Occassionally, I post performance schedules on my calendar. Though I must admit, there is seldom have time to post anything there!
I am in Eagle, Alaska once again. I'm more than a couple months into the tour now, and a month in Alaska. I'll be looping around Alaska for another 6 weeks or so, visiting, jamming, and performing. The State Fair is over, and now I've been completeing my rounds out into the bush before the serious snows come. I'll be doing weeks more in the Fairbanks and Anchorage areas before I really head south.
I haven't had time to deal with the future, so I have no specifics about where I'll play when I get there. This is the reason I have decided to look into getting an agent. I just don't have the time, energy, or communications to book ahead constantly. when I am on the road or out in the wilds all the time. Generally I figure to head down the coast and be back to the east coast at New Years, and on south after that. In fact, I do have a schedule, pretty specifically of people and places to visit as I go, and festivals I could hit, and streetscenes I can count on for steady if not great income to at least offset expenses and try to save up for the next stretch of road or walkabout. I am very practical, you have to be, or you don't make it work, at least not for long. I've made it work for 26 years, almost full time. It is balancing the places you know with exploring in new directions, new places and scenes, new projects and threads. People are really what is important, so I'm making the rounds just to see friends as much as anything, just like up here.
I know I can count on the street scene in Seattle, even in the rain. Then I think I'll make a trip through Califoria, new territory for me. I have a routine almost, like a tray of different coloered beads that I string upon this thread of time, this life. Sometimes they are planned, as often they are spontaineous as I'm looking for the opportunities to follow up on and making the few that do happen. I look at it like holding a handful of cards, carefully prepared and ready to play at any moment, when the time is right; balancing chance, circumstance, and opportunity; and the seasons. I'm always looking for a place to play, from festivals to streetscenes, from people's homes to schools and senior centers, I can play anywhere. I'm looking for a good road into the backcountry, a new place to explore or a story to follow; a route to exceptional experiences. I'm looking for good cafes, and musicians to jam with. I have been getting into the new routines now that I have the new gear, so I can set up and record as well now, jams and sessions. The new routine of getting out the video gear regularly, make a record of the life, as I used to say; "taking the camera for a walk", or keeping it ready and making the effort to go out and capture those shots, as I did, and still do, with photography. I have new projects going, and I need to focus on them, make regular time for them. Right now I'm producing an audio/video tour-journal with raw footage for
52media's site.
The problem has always been that it takes so much time just to live the life and do the regular things it involves, without trying to add more. Sometimes I only have time to tavel and play, while trying find time to eat and sleep! But if I can just get the routine around it I can probably manage to include reporting on it as well. That is why I am leaning towards establishing a regular circuit of bases, or making longer stops as opportunity knocks, to record and mix audio and process the raw video footage. To plan and arrange the on-going tour, or find someone to do that for me.
The tour never stops of course. The West coast chapter is looming ahead. Though I am more concerned with preparing for a definite return to "Further", Quintana Roo, and Belize this winter; and exploring farther as well.
I haven't minded all the driving, especially in a rig I don't have to worry about. But I find I think alot about all the places I didn't stop because I had to get on down the road. Though I also was able to go so many more places once I got here by having a rig. And really, I should remember that I couldn't have stopped anywhere along the way if I'd flown again.
I'm getting ready for world travel rather than put too much energy into a new rig yet, or finding a place to set up regular. Still, I think I'll be looking seriously at just that down south. I Actually see moving in both directions, to more far flung tours and longer stops at effective bases in between. I still haven't found a reason to stay in any place, so maybe my loneliness just drives me on and on, seeking what I've never found.
TOUR 2000: ALASKA
On the Road: VA to AK
I left Washington DC right after July 5th. At the last minute, my sister loaned me her truck, so Bluebell (now retired to the backyard as a toy for my niece) stayed in Virginia while my sister shopped for a new van. So on this trip, when people ask where I live, I can reply "Dodge"; or even "Dakota". I swung south through Tennessee, but unfortunately had no time to stop, driving hard to make the traditional dulcimer festival in Carthage, Missouri.
It was a small and short fest, so on Sunday I was on the road again, heading for Montana. I got to Missoula late Monday.
I stayed with Joe, a great slide player; and got the gear set up to record some sessions. A week passed quickly, and I didn't even bother to look around for any venues. I know Missoula pretty well, and there's really not much there. Though I could have probably did a few shows in local coffeeshops that don't normally have music. It is a university town and years back, I recall I set up in the student union and played. But was more important to focus on the recording with Joe while I had the chance. The thing I have missed most in my music has been playing with other people, having that ensemble sound in any form. One of my purposes with the recording gear is to get that sound, at least in recordings, if I can't have it in my performances. I also recieved the digital videocamera I'd ordered just before I left, though actually using it would wait till I reached Alaska.
The next monday I was on the road once again, and heading North. I crossed the Canadian border and drove late into the night. I caught a few hours sleep and pulled off to Prince George, BC; and on to pickup the AlCan just north of Dawson Creek. By the time I pulled over for the evening I was deep into northern Canada, passing the now familiar places, noticing all the road work completed in the few years since I'd driven up last, in '97.
I slept in the Muncho Lake area, one of the beautiful places along the way, but also dangerous at night due to the large amount of large animals frequently crossing the road there. In the morning I had a flat rear tire, but I switched out to the spare and by evening I had completed the Yukon crossing and crossed the Alaskan border. I pulled into Tok late, dropping off a native guy I picked up hitching a little ways cross the border. He turned me on to some smoked salmon when I let him off, and invited me to stop in Tetlin sometime. He actually knew friends of mine in Eagle. I met one of his cousins here at the school, who'd already heard of me. Alaska is actually like a single small town. Despite the distances there are actually very few people, about 700,000; so the web of personal connections and contacts spans the entire state. Kids here in Eagle heard about me from kids in Deltana who saw me at the fair there. My friends in Eagle know my friends in Wiseman. I run into a friend from Homer, in the far south, at the fair in Fairbanks. A lady at the fair says she's has a tape of me that a friend in Juneau sent her in Europe in '92, when I visited southeast Alaska.
The next day I arrived in Fairbanks, 5,500 miles from Virginia. I checked in with the fair and let them know I was here. I had made a quick, clean run up, so I had a week and a half before the fair. I went to a local internet cafe and shot out a few e-mails to festivals coming up before the fair about performing. I hadn't wanted to book anything since it might have been delays along the way. I had been invited to visit by a friend of a friend and use their place as a base to play the local area, so in the late evening I was on the road agin, heading south to Willow, about 300 miles south of Fairbanks and about 50 miles from Anchorage. In the next ten days I would log almost 2000 miles driving around Alaska performing.
Willow: the First Alaska Loop
I arrived in Willow and met K.K. in person for the first time. She is a crafter, running a foil printing business, and is also a big fan in the local music scene; frequenting a lot of the festivals and venues. She helped me a lot in lining up a quick series of local performances. I performed almost continuously, afternoons and evenings, at coffeehouses and lodges.
I made a good connection at Mead's Coffeehouse in Wasilla. I almost played at their openning when I was in Alaska in '98, but I left before they could get through all the delays involved in openning a new place. The owner was trying to develop it not only as a venue, but wanted to get digital recording equipment as well, and become a live recording venue as well. He also was hoping to create local radio programing as well, with low-power broadcasts of live performances. So I was right on time. After one performance, I arranged to come back later and set up my recording gear at the coffeehouse for a few days.
I'd gotten an e-mail back from the Deltana fair in Delta Junction inviting me to play that coming weekend. My friends from Willow were having a great time following me around and catching the scene, and KK was getting into running the videocam. They decided to follow me all the way to the Deltana fair. So Friday I packed up the gear after playing at Meads, then headed north to play at a lodge outside Talkeetna that evening. After that show, we still drove a chunk north to where some friends of mine were playing at Cantwell, showing up in time for the last set and a few hours sleep. In the morning I was on my way to Delta Junction, arriving about 1 pm Saturday. They asked if I could play right then, so I dragged out the dulcimer, tuned up and started playing at 2 pm. It was a small, friendly fair, and I enjoyed myself. My friends caught up with me late saturday night. I did a couple stage shows and set up to play between some of the booths, when it was quiet enough on the mainstage to play. There was a great scene where an old guy stopped and played harmonica with me, the western melodic style. It sounded perfect doing a song like "Old Paint". At the end of the fair, I had a great time jamming with the final band's set. I plan to visit them and jam, and hopefully record as well, as I keep on looping around Alaska.
Monday we were on our way south, planning to loop back across the Denali Highway to Cantwell. That night I camped alone on the summit, while they went on down to the Tangle Lakes lodge.
We met there the next morning for coffee, and I made a good connection there for another impromptu venue anytime in the future. That is one of the best aspects of playing in Alaska. The places are all individual and owner operated, so "business" is still personal and spontaineous. They may not have the budgets to pay, but they can make space and time if they want to, and are actually enthusiastic about it. The plan is most often to coincide with the arrival of a tour bus, and play while they stop for a meal. If I was in the area, I could call up just to find out when a tour would be passing through and arrange to play then.
We stopped a bit short of Cantwell to visit a friend, John, who was stuck off the side of the road. Like a lot of Alaskan highways, the Denali Highway is just gravel. He'd gotten run off the road in his 6 wheel army-surplus truck by an RV going too fast and wide around a corner towards him; they didn't even stop. The bad luck was having a culvert hidden in the willows right where he went off, so instead of just sliding to a stop, he dropped 15 feet and slammed into the creekbed, sheering off the front axel, cracking the trani, and burying the whole thing in mud. Part of the purpose of this trip was running him supplies and trying to get something moving on getting him out. He'd been there two weeks already, just trying to dig himself out so he could get dragged back onto the road. This was pretty ridiculous, considering all the heavy equipment available nearby at the mines. But he was a local, and politics surrounding the gold mines (he had claims up there) were outweighing basic human decency in helping someone out in trouble, no matter who they are. If someone needs help, I don't worry about personal feelings, I just help. Its more important to do what is right. That is a reflection of my personal honor, integrity, and humanity, not on the person I help.
I returned to Willow for a couple days recovery time, doing laundry and fixing KK's crashed computer. I installed antivirus and disk utilities, while sweeping out a lot of left-over garbage. Best of all, I recovered a few hundred e-mails and letters she thought she'd lost forever; probably her biggest bummer. We also got things moving on John's truck, at last. By the time I left for Fairbanks things were in motion at last.
Fairbanks: The Tanana Valley State Fair
I arrived in Fairbanks with a day to prepare for the fair. It had been mostly rainy since I got to Alaska, a very wet summer; so it was good to climb out of the coastal zone and into the interior and some welcome sun. But the Fair has a reputation, and sure enough, the first day of the fair the clouds moved in, and five minutes before openning time, the rain began to fall. But I was glad to be back. For a large fair, Tanana Valley is the best I've been at. They are on a par with warm milk and cookies, in terms of consideration and thoughtfulness, making it a real community event with a at home feel. I felt welcome, and it was good to see so many people who remembered me, and many friends I'd made on my last trips. In the 9 days of the fair, I had many good scenes, more than I can hope to describe.
I did an hour on stage every other day, and otherwise, set up in a pavillion to play all day. It was a bit slow, due to the almost non-stop rain, but I was in a pretty dry, semi-protected place. I circulated the Captain's log and photo-album from the trip with "Further" (see the ARCHIVE) among my friends in the booths. I watched the horses warming up in the mornings and the many cranes arriving from the North Slope; allready drifting south. I got the video set up, but still am a bit inhibited at using it; or afraid it will distract from the show to be filming it. KK and friends arrived near the end of the fair to do some videoing, but the weather was at its worst, and they couldn't stay long. Perhaps my favorite tune during the fair was a version I did of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star". I can't always relate to adults, but I get along great with kids and animals. It also was a great demonstration of what it means to me to be a musician, what I play for; to being able to make a child happy, make them come alive; and to create scenes like I had with mothers singing along to their babes. To me, that is some of the most important work I can do. Finally it was over. I spent the final sunday after the fair as I usually do, helping friends pack up. A task that is a lot easier for me.
The Brooks Range: Northernmost Point
I headed out Monday night after a day of shopping and getting both rear tires repaired, since the other one had slow leaked flat during the fair as well. After catching up my e-mail at the internet cafe I favored, I headed north on the haul-road for the Brooks Range. Unfortunately, I got about 100 miles when one of the rear tires I'd had repaired blew apart in pieces. I got the spare on, but now I had no other and I realized the other rear tire was the same as the one that just blew, right down to the slow leak, repaired at the same place. I couldn't take a chance of even a slow leak (the footpump was one thing forgotten on the whirlwind transfer from Bluebell to the truck). So I headed back, pulling into Fairbanks at 5 am for a few hours sleep.
In the morning I bought two new tires and got on the road again. By that evening I made it to my first stop, Old Man, just a bit short of the Arctic Circle. Though my friends had to get up in the morning to work, we still had a bit of a jam session that night. I stayed most of the next day, to avoid the truck traffic on the road. I tried to make myself useful. But as soon as evening came, I made some quick farewells and headed north for Wiseman.
I arrived in time for dinner with Bernie and Uta. It had been two years since I made it up. In '98, I hadn't made it this far north, and in '99, I didn't reach Alaska at all. Now they had a two year old daughter, Julia. And the old piano there needed tuning again, though the lower registers were still remarkably in tune, though I tuned it last back in '93. In the morning I went over to Jack and Roma's to catch up with them and their family. I'd seen their son Jesse at the fair, grown up and buying his first car. After a bit, I got out the dulcimer again and set up to play for a while. This is my favorite time, when I visit my far flung friends in their cabins in the wild country. This is where I would have been if I'd been able to live my dreams instead of getting lost and carried away in the music. Still, I'd rather play in a cabin, surrounded by wood and cast iron, with kids playing and food cooking; than on any stage on Earth. Later I ended up back at Bernie and Uta's to do the same thing. Their cabin, the old Pioneers of Alaska hall, has such incredible accoustics. Even with no amplification, when I set the electric dulci right on the floor and played, the bass notes rumbled and shook the walls. The best was little Julia, who started out totally shy; but in a couple hours, I had her playing away on the dulci, laughing and giggling and having a great time. Those moments are the best.
The next morning I was on my way north again to Gold Creek, my final destination. Here's where I prospected and dug crystals and gold in '96 and '97. My friends Dave and Lanna where caretaking a claim there through the winter, as well as working there in the summer. They were expecting me and had a warm cabin (the greenhouse) and a bed fixed up for me, a great welcome for a tired traveller. The next day I helped him deliver a 3-wheeler he'd fixed for another miner up the creek. After we dropped the wheeler, I headed up the mountain with the video cam and made a long hike up to the base of the peak of Poss Mtn, crossing paths with a young grizzly on the way. I stumbled in late, tired, but satisfied to be back in the wildlands.
I stayed there a while, giving Dave and Lanna a chance to go to Fairbanks while I watched the place. The night after they left the first snowstorm came. August 22, it snowed all day, about 6 inches of wet snow; turning to rain the next morning. I mostly stayed around camp till they got back a few days later, as I'm serious about my responsibilities. In fact, even after they arrived, I did little serious hiking or prospecting. I just am not that interested in gold or crystals; and though I enjoy the prospecting and the hiking, I was really there to visit my friends. So I stayed around camp a lot and we got started on the chores of wintering in. I enjoy this kind of work, from my homesteading childhood to my dreams of a cabin of my own; this is the life I enjoy living. We moved the sled dogs to winter quarters and brought logs off the mountain and into camp for firewood. I also spent a few hours sluicing a little gold out of the creek below camp with Dave, just for the fun of moving a little dirt on a rare sunny day.
I got out a bit, returning to places I'd found, but instead of digging, I sat and thought. I still wasn't sure what I was doing back there again, if I should be trying to take up where I left off on my plans so long ago. Was I still planning to locate a claim for gold or crystals, make a place I could set up regularly up here, an alternative to music? 7 years have passed since I first came up to do just that, but now it feels like that dream is really dead. Perhaps I just don't have the energy for it anymore, or the desire. I'm still crippled, and I have accepted that I can't do all I once did. In the aftermath of all my troubles, I have focused on the music as something that is right, and keeps me distracted. It also takes all my time and energy if I let it, and I still can't do it all. If I do, I can always come up with more.
Lanna also breeds sled dogs, and their main strain is a lot like my old wolf-dog, Kee-na. It was both strange but nice to borrow a dog and go off across the mountains. I was connecting to the life I lived so many years ago, when me and Kee-na roamed in the wilds together. It was so familiar to see this white dog cruising along in front of me, turning to come bounding back. They tried to give me a pup of this litter, but I am planning on using my present freedom to do some world travel, and trips like "Further", before I get another pup.
Finally, it was time to go. But first, we hauled the dulcimer up the trail on their 3-wheeler and I played again up there in Gold Creek, just like in years before. The next day, I was packing everything down the mountain and heading south for the first time. I sent a day in Wiseman visiting and sharing a dinner of the heart and liver from the first kills of the season. But the next morning I was on my way south again. Now the mountains were yellow with fall colors, as I left the Brooks Range behind. I stopped at Old Man again to visit for a few hours before I was on the road south to Fairbanks. I just stopped there to call Eagle and confirm again, let them know I'd be there the next day. I drove off into the night and the rain, and pulled off the 250 miles to Tok that night.
Eagle: Live at the Yukon River
Through overcast and cloud-hidden summits, I drove the 160 miles of dirt to Eagle. The road starts out wide and good, but degenerates into a twisting, narrow track clinging to canyon cliffsides, sometimes actually wide enough for two vehicles to pass, sometimes not; liberally sprinkled with blind hairpin turn with a cliff on one side and a sheer drop on the other. It is definitely "an adventure in driving". But after a while, I was dropping down the final slope to the Yukon River, and driving slowly through Eagle to arrive at my friend's house, overlooking the river.
The problem is the scenes keep coming and I'm in them, or videoing them; its hard to find time to report on the life while living it. In the morning I went out to record Dave launching his truck to float it down to his camp for the winter. This evening I finished a session recording a local musician just getting started, though it meant I'd miss leaving before the next front, which is shaping up to be the first major winter storm. I've already loaded in all the clips from the Tanana Valley fair, ready to chop, mix, and toast! Though I have to pack up and go, really. The summits already have snow, and I'm pretty far back in the bush now. I have a good number of places still to play, people to visit, and things to do before I am through and ready to head down the Alcan again. My schedule is flexible, but I can't stop the seasons. In the few weeks I've been here the leaves have turned and fallen. Right now its snowing outside, so I'm not leaving today. I move with the storms now, travelling on the clear days and stopping to wait out the fronts as they move through.
It is the first storm and I am trapped in Eagle for a week as is drops 20 inches of snow on Tok and the road out of here. I finish two reports covering the Tanana State Fair, and record a commentary Annie was invited to do for Alaska Public Radio. Its a good example of the usefullness of the technology. Even during this storm she's able to e-mail them scripts to edit and finally approve; then we record it on the Paris, convert the file to .mp3 format and e-mail that to the radio station; where they air it the next day. The snow stops friday and I leave Monday, climbing out on the that hanging cliff-edge road, now covered in snow.
After a few hours of visiting, showing the photo album, we headed up to the school and I had the DAW system set up and tested in a couple hours. The next morning I was recording a chorus of elementary school kids for a original song "Children of Alaska". I recorded two songs that they plan to sell on cassettes as a fundraiser to buy digital recording gear for the school. I did classes on digital recording and also my regular programs on the dulcimer, and had a jam session with the elemtary schoolers and some of the highschoolers. I spent time talking to several local musicians about how to get set up in digital recording, as well as teaching Annie, my host, elemtary teacher and principal, and musician; how to record and mix with the PARIS system. Then I spent time with the district tech person explaining more of the deatils of the hardware and software. This is what Annie and I had taslked about when I visited two years ago and talked about my plans to get a DAW and the things I wanted to do with it, inplaces like Eagle.
I also managed to played one night at the local restaurant, and have a couple jam sessions with local musicians!
It's showtime in Eagle! Part of my plan for this summer was using the video footage to make an "quick and dirty" video tour journal for the internet. Flo at
52media's site.
picked up on the idea, so I went for it. I thought that Eagle would be a good place to get started. I'd have finished enough of the summer tour to have material to work with, and enough time to get over the learning curve. I haven't had time to install my pro-video card, but I'm not sure it matters for the internet. Anyway, the basic idea of the journal is that it is a series, and I can ramp up to higher quality on down the road. The tourjournal is about content, not fancy production; and I want to get people connected to the tour now, as it happens; as close as possible. So its done, the introduction and first few reports are "in the can" so to speak. I fit about two and a half minutes on a 650MB CDR. I should mail them off in the next day of so (if the weather opens up so the mail plane can fly) and then its up to Flo and Bk over at 52, while I'll work on the next reports. I still have a few to catch up to where I am now. Even my concepts are evolving as I balance the documentary aspects of telling the story, with the telling the real story, the thoughts and feeling behind the events, the essential threads that surface in scene after scene in the life I have lived.
The Final Alaska Loop,
Part One: Tok to Willow
I arrive in Tok that evening and connect with Mike at Duct Tape Radio. Turns out they are having a board meeting the next night and he asks if I want to play. That night it hits -10 degrees. The next day I go over to the highschool here to meet Jeremy, the Music teacher, and arrange to return and do a day of highschool shows and maybe an evening concert in conjunction with the school chorus. I also do a mail drop and the first video tour-journal reports are off to 52Media. I play that evening for the radio folks and then head over to camp at the "off the road house", a B&B operated by one of the boardmembers.
After a nice morning with the folks there, I head out on the road again. I drive the short hundred mile hop to Delta Junction and pull in at Dawn and Bruce's place. The first thing I did was tune their piano. Dawn was the coordinator at the Deltana Fair. I'd offered to stop and do a show there when I passed through. When I contacted her from Eagle, she asked if I could do a preschool class, which I said was no problem at all. I also contacted the Delta Junction school, and was lucky to be able to fit into two awards assemblies they had scheduled for the elemetary school classes Friday. They had only 15 minutes worth of awards so I had 45 minutes to entertain 120 elementary school kids, twice. It was great. I was able to keep them entertained an focused for a program about the dulcimer and folk-music and being a musician, including sing-alongs and even a stomp-along! "And a good time was had by all."
After the school shows I was on the road again to Fairbanks, racing an oncoming storm and hoping to make a celtic jam I'd been asked to attend by someone who saw me at the fair. I made it in time, and spent the evening playing at Into The Woods, an neat old style alternative bookstore-coffehouse. This isn't the genericism of Starb's or such, but a real authentic place with self serve revolution right next to the cream and sugar. Shelves of books and videos from the classics like Thoreau to the latest speeches by Green Party Candidate Nader. This is my type of place, these are my roots. I grew up in this atmosphere, and the conversations and characters are familiar. I stay here for almost three days as a bad ice-storm slams Fairbanks. I play and talk and work on paperwortk when no one is around. One morning we cut and stack firewood. The temperature is about 15 above, not so bad, but still abit cold for sleeping out in the truck. Makes me wonder what I am doing here, and I put a stop at the sally for an extra blanket or two on my list.
Tuesday I am on the road, making a dicey drive over the ridge to Nenana, then slowly getting on better conditions, till I hit drive pavement. Even the snow dissappears from the ground as I keepm on to Willow again. Though there are scenes along the way, the river clogging with ice as it freezes, crows and eagles flying, I don't stop to video. There is a new storm looming ahead that quickly blots out the sun, and I am shooting the short window between fronts again. But I reach Willow in time, to visit at K.K's again. We make a run to Wasilla to get stained-glass-working supplies and the wind is howling and sleet and snow begin pouring down even as we leave town.
This morning there was sleet on the ground, but the front is passed and spared Willow. The sky is blue and I shower and do laundry and try to get in touch with the local friends and musicians I want to meet in the next week and a half before I head north and complete this final loop of performances and classes, and I leave Alaska.
There'll be a few more stories to finish out the Alaska tour, then the trip down the Alcan, then the west coast and cross country back to the east. I hope to hook up with a few friends; and meet and jam with musicians I've met through the networks, even set up the gear to record if we get something good going. That should all be in the New Year's update. More timely should be the video reports, which I hope to keep up a regular stream of, more often then I update this page actually. I want to have a little perspective here, and time to talk of how the moment fits into the future and past. Though even here I am coming to feel I need a place to talk about the ideas and feeling, that are part of the story sometimes, reflections on events; but other times really have little to do with what is going on in my life right now. This life is made of many threads, that have continued unbroken in my thoughts for years, even though they seldom surface, or have never manifested yet, or long gone ghosts that haunt me still. But this is a life that is so much more than just the stories and places. They are only the iceberg tips of an underlying wholeness, that manifests in these scenes from the life of a folksinger.
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