I'm sitting here quietly looking out the window thousands of miles above the eastern Utah desert. We are on our flight home from the Grand Targhee Bluegrass Festival in Alta, Wyoming and frankly, I'm pooped. But what a great time. This cool festival, situated just below the western face of the Teton range, attracts a nice mix of local mountain dwellers, avid mountain bikers and colorful mountain hippies. It was a nice sized festival with excellent sound and an imposing lineup of bluegrass/newgrass powerpickers. Rather than writing a novel here, I'll just give y'all the highlights. We played our first set on Saturday afternoon following Darol Anger and Mike Marshall. I don't think the crowd had any idea of what they were in for because once Betse broke into the first fiddle tune, they went absolutely nuts. For the rest of the set, the crowd throbbed around the stage dancing up a cloud of dust like Pig Pen in a Peanuts Christmas Special. After the show, we got to meet many nice folks who came to the CD table to buy our stuff and tell us how much they enjoyed it. Later that evening, our brave and beloved Betse raised some serious hell during the all-star, all-male, super pickers finale led by Sam Bush- but that's her story to tell.
We were the first band up on Sunday, and I was thinking that everyone had decided to sleep in due to the lack of an audience about 11:55am. But people started trickling in as we tuned up and when Betse hit the first fiddle tune, the area in front of the stage was suddenly filled. We played a secular set but threw in a fair number of gospel tunes and the crowd really ate it up. Overall I'd say that we made quite an impression. There's lots more to tell, but Betse will tell it better than me since she actually participated and witnessed the story rather than hearing about it second hand.
On the home front, we are working diligently to complete our new album in time for Winfield. Everyone please cross your fingers and toes that we can get it done in 4 weeks...Betse and I are handling the artwork, while Ike works long distance with Dirk Powell and the mastering guys in Nashville to insure that it will sound its best. For those of you that need a Wilders fix, we have two new live shows available for download on our website. Go to the "listen" link and you can click and download to your heart's content. Warning! If you have a dial-up connection, you are going to wait forever because I decide to encode these shows at a higher audio quality. Do yourselves a favor and get a broadband connection if you can. You won't regret it. This will especially help you if you also want to download the new video links that are on the same page. More good news is forthcoming.
Great !!Thanks Phil...now we are all on the edge of our seats, waiting to her from Betse.
ReplyDeleteI will be visiting my friends with broadband to do this download thing. I'm looking forward to hearing it.
ReplyDeleteSchool starts Monday. I'm excited, because I'll have a new group of kids who'll hear The Wilders as school begins each day.
Hope everyone is doing well. Hope to eventually meet some of you.
Ok, I will be there. We should meet at Peggy's camp at a time of her choosing. We can all introduce ourselves, everybody do a song and a little dance, then eat and drink up as much of her chili and beer as we can lay hands on.
ReplyDeleteMe Too! I'll be the for LandRush...till the end. Can't wait!
ReplyDeleteWinfield info:
ReplyDeleteLand Rush - Thursday, Sept. 8
Line up for land rush - Sat. Sept. 3 in pecan grove
Line up to line up for land rush - already started.
I will be taking my trailer down and leaving it later this week. It's a 1965 single axle airstream with a fair amount of "character". (Meaning it looks like hell). If any of you all see it, stop and say hello. I likely won't be there until the day of land rush, but say hello anyway. the trailer won't care.
This is an excerpt of an e-mail from a college friend. She gave me permission to post it here, because I thought it was a kinda cool and positive thing. Her name is Tracey, and while I haven't seen her for a while, we've been e-mailing back and forth for a little over a year now:
ReplyDelete"I was out in the middle of nowhere in the mountains of Wyoming at a Bluegrass Festival last weekend. Having a real good time, dancing hard to this fast playing, cowboy hats and suits, old time Ozarkian band from K.C. which I was already psyched that they were from the Ozarks when they introduced Ike Sheldon as the lead singer and guitar player. How weird was that! How weird!!! It still is freaky to me. I mean we traveled 9 hours over desolate wide plains to mountain passes to get there. And there was Ike--dancing around, singing, playing the guitar, talking like a hick (which I don't remember he ever talked like that a school). They were fantastic and I kept hearing in conversations throughout the weekend that they were everyone's favorite band--that they really had soul compared to everyone else. Wow! Ike! Someone from Jewell is doing something cool! I am still wigged out. I didn't recognize him until they introduced him and then sure he looked like Ike."
I'm not sure what she thought Ike sounded like in college. It seems to me he talks pretty much the same. But then again, when I first saw the band perform, I knew it was Ike up there from the get-go.
Well, just wanted to share that with everyone. I thought it was neat. I won't be in Windfield unless I win Powerball, and congrats one the tie-dyed baby, Nate & Melissa!
Betse and I just finished a bleary-eyed 12-hour marathon artwork session for the new CD, entitled, "Throw Down". I think, I'm saying, I think, we might actually have it by Winfield. Everybody buy a bottle of water, put a piece of tape on it that reads, "get-er-done" and drink it down. Then go sit cross-legged and chant, "please make it so, please make it so, please make it so..." If everybody bands together, and if Betse and I didn't screw up the artwork files, then everybody who goes to Winfield this year will get a chance to hear this Dirk Powell recording that we've been going on and on and on about for the last 6 months. God help us.
ReplyDeleteVieta, I do have another sorta "odd chance" story, but I'll save the tiny details for my blog when I have a second to post. The short version: On two seperate occasions over the last few weeks, I was given reason to think of particular students from previous years (two students, one each time... here I am, getting too detailed), and one of them showed up at my school after school on Tuesday. Then, while talking to him, the OTHER one showed up. They both had great news to share, and in general it "filled my bucket" and I went home feeling very good about teaching.
ReplyDeleteThe end.
I'm dreaming of a white Christmas, and in this dream I'm opening a gift, and the gift is this new CD from The Wilders.
Which is a dumb dream, because why would I wrap a gift I gave myself? I ask you.
Stay tuned! I'm going to work on something for y'll to read on the way to Boston today. Hopefully I'll get it posted tomorrow. We are doing good and trying to get rested back up after a fantastic time in NYC. Take care and keep reading/writing. It's always fun to get an internet connection at some Motel 6 and see what the heck you're talking about.
ReplyDeletep
I dropped my trailer at Winfield on Monday, looks like maybe 300 or 400 campers already there. I had a Wilders moment on the way down Friday, as my van broke down and I had to put it in the shop and wait until Monday to get it out. Not a catastrophe, I had a Saturday gig in Hutchinson, KS and some work to do Monday morning. Still the old billfold is a good deal thinner and I won’t be buying any overpriced merchandise from the Winfield vendors. Sympathetic groopers may donate whiskey, banjo strings, or other stuff that would be helpful to a guy in full financial, mental, and physical decline.
ReplyDeleteV, I got the CDs this week, and have yet to listen to them. I'm insane in that when I listen to music the first time, I like to be seated, not distracted, and ready to make out and learn every word to every song (although the learning of the words takes a while).
ReplyDeleteAnyway, this has not been the week for that. I normally leave the house at 5:30 or so, and three nights this week I got home when it was dark again. I hope to see my house in the daylight soon.
That said, although I did put them in the CD player, I decided to be the responsible guy I'm not and go to bed to catch at least a few hours of rest.
So after laundry, after the lawn, and after the third thing I have to do which has currently left my brain, I'm gonna sit right down and learn myself some Wilder's songs.
Also, this is the 52nd post or so. Isn't there an unwritten rule about no more than 50 posts? Am I going to blogatory--or worse? Actually, I think Betse or someone posted it here they were trying to do that, so that would sorta make it a WRITTEN rule.
Well, you get the idea.
V, I'm gonna send you a Thank-You card in the mail, just because I like sending mail when I have an excuse (and when I'm not paying a bill)!
I will share from my vast repository of knowledge of all things blogatory: There is only one time where you may take the oven mitts off in blogatory, and then it is mandatory. When your food (most regurgitory) has acheived temp satisfactory--though it seems quite inflammatory--this one thing is quite regulatory: you must remove your mitts before reching in the oven to retrieve your pan. So goes blogatory.
ReplyDeleteIn other news, this morning at the laundromat I was playing the Elvira pinball machine and some guy either named IKE or with the initials I.K.E. (or with the nickname of IKE, I suppose) has one of the high scores. Wilders moment.
OK Tamorrow, we gotta talk. I also lost a ride in a collision between a cow and a Mercury. As a kid, I was too poor to get a horse, so I broke an Angus heifer to ride. Taught her five gaits, how to barrel race, the whole works. She got out on the road one day and sume dude came speeding by in an old Mercury and ran smack over her. If I find out that was you, we're gonna have trouble.
ReplyDeleteWhy have trouble when you can have hamburgers?
ReplyDeleteI can't believe you all are making light of this great tragedy. Anyway, tamorrow is off the hook, I've decided it's Bush's fault.
ReplyDeleteThe blog is full of hOOligans!!
ReplyDeleteA Gargle Blaster of the Pan Galactic variety! Yes!
ReplyDeleteLong day here. Read all about it--or somewhat about it, as I'm tired and not writing well at all--at my blog. There's a prayer request, too.
Of The Wilders, I just request they learn "The Old Spinning Wheel", as it was/is/was one of my mom's favorites (she sang the chorus while driving in the car all the time). I'd love to hear this band do it some day.
This whole cow thing is reminding me of a song a friend wrote when we were in college. "Super Cool Cow". I don't remember the jist of it, but it was about a boy whose best friend was a cow. I'll try to track down the lyrics.
ReplyDeletePeggy & V, thanks for the comments. They're greatly appreciated.
I would like to offer my congratulations to Nate and Melissa. Spoil her bigtime. Life is too short to do otherwise.
ReplyDeleteJimm of Husker Du Familje
I'm in Kansas but cannot come to Winfield this year. Hoping to go next year.
ReplyDeleteWe keep applying, they keep saying the spots are limited so we keep playing other gigs.
Peace to all!
Jimm of Husker Du Familje