Porchfest!

Whoa, it’s already been three weeks and over 1,600 miles since our Porchfest gig! But it was such a highlight of our time in Portland … indulge us as we share with you.

As you may recall, we accepted a 5-week housesitting job in Milwaukie, OR – a south suburb of Portland (and a small town in it’s own right). When we were talking with the homeowners to learn about them and their pets, they found out that we aspire to be musicians and mentioned that we should sign up for Porchfest while we’re there. So we did!

The Milwaukie Porchfest ran for 3 Friday nights: July 14, 21, and 28. We signed up to perform on the 21st. This gave us the chance to bike around on the 14th and 28th to see how other performers were doing it.

It’s organized by the Milwaukie arts council, and they sure do a nice job. It was so easy to sign up, and they took care of everything from keeping the website updated (with a handy map of all the participating locations) to providing us with a lawn sign and door hangers to warn the neighbors we’d be making some noise.

We also had to gather and assemble a couple of critical pieces of gear we had left behind: namely, some sort of drum kit. Kayla plays drums like Animal on the Muppets – which is hilarious and manages to keep some sort of beat. She had long fantasized about having a kick drum made out of a Samsonite suitcase. Thanks to Facebook marketplace, local pawn shops, and a little handywork from Matthew and our friend Bill, that dream came true!

We invited our pals Bill & Poppy to join us for part of our show, which gave us the chance to really work some specific songs out with them. Also, Kayla’s amazing nephew, Jon, came down from Seattle for the weekend and also joined the band on his bass! We had a blast rehearsing and performing with them all – those extra-talented band members definitely made the show.

But the real show-stopper was Bill & Poppy’s dog, Riley. This photo says it all:

He sat up there like that for the entire time Bill & Poppy were up there!

All in all, we managed to put together a TWO HOUR concert! And it went really well, overall. So good for us to have a deadline for dusting off all our instruments and justifying the fact that we’ve carried all this stuff around for thousands of miles. We had about 50 people stop by and check us out; some stayed for one song, others stayed for an hour. We had a few special guests who watched the whole show: Kayla’s sister Iris came from Michigan to visit for the weekend, plus Kayla & Iris’s cousin Jon lives in the Portland area and came for the concert.

I’ll wrap this up with a few more photos and a couple of short videos. It was such a fun experience, and a great way for the Jet Set Betties to take a deep dive back into the music.