Out Here on the Edge of the Desert # 29



    My guitar maker, Vince Pawless, next hooked up with us in Galveston for an assault on Wrecks Bell and the Old Quarter Acoustic Cafe. But not to play this time. We just wanted to support his beer, Starbock, so we showed up just to knock 'em back. And I wanted to gnaw on him a moment for telling Sarah "no" when she asked for a date. In a back pedal like a dog running into the refrigerator he said he was so glad to see us and that he was badly misconstrued. I been playing for him for thirty years. I live to be turned down by this man.

     Out Here on the Edge of the Desert--

--the play by play of late

     So, I came down from the high desert on the southern slope of the Rocky mountains to go back east. I went decidedly down south, but didn't get any closer to old Mexico than the window at music school. I took my guitar and went up north to see an old friend, just to see how Julia Roberts and Donald Rumsfeld lived. I had my picture taken. With a newspaper man at hand, I stumbled through a mountain range where rocks the size of large, white teepees looked like a village of tents here and there. I celebrated thanksgiving, encored at the best live gig in America, walked the grounds all around a hundred and fifty year old hotel where I listened to a favored relative play a grand, in a piano and vocal duet.

      Let's take it step by step:

      Sarah and I went down to Duke city the day before our flight east. Checked into a motor hotel on the outskirts of the combination phone booth/airport. The day earlier schedule has advantages. It's pleasant and predictable. Playing the hell out of music is more fun at 52 than it surely was at 25 because the routine is better thought through. Hauled my PAWLESS up the elevator after I left our wheels in a parking space we didn't have to pay for. Another plus. No parking fee for a two week trip. And the hotel has a shuttle. It's always psychologically good to feel like you're ahead of the game, when the game can fall apart as easily as the one's I play on the road.

      We ended up at Bradley in Conneticutt. This side of the bounds where Naismith used to go one on one with a hoop on a wall. We rented a car and booked due north on an interstate. Consecutive mountains crowded in organic rows colliding north to the right and back to the left, but different than out west. Close in, but for the forests. Fog in and out of the sun revealing a tropical rainforest of a place on the north Atlantic. Fifteen degrees above freezing. Deep, deep green hardwood covered mountains. Lotta rain, so not much red. Old, low, and broad civilized mountains. I get the Vinland part. So for the five hour long haul further we took the shortest route in and got there in the dark. Vermont is a lotta winding roads that follow meandering little rock rivers. In this case in and out of the rain with a couple of pals from Boston.
      Sarah and I stay upstairs in the original house with the wood stoves, the pump organ with the carving in it (There will Always be an England), and the growing heights of the children and grandchildren marked throughout the years in ball point on a basement door. The house, the barn, and the sugar house are in a clearing at the base of Stratton mountain. It's overcast, cold, and wet for days as we walk together up on a reservoir, and down the unpaved Vermont county road into the national forest. We trek in enough to see the ridgetop between us and Manchester.

The Vermont house in 1932 when purchased


A nearby town in VT		       It's at first a little curious back in those woods and dirt roads. Here and there are speed limit and stop signs. And here's one scribbled in freehand with an arrow pointing to the shotgun shells, 2 stroke fuel, and coffee. A little later in the season, snowmobilers shoosh between these signs they put in the middle of nowhere. Like commuters on the interstate, there are so many of 'em and their machines are so loud they gotta have signs everyso often in the middle of the forest. Otherwise they'd plow headlong into another snowmobiler going just as fast in the other direction. They cetainly can't hear one another over the din like a stock car race echoing up the canyons in these White mountains. Like the bumper sticker said, "Hell ain't half full."
      I dunno, ¿have you ever heard of Tom Bean, Texas? Now I have. I just finished a piece called

ME AND THIS GIRL 2:45

c em d x 3

Girl! is that something in your eye?
Do I make out a smile, or are you crying?
There ain't nothing in this crazy world
but me and this guitar,
me and a fever I drug out of a feeder road,
me and the message,
me and this girl x 2.

c em d x 2

Think we'll ever settle down
after all of this living getting there and the turnarounds?
There ain't nothing in this crazy world
but me and this guitar,
me and a darkness I drug out of a feeder road,
me and the message,
me and this girl. x 3.

There ain't nothing in this world
but me and this...
There ain't nothing in this crazy world
but me and this girl. X 2

Vince at Beanstock (Photo by David Byboth)


The Woodburns, David Byboth and Jim Bush at Beanstock		       This pretty accurately tells the spirit of the trip to Beanstock. An outdoor show north of Dallas. I think we were both showing some rather thread bare tread wear from the trip east and all the nonstop shucking and jiving in the last year. Before there's anything else when we go on a roll, there's me and the girl. It's made it better. I can tell cause there are things worth remembering. We blew in with the Honda about 630 miles worth, and flew out after the show in the opposite direction several hours later. We went through Cline's Corner, Santa Rosa, and Tucumcari, Amarillo, and Chidress, Wichita Falls, and Sherman. And back. That was a long way to go for a great time. I did it to play new tunes to new people, and made new friends on the flip flop. I'd do it again.
      But before that I need a promo photo yesterday. That's usually the way it works. I find the local magician photographer. Sarah insists I have my hair done, and boofed the day of the shoot. Not bad. A new aquaintance, Jamie Hart, shoots the hell out of me in a 1 o'clock session that almost doesn't happen. On my way in he's on his way out on family business. We decide to click it up pronto, then we both get to go. In 45 minutes it's over. And I've had my best photo shoot to date. He taxi's to the runway on time, and I don't care what time it is, I'm going home feeling like I didn't give him anything to shoot at.

Photo from the Jamie Hart shoot


Jamie Hart with the Pawless		       When we get the black and white, and color contacts there's half a dozen fine shots, including one that is an odds on favorite to be the next CD. He shot something like a Hassleblad that had a negative the size of a credit card, and some 35 millimeter. Before he finished he played the PAWLESS while I shot a pic of him. Just desserts.
      If you thought the photographer was a hoot, and he was, you must get to know the newspaper man, 'cause he is. When Mike Easterling, Sarah, and I get together it's usually to catch our breath before we end up trudging decidedly uphill. This excursion begins at the Cochiti pueblo exit on I25. We go left below the dam, now that's a trick, and park underneath white sedimentary cliffs. A pinon and juniper punctuated trail winds into them with the aforementioned tent rock formations appearing here and there in no particular pattern. We wound back more narrowly all the time through galleries of towering rock wall along our way. The walk explores further and further into the cliffs more narrow and narrow until you come on grottos of rock that reach to the sky. The pathway becomes walled with smooth stone no more than an arm's length in both directions. It doesn't rain in the desert, it floods. Every inch of this dry cataract we navigate has been formed by water. As you look to the sky you realize there isn't one, but instead the sliver of blue you can see is like, step by step, a fleeting glimpse of the outside world we left. Swirling formations of sand colored stone now stand in the way of the blue. Make no mistake, you can see the sky, but if it was raining out there you would be challenged to know of it.

Photo of the subject shooting the photographer


Vince and Mike Easterling		       Like I said Mike has this altitude thing, and this trail is no different. Up, up, up till we three are breathless, and puffing. But the view is excellent. The Rio Grande river winding down through a cluster of erroded hillsides, the range of the Sangre De Cristos in the distance one way, the Ortiz in another, and a grand view of the Sandias pointing due north like a compass. From this vantage we can see back in the direction we came. I think I spot the car. It's a long way down there, and actually a long way back out of the stone mountain.

      And speaking of a long way, we hadn't come out of those hills so dog gone long, but we found ourselves facing down the highway from the front seat of the Element. This time on a different ride to gig in Tejas. The southern route catching 10 at Fort Stockton. It looks like Altamont on a stretch in west Texas. And be forewarned, the cellphone won't work in Ozona. It's like pulling over to spend the night in a black hole.
      The next morning we book past the old haunts, Kerrville, and Fredericksburg, and sail into San Antonio to the Mercado. Lunch at Mi Tierra. There are some perks to the carney life. And when those are sufficiently texmexcercised we're back on route to the destination, Victoria.

      When I was hawking in this part of the world for any gig at all to pay my rent Victoria was a, no doubt, pleasant enough town you passed by on the loop. The gig in was in Corpus, or Port Aransas.

      That night I tuned up on the town square, and tried to stand there with an acoustic guitar around my neck and not look too much of anything during the introduction. The poor soundman was having fits with the knobs. As I slid into my first tune the guitar open sounded like pavement chewing machinery. It was hard to know where I was in the theme because of the strange distortions coming from the speaker boxes. And I wrote the bleeding song. So in self defense I reached back to the butt of the PAWLESS and yanked on the cord, "POW!". It was the last unacceptably untoward note of the evening.

      I kept the tempo with "the claw" as I arranged the stool in the front row of the audience and sat down on it in a motion. Pretty glib, I thought. By the time I had finished that song I was a local favorite. Hell, I could of been mayor. I think the soundman even liked a set with no sound. So, I played all night without the PA.

Vince at Victoria
--Tommy Elskes and Bill McNeal in the audience


Vince and Steven Fromholz		       The next day we saw one of my dearest, closest pals in music since the 70's. He told me that someday's he just didn't have the desire to get up.

      I said, "that's part of it." He confided, "and y'know I just don't like some of these people." I said, "that's part of it, too. Even that'll change" He wrote in an email, "you're the only person I've had the great pleasure of talking to that knows what's going on when the brain takes a big hit. I love ya, little brother." I love you too, pal.
      From my subsequent post:

      Yo. This is Vince.

      It was the best to see you. And damn, you're enjoying excellent Mexican food these days. To keep 'em in this town you gotta feed 'em good. I think we wore you out with all the social pleasantry, however. Here's a hint: till you rest it, it don't get better.
"Sun so hot I froze to death!" This one is like quantum physics. Reality breaks down here. The old you is gone to everyone you ever knew, but you. You'll be glad to talk to him from time to time. Lucky for you :), you are him.

      But it's different. There's a new kid in town. Neither faster, nor stronger. Better.

From the best,

to the best.
Vince

      ps write when you want, call when you can, visit when you will

Vince and Steven Fromholz


Second Saturday Concert Series in Houston		      My guitar maker, Vince Pawless, next hooked up with us in Galveston for an assault on Wrecks Bell and the Old Quarter Acoustic Cafe. But not to play this time. We just wanted to support his beer, Starbock, so we showed up just to knock 'em back. And I wanted to gnaw on him a moment for telling Sarah "no" when she asked for a date. In a back pedal like a dog running into the refrigerator he said he was so glad to see us and that he was badly misconstrued. I been playing for him for thirty years. I live to be turned down by this man.
      When we returned to the mountains we made a short trip to see Landon Young and Janice Felty play a recital at the United World College Castle. ¿Castle? Before it was a school the beautifully architected and located complex of buildings was the Montezuma Hotel since the 1880's. It's location in the tuck of a valley in the side of the mountains gave it a commanding view of everything below it, including the town of Las Vegas, NM. The vaulted wooden ceilings over the concert reminded me of the Del Coronado in San Diego.

      Lanny on piano, and Janice were "on" that day deluxe. He sat down to a nine foot grand piano. I sat next to the technician that refurbished the august old keyboard for the show. It was flat out excellent. What power, what precision. What a great hour of music in a rich atmosphere. The new, the old, the classic, the au courant. It was quite the consonant outlay. janice sang through an hour long program of the classical, and the contemporary. Notes from them both hung in the air, intermingling, yet weightless, and bouying like bubbles. Round, full, cleanly articulated, yet warm as wood and steel, and a woman's voice can sound. This stuff, I'm used to. I didn't hear one unintended note. Bravo.

The DJs for KUNM's Happy Feet Radio show,
just prior to the Outpost show


Janice and Elliott Rogers, Vince, and Tom Adler at the Outpost		       Our next stop was in Albuquerque, at my pal, Geoff Muldaur's, favorite gig in the contiguous states. It's called the Outpost Performance Space. Tom Gorelnik and his able crew make it look easy. They play all types of great music there from jazzmaster Bill Frizzell with a good buddy, Victor Krauss, on string to...well, Vince Bell. The place erupted that night in the wake of a tune about an Emu played and written by Elliot and Janice Rogers. The spontaneous tongue in cheek they provided are what show biz is all about. That helped us to a grateful encore from the crowd of subscribers to our songwriter in the round that included Tom Adler. So, Geoff Muldaur's favorite gig is one of my faves too.
      In Texas we have a thing called the Thanksgiving Rehearsal. It's held every year the weekend before the traditional Thursday in November at a summer house on a lake in east Texas. And I wrote all about it in Journal #2

http://www.vincebell.com/edge02.htm

      So, Sarah and I decide to have a Rocky Mountain time version of the same event. Many people show up, and musicians of every sort play in the handball court/garage. Everyone ultimately mills about for a few tall ones and then politely disappears, fully slaked and satiated. The great neighbor, Ron, and the great friend, Sandy, help with the dishwashing so that by ten o'clock we're kicking back and through for the evening. No muss, no fuss. Next year we plan to leave a videocamera set up at both parties a thousand miles, and 7000 feet apart so those poor Texans can see what they're missing.

Music in the garage at Thanksgiving Rehearsal


More music in the garage

The Crew...Sandy (front right) and Rod (front left)
     To cap the last of the fleeting past, Sarah and I head it up the high road to Taos to bother an old, old music pal from my music years in Austin, Michael Hearne. The high road from Santa Fe curves through the Sangre De Cristos memorably. Mike sung to the full house on the Taos ski basin road like a bird. It was like no time had passed since I last saw him Wow 'em from a stage on Sixth Street in Austex. I did a couple three numbers on a break. We took in his show that night at the Old Blinking Light, before we checked into the Sagebrush Inn. Mike is the playingest guitar player on the planet. The Sagebrush is one of his regulars, so we got the room cheap. Our room had a little kiva in the corner with a stack of wood next to it. It was the best to see him, and like this essay I bet I do the trip to Taos again soon.

      By the by, you might have seen a wirephoto with Donald Rumsfeld wearing a baseball cap with the letters OBL on the crown. It stood for the Old Blinking Light, not ben Laden. And ¿Julia Roberts? She doesn't have a baseball cap

like that.
Vince

Copyright ©2004 Vince Bell