does provide credibility in the music scene. It also seems to have spurred a new consistency in Scott’s band. It has developed into a tight group musically but, more importantly, it gives Isaac the kind of support he needs. He says, “When I go up there, it’s not just my show. We’re a unit, family.” And it takes family understanding and dedication to work with Scott. He demands perfection and a lot of things are unspoken, so the band has to be tuned in. For instance, there’s no set list to work from. Isaac calls the tunes off the top of his head. This kind of spontaneity can wreak havoc with an unseasoned band, but it’s important for Isaac to have this free rein. He says, “When I go up on stage I stand there and look at those people. I see all kinds of moods and weird spirits. I can see when somebody’s down or depressed the minute they walk in the door. And I know just what’s gonna lift 'em.” But Isaac says, “It doesn’t always work. I’ve sang until I almost passed out and it didn’t work. Every night is not your night to get over, so you just ease up on it.” He relies a great deal on audience approval. He says, “It’s important for me to get up there and always get over to the people.” When he doesn’t get over, he retreats into his guitar, playing long renditions of slow songs that seem more appropriate for rehearsals than live performances. He becomes moody and automatic. He admits the moodiness but sloughs it off, saying, “I’m a Gemini; my moods change 25 times a day.” Tony Thomas, bass player, the only other black member in the band, sees the moods as an impetus. “Every now and then a different character pops out on stage and intensifies it. It makes us push a little harder.” This kind of support and respect gets Isaac through the hard times and makes the good times a blast. The gigs are regular, the pay is getting better, and Isaac says he’s happy. “What I’m doing now is what I’ve always dreamed of doing.” But he hasn’t reached all his goals. He’s ready for another album and there’s plenty of material for it, much of it his own original music. He would like to do a video tape. He wants to do more touring, even though his experience has made him wary of music business types who exploit him because he’s black and blues. He says, “I got tired of what my mom used to call ‘fattenin’ up frogs for snakes.’ Oh no, give me some of the action too.” He’s also a little worried about extensive touring because of his diabetes. But Collins told him, “Isaac, you need to go to Europe. Put the doctor’s prescription aside and go. They’d love you over there.” And Isaac says he will take that advice when the opportunity comes. Yet when pressed about the future, he retreats into one of those quiet moods, falls back on that basic faith and says, “I suppose they will come in due time.” It’s a religious understanding, but it’s, also germane to understanding the long process involved in being a bluesman. There are no overnight successes. Mark Dalton says, “Isaac is still a young man [late thirties): The beauty of the blues is that you’ve got that time to develop your own style.” The beauty for the audience is being a part of that process — watching Scott grasp that power and crank it out in an accomplished but evolving blues style. And if it’s one of those good nights, you know that no matter what goes down, Isaac will be playing, getting paid for it, and people will be listening. When he is’on, Isaac Scott is a gut emotional experience. The weekend after Albert Collins was in town, Isaac had a gig at Seattle jazz venue Ernestine’s. It’s kind of a snobby posh club that very seldom features blues. But that night Isaac pulled out all the stops and had the audience testifying. A woman interrupted him during a tune to tell him it was her birthday. Isaac picked right up on it and got down for her with a wild screaming over a cool and haunting guitar. It was a case of chills and fever. Or take a good packed night at Seattle’s Jolly Roger Roadhouse. Isaac is doing Elmore James’ “It Hurts Me Too.” He throws back that head and from deep inside comes the mellowest pain you’re ever gonna hear. It’s a gospel lick on a hurtin’ tune. Everybody’s yelling, “Tell it.” Isaac Scott has gone cosmic. He has taken it back home, back to the gospel arena which he says he never completely left. Roberta Penn is a Seattle writer. BOOKS I LONGFELLOW’S BOOK ( ^RECORD) STORE is stocking tasty books made in ^Japan of entirely edible rice paper. Tdkey last forever and in the event you do not wish to re-read a given book you may serve it for lunch or dinner. .A one-pound volume serves three adults if a salad accompanies the book. (Recipes free with a minimum purchase). greeting cards will be available and Tn stock in early "1984. Stop by LOMOTeLLOW 'S at 6229 S-^. A^ilwaukie Avenue (three blocks south of Rapa H aydn's) any day from I'l to 6 except Sunday and /Monday for a free sample from our featured "Book of the Week." you'll be amazed how muck more palatable Kant becomes in the new Edible edition. Of course^ we also have a large stock of old-fashioned editions/ many scarce and out of print, for your browsing delectation. 2 3 9 -5 2 2 2 Bon Apetit. Orders To MONDAY pm WITH THIS AD 208 N.W. Couch • 248-9898 am - 6:30 PLEASE CALL AHEAD and SATURDAY Noon - cTWt. Tabor gandwicli Shoppe 3766 SE Hawthorne / 230-1231 We feature hot sandwiches piled high with meats and Homemade Soups, New York style Grinders, Chili, Stews, Salads, and Pastries. Go -- or in a hurry? GLADLY!! - FRIDAY 9:30 5:00 pm Patisserie I cAn Espresso Cafe I $1.00 OFF ANY SANDWICH Expires January 31, 1984 DESSERTS • LIGHT LUNCH SODA FOUNTAIN Mon-Fri 8am to Midnight Sat 9am to Midnight Sun 10 am to Midnight “LAUGH YOUR BRAINS OUT L "H O IGH O C K OM Y E H DY E . . R . E! GO OUT AND Mark Christensen, Northwest funny pages BUY IT NOW! " Willamette Week by Eric Scigliano Brainstorm by Jim Blashfield and Gideon Bosker Marble Press, $4.95 paper Beyond the Far Side by Gary Larson Andrews and McMeel, $3.95 paper Big Ideas by Lynda Barry Real Comet Press, $4.95 paper Eric Scigliano, Seattle Weekly n77 BRAINSTORM BY JIM BLASHFIELD & GIDEON BOSKER PUBLISHED BY MARBLE PRESS-$4.95 DISTRIBUTED BY PACIFIC PIPELINE & FAR WEST. Gary white reads s marks stand, daily fun across th •qcluding ma rnalis r draw e and —bene grown c variety; ado . An has m tic par uasi-co keyed m turns a ja ns (love, he so takes some into childhood, WHAT DOES IT TAKE FOR A PLACE TO be declared a world capital of cartoon art? Maybe the Northwest is getting close: those long gray slug-belly days inspire all sorts of skewed, inward comic and graphic visions. Anyway, three of the Northwest’s finest have books out just in time for the Christmas season, sized just right for you to stuff your stockings .with funnybone food. A note on the brains behind Brainstorm. Gideon Bosker is a Portland physician and writer on pop culture and architecture. He conceived the notion of a book on brains and some of the gags. Jim Blashfield is a madly inventive Portland filmmaker and animator (his most notable film, The Mid-Torso o f Inez, recalls Alain Resnais’s cinema of memory), and the designer and a co-editor of the Clinton Street Quarterly. He wrote the book with Bosker and drew it. An odd combination, but if a doctor and an avant-garde filmmaker are going to do a book together, it ought to be about brains. Brainstorm is, in a loose, unforced w old-fashioned scientific essay on t and ways of the brain. Blashfi neutral outline drawings, at o clinical, further the impressi treatise. But he develops the with each panel playing agai well-cut footage. One episode, maybe the would even make a dan flip book with a littl is shown floating b glasses, hammer, t hamburger, french buretor linkage, as i in school. The brai assemblages of fl bulbs, and indeciphe toward an answer (t tongue out), all of whi limp rubble as the b November 9-Nove Miss Monroe, I almost had it!” Was there ever a better graphic representation of the mind’s inner workings? Lots of panels are punnish, sometimes silly riffs on the shape of the organ: brain as wrecking ball, brain with rubber nose affixed, and the literal storm of brains on the cover. The book ends with a pretty lame sci-fi mock epic. But even the goofiest gags poinCup the essential mystery behind the book: how can, and why should, a lumpy blob of atoms and jelly contemplate the good and beautiful, build toaster ovens, fall in love, tell jokes, or for that matter write and read book rev: If Dali and Bunuel had might’ve made Un Chie Get the book an “. . . quirky, outrageous ways of representing life ... all you can do is augh. ” John Strausbaugh, City Paper, Baltimore, Maryland RAINSTORM, two brains have run mely loose, and the result is funny uite appealing.’ Bob Hicks, The Oregonian s being out of their minds, these guys are very funny!" Bill Plympton, ted cartoonist “If you don’t like this book, you will have wasted your money!" Lynda Barry hell, and Ipful beauty hints. 14 Clinton St. Quarterly
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