FIVE & DIME NEWS
		Moominpappa at Sea has concluded a successful two-week run at the Alpine Playhouse in McCall, Idaho (July 24-26 & July 30-August 2); Eberle & I completed the very final soundtrack recording on July 20.  We were able to catch three performances, & each time were impressed by the great job done by Judy Anderson & the cast.  Gayle Dixon’s costumes were gorgeous & evocative, & the set was magical.  Of course, we need to acknowledge that The Moominpappa at Sea project received generous support from the Idaho Commission on the Arts & the National Endowment for the Arts.  I’ll update the Moominpappa at Sea page with performance pictures if/when these become available. We’re looking forward to performing as The Spurs of the Moment at the Council Mountain Music Festival this August.  We’ll be playing the role of “house band” in between the three headline acts on Saturday, August 16th—playing three short sets sometime between 5:00 p.m. & 8:00 p.m.  (very roughly & approximately).  The Spurs of the Moment line-up for the festival will be Chris Leone on guitar & vocals, Dani Leone on steel drum, Lois Fry on fiddle, Eberle on melodica (& probably flute for one or two songs), & yours truly on the tenor resonator uke.  You can check out Chris Leone’s Spurs of the Moment page here.  I’d like to  link to the Council Mountain Festival page, but as of August 3rd, that page still hasn’t been updated from last year…. We did sneak in one Five & Dime Jazz gig this summer amongst the “Moomin” madness, playing a wedding at the lovely old Finnish Church in Roseberry, Idaho.  There were some real highlights to this gig—we got to play with the Spokane Symphony’s excellent bass player, Greg Youmans, & we also got to play with our old Alice in Wonder Band pal, Art Troutner.  The set list was eclectic even by our standards.  In addition to the usual run of old standards, we also played a Leonard Cohen song as the processional (by request of the wonderful bride & groom), & a maypole dance.  A good time seemed to be had by all. There were some additions to the Five & Dime Jazz web universe since the May 30th "news" update.  In addition to the Moominpappa at Sea page (complete with mp3s!), there are also pages for all of our past music projects:The Alice in Wonder Band, Antigone, & Rootabaga Stories.  I also added poems from my Charlottesville days, as well as a selection of the translations I worked on while in San Francisco back in the '90s; & during about a ten-day spree, I actually composed several new poems, which can be accessed either here or from the main poetry page.  I'd really like to thank the friends who have contacted me with generous comments about the poetry; it's been great fun to hear from you folks, to do some catching up, talking about poetry, etc.  Overall, I'd have to say that the traffic to the poetry & translation pages has been underwhelming, however, even by our modest standards.... I’ll give a more thorough write-up of “where we’re at” after the Council Mountain Music Festival.
					The Spurs of the Moment at the 07 Garden Eclectica party in Portland, Oregon— "Blue eyes crying in the rain"??? Eberle, Dani, Chris & some guy in a Panama hat.
					BACK TO MAIN FIVE & DIME PAGE