I take too many solos during a night, OK we’ve heard what I do. (laughing).

The band has developed into a real “Rock n Roll” band…classic…like The Who, Grand Funk Railroad…real heavy sound.

We’ve been circling around the concept of making a vinyl EP. Just take the power trio in there and play live, old school. Best case, we’ll track the thing live to tape, mix it to tape and master it to vinyl without ever going through a computer.

Another Project

Here is Lewi singing with Annalisa Tornfelt Jason Mellow at Mississippi  Studios: