Kate Power and Steve Einhorn and Modoc, the Oversized Econoline
Seventeen Thousand Miles in a Ford Econoline named Modoc. Two dozen Ukuleles, a gaggle of guitars, and life’s possessions in storage. If that doesn’t sound like the refrain from a folk song, then we’re not talking about Kate Power and Steve Einhorn, well known as the 26-year caretakers of Artichoke Music on Hawthorne.
Power and Einhorn handed the Artichoke keys to Richard Colombo and Jim Morris in 2006 to pursue a full-time career performing music. In October of 2009 they sold their house and moved into an oversized Econoline van (left) to travel the country singing and playing. They recently parked “Modoc” in front of Costello’s Travel Caffe and shared stories from the road.
Leaving Artichoke…
“We don’t miss the store,” says Einhorn. (Kate immediately contradicts with a resounding “YES we miss the store.”) Einhorn continues, “We miss the people. But they are coming to our shows, and we see them on the road. We’re happy the store is in caring hands.”
“It was a blast being there. It was the gateway to a tribe. It was the love of music that we all had. Every day was romantic, and it brought in heritage, culture and kids.”
“We were so accustomed to having a place, but we had to move out of our home. We were going to rent, but we realized that it was just like our old house, and that Kate couldn’t stand up on the second story unless she had a pointy head,” says Einhorn. “So we rented a storage unit, stashed everything, and went on a road trip.”
“There are mornings I wake up terrified, and some I wake up excited,” says Power. “I’m grappling with accepting – enjoying – the part of me that I’ve avoided. All of a sudden, I’m starting to feel like I’m good at this, and I’m happiest when I’m doing it.”
“I’ll tell you – Wednesday, it was pouring rain – and we were headed down to this elementary school. Six years old are intimidating – I didn’t know what to expect. I have to admit feeling kind of depressed, but the minute we started, it was ok – something happens. I find the material, its in there. The next day I woke up feeling so happy. This is what I need to be doing.”
Road trip…
Seventeen thousand miles covers a lot of ground, and the Quality Folk calendar lists events from New York, California, Washington and Oregon.
Powers says, “We were driving up the Avenue of the Giants, admiring the redwood trees. I was just inspired to play a song for them. I have on a funny hat, felted fiber with puppy ears (very warm) and this song just erupted. I’m hoping to go viral.”
“In Wichita Kansas, there was a box turtle crossing the road,” relates Einhorn. “Kate yells STOP. I got out, chatted with it a bit, then moved it off the road. For us, that turtle represented hope and survival. What a joy to pick up a turtle and save its’ life. It reminded me of Old Barbershop.”
Ukalaliens…
Normal musicians travel with a few extra instruments, but carrying 28 Ukuleles seems excessive – possibly compulsive? Actually, the Ukulele agglomeration is part of the show. Along the way, Power and Einhorn have launched a career teaching Ukulele to Ukalaliens – their name for a new Uke player.
“We’ve taught 2,247 new Ukalaliens. All those years in the store when someone would walk in, looking a little bewildered, we’d hand them a Ukulele.” says Power. “Now we teach workshops. Music is good for people and we’re spreading it around.”
Steve Einhorn blindfold testing a Mya-Moe uke
Power and Einhorn transport two kinds of Ukulele’s; Kala and Mya-Moe.
“Kala makes a great working-class Uke,” says Einhorn. “They stay tuned, they are easy to play and they’re inexpensive.”
“We also use Mya-Moe Ukes,” mentions Power. “They’re manufactured in White Salmon, Washington. Steve did a blindfold test – he really liked the way they played.”
Guabi Guabi…
Einhorn and Power relate an interesting story of how their music traveled around the world. It revolves around a South African Zulu song called “Guabi Guabi” …
“This is a very popular song in Zimbabwe, Fritz Richmond performs it a lot, and taught it to Steve, who it turn, taught it to me,” says Power. “We put it in the Ukalaliens song book, and then Steve gets a letter from Peter Vickary, who publishes music in Australia. Turns out that Peter had been raised in Zimbabwae, and was googling for the original song by George Sibanda – but we turned up instead. Peter is considering publishing the Ukalaliens book because of that connection.”
We’re moving to Olympia….
“There’s so much in-between our gigs. Home. Being a parent. Being a daughter,” says Power. “Our community has suddenly expanded, we’ve fell in love with place after place. It was never what we expected. So many people and places that said ‘Live here with us.’”
Power and Einhorn have decided to take up residence in Olympia, Washington to be closer to family. But that doesn’t mean they won’t be back in Portland on a regular basis.
“We’ll be performing on July 7th at the Alberta Rose Theater, and doing a Uke sing-a-long on the 23rd of September. We keep our calendar up to date,” says Einhorn. “Plus, we have a new album out, Brick and Mortar, that has music from the minute we left Artichoke music up to today. We became our own Brick and Mortar.”
As I’m leaving the interview, Kate and Steve are poetically negotiating Modoc into traffic – as poetic as you can be with a double-height Econoline van. But it suits their lifestyle.
“We have gotten to stay in the finest places with the friendliest people,” closes Power. “We’ve been taken very good care of, in ways that all the money of the world couldn’t have done better. We gets lots of emails from people figuring out their transitions – fortunately, we’re doing what we love and that’s working.”
Artichoke Music writes to tell us that news of their demise is premature…
Dear Friends,
You have all read stories of near death experiences. Well, we are here to tell you that all of those accounts are true. We saw the end of Artichoke very clearly last month. There was a bright white light and a long tunnel. We had an overwhelming feeling of peace and tranquility amidst the sadness. Then, a kind and gentle hand reached out and we were thrust back into reality carrying a sense of hope. In short, we are not closing.
Following our announcement last month that we were closing Artichoke Music we received countless passionate offers of help. One of those offers stood out. The Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC) approached us with an offer of support. They offered to provide some consulting to see if there was a viable and sustainable model that would keep Artichoke open. We have begun our work with a remarkable consultant, George Thorn, who is serving as our guide through this process. We are just beginning our work with George but we are hopeful that we can emerge from this time as a healthy nonprofit.
These changes will take some time to sort out. We are getting financial and legal advice as we look at Artichoke from every angle to insure the new model is sustainable. A new business model is being designed and tested. We don’t know how long this will take but we are committed to business as usual until everything sorts out.
Thank you to our dear friend Alan Alexander who introduced us to RACC. And thank each and every one of you for your patience with us. I know you have been along for the wild ride as we kept you updated along the way. Stay tuned as we work our way through this. You are the reason we are here. Come see us.
Mary Flower and Claudia Schmidt fill the room at The Woods
My seating at the Claudia Schmidt / Mary Flower concert was a large, welcoming couch, pulled out of somebody’s estate sale – most certainly an appropriate place to enjoy the mix of blues, folk and spoken words performed to a full house at The Woods. Although billed as a headliner for Claudia Schmidt, it was clearly a duet between the two women. And The Woods was a perfect venue - bigger than a house concert, smaller than an auditorium. This is how concerts must have been before electricity brought television and radio into America’s home parlors.
Schmidt bemoans what media has done to music, and why concerts are special. “Music is a meeting – there’s this rich panoply calling us to see it. Radio has let us down, it dumbs down our palette. We’ve become compartmentalized.”
Mary Flower, Premier Fingerstyle Acoustic Blues Guitar player
The first part of the evening was spent with Mary Flower, a Portland native. Unassuming when you meet her, you’ll have a sense of déjà vu – haven’t we met already? And you may have, since she is active in the local blues and folk scene. Some of you may have caught her on the Portland Spirit with Reggie Houston during the 2008 Portland Waterfront Blues Festival. If not, you’ll find her performing on a regular basis around town.
She picks up that guitar, and out comes fingerstyle blues you haven’t heard before. Or she starts playing Steel Guitar. Both masterfully performed for your listening pleasure. Flower herself is somewhat understated on stage, allowing her music to take front and center, shining as a result of her combination of lyrics and technique. Reference the next video for proof. (and why is it some of the best stuff is listed as instructional videos?)
After (what seemed like …) a short gig on stage, Flower was joined by Schmidt for a duet. Where Flower is shy, Schmidt is a force of nature. Combined, they compliment each other’s songs – it becomes difficult to know who wrote which, and whom recorded what. “This is our first opportunity to do songs together,” says Schmidt. “We’re finding how our musical paths converge.”
Claudia Schmidt shares a gripping poem
Claudia Schmidt comes off as just one of your best friends, there to play some music in your living room. While Flower was on stage, Schmidt was circulating around the back of the room, catching up on stories and renewing friendships with people she hadn’t met until five minutes ago. Some concerts are little more than shill-fests to sell the latest CD’s – Schmidt’s feels more like a reunion at summer camp.
Schmidt’s strength is spoken word and poetry. Ask a Claudia Schmidt Fan about “Pie” or “Thank you notes for Relish Dishes” and you’re suddenly on the receiving end of a recital inspired by a poetry reading from Schmidt. But spoken poetry isn’t all she is about – she carries a mountain dulcimer – and folks, she knows how to use it.
I’ve always suspected the mountain dulcimer as an instrument for casual musicians, kind of the paint-by-numbers of the musical world. But I need to revisit that assumption after listening to Flower and Schmidt performing a spunky little blues duet, combining fingerstyle blues and dulcimer. Blues chords aren’t trivial, fingerstyle blues isn’t trivial – and yet, there it was, coming out of that slender little instrument in Schmidt’s lap.
Schmidt performs a range of jazz, blues and folk songs. “Jazz makes my voice stronger,” Schmidt says. “But I’m comfortable across genres.” As an example, listen to “Ubumama,” a crossover piece between world and folk music.
“My job is sharing our existence, ennobling every day,” says Schmidt. “If I have writers block, it’s not about scarcity – it’s about abundancy.”
The collaboration between Flower and Schmidt is partly due to the efforts of Kate Power and Steve Einhorn and their efforts at Artichoke music. Which is a moment of sadness, as we note that Artichoke music will be closing their doors in May. But Schmidt and Flower are good friends, and perhaps they’ll grace us with a repeat concert. Schmidt will be back in Portland in December 2010 to perform with the Aurora Women’s Chorus.
Richard Colombo, who has been at the helm of Artichoke Music since Kate Power and Steve Einhorn gave up the business wrote this sad message today:
Dear Artichokians, Folkies and Friends,
You have all followed the struggles we have had for the last year or so. The time has come for us to close Artichoke Music, as we know it, and to regroup or redesign the model. Thanks to Kate and Steve, we have been blessed with an incredible place to come together as a community. Unfortunately, this space is not sustainable from a financial, physical or emotional perspective. We will close the doors on Saturday, May 29, 2010.
In 1971 Judith Cook opened a small retail music shop in Northwest Portland and named it Artichoke Music because “Artichokes are all Heart”. Even then, 40 years ago, this place was anything but a typical music store. Artichoke has always been about community and together we have all built one of the most amazing communities in the history of Artichoke. Even though the space is going away, the community will continue to grow and blossom as we recreate Artichoke in a home grown model.
This has been one of the most wonderful experiences of our lifetime, filled with wonderful memories. We have had such a great time making music with all of you. As we close these doors, new ones are opening. Please don’t be sad. We aren’t. Artichoke is alive and well and will be resurfacing in another form. Stay tuned.
Come see us. We would love to see each and every one of you over the next month or so.
Yes twenty-two years of Winterfolk in Portland! The annual benefit for Sisters of the Road comes to the Aladdin Theater on Saturday, February 6 with an acoustic music fan’s feast of performers.
This year’s headliner is Peter Yarrow (of Peter, Paul and Mary)! Other performers will include (they tell us):
Brian Cutean from Eugene, Oregon. Brian is one of Oregon’s unique musical treasures. Brian has performed his songs of spirit, whimsy, and power all over the United States, and is a mainstay of the Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas.
The Artichoke Music All-Stars: Richard Colombo, Matt Meighan, Leela Grace, Ken Vigil and crew give a performance that epitomizes the “Artichoke Music Experience,” inspiring music and community on Portland’s SE Hawthorne Boulevard for over 30 years.
Nancy Conescu is a world traveler and renowned interpreter of traditional Irish Music. This will be Nancy’s 2nd Winterfolk appearance.
The Wanderers: Bill Murlin and Carl Allen, featuring the Columbia River Songs of Woody Guthrie. In 1941, Guthrie spent a month hired by the Bonneville Power Administration to write songs in the Northwest for a documentary movie telling of the industry and democracy at work at the Bonneville and Grand Coulee Dams. Bill and Carl have spent 20 years performing these inspiring songs at libraries, folk societies, and historical associations throughout the Pacific Northwest.
David Rea: an integral player in folk, heritage music and contemporary rip-snortin’ string-flashing for decades.
The Tom May Trio; the director and founder of “Winterfolk” returns with some new songs and stories from his travels, and celebrates the 25th anniversary of his national radio broadcast, “River City Folk,” this year.
Tickets are $28 advance and $30 on the day of the show. Available at Ticketmaster outlets, 1-800-745-3000 or online or at the Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie Ave, 503-234-9694 and at Music Millennium, 3158 E Burnside, 503-231-8926. Also at Artichoke Music, 3130 SE Hawthorne, Portland Fretworks, 3039 NE Alberta St. and Sisters Of The Road’s office at 618 NW Davis St.
They also add:
Returning again is Sisters’ annual Guitar Raffle! Try your chances to win a one-of-a-kind Small Jumbo Acoustic Guitar handmade by Jay Dickinson of Portland Guitar ($3,000 value!) and ten hours of studio time at Billy Oskay’s Big Red Studio ($750 value)! Tickets are only $10, and the winner is drawn at the show.
We don’t run whole emails as a rule, but in this case we’re making an exception. Steve Einhorn and Kate Power were synonymous with Artichoke Music until they turned it over to a non-profit a few years ago.
Now the venerable music institution is in trouble. They wrote:
We got married in our living room on Valentine’s Day in 1998. We had moved Artichoke Music to where it is now just months before. Folk icons like Dave Van Ronk, Johnny Cunningham, Martin Sexton, David Grisman, Peter Rowan and even Odetta had already graced the Artichoke stage that year.
These folk heroes were just a few of many who would perform there in the back of the shop. As Oregon’s Glen Moore bowed his resonant bass (old enough to have played Beethoven’s debut compositions live), he reminded the audience just how rare Artichoke Music is for musicians like him. Travel the world over and you’ll see how true it is. There is no place like Artichoke Music.
Artichoke has taken a beating and is standing on one leg. The people keeping it alive are running out of gas and are short on cash. It’s time to decide.
Let’s keep Artichoke Music around. Do what you can.
We’ll be there. We hope you will be too.
Friends of Artichoke Music have organized a benefit open house and fund raising campaign to help out. They hope to raise the $15,000 that Artichoke needs to catch up on rent, insurance and other facility costs.
Please join us for “Give Your Heart to Artichoke” benefit open house on Valentine’s Day, Sunday,
Feb 14 from 2 – 7 pm.
Performers include Kate Power & Steve Einhorn, Sky in the Road, Tom May, Dick Weissman, Anne Weiss and many more! This will be a love fest.
Admission is only $10 and advance tickets can be purchased at the store.
If you can’t come to the show but would like to make a donation, contributions can be sent directly to Artichoke Music, marked “Artichoke Benefit”. Note: this is a benefit for Artichoke’s facility (concert hall, school of music and shop) rather than for the Artichoke Music Foundation, so donations are not tax-deductible.
Dick Weissman has had quite a storied career in music — he was part of the legendary folk group the Journeymen, was a studio musician and producer, then a composer, professor and writer, and still continues to record and put out music (when he’s not engaged in some of the former.) If you think a guy who got his start in the midst of the folk revival has some great stories to tell, you’re right — and you have the chance to hear some of those when he appears at Artichoke Music on Saturday, Jan. 30 with a one-of-a-kind performance that centers around those tales.
“For the last ten years I’ve told stories when I perform music. Some of this is because I play quite a bit of instrumental music, and the folk music audience finds some of it pretty abstract,” Weissman explains when asked how the show came about.
“I did a show at Artichoke in the fall, and the owners, Richard and Jim, said to me, ‘Why don’t you do a show that has more of the stories as the centerpiece, and uses the music as a backdrop, rather than the other way around?’ This is that show. I really have no idea how it will be received, but I’m always interested in trying something different, if it makes any sense to me.”
Even a cursory glance at Weissman’s trajectory shows that openness to exploration. After all, this is a guy who started off as a semi-professional ping pong player and ended up rubbing elbows with John Lee Hooker and Bob Dylan.
In Weissman’s world, there’s even sense in that.
“There was an odd connection between ping pong and music,” he laughs. “Most of my rivals lived in New York, and I’d go up there and got to hang out with them. They were all heavily into Thelonious Monk and Charlie Parker, so I got to hear a bunch of bebop records.”
When a late growth spurt put an end to his ping pong career, Weissman went back to school — learning how to play the guitar and banjo in the process. Ping ponging between grad school and the NYC folk scene provided the start to some of the stories he’ll be telling.
“I lived in New York in a house with DC current in what you’d call Lower Harlem, on 106th Street between Amsterdam and Columbus Avenue,” he begins, when asked to provide a preview. “We had periodic blues parties in our five room railroad flat. One night we had over 100 people there, and my roommate, a black actor named Jim Spruill, and I looked around and realized we only knew about a dozen of the people there.
“John Lee Hooker and Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry were there, among others,” he continues. “John Lee Hooker was a very interesting guitarist but not a technical one. Brownie was a more versatile and better-trained musician, and he proceeded to have a cutting contest with Hooker, which was no contest at all. Hooker said to me, ‘Let me go to the car and get my amplifier.’ It was very hard to make him understand that because we didn’t have AC current, the amp would blow out if he tried to plug it in.
“I thought it was pretty funny that this white boy graduate student (me) didn’t have advanced enough technology to accommodate the needs of this ‘primitive’ blues musician,” he chuckles.
If you’ve picked up a copy of Weissman’s fine double album, “Four Directions,” you’ve already had a preview (courtesy of the tracks at the end of each disc with brief explanations of the songs) of how he wryly weaves personal anecdotes with musical inspirations and social movements with an uncanny bird’s eye view of how they all interconnect.
His inherent openness and ability to synthesize disparate influences and ideas have made him a truly innovative banjo player, musician and songwriter. Those same qualities and perceptiveness also make him a great teacher and writer. The same man who co-authored the influential “Folk Music Sourcebook” and wrote “Whose Side Are You On” (an exhaustive look at folk throughout the 20th century) penned the slyly titled “The Music Business: Career Opportunities And Self Defense” and has a new book on the horizon about musical, social change and ethnicity.
“It was a huge research project,” says Weissman. “It has chapters about music of immigrant groups, songs about American history, songs about and by Native Americans, African-Americans, women, Spanish-speaking groups, songs written to encourage social change, and neo-fascist songs.”
You’ll have to wait for that, but if you’d like some of his insight on the music industry without going back to school (Weissman still teaches part-time at Portland Community College) you can catch him at the Musician’s Union on Monday, Jan. 18, where he’ll be conducting a workshop on music publishing for songwriters and composers, and how to write books about music or music instruction materials.
Asked if he has any advice for aspiring musicians, he responds with this nugget. “My advice is not to survive a music career doing one thing, unless you are extremely lucky. You can be a songwriter, a performer, record producer, a teacher, a recording engineer, a composer or whatever, but the more things you can do, the better your long-term career prospects are.
“I studied jazz guitar with a fantastic musician named Barry Galbraith,” he continues. “He told me that whenever anyone asked him whether they should go into the music business he said no, they shouldn’t. If they said, ‘I’m going into the music business, what can I do to help get my career going?’ then he would offer encouragement. His thinking was that it’s a difficult thing to do, and if you have doubts to begin with, why subject yourself to such an uncertain life?”
Undoubtedly, anyone who hears Weissman’s vibrant tales (writing a song at a party while breaking up with Karen Dalton, his tenure with the Journeymen, work writing songs for unions and a lifetime’s more) will likely feel the siren’s song. Hearing Weissman’s tales make history and music spring to life. For some of us, though, it’s safer to view the world through the sage eyes of someone who’s already traveled it.
“The biggest surprise (in my life) is that I have been able to survive a long-term career in music, make a reasonable if not ridiculous amount of money and lead a comparatively sane life in terms of having a family,” Weissman concludes. “I also never expected to have a career writing books about music.”
It’s a pretty fair bet that the former semi-pro ping pong competitor also never expected he’d be living, teaching, writing and performing in Portland and spinning incredible tales about his life in the music biz.
Then again, if anyone could have made that connection it would be Weissman.
7 p.m. Monday, Jan. 18, Musician’s Union, 325 N.E. 20th Ave., 503-235-8791, free to union members, $10 to members of any music organizations or Willamette Writers, $20 to others
Although founders Kate and Steve are no longer owners, the legendary guitar store and performance venue (Backgate Stage) continues without pause and with unfailingly goodwill. Features acoustic blues, folk, bluegrass and such. —tvd
(RACC) approached us with an offer of support. They offered to provide some consulting to see if there was a viable and sustainable model that would keep Artichoke open. We have begun our work with a remarkable consultant, George Thorn, who is serving as our guide through this process. We are just beginning our work with George but we are hopeful that we can emerge from this time as a healthy nonprofit.
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