01/19/99 4:12:43 PM We pull into Chattanooga (that’s Tennessee, folks, that long state with all the trees and music) with time to spare, drive right up to the door (a luxury) and load in to Miller Plaza's Waterhouse Pavilion. Everything is cool ... until we see the room. It’s beautiful and they treat us great here, but... it's the kind of hard acoustic box that makes bands cringe before they even open their instrument cases. Kim, the sound engineer for the Miller Plaza venues, assures us he’ll make it work. Hey, I’m an optimist. Maybe afterwards he’ll show us how to walk on water.
The entire building is glass with metal framing and masonry floors; that’s it. The only soft things in the whole place are people. The rest of it is about as sound reflective as it can get. To make matters even more acoustically challenging, the ceiling is high and the room is dead square. But, remarkably, Kim pulls it off, making the vocals intelligible and the instruments distinguishable from one another after just 10 or 15 minutes of sound check.
Some nights, the sound man’s skill has as much to do with the quality of what the audience hears as the band. We appreciate that; it would be nice if more venue operators did. Granted, there are some who hire sound guys with golden ears and the attitudes to make the most of the show’s potential. Then there are some others. Three cheers (testing!, testing!, testing!) for golden-eared sound engineers.
(Speaking of sound engineers: There's nothing scarier - except maybe seeing a red-nosed pilot with a martini glass in the cockpit when you get on a plane - than seeing a sound man wearing a Black Sabbath '74 tour shirt. "Hey, dudes, I'm the sound man. Where are your amps, man? Did somebody rip off your Marshall's? How old is that little hollow body Les Paul with the eight strings?" Come to think of it, I'd take my chances with the pilot - at least they have co-pilots and autopilots.) A few hours later...
Turns out it was a hot show. A couple of hundred people who sounded like a couple thousand. Big noise. A good time - almost TOO smooth to start off a tour. The hell with superstition. Ran into some folks I knew only via e-mail. Also saw a long lost Tucson fan who used to work at Presidio Grill, a favorite Tucson restaurant. The place was packed with local musicians; glad we didn’t hear about that until afterwards.(You always imagine they’re out there saying, “Heh, I could do that...but faster.”)
Speaking about afterwards... When I got back to the motel, I read a local entertainment paper and saw a review of “Moon Over the Interstate.” We had just been talking about the oddity of never having had a bad review (OK, a long time ago there WAS that guy in New York who anointed himself one of the gods sitting in judgment of what is and what is not Celtic and decided we were infidels). Well, this guy in Chattanooga really hosed the CD, saying polka music was the most unhip music there is and that that was the reason he couldn’t get into our CD. (At this point, I think it’s fair to note that there’s only one polka on the CD, but maybe that was enough to tree him.) Anyway, he said he wouldn’t come to hear us if they were giving out “fat joints of skunk bud, hundred dollar bills and quad-shot lattes.” But he was kind enough to suggest that if we none-the-less sounded interesting, maybe those who found us that way should go give us a listen. Sounds kind of fair to me. It was good for a laugh at the motel anyway. It sure didn’t keep those 200 people away.
Next night...
We’re in Nashville, down on the local music drag known as Broadway at a place called Maggie McGee’s. Broadway is lined with tourist souvenir shops that sell T-shirts you’d probably not want to wear once you sobered up, as well as a lot of bumper sticker- and baseball cap-mounted wisdom. There’s also the NASCAR stock car church, er museum; NASCAR is nearly religion south of the M-D Line. There’s also Gruhn’s Guitars, an acoustic instrument Mecca stuffed with beautiful vintage and new instruments that no working musician I know can afford; but it’s a great place to drool. There are also a handful of Irish pubs. (Hmmm. It was only a matter of time before Irish and country music fans got together over their affinity for a drink with their song.) There are also a bunch of bars with live music and autographed pictures on the wall; some even have a carnival/Las Vegas-style barker outside try to drag passers-by inside. And, that’s where you’d have found us this night. (One joint even had a guy waiting tables who was a dead ringer for Joe Buck from “Midnight Cowboy,” that late ‘60s movie with John Voight and Dustin Hoffman. Then we saw on the marquee that Joe Buck was playing from 10-2 pm doing a few lives sets. Tough town when the fictional characters even have to hold a second job to make a living as a musician. Kind of like New York: “You’re an actor? Oh, Yeah. Which restaurant?”)
Maggie McGee’s is one of the showcase music venues. Despite the name, there’s not much Irish about it, except being a friendly place to drink and hear music; I guess that qualifies as pub-like. The place features a singer (usually an aspiring Nashville songwriter) in the stage window in the afternoon and early evening. Then, for the night show, there’s often a full band. Not necessarily country. That would be us. There’s a big PA and high stage at the rear of the place.
The folks there were very nice to us and we got lucky again with a great sound engineer. Larry definitely fell into the Golden Ears category. We had a great night, probably a 1 in 25 night, maybe better. Too bad we didn’t have a tape running. I suspect it had something to with being in Nashville. In one of these music industry capitols you never know if you’re going to be discovered or found out. So, it was a good night not to suck.
Next day, we drove into Atlanta to a place called Eddie’s Attic in Decatur, a section of the greater Atlanta area. As I write this we just finished sound check and are wondering about what comes next.
A little about Eddie’s Attic: A nice looking upstairs acoustic and folk room in a trendy neighborhood filled with upscale restaurants and shops. They seem to regularly have top name acoustic acts along with some up-and-coming solos and groups.Supposedly The Indigo Girls got a start here. Eddie, the owner, warns us repeatedly that it’s tough to draw here on a weeknight and not to expect too much. That doesn’t exactly charge the batteries for a hot night on stage.
We’re paired up with an opening act, Rebecca Riots of Berkeley, CA. The acoustic trio sounds good in sound check. They sound even better in their set. They’re good players and fine singers. Eve is the serious singer-songwriter, doing mostly heavy social commentary. She carries a large share of the harmony work when not singing lead. Lisa is a hot guitar player, sings flawless harmony, and is well on her way to becoming a fine mandolin player after only three months. In the middle is Andrea, who does a majority of the lead vocals and talking, has a great singing and speaking voice; she’s flat out riveting. I’d pay a cover charge to listen to her read the phone book. She’s got this tractor beam stage presence, both while singing and chatting to the audience. She talks with her hands, kind of like George Carlin, and a quick, wise guy way with words. You can tell her lines aren’t the same every night. She moves fast, apparently just saying what comes to mind, dropping edgy remarks and smart-assed observations like depth charges, going off behind her after she’s already moved on to another thought. Usually, I’m more than happy to have folk singers cut the lame, phony droll folk chatter and get back to doing their best - playing and singing. But although musically I enjoy this group a lot, I enjoy the chatter between songs nearly as much. I think we’re going to get together with them again for a show, probably in the Bay Area. Meanwhile, there’s talk of hanging out at the Folk Alliance next month in Albuquerque. If you get a chance to seem them you might consider taking it.
That brings something to mind: Meeting people one wouldn’t meet otherwise is another one of the benefits of running away with the circus. I’ll be honest about it: I know damned well I wouldn’t go out of my way to hear an unknown acoustic trio doing mainly political/activist songs. In this case, I just lucked out. It can be entertaining rather than strident.
As for us...we had a good night. The crowd was thin, but the couple dozen there made us feel welcome and we played like there were a couple hundred. We got a noisy encore and gave them their money’s worth. The owner seemed happy and we expect to return. It was one of those nights when we say, “Hey, we didn’t suck and they liked us.” We just hope they all signed that mailing list and bring five friends next time.
... Where the hell are we going now?
I missed dinner at the club and put in a request for something to eat as we drove off. Somebody spotted a Waffle House as we pulled out of Atlanta. It’s kind of hard not to spot a Waffle House here; there’s one at least every mile. Where we stopped, there was one on each side of the road. Guess they like their waffles here. What’s the deal? we’re thinking. This place had a great blues juke box. We even had a good time at 2 am in a franchise diner.
... Friday (it’s not the 13th, but I had to check). We’re in Hoover, which is adjacent to Birmingham. The bad weather is still following us - it's starting to look like it just caught up. We saw some evidence of the tornadoes that tore up part of Tennessee a couple days back - thousands of upturned trees along the interstates. Some of it was recent, some of it was from around the time when we were last through. Now, we find out, the sky is slate gray here and the clouds are moving about three different directions at once because there are tornadoes in western Alabama and we’re in the path. As we’re setting up at the performing arts theater at the Hoover Public Library, a siren blows. It doesn’t seem to be moving, as in an ambulance, fire truck or cop car. Yup, it’s a tornado alert. We go outside to look. We duck inside. I figure a library is a safe place to be. Libraries, from my recollection of CNN disaster coverage (ever notice how those CNN heads seem to love telling you the bad news about extreme weather? The hurricane turns out to sea, but you can almost see them crossing their fingers that it's going to find a second breath and head back to land so they can use some more of their breathless description of the destruction?), mostly seem to attract floods. Besides, the really bad weather is inside. Let’s put it this way: To hell with artistic differences, it’s bad motels and sound checks that are most likely to break up bands. It blows over.
First off, when you find out you’ve got a gig at the library, you suspect it’s a sting operation to try to get Catherine for overdue library books. But, we found out, they actually have a great music series here. Some libraries can barely afford books anymore, and here they’re hiring bands. Sounds like my kind of library. Now, if they’d just put in a bar.
The weather didn’t keep many people away; Crystal, the promoter for the library’s series, expected a full house before the weather turned angry. But, considering the threat, an 80 percent full house seemed great to us. It was a good night. Robbie and Chris on sound did a good job of bringing the sound out to the crowd with a system made for theater rather than a full band.
A rare night in a nice motel, miss the continental breakfast, back into the van and we’re in Memphis, weather be damned, after a few hours drive from Birmingham across Alabama, the corner of Mississippi and into Tennessee again. It’s cold, 40 degrees, and wet. But the Hightone looks like a friendly place. They feed us and slide us a few beers. We load in and head down to Beal Street to kill some time before the show.
Jim Monaghan, a great bass Memphis bass player who used to play in a Tucson band (The MoPhonics) with Nancy, Catherine and I, is putting us up tonight. He’s playing right around the corner with his band, The Distraxtions. The Hightone is the new Memphis venue for roots music. Dave Alvin was here, along with most of the other roots and ethnic bands we pass on the road. Jim says we hit it rich getting some good press (a picture, even) and a booking at the Hightone on our first visit (at least in recent years) to Memphis.
We’ll see. There's always that nagging question about whether anybody will show up to listen to what we do. They know blues and R&B, but Apolkalyptic Celtic/Norteno/Eastern European ethnic roots stew?
Well, it was a packed house. Standing room only before we even started. They egged us on and we tore it up. I think everyone had a fine time. The reason I hedge on this is that the audience was split between those silently watching us concert-style and the yuk-it-up crowd up at the bar. They were talking to each other but screamed and clapped as if they were listening when we quit or got to some kind of musical peak. We got a lot of friendly and enthusiastic comments after walking off stage. We’re invited back, so it was a good night.
Again, by the way, we scored with audio. Hank, the house engineer, dialed us in pretty quickly, although the mix on stage was tricky because of a low ceiling and being boxed in on three sides (that tends to make the drums extremely loud on stage and makes the bass boom.) But it worked out front and the people out front said it sounded good out there from the beginning.
Hank not only did fine audio, but banjo/accordion jokes.
“An accordion player and a banjo player get a New Year’s Eve gig. (There’s one punch line already.) And everyone was happy with the night’s music and the club owner asks, “Can you guys play for us next year?” “Sure,” says the accordion player, “Can we leave our instruments here?”
Thanks Hank. Kevin even laughed.
We stayed with Jim and headed back to Nashville in the early afternoon the next day for a return to Molly McGee’s.
... And that turns out to be one of the best nights, in terms of playing, we've ever had - despite only a couple dozen people. Again, we luck out with a great sound engineer (Scott). When it sounds right on stage, it makes it easier to play well. But the other thing going on here was that the house was full of musicians; when that happens, you can either choke or play your ass off. Wish we had a tape running. Nice to leave Nashville without our tails between our legs.
.... We've got a day off and are taking a leisurly trip over the mountains to Chapel Hill, NC. We'll check in then.
... We had a layover (layin' in a cheap motel) in Asheville, NC, and since we had the night off, went to a place we wanted to play there, the Be Here Now. Looks like we might make it in there next time around. Asheville is a friendly town - kind of a hippie atmosphere to parts of it.
The weather held out and we had an easy drive into Chapel Hill. It’s my first time here and I’m impressed with what an attractive place it is. Nice area near the campus. Again, kind of a hippie atmosphere to the place. Lots of long hairs and tie dye. I certainly didn’t expect to find that in Jesse Helms territory. Stranger still, on the way over here we were at a truck stop, one of those huge trucker cities with the restaurants and rent-a-showers and video lounges, outside Chapel Hill and they were playing alternative, alt-country and AAA music. I just didn’t expect to hear Steve Earl, Bare Naked Ladies and John Hiatt in a North Carolina truck stop - or any truck stop. Seems like a cool state in general; it has a great reputation for music. The bar we checked out on our overnight stop in Fayetteville, the Be Here Now, had a great line up of touring acts; we’d like to play there on our next swing through the area.
Got off the track there... Back in Chapel Hill, we have the one REALLY lonely night of the tour - a scant dozen (that would be the other side of a baker’s dozen) at Local 506. The opening band, 300 Miles, did a good set of original guitar rock. We gave it a good effort and made some friends and a couple new fans. The owner turned out to be a lot of fun and we hung around afterwards hanging out at the bar with those who were there. I look forward to going back - although I hope they are bring about 20 friends next time.
The next day... It was a five-hour drive to Washington, DC, my former home (I finished high school in Rockville, MD, and lived in Bethesda, Gaithersburg, Cheverly and some other suburbs, as well as a few years in town living in Glover Park, Northeast DC and near Dupont Circle. My brother, Randy, still lives in the area - Boyds out in the northern Maryland suburbs), so this is always a place I want to play - and do well. We used to play at the legendary Twist ‘n’ Shout in Bethesda. But that place closed a few months ago. So, the last time we were in town we played Iota in Arlington, just across Key Bridge from Georgetown. We drew a decent crowd for a weeknight and added some fans and names to the mailing list. That tour we also did a stop at the Roots Cafe in Baltimore; we had a packed, absolutely wild house there. A lot of those folks came back, a bunch all the way from Baltimore on a weeknight, this time for our show at Chief Ike’s Mambo Room in Adams Morgan area of Northwest; that’s about 20 blocks north of the White House (for those of you somewhat familiar with the DC layout). It was a Wednesday night, but we packed the place. We had a lot of technical trouble. But the crowd was with us and although we lost momentum a number of times due to various glitches; it was a wild night. Marc Gretschel, who used to operate the Twist ‘n’ Shout and now is doing shows at Chief Ike’s, looked happy enough. He’s treated us well, putting up with a couple of lean shows at the old place because he seems to think we’ve got something to offer. To merely say he’s been a good friend to The Mollys is inadequate. Promoters like Marc are a lot more important to music than almost anyone, even those who do this for a living, realize or often acknowledge. If there weren’t promoters to take a chance on bands outside the mainstream, indy bands without big radio play and major label support, there wouldn’t be any roots music. We and a lot of other bands couldn’t tour because it’s often impossible to financially justify the first or second, sometimes even the third or fourth, visits to a highly competitive city. Granted, the bands take a lot of the risk by agreeing to play for a low minimum against a piece of the door (the cover charge); but sometimes the promoter is still exposed in those situations, having to pay for a sound system and sometimes food and lodging for the band, as well as advertising and trying to hustle some press coverage.
We also lucked out in having John Hall from DC-area radio station WRNR-FM there. John used to DJ at the legendary WHFS. Damian Einstein, Cerph, Weasle, John Hall and the other WHFS jocks are responsible for the majority of the recordings I bought in the 1970s, the years before I moved to Arizona. They were playing a bizarrely eclectic mix of roots and fringe rock before nearly anyone in the country: Cajun (Ambrose Thibideau), blues (you name it, they played it from Robert Johnson and the old blues masters to Buddy Guy and the Chicago guys, Bonnie Raitt, Chris Smither and Taj Majal), and the kind of rock that wasn’t getting on mainstream radio such as Little Feat, Frank Zappa. Well, it turns out John has been playing our stuff. I’m honored. If there’s one station in the world that means the most to to me, it’s WRNR, which took over where WHFS left off when the old station was sold. During breaks at concerts in the DC area, real music fans sit around and discuss antennae tweaking that allows them to pull in WRNR’s weak signal (it’s over in Annapolis, MD, these days). You can get it on the Internet, I was pleased to learn, but the server will only handle a limited number of “listeners” at a time. Worth a try. Maybe you’ll hear us.
As I write this, we’re heading down Interstate 81 thrugh rural Virginia. Kevin and Gary are snorin’ on the floor, Catherine’s driving and Nancy is in the co-pilot’s seat. I’m in back on the couch that's up against the bulkhead for the equipment area in the back of the van. Working on the laptop, listening to NPR “All Things Considered” on the headphones and looking forward to getting home in about 37 hours. Good tour.
By the way, the bookings for '99 are coming in slowly, but it looks like we’ll probably be heading out this summer for some Canadian festivals, and at the minimum a swing up the East Coast and over to the Midwest. There’s also a plan to do a trip to the Pacific Northwest in late spring. We’re going to the Folk Alliance conference I Albuquerque in late Februrary, with a Texas swing tagged on the end. And we’ll be in Reno ( Fitzgerald’s Casino) for St. Patrick’s Day, followed by a California swing taking in the Bay Area, including a stop in Monterey for the first time.
Later,
dan sorenson - and the rest of The Mollys
.... P.S. By the way, we found some great BBQ in Nashville. There's a place across the street from Maggie McGee's. I can't remember the name right now, but you'll know it if you smell it.