Comso's Dream at Anelia's Kitchen and Stage, La Conner, WA

We had a busy Saturday this last weekend.  We played at the Proctor Farmer's Market in the morning from 9am to 11am.  We played a straight 2 hour set there.  It was very enjoyable as we had a lot of friends who stopped in to hear us.  I really enjoy singing with Kristi and Gen.  Gen is a wonderful guitar player, songwriter and gets such a nice blend with our voices.  We have such a great time playing his songs because we know everyone will love them.

Kristi and I got to the market early.  For a change we drove in and unloaded at the entertainment canopy like we were regular vendors.  That was kinda nice as it is often a bit stressful carrying all of our gear for a block or two.  It doesn't seem like much gear as long as you don't have to carry it too far.  It has been an overcast July this year so far.  Saturday was no exception, but it was just warm enough to be comfortable outdoors.  It has been just wet enough that the entire state is pretty, and green now.

We played my new song "California" at the market.  It was only the second time we had played it.  It went down well.  I think it has a nice sound, and people who are from California just like hearing the name of their home state repeated in a song.  Although the song is a fiction it has a slight ring of truth to it.

After our two hour set we packed up and went home.    Gen and (his wife) Rebecca schmoozed with one of our fans after we finished playing.  That is good as I'm not really sociable in these situations. The truth is that I sometimes cannot imagine having fans as I just enjoy making that sound and I'm often oblivious of whether someone else is interested in the sound we are making. It is good to be playing with someone who is good with the people who come to see us.  Kristi has been good with that too.  It's good that those two are good with  that.  Frankly, I always have a job to do getting things broken down and packed up.

We followed Gen and Rebecca through the market on our way out.  By now we know a few of the vendors.  It is a really comfortable situation for us.  There were people who actually stayed for most of the two hours listening to us play.  That is very gratifying, and I think it is a bit unusual.  Put it this way.  I don't think that Kristi and I ever had anyone stand for the complete two hours listening to us sing at a farmer's market.  There was at least one guy who did that, and there were an exceptional number of people who stood and listened for an hour or maybe more.

After the farmer's market Kristi and I went home, had a little bit of leftovers for lunch and we took a nap.  That was a good thing to do because our Saturday wasn't over yet.  It was a good long nap.  We had booked a party in the Olympia area for Saturday starting at 6 pm.  We picked Gen up from his house.  He brought his QFC powered speakers.  I brought a mixer, cables, mic stands etc.

The first part of the drive there was uneventful freeway driving.  We got off of the freeway at exit 111 which is pre-Lacy/Olympia.  We had our GPS running and I didn't think that it would be far from the freeway, but as it turned out there was another 10 miles to drive after getting off of I-5.  The first part of Marvin Road is  fairly new development.  We have been there many times as there are a couple of businesses out that way that we use now and again.  I was also reminded of an adult community out that way that we played a few years ago.

The development just keeps getting more developed all the time and as houses grow, so do businesses.  That always bothers me as it seems like a little bit of hypocrisy when someone moves out into the countryside having been sold on country living and then finds they don't like the inconvenience of being 10 miles from businesses who sell them groceries etc.  Then the businesses move out into the countryside and you no longer have only houses, but you now have miles and miles of strip malls, and concrete.  Ah well, such is life.  I guess.

The latter part of the drive was gorgeous.  It was green, lush, and the houses are zoned to be on very large lots (five acres).  There was a river we drove by for awhile, and there was forest everywhere. The  lots filled with Douglas Fir seemed like a fantasy to me.  It was all so green, bright, and alive.
We spend too much of our time in the city, and where we live is something of a desert.  It seems like more of a desert after that drive on Saturday.

The place where we were playing had a long driveway and obviously was on a pretty large property.  We drove past pens with chickens, and turkeys all under the shade of giant Douglas Fir trees.  As we got further up the driveway you could see a large workshop kind of building looming in the near distance.  There was a house that obviously a bit new and a pen with floppy eared goats.  There was a person working on a chicken house who introduced herself as the sister-in-law from Oklahoma.  We soon met Seth, the man of the house and we backed the car over the lawn to the porch where we were give a space to play under a shelter.  There were canopies set up on the lawn and there was a gazebo.  There was a mother duck with ducklings that we saw traversing the property for one reason or another all evening.  There was a black and white short haired dog named Charlie who was friendly and left the ducks alone.

Once we were set up to play we were pretty much all business except when we had a break.  We played one hour then took a fifteen minute break.  After that we played two more 45 minute sets with a 15 minute break before the last set.  At break time we munched on the food which was pretty good.  They had bbq ribs, bbq salmon, bbq chicken, potato salad, chips, and marshmallow covered brownies.  They had beer too but we did not partake anticipating a drive home and a long day on Sunday.

Kristi and I had a great time playing with Gen.  We feel like we are much more than we are as a duo, or as single performers.  I hope that Gen feels the same way.  On Sunday Kristi and I had a dance to play in Wenatchee and Gen played in a bar down in Oregon.   Gen took the pictures of the goat(s).
We had a good gig in Wenatchee and I'm sure that folks in Oregon enjoyed hearing Gen play his songs.  You can check out our schedule at http://www.cosmosdream.sknebel.com

Home, Home on the Home . . . Driving and Palouse Falls - Rear View Mirror

I've had that Paul Simon song that starts, "Gee but it's great to be back home. Home is where I want to beeee.  I've been on the road so long my friend and if you came along I know you wouldn't disagree." going through my head.  We drove home from Cascade, Idaho yesterday.  I always feel like I need to qualify the "we" because Gen did all the driving and was as stoic about it as ever.  He definitely had a rush of joy when we pulled up to the Obata residence in Tacoma.

Our last night was a performance in a theater, and in spite of the fact that the performance was part of a community event where children are performing, we were received as excellence in entertainment, and performance.  The MC was the organizer of the entire thing.  It was a takeoff of "A Prairie Home Companion".  The community turned out in good force to support the event.  There were two more performances planned after our departure, one on Saturday, and one on Sunday (today).

It actually is a thrill to play in a theater where there is professional lighting, and a sound man with a room full of people eager to hear what you have to sing about.  I think that all of us enjoyed being there in spite of the fact that the last set was squeezed between a set for marionette puppets and the wall.  I didn't realize it until I asked Gen the next day, but he said he was partially obscured by the set.  I hate that.  I should have been partially obscured.

Neighborhood Transportation

Valley Home Companion

Gilmour Ranch

The night was full of narrative regarding the occupational spread of the "Long Valley", which is where Cascade is situated.  We were in the show as music while people were arriving, music at the intermission, and two spots in the show.  We played a song that I learned from my father, "The Frozen Logger", which many of you will recognize as it is fairly old and has been recorded by a number of artists, including Johnny Cash.  I very rarely play that song so I had recovered it from my long term memory, and Gen put in a mandolin intro and outro.  I would have had Kristi sing it but in the interest of efficiency I sang it as I already knew all the verses.

The other song, which serendipitously immediately preceded the logger skit was a railroad song.  We performed my song "Great Grandfather" which is introduced by me playing an instrumental version of "Freight Train" by Elizabeth Cotton.  Once again Gen accompanied Kristi and me with the mandolin. I had to embrace my folkiness in this circumstance.  I'm not a very hardcore folky at all, and often feel like I'm undressing in public when I perform hardcore "folk" music.  I really prefer to be considered "Americana", which is just a step away from folk music. This was appropriate for the venue, and the circumstance so . . . there ya go.

The MC sang "Cows with Guns" and there was a stop action video that went with it that was pretty good.  Someone put a lot of work into that.  The marionettes were pretty good too.  They were very fun.  We all enjoyed the evening and were grateful for the opportunity to play in a theater full of people who truly appreciated us.

The next morning we all got out of bed early enough to be on the road by 8 am.  Kristi and I had our alarm set for 7 am.  Gen was, not surprisingly, up by the time we trundled out of bed and down the stairs.  I've been wearing black T-shirts for a month.  This morning I put on my "Wildwood Guitars" T-shirt that I got from Jimmy Monteith-Towler.

We stopped to be tourists a few times on our way home.  We have been blowing through this country like we are on a quest that requires us to keep on movin', and in fact, that has been the case.  We have been on a tight schedule a lot of the time and we have only been stopping for gas and a restroom, maybe a little food now and again.  We have been "hard traveling".  Our friends from Cascade/Tacoma David and Susan told us we must see Palouse Falls, and so we did.

Kristi doing her best impression of a tourist in Idaho

It was really worth it.  We also stopped at the Nez Perce information center on their recommendation. That also was worth the stop.  We even stopped in the hills after we went through Riggins, Idaho to take pictures of the hills as the light was right, and the hills looked really cool.

We got going the wrong way coming into Lewiston, ID.  Our GPS, Kirsti, wanted to take us through Pullman, and Spokane.  Kirsti sometimes doesn't really know what she is doing.  On the other hand, we ended up on the overlook of Lewiston which is pretty spectacular as views go.

After that we turned around and went into Lewiston to a grocery store for something to eat.  After the grocery store we headed out for Palouse Falls.  We knew nothing about it except a brief description of how it got to be the way it is, and that it was worth a stop.  Gen was determined, and I decided that maybe I would learn something if I listened to him.

When we left the grocery store we drove out of town over the Snake River and headed out into the wilderness of South Eastern Washington.  I have often thought that it's kind of a magical place.  The hills seem so evenly rounded there it reminds me of a scene from the Hobbit.  Of course it isn't spring yet but it has been warm and wet where the elevation is low enough and you can see some signs of green returning to the landscape.  It is mostly rural there and especially scenic along the river.  There is one spot where you can see two railroad bridges crossing the snake before you come to the automobile bridge across the river.

It's an interesting landscape there with the rocks coming right down into the river.  The bridge crosses the river and heads straight up the side of a hill.

Then we are headed for Palouse Falls Park.  Our GPS, Kirsti, knows where it is.  It's just off the road so it's no challenge to follow the road to our turnoff.  It is well marked.  It is a muddy road and we are following another car.  I'm surprised as we see another car leaving.  I have driven past this location a few times and never paid any attention to it until we got a cue from our friend's the Gilmours.  We finally arrive at our destination.  It is a state park.  Once we get a look at what's there I realize it could easily be a national park/monument whatever.  It is really a spectacular natural landscape and the waterfall is one of the most scenic I've seen.

It was, however, a long drive from Palouse Falls to Tacoma.  I was totally done in by the time we dropped Gen off and got the car unloaded.  On the other hand, all of us are looking forward to more touring.  All of our audiences on this trip were enthusiastic about us.  We have had a successful tour, and at least for the last 12 hours of our tour we were tourists.  Truthfully though, Kristi gave Gen a tour of Spokane and it was turn around in his hometown of St. Louis.  Gen, and his wife Rebecca took us all around St. Louis, or at least we saw a good bit of the city.  Keep in touch and we'll give a taste of some more of the world at another time.  It is great to be back home.

Driving, driving, arriving, driving, performing, etc.

Driving, Driving, Driving

Becky, Gen, Kristi, David on David and Becky's front porch

We have arrived in Pocatello, Idaho once again the home of Becky Hardy Van Hemert Kristi’s old friend from the University of Idaho and her sorority sister.  It was a long drive from Boulder, Co.  The drive to Boulder was incredibly long.  Amazingly it was February when we left Tacoma, and now it is March.  I guess that’s the way things happen every year.  First you have February, then you have March and I suppose that all things considered it will be April eventually and then May.

It is “super Tuesday” today and the USA once again demonstrates how generally stupid it’s population is.  I don’t believe I said that, but that’s the way it feels.   I know better than that, but really folks.  There are real problems to solve and you are choosing people who categorically will refuse to solve them.  They will tell you that they are working on it, that they want to solve them but it’s too difficult.  All that will really be missing is the will to solve the problems but the difficulty lies in the fact that the human race may truly not survive having its’ head stuck in the sand, or in this case some other dark place.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about I don’t have the space here to explain. 

Colorado Sunset

It was over 800 miles from St. Louis to Boulder.  It was approximately a 14 hour drive.  I still wonder if Kristi and I would have made the drive by ourselves.  We only drove 4 out of the 14 hours.  Gen drove the other 10.  He is very stoic about it.  I believe he even said that he kind of enjoys driving, which is something that I could have said but I get sleepy these days.  I did make some long drives coming out east.  I drove from Spokane to Missoula, but that was not nearly St. Louis to Boulder.  There are not trees like we have in Western Washington.  You can see for miles, and miles all the way.  There were some hills,  but no real mountains.  Even the mountains around Boulder are pretty tame hills that are near.  Of course there are some big mountains off in the distance once you get there. 

Colorado Wind Farm

The drive across Missouri, Kansas, and Colorado was telling.  There were way too many Christian billboards, and signs that were anti-abortion.  There was just way too much right wing propaganda.  It was pretty much all in your face and downright offensive to anyone who would not agree with the opinions expressed.   We drove through a lot of little towns that had a church steeple as its’ prominent visual feature.   Just out of Kansas City there were a number of housing developments in the middle of nowhere.  I have thought for some time that these kinds of housing developments are a mistake.  I think a lot of the houses are sold as “rural” living, but with a motif of urban housing.  People who move to such a development will soon want strip malls and will continue to populate the empty landscape while the urban environment, which has housing that has passed its’ expiration date and empty lots will continue to decay as populations flee to populate an automobile driven illusion.

The drive on Monday from Boulder to Pocatello was different.  For one thing we had 50 mph winds to drive through and soon after crossing the border from Colorado into Wyoming we hit snow.  The snow was windblown and not sticking on the road.  It was actually a little scenic as there wasn’t enough of it to even obscure vision much.  Very soon we were driving on highway that had elevation of over 8000 feet.

We stayed with Gen’s old family friends Idie and Tim.  As usual his friends are very interesting, thoughtful, kind and conversational.  I was truly exhausted by the time we arrived.  We played the night before in St. Louis.  I have a hard time being sociable when exhausted.  I simply lack some social grace at those times and probably would do better if I simply went to my room and didn’t try to be sociable.  It was truly strange to perform at 2 am in Kansas City and try to be credible when really, really tired.  I suppose that the people who were listening to us were in similar condition.

Idie, Tim, and Gen in Boulder, CO

 I hope you all read the review that we got from what is a new fan in St. Louis.  It was obvious that our high opinion of Gen Obata is also true in St. Louis.  It was great fun to have everyone applauding every time Gen played a solo.  It was just great to play for an audience that felt like we were meeting their high expectations.  It was a small theater and the staff were very positive and gave us the feeling that we were stars, a feeling that I very seldom feel on my own.  It was great to have a good sound guy mixing us although there was a problem with a direct box and Gen’s mandolin got cut off in the 2^nd set.  I found it incredibly easy to ignore the audio problems, which is great for me.  Once again I think that it’s Gen’s influence in the band.  I don’t always ignore the audio, and I don’t trust anyone who is doing sound for me.  I guess I have sound man PTSD.  The sound guy was very credible, and the room was not very large so he didn’t have a very difficult job as far as sound goes.  He actually had two direct boxes that crapped out on him.  I brought a couple of direct boxes but have had no use for them so far.   Had I been prescient I would have had use for them that night.  I did have them with me.

People asked me about my songs on our break.  It was great that they were such a discerning audience.  Meanwhile . . . somewhere in Pocatello, Idaho we are mentally preparing for our next journey to Cascade, Idaho.

We are in Cascade, Idaho.  We have been here since Wednesday afternoon.  There is a considerable amount of snow on the ground here, but the weather has been good and it is all old snow.  This morning you can see that it has been cold outside.  The mornings find all the outside water frozen and sparkles on ice crystals on the porch.  By afternoon water is running off of the roof and everything is in a state of intense thaw.  It actually was pretty warm by the time Kristi and I took an afternoon walk yesterday. 

The drive across Wyoming was spectacular.  The drive across Idaho was pretty interesting as well.  There were snow capped peaks in the distance in both directions to our left and right as we drove.  Highways, however, are highways and rushing through a landscape, past the towns over the rivers and through the woods tends to have the same effect.  It seems unreal in a certain respect.  You get to your destination and it’s all in your past.  All you did was sit in your seat in the car and look out the window.  It is the same experience with different pictures.  Gen and Kristi had both been down these roads before.  I hadn’t so it was all new to me.  Gen pointed out the sign that led the way to a Japanese internment camp site.  Kristi pointed out the mountains, gave me elevations and names of the highest peaks.  I took bad pictures and nibbled on snacks.

We are all looking forward to getting home.  It has been a long journey.  I hope we have learned some lessons along the way one of which is: we can do this.  I will have to laugh in the face of anyone who tells me that they are no good at the business of music unlike us.  Our strength is not being good at it, but taking the time and making the effort to do it at all.  Maybe I’ll explain in greater detail later, but suffice to say that doing the road seems to consume all of our efforts just getting to a performance space and doing the nuts and bolts of that.  What is really required is that you have your promotional ducks in a line and get them all quacking or else you really are not accomplishing what needs to be done.  Quack, quack.

Last night in Cascade we had a pretty good crowd and I must say we made them pretty happy.  We sold quite a few CDs given the size of the audience.  Tonight we are going to participate in a community event which has the potential for either building our stock, or tearing it down.  At any rate we are doing it for free.  It will be “Valley Home Companion”, a takeoff on “A Prairie Home Companion” with local people putting on a performance.  We will play at the intro, the intermission, and at least one place in the show as well.  I will be soooo happy to have this behind me and even happier to be on the road back to Tacoma tomorrow.

A review of Cosmos Dream by a musically challenged miscreant…….

Late 1960's early 1970's, you wander into an urban coffee house/ night club.

San Francisco? New York? Seattle? It does not matter where. These are restless times. There is an ill wind blowing out of the east. There is trouble on the horizon in the form of a Republican presidential candidate. All you want to do is escape for a few hours, listen to music and have a drink with friends….drown your fears with the music of three very talented musicians.

If this does not sound familiar or enjoyable, you missed an incredible evening with Cosmos Dream at the Focal Point in St. Louis. Yes, time went backwards by several decades. I felt like I was in the presence of "The Weavers", Peter, Paul and Mary and any of the other musical poets from that era. It could have been a scene or a snippet from "A Mighty Wind", the stage of Garrison Keilors Lake Wobegon show on NPR. I really had to shake my head and pinch myself to make sure I was in St. Louis and this was 2016.

Mind you,bluegrass, folk and country music was never part of my make up, I cut my teeth on Deep Purple, The Clash, The Talking Heads. I listen to Opera, Classical Music, I dance in my head to Techno and Industrial. But a three piece band..acoustic? No drums? Thanks but no thanks….

Well, consider me a convert. Steve, Kristi and Gen changed my mind. I was stunned, I sat there for several hours with a big smile on my face, listened to the words that were sung, and felt something change in me.

I could see, hear and feel the love that Steve and Kristi have for one another. It was there in the songs that they sung. The intensity of Mr. Obata's playing got my feet moving, I could feel his passion for what he was playing. I honestly did not think that fingers could move that quickly, and at one point, I think I heard the mandolin let out a groan and plead for Gen to be gentle.

My favorite? The waltz that was played (I do not recall the name). Hearing Kristi's voice gave me goose bumps, I wish that they had played it again. And again…I was amazed.

All the songs were amazing, funny, heartfelt….Who knew that a song about a mall in the hills of Tennessee could be that good.

It was a great evening, one that I truly enjoyed. 3 adults of questionable age, playing like they were kids…..Look past the grey hair, they are damned good.

David Stradal via Rebecca Stith's Facebook page.

More Missouri

I suppose that by now I should be acclimatized to Missouri.  I am definitely learning a bit.  We spent a bit of time in Kansas City but it was very contained time.  We were quite obsessed with the International Folk Alliance Conference having paid registration fees, and for a booth in the exhibit hall.  It was really great.  I attended panels on booking in the UK, booking in the US, and several others.  Gen went to music camp, and Kristi went to a panel on folk music of the 60s where she met some of her heroes. 

The day before we left Kansas City we went to the art museum there.  It was our only day of tourism there.  It is a really nice museum with art stolen from all over the world.  I’ll be sure to insert some pictures here.  We went with our hosts.  We stayed with them all the time we were in Kansas City.  I believe I discussed them in my previous blog.  They took us out for the obligatory “barbeque” after the museum.  I have never been a big fan of barbeque.  It was OK.  I told our host at one point that as a “claim to fame” having barbeque is a pretty low bar to reach.  The city is actually quite lovely and doesn’t really need bbq at all to claim fame.

Rebecca, Gen’s wife, joined us in Kansas City just a few days before we left.  It was always a real question whether we were going to have room in the car for Rebecca and all her stuff as well as all of our stuff.  I refer to Gen as spatially gifted because he seems to really have a knack for getting more stuff in the car than from a visual standpoint would seem to be able to fit.  They were squeezed in pretty tightly by the time we got all packed, but all of our stuff and all of us got in the car to make the trip to St. Louis where we are now.

Now we are in St. Louis, Missouri but on the way we stopped in Columbia, Missouri for lunch and to stretch our legs.  Lunch was at a coffee shop and was the kind of food you’d expect.  Prices seem to be pretty level for restaurant fare here.  They had a good menu.  I don’t remember what I had other than a cup of coffee, which was pretty good.  It is a college town and the other customers looked like they were probably from the college.  We didn’t go very far from out automobile.  We stopped in a couple of gift shops which I thought were very good for inexpensive goo gahs,  and the staff had made very nice displays of the goods making them more  entertaining than they would  have been otherwise.

Walking along the street suddenly we came upon a shop front that had progressive signs in the windows.  I was immediately intrigued with what I saw.  I knew I was going into this one.  When we opened the door we were looking down a staircase.  At the bottom there was a sales counter and a clerk.  She asked me for my camera bag as this was their store policy.  She hung it on a peg for pickup on my way out.  I asked her about the store and she said it was a nonprofit business that promoted social justice and peace events.  Then she steered me to a little older woman who explained the store in more depth.  They have a peace vigil on Wednesday nights just like we do.  They have dinners to raise funds, and in the summer some concerts.  If we were coming through town we might be able to hook into their events to help them raise some money.  She pointed out an older guy (older still than the older woman) who she pegged as their fearless leader.  I didn’t talk to him as he looked like he was rushing around on a mission.  We all bought something there and it turned out that their prices were ridiculously low.  They had a lot of fair trade items, handmade hats etc.  It actually was a pretty good store.  For me that store was the high point of my visit to Columbia.

We then drove to St. Louis and we are now on our 5^th and last day here.  Tonight we play at the Focal Point, probably the most concert-y of our concerts although we don’t know that for sure yet.  We have been staying with Gen’s friend and former band mate Chris.  Chris’s wife is out-of-town so we didn’t get to meet her.  Chris also has a dog that is a character and quite lovable.  His name is Chester.

Most of the housing we have seen is of brick construction.  It would seem to be built late 19^th century into the 1930s perhaps.  I’m not sure but that’s what it looks like.  A lot of these buildings are multiplex but the one we stayed in has been converted to single family.  There are miles and miles of neighborhoods like this.  They often have balconies on the 2^nd floor where their residents can hang out in the summertime and watch the world roll by.

The neighborhood here is apparently the progressive part of town.  Rebecca took us to University City today and I didn’t see much in the way of obvious progressive attitudes there.  Here most of the shops have “Stop Profiling Muslim” signs in their windows.  I have seen quite a few " Black Lives Matter" signs in yards as well as in the display windows of businesses.  Their grocery store in this neighborhood in a demographic sense has a clientele very similar to our Safeway store in our neighborhood at home.  It is a similar store as well in terms of prices and goods.  If you take a left when you get to Grand Avenue you will find a large row of restaurants with a few other businesses thrown in between.  The first time we went out with Gen and Rebecca we stopped in a free trade store and the clerk asked us about progressive attitudes in the Pacific Northwest.  I feel very comfortable in this neighborhood and I’m sure that if I lived in St. Louis I would live here.  Today we took a drive with Gen and Rebecca through a better-heeled neighborhood. 

Tomorrow we are leaving for Boulder.  It will likely be a 12 to 14 hour drive.  It probably won’t be any big deal with three drivers.  We have turkey sandwiches, and ham sandwiches, cookies, oranges, bananas and I think Kristi has enough diet Pepsi to make it to Colorado.  We’ll be driving across Kansas.  It’s been awhile since I’ve visited Kansas.

Now I’m writing from Boulder, CO.  We drove through both Missouri and Kansas yesterday to get here.  We drove across the Great Plains.  I slept through some of it as Gen drove most of it.  Kristi and I did spell him for the driving, but it was amazing that he drove so much.  There is so much rural, and hardly any urban on highway 70.  In Missouri we drove out of St. Louis and through Kansas City.  Once we hit Kansas I think Topeka was the only urban location on the route.  It somehow seems impersonal to drive through such a large expanse of territory in one day and not really see anything closeup.  There were a lot of little towns where the prominent feature was a church steeple. It seemed to me that there were a number of housing developments that were quite a ways outside of Kansas City.  They appeared ludicrous to me from the highway as I remember that these kinds of developments usually spawn businesses the sprawl eventually into megalopolis.  We tried to listen to CDs picked up at the Folk Alliance Conference  but at 80 mph the sound of the road is so loud that it's difficult to listen to any kind of audio detail.  Let's say it's impossible, or if it is possible it isn't possible with my ears.

Our night at the Focal Point in St. Louis was magical.  Rebecca invited many of their hometown friends and quite a few came. Of course almost everyone in the audience knew Gen from his days of being a musician in St. Louis.  They were incredibly supportive with many rounds of thunderous applause and a standing ovation at the end, an encore, free dinner, free beer, and a great sound guy and staff.  It is our goal to play rooms like this, or excellent house concerts exclusively. 

We are staying with an old family friend of Gen’s here in Boulder and playing at the Laughing Goat Coffee House tonight.  Tomorrow we will drive to Pocatello, Idaho to stay with Kristi’s old friend Becky, and her husband David.  After that it is on to Cascade, Idaho to visit David and Susan Gilmour.   We’ll be playing a concert, and we will be participating in their “Valley Home Companion” show.  After that it is home to Tacoma.  I’m sure you’ll hear more from me before then.

Day sixteen (from Kristi)

We're at day sixteen of twenty-five now in the tour and it feels like we've turned the corner toward the end run. Leaving Kansas City was a major turning point.  The Folk Alliance Conference left us with cumulative effects of five days of sleep deficit combined with intense concentration of all the pressures of the international music business.  Reaching the finish line of that week felt like something of a relief to me.  I expect to spend some of some of the long hours in the Ford Escape processing my notes from the conference with my band-mates.

We've had phenomenal weather until yesterday.  Having crossed two thousand mostly mountainous miles, we barely saw what could pass for winter anywhere until it snowed a few inches here in St. Louis.  But we made our way to our two gigs yesterday with no delay nor danger except for power outages from a windstorm, which blackened traffic lights.

Looking back on our performances, I'm amazed that things have gone so well and without a single hitch.  I know the racial statistics in this city are around 60% black but our audiences thus-far have been almost entirely white. I'm guessing it's because of the neighborhoods we've been booked into.  I just take what I can get when I book and frankly don't have a clue as to the makeup of a neighborhood when I research booking leads.  But it's a little surprising to me.

 Greetings from Kansas City.  Oh yeah; it didn't exist eight hundred years ago in my time.

Our hosts in Kansas City made time for us to see the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art on the day before we left.  As much as Steve has his reservations about the elite nature of museum art, we both were captivated for hours.  I still have my own reservations about the appropriative nature of art in museums, but as our host Don said, “it was all stolen fair and square”.  We had performed in South Dakota at a venue next-door to a world-class gallery selling recently-made art from local Native Americans.  It was heartening to have a perspective from that experience of seeing that many of the kinds of art on display at the Nelson Atkins Museum are still being made by Native Americans today.

Looking back on our tour, Spokane was a bright seesaw of emotions for me.  Our venues are so pleased with our performances that they're begging us to return, which is mighty appealing.  Our accommodations were reasonable enough and very comfortable.  The city itself offered sufficient entertainment just walking around public spaces to occupy a full day of enjoyment.  Rosemary Ponnekonti, arts editor of the News Tribune, had done a feature article in the Go section so I had some idea of all the art installations downtown which have been added in recent years.  I was duly impressed.  But I can't stand on the magnificent pedestrian suspension bridge over the Spokane River downtown without choking back tears.  My father, John P. Esvelt, who designed it and was senior engineer for the Spokane Expo ‘74, accomplished so much in his short life and never lived to see the completion of his designs in the Riverfront Park.  Spokane is still filled with the weight of heartbreak for me, even after seven years since my brother and mother died there.  But we will go back to Spokane.

Kansas City here we are . . .

We have been in Kansas City, MO for a day and a little more now.  We arrived here from Lincoln, NE.  The day before we arrived in Lincoln we had a long drive from Rapid City, SD which took us through rural South Dakota and notably the Rosebud Indian Reservation.  I have thought while driving through Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, Iowa, and Nebraska that we were traveling through areas that were economically disadvantaged.  I sarcastically call those regions part of the great American wasteland.  To tell the truth though, I don’t really know what I’m talking about.  I don’t know how else to describe  what I saw.  I saw a lot of pre fab homes, trailers, yards full of old vehicles.  That said, the most prime property is seldom property that  butts right up to a freeway. 

We have been blowing right through the countryside stopping only to refuel.  We purchase groceries, or anything else when we stop for the night.  There was a point when almost all of the people we saw were Native American.  I thought of what I had read about treaties, and the land that Native Americans landed on after being kicked out of their home territories.   In that context it made sense that the most barren, virtually useless land that we drove through was inhabited by Native Americans.  I'm sure that's not always the case at all, but there is certainly an element of truth there.

When we finished out gig in Rapid City, SD we visited a grocery store.  While waiting in line  behind a couple of apparently Native American women the clerk informed me that we would  be waiting awhile.  She appeared to be quite unhappy, and quite willing to express her unhappiness with the expression on her face and the tone of her voice.  It looked to me like a racist clerk, but that is just me.  I’m quite aware that I see the world through my own eyes and someone else might see the things that I see in quite a different light.  I guess I would have had to see how the clerk dealt with someone of another racial profile to really know.  Maybe she was just having a  bad night.

We have been sharing the driving responsibilities quite well I think.  Gen drove long hours for the last couple of days.  I drove the home stretch into Lincoln.  Kristi drove us from Lincoln to Kansas City.  We are staying in a suburban neighborhood in Kansas City.  When our hostess drove us through the city on Monday night we saw a very prosperous city.  The downtown is impressive with it’s new buildings and layout.  I mentioned on our freeway approach that what we were seeing appeared to be a prosperous city.  We have not seen much of the city, and I don’t know if we’ll have an opportunity to. 

Kansas City was an intense experience.  We got up early, and stayed up late.  We were constantly going from one  event to another or sitting in a room listening to people talk about music biz.  The exhibit hall was for schmoozing.  Gen turned out to be the best schmoozer.  I had my moments, and Kristi was good especially when she could contact a DJ who had already played us.

We had a long discussion today about Ferguson.  We were warned to watch our speed limit and driving protocols closely when we blow through Ferguson the environs.  We’ll do that.  They apparently have made some changes there in the interim.  It has been suggested that if they do not have properly trained officers of the law that they use the services that the county provides.  They rely on the money from fines to run their city.  The social/political atmosphere in this country is quite complex and dirty with state, and local law differing greatly from place to place.  It’s not something that I would normally give a lot of thought to,  but . . . under the circumstances I do.

Last night we ran through our environmental set for our host/hostess.  The host is a real music fan and has a lot of info about Phil Ochs.  I mentioned Simon and Garfunkle and he brought out a  complete collection of their work.  He played a bootleg track from the Beatles Abbey Road and was willing to talk all night about any of these and I’m sure he could talk about others as well. 

We are going to be fully occupied for the next few days with the International Folk Alliance Conference.  I’ll probably have something to say about that experience.  In the meantime we are living quite well.  Our host and hostess are really nice people, easy to engage in conversation, and I might say quite willing to talk about most things.  For my part I’ve barely gone outside except for a short time yesterday when we went shopping.  Today we’ll venture out to the big conference center.  I hope I don’t get lost.

International Folk Alliance Conference

It has been an intense experience to be at International Folk Alliance Conference in Kansas City.  I started this bit of writing before the conference began with the idea that perhaps I’d have some time to write, but I did not.  I have been totally engaged since last Wednesday and now it is Sunday.  It has been late nights, and early mornings for us.  We have been around crowds of people every day.  By last night we were all three of us exhausted but we soldiered through our last showcase.  We have been immersed in music tour business for this conference and it has given us a lot to think about.

I have attended a number of panel discussions about booking etc. that have been quite good.  I'll probably have more to say about that later.  We saw showcases on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.  Sometimes I was disappointed, but many times I saw/heard excellent performances by a variety of artists that I would never see or hear otherwise.  

We shared a table in the exhibit hall with Rick Ruskin.  It was good to see Rick and spend some time with him.  He has been playing with a singer/songwriter by the name of Leslie Evers who is quite a good songwriter.  We went to Rick's showcase on Saturday night, and Leslie followed immediately.  We were all but completely done in by Saturday night, and we had a showcase at 1:50am.  Kristi and I are not the night owls that we used to be.  We did get through it OK and there was even someone there to see us, and who was recording us on his phone.  He didn't leave any contact info, and we have no idea who he was.  The hosts sent us a nice email that we got the day after.

Conference Gen

Setup the booth

Up On the Roof

We had a "firsttimers" showcase.  I think everyone gets one of those.  We got one showcase that was on account of Kristi being a singing female bass player.  The woman who booked it has a house concert series, and she is a bass player.  She even has a Mustang bass guitar like Kristi's.  

Steve, Rick Ruskin, John Jacob (record producer)

Tomorrow we head off to St. Louis where Gen is from.  We’ll stay with his friends and we’ll be playing a concert there.  We have a few retirement home bookings to play in St. Louis.  We’ll get to meet some of Gen’s family which we have not done yet.  We have met Rebecca’s sister and brother in law.

I keep asking myself how I feel, wondering if I should give myself the luxury of an answer.  I ask myself if I should more than acknowledge my feelings, but indeed express them to others.  I often feel that to share feelings is to burden others with the load that is mine, and mine alone to bear.  This is how it is with all of us to one extent or another.  We all have emotional baggage that we must hide in a corner for if we do not we would not be able to function from day to day.  Some of us have more difficulty functioning than others.   As I ask myself these questions I wonder what is more difficult.  Is it more difficult to fully experience our feelings?  Or is it more difficult to hide them from ourselves?  Often the anger, pain, joy, etc. that we feel is the residue of things that have happened in our lives long ago and have little relation to what is happening in the now.

I do find that I lose my ability to hide my emotions as I grow more weary.  In the last week there have been several days of being quite tired from lack of sleep.  I have found myself yakking away unconscious of what I am actually saying.   I suppose that now I’ve got you all confused.  I guess I’ll leave it at that.  I’ve got to get to bed now.  It isn’t late compared to what we’ve been doing, but I must have a reasonable amount of sleep and if I stay up much longer I’ll be unable to do that and get to our destination tomorrow.