This page was originally written in 2000, updated at various times, and I am doing it again now in 2011, primarily to fix all the links. It can get a bit disjointed, therefore, since I don;t have time to completely rewrite it, and there is no real need. So if things feel a little odd at times, remember there are layers from 2000, 2006, 2008-2009, and 2011, at least.
This is a Directory of the Alaska 2000, "AK2K", Video Tour Journals with short descriptions and links to pages with the story behind each episode, since a three-minute video can't tell the whole story.
The Video Tour Journals are able to show what the regular annual Tour Journals in the Archive never could, the scenes and moments that can be so hard, or impossible, to describe in words and photos. Still, I can only show glimpses through the window of the camera, and I can't tell all the details of the story, like the text tour journals can. Sometimes I focus on some specific facet of the life, maybe because the camera captured a particularly great scene that illustrated some thread, or a certain facet of the larger story was surfacing in my life and mind at the time. So I have provided the story of what was happening during and around each episode of the video tour journal to explain more fully what was happening at the time, place these moments in their place within the larger story. I try to be breif, and sometimes there isn't much to tell, other times they fill in important missing pieces that never made it into the video. Finally, since the VTJs only provide glimpses of songs and performances, I have provided a few complete songs from scenes within the VTJs.
After I made the Video Tour Journals, I realized you never see me play a song, so I added a few videos of me doing just that.
The AK2K Music Videos
Though now (2011) there are many performance videos available on my You Tube Channel, in various places from Florida to Alaska, though the AK2K music videos are the oldest, still, since that is when I bought the digital video camera. Anything older will have to come from digitizing my many VHS tapes, with which videoed first. If and when I have time for that!
The Video Tour Journals were made in 2000 for the web, but never released due to the loss of hosts for video in the dotcom bust.The first ten episodes were originally uploaded to the new Google Video service in 2006. In 2008-2009, after re-editing them, I uploaded episodes 11 through 18 to my new You Tube Channel instead, as Google had already bought YouTube and stopped accepting new uploads to the original Google Video service. In 2011, Google officially ended Google Video's role as a video host and refocused it as a video search service, so all video had to be migrated to YouTube. This was actually good, as the G.V. episodes were a mess, reflecting the state of interent video at the time, existing in multiple sizes and formats, orten re-encoded badly after uploading. I actually found in reviewing that some versions lacked sound, others were just badly transcoded. Though there was a complete set of ten in the over 50 there, they were also very small, the old low bandwidth size, so I ended up not using any of them. Instead, I re-encoded them myself from the originals, as I always do now, prior to uploading them to YouTube, completing the set there, collected in the
The only relatively complete series of Video Tour Journals I have right now are from the 2000 tour, though I never finished the planned final two or three episodes that would complete the circuit of 6 months, returning to the East Coast. I wonder if I ever will. I often have seriously limited resources and computer time. I've made a few more tour journals sporadically, and have a decade of raw footage I continued to shoot, documenting the life, even when I had no time to produce anything from it. But I knew if I didn't document the life, capture the scenes, they were gone forever, so I did that much at least. So if the old video tour footage can somehow justify spending more time on them, I can make more. and I would like to. There are many great scenes there. I think about possibly combining producing episodes from the past to correspond to the release of songs I wrote then, or about the events that happened. I am just not sure what to do next, there are so many conflicting demands on my time and energy, though video is and always has been part of the plan. Just now, I need to save my time and energy for producing new CDs, building dulcimers, and other projects, and on the practical side, like keeping the van running, and dealing with more serious practical issues. I have to think about gigging locally, now that I have left my old circuit to focus on just one base for a while, or East Coast festivals, or return the street scenes where most of my income cames from. But I have to make a living and music is what I do, but it takes time and energy, like any job. No free lunch.
Eventually, though, I plan to return to travelling, to follow the seasons, the festivals, the tourist towns and street scens. I want to expand to traveling the world, and creating a "window on my world" with video and the internet is an integral part of that vision. But that will be another story, for now, this is what I have. Though I taken some time to review, re-edit, and upload the rest of the series, I have to get on to other things It is "the facts o' life."
(note this line is from 2008-2009 when I was announcing uploading the second part of the AK2K series to YouTube) Reality is that it is mid-February and I have hmmm.. about $300 cash, a full tank in the van and two full gas cans on the roof, and I need to get to Florida before the season is over. The life of a folksinger.
But in the long run, I am here to serve, within the practical limits of keeping this whole show going! So I'll keep providing these VTJs or some sort of video whenever I can, but I'm just one folksinger mostly just trying to survive. I welcome any feedback on what people would like to see. These were done on the fly, quick and sometimes stiff, or just tired. Not sure where I'll go next, probably special intros for the new website, which is designed to showcase more video. I still dream of doing video tour journals as it happens, like I did these back in 2000, before the internet was ready for video, unfortunately. And I had to go on to other things while the internet caught up, and in fact, went on by and now video is big, and I still haven't gotten back to producing video. I wish I could find a good reason to justify doing more video immediately, but we'll see. I have to focus on performing live if I want to eat! I can't afford to do much more than what works to survive on a practical basis, but in the time left, I'll try to open the video window. That is still the vision, as it was in 2000. To use the videocamera and the internet to open a window on my life as a folksinger, the music, the people, the places and scenes, so that though I might be playing for a crowd at a festival or a few people at a campfire, anyone in the world can join the audience through the internet, though I might be sailing a lonely coast or walking about in high mountains, you can join me.
The videos are available either from the The Youtube "AK2K" Playlist or as individual videos links within the directory.
I made this as a lead in to the Tour Journals, since I thought the final distribution format might be video only without text support for background, or that making a video introduction available might be appropriate for a video tour journal.
The Introduction
Willow
I arrive in Alaska and head to KK's house outside Willow to recover from the long drive and play some local shows.
V.1: Willow
THE STORY
The Deltana Fair
I head over and play the Deltana Fair for the weekend, then loop back along the Denali Highway
V.2: Deltana
THE STORY
The Denali Highway
I loop back to Willow following the Denali highway, a slow scenic drive for a recovery day.
V.3: Denali Highway
THE STORY
The Tanana Valley State Fair
I drive up and perform at the State Fair, the main event of this season.
V.4: Tanana Part One
THE STORY
V.5: Tanana Part Two
THE STORY
Old Man and Wiseman
I wake up the morning after the fair, and I head north up the pipeline haul-road, stopping to visit friends in Old Man. Farther north, a hundred miles past the Arctic Circle, I visit my friends in the village of Wiseman.
V.6: Wiseman
THE STORY
218 Gold Creek and The Arctic Circle
I head north from Wiseman deeper into the Brooks Range a ways then cut east off the road on the Big Lake trail, heading up Gold Creek to visit a couple friends caretaking and working at a gold mine. I watch the place while they go to town and I walkabout a bit. I muse about how my life is balanced by cycling between two poles, the crowded cities and fairs and the solitude of the wild. This is one of the cardinal points in the great circle of my life, where I pause and reflect upon this road I am on, this Way I follow.
V.7: "218 Gold Creek"
THE STORY
V.8: "The Arctic Circle"
THE STORY
Eagle: Live from the Yukon River
V.9: I go to Eagle on the Yukon River to set up the DAW at the community school, to teach and record a couple songs for the school. In this video I tried using a guest narrator, my friend, fellow musician, and principal at the school, Ann Millard, who also performed an original song for the soundtrack.
V.10: At the same time, I started these Video Tour Journals, developing the format and completing the first episodes in lo-fi untill I can install the pro-gear in the computer. I record a few songs of my own, jam with some local folks, and just play for others, then head out just before the road closes for winter.
V.10: The Video Tour Journals
THE STORY
The Final Circuit-Into The Woods
I get out of Eagle on the heels of the first winter storm. I stop in Tok, then go on to Delta Junction to do a couple school shows. I continue on to Fairbanks; where a friday night jam turns into a weekend stay due to the second winter front, an icestorm.
V.11: Final Circuit
THE STORY
Southpoint
V.12 : October 10th to 18th
Location: Willow, Anchorage, and Girdwood; Alaska
As the highways are cleared I head south to stop in Willow, but continue south to make a final loop, trying to visit more of my friends before I leave Alaska.
V.12: Southernmost Point
THE STORY
Return to Willow
V.13 : October 18th to 25th
Location: Willow, Alaska
I return to Willow for another whirlwind visit to my hosts here. I play a couple more schools, and a roadhouse, then set up the DAW to record a jam party at my host's house.
The Last Show
V.14 : October 25th to 28th
Location: Tok, Alaska
I drive to Tok ahead of the latest storm. I'm there to do a school show and also an evening concert with the highschool chorus. After the show I visit Helga at the Off-The-Road-House and have a nice jam friday. There's snow flurries falling in Tok, but the satellite pictures look like there's an openning if I leave immediately, so I do.
The ALCAN
V.15 : October 28th to November 1st
Location: Tok, Alaska to Missoula, Montana
There's snow flurries falling in Tok saturday morning, but the satellite pictures look like there's an openning if I leave immediately, so I do, and reach Whitehorse that night. I'm running a good weather window so I don't stop for rest till I've cross the mountains and get to the dry side, out on the high planes. Then I am running south, watching the storm boiling on the mountains, sliding south, with me racing ahead of it. This is the road.
Goin' To Montana
V.15 : October 28th to November 1st
Location: Tok, Alaska to Missoula, Montana
More tales of the Road. They're calling for snow by morning as I have turned west through the pass into St.George, so I push on to William's Lake. The next day, after a crazy morning, I'm running the edge of the storm south, hitting rain, deciding to turn east again and make for Montana, breaking through the leading edge of heavy snows in the passes, so I don't stop to sleep till I'm down in the valley of the Columbia. In the morning I cross the border and reach Missoula, the storm coming in at my heels.
Jam with Joe
V.16 : November 1st to 17th
Location: Missoula, Montana
The storm hits but I'm safe and secure, visiting an old friend in Missoula, who happens to be a great slide player. He's just found out he's losing his place (its been sold). I come in time to help him start geting ready, and to jam the blues. I set up the DAW, and start some serious work; though the real result is to plan ahead for Joe to do the lead work on the upcoming CD.Then it's on the road again, off to Seattle to visit a couple old friends there.
Seattle
V.17 November 17th to 21th
Location: Seattle, Washington
I arrive in Seattle, a familiar place and a regular base on my circuit. Its good to be back. I don't have much time this year though, just time to visit a couple old friends, play some music, talk about plans and what we are doing, where we've been, where we think we're going, then get back on the road.
The Great Highway
I leave Seattle heading south again. I'm trying something new here, to stop and visit or jam with people I've met through the musician internetworks. I put up a few posts, then swung around and visitied and jammed, setting up the Daw a few times along the way. I finally finish the trip by completing the six month northern circuit I started in July, returning to DC in time for the holidays with my relatives. Its the end of Tour 2000.
Actually, these videos were not made> I got as far as the audio track of the first one, and the background story. I planned to finally complete the series in the course of getting this first year up on the net, but never did and haven't yet. Things happened that I couldn't forsee or control that got in the way, a bad decade, really, and that was that.
Peace
Brian
