Pam Tillis at the Pines Theater...

This week I saw Pam Tillis, daughter of county music legend Mel Tillis at the Pines Theater in Lufkin. It was another fine show brought to town by the Angelina Arts Alliance. We did not buy season tickets to the Pines this years as we did last year. Our plans were to pick and choose the shows we wanted. These tickets were a gift from a friend.  

I must admit that I knew nothing about Pam Tillis. If I had heard one of her songs it was by accident so I can count this show as another adventure in hearing something that I have not heard before. 

The show was three musicians on guitar, keyboard, fiddle and mandolin playing and singing in harmony. There were no ipads, teleprompters, music on stands or pre-recorded tracks. It was just people singing and playing together on songs about the human condition just as men and women have done for however many years you think we have been on this planet or somewhere in the universe.    

Pam's bio lists her as being born in Florida and spending most of her early life in Nashville. The presentation of her show was very much in the singer song write style that is so familiar to us in Texas with stories told that fill out the spaces where the songs come from. 

I did not get the backing musicians names but they are probably capable of a fine show on their own.  

It was a really great show and it caused Cathy to consider doing a Pam Tillis song, Train Without a Whistle. She thought it would go well as a mash up with the Beatles tune Don't Let Me Down. You can listen and see for yourself but in my book and show that makes a person have creative thoughts is a good one in my book. 

  

 

RPod Trip to the Beach...

We made our second run living the Rpod camper life style to the Breeze RV Park in Surfside, Tx. One of the customs Rpoders keep is the naming of the vehicle with a frog theme since the frog is the emblem on the back of the camper. We are now calling our pod the Road Toad.  

Surfside is a handy place to camp. Tim, Rose and the big grand kids Warren and Coraline are nearby in Lake Jackson and the kids stayed with us sleeping in the bunks. 

The tent like structure that zips to the side of the camper called the rdome provided us with shade and with the sides zipped down on our recent East Texas lake trip an extra sleeping room with mosquito protection. Several of our camping neighbors, all with big houses on wheels type campers told us they liked the tent. It makes a good place to sit outside while they sat inside watching TV. Of course the Astros were playing and I'll forgive them that.  

I recommend the rpod camper for people that like to be outside. It's small. I could see if there were only two sitting around reading and playing cards on a rainy day but not much fun for having a big crowd. 

Overall a nice quiet park with a communal fire ring which we supplied the wood for and sat around in the evening enjoying the night sky and meeting our camping neighbors. The weather was nice and cool and with the camper windows open no air conditioner was required.  

The beach area we were on is a city beach with some rules about parking and one-way driving and such and in the off season not crowded at all. It was very windy with rough surf so the only fish I caught was a ribbon fish. 

In our plans is a boondock trip to the free camping county beach. There are no hookups,  no sewer, no water or electricity. I think we are beach bum enough to handle it. 

Next trailer trip we have scheduled is The Old Mill Music Festival in Kennard, Tx. 

 

Squirrel Nut Zippers and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band at Temple Theater...

Once again the Angelina Arts Alliance really out did themselves with a show. The Dirty Dozen Brass Band and the Squirrel Nut Zippers came to town. Do you know how much money and time I've spent driving all over to catch these bands? We won't go into that right now but it's certainty nice that this is the caliber of music that's come to my town. Thanks again Arts Alliance!

I've guess I've seen the Dirty Dozen at least a couple of times and own several cds. They are the group, in operation since the late 1970s that took traditional New Orleans Brass Band music and incorporated bebop jazz, funk with R & B soul and made something totally new. Kirk Joseph, the sousaphone player gets credit as being the first modern sousaphone player, sounding more like an electric bass walking the riffs and using electronic effects such as a wah wah pedal to emphasize the funk. 

Other bands came along later adding Mardi Gras Indian beats and hip hop to the brass band style but the Dirty Dozen were the pioneers and the show was top notch.       

In fact the Dozen were so good it left me sitting and thinking that the SNZ are really going to have to bring it to match this but no need to worry. They had it to bring. 

A Squirrel Nut Zipper is a name for southern moonshine and also a candy bar that dates back the 1890s. Frontman Jimbo Mathus who has been operating he band since the 1990s and early 2000s when the band sold millions of records never has any trouble naming a project drawing on southern mythology to come up with projects like The Knock Down Society, National Antiseptic, The Tri State Coalition amd Beasts of the Sothern Wild. He's one of our favorites and in addition to a couple of SNZ shows we've caught Jimbo on a couple of shows playing great blues, country and Americana music.  

Jimbo reconstituted the band with new members about 2016.     

SNZ combines traditional jazz, gypsy music, swing and delta blues to make a high energy mix that makes you wonder why everyone is not playing these tunes and dancing.    

Jimbo is a national treasure. 

Dr. Sick who sings plays violin, banjo, guitar and uke is another high energy performer that has been a welcome addition to the group. People often ask me what to do in New Orleans. I say if he's not out with SNZ look up Dr. Sick on facebook and go to whatever show he is playing. He's somewhere every night of the week.  

Great music. 

Masks and devil horns. What show is complete till you have wore all these things? 

Of course the bands combined for a couple of tunes. 

Thanks again to the Angelina Arts Alliance for bringing these great bands.

 

 

In the Park...

It's hard to keep up with what people are doing. There's all those conspiracy theories, the ups and downs of the stock market, what Trump done today and tracking when the rain is going to start on a weather app how would we even know what people are doing in public parks? 

When we travel to Chicago we often visit the public parks because that's the only way to get some good outside time in the city and the people that made those parks know that. When at home I sometimes play tuba in the park because I think it's funky and cool for joggers, bikers, walkers and kids headed to the playground to come along and find a guy giving a little concert. I admit that I haven't done much of that lately mainly because since COVID precautions lessened I have actually played some concerts and with my wife's, who was a day sleeper because of work, retirement I am free to play tuba all I want at home as long as I keep it during business hours.  

While on a bike ride at Palmisano Park in the Bridgeport area of Chicago I saw these dancers preparing for a program scheduled to be held in the park and open to the public on an upcoming weekend. I like seeing this and I wonder, besides my tuba playing what all goes on in my local parks. I do occasionally see teens practicing in my local parks the dances for upcoming Quinceaneras under the covered pavilions where the steps are sure and steady on the concrete surface.       

I'd like to see more people playing music in our local parks. Not necessarily guitar players plodding through Knocking on Heaven's Door or a little combo that's tentative on the A flat minor in Stormy Monday but people doing music like you have not heard on unusual combinations of instruments and not being shy or self conscious about it. Next time I play in the park I'm playing Somewhere Over the Rainbow. I know a billion people have heard the guy play it on the uke. Have you heard it on the tuba yet? It's different.      

Here's another group of dancers I saw working on a different routine but probably part of the same show during the next day's bike ride.  

Sometimes musicians will mention making money on music. That's nice and sometimes I do but mostly I'm playing real good for free. What are you doing? 

 Use your city parks. It's life. 

A Sandwich is More Than a Hero...

 One time I won a cooking contest with a sandwich. Suzi Q put it on, the contest, not the sandwich at a party to celebrate the Texas Sesquicentennial. I don't have a recipe for exactly what I did and if I had one I probably would have lost it because I recall getting drunk as Davy Crockett that day. Maybe that was the secret to the success but lots of drunk guys can fry up a pile of white bass fillets, place them on couple of loaves of French bread adding sweet pickles, red onion, mayo and call it a sandwich but the judges sure liked it. If I had to duplicate that concoction today I would not get drunk and I'd use Wow Wee Sauce instead of mayo. The prize for the winner was a cook book of recipes by famous Texans and I do occasionally consult it.  

On a recent trip to Chicago we visited the Goodman Theater to see the play "Clyde's" It's about a kitchen crew at a truck stop creating the perfect sandwich. It's a play that had a Broadway run and watching it we find that "a hero is more than a sandwich."

You can watch the entire play here:  

Maybe sometime, if I haven't already I'll write about the time G.W. made Mexicali White Bass but that's a story that might require a prequal, a sequel and handsome leading men to play all the actors.  

     

Throat Singing at The World Music Festival...

We saw a Tuvan throat singing band at the Chicago World Music Festival. The band was Tuvergen and though they are actually based in Chicago they travel the world performing a "folk fusion" blend of Mongolian, world percussion, didgeridoo, traditional instruments and melodies that certainly bring to mind blues riffs.   

Throat singing has it's origins in Siberia and Mongolia, places that are distant, isolated and where sound carries a long way. I had heard recordings but this was the first live performance I've seen and I learned that the horse is very important to this culture so most of the songs are about horses or water and grass which horses eat and drink. The various vocalizations and pitches are descriptions of Earth, Sky, Wind or other elements of the natural world. 

I enjoyed all the performers and the stringed instruments brought to mind some sounds I have made myself on various homemade lo-fi instruments and cigar box guitars. I really enjoyed the drummer who played the Australian didgeridoo which harmonized and blended so well with the other instruments and voices that they used him as their tuning pitch. His drum kit was a DIY outfit which I like and could probably assemble from my collection of percussion that I don't play very well. It consisted of Irish Bodhrans, Peruvian cajons, splash cymbals and a variety of shakers and chimes. 

I think the last time I saw a drummer set up with an unusual kit and a didgeridoo was a show in New Orleans where Derek Trucks was one of players and also included Col. Bruce Hampton. This was way before Trucks was famous and before the good Col. died onstage with the band soaring to send his soul out among the stardust of the Universe.     

All the players in Tuvergen were great singers but only the dude playing the square looking instruments was a throat singer.         

The player on the right is using what they called the horse head fiddle. Like I said, the horse, very important. 

I take that back about the last time I saw a guy with a didgeridoo set up. It might have been at my house.  

Actually I own two didgeridoos. The one Miguel plays is a cedar wood Cajun made instrument and I have a small Australian one brought to me by my late father in law Bill after his and Geneva's trip there. 

I certainly missed a good chance to win the internet once when I posted a clip on Facebook of my own didgeridoo playing. The neighbor's donkey wandered up behind me in the frame and in the comments section someone said, "what is that? I need one." I said didgeridoo but I should have said donkey. 

Tuvergen was a free show. This festival sponsored by the Chicago Cultural Center. If you paid to see Willie Nelson this weekend a dope smoking capitalist took your money. 

       

 

Music From Timbuktu...

A couple of times I've gone to Chicago for Riot Fest. Riot Fest is a big festival event with mostly bands that were not of my taste or experience but like any musical thing sometimes I would rather see something I have not seen before than as Aldous Huxley said "keep on going through that same door." At least I think he said that. I did not go through that Riot Fest door this year. I was always aware that at the same time the Chicago Cultural Center was always sponsoring a World Music Festival which is staged at various venues around town and this year I got to attend a Show by Al Bilali Soudan.  

I'll fight you on this fact. Without Sub Saharan Africa we would not have pop music in the USA. Get your dukes up because the twanging sounds and the invention of banjo, the fiddle, the dobro and familiar chord progressions have their root there in the hot desert sands. Even the dances done by this group at the show are very similar to what you might see at Othar Turner's Goat BBQ every year. If you listen to some Mississippi Hill Country style blues you with the drones and repetitive figures in the music you would dawn on the idea that any musician from Mali would be right at home. The music is there in Mali and it sent no infusion of refreshing messengers after a certain point in time instead continuing the similar traditions through DNA and ancestral memory 

There is a big global music scene for this kind of thing and I have collected up many cds but it's usually an electric type sound where as this group was more in the folkloric tradition with the dances and acoustic instruments. You could probably compare this music to our rural blues vs. the electrified urban versions.  

Actually I've seen a few videos where Robert Plant, former lead singer for the old band Led Zeppelin updated some of that music by adding these African instruments into his group and I thought it really revitalized the old tired classic rock.     

Al Bilali Soudan means Timbuktu. 

These are free shows sponsored by the Cultural Center so it's your government at work bringing you interesting things so you don't keep going through that same door. 

 

 

Back From a Chicago Trip...

October is the month for a Chicago visit. Seems we always find ourselves here at this time. Wallace turns 5 years old so there's a birthday to celebrate. Nearby family came into town.  Plane fares are cheap and there were a lot of good events to choose from and it won't be long before it gets cold so we made the best of a three night 4 day stay.  

Me and Wallace were the biggest swingers in the park or at least I was the biggest swinger in the park. I was thankful for the nice weather to be able to spend time outside playing with the kids. In East Texas we walk out the door for fun in the dirt, fish at the lake or tuba in the garage and those things take a little more effort in the city where millions of people are nearby.  

Hamish and his dad Peter had that look on their faces at the birthday party, "I can't believe he got one of those," and hatch their plans to play with big brother's toys at a later date like when he is at school doing big boy stuff. 

It was a good time and I had fun with family, a play at Goodman Theater and music we saw at a Chicago World Music Festival event. Travel always put thoughts in my old head and I'll get them written down here as I find the time. 

 

 

He Will Live...

We went to the Astros game last night. They lost but it was ok. Cathy got a giveaway Yuli Gurriell jersey. He's her favorite. The Star Spangle Banner was played by a youth orchestra with impressive musicianship and amplification. There were fireworks. It was a good time.   

Today I woke up with an hour of exercise and after that I began a bit of music rehearsal. After 30 minutes or so I was shivering cold, achy and the thermometer revealed 100 degrees of fever. Cathy returned from a swim at the pool and I took a covid test. It was negative. Seemed to be just plain old garden variety flu of which I had took the latest greatest double strength recommended for those over 65 shot along with a covid booster 5 days ago. 

I guess a delayed reaction. It did mess up plans for church activity, swing dancing with the Old Town Brass tonight and a planned trip with my son to the Big Slough Wilderness Area tomorrow. A couple doses of ibu, a couple of glasses of tea and a four hour nap and besides some aches and pains I think with a bit of rest I will live. 

The upside to this is my appetite is gone. Other than a bowl of corn grits this morning for breakfast I can't recommend a not eating diet to anyone but I will be a slick looking old man walking the Hipster Highway in Logan Square in my skinny legged jeans when I visit Chicago late next week. 

I still recommend the flu shot. Instead of a four hour nap I could have been in room 4 of ICU. It makes a difference.