We’re playing a few great shows this month (see Shows page), but I’m particularly excited about the Bob Dylan Birthday Bash, at Mississippi Studios, Thursday, May 24th. I’ll be playing solo, with other fine Portland musicians, including Ryan Sollee from The Builders & The Butchers, Lewi Longmire, James Low, Will West, Kory Quinn, Brad Parsons, and many more, all of us attempting our best Dylan sneers and gibes.

18 musicians
Only $6 ADV/$8 DOS

Keep a good head and always carry a light bulb.

-Santi Elijah Holley

We’ve been invited to open for Southern gothic country musician, author, filmmaker, roustabout, Holy Roller, and wearer of large cowboy hats, Jim White, next Thursday, March 29, at Dante’s. We don’t know exactly what to expect, but we can safely assume that during the course of the night there will be much serpent handling and laying on of hands.

Sometimes artists give you a bit of a break from having to decode the zeros and ones of their works. With a name like Blind Bartimaeus—in homage both to the sight-cured roadside beggar from the Gospel of Mark, as well as to sight-hampered blues musicians of the pre-war South—you’d reasonably expect gospel-tinged songs of love and faith. Well, close. Gospel Songs of God & Death, released in December, travels road-tested gospel-folk, with only acoustic guitar and violin to guide it through its dark expanses. Vocalist/guitarist Santi Elijah Holley’s whiskey-whispered singing, and ghostly harmonies from Liz Chibucos prove a potent one-two, especially in more upbeat tunes (in tempo, mind you; certainly not lyrically) like “As Cold and Lonesome As the Moon,” in which Holley describes a woman with a “Xanax grin and nicotine teeth” over jaunty finger-picked blues. It’s a lesson in contrasts, and an easygoing one to boot.

Ryan J. Prado
The Portland Mercury
1/26/2012 

We’re honored to share a bill with the great Joe McMurrian, Friday January 27, at Laurelthirst Pub. Joe is a freak-blues madman. He’ll leave you sweaty and mystified. We’re very excited to play with him.

Our debut album “Gospel Songs of God & Death” is now available for purchase. It was recorded, mixed, and mastered by Liz Chibucos, in at least four separate houses and apartments, between autumn 2011 and winter 2012. All twelve songs on the album were written by Blind Bartimaeus, as represented by Santi Elijah Holley on vocals and acoustic guitar, and Miss Chibucos on violin and backup vocals. Six of the twelve songs feature the Piedmont guitar stylings of Jesse James, who has since departed. The cover photograph was taken by Michael Ford in Unity, Oregon, pop. 115.
“Gospel Songs of God & Death” can be sampled and downloaded at our Bandcamp page; a physical CD can be ordered through Paypal (see links at right). If you are in the Portland area, we strongly suggest you look for our album at Music Millennium or Everyday Music North, and support our forsaken and long-suffering brick-and-mortar record stores.

Portland illustrator Allison Bruns drew and designed our new logo, soon to grace T-shirts, ballcaps, handkerchiefs, and inked permanently onto the arms of your sons and daughters.

Allison’s work can be seen at www.brunsillustration.com.

We’ve finished recording and mixing our first, full-length album, “Gospel Songs of God & Death.” The CDs are due to arrive in approximately one week, and they’ll be available online, or wherever fine music is still sold. Please check back.

We are playing tomorrow night (Tuesday, December 13) at the famed monthly Smalldoggies reading series. Blind Bartimaeus plays a set at eight, followed by poet Karen Wood Hepner, author Erin Ergenbright, and local hellraiser Vanessa Veselka. Literature, music, and stiff drinks are our Holy Trinity.