Jim Page

Jim started out in California where he was born. He lived in the Bay Area and caught the tail end of the 60's stuff. Garcia played pedal steel down the street, Kaukenon showed up for jam sessions, and everybody got stoned. New Year's Day of 1970 he hit the road by thumb to New York City and Greenwich Village. He stayed there for a year, living in elevator stair wells and on roof tops, under park benches and in borrowed closets. At the the end of that year he hooked up with some people from Seattle. They were going home, want to come along? Sounded great - he'd never heard of the place before. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO The last folk club closed soon after he got to Seattle and that, he says, was the best thing that could have happened. If there was no scene the he would make up his own. Which he did in short order. He started by playing the breaks inbetween rock band sets. Three breaks a night, twenty minutes each. Get the attention, sing the songs, pass the hat. Then playing at the campus of the University Of Washington. Gather a crowd, sing the songs, leave the hat on the ground. Improvisation was the key. Jim discovered that if he sang about the people as he saw them - put them literally into the songs - they would hang around to see what else might happen. And the improvs might soon became real songs. It all fell into place. In 1974 he was faced with arrest for singing on lower Pike Street and spent that summer changing the laws concerning street music. Seattle became and still is open. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO 1977 he went to Europe for the first time, performing at the Cambridge Folk Festival. He got great press and wound up doing tours - England, Wales, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands, things were getting real busy. A couple of songs he had written were picked up by an Irish band called Moving Hearts and one them, Hiroshima-Nagasaki Russian Roulette, entered the charts at number one. It has since become a part of the Irish national repertoire. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO In '83 he came back to the States to find that a second rate actor had become president and the IRA was an individual retirement account. He was a little confused for a while but soon began experimenting with musical approaches. Trios, duets, a seven piece electric band. It was an noncommittal soup for a few years. In '89 he teamed up with Artis the Spoonman, of Soundgarden fame, for a strange but wonderful duo approach that has lasted and still happens to this day from time to time. Simultaneously he created a real tight four piece band called Zero Tolerance, a name taken from Bush senior's anti-drug policy. The band lasted for three years and made one recording. He began going back to Europe. Germany, Irealnd. Sometimes alone, sometimes with Artis. He recreated his solo performance. He wrote a lot of songs. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO In late November of 1999 the WTO came to Seattle, precipitating what is now a famous popular uprising. Jim spent all 4 days downtown and had many near permanent relationships with law enforcement. The events of that week opened the eyes of a lot of people and his songs gained weight. About the same time he created a relationship with Billy Oskay and Mark Ettinger, two musicians with whom he has recorded and continues to work. Billy owns a studio near Portland, OR, and Mark plays bass and lives in New York, when he's not juggling with the Flying Karamozov Brothers. Their first CD was called "Music From Big Red," the name of Billy's studio. The song that Jim wrote about the WTO, Didn't We, was the catalyst for the project and is featured on the rceord. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO 9-11 happened and the weights got serious. Jim responded with song, and a CD called Collateral Damage was born, several songs of which got frequent play on Democracy Now! Three CDs came out afterwards, a compilation, a Nashville thing, and a collection of Seattle songs. Now the 2nd Big Red has just come out. It's called Head Full Of Pictures and deals boldly with our current state of affairs. Jim continues to tour in Europe - he is going to be in England and Ireland early 2007. He is soon going for his second national festival appearance in Taiwan. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Nobody knows what the future holds but, like they say, it should be interesting. And Jim will probably be there.