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Feb. 2021: Steve Trettevik – Faded Champion

Hey gang!

Steve Trettevik front doorWottsa happanin? As we gingerly ease into 2021, I am most pleased to get the year’s new stuff rolling with Steve Trettevik’s Faded Champion.

As some of you know, my pal Steve Trettevik is a long-time Pacific NW musician. Newly based in Olympia, Faded Champion is his first solo album – Steve plays almost everything, including the many guitar leads. His compositions are concise, yet warm; they are sometimes heartfelt and even occasionally silly, running the gamut from catchy rock/pop to nearly country. His rough baritone pulls the whole package together. 

Early Steve TrettevikI first met Steve in 1982, in my earliest recording days. Up until that time, Steve had mostly done wimpy folk music, hammered dulcimer etc. Steve and I started doing little one-off projects like The Rude Dudes and Group Sex which appeared on the 1983 Local Product compilation. That comp also included Steve’s solo debut as Stevie Nations and The United States doing their greatest hit “Theme From Mudshark.” This was not wimpy folk music.

The Icons at the Rainbow 1980sFrom there Steve and I started a real gigging band The Icons, which had a 3-year run and a posthumous cassette, Masters Of Disaster. In the midst of that chaos, we recorded and released the drunken all-improv Me Three – No Money No Funwhere Steve first appeared as the fictional Walter E. Gogh, who we later “killed” in a car wreck in southern Florida. 

Post-Icons, Steve returned to his folky ways, doing a variety of projects with his wife Sherrie Nordling like The Campers.

The Icons 2009 reunionJump to 2009, The Icons play a re-union show for the mighty It Crawled From The Basement anthology comp. The Icons had so much fun they decided it was time to record a second album, Appointment with Destiny!, released in 2011. We played a record release show and stuck a fork in it – done.

Since, Steve has become a regular contributor to the annual GMR charity Xmas album, with tunes in eight in of its eleven years, usually appearing with Sherrie as The Elf-tones.

Steve Trettevik out backI moved back to my hometown Olympia in 2016 and Steve joined the great Seattle exodus a couple years later, also landing in Oly. I started a show on KAOS 89.3 FM Olympia, FreeForm Northwest – Weds 1:00, and Steve joined as my semi-official sidekick.

Steve Trettevik yardSteve started recording a lot of electric guitar songs and this year, I talked him into letting me mix and release eleven of them. And now you have them: Faded Champion. I am honored and pleased to release these great songs and I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

We were going to have CDs available today, but the February surprise storm put a damper on that, the guys that make them in Salem OR had not power for a week – they should be in next week.

What’s next?

It’s a little fuzzy right now, which is ok.

In the golden oldies department we are looking at reissuing some 80’s stuff Glass Penguins raspberry, Jon Strongbow – Something Different. Talking to Capping Day about releasing The Complete Chronology. Mr. Peter Barnes is inching closer to completing his massive compilation of his various works.

The Green PajamasThe Green Pajamas have started an all-new album for this year, plus there is a potential Secret History of the Green Pajamas box set. I am pretty recovered from a bout with America’s favorite disease and am resuming work with the True Olympians on the Olympia album, but don’t expect that too soon. Got a ways to go.

Till next time,

td Feb 2021

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