We had a couple weeks at home after Australia and New Zealand before our last major raid of the year - an 11-day 10-show East Coast mini-tour: Boston to DC and many points in between. But, sure enough, time ran out and the Beast pulled up in front of all our homes and we heard that ominous low rumble and the inevitable sliding door noise. It was not Santa Claus.
Just call us Santa’s Help Yourselfers. We need to see the folks on the East Coast to remind them we’re still around and, hopefully, sell them a pile of CDs. (So, please excuse us if you went to one of the shows and we were a bit heavy handed about hustling our wares. Better a Mollys CD than a necktie or a toaster, no?)
We did our usual non-stop haul from Tucson to the right coast, making it to Kevin’s parents’ place in Blackwood, NJ (just outside Philly) in 42 hours. The trip was uneventful, the usual couple of police rousts for being long hairs in an old van. Still, woof. That's a long haul in a van with a 250,000-mile history.
But, once there, we were welcomed by Kevin’s ever-tolerant and loving folks with a refrigerator full of Jersey delicacies (meatballs in marinara, some great Italian rolls, pasta salad and on and on).
From there, it was across the river/state line into Philadelphia for our first appearance at the Tin Angel, the top acoustic folk venue in Philly. We've been circling the joint for a while, playing other Philly venues. Finally, they asked us in. A hot local band, the Knife & Fork Band, played first. It was a good match up; they, too, have Celtic roots, and stray as far as needed to to do what their songs need. In their case, they swerve off more in the direction of bluegrass, though they certainly aren’t a bluegrass band, either. Very good players, distinctive vocals and fine material. We enjoyed them. Then it was our turn. We had a decent crowd and definitely made a good impression. It was one of those nights when the band agreed with the crowd. Not bad. Not bad. P.S. I nominate Cheek Andrews to our list of great live audio engineers. He knows how to mix a complicated mess such as we are: Acoustic instruments mixed with electric bass, four-part vocals and full drums.
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We set out from Kevin’s parents’ place the next morning for Bethlehem (Pennsylvania, that is), to tape Otto Bost’s show on WDIY-FM. That was a blast. We were all crammed into a fairly small studio with Otto and a pile of mike stands and a knot of cords and instruments. Talk a little, play a little. Big fun. Otto’s a good interviewer. Ostensibly, we were hustling our upcoming appearance at Godfrey Daniel’s there in Bethlehem the following week, but we had such a good time we soon forgot about that and just enjoyed a chance to play and talk. I often enjoy radio performances as much or more than stage shows; it’s nearly the only time when I get to talk about the music (other than talking to the laptop screen here, of course - hello, hello, anybody there?). And, I’ll own up to this: There’s also some pride in knowing that we can play live, under tough conditions, often with only a handful of our usual arsenal of instruments, frequently only one or two mikes, and sound good. (The look of terror in a DJ's eyes when the rest of the band starts the yelping, howling and clapping self-ovation after a song is always good for a laugh. Otto was a good sport and we spared him the Down Under sheep jokes.
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Night two was another first time appearance: Bodle’s Opera House in Chester, NY. Again, we had a decent-sized crowd for a first appearance. I think we gave them a good performance. Again, we were also lucky to be paired with a really good act. Pamela and Andy put on a great set. It’s a touchy business, this matching up of acts on a bill. They can’t be too disparate (or much of the crowd for one may not have an ear for the other) nor similar (if they’re too much alike, one is going to come out a clear loser, or a sad imitation.)
We also lucked out getting a talented sound engineer. That's number one on my quality of performance list, at least in terms of things outside our control. You can play great, but if the guy on the board doesn't give a damn or doesn't know how to do it right, the audience gets garbage. It's a big deal. The guy on the board can deliver what's happening on stage to the paying customer - or spit in their ear.
After leaving Bodle's (pronounced, by the way, as if it were spelled "boodle's"), Catherine - driving in the very early morning and getting lost on the way to our motel about an hour away from the club - gets stopped. (You know, we get stopped so much the back of our van has permanent blue and red stains on the paint.) She says, no shit, even before the young cop can get a word out, "Oh, I'm so glad you stopped me. I don't know where I am." I think he was flabbergasted. He'd never heard THAT one before. We were trying not to burst out howling in the back wondering how this would play out. I'm not sure he knew either. He gave her directions, adding sort of meekly and with a hint of doubt, "I knew you either had to be drunk or lost."
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Night three was a bit more familiar and comfortable, our third (fourth?) appearance at The Towne Crier in Pawling, NY. Not that it wasn’t a pressure job, playing one of the country’s top acoustic and roots music venues with a big name produces some powerful determination in most of us not to suck. It was a split bill with Scotsman Andy Stewart (one of the founders of Silly Wizard) and Irish killer guitarist Gerry O’Brien. Those guys are a tough act to follow, but we took a stab at it. The Towne Crier is in the top tier of US folk/roots venues. Everybody, except maybe that Dylan guy, has played here. We relish playing the Towne Crier because to do well there - hell, to get booked there - is no small thing. The sound is always great (Phil hires great engineers, i.e. Jim). Meyer speakers. Some great new Sennheiser mikes. Good-sized stage. Knowledgable audience. We were pumped up by the reception and the great company on stage. (We got Gerry to come up during our set and sit in for "La Llorona" and our warped version of "Youngest Daughter." He played slide ukulele, I'm serious, even though he wasn't.) We went back to our lodge at a nearby motel and did our best to keep it going, hanging out with Andy until the hands were hanging low.
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We headed out early the next afternoon for Boston and a show at Club Passim (actually, it’s in Cambridge. So, you want to know the difference between Boston and Cambridge? Well, there’s this delivery guy trying to deliver some supplies to the Harvard Library. He spots a student, leans out the window of the truck and says, “Hey, buddy, can you tell me where the library’s at?” The student replies, “My good man, you really shouldn’t end a sentence with a preposition.” So, the delivery guy says: “OK, can you tell me where the library’s at, asshole?”)
Club Passim is a regular stop for us. I think this was the fifth appearance there. It has quite a history, going back to the 1960s and it’s origins as Club 47, a venue for nearly every big name past or present in folk music. It’s tiny. A great place to see/hear an act. But so small a band can’t make any money. Great for the audience, however. If you’re ever in the area, catch a show there and you’ll feel like you got a private show. We had a full house, many familiar faces. (Best of all, from my viewpoint, my former next door neighbor from Tucson, Debbie, was one of those faces. Hell of a surprise. Made the night for me.)
We shacked up with our friends, Noel & Beth, veterans of several Mollys invasions. We always have a fine time with them. If we run out of bookings in Boston, we may just have to show up and play in their back yard.
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From there it was into “The City” (that always seemed a bit conceited to me, like NYC is the only city, but I’ve got to admit coming across the bridge and seeing the Empire State Building lit up like a Christmas tree and the Chrysler building sparkling in white still makes me feel like a hick in the Big City) to do the Rodeo Bar (the Lower East Side, I believe). It was our second time at the Rodeo, and the first time as the headliner. We got great press* coming in and were expecting a good crowd. The Rodeo is more roots than folk, having hosted nearly all the rockabilly, blues and country, alt-country acts you could name. The oddest thing about the place is that it really DOES feel like the honky tonk it tries - and looks - to be. In Manhattan. A honky tonk. Huh. No kidding. Very cool place.
Chas, a top notch audio guy, made the most of us. I’ll leave it that we played a very decent first set. The Stewarts, some friends and fans we just made in Australia, showed up. What a surprise seeing someone from Down Under in New York in a honky tonk. We talked music and motorcycles (I got chewed out by Geoff for selling my 1976 BMW R90S, like I needed any help beating myself for that). We also saw a former Tucsonan, John Kwok, still making it in the big city and always good to see.
After that, it was a hairy late night drive out of Manhattan (I was driving with one dim headlight, lighting the Jersey Turnpike with my curses) to yet another of Kevin’s cousins’ homes. This time we were sponging off cousin Cathy and her family. We arrived about 3:30 am, raided the refrigerator and slept in until a shameful hour not long before sunset the next day while the family tiptoed around. Having Kevin for a cousin is a mixed blessing. (It’s great for us.) We spent our one day/night off on the tour there. I even got my twice yearly dose of Jersey ‘tude. I took the van looking for an auto parts store. Found a place. Went inside and asked for a couple of headlights (the Beast had one out and one with a hole in it, as if we really needed to give cops a reason to stop us). The guy behind the counter acts like I was driving bamboo shoots under his fingernails by asking him for a couple of headlights. Tries to trip me up on the model I needed. Even looks pissed off about having to break a $20. What is it with these people? If you don't know them already, you have to either be local or related to someone local, or go through some elaborate standoff like a couple of bull elk. If it weren’t for Kevin’s family, I’d swear there was a ban on civility hereabouts. It’s all a bluff, of course, I think.
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Last night we played the Buttonwood Tree in Middletown, CT. We hadn't been there in a couple years, at least. It's a small, coffee house-sized venue. Thirty people filled it up. It was a much different experience than playing a pub, or certainly a festival or concert hall. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Felt like I was playing a little jazz club and that everything I did, no matter how subtle, had a chance of getting heard and making some difference in the overall sound. I barely had my amp turned on and the upright electric (Zeta Crossover bass) I've been using lately could really be heard well. In the louder venues, I think a lot of the subtlties of most of the instruments are lost. Last night, I only picked up the solid body (guitar) bass twice (on songs I couldn't play on the Zeta). Big fun. Also, another big turnout from Kevin's family. His Uncle Frank, Aunt Anne, and Cousins Bryan and Blaise were there. Steve Bornstein, now editor of Mixx Magazine (a Northeastern roots music journal), an early supporter of The Mollys, was there. He seemed to enjoy the new direction we've swevered off into. (He's been listening to us long enough that he's become acustomed to the swerving by now.) Catherine has been trying to shake off some kind of respiratory crud, and did a pretty good job of dealing with it during the show. Nancy has been taking a few more songs or even doing some of Catherine's parts (she wrote them, so she knows the lyrics) over the last few shows. A good night.
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So, we rolled back into Bethlehem (insert own joke about virgins and wise men, or lack of same, here) and played Godfrey Daniels. We were treated well. To my thinking, it was far from a great performance, but it was ... spirited? And, I'm grateful, the crowd seemed to like it. After we packed up the junk, we went to stay with Mike & Judy, some friends from Godfrey Daniels and WDIY.
The next day...
After getting spoiled rotten at Mike & Judy's (Mike's a DJ at WDIY in Bethlehem), we set out for Annapolis and an appearance on WRNR. I made the usual "we're on the way" call and found out John Hall was no longer there. I don't know what happened, but it's a shame for listeners as John (along with Damien Einstein and the rest of the DJs from the golden underground days of the old WHFS in Bethesda, Maryland,) was responsible for turning thousands and thousands of DC-area people onto music they probably otherwise would have never heard, making their lives richer in the process and allowing those musicians to keep on - at least for a while - making music. I'd say that's a big deal. Not a good day. I also got the news that Rick Danko died. He and The Band certainly left a mark on me, and probably most of the rest of this band (they paved the way for future roots bands to mix R&B rhythm sections and folky front lines with weird piles of instruments to do whatever the hell they wanted). He had his face on the wall at a lot of the places we just played on this very tour; in fact, I think he had been at the Towne Crier right around one of our last visits there. I remember thinking that meant something to me.
Anyway, we had a bit of time on our hands and headed into Silver Spring, MD, for our Friday night show at Paddy Mac's. Who knows?
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Turns out, we got a rave review in the Washington Post from Geoffrey Himes, as well as a preview in City Pages from Ken Rosen. We had a packed house at Paddy Mac's, including a lot of old friends and longtime fans. It was a raver. Nobody went over the edge, but we had a good time and it was a partying night. Nancy stretched some of her song intros, backgrounding the stories far beyond anything any of us had heard. (Maybe you can get her to fill in the details of "On We Go" next time. We learned last night that it was first-degree murder, seeing as the old woman planned to drown her husband on the way back from the public. Possibly, there was even a bit of indecent exposure.) Anyway, it was an interesting night. Great audio from Maxine and Sharon. And Marc Gretchel did his usual job of making things happen. He's built us up in DC over the years, stuck with is until we built a crowd. Marc and the rare group of promoters like him around the country are doing the job that record companies did back before nearly all of them replaced their talented executives and A&R people with the musical eqivalent of Dibert's pointy haired boss. So, there. Don't get me started on the recording industry.
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Today, it's on to Baltimore and The Roots Cafe, after a stop at the House of Musical Traditions in Takoma Park, MD...
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We didn't make it over to the music store. We were too busy hanging out at my brother Randy's place out in Boyds, MD. It turns into the Molly bunker when we're in the area.
Up in Baltimore, we loaded into the old church that is now the Roots Cafe. It's a big old stone church, wood floors, nothing but stone and wood and some windows. But it sounds surprisingly good, with the right human at the controls, and we had that. The full house of warmly dressed Roots Cafe fans softened up the sound, too. (People with a little mass really soften up the sound, compensating for hard surfaces and all the reflective sound caused by them; we are grateful to those Mollys fans with "a little meat on their bones." Not that we don't love those skinny ones, too, it's just that if you get too many skinny people they may start to rattle if we turn it up too high. So, think of it this way, instead of torturing yourself over the holidays, have another helping and do your part for the acoustics at Mollys shows.)
Thanks to Allison and Ken at Roots Cafe, and all the volunteers and crew who made things run smoothly. Special thanks to Margo and Joe, who put us up and even treated us with a fine home-cooked meal (that was Margo's work) before the show.
We went from "not being able to get arrested" (No kidding, it was probably the only place in the country where even the cops left us alone) to full houses (church, actually) in Baltimore overnight because of the Roots people, Geoffrey Himes at the Washington Post and (ahemmm) the fantastic John Hall at WRNR in Annapolis. We owe them all, and a bunch more (Damian and the other DJs at WRNR, Ken Rosen and the other area music writers who gave us a listen and some ink, and all the Mollys fans who drag out friends - hell, total strangers - to our shows and make converts of them).
Later still...
Well, we left Margo and Joe's in Baltimore about 2 pm on Sunday (Dec. 12) and the Beast is now bumping down I-20 into (no kidding) Midland-Odessa (that's Texas) on our way home late Monday afternoon. I've been sleeping in the back, trying any way. I finally blanked out and what do I have but a nightmare. I dreamed that we were already home (that's the good part), but home was a little house we all shared in Tucson. Get this: Conveniently located one block behind The Boondocks, our smokey home base bar in Tucson. Yup, the whole band, and all the significant others (all of them, including the significant others past and present), in one small house. They said I didn't scream in my sleep, but when I told the rest of the band about the dream/nightmare in a truck stop, they looked like they might. Talk about "The Road Goes On Forever." What is this, Willie Nelson's band? Must be something I ate at that Arkansas truck stop.
*P.S. Here's that piece from the Village Voice:
Later,
dan s