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Pitown Blog pt 5 - Saturday Music


Saturday brought us the opportunity to see and hear solo band performances from the Camper Van Beethoven guys. Jon Segel went first, then Greg Lisher, then Victor Krummenacher. They all rocked. All the sets are posted on Archive.org (see below.) Jon and Victor posted their setlists on the CVB Soundoff, and Bob von Elgg pitched in to help me with the one song title I didn't know from Greg's set (City Of Big Dreams)


Jon's set

1. intro
2. Orebro
3. Can't Help It
4. I Love You
5. (hydration banter)
6. Gravity - (Undertow) - Wonder Seeker
7. outtro

Jonathan Segel - Violin, Guitar, Keyboard, Sampler, Vocals
Greg Lisher - Guitar, Vocals
John Hanes - Drums
Victor Krummenacher - Bass
Chris Xefos - Keyboard, Vocals
Kenny Margolis - Keyboards
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Greg's set

1. intro
2. Feeling Cheap
3. By The Wayside
4. City Of Big Dreams
5. The Factory
6. I'm Sure You Would Understand
7. (downloading and room key announcements)
8. Handed Down The Wire
9. outtro

Greg Lisher - Guitar & Vocals
Bob von Elgg - Acoustic Guitar
John Hanes - Drums
Victor Krummenacher - Bass
Jonathan Segel - Violin, Guitar, Vocals
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Victor's set

1. intro 1
2. intro 2
3. Bittersweet
4. Sunday Morning Blues
5. Not Coming Back
6. Nocturne
7. My Baby's Brown Hair

Victor Krummenacher- Guitar, Vocals
Chris Xefos- Bass, Vocals
John Hanes- Drums
Kenny Margolis- Keyboards, Accordian
Jonathan Segel - Violin, Vocals

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

After the CVB guys was Neko Case. The PA system was freaking out pretty bad for her set, and I missed a bit of it going back to my room for a much-needed sandwich. The crowd seemed to enjoy her performance though.


The outdoor stage was running a little bit behind schedule, and Cracker did not take the stage til about 10:30 PM. Many in the crowd saw a very bright shooting star right over the band during the set. I did not see the big one, but I did see a small one near the right-hand horizon, which I confirmed with a nod and a gesture to a fellow audience member. Cracker played past midnight- David said they were supposed to stop at midnight, but they were just gonna play quietly. They continued on til about 12:30, and after the first encore tune, Wedding Day, Johnny Hickman was presented with a beautiful brand new Telecaster. "Still got the tagger on it" he said, right outta Spinal Tap!! Except everyone looked at it, and he touched it. . . He used it to play the final tune of their set, Darling We're Out Of Time. Unfortunately, I did not think they would encore cause they played so late, so my tape ends after Bicycle Spaniard. :-

I posted my tape on archive.org as I like to do.


Disc 1 (79:30.36)
1. intro
2. Been Around The World
3. Sidi Ifni
4. One Fine Day
5. Gimme One More Chance
6. Movie Star
7. Teen Angst
8. The World Is Mine
9. Sweet Thistle Pie
10. Where Have Those Days Gone?
11. Eurotrash Girl
12. Lonesome Johnny Blues
13. Duty Free
14. Happy Birthday To Me
15. Sweet Potato

Disc 2 (29:57.19)
16. Everybody Gets One Free
17. Low
18. Brides Of Neptune
19. Something You Ain't Got
20. Bicycle Spaniard


Cracker was followed by a performance on the indoor stage by Chicago-land native Ike Reilly, who wrote Duty Free. Ike did not start until pretty late, and he played until about 10 minutes before bar time. Johnny Hickman joined Ike on stage for his whole set. At least I had a great seat!


After bar-close, it was off to Bugs Salcido's porch for Porchstock IIb aka Bugsstock II. This was the next installment of an awesome informal porch-jam featuring members of Cracker, The Hickmen, Ike Reilly, Bugs Salcido, as well as assorted fans who brought instruments with them. I even recall Johnny Hickman's father-in-law Ted shaking one of those LP eggs - "Ya can't hear Frankie's maracas" he said with a grin! Later I caught a photo of Frank playing the back of a chair with his drumsticks! I was using MTP's camera, since my phone was all full-up, and I don't have the files yet, but I will post visual highlights of the two porchstocks in a later blog. The jam ended around 4:30 AM, and the crowd filtered away. I had promised Steve© that I'd wake him up at 5:45 AM, so I had a little while to hang out before I had to pack my bags to fly home. Around 5am, I found myself hanging out on Bugs' porch with 50-year-old birthday boy Johnny Hickman and a couple other folks, passing around a bottle of Johnny's favorite hooch, Maker's Mark. A grand finish to a great weekend.


After Johnny took off, I helped Bugs clean up his porch a little, and bring some gear back into his house, then I went back to my room and packed up my posters, taping gear, clothing and what little food I had left. I went and woke up Steve© at exactly 5:45, as promised, then around 6:15 Sunday morning, we were on the road for LAX. We got our rental car returned and made it to the gate with LOTS of time to spare before our noon flight. My taping bag went right through security without a hitch, which was nice. I was afraid that TSA would need to hand-inspect it but we had lots of spare time, so it would not have really been a problem. We boarded our flight with no hassles, and I caught about an hour of sleep in the air, my first since 9am saturday. On the way home from Milwaukee to Madison, Steve© cranked up The Essential Cheap Trick, and I got a nice lesson in music history. I think I'll pick up some of their vinyl some time. They Rock©! :-)

Pitown Crampout pt 4 - Saturday day - Sept 9, 2006


Yeah, I was a little tired on Saturday, but it was well-deserved. After the extravaganza of Porchstock IIa aka Bugsstock I, I finally got to sleep a little after 7am. I was not quite the last man standing, I think that dubious honor went to Tom "TH" Harvey. He and I hung out past sunrise sipping PBR on the porch of a fake doctor's office on Pioneertown's Mane Street. We were sitting on some stuffed leather high-backed chairs, just yakkin' up a storm like two old-timers in a cowboy movie. I realized after a while that the sun was getting pretty bright, and I was still wearing my clear glasses, not my shades, and I began to yawn, so I decided to call it a "night." He and I walked back to the Pitown Motel, and were still shooting the breeze outside near the picnic table outside my room when the door to room #18 popped open, and David's mate Velena asked if we could be quiet- David was trying to get some shut-eye. (on Saturday, Joey ceded her room to the band, so our new neighbors were the stars of the show!) Oops. I apologized, Tom took off, and I retired to my room to crash out.


I woke up at 9am, after sleeping about 2 hours, but did not really get out of bed for a while. Eventually, I did rise in order to check out the photos I took at Porchstock with MTP's tiny camera- we loaded them into his laptop and browsed them as a slideshow with a few sets of guests who stopped in to see. I'm a little foggy on exactly who, but I seem to recall Eric and Splinter, and of course my roomie MTP. Matt went off to join the other crumbs for breakfast, but I figured it would be an egg-fest. I'm a vegaquarium- like a vegan if you consider fish a vegetable! During the festive crumb breakfast (I heard it was really fun, and good food too) I stayed in the room, resting, then got up for a while and prepared my recording gear for the day. I got batteries and blank DAT's counted so I'd have enough to make it through, loaded up the backpack, then I went through the friday tapes and made sure they were properly labeled so I would know what's what when I got 'em home. After prepping my taping bag, I lay back down and didn't sleep, but just rested until about 1pm. There was some confusion about the day's schedule- Matt said he thought the autograph session was at 2:30, but it did not actually start until after 4.

Around 3, Matt said he heard something that sounded like soundcheck, so I dashed off to set up my mics so I would not miss anything. It was somewhat of a false alarm, Casey was firing up the PA system with his iTunes and getting the stage ready for the solo sets from Jon, Greg and Victor, but there was nobody on the stage yet. I set up my mics in the same spot as the previous day, and roped 'em off with the yellow caution tape I salvaged from the taping section at Deer Creek 1994 during the Grateful Dead shows. On friday, my caution tape was flapping in the breeze somewhat, so on saturday I twisted it into a tube so it would not catch so much air. I can't actually hear the flapping on any of the friday tapes, but I wanted to minimize any unwanted sounds that I could for day 2.


Then it was back to the motel for some food and more socializing before the autograph session. Johnny and his wife Soraya were staying in room 19, and were hanging out most of the afternoon, just shooting the breeze with folks and getting ready for the autograph session. Their young son was running around with a Camelback, squirting water and having a blast, and Soraya was preparing Johnny's CD's and other swag for the merch table at the autograph session.


I think it was around this time when Steve© decided to donate the painting of Johnny for a silent auction to raise funds for the local family whose house burned up in the desert fire, because Soraya was working on a cardboard sign asking for donations. I found out later that the crumbs raised over $500 for the cause. As much fun as the weekend was for everyone, it seemed like that was the real highlight of the event- a chance for people from far and wide to help out a local family who was really in need. I don't know what function the cockles of the heart perform, but I think everyones' were warmed up knowing that we could make a difference and lend a hand to help some locals when they were down.


The 4:30 autograph session was super-fun. Fans lined up at the merchandise-booth-side of a long table, and had a chance to purchase anything they wanted the bands to sign, then proceeded down the line, where the bandmembers were sitting, all in a row. I had already bought some low-numbered posters at the show the night before, but had them rolled up in a mailing tube that I shipped out in advance. At the merch booth on saturday, I asked if I could get the highest-numbered poster, number 90/90, and that's the one I got signed. They all seemed to be in a good mood for the meet-and-greet, and David was eating a gigantic burger but paused to sign my poster. Jon doodled some flames on the middle of it and an exclamation-balloon coming out of one of the camper's head.



Before



After



artist's stamp on reverse


I'm gonna keep this installment of the blog a little shorter, and wrap up the Saturday music later. Stay tuned, campers and crumbs!!! ;-)

Cramper Crampout blog part 3
Pioneertown CA Friday Sept 8, 2006

Well, let's get to the big shows before I forget what the heck happened. Day 0 of the Crampout was the Thursday before the actual event. Lots of die-hard fans showed up early to make sure not to miss any of the festivities. My roommate at the Pitown motel was Matt "MTP" Stout, an over-the-road trucker from Southern Virginia. Matt is also known as El Hairy Watermelon, Harry Carey and when he posts from his cellphone he goes by MTP which is short for "Matt's Tiny Phone." I had never met him in person before Pitown, but after Joey "The Legend" put us in touch a few months ago, we chatted at length on the telephone. Matt is as great a guy in person as online and on the phone. A generous soul with a wicked-silly sense of humor. Sometimes he comes off as very serious, but I was hard-pressed to find a time when he was not joking about something. We had room 17 at the Pitown motel, which is situated about 100 yards from Pappy and Harriet's Pioneertown Palace, the roadhouse bar which contained the concert venue(s) for the weekend's shows. The first night at the hotel, our next-door neighbor was Joey "The Legend" herself. She's from Minneapolis and I think she gets her nickname because she manages to be up front at just about every show she sees. She's also a great person and loves a good laugh.

P&H's has an indoor capacity of 275, including the pool-table room, a bar, and a small indoor stage. Out the back of the poolroom is a backyard area with another bar and a small food-service area as well as a larger stage called the "Western Stage." The total capacity including the outdoor stage is probably about 500, and I imagine it was just about completely full for the headlining acts. It was not crowded, but I think there were certainly over 450 bodies in there, probably right around the max for John Doe and for Cracker the next night.

Anyhow, Joey and I were the only audience members to attend the CVB soundcheck on Friday. I went into the Western Stage area around 4PM because I heard that the band would be soundchecking, and I wanted to make sure that I could set up my recording gear in the best possible spot. I also hoped to record the soundcheck, both to make sure that my gear was working properly and to set record levels, but also to catch every last drop of music that emanated from our heroes. I asked Casey, the band's sound engineer, if it would be OK for me to record the check, and he said it was fine with with him, as long as the band did not mind. I found David walking around outside and asked him if he would mind, and he said it was fine with him, but he did not know if there was really going to be a proper soundcheck with any songs, there might just be a line-check to make sure all the stuff was plugged in.

It turned out that the stage was set up in time for a normal check, and I did end up taping it. As the band was checking their gear, Joey was standing out on the dance floor which had been put down over the sandy ground in the dead center of the floor. Evidently Frank Funaro, the drummer for CVB and Cracker, told her at some point "NO LAUGHING AT SOUNDCHECK" so she and I made a sort of game out of not laughing. I told her it was important to do what Frank said, and so she could SAY "Ha ha" or sing it, but not to actually laugh. I don't know if Frank was really serious about the policy, but he's from Brooklyn, and I would not wanna get on his bad side, just to be safe. Casey put the band through their paces one sound at a time, just like most normal soundchecks. For David's guitar check, David played the riff from Might Makes Right, and that was the first "song" of the check. Once Casey was satisfied that all the mics and direct lines were functioning, he had the band play a couple tunes, they did ZZ Top Goes to Egypt, with a very loose ending, then Ambiguity Song "Everything seems to be up in the air at this time!" All three of the songs wound up being played during the Camper set, so I don't feel that the rough-sounding check versions would add much to the total picture, but if anyone really feels like they need to hear 'em, I suppose I could make them available. I will probably not be likely to transfer that tape until I am through with the music that took place on the indoor stage though.

I was the only audio recordist that I know of for the weekend, and I wound up using two DAT machines to capture everything, thanks to Bugs Salcido I had a microphone to use on the indoor stage. Next year I'll have to bring two complete rigs, or make sure there are more tapers than just myself there. Father Dan actually had his Archos hard drive recorder and tiny mics there (as well as a keg of Devil's Canyon Lager, which is another factor in the storied history of the weekend's frolic!), but he said his mics tend to overload when the sound gets loud. Upon reflection, I think it's his recorder- I was told by a friend in Madison who uses an Archos that they don't have very good software included, and that the free Rockbox software is much better. I offered to run Dan's recorder for him so he did not have to rely on his mics, and he was happy about that. Probably due to the weird software, his recordings all came out distorted from overloading, so I have been uploading the shows to his server and he's been placing them online. http://64.164.101.69/campout/ is the link for his site if you want to check the videos and sounds, or look at the various photo albums from the weekend.

ON WITH THE SHOW!

Day one started with the Thrift-Store Allstars, I already mentioned their performance on my last blog entry. Next up was John Doe from the legendary LA punk band X. John performed a solo acoustic set which was wonderful and heartfelt, then towards the end of his time on stage, he called members of Camper Van Beethoven to the stage. Greg Lisher, Victor Krummenacher, Jon Segel and drummer John Hanes came up and joined John for several rocking songs, all in the key of E. Later, John called David Lowery up to sing one, and they shared vocals for one number. I met John briefly after his set, and told him that I recorded it, and would be glad to send a copy to him, and he seemed pleased. I also told him that his set was "shredding" which I think confused him a bit. He said something to the effect of "that's an interesting adjective- what was shredding about it?" I told him I really liked the whole set, but it was probably Greg Lisher's face-melting guitar solos that got me.

I was up near the front of the crowd for the John Doe set, and I connected visually with John Hanes, the drummer who played the next day on Jon Segel, Greg Lisher, and Victor Krummenacher's solo sets. I was boogieing down to the sound, and when John played a particularly rhythmic beat on his floor-tom, his eyes and mine met, and we shot each other a smile. After the set I ran into him at the bar inside the club, and asked him his name, and he explained that he was there to play on the solo sets the next day. I told him how excited I was for those sets, that the chance to see Victor and Jon and Greg do their things was really the factor that tipped the scales for me to attend the California weekend. I've seen Camper a bunch in the midwest, and Cracker comes around plenty, but I knew that to see Jon Greg and Victor I'd have to go to where they were playing. I also told him how much I enjoy Victor's solo album Nocturne that he played on. Some of the tunes on that album kick my ass. In the best possible way.

After John Doe's set was Gram Rabbit, which was something to see! I found their music to be kinda like desert-techno. Maybe ambient-trance-tweeky-trippy would describe it?! Their stage show involved girls in skin-tight cartoony rabbit suits, with bunny ears. I don't think I got any photos of them, but I know there are some linked from Father Dan's compilation page. For some of the crumbs, Gram Rabbit was the unexpected highlight, but they didn't really grab me. I think I took a break during their set and went back to my room for a sandwich.

Backtracking just a bit, I'll mention that on our way to the desert, Steve© and I stopped at the Von's in Redlands to stock up on food and beer, so I figured I should eat what I brought. I did a great job of finishing my food, I did not leave much uneaten, and came home with a few light snacks remaining, after eating a bag of chips and a container of hummus on the plane-ride back to wisconsin. I had planned to stop at Clark's Nutrition and Natural Food Market which had been recommended by David's sister Stephanie, but I found what I needed at Von's. Right next to the Redlands Von's was a Trader Joe's but I had found most everything I needed at the Von's so I elected not to stop anywhere else.

While I am tangentially on the subject of my travel-mate Steve© (aka Steve ROCKS©) I should mention that he is a very fine painter. He brought along a painting he made of Johnny Hickman in order to give it Johnny for his 50th Birthday on Sunday, but wound up donating it for a silent auction to raise funds for some Pitown residents who were displaced by the giant desert fire a few months back. Here is a photo of Steve© on the airplane with the Johnny painting:


We stopped along the way to pick up a cooler for me at a large discount store which I won't link to cause they are too big already. At the discounter, Steve© bought some paints, brushes, and art boards so he could do some painting in the desert. He wound up taking our rental car over to Joshua Tree National Park and painting some pictures which he gave to three different friends. I think two of the pieces are of the park, and the one of the burnt Joshua Trees was painted in Pioneertown.




Ok back to the concert- Camper Van Beethoven was the Friday headliner, and midway through their set, they brought out John Doe to do the X song "White Girl." Evidently, Jon Segel was walking on air the rest of the weekend, ecstatic that he had jammed with John Doe. He and Greg Lisher also sat in with Cracker the following night, but that is not unprecedented, so I don't blame him if his weekend highlight was getting to play during John's set, and have John join CVB for a song.










CVB totally rocked, but I was a little bummed out at how many people were chatting during their set. Lucky for me, the encore put me in a much better mood- they pulled out I'm Not Like Everybody Else, a song by one of the greatest rock and roll bands ever- the legendary Kinks.


Disc 1 (69:55.05)
1. intro
2. Mao Recollects His Days In Southern China
3. White Riot
4. (I Was So) Wasted
5. Shut Us Down
6. R 'n' R Uzbekistan
7. The History Of Utah
8. White Girl*
9. Circles
10. Waka
11. Turquoise Jewelry
12. Tania
13. Eye Of Fatima Pts 1 & 2
14. Prelude >
15. Sons Of The New Golden West
16. 51-7
17. L'Aguardiente
18. The Long Plastic Hallway
19. One Of These Days
10. Hippie Chix
21. Skinhead Stomp
22. Take The Skinheads Bowling

Disc 2 (48:50.69)
1. Pictures Of Matchstick Men
2. ZZ Top Goes To Egypt >
3. Flowers >
4. Cattle (Reversed) >
5. The Day Lassie Went To The Moon >
6. Club Med Sucks >
7. Interstellar Overdrive
8. encore break and announcements
9. All Her Favorite Fruit
10. tuning and banter
11. I'm Not Like Everybody Else
12. outtro




After the CVB set, Johnny Hickman played a fantastic solo set on the indoor stage. He was joined by Bugs Salcido on guitar and shaker, Kenny Margolis on keys, Chris LeRoy on acoustic guitar, and John Doe even came out and performed Twin Brother which was great.


1. intro
2. Prerequiem +
3. Southern Cal
4. Hold Of Myself
5. (Doe Break)
6. Twin Brother *
7. Catholic Girl + (lyrics)
8. Little Tom
9. The Great Decline
10. (drink order)
11. Papa Johnny's Arms + (lyrics)
12. (band intros)
13. Whole Lotta Trouble
14. San Bernardino Boy
15. Wedding Day
16. (no rules banter)
17. Trials and Tribulations
18. Friends
19. Another Song About The Rain
20. (encore break)
21. Beauregarde's Retreat
22. Lucky
23. (outtro and taper signout)


(+ = first time played)






Still with me? OK. Johnny's set ended after 1:30 AM, and the bar was closing, so then it was over to Bugs' porch for PORCHSTOCK IIa aka Bugsstock! I did not use my camera for that, but I took a bunch of shots using Matt's Tiny Camera. I will post them some time down the road when I get a chance. I will also post a link to the music when it's online, it will probably wind up on the Father Dan page, so check back there if you're anxious.

The setlist for Porchstock IIa was as follows:

1. intro
2. intro 2
3. If You See Her Say Hello (Johnny)
4. Porch Jam in A (Johnny)
5. Streets Of Bakersfield (Johnny)
6. Tangled Up In Blue (Johnny)
7. Everyone Needs Some Love Now (Bugs)
8. Love In Vain (Bugs)
9. Here's To Us All (Casey)
10. Folsom Prison Blues (Johnny)
11. Goodtime Charlie's Got The Blues (Bugs)
12. tuning
13. Wake Up Lil' Children (Bugs)
14. outtro

Porchstock ended around 4-something in the morning, and I only counted 32 people there at the peak crowd. Not everyone had the stamina to make it that long, but becuase Bugs had a small PA system set up, the campers said they could understand every word sung at the late-night jam! Well it's getting late here, so I'm gonna call this a blog, and wish y'all a happy new year! Yep, as of dusk tonight (Friday September 22, 2006) it's Rosh Hashanah, aka Jewish new years 5766-5767! L'Shana Tova everyone and goodnight!

Bugs Salcido is my friend! What a great guy he is. Johnny Hickman introduced him to the crowd as "My Little Brother" and I am very happy to have gotten to know him. Bugs lives right by the Pioneertown Palace, and played a gig there on Thursday, the night the early arrivals came in for the Crampout. After his 25-minute opening song, he looked down and said something like "oops, I guess I have to hit record!". . . Later in the show he looked down and said it again. He has a Marantz CD recorder that is flaky, it only runs about 45 minutes before it adds little glitches to the audio, so he has to record in small chunks to get good sound. This means frequent changes of discs, and during a live show it is easy to forget. Anyhow, after the show, which ran about 2 hours, I mentioned to Bugs that I had a recording of the whole thing, and I'd be happy to plug my DAT deck into his recorder and let him run it. I joked that I had heard he lived nearby, and he said YEAH RIGHT THERE! and gestured with his hand in the direction of his house. I showed up with my tape deck after bar time and walked into his living room where he was hosting a few people chilling out, including a few members of Cracker, and suggested we start the machines a-dubbing but he said "Ah, I just PLAYED the show, I don't want to hear it again right now!" I said that's fine, I'm staying next door at the PiTown motel, and would be happy to do it tommorrow, and asked him what time he got going in the morning, "Noon?" I said, and he said Yeah that would be great.
So I went on back to the motel and there was a nice party gathered around the picnic table by my room, and I hung out and got acquainted with the gathering crowd of Crumbs and sipped some barley-pops. After a while my roomie and I were in the room getting some snacks and Matt (aka MTP, Matt's Tiny Phone, Harry Carey, El Hairy Watermelon, Eduardo Sanchez etc) said let's get out the Fakermeister from the freezer. I already told you about that part in the last installment, but I will mention that Bugs came on over from his place, and sat down at the picnic table and joined us in the festivities at our place. It was already feeling like a close-knit cramper-family scene and it just got better the next day.
Saturday noonish I found Bugs at Pappy and Harriet's, just starting to wrap cables and remove his gear from the indoor stage where he played the night before, so of course I offered to help him break his stuff down and load it out. We made a trip over with some lightweight stuff, and soon were running the DAT of his show onto his CD recorder. After we got the copy started, we headed back to the stage to finish loadout and gradually shuttled his gear back to his living room from the bar. Somewhere along the line, Bugs said he was planning to set up a PA system on his porch and have a jam session after-hours, and I told him about how last year there was the "Porchstock" jam, so it would be really cool that he was gonna do that, cause people would show up. "I guess we'll have porchstock here this year" I said. . . well, that wound up being exactly the case. More on Porchstock later, since I'm gonna try to keep this semi-chronologicamabobble. Oh yeah, I saw a roadrunner, see if you can find him in these shots, the second one is the easiest to see him:
According to Bugs, roadrunners are territorial, so that is his local one! There are also coyotes in the area, we could hear them howl at night, but they kept their distance from the commotion of the campers, for the most part.

The Saturday lineup on the main stage was Thriftstore Allstars, then John Doe, then CVB, with Johnny Hickman on the indoor stage after the CVB set.
I went into the concert area before the band was even on stage, and set up my taping gear by the soundboard while Casey and the PA guys set up the sound system.
I was set up right in front of a Joshua Tree by the woodpile which had been the only part of P&H's to catch fire during the massive blaze that leveled a lot of Pioneertown just a few months ago. The fire department took apart the woodpile and extinguished it, saving the premises from destruction. Bugs told me that the way the mountains surround Pi-town, that the wind gets funneled right in, and whipped the fire around very randomly. Near his house his neighbor had some blackened Joshua trees, and some unscathed ones. Anyhow, the band's van and trailer were parked outside the stage area:
They are unabashedly lefties, eh? The van has a sticker on its back bumper that says "If you can read this, I lost my trailer!" haw! :-)

The first band, the Thrift-Store All-Stars has a regular gig at P&H's every Sunday. I don't know if it's always the case, but for this show they were supposed to feature Victoria Williams on bass, but she was not there. Her replacement was quite a fine-looking person, and she rocked out on the bass, anyway.



Teddy Quinn (in the orange pants in the third photo) joined in on vocals for part of the show, he played a set on the indoor stage Saturday, and he has a great voice. I told him I recorded his set, and would send him a copy, and he was very pleased and gave me his studio CD. I gave it a listen on my roommate's laptop sunday morning and it's really good. He and the other bands on the indoor stage are all from the area. The spirit of Gram Parsons seems to haunt the whole region. Gram was in the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers, and he died at the nearby Joshua Tree Motel, in room number 8. Gram is known as the first country rock star, and is nothing short of legendary. Rojer Arnold who sat in with Bugs on Thursday night played with Gram, and on Saturday and Sunday he did sets with his band on the indoor stage. Rojer is a very nice guy, and I kept running into him and having cool conversations.



Perhaps you notice the "Horns" photos? MTP told me that Mungo, the great Camper-Cracker fan from Merry Olde England, took some horns shots last year, and it was one of our side missions to get as many as we could this year. Rojer is blurry in the second shot but I kept it cause it's got "good horns!"
I better knock off this post and get to the John Doe, Camper Van, Johnny Solo, and Porchstock IIa stuff later. Seems like this is a nice chunk to read already for now, especially if you follow up on all the links.

I'M NOT LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE!

I returned last night from the 2nd annual Cracker- Camper Van Beethoven Family Reunion campout in the high desert of southern California and it was an epic-good time.


I hardly know where to begin but let me say right off the bat that I am planning to attend the 3rd annual and all subsequent ones too. I made audio recordings of just about all the music on both stages at Pappy and Harriet's, as well as the late-night "Porchstock II" jams at Bugs Salcido's house next door. Bugs is one of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet, and a fine musician too. I guess we can start with Thursday Sept 7, and I can tell you about his show, and show ya some photos.




Bugs and friends played a great 2-hour set of music on Thursday night for a small but enthusiastic crowd. He was joined on stage by Rojer Arnold, the drummer from Thrift-Store Allstars and a few other folks whose names I will not recall until I transcribe my DAT tape of the show.




Later that night, after some beers and drinks out of a bottle of a German herbal liquor called something like "Par Dee Shotz" aka Fakermeister, I went sleepwalking. I have never known myself to sleepwalk, but I wound up outside the Pitown motel in the middle of the night, wearing just my pajama bottoms, and starting to shiver from the cold. I recall trying to get my key to work in a doorknob to the wrong room which turned out to be the motel office, where I evidently told the new owner that I was sleepwalking. I remember jiggling the key against the doorknob and the door popped open, and she said "may I help you?" I said I was trying to find my room. She said which room? I said "17" and she told me it was on the other side of the building. Very strange happening in the desert. I have no idea what I was doing outside, and in fact, did not recall it the next day until my roommate told me that the motel owner said that some weird guy wearing just pajama bottoms was hugging himself like he was cold, and told her he was sleepwalking. Weird, eh?

The next day, I went to Bugs's house to run off CD's of his set for him, and he was so kind as to loan me his Sony MTL F-96 microphone so I could record the indoor stage for the entire weekend of the festival, since my usual recording rig would be placed outside.
(. . . to be continued)

Just in time for the end of summer, I present my Margarita recipe for your pleasure!

2 oz fresh-squeezed organic lime juice
2 oz 100% agave Tequila
1 oz quality orange liquor (Cointreau or Patron Citronge- note the price difference!)
2 tsp agave syrup (or to taste)

shake over ice and serve in a salted glass!

Yum! Happy shakin'! Drink safely!!!
ps Pocotequila has some good info.