upcoming

Jeff DeMark: Hard as a Diamond, Soft as the Dirt

What:

Just in time for the baseball playoffs, local writer/performer Jeff DeMark and the Delta Nationals will perform “Hard as Diamond, Soft as the Dirt” at the Arcata Playhouse on Saturday, September 25 starting at 7:30pm.    Doors open at 7.   The show is also a DVD release party.  The “Diamond” show was filmed and edited by Rick St. Charles three  years ago and it will be available for purchase at the show.  Wildberries Marketplace is the major sponsor for this show.

Tickets for the show are $10 in advance and $12 at the door. After the performance the Delta Nationals will perform a long set of dance music.  If people just want to go to dance show tickets are $4.00.  Advance tickets are available at the Works in Arcata and Eureka and Missing Link Records.  More information is available at www.jeffdemark.com

“Hard as a Diamond, Soft as the Dirt” weaves numerous stories, songs and poems about baseball and the death of DeMark’s father and how a common interest in baseball united the father and son. Alternately humorous and poignant, the show details how DeMark used a trip to Detroit’s Tiger Stadium to ritualize a final goodbye to his father.  Along the way, the audience meets Mr. Cub, Ernie Banks, and Willie Mays, learns about the creative use of a “Beatle” wig, and an ill-fated, though humorous, attempt to talk with childhood hero Hank Aaron on the Home Shopping Network, among many other stories.  The Delta Nationals provide musical underpinning throughout the entire show.

The Delta Nationals are one of the  North Coast’s most popular and versatile bands, performing a wide variety of original and cover songs in many different genres.  The band’s members are Paul DeMark on drums, Steve Irwin on guitar, Dave Ryan on keyboards and Ross Rowley on bass.

Reviewing the debut show in May 2002, The North Coast Journal   wrote: “DeMark’s material is wonderfully poetic in places, ironic throughout and is tightly unified and universal…The stories are carefully and dramatically arranged while sometimes appearing to be just wild swings at the ball.  This is an unquestionable, happy breakthrough.”

In June, 2007 Lee Roberts of the Racine Journal times wrote:  “Any audience can relate to DeMark’s “Diamond show because the stories are about the basic emotions of family, friendship, love and devotion. And he obviously inherited some of his father’s fine storytelling abilities.”

DeMark started his writing and performing career in Madison in 1974. He began as a poet reading in local bars and galleries and eventually incorporated music and stories into his show.  He has performed and collaborated with such musical groups as The Violent Femmes,Paul Cebar and the Milwaukeeans and others.

Information at:  601-1965 or jeffdemark@gmail.com

When/where: