I got this tip from the cousin of My First Earthquake singer and c0-leader Rebecca Bortman, who walks past my girlfriend’s house occassionally here in Palo Alto AND whom I have twice mistaken for someone I think lives nearby but have never met, the brother of jazz pianist Uri Caine, while Frida is out doing her business. The band has three cds out and got the plum opening spot at Stern Grove last summer when The English Beat played there. Rebecca Bortman is also appearing solo, doing some of her famous (300,000 youtube plays) holiday songs on December 22, during Chanukah, and it may also be her birthday, somewhere in the outer Mission. Makes me wish I or Sarah Bellum were still doing a Jewish show at KZSU.

My actual first earthquake I don’t remember, but I was at the World Series in 1989 during The Big One and I recall writing something not terribly profound in my journal in Oaxaca in 1981 about their terramotos.  In terms of the first band I went gaga for, it was probably Ragady Anne in 1994 or the Mudwimin in 1992 or 1993, plus watching Stone Fox rolling in to the Mia Zapata benefit at Cyclone Warehouse in 1991. My First Earthquake deserves mention in the Plastic Alto Hall of Fame merely for their use of this outrageous plastic tube dress, by Charlie Buckets (that’s what it says) in one of their excellent videos.

Search-injun her or their holiday songs yourself.

edit to add, November 29: according to the Chron, it is David Katznelson, of Birdman Records, also a former Warner A&R honcho, also cousin of Palo Alto’s The Shedroffs (who are also cousins of Joshua Shedroff Redman), behind the pop-up record store, at which Ms. Bortman will perform. The Bay Guardian also had this (six days before the Chron). They have Zach Rogue of Rogue Wave lighting a menorah directly opposite our Alden Van Buskirk events.