NEWS: Ken Woods and the Old Blue Gang release debut single: Ride the Rails Blazing cut from the forthcoming concept album Silent Spike showcases the band’s virtuosity and rootsy rock vibes. It brings to life the terrifying expulsion of the entire Chinese community of La Grande, Oregon in 1893 “During […]
Complete performance – filmed live in Feb 2025 by Barry Morris At the heart of our record, Silent Spike, is the 21-minute epic, Dead Line Creek. The song is a musical depiction of one of the worst atrocities in American history, the murder of over 30 Chinese gold miners by […]
“From Maine to California, thousands of communities kept out African Americans (or sometimes Chinese Americans, Jewish Americans, etc.) by force, law, or custom. These communities are sometimes called “sundown towns” because some of them posted signs at their city limits reading, typically, “N*gg*r, Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On […]
Lily White Mine Disaster. Located northeast of Baker City in the Wallowa Mountains, the Lily White Gold Mine is thought to be the source of unverified stories about as many as 100 or as few as 13, Chinese miners being trapped in the mine sometime between 1886 and 1889. Either […]
“By the mid 1940s, Chinatown’s residents had gradually moved on, although the historical record does not tell us where or why they left. In the 1970s, after over a century of a Chinatown in the heart of Baker City, the last of its buildings was torn down. Of the approximately […]
“During the year 1893 a time of great economic depression, a great deal of agitation against the Chinese arose – it being felt, particularly by the unemployed, that the Chinese were taking work away from the whites. On 24 September of that year a great mob of men visited Chinatown […]
by Kenneth Woods | Oct 7, 2012 Hello Vftp readers! I’m writing to you from high above the Atlantic ocean, en route from a tense and nervous Heathrow airport, where the deportation of Abu Hamza has once again convinced those in power that the only thing that can keep us safe from the […]
by Kenneth Woods | Feb 14, 2010 There is a great article in today New York Times on guitar demigod, Jeff Beck. “You look for the guys who can kick you” as a musician, “and Jeff can be filthy, stinky that way,” Mr. Walden said in an interview here. “He’s not just melody, or a […]
by Kenneth Woods | May 5, 2014 It was the most unexpected gift I received this past Christmas- both the nature of the gift and the identity of the givers. Why the nature? Anyone who knows me well, knows how deeply immersed I was in the music of Jimi Hendrix throughout my teens […]
by Kenneth Woods | Oct 30, 2020 I pity pianists and I pity singers. The rest of us have the luxury of choosing the instrument which best allows us to express ourselves. I found my cello, a somewhat motley Italian instrument made in the 1600’s but with a ‘modern’ (ie 100-year-old) top in […]
