Monday, May 7, 2012

Go East, old man; or Sons of the Desert 2: Weekend at Dave's

I'll have to quote the opening of the Marx Brothers comedy Go West: "In 1851 Horace Greely uttered a phrase that did much to change the history of the United States. He said, 'Go West, young man, go West.' This is the story of 3 men who made Horace Greely sorry he said it." Of course, it was 5 men (and a wife), and we went East, but otherwise things turned out about the same. For those of you who came in late, our story so far: Houston Jones embarked on a goodwill tour of of the burning sands of Arizona and Nevada last week, bearing liberal tidings to the home of Sherrif Joe and Sharron Angle. Turns out the natives are gracious hosts and generous of spirit, tolerant of sweaty musicians and the dirty laundry they bear. This was one of the better road experiences the band has had so far. The first stop was Cave Creek AZ, home of ex-pat fans Mike and Shannon. We were the maiden voyage of their Blue Coyote House Concert series (I just made that up based on a cool sculpture they have, feel free to trademark it) We had a full house (literally) and met a lot of great locals and a few SoCal folk (Hi Victoria). I did a version of Sleepy Armadillo with "specialty lyrics" as they call it in showbiz: Sleepy Javalina, since they don't seem to have armadillos in AZ, or any other roadkill besides shredded tire tread. We moved on over to Lake Havasu, home of the Worlds Largest Vanity Bridge, for a show in the shadow of said bridge, hosted by impressario extrordinaire Dave Chambers, one of those gracious hosts. If you have a free 1/2 hour ask Peter about it, but don't mention Courvoisier. Then over the border and onto America's Playground, Nevada. We played the West Charleston Library where no one shusshed us, and had a better turnout than the last time (Superbowl XXXVIII IIRC). Then on to the 37th Wonder of the High Desert, Garagemahall (that's how they spell it) in Vegas baby. A Convertable Garage with a stage and blender. Richard and Betty were our gracious hosts, and a good time (and meal) was had by all, to coin a phrase. Richard video'd the thing, so there may be footage of my outro solo on Gone Boys Gone, which was a little different than usual. If I see anything about it I'll throw something up here and on the Book of Faces. MVP this time was Travis, who did the whole tour with a fever and congested chest. He was a super trouper, a real spotlight for the rest of the band. He'll be recuperating this week, but I suspect Chris may have somethings of his own to add about the trip so I'll stop here as well. As I recall there was some driving involved, but nothing of import, or that I can remember.

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