Kerrville Ramblings - Day 2

 

Ahhhh... feel good to be refreshed after waking up at 1:20.. (PM).. finally got some sleep... If only that client hadn't woken me at 8:30 this morning... oh well.. Yesterday was another scorcher. I think I'm going to skip the ballad tree today because of the heat, and get there about 5. If my spelling is worse then usual today, you can blame it on the new keyboard I'm trying out.. HEY!! i usually only get about 5 words out of 100 typed right anyway...

Now... back to yesterday...

the lone masked man on his speeding white horse...

The horse rears up...

and a hearty hi-o silver...

oops... wrong channel...

back to our regularly scheduled update...

the ballad tree yesterday was hosted by susan shore a kerrvirgin (first timer here) from Riverside Iowa.. The ballad tree takes place up on chapel hill where they also hold weekend services on Saturday and Sunday with a rabbi and priest (as appropriate)..It's a very peaceful place, away from the camps, at the top of a small hill (hence the word hill in the name ).. It's appearance is dominated by a very old, large oak tree which was hit by lightning many years ago.. my understanding is that it was given up for dead, but since then, most of the tree has sprung back to life.. no initial carvings allowed here.. The other item of note on the hill is a set of wind chimes 5 feet tall... what a wonderful haunting (in a good way) deep sound... During the weekends (which include some Thursdays, and mondays), from 3 - 5 a drop your name in the hat circle is held.. primary seating is in a large semi-circle of wooden stakes with a wire and wood ceiling frame covered in freshly (once each year) cut branches .. It provides a minimal amount of shade... there are some trees that offer strategically placed shading, but all in all, shade is at a high premium at the ballad tree, hence the need to get there early if you want to get a shady seat... not as important if you have a tent or camper to return to for rest, but very important if you drive in from a hotel.. Even with the shade, it's still too hot... force fluids force fluids.. force.. oops don't force so many you have to walk down the hill to the outhouses...

Ah... the outhouses... that's another story...

This year at the ballad tree sessions, they've also given 1 song presentation time to a select group of regional performers as well as some of the songwriter competition finalists.

The night's main stage entertainment began with Staid Cleaves from Austin. I think he won a new folk in '92.

They were followed by special conscensus (sic, not me), a bluegrass band with a lead singer from that ancient hotbed of bluegrass music, Syracuse NY.

Kat Eggelston was next, and she was very good.. It was interesting watching Andrew Calhoun from waterbug records (her husband) as she did her schtick on stage, and/or made comments about waterbug, andrew, the history behind some of the songs, etc..

The highlight of the evening followed... The austin lounge lizards.. with Kinky Friedman as special guest.. Their songs for the evening included such gems as "Put the Oak Ridge boys in the slammer", and "Another stupid song about texas", a couple of lines of which were: "our various body parts,, the biggiest, our neighbors,,, the okiest... etc... They are great entertainment, even if you don't like country music.. They have one member of the band who bears a strong resemblance to Dr. denardo (?) from buckaroo banzai and the 8th dimension He does a super send-up of leonard cohen's trancelike moroseness.. Kinky came on stage and did 2 songs, one which he wrote at the tender age of 11.. I refuse to believe that this guy ever had a tender age... It was about some guy and his snot... anyway.. a great time was had by all.. If you have a chance to catch the austin lounge lizards, and/or kinky friedman, run, do not walk to the ticket booth.

The only act I'm sorry i didn't get a chance to see this evening was betty elders... I was too busy getting my massage, and too far away to concentrate.. It's amazing how much better the body feels after your aches have gotten some attention..

The closing act for the evening was mumbo gumbo, a zydeco influenced high energy band with two very good female leads singers.. didn't seem like much substance, but entertaining.. Kerrville will bring in all kinds of music, not just folk... each year they will have a couple of high energy bands.. In previous years, i've seen pele juju here, and i have to say that, in comparison, mumbo gumbo, although entertaining, comes up way short of pele juju...

To give you an understanding of just how high energy pele juju is, later that evening, while standing by a campfire, a couple of ladies were talking & i heard the term pele juju. I leaned over and mentioned that i had heard that they broke up, had they heard anything newer than my information.. One of the girls said to me "Oh, we weren't talking about the band, we were talking about a friends child named pele juju".. They named the child pele juju, because she was conceived the night they heard pele juju play at Kerrville... We all agreed, if any band could do that, it was pele juju..

standby for transport to parallel universe, different timeline... same day... (insert appropriate star trek sound .wav file here)

For two days, i had been trying to drop off a loaf of bread at camp sweetness and light.. but nobody was ever home... Finally, while the evenings first act was going on, i found the camp occupied.. As soon as they saw me, one of the ladies in the camp remarked "Oh, it's the breadman... Did you bring us anything ?" "Just so happens..." as i pulled a loaf of honey raisin bread out of the bag... After sputtering that she didn't mean for me to take it the wrong way... etc etc etc... say down spent a few minutes reacquainting myself with the old-timers, and meeting the kerrvirgins, i returned to the theater.. I had 3 more loaves to deliver that evening, and made relatively short work of it... the last loaf went to annie wenz who sends her regards to all of you she met at suwannee.. annie is a great talent who i hope we will be able to drag a little further down the state next year.. She also got a formal invitation to this yeas xmas party.. ( i only brought 30 invitations this year) Annie and proceeded to share the bread with anyone she know. 3 hours later, after having dispersed all the "manna from heaven", i gave her my final half-a-loaf, and was unbreaded for the remainder of the evening..

Now, once the main stage is done, the main attraction of Kerrville begins... This year, the campfires are not fired.. there's a county wide fire ban, due to no rain in the last 9 weeks... so no campfires, but plenty of music..

The first couple of nights are spent "scoping out" all the various camps... who's where, what's going on in each camp, where are some of the "hot" names playing.. everyone you meet has the same questions... what's; who's; where's... Doing a large circle route, i visited camp sweetness and light (which is usually neither), still on the hill, (which, surprisingly, is also neither), camp stupid (which very often is), camp coho (one of my favorites year after year) camp nashville, camp synkerrnicity, camp cuervo, camp cuisine (which is one of the "premier name" campsites, but is usually overcrowded and has to deal with a lot of political stuff due to, among other things, it's popularity).. Camp cuisine this year seems to have inherited another very noisy camp next door, which was providing some major interference with the music at the camp.. My favorite camp of the evening was synkerrnicity, it was laid back, non-pretentious, non-competitive, and just a nice bunch of talented players. The evenings top performance was, as is often the case, by chris chandler.. Chris is a performance artist who carries absurdity to wonderful heights, allowing his audience to view homelessness, hunger, and a host of other political issues in a brand new light. He has 2 cd's things you wont see on tv, and start raving chandler. He is also on the Kerrville 1995 cd doing the performance portion of tom prasado rao's cut.

Spent most of the evening dragging around with steve taylor, alan horwath of (folk music email list fame), cliff eberhardt (who is not playing at the campfires, just voyaging through, annie wenz, and a number of people who i know only by face. it was an beautiful evening, and i called it an early night about 3am.

Today, i anticipate some of the best music of the festival,. on tonights' schedule are Adam & Kris, pierce pettis, caroline aiken (great!!), Floyd domino, the limeliters (who just lost one of their original members after 50 years lou gottlieb(?), a couple of weeks after last years performance) , Sara hickman, and David Amram... Any night i can say i look forward to 5 of the performers on the bill... WOW!!... that's another reason I'm starting late... don't want to be worn out early.. no 3am wussout for me tonight

The debate is on as to where they're going to put jackson browne on Sunday's schedule.. the consensus is he'll be added as a closing act... we're all guessing...

btw, if anyone has any questions, just yell...

Brian (Breadman) Wolfsohn http://www.cus.com
CUS Business Systems Ft.Lauderdale,FL
Software for Auctioneers (954) 565-5600 Email:blw@cus.com