Author: Todd Bishop

“Just look for the beer with the funny name and the big blue ribbon.”  

Travis Ranney’s horn.  

Sitting around at a McKinley show at the Bitter End in Portland. This is McKinley, a great songwriter who has thrown me a lot of work.  

Wall with scum-encrusted ladder.  

Lock wall on the Columbia or Snake river. These often feature hundred-foot long cracks zagging down them. Unsettlingly, some of them spray water violently, like in the movie “Earthquake” with Charlton Heston.  

Big cement boxes the boat goes in and out of. Makes scary flooding noises when you sleep, like maybe the boat really is going down this time.  

The rest of my family lived in europe for awhile. I wasn’t born until ’67 so I missed out. Here are a few pictures my parents took.  

My mother.  

My dad in Paris. With the pipe. 

Hattie’s Hat, where my group Lower Monumental played. Taken with the Lomo.  

Decadent hepcats swill the hooch at Hattie’s Hat.  

I forget who these guys are- I think they might be Norwegian- they were playing some pretty intensive free stuff at the Tractor Tavern.