It's still winter in the lower 48? Good.

Seeing how the temperature here in Fairbanks dips below freezing in October and stays below freezing until April I have no sympathy for people south of Canada.  I have been waiting for 6 months to get outside in a T-shirt and hearing people whine on the news about another snow storm coming.  So what?  I had to shovel the paths around my cabin to the outhouse and whatnot again... And it is nearly May.

I would really like Al Gore to come to Fairbanks and explain to us when we are going to be sub-tropical coastal state.  Everyone is praying for some global warming up here and it sounds like some people down south are aiming for the same thing.

HOWLING DOG SALOON OPENS FOR THE SUMMER SEASON THIS WEEKEND!!!!  Parks Highway Band both nights!

Monday Funday = JUG PARTY!!

After a weekend of shows I usually get back to a list of "things to do". The kind of stuff you can't put off... like getting water. The jugs are empty and I left just enough water to drink and brush my teeth until I get motivated to get out of this cabin, drive twenty miles in my shoe box car with pizza cutter wheels, weighed down with over the recommended allowance for the cab of jugs of water... dangerous.


One day I will save my pennies and get hot and cold running water inside. Can you imagine the hell I go through just to wash dishes. It is a lengthy hand pruning process. The soft need not apply. AMERICA!  Or M-U-R-ica... your choice.

SIDENOTE - North America's most northern Rock and Roll / Biker Bar opens for it's summer season this weekend! The Howling Dog Saloon. Yours truly and the Parks Highway Band (with special guests and openers) will be kicking off the first weekend with Mike Stackhouse, a local legend, warming up the crowd on Friday night!

Oh, to be a caribou....

740 miles round trip later, my two day trip to Anchorage is finally over.  It was a nice ride though.  Clear skies, clear roads, and Denali and the Alaskan range were out in full effect.  

Saw some caribou today on the side of the highway and thought to myself....what a horrible existence.  Not that it wouldn't be a honorable and humble life, the life of a caribou...  It is just that....I don't care how they are majestic and beautiful creatures of the northern latitudes it is freaking cold out there.  It doesn't matter what kind of armaments evolution has armed you with, that has to suck.  No wonder they hang out by the pipeline.  It's warm and evidently they aren't "that" dumb.

This pic is of the good old pipeline and my Fiance and I raging up a huge hill on some machines.  Sorry winter....you're beat.  Go away.  High temp of 35 expected tomorrow...and it is almost May.    

UKULELE WORLD DOMINATION!

If anyone was wondering I am here currently....in Alaska, the great land, waving the banner of ukulele world domination high and proud from some random hill top in sub-arctic interior Alaska.  Where the kind of running water many of us have is the kind you have to run and go get.   To the people who fill their multiple plastic jugs of water for sustenance.....a tip of the hat to ya.

We won't be poor forever???  Right?   ....who cares.  Life is pretty awesome and the view from my outhouse is peaceful.

Keep rocking folks!

THIS WEEKEND TWO PARKS HIGHWAY BAND SHOWS!!!! (The gig cam will be collecting select clips for my internet crowd!)

FRIDAY - ANCHORAGE -  Humpy's Great Alaskan Alehouse - 9pm - FREE

SATURDAY - ANCHORAGE - Blue Fox Cocktail Lounge - 10pm - FREE 

Evan Williams - Jack Daniels dirty step brother

There are many truths in life.  One is never drink out of a glass at a strip club, only bottles.  The second truth is that Evan Williams even though it has a very similar label to Jack Daniels IS NOT JACK DANIELS!  The problem is that when I moved to Alaska I didn't realize I would never be able to find Evan anymore....just R&R brand whiskey......worthless to anyone on the road system, $100 a fifth in the bush.

Learn more about Alaska's whiskey habit...watch the GIG CAM video!

Legalize it!

Tonight the Parks Highway Band will be doing their tribute to Bobby Spliff, the whitest reggae artist of all time with their very special 4/20 show at the Marlin.  Come on down and celebrate with us the right way...the Marlin way. 

10PM ---- $5 at the door to support our vices!  

UAF PUB!!! Tonight!

Not much to report other than....WINTER IS OFFICIALLY OVER!!!!!  Well....at least it is here in interior Alaska!  40 degrees and climbing and it is light past 10pm.  There is only one way that I think is appropriate to celebrate....rocking with us tonight.  Alaska's Guitar Alternative -  Ukulele Russ and the Parks Highway Band.

9pm - UAF PUB - FAIRBANKS!!!!  

The Parks Highway Band rides again!!!!

After a month long hiatus the band is finally back together and ready to rock Squarebanks (Fairbanks) this weekend!!!  We have two great shows to offer the people of interior Alaska and they are going to be AWESOME SAUCE!  It is great to be back jamming on my end of the Parks Highway.  It seems like I'm always out of town with the PHB.  Time to rock the home crowd.

The best two lane highway on the continent and its band, The Parks Highway Band.  

FRIDAY - 9pm - University of Alaska Fairbanks Student Pub

SATURDAY - 10pm - The Marlin - 4/20 PARTY!!!!

The Gig Simulator! TONIGHT AT THE MARLIN!!! 10pm

A couple times a month I like to get down into the gullet of the Fairbanks music scene and lend my MC and knob tweaking skills to the people.  The people of the Marlin's open mic.  Most weeks they call it the open mic, but when I run it I call it the "Gig Simulator".  We try to make it as much like a real gig as possible.  Half rotten projectile vegetables, heckling, and looks of indifference from the crowd.  A good time is had by all.

Come on down and get there early.  The list fills up fast.  If the crowd likes you I'll let you play for a while....if not.....well...you get the idea :)

GET ON THE LIST!!!!!   And if you don't sign up I will be forced to play "Jingle Bells" on my ukulele until either one of two things happen.  1) People sign up  OR 2) ears bleed.

There's no place like Nome....there's no place like Nome.

I got the pleasure last month to be flown out to perform at the end of the Iditarod in one of Alaska's remote gems, Nome.  They call it the last great race.  1100 miles of frozen landscapes, sub-zero temps, and the most well conditioned athletes, sled dogs.  Dog mushing is a hardcore sport up here in Alaska and it is not for the weak hearted.  It is for bunny boot wearing bad asses.  What are bunny boots?  I'll get into that at a later date.   

What sets Nome aside from other town in the United States?  Well....here are a few things:

1) There are no trees - It is subarctic tundra.  Just miles and miles of grasses, tusiks (mounds of land about the size of a basketball on average that make walking hell on your ankles), and everyone's favorite aspect.....BUGS!!!!!  The joke is there is a beautiful woman behind every tree......But don't be fooled...there are good looking women in town.  It is where all the village princesses go when they leave their villages for the big city....Nome!

2) There are no roads out that connect to the road system.  You fly in (when the fog isn't in -- which happens a lot) or you boat in (only in the summer).

3) The only thing that will keep your warm there is whiskey....cheap whiskey.  I would like to suggest R&R.  Worthless to us, but $100 a fifth in the bush!  Many people don't know this but many of the communities off the road system (which we call "the bush") are dry.  No...I'm not talking about running water this time.  Booze is outlawed.  Just a factoid.

4) It costs an arm and a leg to get things in or out of Nome.  That is why when your car dies it stays in the yard for eternity.  I slept on a plywood bed with a piece of 1" pink sheet foam on it.  The Ritz!  Not much comes in...not much goes out.  However king crab here is half price compared to anywhere else.  $10 a pound!  The only steal of a deal in town.        

But.....let me warn you.  If you ever get the chance to go to Nome be prepared for one thing if you plan on spending multiple days there.  Your liver will grow like the Grinch's heart and turn into a bag full of large rocks and gravel.  8 dollar shots, 7 dollar beers, and 7 bars within a couple hundred yards and you don't even care how your bank account is dwindling.  You have to stay warm....and booze creates that illusion.

Celebrities in Nome?  You betcha!



This is Zeke from Bering Sea Gold and yours truly!

This pic is Lance Mackey (4 time winner of the Iditarod and my neighbor -- he is a Fairbanks guy and lives a few hills over from me) and I at the Bering Sea Bar and Grill before one of my shows.






One might ask what else is there to do in Nome during the winter?  Well...after I spent an hour walking around the "whole" town I realized that.....there is nothing.  Absolutely nothing but eating and drinking....heavily.  Not like bloated John Candy "Wagon's East" kind of heavily....heavier than that.

The skinny of it is....Nome is like a hardcore drinking party that bumps it up a notch during the end of the Iditarod.  This place is a trip....literally.  I can't wait to go back again next winter!  Plans are all ready being made.        


 

Welcome to the Last Ukulele Frontier

ALASKA!!!!!!!  The Last Ukulele Frontier!

One adrift alone in the guitarist's jungle is here to bring light onto the greatest stringed instrument known to man, the ukulele.  That's right, the little one with the plastic strings.  Well guess what?  I'll tell you something you might be interested in knowing.  Limitations are for people, not ukuleles.

I'm the kind of guy who opts for the Geo Metro in the Mac Truck world we live in.  I live on the edge of civilization in interior Alaska in a dry cabin.  Dry? Cabin?  Yes.  No running water.  No plumbing unless you count the sink I have in my kitchen that drains into a bucket.  Yes....I have an outhouse.

I hunt moose.  I harvest salmon for the freezer and slay the trout.  I snowshoe into strange hard to get places and tool around on the trails on my three wheeler...because I can't afford four.  I play ukulele for a living.

Several years ago I used to tour the lower 48 with a funk rock band.  Now I play full time in the last frontier, Alaska.  From elementary school classrooms to raunchy bars. I do it all.