Rock ‘n’ Roll Friday

Texas rock at the International Kite Festival

It’s Friday morning and in 10 hours or so I will be playing saxophone licks for tunes from Joe Cocker, the Allman Brothers, Grand Funk Railroad and ZZ Top.

For anyone around town in Seaside, Bruce Thomas Smith is a local legend — “singer, songwriter, guitar slinger.” On youtube you can see videos of him playing the ballroom of the the legendary Sandtrap Bar in Gearhart or Seaside’s Shilo Inn, which was the hippest place in town circa 2005, where locals stepped into their denim and rocked out on the dance floor. Bruce Smith was a big part of it. Known for his creativity, longevity and enduring popularity with audiences, he is a well-known sound technician and visible presence here in Seaside. Earlier this year, longtime fans and friends filled the local Times Theatre at his CD party, "Smith & Cleghorn: Red Dirt & Blue.”

Bruce is from the ZZ Top mold, long hair, goatee, Texas flag, big speakers and cat-scratch rock ‘n’ roll guitar playing. He got a long list of awards, honors and acclaim: “Grammy Member Songwriter 2018; Las Vegas Fame Award Winner 2018; Josie Music Awards Nominee, “Male Rock Artist Of The Year”; Portland Music Awards Winner.”

He as “an aura, a vibe,” commented my wife Eve. “You notice him. He’s not a ‘blend-in.’’

Upon arrival in Seaside with his wife Linda, Bruce soon established himself as the city’s premier rock musician. He’s played with everybody, at least everybody on the ubiquitous folk-rock-country scene.

We first met at a Relay for Life fundraising event at Seaside High School when I was playing with a jazz quartet in 2016 or 2017. Bruce was the sound technician, setting up towers and stacks of speakers, enough to handle a medium-sized amphitheater. The sound had to blanket the entire length of a football field in order to reach the walkers as they circled the track to raise funds for cancer.

When Seaside rocked the night away

We see each other often around town, most often at meetings of the Seaside Chamber of Commerce. At those Wednesday morning coffees, Bruce, along with the effervescent Shirley Yates, who sings and plays the piano with pious abandon, are the only professional musicians in the roomful of hospitality and small business leaders.

When retelling the history of Seaside as a music town, I turned to Bruce. No one knows the ebbs and flows of this community better than he does, having witnessed late-night jams and barely controlled mayhem. He had good insights as to the decline in live venues: The prime reason was the crackdown on drunk driving, primarily in the early 2000s. That kept people in at night. Strict music licensing rules, hefty fees and potential penalties finished off most of the other clubs, a tragedy for a city that features Paul Revere and the Raiders and the Kingsmen in its past. That’s a big reason, depending on the spot and their music licensing arrangement, musicians like Bruce often perform all original compositions.

‘Looking for Some Tush’?

A few weeks I ran into Bruce a few weeks ago at the Pacifick Distillery, a local tasting room in Astoria known for its whiskey and canned tuna (for real — here on the Pacific Coast we are renowned for our albacore, bluefin and skipjack tuna.) Bruce was setting up for a jazz group I was playing with, and our greetings were super friendly.

A few days later he reached out and invited me to play tonight’s gig.

I’ve loved practicing the song list, which along with ZZ Top “Tush” (does that mean what I think it means? How could I have missed that all these years?) and “Fool for Your Stockings.” The list also includes more soulful tunes like “The Thrill is Gone” and “Some Kind of Wonderful.”

I’ll be playing Bruce’s original compositions for the first time.

We won’t be using charts — rather a song list that lists the tunes and keys. I see my role to pump out background lines and tasty fills — harumphing on the tenor like a Bill Haley sideman, playing the horn like a rhythm instrument. Maybe I’ll do some call and response. If offered solo space I’ll let ‘er rip — the songs are one or two chords, many are blues, and should give me plenty of room to roam. I’ll bring both my King Zephyr tenor and my Yamaha 875-EX alto. Wardrobe: blue jeans, black snap Western shirt — I haven’t gone full cowboy hat yet.

We haven’t rehearsed but somehow Bruce and I are both confident the night will proceed well. I haven’t even met my bandmates. (Looking forward to it, guys!)

Did I mention that we are performing at the Washington State International Kite Festival in Long Beach, Washington? The festival, presented by the World Kite Museum, describes itself as a week-long kite celebration and competition held annually during the third full week of August, a vacation extravaganza featuring “skies ablaze with color, high flying action and choreographed movement.”

While onstage, I’ll expect to see famous kite fliers from around the world and “tens of thousands of awed spectators.”

With weather soaring past 100 degrees today in Portland, and temps in the 60s at the shore, the beach is sure to be a destination. In Long Beach, the winds will hover around 16 mph, considered the “ideal” speed for kite-flying.

Will the music be loud? You betcha!