more tales from the road

hmmmm...lets see, where did i leave off?...

...after the Telluride trip, we were home for two days and then back out for four days of shows in northern Az....all the gigs went well...played two new venues (for us, anyway) and blew the roof off both places, so Pinon Pines and the Raven Cafe will be added to the regular slate of shows...
...we had saturday night off on this trip, so we were able to go see some friends play at Coyote Joe's in Prescott...they have a Beatles tribute sort of band called Ringo McLennonSon...drummer Jimbo Gibbons is an old bandmate of mine from the jazz fusion band Dr. Bombay, where he provided percussion, comic relief and physical intimidation if things ever got dicey...the band was excellent and a spendid time was had by all...Tom and i even got up and did our arrangement of 'She's a Woman'...our studio version of that one features Jimbo on tabla drums, unfortunately, he didn't have his tablas with him that night...
...we were heading back home sunday night, ready to be back to our own beds for a while, rolling down the mountainside when the vibration started...slight at first, with each passing mile it became more pronounced...we had just gotten out of what we call the "yee-haw" portion of the drive, some steep mountain grades and serious curves, and just past Black Canyon City, and i was just about to suggest that we pull off at the next exit and BOOOOOM!!!, a tire blows out...
...fortunately, we were back to the flatlands and it was a rear tire, so we were able to limp off to the side of the freeway and ponder our next move...the only way to get to the spare and safely jack up the van would have been to unload all of the gear onto the hot desert roadside in the middle of the fuckin' night...we quickly nixed that idea and called AAA and had a tow truck take us the rest of the way to Tom's house in Scottsdale...had to wait about two hours, but that's a minor inconvenience compared at to what might have happened if that tire had blown five minutes earlier on a nasty downhill curve in a whole pack of vehicles doing 65mph....
...a sobering end to an otherwise lofty journey...

...fast forward to 4th of July weekend...Payson, Az...the Smoot electric band was booked to play a three hour show on the street in front of Bootleg Alley Antiques and Art, owned by our good friends Ken and Brenda Mooney and then do a short set at the Ox Bow pub afterwards...
...we got to town and checked into the motel, run by a jolly, but nearly unintelligible Chinese gentleman...i understood about every third word and smiled and nodded a lot...went to the site of the first show and noticed that storm clouds were tumbling toward us, the wind picking up and the temperature dropping (i liked that last part!)...so Tom and i decided to play an unplugged duo thing inside the antique shop...we had played a few tunes when, we were convinced that the storm was going to pass us by and we should set up outside and play...
...well, you've probably figured out by now that we got three songs finished before the skies opened up and it poured until the streets looked like rivers...we were able to power down before anyone was killed by lightning and got all the gear to safety before anything got too wet...
...went back to the rooms to get some dry clothing and headed back for our evening show at the Ox Bow...and things continued to deteriorate...as it always is with multiple band shows, there is a distinct possibility that the schedule is going to get fucked up...and given that this was the first time the organizers of this function had ever done such a thing, it was a certainty...the band that was tasked with handling the backline and sound for the event were handed a shit sandwich...the P.A. gear that the promoter provided was woefully inadequate for the size of the room and the levels at which some of the bands play, such as ourselves...we don't play at ear-damaging volumes, but every band needs a system that is punchy and clean...this was neither...
...so, we're standing around waiting for our time slot, which is getting later and later all the time and decide it's time for a beer...yeah right...bud and bud light, coors and coors light...
...hey...you know what coors light and having sex in a canoe have it common?...
...they're both fucking close to water!

...and then i noticed that about every other male person in the room was wearing some sort of american flag shirt...i mean, i know it was the forth of july and all...i was sporting a red t-shirt with a Hopi fetish design, the first americans, the real americans...
...finally our time came to play and we hit the stage as hard as the earlier thunderstorms hit the streets...we decided to change the attitude of the room and country rock and cowboy music gave way to Superstitious, nasty Detroit funk as mean as we could deliver...the lighting system was set on a dipshit sound activated thing and they were flashing so much i spent much of the show blinded, hovering somewhere between vertigo and a seizure...i couldn't see it happen but i'm told that the room's collective jaw hit the table when we launched into our first song...i love shocking peoples sensibilities...Tom and i have talked about this at length...he got into music strictly from the artistic side...the quiet singer/songwriter sitting on his front porch, crafting tunes, pulling lovely melodies from the ether...i on the other hand viewed it as an act of rebellion, of revolution, a gathering of the tribes to make sounds to shatter the walls of conventionality...for me, it was all about the thunder, the groove, the bottom end...i was born to be a bass player...
...we are still pretty much the same...just a bit older...

but i digress...so we did our show and everyone was raving about the band (especially the other bands) and the promoter wanted all the bands to hang around and do a big jam for the last part of the night...i wanted no part of it as i was still feeling the effects from some questionable fish tacos from two days before and just wanted to be back in my room, close to the potty, if you catch my drift...
...the next night at the Ox Bow was to be the same type of show...several acts throughout the evening and ending with a jam...oh boy...i like jam on my toast...
...our lead guitarist had to split to fulfill a prior commitment so i was thrust into the bassist/soloist mode as it is with the duo...but with Matt there bangin' away at the skins, it freed me up to experiment with playing in and around and over and under the beat...big fun...
...but the biggest fun was our last number... we got our dear old bud Hans Olson up to play harmonica on the song 'Forgive' , a song that he recorded with us on our third CD...it was spectacular...Hans is a blues monster...
...we made our excuses and bailed on the jam and headed back to the valley...an uneventful trip this time as there is all new rubber on the road...

cruisin' faithfully...the horizon calls...