QTNews and Dates – OCF and Beyond!

Ah… returning to Oregon for a brief new window of song and familiar new faces. It is time for the 50th Oregon Country Fair and I am combining my energies with the others who open wide in celebration every year. It is my 31st year of of performance and participation, to move with the waveform and breathe an analogous consciousness further into creative oblivion. 

I will be performing with The QBand, musicians of a high calibre who bring the songs I fashion into realtime tactile 5D. This year the band is Jason Montgomery on bass, Lewi Longmire on mandolin and singing, Michelle Alany on fiddle, Andrew Alikhanov on otherworldly clarinet and other guests Oliver Steck on accordion for our Shady Grove setand who knows who else. The many faceted entertainment possibilities at this event is truly audacious and astounding. See the entire line up at oregoncountryfair.org. 

After the Fair, I get to spin through Eugene to play music on several splendicious occasions all in the same week in the eccentric accepting community I’ve called home for nearly twenty years now. By fall I hope to be back on the Upper Left Edge as inhabitant and neighbour again and that is an idea that reaches in and tickles me Brino. 

Here are dates and places where our paths can cross in music, story and fellowship. 

Thanks for your ears my dears!

Your corn forest pundit,

bq

•• Oregon Country Fair ••

Friday July 12 1:40 pm at Blue Moon

Sunday July 14 1:40 pm at Shady Grove

•• Scobert Park •• 

Wednesday July 17, 6:30 pm

Annual post OCF exhale concert!

Picnics, kids, dogs, families

and cookies encouraged. 

4th and Blair

•• Eugene Saturday Market ••

Saturday July 20, 11 am

QTNstrumental Wordless Guitar 

Later that same evening, Saturday July 20, 8 pm
IN CONCERT

•• QTN at Tsunami Books ••

2585 Willamette St
All ages welcome!

No one turned away for lack of dough re mi

QTN Mother's Day Concert at Radio in Austin

All the Boing of Spring to ye!

Here we are in the years. The brown grass turns green, woodpecker pecks the bark off the plum tree, male cardinals say “Bezedio toe toe toe toe”, the females say “Rrrrrrrrrrrrr” and Captain Robin is always on patrol pacing the yards for worms and intruders. It is spring in the midwest after the strangest winter I ever remember. 

Suddenly I am elder in my immediate tribe and as the parents have moved into vivid memory, their passings fresh and vibracious, green life surgemerges up from sleeping bulbs and seeds full of life energy, photosynthesizing it all up for sighs. Another greening season on the wildmind Earth after hardly any sun around here since way last October. I remember ninety days of grey in the Specific Northwet, but never here in the midwest.

I’ve visited my Upper Left Edge home a mere handful of times the last few years, a couple of weeks or a month at a time. I can feel the pull especially now, but first there is a family museum to disperse, a home to clean, prepare to sell and it is process work, not unlike writing a tune, making an album or lengthy project of any kind. It was theoretical for years, what this time would be like then all of a sudden, it’s in realtime 3D. Remembering to breathe intentionally, energy to fingertips and the medicine of wound wires and wood is what gets me through it all.

In every house I’ve been in, I wonder what stories are in the layers of paint and wallpaper; how many tough life moments live in the walls and floors, how many tender ones; how many birthdays and holidays, pictures and tears and grieving and laughter, meals and glasses of wine. 

My parents' house is not the house I grew up in although it’s my same age. There have been only two other families’ lives in it. Still there are some houses going back four or five generations. The many archives of my being in the attics of my life are all around and I am a process person, so I empty drawers and closets, sift papers and pictures, and release the bulk of it in favour of the way i have always lived – with way less accumulation, no teevee and little in the way of furniture.

If you’ve made it this far in these wordshapes, I’ve come to say I am taking a break from all this to blow the cobwebs off my wings and breathe music I do live-love to play-sing wherever I be. It is a privilege to play songs that come out of my hands and voice and a fine way to see many of you I have missed these last swift passing of years. 

May is a Texas trip with an Austin show or two and a couple slowed down weeks sleep on the ground in Quiet Valley and singing to the stars with some amazing people. Later this summer, there’ll be an Oregon trip to play the 50th Oregon Country Fair where I have performed since that fest's 19th year. 

In Austin, celebrate Mother’s Day with me at Radio. I am sharing the evening with Jesse Dalton, and Wilson Marks, Masumi Jones and Lit Du. The trio goes on at 8, and Jesse and I at 9. Bring yer mom or a mom you know who needs a music break. Here’s it in a blast. Hope to see you all. I have missed my Austin friends…

Lotsa QTN recordings, CDs and downloads both, are available here. 

Brian Cutean & Jesse Dalton

The Wilson Marks Trio (with

Wilson Marks, Masumi Jones 

and Lit Du) at 8 pm

Sunday May 12

at RADIO

4204 Manchaca Rd

Families welcome!