2004-11-23 - 12:14 p.m.
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Weds., Oct. 20th The Handle Bar – Greenville, SC
We left on the 19th en route to a lay over in Fancy Gap, VA. Thanks to Ralph Nader, I couldn’t get my absentee ballot until after noon on the 19th. He got the PA Supreme Court to give him until then to get on the ballot. It didn’t work. Don’t get me wrong, I love Ralph, but it was a cause for concern. I got my ballot and then headed over to my local record shop, The Main Street Jukebox to pick up some new music for the road. I got the new American Music Club album called “Love Songs For Patriots”. It’s great! Mark Eitzel’s one of my favorite, nut job writers. Very dark; too true.
I’m coming down with something but it’s too late to do anything about it. The boys pick me up and off we go. We make Fancy Gap just after 10pm. Then a pretty uneventful run down to Greenville from there the next day.
There’s a great record store a few blocks from the club called Horizon (I think). Amazingly I found a disc by a great string quartet called The St. Petersburg playing “The Five Novelettes” by Alexander Glazanov. I’d been looking for it for a few weeks and am excited to just be able to pick it up without ordering it. We’re talking instant gratification!
We had a pretty decent crowd for a Wednesday and we play reasonably well. The Yankees drop game seven of the Worlds Series to the Bosox. I knew they would after dropping game six the night before, giving the Red Sox all the momentum. The Yanks will be a different team next year.
Thurs., Oct. 21st - Cumberlands, Charleston, SC
Cumberlands has moved. Now they’re up on King Street instead of right in the middle of old town. The place is pretty non-descript but since they’re right next to the college they’ll probably do better. Our friend Mitch Gilbert is there with his family for sound check. He takes them home and returns with some Sudafed and Advil for my chest cold. Thanks brother! My old friend Hugh Price shows up. It’s good to see him even though he has some criticism for the over abundance of what he calls the “train” drums in the music. Hey, you can’t please everyone.
Fri., Oct. 22nd – Magnolia Fest
We’re glad to be back at one of our favorite festivals. We’re playing on the dance stage this evening. As we are checking in I run into my old friend Michelle Isaacson. She’s the widow of one of my best friends, Billy Gural. Billy was the sound man/bus driver for the Blue Sparks From Hell for many years until cancer took him from us. Only recently have I stopped thinking about him on a daily basis. She’s there with her daughter Amy and son Mike. It’s really great to see them! My brother George and his wife and son Matt and his wife are here also. Wow! – old home week in a big way!
Donna the Buffalo is on before us, and they rock the house. They’re real popular down around these parts. The crowd thins out while we set up and those familiar feelings of, “…. oh shit, will they come back?” set in. It takes a couple of songs but eventually they filter back. Our friend Dennis is doing monitors for us and gets us up and running in no time and does a great job. He’s nearly as big a Yankee fan as I am and we console each other and talk about what the team’s going to do next year. It’s a great, rocking show! The crowd is fantastic and really responds. I love playing outside in the evening on this stage at Magfest.
After chatting for a while with our friends Alex, Kim and Leigh from Vashon Island in the fine state of Washington we head over and catch the rest of the Col. Bruce and the Aquarian Rescue Unit. They were just completely off the hook and wild! Then I listen once again in amazement to the Derek Trucks Band. Derek’s playing is so fluid and unconscious. The way he sometimes approaches notes from a _ tone below or above and his choice of slides in his passages continue to remind me of one of my heroes, Ustad Sultan Khan.
Saturday brings more great music. I’m now full blown sick, complete with chills, sweats and feeling generally shitty. Last night the Hot Buttered Rum Stringband asked Andy and I to sit in with them. When I get on site I realize my mistake by assuming the truck (with my fiddle in it!) would be on site. Wrong! I can’t sit in without the damn thing, so I just listen and enjoy them. Then I watch half of Adrienne Young’s set on the main stage and then quick run over to the Music Hall to catch the Duhks. They’re both good but I like the Duhks a bit more because they have a great singer and a fine fiddle player. The Duhks are the latest signing by Sugar Hill and are quickly becoming the darlings of the festival circuit. There are so many great fiddlers out there it’s amazing. After the Duhks I wander over to vendors row and get some Joe. A bit later I’m back in the Music Hall to see the Mammals. I especially dig their tune “Father William”.
David Gans, the host of the Grateful Dead Hour is doing a set in the Music Hall and he’s asked John, Andy and me to play with him. He’s also invited one of my heroes, Joe Craven, to play. Joe plays with the David Grisman Quartet and makes brilliant records with his own group. His style is a lot like mine in that he’s not really a bluegrass fiddler but well versed in many styles. He also has been influenced by Hindustani music. He’s one of the most musical people I know and the only person I know that can make his head sound like a drum by whacking on it with his knuckles! He does this to great effect and the audiences delight during the final song the members of RRE play. Unfortunatimetable we have to bolt early to make our main stage load in.
The main stage area of Mag Fest is remarkable. I believe I’ve described it before but perhaps it bears repeating. The main stage is at the bottom of a natural, bowl-like amphitheater that just so happens to be in the middle of a two hundred year old grove of live oaks. The groves canopy covers the entire audience. It’s branches are covered with long trails of Spanish moss and are softly lit by huge torches that stand on either side of the stage. The audience is seated up and concentrically out from the stage in half-circle arches. The final arch is made up of a series of large hammocks where three or four people can relax in each hammock and enjoy an unobstructed view to the stage. It’s a magical place to play, especially at night.
The place fills in nicely as we approach the end of our line check. This evenings set is a bit more introspective but still has enough burners to get the audience on their feet. Afterwards we do a CD signing in the merch tent at stage left. We sign thirty or forty, meeting and casually conversing with all kinds of nice folks. When we’re done we all try to predict how long it will take Donna the Buffalo to get on stage and actually play. This is a running joke with us (they’re reputation is well deserved!) and really quite amusing. I believe they did it in less than forty minutes....a record! We love those guys! They’re one of the best bands out there. To me, they are the true carriers of the torch of Americana music and direct descendants of the Band. After Donna I head over to see our friends, New Monsoon. They’re late getting on so I heckle them mercilessly; what’s a friend for? They’re great as usual. We’ll be doing a show with them in Houston in a couple of days. I make it through half their set and then make my way back to the van and to the hotel.
We decide to take it fairly easy on Sunday and make our way over to the festival after a leisurely breakfast. Peter Rowan and Vassar Clements and who all else are making bluegrass-like noises on the main stage. I see Caroline Pond from Snake Oil Medicine Show sitting up under some trees with Ruthie Ungar from the Mammals. I wander over with Andy and have a chat. We compare notes, tell stories and generally pleasantly pass the time together with the music from the main stage ringing softly through the trees. It was just then a feeling came over me. It wasn’t overwhelming, nor was it subtle. It was just a palpable, comfortable sense of community. We share a unique lifestyle and common experience. Just sitting at ease and sharing our experiences with a mixture of laughter and complaint brought me an unexpected sense of peace that lasted the rest of the day. After awhile we say our goodbyes and Andy and I amble back down to the stage area. Joe Craven and his group are ripping it up and I see the last of their set. Backstage, David Gans tells me has invited Joe to join us on his radio show we’re scheduled to play the following week in Berkeley, California. Soon enough we’ll be collaborating again on the other side of the country. That sense of community just got bigger!
