Recently, I spoke with Cathryn Beeks at her trailer in Lucerne Valley for The Listen Local Show podcast.  We talked about everything from my two solo albums (So Long City and Down In The Wash), my old band - Blue Skies For Black Hearts, and the journey we've been on while building our studio at Goat Mountain.  Have a listen here!

I'm getting very, very close to opening my new recording studio out here in the Mojave Desert.  We're naming it Goat Mountain Recording.  It's 100% solar powered. We've been working on this project for just over five years now. I have a long list of folks to credit and to thank who made this undertaking possible.  Hold tight!  I plan to give them their moment in the spotlight when we're ready to fully unveil this amazing studio.  The building is up, we're beginning to build forms for the concrete outside of the building, and the power will be turned on for the first time very soon.  We have one more inspection to pass with San Bernardino County and a lot of sound treatment and studio equipment to set up.  I'm trying not to put too much pressure on us by announcing an opening date, but I expect that we'll be fully operational this Spring.  I will begin to schedule bookings once I have a firm idea when we'll be operational.  Email me to get on the calendar.

I also have two shows coming up in the high desert.  This Saturday, January 18 at The Palms in Wonder Valley.  And February 22 at Furst Wurld in Joshua Tree.  Find more details here: Performances.

I will be playing the Two Bunch Palms Spa and Resort this New Years Eve.  Think of me as your piano man for the evening at a Casablanca meets upscale spa in Desert Hot Springs.  But instead of piano, I'll be playing flat picked and finger picked acoustic guitar and singing songs about the folks and creatures far out in the Mojave.  Susan Kearns will be joining me on upright bass. 

There are two other chances to catch us around the desert before the year ends.  I'll be at the Sugarloaf Cafe from 11am to 2pm on Saturday, December 21.  I can't say enough good things about their food, their staff and their patrons.  Make sure you try the pie!  We will also be playing at the Art Queen Stage in Joshua Tree from 6pm to 8pm on Saturday, December 14 during the Joshua Tree Art Walk which occurs every second Saturday of the month.

Here's Mojave Moonlight (starts at 3:24), which I'm sure we will be playing at each of these shows.  The studio version (recorded in our Solar Powered Cabin) is featured on my album, Down In The Wash, which came out this past May.

The first song and video from the impending full length album by El Gringo Mariachi has arrived! So far, it's only on Facebook.  I produced, recorded and mixed the full album at my now defunct, Portland, Oregon, studio, PermaPress Recording.  We had an amazing band for the sessions; Greg Odell on drums, Freddy Trujillo on bass, Matthew James Sasser on guitar, and Mark Breitenbach on keys.  I also do some guitar, vocal and harmonica work on the album.  On Negra Tomasa, I play the harmonica intro as well as the fuzz guitar.

Joshua James Huff is El Gringo Mariachi.  Joshua is also the director of The Solar Cabin Sessions with Pat Kearns.  In May of this year, we filmed Episodes 5 through 9.  It was after the first day of shooting, when John Bardy was still hanging around the cabin, that Joshua, John and myself headed out to the dry lake bed behind Goat Mountain and near Giant Rock to film the Outlaw Badguy scenes.  You get a sense of the wind in this area if you watch the scene closely when I climb into the truck - I have to fight the wind to keep the door open!

Download the single or stream it everywhere!  The full album will be out in a couple of months.  Here's the long list of credits for this fantastic song and video.
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La Negra Tomasa official video by El Gringo Mariachi.
The first part of a short film series by Joshua James Huff

Thank you to everybody that worked on this record and this music video.

The entire album was produced by Pat Kearns.

Video and music credits:
Pat Kearns - Outlaw Bad Guy, Harmonica, Guitar.
John Bardy - Outlaw Bad Guy
James Jones - Video Camera
Lucy Sandoval Video Camera, Makeup
Luz Anathema - Voice Over
Twiggy Pop - Styling
Matthew James Sassersser- Guitar, Performance
Greg Odell- Drums, Performance
Hilary Hanes- Performance
Mark Breitenbach- Keys, Performance
Balin Strand- Performance
Tina Zezky - Video Camera, Styling
Freddy Trujilo - Bass
Brian Byrnes- Performance

Directed and Produced - Joshua James Huff

Tim and Faith were my guests for Episode 5 of The Solar Cabin Sessions.  We had a fantastic chat that had to be shortened a great deal to fit the format of the series. Here's your chance to hear and see the entire conversation. 

Catch them live this Saturday at Furst Wurld in Joshua Tree to celebrate The Adobe Collective's new album, All the Space That There Is. 

A conversation with Gabriel Hart is an explosion of ideas over a few minutes. His mind is quick and creative. And with his seven piece rock band, Jail Weddings, and as a "reknowned" author - as I call him in this interview - he puts it to use for our enjoyment, as well as to exorcise his own demons. I wish we spent more time talking about his twin novella, Virgins in Reverse/The Intrusion. But in under five minutes, we touch on camping in the desert, urban-ex-patriotism, gentrification's effect on music clubs, and Jail Weddings recent shows with Tav Falco, who also wrote the forward to the twin novella.

Thanks to Joshua James Huff for filming and editing.

Watch and follow the whole series at The Solar Cabin Sessions with Pat Kearns on YouTube.  If you dig it, please share widely.

Joshua James Huff is my great friend and collaborator in art (and in trouble).  This past year we filmed nine different performances at my Solar Powered Cabin in the Mojave Desert (pictured above) and put them up on YouTube and Facebook for your enjoyment.  Each episode has a short interview and a then the artist plays a song.  Everything is live - there are no overdubs. 

As we filmed additional episodes, I became more comfortable with interviewing.  The questions became more pointed and the discussions went deeper and longer than our format fit.  But not to fear! We are releasing extended versions of the interviews for several of the episodes, starting with John Bardy.  John and I discuss the origins of his song, Justice Peach, which was inspired by the news of John's uncle's death in a highway murder incident which he heard along with his mother over the radio.  The song, Justice Peach, is amazing and will be on John's forthcoming album.  Watch the episode below.

And be sure to check out other episodes of The Solar Cabin Sessions with Pat Kearns on our YouTube Channel.  If you dig it, please like us and share the episodes widely.  And take a moment to look at my Listen/Watch page, where you will also find links to episodes of The Solar Cabin Sessions as well as my other videos.

Gallery 62's annual Highway 62 Art Tours opens tomorrow.  It's the first of three weekends in the high desert that artists open their home studios to the public.  Susan Kearns, my wife, is showing at Labonetto Studio (Studio #98), sculptor Eric Banas's studio, this weekend only with Denise Tanguay, Eric Saks, Eric Conroy, and Suzen Smallwood.  Susan is displaying ten paintings that were inspired by the songs from my album, Down In The Wash.  She is also displaying a few other paintings including a self portrait (of both of us, pictured above) and one from her buffalo series (Saint Buffalo).  All of the paintings are for sale. She is also selling Down In The Wash - The Eleven Card Set and Down In The Wash CDs.  And on Saturday, I will be performing at Studio #98 throughout the day in order to enhance your viewing.  A few of our friends are going to drop by as well to play a few songs.  Heck, if you're reading this and plan on coming by, bring your guitar - I'll plug you in and we would love to hear a few songs.

I'm falling in love with Google translator.  Here's a review in German at Cool Tourist giving my latest album, Down In The Wash, high praise.  They recommend Mojave Moonlight or Low Wind Howling as a place to start. I've posted the translation below.

"What would have happened if the Angie-Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and Canned Heat made an appointment in 1969 for an unplugged session at Woodstock's Bearsville Studios? Maybe a little bit the sound picture that fifty years later presents Pat Kearns from California. The CD "Down In The Wash" is not only an acoustic retro experience but also the product of a big change. In 2016, Pat and his wife Susan "So Long City" (as well as the title of his first solo album), left the orderly life as a music producer and hair studio owner in Portland, Oregon, settling in a small cabin the Californian Mojave Desert. There life in the middle of nature is characterized by solar power and little water, from the reflection on the essentials. But with selected equipment and a few friends off-celeb can also make (and record) relaxed music that soaks up the landscape ambience. Kearns has selected ten of his own compositions and a Stones classic ("No Expectations") and thus conjured unmistakably the burrito spirit of Gram Parsons. Wife Susan plays the double bass (and has the cover drawn!), Tim Chinnock plays relaxed drums, Joe Garcia and Luke Dawson create with guitars and pedal steel the spacey country-rock sound of the 70s, which helped the Byrds at the time of his breakthrough. If you do not have the opportunity to travel to the US west coast in the near future to test the atmosphere on-site, you should start your journey with the introductory tips "Low Wind Howling" or "Mojave Moonlight"."

Back in July, we were on tour in Scotland. Following our Friday night show in Ullapool and on our way to a Pop Up Festival on the shores of Loch Ness, we stopped by Mark Forbes' Summer House and recorded an interview and performed a few songs.  The Summer House Sessions have a lot in common with The Solar Cabin Sessions.  But Mark goes further in depth with his interviews (which I find inspiring) and the artist performs a number of tunes instead of just one.  I loved the experience of having this table turned on me - I'm the performer instead of the interviewer.  Mark directed us through a conversation that covers what inspires me (good songs), the definition of a wash, how living in the desert effected the sound of my latest album, and how gentrification caused us to leave Portland, Oregon, behind for the Mojave Desert, and the changes that came with going solo and putting my old band, Blue Skies For Black Hearts, in the rear view mirror.  And I play Low Wind Howling and Mojave Moonlight from my album, Down In The Wash.  And I finish with So Long City, the title track from my first album.