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( or Fly To The South Little Viper )
by Tim Tweedale
March 24, 2010
Well, what can I say about the Vipers’ first trip south? It was a wonderful time indeed. We managed to fit the four of us (Steve, Kathleen, Mark and I) in my Subaru, with all our stuff; instruments, sleeping bags, personal effects. We had extra room to stretch out, thanks to Kathleen losing her purse on our first gig too!
One of best benefits of the tour, I think, was getting to spend time together as a group, getting to know each other that extra bit more, both on and off the stage. Sharing meals, laughter, music, and really strengthening the bonds of friendship within the group. That is very important, and the experience of touring for those two weeks really tightened the group up, I think, both as friends, and as a performing act. The songs and arrangements feel much better, more confident after having played night after night (and then discussed the next morning over grits, biscuits and gravy!)
The main thing that brought us to California was the San Francisco Bluegrass and Oldtime Festival. We played there on Wednesday night and Sunday afternoon. Two very different kinds of gigs too. The first was at a rather loud bar out in Fairfax, and the second was at a pub in Alameda. The latter (a place called McGrath’s) was absolutely packed, and we put on a great performance with a bass player we’d met at the show in Fairfax. One of the really good things about the show was how involved the audience got. This is something we found in common with all our shows down the westcoast of the states; when you ask them to sing, they REALLY sing. When you ask them to clap along, boy oh boy, they REALLY clap along and stomp their feet! And that really fires us up! That lovely feedback loop between a really charged audience and charged performance was really palpable. So that was definitely one of the highlights of the tour.
Suzy and Eric Thompson – mainstays of the folk music scene in Berkeley since the 60s – earned very special places in our hearts. They were the lovely couple who put us up for our whole stay in San Francisco. They were so welcoming and generous to share their place with us for almost a week. And they put us all on the guestlist to see them open for Peter Rowan. It was truly an inspiring night! Eric and Suzy were wonderful, as was Peter Rowan (or “Rowans”, as old Bill Monroe used to call him, earning him the nickname “The Great Plural”). - one of those nights that replenishes that well of musical inspiration. Ahh! What can be better than satisfying that deep spiritual thirst!
We played at a number of venues on the way down to San Francisco and back up too. Of particular note was Bustolini’s in Chico California – a really nice little café with a very friendly staff. They felt badly that not a lot of people had come out – understandable circumstances as it’s a small town and TIM O’BRIEN was playing in town that night! Grr! But when they saw our energetic performance, the small group of people there got on their phones, Twitter, Facebook and started spreading the word for friends to come down. Pretty soon, that small room was packed with about fifty college students, dancing wildly to our music! What had been a rather quiet night quickly turned into one of our best shows of the tour!
The drive back up the coast proved to be lovely and relaxing. The drive up the coast of California and Oregon is provides some of the most beautiful vistas I have ever seen – green rolling valleys, sharp hairpin turns, and a breathtaking view out to endless ocean. We took this all in on our one day off, blasting “Fun Fun Fun” and other hits by The Beachboys, and as the evening came on, and we neared Fort Bragg, the town we’d planned to stay in that night, we listened to Billy Bragg and Wilco’s version of Woody Guthrie’s lovely “California Stars”.
Our last few of nights were perfect. Firstly at Biddy McGraw’s in Portland, where we enjoyed the very kind hospitality of our friend Jon Neufeld from Jackstraw. The next night at the Skyway Bar and Grill in Zigzag, Oregon – where the owners treated us especially generously (and where we played four sets!!), and on our last night at the Empty Sea Studio. We spent a while puzzling over their name, and Kathleen finally realized it was a clever re-arrangement of the owner’s initials (MTC). Charlie and Charmaine, our two friends from The Tallboys opened with a wicked duo performance at this lovely intimate house concert space. We followed it up with our last show of the tour. I felt a certain zen-like peace with the last show, probably inspired by a reading Steve, Mark and Kathleen had performed earlier in the car. They read a little play from Douglas Hoffstadter’s book Gödel, Escher Bach about zen koans. You should really hear Mark’s turtle voice. You can really imagine the turtle!
We arrived home at about 2 AM that night, and tucked ourselves into our little viper beds, put on our viper sleeping caps and shut our eyes, and drifted off into a peaceful sleep. It had been a busy and very successful tour. We made some great contacts, met wonderful people and improved our playing by about a million percent. And that’s the end of my story!
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