8 Questions with Shoeshine Blue

contributor: Ed Thanhouser

Shoeshine Blue (a.k.a Mike Apinyakal) continues to be one of the most under the radar songwriters currently in Portland.  With the release of his flawless album “How At The Wooden Moon” earlier this year, he is posed to slowly move into that local spotlight.

1. There are a whole slew of contributors listed on your website, and listening to the music it’s clear there are many talented musicians involved in addition to yourself. Do you have a “regular lineup” or is it constantly changing?

The lineup is as regular as I can keep it. The core of Shoeshine Blue is Me, Wylum Joersz, John Vecchiarelli, Ali Wesley, Shawn Mclain, and now Ezza Rose. These are all excellent musicians, but good musicians are in high demand in this town, so you have to learn how to share. Ideally, we’d all live in the same house and play music together everyday, but that’s just not the way it is, so I take the other approach. I try to build songs that are flexible to different arrangements and different combinations of musicians, and most importantly, songs that can adapt to different situations. What I sacrifice is tightness, but what I gain is a wild breath of life every time the songs are played. This keeps things fresh and exiting. Just last night I played at a winery with members of Nick Jaina and Musee Mechanique. They’d never played my songs, but it worked beautifully and it felt like I was hearing the songs for the first time again.

2. Who is your favorite Portland artist at the moment?

That’s a hard one. I’m a big Nick Jaina fan. I feel like I’ve been listening to his songs all my life. I also love Fruit Of The Legion Of Loom, which is an all instrumental metal band. It’s the kind of music that I wish I could make, but I just wasn’t born to rock.

3. What’s your favorite venue to play/see a show in Portland?

I’d have to say The Roadside Attraction. It’s like playing in an old saloon (or a Chinese buffet, or a house show), but with all my drunken friends around. I’ve also seen some amazing shows there. I love venues like that, where there is no cover, no contracts, no bullshit. Just playing for the love of it in a place where people come out to see good, free music. It’s a good thing I’m not in charge of this world. Everything would be given away and wheels of commerce would come to a grinding hault.

4. Approximately how long did the writing process for the new record, Howl at the Wooden Moon, take and what was that like?

“Howl At The Wooden Moon” took a lifetime to write. My whole lifetime, up to this point. I don’t say that to sound clever, but I feel like this album is the sum total of all my experiences in 33 years of living. I put everything I had into it. I was going through a lot of changes for a year or more, a big breakup, general instability, and the realization that I’ve been boxing myself in for a long time. I just couldn’t find my way back to happiness, but I felt a strange sense of clarity. I had genuine pain, but I understood how it all worked…like a shitty car that I knew how to keep running. I understood that it had broken parts, and what needed replacing, but in the meantime I still had to drive it everyday.

5. I can hear a lot of different and very diverse influences operating within your music. What were some of your favorite records growing up?

I listened to totally shitty music growing up. I didn’t grow up in a musical household. My parents were very open minded, though, and were up for whatever I was into. They took me to see Poison (twice), and Bon Jovi, and Cinderella. I don’t know what they got out of it, but I saw those bands parading around neon green stages and said, “that’s what I want to do.” I had just gotten braces and was at a debate tournament the first time I heard Nirvana, and I started to realize that there could be much more substance in music. Something deeper and darker and flawed and truthful. It wasn’t until years later that I became obsessed with old blues and field recordings, which changed my pallet completely. Now I mostly listen to old soul and R&B. The Falcons, Otis, Irma Thomas, people like that. I learn music and reinvent entirely through osmosis. I don’t learn scales, techniques, or structures of the music I love. I just listen to it until it’s in my soul, and then one day, years later, I’ll be writing a song and it just comes out in it’s own unique way. It’s very mysterious how it happens, and that’s why I like it, and it doesn’t sound carbon copied. Does “carbon copy” even apply anymore? Do the kids even remember what that is?

6. What’s the best piece of musical equipment you’ve ever bought?

I’m not sure if I’ve bought it yet. Like a lot of guitarists, I’m on the eternal quest for the holy grail guitar. True love. Actually, I take that back. The best piece of musical equipment I’ve ever bought was a cassette 4-track, which I still use and prefer to most recording equipment. I’ve learned so much from that 4-track, and, when push comes to shove, I can make a pretty damn good album with one.

7. How do you feel about touring, and will you tour in support of Howl at the Wooden Moon?

I’ve only toured in small runs. I only have a few one or two week tours under my belt, so I don’t really know what I think of touring. I mostly like writing about the experiences of touring. The getting there. The triumps. The failures. I know the purpose of touring is to promote an album and your band, but I’m more interested in the experiences and the growth and the golden light of travel. I’ll most likely have to do most of my touring on my own, for which I’d like to reinvent the songs and the show a bit more. I do plan on touring behind “Howl At The Wooden Moon”. I just did a few shows in Missouri that were quite successful and I sold out of a good amount of CDs, so I guess that’s a good sign.

8. What’s your favorite thing about being a musician here in Portland?

Being a songwriter, it’s like walking through a patch of berries in the summer. There’s an endless supply of ripe and willing talent that covers the whole spectrum of instrumentation. You can find cellists, horn sections, singers….anything you can think of, and Portland bands make full use of this spectrum. Having said that, though, and despite my answer to the first question, I play with a group of musicians that feel more like family than band mates. We’ve all seemed to gravitate towards each other as people and there’s a lot of love when we play together. So the best part about being a musician in Portland are Shawn Mclain, Ali Wesley, William Joersz, John Vecchiarelli, and Ezza Rose.