Windy and cold: Room 4, Caspar Inn

listen up and read along: 

Last night Felsen played for the first time at the Caspar Inn, a legendary, one-of-a-kind California rock and roll roadhouse located on the windy, beautiful Mendocino County coast in the tiny town of Capar.   For touring bands on a shoe-string budget (i.e. Felsen), it's a great place to play because they provide rooms to the band.  Nothing fancy, but it beats the hell out of sleeping on someone's floor or crashing at some cockroach-infested motel.  On top of all that, it's just a fun vibe at the Caspar. Seeing as the bands don’t have to get back in their vans post-gig, much liquor is usually consumed (and/or other substances specially cultivated in Mendocino county) and shenanigans ensue. The bands know they’re gonna have a fun night and generally dig into the music a little deeper and just go for it. There’s nothing like seeing a seasoned band in a state of complete reckless abandon on stage (and off): that’s rock and roll folks.

Although it was Felsen's first gig there, I've played there a bunch over the years with different bands. The last time, I was playing drums with a band from Oakland and we spent 2 nights at the Caspar--this was July 4, 2009.  We had a whole day to relax and I wrote  "Honolulu” on guitarist Michael Fiorentino’s Yamaha acoustic guitar and recorded several demo versions on my digital recorder while camped out in room 4 upstairs in the Inn.  It’s perpetually cold and windy there and I think that put me in mood.  I missed home. I missed my family.  I wrote a song about the terror of going through a major surgery and wanting to be someplace tropical instead-- go figure.

“Honolulu” has been in and out of Felsen’s set lists for a long time.  We used to open our shows with a rockin version, reminiscent of Crazy Horse: loud, twangy, drop D-tuned Telecasters and overdriven analog synth, heavy bass and drums.  Our producer, Jonathan “JP” Parker encouraged us to strip it down to just piano and vocal for our Breaking Up With Loneliness CD.  The piano was played by long-time Felsen collaborator Justus Dobrin. We performed the song live with Justus only once--at our CD release party and we haven’t performed it with that arrangement since.  Nobody plays the piano like Justus.  When we do get to work with him it’s like splurging on a real nice vacation--something you don’t get to do everyday.  Meanwhile we’ve been enjoying playing the rockin version again.  Maybe we’ll record that at some point.