“SuperNormal Tyler with Toby Lehman and Barack Obama Supporters in Portland, OR”
On May 13th. 2008, in the midst of the Supernormal Records Public Transit Tour, Tyler stopped by Tom McCall Waterfront Park in Portland, Oregon for the largest rally to-date for Senator Barack Obama.
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(click image to be re-directed to cienagaves.com)
Daylon Greer and Supernormal Tyler will be sharing a stage at Cien Agaves tonight. If you haven’t been here before get in here! Great Tequila selection, cheap beer and a little thing called Sangrita. What’s Sangrita? Come in see Roque and the crew and find out!
(480)-970-9002
Coupled with the success of the most recent Public Transit Tour, Tyler and ‘the project’ is moving on up to the east side. Well, more east-side that is.
I’ll be moving the offices of SuperNormal Records into a larger space. Trying to track drums the current space is a little challenging, so in order to move to the next level of the studio sessions we are currently involved in, we need more room… I’m still staying in Scottsdale. Yes, we will still be based out of AZ, but were just moving a little further east.
- SuperNormal Tyler
The move comes on the heels of planning another Public Transit Tour, and still working the local scene in Arizona.
All rise to a great place is by a winding stair - Francis Bacon
This East Valley seat in Maricopa County contains parts of Mesa, Chandler, and all of Gilbert and the fast-growing town of Queen Creek; it also contains the city of Apache Junction in Pinal County.
How do I get to the Beer and Brats Party?
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Chris Gramazio is running in a primary, and is looking to make it all the way to the general election to unseat Jeff Flake (R-AZ). Chris and I were on 1480 KPHX Radio together on June 22nd, 2008 discussing his campaign, my recent Public Transit Tour, and Public Transit issues in the State of Arizona.
Please come out and support SuperNormal Tyler and Meet Chris Gramazio!
Please RSVP the Gramazio campaign if you plan on attending (480-987-3018, or sgramazio@cox.net). Tell them, SuperNormal Tyler sent you. Or, you can e-mail me at tyler@supernormalrecords.com.
Are you MYSPACing it? become a friend of SuperNormal Tyler
LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW!! - Scroll to the half-way mark to hear Tyler
Scroll to 23:20 on your audio players to hear the beginning of Tyler’s portion of the interview.
Tyler was on 1480 KPHX Radio in the Phoenix Market yesterday morning (6/22/08) discussing the Public Transit Tour and playing music.
The Skinny from the ‘horse’s’:
“Sarge, a weekend host on 1480 KPHX Radio in Phoenix contacted me while I was on tour for the Public Transit Tour: Portland, Oregon. We discussed Phoenix’s Public Transit and agreed to an interview. It could not have gone better. The engineer, Shawn Ryan, made a great suggestion of doing the return from the commercial breaks live in-studio. Therefore, I did the whole interview holding my guitar - the only way I am 100% comfy. Thank you, Sarge for the opportunity to discuss such a vital and important issue with you and your audience. I look forward to continuing our dialogue.” - SuperNormal Tyler
Sarge and SuperNormal Tyler out back of the 1480 KPHX studio post-interview
LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW Listen NOW!
Scroll to 23:20 on your audio player to hear the beginning of Tyler’s portion of the interview.
The first half of the interview was devoted to Chris Gramazio, He is running for local office. Please, visit his site and lend him your support if he speaks to what you care about.
I’m back in Phoenix, and I am bedding down in the studio for 2 months. Around August I will be heading back out on, yet another, Public Tranisit Tour.
I will be posting samples of the studio tracks as we lay them down as well as “process video’s”.
However, for now scoot around the site and get acquiainted:
Supernormal Tyler, Will, Kate, Eugene, and Sarah in Portland, Oregon
Who knew I took so many pictures! In the midst of the whirlwind of Portland, Oregon, I managed to snap a ton of pictures and video. I am currently putting them all together and getting additional footage from Mark @ EVENT ONE VIDEO.
I have music video’s in the works, as well as upcoming local Arizona shows, and I have gone back into the studio to record the new album (more on that later).
If you are not already on the mailing list please visit the Contact page and sign-up. I will be releasing sneek-previews, and pre-release versions of all of the upcoming content.
Thanks to Eugene, Kate, Will and everyone in Portland who helped me along the way. I’ve got two months of studio time, then, it’s time for another tour.
Stay Tuned!
SuperNormal Tyler with Obama Supporters: Portland Oregon
I have finished the first draft for the text of the Public Tranist Tour blog posts. I will correct the grammar later, and I have a slew of photos that I am tagging and I will post soon… For now here is a teaser.
Coffee and the Paper
Meeting the morning on a hostel mattress follows a similar pattern. Dead arm and a sore hip on whatever side of your body the fates determined was the side, on which, they wanted you. I followed the morning ritual and scaled the steps to the hostel kitchen and unconsciously stood in front of the percolator. Ahh sweet devil coffee. Some bitter indescribable roast, fair trade goes out the window when the blood needs it’s nitro. By happy accident the former owner of a copy of this mornings local newspaper left their copy unattended so I retired to the stoop to thin the blood and get the poop on Portland from a trained writer.
Obama Rally
Who Knew? There was to be a rally for Barack Obama in Tom McCall Park along the Willamette River. Obama would speak today at 2pm-ish and I decided that it was high-time for me to slip back into a world I had been so willfully ignoring; the world of presidential politics. You’d think there wasn’t a war on with this incessant freak-show blaring from the tube day-after-day. Are you sick yet America?
Barack is the only candidate that I believe is at least speaking something resembling the English language. It seems the other two are just marionettes strung up by those that move in shadows and manufacture projectiles and pointy objects that find their ways into the bodies of the worlds children young and old. I’m sick with this so I figured I would go to where the masses are moved on this Portland morning and play my part for peace. ‘I’m tired, I’m poor, what can I do I am only me?’ In a resounding chorus the answer is, everything.
I went to the Fred Meyer on 41st Avenue and Hawthorne and did my part for the economy purchasing some art supplies. A package of markers and a roll of scotch tape. I spent the next hour or so, decorating my guitar with the slogan; “Freedom IS Free”. My website and crowning it all with a google friendly representation of myself. “SuperNormal Tyler”. Sure it was for peace, but my message goes much deeper than a slogan, and do I hope that Obama’s does as well.
So it’s on to the 14 Hawthorne Bus and toward the maddening milieu of a political love fest. Preaching to the choir, when it is in the name of peace one cannot consider such matters, just sing.
Event One Video
At the end of the speech I moved into the streets where shortly 72,000 people would be snaking their way back to their respective origins. I posted up on a street corner and began with the Chorus of my newest song “One World” a plea for peace, not accusatory, and universal.
“Freedom is Free,
It always has been and always will be,
I won’t pay for it,
You can’t make me.”
When I caught someones eye/ear, I would follow behind them and walk in the crowd for the verses:
“I heard you speaking softly about what you believe in,
Yeah, all right, you caught me - I’m listening,
To you as you recite that tired party line,
That Freedom isn’t free,
It’s a popularly propagated lie,
That there is a premium on peace”
I repeated the process, playing my song “One World” in a continuous loop until it reached a fevered pitch by base of the Hawthorne Bridge. Cars were stopped in traffic due to the crowds so I walked up to their windows and played the loop for them, passers-by stopped and one had a super-sweet piece of digital gadgetry. A big-lens-ed, fully pro camera, he was doing the videographer snake charmer dance, getting VH1/MTV video style wild camera coverage. He turned to do some more crowd cover and I decided to follow along. His camera turned back and we moved through the crowds immortalizing a moment. Powerful stuff. Much better than bland platitudes and rallies. We were doing what this “change we can believe in” is all about. No man/woman can do this alone, it’s up to us. And Portland did it on this Sunday in Downtown.
The Move Across Town
Upon my return to the Hawthorne Travelers Hostel, I learned that the Hobo Traveller would have to move across town. Seven nights is the limit, and I was going into night eight, so I kept my guitar strapped over my shoulder and decided to leave my stuff locked up at the hostel and set out in search of some new digs.
The White Eagle Open Mic
It was Sunday, the week previous the wheels touched down and I hit the ground running to the White Eagle Open Mic on Albina. I decided I would return to the place where it all began. I had forgotten that they had rooms for rent above the saloon. I immediately remembered the ‘Legends of The White Eagle’.
This was a haunted hotel, in operation since the early 1900’s drunkards would be Shanghaied and forced into essential slave labor on ships. Whisked away in their stupor through underground tunnels and into a world unknown and rife with things I’ll describe in a later post.
Bad Boy # 10
After reserving my room upstairs and getting a bite to eat I retired to the patio and got into a little impromptu old-timey jam session with Mike James and a banjo player named Gregory. Soon, the rest of the regular performers started to show and I decided I had better get balls and go and see what was in store for me. I stood outside the door that led to the stairwell that rises above street level and grants access to the Hotel above the barroom. Access to the rooms is by modern magnetic key card, and I slipped my key into the slot and it blinked red. I took this as an omen, removed my card and closed my eyes.
“May I come in?” I whispered.
When I opened my eyes, the little light blinked red! I had not been touching the door, and my card was shaking in my hand which dangled cold and queasy at my hip. Wishing to remain in the logical and physical world in which I have grown accustomed, I returned to the bar and told Keith, the barman, that apparently my key isn’t working. He ran it back through the system and gave it back. I proceeded to swallow my heart and man-up for another go at my paralyzing fear. I remembered a quote I once read:
“We Must Travel in the Direction of Our Fear.” - John Barryman
At the door again, I repeated the process “May I come in?” This time no red light, travel in the direction of your fear. I slipped the card in the slot, got the green and ascended the creaking wooden stairs. The Hotel is nice, clean, and looks as though nothing has been modified just beautified and restored.
All of the doors are named Counterfeit Contessa, Griselda, I approached the door to my room, Room 10, the name below the number ten read simply, Bad Boy. Travel in the direction… F-it.
I asked hushed permission once again and slipped the card in that Bad Boy and the door ratcheted open and I moved my body into someone else’s home. The door closed behind me and I looked around.
I knit bed-spread was pulled tightly over the big plush mattress to the right was a nightstand with a mason Jar and three upturned pint glasses. To my left was a single, simple wooden chair, and to my right, a corner sink with two faucets, one hot, one cold.
I closed my eyes again and tried to ease my sensations by talking to whatever was present.
“I apologize for the intrusion.” I stammered.
“I understand that this is your room and I wish to only stay here for one night. I have been on a long journey and I need a solid night of rest. I ask your permission to sleep here tonight, and I would like to invite you downstairs later to watch my friends and I play some music. I’ll be back up to the room around midnight, just so you know, and I’d like to ask you for a quiet night and…I have to ask you not to materialize.”
As soon as I finished saying the word, “materialize” I felt an intense warm sensation rise up my spine and my body seemed to be electrified. I wouldn’t have believed it if someone told me this and I don’t expect you to believe it either, but, I felt it, and I couldn’t define it at the time. I went back downstairs and rejoined the guys on the patio. Mike James could tell something was different about me. He looked at me sometimes over the next few minutes and I could tell that he could tell. Later, after I could speak, I told him the story I just told you and he eased my mind by saying,
“Well, I guess that’s good. When it’s cold is when it’s bad.”
That helped, but, not much. Please let this Open Mic last forever.
It didn’t but I will remember it forever. Great performers, songwriters all, we sang and played our hearts out, and if whoever I invited downstairs showed, they were treated to a great show. Faces that had become familiar over the previous week were in attendance and they brought their beautiful music to The White Eagle Saloon and poured it out and made magic that night. I want to list all the names but I’ll settle for the ones I can remember; Mike James, Erica Olsen, Gregory, Matt Johnson, Tim Fischer, Helen Chaya, Andrea Mooney, Mike Wilcox… and of course the resident of Bad Boy #10 __?___ . Terra Brown was writing something at the bar. I hope we all made it into what she was writing. Becky Wolf was at the end of the bar reading the paper. We all stayed for the duration.
Psst…
The night did end, and it was time to re-enter my usurped accommodations. I felt as though I was flopping on someone else’s couch, an intruder, despite the complete comfort of the bed and the room in general.
I crossed the room and laid my guitar down by the window and grabbed the provided hotel towels and let my roommate know that I was going to hit the showers and I would return shortly. I showered and came back to the room, set the alarm clock for 9:15 AM.
I left the light on and stared at the door of the room. Around 11:45PM I heard something that cut to the very bottom of my soul.
“Psst!”
There was no mistaking this sound. It was as clear as anything I have ever heard. I did not move my gaze from the door. To the right of the bed as I was laying in it was a window. Open, but the window looked out onto an atrium that was only open at the top to the near-midnight sky. This could not have come from the street. The adjoining windows on the atrium went to other rooms and there was no one home yet. The windows were dark and I heard it plain and clearly unmistakable.
“Psst!”
I heard it only once, and as soon as I heard it I replied.
“No.” I commanded, “We talked about this, and I thank you for not doing that again. I need rest and I will be gone in the morning.” “No,” I repeated. “Thank you.”
Somehow I fell asleep and had a horrendous dream. It woke me before the alarm clock and consisted of something resembling a view from the back/or front seat of a car or seat on a plane with flames shooting out from under a groove in the hood/wing. I couldn’t really place it, but, I felt the madness of spinning out of control and I think I heard screaming. You know how nightmares go; foggy, or vivid never really fully describable. I woke up and said,
“I’m so sorry that happened.”
I kept it in the past tense. It was the morning of my last night in town, and I’ll be damned if A flaming plane wing/car was going to be an omen. Today I leave Portland behind. So I’ll travel across town say my goodbyes, and thank all those who helped me along the road. Then I will cross town once again to teh airport and climb into the sky.
More to come…
