This just in from pal Joe Carducci, giving us the rundown on this year's Uplands Breakdown. You don't wanna miss it:
we just had a foot of snow but we expect to have about a monthlong hole in the wyoming winter come august, what with global warming and all. the state's rolling in money and union pacific is rolling out coal trains in all directions. unfortunately its cleaner than appalachian coal, both for the warming effect and musical ambiance, but it'll have to do. we're doing a two day wyo-colo breakdown weekend this year:
Souled American, who have been recordingsince the 80s and their classic run of Rough Tradereleases (Fe/Flubber/Around the Horn/Sonny; reissued bytumult). they followed those with two albums on catamount and have been working on a new album in their home studio near charleston, illinois.
Ralph White spent the nineties with the austin, tx. legends,the bad livers, and has been playing his solo blend of traditional and original blues and contemporary african influences thru his claw hammered banjo since then.
also from austin, Spot will set down at the end of his annual summer tour promoting another new album,"spot/albert", with albert alfonso.
and The Places have been cooling out in Austin as welllately. their most recent album, "Songs for Creeps", got great notices since Amy's appearance lastyear; when one plays centennial, wyoming, the ny and la media take notice.
your breakdownpresence will be understood to constitute prior consent and synchronization license approval across all media extant and anythat may be invented heretofore thereafter by some electro-geek what hates music, for anydocu/narrative/psycho-cloud-cuckoo-land movie thing michael hurley may be taping. fugitives travelling under false identities are forwarned.
michael has a new album coming this summer on the gnomonsong label called "ancestral swamp". they say hurley artwork on its way, plus the tunes.
The Stop & Listen Boys commenced studio work at the world-famous Blasting Room after last year's Breakdown and continued in various living rooms around Wyoming and New York - the so-called "stumblebum sessions". No release date has yet revealed itself.
Michael Hurwitz debuted his second album, "Blue Coyote" (third if you count the charming Alta School Cowboy Choir "Wyoming Mountain Home" album) at last year's breakdown, "Get Your Business Straight", stands up to the classic blues and rural tunes he gives his prairie blues treatment.
the particulars:
sat/aug/25 3-9pm beartree tavern, centennial, wyoming
SOULED AMERICAN
MICHAEL HURLEY
MICHAEL HURWITZ
RALPH WHITE
STOP & LISTEN BOYS
sun/aug/26 3-9pm swing station, la porte, colorado
SOULED AMERICAN
MICHAEL HURLEY
STOP & LISTEN BOYS
SPOT
THE PLACES [The Places CD, "Songs For Creeps," made my year-end favorites list for 2006; check it out. -- Sisco]
both shows will be outdoors, weather permitting. kids admitted to both shows unless in centennial weather forces us into the bar, then 21+ there. there is 100 miles of winding two lane roads, mostly paved between centennial and la porte. the scenery is fine but keep your eyes on the road, watching for the larger critters like elk, pronghorn, deer, and hotrodding students.
SOULED AMERICAN:http://www.myspace.com/souledamericanfanpage
http://www.scaruffi.com/vol5/souledam.html
MICHAEL HURLEY: http://www.snockonews.net
http://www.gnomonsong.com/michaelhurley
MICHAEL HURWITZ: http://www.mikehurwitz.com
THE PLACES: www.highplainssigh.com
RALPH WHITE: www.ralphewhite.comtarget
SPOT: http://www.spotbooking.com
STOP & LISTEN BOYS: http://www.boulderweekly.com/archive/082301/buzzlead.html
here's the view today in centennial: http://www.themountainviewhotel.com/webCam.html
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This is a great little festival, partners. I played it last year and damned sure will go back one day when I can swing it. In addition to the festival, both Centennial and Laramie struck me as towns that would be good places for an old hipster to reside. Maybe one of these days. There's a nice little scene there, with excellent players.
And last year, additionally, I got to drive the Highway Of Death from Ft Collins to Laramie, trampin' the high plains again, as I hadn't in a long while.
I hadn't seen Dave Lightbourne in 26 years when I knocked on his door in Laramie. The Stop And Listen Boys and friends were playing "Mr Diddy Wadiddy" in his living room. I set down the couple of six packs I'd brought with me, and Dave handed me a guitar so I could join in and went back to playing, like I'd been away since Tuesday or something. What better to way to catch up with an old pal?
Laramie also has a real railroad, still. Talking trains, here, partner, something that don't exist anymore in Varmint. Dave's place backed right up on the tracks (as did the bar downtown, where we went to hear Michael Hurwitz and buddies and to give me a little taste of the local scenery -- the bar still has bullet holes what are said to have been put there by Butch Cassidy). What a blessed relief it was to hear the rumbling rattle of trains again.
Living out here in the rural northeast, those are sights and sounds that have long faded into the silence of history. The tracks aren't even there anymore in northern Varmint. They've been pulled up, ties, rails, everything, to make way for recreation paths. I'd rather have the trains back. How's a high-plains drifter to keep himself in tune without being able to hear that lonesome whistle blow? I wanna die along a highway all alone, like some old highline 'bo, and cure that ramblin' fever in my bones.
Truly, if you can make the Breakdown, do it. You won't be sorry. Great music, great people both travelers and locals. The Beartree Tavern's a good and welcoming bar, with decent grub, too, hoss.
I've become so accustomed to living in what used to be a free zone that when I arrived last year, I wanted to limber up the fingers for a while outside but also wanted a drink.
You always want a drink.
Close the hole, man. This here's my story. So I asked the bartender could I take a pint outside to practice with. He looked at me in surprise. I told him it ain't allowed where I reside, to take a drink outside. He told me that in Centennial it's encouraged. My kind of town, right there, partners.
And the people dance when you play, another thing that don't seem to happen here anymore. People stand on the dancefloor holding pints while staring at the band. Makes me kindly nervous, being stared at like that. And they don't just wiggle their asses, either (not that I mind any ass wiggling); they do real dance steps. With partners. And they touch each other, too.
That shit's as historical here today as the railroads.
It ain't American, I tell ya. Every American should live in a town where the tavern has bullet holes, trains can be seen and heard night and day, taking drinks outside is encouraged, and the dancin's real and free. Pack my suitcase, honey, I'm on my way.
Back in the spring-summer-fall of '80 I found myself homeless in Portland, where The Sensitivos had washed up, having spent the fall/winter in Dayton and Silver City, Nevada, and sojourned out to other places, the most memorable being Port Townshend, WA, where we were, playing a weekend gig (and where the mayor played piano with us, a first for me that hasn't been repeated since), when Mt St Helen's exploded to our south. We were a traveling ecological disaster. In NYC, the rats were running the streets because they're homes were being demolished. In Washington, we show up and the mountain explodes. Coincidence? You decide.
So Lightbourne let me put many a mile on his couch that year and I'm still much obliged. I'd been staying in Steve Weber's spare room but he gave me the boot for reasons we don't have to go into here. There are enough Weber stories and not enough respect for Weber, you ask me, whoever's asking.
Dave's pad in that period was in NW Portland, only a block from the Earth Tavern.
Everything I owned but my guitar I was keeping in the '63, not that there was all that much to own. One day I was walking back from the car with a change of clothes when a Portland cop pulled up. He said, "You know, it's not allowed to live in your car in Portland." I told him I don't live in my car. I live around the corner, here. "What's the street address?" the cop says, and I realize suddenly that I didn't know what it was. I didn't have any reason to. I never got any mail, being a peripatetic musician, and I already knew where the joint was and how to get there. So I told the cop all of that and he rolled his eyes and drove away.
The Highway Of Death, see, is a three lane (middle lane for passing) that runs northwest out of Ft Collins to Laramie. They call it the Highway Of Death because of that there middle passing lane, for people traveling in both directions. The road appears to run straight and empty for far's you can see but what you don't see is that it has some pretty deep dips in it. You find yourself behind some 40 mph guy and you're thirsty, knowing there ain't a beer or anything else to be had for many miles til you get to Laramie. No towns, nada. So you get annoyed with the 40 mph and pull out to pass. Suddenly from nowhere appears a tractor-trailer coming at you head-on you hadn't seen because of them dips. That's the last thing you ever see.
I hadn't been out west in a long time so I was enjoying the ride across the high plains, mucho, and pulled into Laramie just about sundown. Another sign of its still being a free country: Drive-up windows at the beer and whisky store. You won't never see such a thing in the northeast US. Believe it. But it made me recall with fondness the many I'd known at west in the earlier daze.
I enjoyed that ride (couple hours) so much that I decided to take it back to Ft Collins again the day after the Breakdown. Amy Annelle, Elwood and me was playing that night in Denver but the gig wasn't til 8:00 so nothing but time. The Stop And Listen Boys had a recording session that day so there wasn't anyone to hang around with in Laramie for the afternoon.
So I got back on that Highway Of Death, this time headed southeast to Ft Collins. Along the way, after I'd crossed the CO border, I noticed a sign pointing at a red dirt road said "Red Granite Canyon" so, having plenty of time to get to Denver for the gig and then some, I thought, what the hell. Let's ride some western dirt, which I hadn't done in many moons. I had Michael Hurley's "Sweet Korn" on the car stereo. Beautiful drive, 40 or 50 miles on red dirt, down into little canyons and back up again. Once in a great while you'd pass a little homestead but the whole while I saw nothing living but horses and eagles. Really great ride, with Elwood for a soundtrack, hey.
I thought I'd eventually hit that I-25, where I'd turn south for Denver. Sure enough, after having passed a tiny firestation must've held one truck, I could see the tops of tractor-trailers on a highway up ahead but no highway. When I reached the highway, to my astonishment, it wasn't I-25 at all but I-80. I'd driven back into Wyoming without knowing it!
Still had more than enough time to get to the gig. Got there early, actually. Early enough to get some chow and several pints of good-stuff ale. Early enough to start getting bored because one thing about a lot of beer-swilling joints is many of them seem to have a perverse desire to play some of the worst music ever recorded, really loud.
The gig, again to my astonishment, turned out to be in a tiny boutique kind of place for a certain section of young, post-punk women. Not exactly where I'd pictured a Michael Hurley gig to be in Denver. Put it that way.
Turned out it was an Amy Annelle gig with Elwood and I on the bill for comic relief and generational affirmative action and culture passing. I wasn't on the bill, actually. I was an extra added attraction, subbing.
But it turned out nice. There was a little crowd, nuff to fill the place well, turned out to hear Amy, being Places fans. But they seemed to like Elwood and me, as well. Nice gig. Relaxed. Nobody nervous or jumpy. Nice, young receptive crowd, almost all women.
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