Size does matter - Sequoia National Forest

It’s been a while since I posted, a lot has been going on!  Anne and I went down to Sequoia National Forest for a vacation / road trip.  I cannot recommend this enough if you have never been.  We drove back up 101 and went through the redwoods too! 

When you are young, maybe size doesn’t matter so much.  Everything is amazing.  New sneakers make you want to run.  You bring spiders into the house to show your mom (that was hilarious Lori)!  A big tree however is still just another part of the world.  We watched little kids being much more fascinated by pine cones, or their gameboys, than “the biggest tree on earth!”  Nevertheless, I’m here to tell you, that as a vaguely adult like person, a big tree has the power to make you believe in something, the power to make you feel like a kid again.

We set off from Seattle on a Friday and sure enough it was cold and grey.  The latest summer arrival since we got out here in 1999.  It wasn’t until we got to Oregon that the sun really showed up.  We stopped in Portland and had lunch on Alberta Street, which I really dig.  The houses and restaurants and shops are all in amongst each other, nary a chain in sight, and the mix of people is great too.  Fish tacos.  Nuff said.

We trekked on and made it to Ashland, though after dark, so we stayed there and wandered in the park by the river in the morning.  I sat and practiced a little dobro and Anne took a walk, then we loaded up on coffee and headed for California. 

Lunch at Terry and Denise’s Wayside Grill in Mount Shasta – I think I’ll be visiting this town any time there is driving instead of flying to CA.  Love the mountain, its cooler despite the baking sun, because you are higher up.  Read the Shasta Angels post to know my other reasons for loving it here.

Then comes the long farm stretch on I5.  Redding, Sacramento, Stockton.  Olives, sunflowers, nectarines, peaches, oranges, plenty of alfalfa.  It is fun, and sunny. Then it is flat and long and hot.  The shape of the hay bales did vary though.  And there were cows, and goats, and llamas to point out.  Still this is where the music selection gets to be the game, we started out with Lindsay Fuller’s CD - yes still no i-pod for me, I’m waiting for the i-phone to be AT&T free before I make the shift.  Oh, and a lot more memory, because I do like uncompressed files too.  You can interrupt your CD music with some great Latino country stations, though the accordion might wear you down.  Also, the 1980’s are now “Oldies” so there was plenty of teen nostalgia music to try too.

Then we took a left after Stockton and took the 120 to 99.  Same – little towns and farms everywhere.  I mean OK there is Modesto.  I’ll take Merced over Modesto or (god forbid) Fresno.  The UC Merced campus is right on Main St, and this has infused the town with some friendly vibe. 

When searching for a place to stop and stay a while, I think the criteria are as follows.  A town you want to visit should have some trees.  They should be alive.  It helps if it is a town with a college.  Look for a main street with a cluster of local stores and restaurants.  There should be an independent paper, even small ones make a difference.  Some sort of natural landmark is good – a mountain, a river, a lake, the worlds biggest potato, something.  Where there are some tourists, there are people who make money selling them stuff, and the “you ain’t from around here” danger drops.  I’m sure I’m forgetting something important?

In Fresno we thought about staying, but it was so bleak and post apocalyptic that we just kept driving.  We would hit Merced on the way back after Sequioa.  I just kept on plowing until Squaw Valley, which had that important thing I was forgetting – a place to sleep when its dark and you are tired, that is close to a place with beer.  In the morning I got up and went and practiced outside until the flies got too aggressive.  Off we went on 180, right into the forest.  $20.00 gets you a week’s pass for both the King’s Canyon and the Sequoia parks.  Feel free to pay more if you have it.  Or just keep going back.  Think about it, if you have a tent, that’s only 80 bucks a month rent?!

Big trees!  It is impossible to describe the feeling in there, the smell of it.  It is like the idyllic healthy land of fairytale forests.  The trees are huge, and they block the sound.  There are almost no loud bass sounds when you are in the trees, so it is just the breeze through leaves, and the animal and bird sounds. The trees are so big that pictures of them seem silly.  Even panning up and down with the movie camera doesn’t do it justice. 

Some of them are more than 250 feet tall, 20 feet in diameter.  The scale does things to your sense of self.  You remember how short life is.  Some of these trees are coming up on their 3500^th birthday.  The older you are in human years, I’m sure the greater the impact.

One of the best things done on this earth, was the establishment of the National Parks.  The Sequoia groves are churches of nature.  The coastal redwoods are a bit murkier, and I actually like the darker more threatening vibe too.  The high Sierras are clean and clear vistas.  The northern California and Southern Oregon coasts are gorgeous.  If you can go, go.  Maybe take the kids when they are a little older.

I feel as though breathing the scent of the incense cedars, the earthy musk of fallen giants, then the sun-warmed plains, then the salt and rock of the Pacific, has changed my life again.  It is as if the air has altered me chemically.  It is a very, very good feeling. 

PS Lindsay Fuller @ Tractor

Just a little note – Lindsay Fuller’s CD release show was wonderful, her mom had flown in to surprise her, she was a little overwhelmed it looked like.  The show with the full band was great, I highly recommend going and seeing her.  Mark Pickerel’s set was amazing too, his voice is so cool, its like Roy Orbison joined the Sisters of Mercy.  It was pretty fun to see the Sangster v Fielder guitar slinger showdown too – there was some quality axe wielding, and a few good rock moves.

Tonight I’m playing at the Conor Byrne pub with Silverhands if you are looking for some twang rock for your 4^th of July warmup.

Shasta Angels

“But what is this, what you have sought to learn from teachings and from teachers, and what they, who have taught you much, were still unable to teach you?” – Hermann Hesse

The quote above is from Siddhartha, which I read when I was a teenager.  I probably ought to read it again, but one of the things I love about the books that really get you, is that you take some meaning from them, and it grows into its own thing.  The book itself doesn’t matter as much as your own meaning; your own understanding that appears.  I always wanted to take Siddhartha’s journey, to leave home in search of myself, and to return for the final part of the puzzle.  This is one of the reasons that to this day, I love heading out on the road with a band.  Every time, the music gets better.  Every time something happens that changes me forever.  BC and I had just played in Portland, slept the night in Beaverton, and we climbed into the car knowing this leg would be different, no friends, no family, and a new venue to play.  California or bust!

It was a beautiful drive through Oregon, pausing in Ashland to take a little walk in the park, before continuing into Northern California.  Roughly six hours later, BC and I arrived in Shasta with the sun still shining.  Wherever we went in this gorgeous town, the mountain glared down at us.  Big nature will do that, it reminds us that we are puny, unimportant, young, and arrogant. 

We found our campsite for the evening first, almost by accident, we turned a corner and there it was.  A friend had left the staff shed open for us at her plant nursery.  Comfortable that we could navigate back after the gig, we headed out again to find the venue – the Wayside Grill.  One missed turn put us back onto the freeway, but a loop around found us exactly where we were supposed to be.

The Wayside is a restaurant and bar, back deck, pizzas and burgers, wine menu, the whole bit.  Outside in the parking lot, was a collection of California shiny-trucks (you can’t keep them that clean in Seattle) and a couple of Harley Davidsons.  And one scooter, which was nice, as I was starting to get a little bit of an “uh oh!?” feeling.  It just didn’t look like a music venue, and then even if it was, it didn’t look like the kind of place that would dig original songs.  I knew it was all in my mind, but I was really not thinking we would have much fun.

We walked in, no guitars yet, just trying to get a feel of the deal.  Sure enough the girl at the door station was not expecting a band, and when we asked for the booker she directed us instead at his wife Denise.  She smiled and said “We were wondering if you guys were going to show up.”  I wondered whether she was happy that we had, or if maybe she’d been hoping we would have bailed.  Still she was smiling though.  She went off to find her husband Terry.  I wandered over to the little corner stage, half pacing, half just gauging the lay of the land. 

There is one of those Bose PA systems, the one that looks like the base of a basketball hoop you put up in the street in the suburbs.  There’s a couple of wireless mics on stands, a little board, and a guitar.  There’s stuff up there like the other band is coming back later.  Uh-Oh.

On the wall behind the stage, here it goes, there’s pictures see.  Of musicians.  Autographed no less.  Bob Dylan (!), Lyle Lovett, Faith Hill, Brad Paisley.  Note the general country music vibe, though Dylan always gives hope when you are a songwriter or a guy playing guitar with a songwriter.  Still, I was thinking how this would feel totally different if it was a Silverhands gig, we could twang it up, maybe bust out some covers and do just fine.  BC’s music is not in any way “country,” and my uh-oh was growing.

Terry came out and asked what he could do for us.  “Food” said Brandt, like some sort of hungry musician.  They laughed and got us set up with menus and then Terry came and sat with us, wine glass in hand.  We acted like Americans and ordered burgers (mine with sweet potato fries.)  The food was amazing by the way.

Terry Kincaid.  The drive from Beaverton would have been worth it just to listen his stories.  He is a songwriter, with gold records and movie credits.  He played with Alabama.  He’s opened for Waylon and Willie.  He was a cop, a martial arts instructor, a motivational speaker.  He plays harmonica and guitar.  He once took Merle Haggard’s keys away to stop him from driving home drunk.  Merle had driven his tour bus to the bar.  This led to going fishing with Merle on Lake Shasta.  He’s got a million more stories, and he tells them well.

It turns out Terry also has a restaurant called the Stagedoor Grill, down in Socorro, New Mexico.  Musicians like to drop in and play with the band at either place.  The Wayside has only been open for a few months, and he is traveling back and forth to keep both places rolling. 

By this time our burgers are traveling south on gullet road, but all these stories are doing nothing for my sense that our music wasn’t going to down so smooth.  But: food done, up we get and grab our gear.  Up on stage, lets do what we do.  People are eating with their families 5 feet away.  There was big food, some big bellies, even some big hair.  There are some leather vests.  Nerves and all, we launch into the set, and amazingly, surprisingly, unbelievably, nobody cares. At all. 

That’s right folks, no-one turns around and heckles, no-one gives us the stink-eye.  Remember that scene in the Blues Brothers, at the bar where they play both kinds of music?  That was what I was worried about.  And I can actually play country and Western.  But this, well, it was friendly is what it was.  A few people smiled or tapped a foot, but no-one got really got into it.  But mainly, they weren’t heading for the door either.  Until they finished eating.  Then they went home, because it was time to go home.  Terry and Denise were listening, they moved to a closer table and hung out, talking to friends, being the king and queen of the restaurant as they should, but they clapped after every song.

We were shaky for sure, missed some changes, played some clams, but we did what we do.  I started playing to BC, instead of the backs of diners and found my groove a bit.  Then I suggested we throw in a cover BC does – Kris Kristofferson’s Lovin Her Was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do Again) and as soon as he hit the first chord, it was like Terry’s radar went off.  He came up to the stage as we worked through the first verse and was rummaging through a box at the back of the stage.  We are resisting the urge to stop and find out what is happening behind us, when Terry emerges triumphantly with the correct harmonica, we nod him in for a break and he plays beautifully, and there’s a round of applause at the end of the solo.  The regulars are on our side now, and we get a few grins from the kitchen guys too.  One guy is watching us through the pickup window when he can.  Now it’s fun, so of course we immediately get to the end of the set, which in our case means we have basically run out of songs.  We bow and start packing up fast, like the opening band on a big stage.  Terry thinks we should play one more.  We pull an obscure Willie Nelson cover out, that we learned for a tribute night at Conor Byrne (at which I actually was the singer, but BC has a good ear for lyrics and melody and remembered it).  Shasta gets treated to Mr. Record Man and we don’t quite murder it, we just beat it up a bit and leave it to recover until someone else plays it right.  End of show.

 

Terry thanks us, and I can tell he appreciates the music, and he likes us.  We take a picture with him and Denise.  They are the best!  We are in love with the world, because we survived our own fear, and didn’t get punched by bikers.  We get paid, which is nice, because gas is not free.  (Side note – if you are in the business of building cars that run on sunlight, and you want some free advertising help, hook me up a tour van that seats 8 people and has room for a drum kit behind them, and I’ll drive it everywhere and preach the gospel of freedom from oil, and I’ll write you a jingle too.)

We head back to the nursery, and when we walk through the darkness to the shed, I now think that someone is going to materialize with a shotgun, or a large slavering dog is going to eat us.  Instead we turn on the light and find only crickets and ants to deal with.  Sweet!  Jam session.  We play a bit, and then turn in.

It turns out that the train track right next to the shed is the BNSF line.  We weren’t really sleeping anyways, strange place, post show buzz and all that.  Still – !whoo whooooooo! and then that choo choo was basically 20 feet east of us.  It was Loud.  It was awesome.  Then, the strangest thing happened.  You know that screeching sound a train makes when it rides over the transition from full rails to the rails going through the tarmac of a road?  Well this train was going quite a bit faster than they usually are when they go through the city.  That screeching from multiple cars all at the same time, at a higher rate of travel, turns out to sound like angels, actual angels from heaven.

Over the low rumble of the diesel and the sheer weight of all that steel rolling north, came seven tones alto to soprano, all slowly shifting pitch.  It was as if a million wind chimes all sang at once, resonating in the hut, until I wondered if the sound was inside my head, perhaps I was asleep and this was a dream.  “I don’t want to wake up,” I thought.  Then the end of the train went by with one last wail of tortured steel against steel, echoing off the mountain.  I was awake for sure, and absolutely present.

It brought tears to my eyes.  This is why you go on the road.  There are things out there waiting for you.  Things your teachers cannot teach you.  You have to experience it yourself to learn.  Some of those things are frightening.  Some of those things are your own demons in your mind - the unknown.  But - some of those things are not hell-hounds, all hell breaking loose, or Hell’s angels.  Sometimes good people will take care of you and listen to your songs.  Sometimes there are real angels, and if you are really lucky, they will sing for you.