Wilders on "Weekend Edition" this Saturday!

IkeScott&Phil
Originally uploaded by brotherphilwilder.

Hey Y'all,
Wanted to let you know that our new album,"Someone's Got to Pay" is going to be featured on National Public Radio's "Weekend Edition" this Saturday, June 28th.

Ike and I were interviewed last week (via ISDN line) by "Weekend Edition" host, Scott Simon at the Tucson, AZ NPR affiliate station.

You can hear the results for yourselves this Saturday, June 28th. "Weekend Edition" airs (in Kansas City) from 7am-9am. Check npr.org for information on your local station.

"Someone's Got to Pay"- Now Available!

Someone's_Got_to_Pay
Originally uploaded by brotherphilwilder.

Tomorrow is April 15th, 2008. If you haven't filed your taxes yet, you'd better get on it!
If you've filed already, and you haven't purchased a copy of our new album, "Someone's Got to Pay" yet, then you'd better get on THAT!

Those that pre-ordered a copy should be getting them in the mail today or tomorrow. But some lucky folks got to buy the first copies at our shows this past week.

One of those people is a great old friend of ours named Hamp Henning. I received an email from Hamp this morning, and he submitted the following review of the new album after his first listen...

(After reading, please re-check my post from January, entitled "Happy 2008"- lots of similarities there...bp)





This is the smartest thing the Wilders have ever done.
This is my first listen, the ‘get the feel of the thing’ review.

First, it’s an ‘album’ not a ‘recording’. This is a big, great difference.
Previous recordings (for the most part) have been you guys playing your songs/tunes. They were good. In your line of work, people come to the shows…love it…and buy a cd. They take it home, and though it’s good, it has no chance of capturing the Wilders live show. It would be impossible.

This thing is a whole new deal. This is an ALBUM. This thing is alive on its own. It’s not an attempt to send a fan home with a piece of the live show. BUT, anybody who loved the show won’t be disappointed with this album. It is all Wilders and has an energy/intensity that you get at the live show…without being a recording of the show…if that makes any sense.

This opens you guys up to all new markets. If this hasn’t been sent to XM Radio station #12…do it now!!! This album will appeal to a much larger audience than previous recordings. You just have to figure out how to get it in front of their ears! ALSO, and I feel this is very important, just as the fan who buys a copy at a show won’t be disappointed, the person who hears this thing before seeing you live will love it when they do get around to seeing a show. This is very good.

Fans of the live show will like the cd ... and fans of the cd will love the live show! What else could you ask for? It's all different, but all Wilders.

You get a little bit of everybody on this thing:

Betse’s hot fiddling and I really like her singing on this one a lot
Phil gives us his ‘Red Headed Stranger’ – awesome. And of course sweet playing and harmonies
Nate is my favorite Honky-Tonk Poet. Period. I love his songs.
Ike is so good. You can feel his charisma and charm on the rockers. But I really like the sad sweetness of some of the songs he wrote.
Dirk and Brendan round the thing out with some amazing instrumental accents and the recording quality is amazing.

…oh yeah, and this is important, the drummer ROCKS! So often when ‘acoustic’ acts add drums to the mix it sounds like crap. Like they’re playing their songs and … oooh ….. this’ll be fun ….let’s add a drum!!! It always ends up weak and out of place. Not here. These drums aren’t an add-on. They’re part of the deal…part of the Wilders. Well-done! When you said there were drums I was very scared. After listening, I love it. The drums allow you to keep the intensity without getting too busy and cluttered. They allow for some dynamics that are hard to deliver in a drumless world. The drums help to make this an album that can be listened to over and over.

Overall, after one quick listen, I’m inspired. Don’t get me wrong, I love the old Wilders, but you guys have so much more to offer. This album gives your fans a glimpse at some of that. I think they’ll be happy. I am."



thanks Hamp!
The Wilders, "Someone's Got to Pay" is available at www.wilderscountry.com

brotherphil

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy...

The following is the opinion of the author only. It should not interpreted as a view represented in any way by The Wilders or it's members (except for me that is...)

I got an email a couple of weeks ago from the advertising department of No Depression Magazine. Seems that the flagship publication of the alternative country genre (as they said, "whatever that means"), is ceasing publication next month due to declining ad revenue. This can only mean one thing- alternative country is officially dead. And there's a part of me that says, "good riddance".

I mean, who came up with the bright idea that we NEEDED an alternative to country anyway? Wasn't COUNTRY good enough on it's own?
Well, I guess it wasn't.

As early as 1985, just as the first baby boomers moved into their forties, the sound of commercial country music started to take on a strange dissonance- it began sounding more like rock and roll. Twangy telecasters gave way to distorted Les Pauls. Outlandish sequin-studded suits and stacks of huge hairspray-solidified hair, gave way to scrubby tight-fitting stone-washed jeans, six-pack abs and the ubiquitous oversize black cowboy hat and omnipresent goatee. As the years progressed, the quaintly-old, brightly-lit stages featuring backdrops of rural simplicity, gave way to full-on rock and roll stage shows. Towers of Marshall stacks lit by dizzying laser lights and exploding smoke bombs painted a new backdrop of excess and self-indulgence. And, at the forefront, there was good old Garth Brooks swinging on a rope above the crowd with a shit-eating grin on his face and a wad of $1000 bills in his back pocket. By 1994, things had worsened to the point that the Country Music Association's Best Album of the year was "Common Thread: The Songs of the Eagles". sigh...

At the time that No Depression began publishing in September of 1995, the country music industry had pretty much wrung all of the GOOD out of good old country music.

I guess it isn't that surprising that a magazine proclaiming an alternative to this, so called "new country", would find a willing audience. This alternative to country music was spearheaded by a young and resourceful contingency of disenfranchised punk rockers- kids who grew up with commercial rock forced down their throats, who were looking for something with more substance to hang their trucker hats on. Already sick to death of mainstream rock, this wayward generation looked backward for new musical inspiration. They found it in the true sounds of 1960's country icons like Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard. They found it in the "don't take no shit" attitudes of the 70's outlaws like Willie Nelson, Hank Williams Jr., and Waylon Jennings. And they especially found it in" God's singer of songs", Graham Parsons, who 20 years before, had stuck his dirty hippie thumb directly into the eye of the overproduced ultra-conservative Nashville establishment of the late 60's. These artists were embraced, celebrated and imitated by hundreds of new bands- formed in garages and dorm rooms across the nation. Combat boots and flannel shirts were readily traded in for cowboy boots and fine western snap shirts; solid-body multi-pointed rock and roll guitars were swapped for simple acoustics and banjos. And new songs about drinking and fighting, fighting and loving, and loving and losing, were added to the existing mountains of old country standards- just ripe for the picking.

It was a good run. But 23 years later, alternative country is dead. No Depression is shutting it's doors for good. And WHY IS THAT A GOOD THING?

Because for 23+ years, the corporate interests in Nashville have essentially been given a free pass to promote whatever bullshit makes money the easiest. In this model, substance is the last thing in anyone's mind. Just check out CMT sometime.

I think its time for a return to a country music that actually acknowledges there is sadness and heartbreak in the world- not just sexy trucks and bloated myspace profiles.

The "alternative country" movement was a shining example that this music is still very much alive. Now that "alternative country" is dead, can we please have our country music back?

"I'll be that one..." - SXSW Austin,TX

It was back in October of 2007. I was in Nashville, hucking merch. between sets at the back of The Station Inn. Because sales were nonexistent, I had plenty of time to catch up with B.V.D., a grammy-winning bluegrass producer, and long time "deep-throat" Wilders advisor (who saw something he liked in a very-green Wilders playing in a Nashville hotel lobby 8 years ago). The conversation went something like this:

B.V.D.: What's next year look like for you guys?

Me: Well, we've got a new record coming out in April.

B.V.D.: What are you going to do to promote it?

Me: Uhm, well we're going to tour, of course, and we are going to South by Southwest.

B.V.D.: (rolling his eyes, sarcastically) What FOR?

For the uninitiated, the South by Southwest Conference (SXSW) occurs each March in multiple locations throughout metropolitan Austin, Texas. For four days, the streets of Austin fill with music industry hustlers of all shape and size. Managers, agents, label and publishing reps, lawyers, producers, and a slew of other non-musicians converge to catch showcases by literally thousands of musicians that come to Austin each year in hopes of "making it big". From morning until late into the night, there's rockers, rappers, twangers, screamers, punkers and poppers everywhere- a dizzying array of musical styles blasting out of every nook and cranny, restaurant, bar, car wash and parking lot in downtown Austin.

So, five months after my conversation with B.V.D., I'm standing on a street corner outside the Austin Convention Center watching the stream of hipsters flowing around me. And it's like I'm standing in the middle of a military parade, except these soldier's uniforms are not olive drab. There's salon-fresh hair color in every shade of the rainbow carefully coifed to achieve that perfect "unkempt" look. Mirrored sunglasses, tattoo sleeves, Converse Hi-Tops and facial piercings are standard issue. Each soldier's social insignia is represented by carefully chosen graphics printed on their tight black t-shirt. And just like any military parade, the majority of the soldiers are impossibly young.

As the throngs move past me, I realize I'm laughing out loud. I'm remembering a comic strip by artist Daniel Clowes, (later made into a really awful movie entitled "Art School Confidential"). In the comic, an aging painting professor gives a stern "scared straight" lecture to his impressionable first-year drawing students about the reality of their career choice. He rants that only one graduate in a hundred actually makes a living as a professional artist. The other 99, having spent four years getting a degree in what is essentially a hobby, will be left to work mindless jobs at art supply stores, movie theaters and restaurants. Above the head of each student, there is a thought bubble which reads, "I'll be that one..."

And this is the tragedy of SXSW. Here, there are thousands of kids who are looking for the quick pick to stardom. And they are deadly serious about it, focusing every ounce of energy into making some kind of impact. But the reality is that most of them will zero chance of succeeding in this fickle, image-obsessed music business. The truth is that no matter how good you sound, how cool you look. or how hard you work, most success stories come down to at least 50% luck.

Based on this assumption, B.V.D. was right- what the hell business did we have going to SXSW anyway? I mean, we are already a working band with low-level success. We've all quit our day jobs, We are signed to a label that manages our recordings, and we have a booking agent that gets us work playing for money. And what about the SXSW market? Even though it takes place in the heart of Texas, there's precious little country music at SXSW. Sure, there are a lot of so-called "alternative country" bands. But, admittedly, we don't fit very neatly into that category. And bluegrass and oldtime music was nonexistent as far as I could tell. But still we chose to go and throw our hat in like everybody else.

I realize it's sort of weak, but basically my answer to B.V.D.'s question was, "why NOT?"

And, as a result, for three days, we soaked up the warm Texas sun, ate great Texas Bar-B-Que, and saw some killer bands. We also played a couple of showcases ourselves. Who knows what the impact will be? But, like the young soldiers that surrounded us the entire time we were there, we believed it was possible. You've GOT to believe right?

Happy 2008!

Happy New Year! The Brown Clown is rolling west on I-70 about 75 miles from St. Louis. We just inaugurated 2008 by dipping our touring toes into the frigid pool of the central plains. It was a quick trip, with stops in Louisville, Kentucky, then Lafayette and Danville, Indiana. Nothing notable to report. You've heard the story before: good crowds, good music, good times, blah, blah, blah. But it did feel good to get back out and play for the people after a fairly lengthy holiday break. Our winter schedule is pretty light by design. We burned the candle at both ends for most of 2007, and our middle was running out of wax. So we all agreed that it would be a good idea to snuff out the flame for awhile to recouperate. So once we get back home today, we will be off again until almost the end of February.

Our time off has allowed us to forget about the road for awhile, and focus our efforts on finishing up our new recording. The new full-length album, "Someone's Got to Pay" is scheduled for release on April 15th, 2008. The original tracks were recorded with Dirk Powell in his Louisiana studio in November of 2006. After careful listening, we decided that additional tracking was necessary, and so the entire project was moved up to Kansas City and placed in the capable hands of our old pal, Brendan Moreland. Due to our busy touring schedule, he had to wait until late October before we could begin overdubbing sessions. But ideas had been germinating all year, and it was fun to finally get them recorded. As I excitedly reported last spring, this new recording will be quite a departure from our previous recordings. Glenn Fields, from The Red Stick Ramblers, sat in on drums on many of the original Louisiana sessions. There's also electric guitars, electric piano, organ and electric bass along with button accordian, cello, viola, cajun triangle, lap steel and tambourines. Our old formula of recording as close to our live sound as possible, was thrown out the window in favor of a completely new approach.

Why the change? Honestly, we needed to be more creative this time. For one thing, all of the songs and tunes on album are original except one old fiddle tune from the Skillet Lickers. So there was really no preconcieved way of doing any of them. We were free to play around with our ideas and experiment with sounds until we got what we liked. Secondly, we were getting bored with the four instruments/ "live performance" model. Although this approach has served us well in the past, we always had to make sacrifices in sound quality in order to play all together in the same room. The bass and fiddle had a tendency to bleed into all the other microphones which really limited how much control we had over the final mixes. So this time, we recorded all of the tracks in complete isolation. For example, even though all of the fiddle tunes were played live, none of us were in the same room. Betse sat in the center of Dirk's main recording room while Ike looked on through the glass of a tiny vocal isolation booth. Nate could see Ike through another window , but was not able to see Betse at all. And since Dirk's studio only has these three rooms. I played banjo and mandolin sitting on the couch of his tiny Toyota RV parked outside the studio. It was pretty wierd, but the resulting sound was fabulous.

Finally, we wanted to make a record that people would actually WANT to listen to this time. I'm not saying that our previous recordings aren't good, but for the past 10 years, we’ve made records that attempted to accurately represent us as a live band. Although we’ve been pretty happy with the way they’ve turned out, you can’t really get that “live” experience from audio content only. There is a visual element that is missing. Because of this, I've always felt like our recordings were a pale imitation of the “real thing”. And usually when people purchased our albums, it was because they had just seen us play a live show. Then, when they listened to their new cd at home, I guess they were probably thinking, “man, I just loved seeing them live, this reminds me of that great experience”.

But for this new album, we wanted to make a record that people would want to listen to over and over- a record that would musically stand on it’s own- a record that people might even hear first, then want to come see us play live because they enjoyed the cd so much. So we set out to make each song unique- to add instrumental textures and production that would be impossible to recreate in a concert setting- to use the studio as a palette to make something richer than just four people playing together.

An "album" is actually a pretty hard thing to find in today's downloadable world. In fact, it seems like we've almost drifted back to the time when people bought 45rpm singles. Then, If you liked an artist, you'd pay a couple of bucks for their new single, take it home and put it in the stack next to your turntable. Now, if you like an artist, you pay your 99 cents to iTunes, download a song and slap it on your iPod where it appears in a playlist along with thousands of other songs. How the song relates to other songs on the same album is now meaningless. In fact, most "albums" nowadays are really just a bunch of songs slapped on a cd with no relationship to each other at all. The concept of sequencing a record- putting songs in order to tell a story with the sound is now a lost art. But this is exactly what we did on "Someone's Got to Pay". There is a beginning, a middle and an end. And hopefully, when you start it, you will WANT to keep listening until the last note. Maybe I'm full of crap for thinking we've made something a little bit better, but that's what we were trying to do. I guess you can be the judge on April 15th.

"Sittin' on a Jury" now available on iTunes!

Sittin'_on_a_Jury
Originally uploaded by brotherphilwilder.

Hey folks,
For all of you digital downloaders out there, our new e.p., "Sittin' on a Jury" is now available at many of your favorite digital download sites. You can download the entire album for $3.96!!! Or you can buy each track for 99 cents each. Of course, you won't get the cool red vinyl, or the cover art, liner notes or anything else besides the actual music. But hey, if that's enough, by all means knock yourselves out.

But for the luddites out there, you can still purchase the actual album on our website, www.wilderscountry.com/goods.asp. Remember, we only pressed 2000 copies. When they are gone (which many are gone already), they are gone for good. Thanks for your support!
p

Angels Still Exist!

Back in the summer of 2004, not long after we launched this blog, I wrote several posts regarding the kindness paid to us by strangers on the road. We dubbed these folks "angels", for their unbelievable willingness to help us fix our broken vehicles, stay in their homes, loan us their cars, feed us wonderful home-cooked meals, etc. Most of these people provided these services with little or no compensation, and many times, did so after knowing us for only a few hours. As I unwind after returning from our second-to-last tour of the 2007, I feel compelled to again recognize the continuing appearance of these angels. They are still very much alive and well. In fact, we meet them in some shape or form almost every time we go on tour. Here are a few short tributes...

To the rider's club crew in Ulm, Germany- who not only welcomed us, but two weeks worth of our stinking, dirty laundry into their home. We made a great afternoon of it, eating doner kabobs, checking our email on your computer, listening to your cd's, and running your heavy-duty-american-made washer and dryer in tandem until each and every sock, shirt and skirt were neatly folded and repacked into our suitcases. Sure we were a little late arriving to our gig that night, but we felt and smelled SO much better...

To our "North of 60" pal George (see "Alaska Part Three" June 2006)- who, without any communication from us whatsoever, was waiting patiently with his wife outside the Whitehorse, Yukon bus depot when Betse and I lumbered off, after a grueling day of travel. You grabbed up our bags and cases, loaded them into the trunk of your car, then took us out to a wonderful dinner, gave us a car-tour of your town and, finally, shuttled us to our motel... Earlier that day, I remember saying to Betse as we neared Whitehorse in the bus, "I have a fantasy." "What is it," she asked. "I have a fantasy that when we get to the bus stop, George will be there waiting for us." She responded, "Yeah, that WOULD be great." Well, it wasn't a fantasy was it? Thank you George. Your generosity will not be forgotten...

To the two Wisconsin farm hands who saved our necks at Larryfest- For two days, the swollen storm clouds had dumped a flood of biblical proportions on the festival grounds- turning our only exit into something resembling the Grand Canyon. Just when we thought we would be trapped there for days, the rain let up. For the next hour, you worked feverishly with tractor, shovels and elbow grease to create a thin, mushy and very temporary bridge that stood for only a few minutes. You guided us across, pulling, then pushing the van after it got stuck (almost tipping over the tractor in the process). And then once we were on the other side, you shook our hands, bid us farewell, and then went back to work straight away. Later that day, we learned that the skies had opened up again, washing the road away beyond any possible repair. You were there at the right time in the right place. Without your efforts, we would NOT have made it home in time to catch our flight to Scotland.
And I never even got your names...

Finally, to our most recent angels Red, Nita and M.D. in Knoxville, Tennessee- You got off from a grueling day of work, drove through a pounding thunderstorm (the first rain storm in months) to free us from our boring Motel 6 prison. You took us back to your house, let us dig with abandon from the Pabst Blue Ribbon box in your fridge, played us great music and engaged us in the first lively conversations we'd had in days. And to top it off, you made us home-made chicken soup and grilled cheese sandwiches to refill our empty souls. Sometimes it's the little things that make such a difference. We didn't ask you to do it. But we were so glad that you did...

There are so many more stories. These are just the ones that come immediately to mind. It's just such a weird thing. I mean, we don't really do that much to warrant such generosity. We stand up on stage, and make our music, and enjoy the hell out of it all the while. People seem to like what we do, and honestly, that's enough for us- In fact, it makes us feel great. But there must be something special, something I have no way of defining, that sometimes occurs during this interchange between band and audience. And I believe that this indefinable thing must lie near the heart of this unique angel phenomena. Regardless of the reason, I know that each of us appreciates our angels whenever they come around.

Thank you again. Thank you for everything.

The Wilders- "Sittin' on a Jury" available Sept.11th, 2007

Sittin'_on_a_Jury
Originally uploaded by brotherphilwilder.

Howdy folks,
We are proud to announce our most recent release: "Sittin' on a Jury" . Recorded during our November 2006 sessions at Dirk Powell's Cypress House Studios, this limited edition 10" album (on red vinyl!!!) clearly marks a transition from the old school country and old time music you've grown to love, to the original music that's been germinating in our subconscious for the last year of so.

Side-A opens with an old Flatt and Scruggs gem, "Bringin' in the Georgia Mail". Then we put the honk in the tonk on Hank Williams' classic, "Long Gone Daddy". We round out the side with a wonderfully sloppy and loose version of "Brown's Dream"- an old time fiddle tune pushed to its limit, with Dirk Powell sitting in on banjo, and the band sounding like it might be the last thing we would ever record (it WAS, in fact, the last song we recorded during the session).

Side-B is the title track, "Sittin' on a Jury"- a 9+ minute meditation on yours truly's experiences while sitting on a Kansas City 1st degree murder trial jury in 2005. It is completely different that anything you've ever heard from us before, with surpising instrumentation and unbelievable additional production from Dirk Powell.

Sound great? Well, hell yeah. But I can hear the critiques coming in now..."But I don't have a turntable any more..." Well, no problem, because inside each 10" vinyl jacket, you will find instructions to acquire a free digital download from Free Dirt Record's website. Follow the instructions, and you can burn a cd version of the EP, that will play on any old regular cd player. Or, better yet, slap them directly on to your Mp3 player and listen to them in the privacy of your own brain. So, even if you don't have the archaic technology to actually play the beautiful vinyl version, we've made sure that you can still enjoy the music, without any additional cost. Warning! Free Dirt Records is only pressing 2000 copies of the vinyl version. So I urge you to go to wilderscountry.com and order a copy now. It is certain that we WILL SELL OUT OF THESE, and once they are gone, they are gone forever. So please, reserve your copy as soon as possible. Thanks friends.
brotherphilwilder

Wilders Head East...

Editor's note: I am sitting outside at a table in the Speigel Garden in Edinburgh, Scotland. I have a few minutes of free time before appear on the Fred Macauley Show on BBC/Scotland. I began this blog almost a month ago and never got a chance to finish it until now.
So, even though it's old, at least it's new to you. Enjoy.




Sunday July 29th, 2007
After two and a half weeks, the Brown Clown is rolling back home. We finished up our tour of the east coast last night, and are now 1544.7 miles away from our own beds. MapQuest says that should take 25 hours and 16 minutes, but with the traffic, road construction, toll booths, and the usual Wilders slowpokeyness, I'd estimate that it will take us more like 30 hours to get back. So I've got plenty of time to catch everybody up on our trip.

Our tour started in Bloomington, Indiana. We played our concert, sandwiched between a fantastic african drum and dance ensemble, and a powerful electric latin band. It was a kind of weird musical gumbo, but it worked. The audience really liked us. I guess with such a diverse three course meal, it was comforting for them to hear some Hank Williams.

The next morning, we got on the road early, arriving in plenty of time for an afternoon performance in the Family Fun Tent at Millennium Park in Chicago. Our sparse audience was made up primarily of toddlers and their parents. Just when I start to think that I'm really making it in the music business, I get head-checked by a gig like this. I mean, Millennium Park on a Saturday afternoon? I was expecting hundreds, no wait, THOUSANDS of people. But the few toddlers seemed to have a great time playing with their hoola hoops and balloons, while we struggled through two suffocatingly hot and humid sets under the big vinyl tent. After the gig, the band split off- Nate and Betse heading north to stay in Skokie with friends, while Ike and I jumped on the L-train to stay in the western suburbs with our old pal (and former Wilders bassist), "Country Giant" Clayton Brown.

We reconvened the next day for a gig at the Chicago Folk and Roots Festival dance tent at Welles Park. It was fun, but the sound bleed from the main stage made it really hard to hear. We were honored to be asked back to this great festival, and made the best of it despite the challenges.

After only 3 shows, we had a precious day off in Chicago. Betse and Nate went to a pool party, while Ike and I just hung out at the house with Clayton. It was great to spend the day doing virtually nothing. We needed to rest up, because the next day, we drove 15 hours to Kutztown, Pennsylvania staying the night with Ike's wife, Carrie. This was a strategic move aimed at putting us within striking distance of NYC, with the added benefit of saving some motel dough. Carrie had the fridge stocked for us and, as always, made us feel welcome for our short visit.

The next day we fueled up and headed into the big bad city. All systems were go, until I tried to take the Holland Tunnel into Manhattan. The toll booth collector looked at our trailer, pointed at several uniform police just ahead and said, "deya nat gonna let yous take DAT tru DIS tunnel" The cops directed me to make a u-turn, and head up the Jersey side to the Lincoln Tunnel. Ok, no problem right? That's just one of the realities of life in the age of new terrorism. Except now it was the beginnings of New York rush hour. I made a few illegal moves to position ourselves onto the choked ramp that leads into the tunnel, and NOW had to merge a full-sized van pulling a trailer into a single lane with 6 lanes of choked New York drivers vying for the same limited space. It was like trying to force a pint of peanut butter into a drinking straw. I learned very quickly that this was not a situation for the meek. I was outsized and outgunned on all sides. I just kept inching forward, and after a bus nearly took off the right wheel cover of the trailer, I closed my eyes, put my trust in the force, and somehow made it into the tunnel. Of course, this was just the beginning of our troubles. The Lincoln Tunnel empties into the middle of Manhattan. In theory, this shouldn't be too hard. Manhattan is 12 miles long, give or take, but only about 2 miles wide. But it took almost an hour to cross over to Queens. We only made about 20 feet per traffic light, but had a great view of the local New York color. At one point, we passed a 6 foot guy with curlers in his hair, holding a transistor radio to his ear and singing verse after verse of Madonna's "Material Girl" at the top of his lungs. It was awesome.

Anyway, we finally made it across the East River into Queens where we were met by our best Brooklyn buddy, Vito. We were late for sound check and Vito offered to hook our trailer on to his SUV and take it to the sewage treatment plant (where he works) for safe storage. Vito's best gal, Jennie hopped into the van, and directed us like a pro to the club. This was to be our first play at The Southpaw in Brooklyn, and we were psyched to play in a different club. We were scheduled to open for King Wilkie from Charlottesville, Virginia, who were in the city to premier their new cd. Also on the bill, were our old friends, The Red Stick Ramblers, from Lafayette, Louisiana. We had a few minutes to wolf down a precious first slice of New York pizza before hitting the stage to open the show. The stress of the drive melted away as we kicked out a rocking 45 minute set to the surprised cheers of the audience. Exhausted, we cased our instruments, and joined the crowd to watch the Wilkie boys do their thing. This is a band that originally formed around the idea of playing fairly traditional bluegrass. But the material they performed from the new album was very different than what we had heard before. The tunes were more poppy- featuring ukelele, lap steel along with the banjos and guitars. It was a really refreshing sound that made me excited to hear the recorded versions. King Wilkie finished their set and then it was Red Sticks turn to hit the stage. When they did, it was like a bomb went off. In my opinion, there is just no better band in the world than the Red Stick Ramblers when they are on their game. After the show, all three bands hung outside the club congratulating each other. It was getting late and Vito took Ike and Nate back to his apartment, while Betse and I headed back across Manhattan through the Holland Tunnel (no trailer this time) into Jersey to stay at a decently priced hotel.

The next morning, Betse and I packed up the van and headed back across Manhattan to pick up the boys. The lunch traffic was even worse than the day before, due to the congestion of delivery trucks in midtown Manhattan. It took us over three hours to make the 2 mile drive across the island. Ike and Nate were waiting for us, and after loading them into the van, we followed Vito back to the sewer to get the trailer. It was quite an experience. The treatment plant is situated right on the East River and smelled, understandably, like a sewer. Vito said, "hey, you see dose tanks up theya?", he pointed to 6 enormous egg shaped tanks behinds. "Each of dose tanks is filled with New York City's shit." We retrieved our trailer, said our goodbyes to Vito, and headed back out onto the highway en-route to our next show. Once we cleared the city, the traffic eased somewhat, and within a few hours, we entered the sleepy little town of Rosendale, New York. This was our second time playing at the Rosendale Cafe', a sweet little 75-seat vegetarian restaurant. The small but appreciative audience made us feel welcome and the show went very well. Ike used the informal setting to debut a new song he wrote recently about an lonely oil-worker in Barrow Alaska. We sat around after the show enjoying the cool upstate New York night, drinking beer and chatting politics with Mark, The Rosendale Cafe' s owner.

We were finished early for the night, and we took advantage of the opportunity to get a good night's sleep. The next morning came and we were again, back in the van to drive about two hours to Ancramdale, New York for our third visit to the massive Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival. This is undoubtedly the biggest and best bluegrass festival in the east. As far as attendance and talent, it is on par with Telluride and Rockygrass in Colorado. We made it to the gate in just enough time to suit up, tune up and play a noon set. The crowd was sparse, but they were loud. We did our thing, signed cd's and then hustled over to the dance set for another long set at 2pm. With our work finished for the day, we scouted out some camping spots and settled in for evening. The Grey Fox folks always hire a great lineup and this year was no exception. But the highlight of the weekend for me was sitting at The Red Stick Ramblers' camp watching lead singer, Linzay Young, cook cajun food. The Ramblers had evening dance sets both nights of the festival, and after they killed the crowd, and everybody scattered, Lindsey would start cooking onions in a skillet, over a large propane-fueled open-air burner. I'd watch him stir his pots, add some seasonings and drink a little beer. Then, when things were stable enough, he'd pull his fiddle out and play a tune. The cooking and playing went on for hours as Linzay stirred and fiddled up a huge crowd. I'm not sure if they were drawn by the music or the smell, but suddenly each night, Linzay would grab up a stack of plates and pronounce it "dinner time". I think he said it in cajun french, but everybody knew "dinner time" when they heard it. It was an infectious and gastronomically enriching experience that kept me up late into both mornings.

On Sunday, we bid our goodbyes to the Ramblers and all our other Grey Fox friends, and drove a couple of hours to Northampton, Massachusetts for a gig at the Iron Horse. The crowd was slight, but the few that were there seemed to enjoy themselves. The show was over early, and we headed back to a motel to rest up from the long weekend. Monday was a day off, and we decided to stay another night in this cool little town to see some sights, do some laundry, eat some pizza.

On Tuesday, we headed up to Narragansett, Rhode Island. Our host, Kate had warmly invited us to stay at her house Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights. This not only saved us a lot of motel money, it also allowed us to go to the beach, body surf and get some color on our pallid, musician's skins. Our tour continued on Thursday night for a dance performance at The Towers, a Rhode Island landmark. I have to say that it was pretty cool to look out at the crowd of dancers in front of me, and then look behind, out the window of the second floor dance hall, and see the Atlantic breakers crashing into mist on the rocks below us.

Friday morning we loaded our luggage, instruments and sunburns back into the van, and headed north toward Maine. But Boston traffic prevailed and stopped us dead in our tracks for almost 2 hours. A Narragansett resident had warned us of this joking that this was "traffic control by constriction". Knowing this, we had left plenty early, but had no idea that the traffic would be this bad. Once free from the traffic snarl, we stopped for gas and deli sandwiches to let ourselves decompress for a moment before jumping back in the box in a rush to make our 5:30pm load in time in Cornish Maine. We arrived at the Ossipee Valley Bluegrass Festival about 6pm and were surprised to learn that the schedule printed on our contract was incorrect, and we supposed to play in 15 minutes! In true Wilders fashion, we broke out the instruments- tuning up in the humid early evening, and were ready just after 6:15pm. The crowd was friendly, but it had been a really, really long day and we were all happy to get out of the festival as soon as we could, to get to our accomodations for the night. The house where we stayed was very nice, with an outdoor shower and a real horseshoe pit. Nate, Ike and I traded a few rounds of horseshoes before the Maine mosquitos threatened to drain every last drop of our blood. We sprayed on the DEET and then sat outside, trading around Nate's old guitar releasing stress of the whole tour out into the rural Maine evening.

I fixed breakfast for everybody the next morning, and then we headed back out to the fest. We had a great workshop in the afternoon where, basically, the crowd could ask us about what we do, why we do it, and why on earth anyone would pay us to do it. It was humorous for us and educational (I hope) for the crowd. Later that evening, we were the final act of the night, and the folks that stuck around got their money's worth. Ike and Betse were both in rare form especially on their solo tunes.

Before retiring for the night we all agreed, due to everyone's exhaustion, that instead of getting up super early, we would only drive back to Kutztown, PA (supposedly 7 hours from Cornish) to drop Ike off at Carrie's. Then, we could catch a few hours of sleep, and head out for two 8+ hours per day of driving. Regardless of the plan, the east coast traffic prevailed again, and our 7 hour drive turned into 10. We were pooped when we finally got to Carrie's and everybody went straight to sleep.

We woke up early the next morning, bid Ike and Carrie farewell and set off on the highway with about 20 more hours to go. I took the first shift, driving about 5 hours. Then Betse took over and drove another 6. Nate, who had been trying to rest up all day, then took, us all the way across Indiana and Illinois where we collapsed around 11:30pm at one of the most horrible Motel 6's in America north of St. Louis (this experience will be detailed in another blog entitled "CRACK 6!"... I pulled the final drivingshift the next morning (a miniscule 4 hours), back into our Kansas City home. If you'll remember, MapQuest estimated that the 1544.7 miles should take 25 hours and 16 minutes. But with the traffic, road construction, toll booths, and the usual Wilders slowpokeyness, it took us every bit of 30.

July Update...

I'm sitting in the western suburbs of Chicago, listening to the soothing sounds of a jackhammer operator tearing up the driveway across the street. We have a blessed day off, early in our first summer tour, that will take us from Chicago to Brooklyn, and all the way to Maine by the end of the month. I thought I would pass the time, by giving everyone an update of our recent travels, as well as some new Wilder developments.

Europe:
Our first tour of Europe was a complete success. We spent the entire month of May in a whirlwind of a tour, playing 24 shows in 27 days by crisscrossing Germany, Belgium, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Audiences in Europe were very kind and enthusiastic, and we will most definitely return. There were so many stories I could tell from our experience. I realize, however, that even if I gave up the band and went to blog-writing full-time, it would take me months to get them into readable shape. Although my previous entry, detailing our last night in Germany, was by no means a "normal" gig for Europe, I felt that the uniqueness of the night warranted the extrapolation. Maybe, if I get writer's block in the future, I'll try to go back to our first European tour, and expand on the story.

North of 60:
Within a few days of returning home to KC, we were back in the air for a 7-day return visit to the Yukon and Alaska. We spent 2 days north of the 60th parallel in Haines Junction, Yukon for a repeat performance at the Kluane Mountain Bluegrass Festival. It was another great year, with fantastic weather and stellar performances by The James King Band, and 2006 IBMA "emerging artist" winners, The Steep Canyon Rangers. But personally, the "high" point of the weekend happened well after the festival was over. The Kluane folks had arranged for one member from each of the three bands to take a half hour helicopter ride into the adjacent mountains. I was joined by James King's bassist, John Wade, and Steep Canyon band-leader, Woody Platt. The experience was indescribable. If it weren't for the cost, I would travel only by helicopter from now on... Thanks to the Kluane folks for a ride of a lifetime.

After the helicopter ride, we were driven to Haines, Alaska for a performance at their exceptional performance space, The Chilkat Center. Somehow, before we left Haines Junction, my fancy cowboy boots were loaded mistakenly into a car headed to Whitehorse. So, for the Haines show, I faced an obvious wardrobe dilemma. Mark Battion, (one of our friends in Haines) suggested that I borrow a pair of "Extra Toughs" (durable red rubber boots that are the year-round footwear of choice amongst the locals). So, I slapped a pair on over my slacks, and walked out for the beginning of the show to the roar of the crowd. I don't know what got into me, but I kept altering my wardrobe throughout the performance, and by the last song, I was wearing my Extra Toughs over suit slacks, a Carhartt duck jacket, no shirt, and my mexican wrestling mask. Although it was weird thing to do, we were running on all cylinders all night, and the performance was one of our best in months.

The tour ended the next night with a return performance in Juneau at Centennial Hall. I think we must have made an impact last year, because about 15 minutes before we took the stage, the promoter scrambled for more chairs to seat the overflowing crowd.

Northeast Tour:
As I wrote before, we are 4 days into a three-week tour of the Northeast. We will be playing in Brooklyn and Rosendale, NY before heading out for two days at the Grey Fox Festival in Ancramdale. Then, after a show in Northhampton, MA, we are planning to find a nice state park to camp for a couple of days to save money (unleaded gas is $3.69 here in Chicago! I can only imagine how high it will be in the east). Our tour will continue on to Narragansett, RI, followed by a final performance at the Ossipee Valley Bluegrass Festival in Cornish, Maine. If any highlights happen over the next few weeks, you can be sure to hear about them here first...

Vinyl? Who buys vinyl anymore?
The recording session we did with Dirk Powell down in Louisiana back in November is still in the works. The release date is pending, but it will most likely be finished by the end of the year. Expect it to appear early in 2008. For those who can't wait, we will be releasing a limited edition 10" vinyl EP in September. The A-side will consist of three good old Wilders tunes- a bluegrassy version of Flatt and Scruggs' "Georgia Mail", a rocking version of the Hank Williams classic, "Long Gone Daddy" and a rollicking version of the old time fiddle tune, "Brown's Dream". The entire B-side is an original tune I wrote after my experience of sitting on the jury of a murder trial back in 2005. All of the music on the EP was recorded in Louisiana during the sessions for the upcoming full-length cd. The A-side tunes are gems from the cutting room floor. The B-side is something else entirely. I believe that this EP accurately represents the Wilders in a state of transition. It will be a fun listen for old Wilders fans, and a sneak peak at what we are now becoming. We are very, very proud of how it turned out. For those who no longer have the ability to play a vinyl record, the tracks will be available on several websites for digital download. Look for more info on this and future releases on our website.

Finally, a word about the comments section of this blog. Since Google bought out Blogspot, you people wanting to comment on our blogs have had a tough time logging in. I love to read what y'all have to say, but this "anonymous" thing is really annoying. I'm trying to decide whether to move the blog to another site. I'd like to hear your comments on what problems you are experiencing. Maybe I can help get it figured out.

Well, that's all the poop that's fit to poop right now. Hope all of you have a safe and relaxing July.

Unser Gestern Abend in Deutschland...

May 26th, 2007
Darmstadt (sort of rhymes with varnished cat), Germany

"Rainout, rainout, RAAAAinout!, Rainout, rainout RAAAAinout!" I chanted in the stifling backstage tent. Ike looked at me and grinned, saying, "I know Dude, if there was EVER a night for a rainout, this is IT." He joined in my chant, "Rainout, rainout, RAAAAinout!, Rainout, rainout, RAAAAinout!" Betse looked over disapprovingly. "I don't WANT a rainout. This is our LAST night in Germany."

I stuck my head outside the tent. The sky was a combination of pissed-off purple and bad-omen black- each of the colors swirling and cavorting into a wall of doom. The air shifted with each gust of wind from a humid Mississippi July, to a crisp Vermont October. The rumbles of thunder added to our chant in the near distance. "It's coming, and it's coming hard, " I said. Ike looked out at the sky from behind me. "Right on, I love it!" We both ducked back in, and uncapped a cold beer in celebration...

30 seconds later, the stage manager stuck his head inside the tent and said, "Wilders, we need you onstage...NOW."

A few menacing raindrops speckled my hat as I begrudgingly lugged my cases to the stage. "No way, I said to myself. No way this is going to happen. It's going to POUR."

Luckily the stage was covered-but barely, and I made sure to put my instrument cases well under the tented part of the stage. The inevitable downpour was minutes away, and I didn't want to waste a moment getting my stuff safely stowed. The sound man came up to me and asked for the details of our sound setup. I said, "Look, the show is obviously going to get rained out any minute, so why don't you just set up one mic. That way, you won't have to pull as much off stage when it comes." He agreed, and began the necessary preparations. My instruments were nearly impossible to tune, due to the constantly changing pressure and humidity. Looking out from the stage, the sky had now darkened into a disfigured grayish-black mass with pulsating, darker formations in the near field-all of it sagging with the weight of the water that would soon be dumping all over us. The crowd of revelers didn't seem to be concerned though, and as I tried to tune my mandolin, I noticed a contingency of the curious moving toward the stage.

Frankly, I was pissed that they were making us start at all. I mean, it just seemed so pointless. But to insure that we would get our paycheck, I went through the motions. Although the storm was imminent, it was taking it's sweet time before washing us out. Once we were as close to as in tune as possible, Betse shrugged her shoulders, and then sawed up a blistering introduction to her rocking fiddle tune, "Old Dirty Boot". Having already played from one end of Germany to the other, Switzerland AND The Netherlands in 25 intense and tiring days, I was sort of surprised at our power as we ripped into it. The crowd looked dazed, and I could see the party contingent at the lip of the stage begin to rock and roll. As we gave it everything we had, I thought to myself, "Well, at least they are getting a little taste before the storm washes them away."

Betse tagged the ending, and our audience went crazy. The cold drops of rain were more frequent now, but more people moved toward the stage- packing in all the open spots until it was about 5-6 people deep all the way around. Other, more prudent audience members stayed back, under the cover of a bratwurst vendor, or the kebab seller's tent, or the covered beer garden in the back. So, in addition to the brave 50 or so in front of us, there was a spotty mix of about 75 more people looking out at us from the distance of their safe spots.

Suddenly, the water started coming. The people in the front pressed together to try to get under the stage roof, but there just wasn't enough room. That's when everything changed. That's when a certain rainout, a definite and much-needed night off, became something very different. That's when Ike said, "Hey y'all come on up HERE with us and get out the rain, come on up, come on UP y'all." In response to Ike's invitation, those at the stage lip pulled themselves up, then turned around and helped others climb up behind them. Suddenly the stage was filled with Germans, and I feared that it might collapse under our combined weight. Ike smiled at what he had done, and began singing, "Bring a drink of water, Leroy. Bring a drink of water..." "Nien!" I grumbled into the mic in a bad German accent (this was apparently funny only to myself and Betse). Ike continued, "If I can get to the mercy man, he'll give me some I know." It was pouring now, and several more people ran from their safe spots to join in. Ike continued, "I got a girl in Vicksburg, Bertha is her name." We were now surrounded by a semi-circular sea of soaking-wet Germans sitting indian-style looking up at us with wide soggy eyes. "I wish I was tied to Bertha, instead of this ball and chain". It was like a giant German story hour hosted by The Wilders. "I'm goin' to Memphis!" Ike sang, and our twisted story hour commenced to the sound of their screams as the rest of the band kicked into gear...

Two hours later I put my sweat and rain-soaked instruments back into their cases. For everyone's safety, the single microphone had long since been put away. Only a few audience members remained. And two fierce-looking security guards still stood their ground at the lip of the stage- their arms folded, their faces scowling. I snapped the final latch on my banjo case and looked out into the wet darkness. There was no sign of the young German girl in the pretty red dress, who had sat in a mix of spilled beer and rain water for the entire show screaming like it was a new kind of Beatlemania. She sat and screamed for both sets, with dancers splashing puddles of beer and rainwater all over her. She never stopped loving it for one minute. It was inspiring.

And there was no sign of the drunken scotsman who had stood at the edge of the stage heckling us until we finally did "Man of Constant Sorrow" to shut him up. This was the scotsman who later, begged to Ike, "Now, I want to sing, " Ike's response was. "Go ahead!" Sheepishly, the scot whined, "But I need a microphone." Ike, knowing full well the mic was long gone, had had enough, "Dude, are you BRITISH?" he accused. "Hell, no, I'M A SCOT!" the drunk roared. "Oh," Ike said, "I thought you must be British if you need a mic to sing. If you're Scottish, then you don't NEED a microphone do you?" Ike stood toe-to-toe with him, mentally drawing a southern-Missouri-redneck line across the stage for him to cross. I actually thought we might get our first Wilder/audience fist fight in 10 years. Finally, the drunken scotsman caved, and wheeled around to the crowd-breaking into a slurred lyric that none of us understood. He DID put his heart into it though, and the crowd ate it up in spite of his poor elocution and annoying insobriety.

And there was no sign of the young Turkish man in the muscle tank who had danced with boundless energy to our music for at least an hour. He had danced in every possible position and style, on every possible part of the stage, with every possible person. Once, he had even danced backwards laying OVER my back in a hilarious limbo position as I crouched down to take a low dobro solo. Toward the end of our set, I changed from dobro player to pinball flipper- turning my back to the Turk and bouncing him away whenever he danced too exuberantly toward Betse (who takes a dim view to young Turk impacts to her antique fiddles). The stage was filled with dancers and this melee finally brought the security force into action. As they roughly began pushing people back off the stage, I knew the night would soon be over.

The storm was intense while it lasted, but just like the crowd, it too had moved on. A feeling of equilibrium had settled where, earlier, there had been so much instability. The air had a sweet smell- the kind of smell that suggests that the storm's needs had been satisfied. I certainly felt that way. It wasn't a rainout- no, far from it. It was a rain IN . It was our last night in Germany, and it was absolute mayhem. It was the kind mayhem that is equal parts frightening, weird, amusing and invigorating. We survived them, and they survived us. And we were all richer for the experience.

Burning Up the West with Martha...

Marthacollage
Originally uploaded by brotherphilwilder.

I guess we first heard about the recording session in the spring of 2005. We had just arrived in Louisiana and were setting up in Dirk Powell's studio to record what would become our "Throw Down" cd. Dirk had just returned from Levon Helm's studio in Woodstock, NY- where he had recorded the basic tracks for Martha Scanlan's debut cd, and he was psyched. I have to say, I was a little jealous to hear him say that, not only was Martha branching out from the safety of old time instrumentation (using pedal steel guitar and other electric gadgets), but she actually got Levon Helm to play drums on several tunes. Levon, for the uninitiated, was a major creative force-and the drummer for The Band. We listened intently as Dirk described the experience, and I could only imagine the sounds he must had heard...

August, 2006: We were kicking back with some Vietnamese food and a few beers at our booking agent, Mary Brabec's house in Seattle, Washington. I was snooping around a stack of cd's on her desk and came across one with the words, "Martha Scanlan- New CD", scrawled on it in black Sharpie. I freaked and got confirmation from Mary that this indeed was a rough mix of the Woodstock sessions. I stuck it in her computer and started it up, I tried to focus, but It was a beautiful day in Seattle and everyone was sitting outside talking. It was hard to appreciate what I was hearing over the conversation. One thing was for sure, it was a ROUGH mix. The songs didn't seem to be in any order and the volume of each song was wildly inconsistent. The next morning, (as usual) I was up before anybody and, without really thinking about it, I made a copy of the cd (along with copies of Mary's entire Reggae collection) and stuck it in my backpack.

October 2006: I was hanging out with Betse at the International Bluegrass Music Association conference in Nashville, TN. We had just eaten lunch, and she asked me if I wanted to go watch Martha Scanlan's showcase on the Roots and Branches stage. Martha was already on when we arrived. We slipped in and found seats near the back. Almost immediately, I was transfixed by the sound coming from the stage. Martha stood center, flanked by Travis Stuart on string bass and Trevor Stuart on fiddle. The sound of this simple instrumentation, combined with Martha's idiosyncratic voice ( I mean that in the best possible way...) was mesmerizing. The smallish crowd, most of whom were familiar with Martha from her days as guitarist with The Reeltime Travelers, were quiet and respectful, drinking in the sound, but Betse and I were excited and whooped it up in the back at the end each tune.

At once point, Martha sheepishly told the audience that her new record was, "almost done"...
"Right ON!" I yelled.
Then she told them hesitantly, " And it's going to be kinda different for some of you"...
"WHOOOHOOO!", I whooped from the back.
"It's going to have some drums on it"...
"ALLRIIIIIIIGHHHHHT!", I belted.
Several people looked back at me and scowled.
"But we got Levon Helm to play the drums, so that's ok, right?"
"HEEEEELLLLLLL YEAH!", I shrieked.

On the way home from IBMA, I dug through my backpack and grabbed the copy of Martha's new cd I had secretly burned in Seattle. Everyone was completely shagged from the conference, so this time there was no conversation to distract me. Although the mixes were rough, the purity of the sound came through loud and clear. I don't think a word was said, but when it was over, we all agreed that this was the sort of album WE would like to make someday.

November, 2006: We were back at Dirk's, recording our new cd. The long, long sessions stretched into the early morning hours. When we returned to the house where we were staying, I was always too keyed-up to go right to sleep. So I listened to Martha's cd on my iPod for inspiration before collapsing into unconsciousness.

January 12th, 2007: It was my birthday. I don't generally like my birthday much, and this year was no exception. Basically, it makes me uncomfortable for people to treat me different just because it's my birthday. However, this year, I was bummed out because no one treated me any different than they ever do. Yes folks, I am a gigantic 41-year-old baby! Anyway, I was hanging out backstage at The Grey Eagle in Asheville, NC feeling sorry for myself, when Martha Scanlan walked through the door. I guess I knew she lived fairly close to Asheville, but still I was shocked to see her in person. Without my usual conversational restraint, I began to babble and gush to her about how much her record had impacted me. Later in the evening, I saw her again and told her that if she ever needed somebody to play dobro, she could give me a call. I gave her my email and I felt good about the the interchange, but doubted (with The Wilders intense schedule) that it would ever actually happen.

February, 2007: I got an email from Martha asking me if I might be interested in playing some dates in Colorado in April. She told me that Travis and Trevor Stuart would be in England teaching old time music classes, and she was scrambling to get a band together for the tour. I was flabbergasted. I searched our schedule and realized that at least four of the shows were possible. Then I really started to think about it. I imagined the sounds that I had grown to love on Martha's cd coming to life. I imagined myself playing dobro on some of her tunes. I imagine myself playing steel guitar and electric guitar on others. Then I began to imagine other things. I imagined Nate playing electric bass and Betse covering Dirk Powell's fiddle parts. But the final piece was drums. Of course, we know a lot of really great drummers. But still, I was bummed that Ike would be left out. Then I tried to imagine Ike sitting behind a set of drums. It wasn't so far-fetched. I'd seen him fool around on a kit before, and he wasn't half bad. So I called everybody up, and asked them if they would be interested in becoming Martha's band. Not surprisingly, everyone (including Ike) was thrilled at the prospect. Then I wrote Martha back to offer her not one musician, but four. I'm sure she was shocked at my proposal, but she agreed to give it a try anyway.

Monday, April 9th: Ike and I picked Martha up from the Kansas City airport and immediately got her in the KC spirit by forcing her to eat Arthur Bryant's Bar-B-Que and share a pitcher of Budwieser. As she finished half of her mountainous sandwich, she said, "wow, the streets of Kansas City are paved with MEAT." Then we checked her into a Best Western on the Boulevard, and went off to ready things for the tour. We had invited her to play as our special guest at the Rural Grit Happy Hour that night, and there was a larger-than-normal crowd assembled to greet her there. Although we had never played with her before, the four of us decided to "wing it" with Martha on about 6 tunes. Don Carrick, legendary Rural Grit drummer yelled out to Ike at one point, "you are doing great, you just need to RELAX!" It was somewhat of a train wreck, but there was a strong scent of something musically wonderful floating around the bar by the time we had finished.

The next morning we all met at an honest-to-goodness, real-deal practice space located above the all-ages punk rock club, El Torreon, in midtown KC. I had acquired access to this jewel-in-the-rough, through the generosity and diligence of our pal David Regnier who hooked us up with The Pink Socks (the band that rents the space). We lugged all our gear up the stairs and started plugging stuff in, while Martha made notes on a legal pad. After plugging in mics and making some adjustments, we tentatively began a practice session, which begat a song swap/jam session that stretched late into the night. The next day, we scrambled to get all our stuff together, packed up the trailer, stopped by The Pink Socks practice space to leave a case of PBR for our rent, and hit the city limits by 7pm. After only an hour of driving, I was burnt out. I stopped for gas, and when I returned, Martha had plopped herself in the driver's seat. Obviously quite comfortable with the strange ways of the road, she drove our Brown Clown halfway across Kansas stopping for the night around 1am at our favorite Motel 6 in Colby.

We were up-and-at 'em the next morning, passing into Colorado for our first hump over the Rockies this year. Our van handled the high mountain passes like a champ, and within a few hours, we arrived in Carbondale, CO at Steve's Guitars- the site of our first gig. Steve was there to greet us, and helped to load in our gear, move amps, drums and mic stands around in an effort to squeeze our huge band onto the tiny stage. We got everything plugged up and used the sound check to rehearse the material one last time. Our band pals from Paonia, CO, Sweet Sunny South, arrived during the rehearsal and gave us some much-needed feedback on our relative volumes and sound. It didn't seem like any time passed before the tiny music store was packed for the sold out show. In Kansas City, the fire marshall would have shut it down immediately, but in Carbondale, it appears things are a little more relaxed. We took the stage around 9:30am and, as Martha strummed the first chord, I said a silent prayer, "please, please don't let us screw up..."

My prayers must have been answered, because the audience was electrified. During the next two hours, we played most of the songs off Martha's album. Betse, of course, played her fiddle, but also got to add her tenor guitar and a harmony vocal to the mix on several tunes. Nate mostly hung in the back making sure Ike was staying on the beat. To save space in the van, he had decided back in Kansas City to only play his electric bass on this tour. He sounded great- especially when he stepped up to sing harmony with Martha even taking a lead verse on the song "Hallelujah". To change it up, Ike and Martha swapped positions on the drums so that he could lead our band on a few honky tonk numbers. In addition to being a great songwriter and singer, Martha Scanlan is a very fine old time guitar player, and I could tell she really enjoyed herself, when she got to bear down on some of Betse's fiddle tunes. I sat over in my corner truly fulfilling the "jack of all trades" role. I played electric guitar, electric lap steel guitar, dobro, clawhammer banjo and mandolin. On the outside (due to my concentration level), my face must have appeared to be made of stone. But on the inside I was grinning ear-to-ear. To quote Wilders mentor Dale Frazier, "it was a pretty good deal, I guess..." The evening seemed over almost before it started. I talked to several people after the show and everyone was pretty much blown away by the sound.

It took a long time to get all the equipment packed back into the van and trailer, and it was soon after midnight when we set out on a two-hour drive over McClure pass to Paonia, CO. Our Sweet Sunny South pals agreed to not only let us stay in their homes that night, but also to wait for us slowpokes and lead us over the mountains. I realized how tired I was when we started winding up the pass. I was sure glad I had their tail lights to follow. We arrived safely and everyone collapsed for the short night. The next morning we hauled a stripped-down version of all our junk into the studios of KVNF in downtown Paonia. Our pal, Rob Miller was hosting the "Talking Music" program there, and we were able to do about 4 of Martha's tunes, a couple of Wilders originals, and a fiddle tune during the show. Then, after wolfing down some very fine burgers at Sweet Sunny South HQ (thanks Bill and Shel!), we high-tailed it up the road to Montrose, CO to load in at La Cabana. Yes, our gig this evening was to be at the downtown Montrose Italian/Mexican Restaurant. I LOVE the west because of weird combinations like this. Say you don't have a population in your town that can support an italian restaurant AND a Mexican Restaurant? No problem, COMBINE THE CUISINE. We all had a good laugh on the drive up, imagining fettucini burritos and chips and marinara. Oh, if only they were just jokes. Later that evening, I actually saw a basket of bread sticks AND tortilla chips next to a bowl of salsa AND tomato sauce. I would not lie about this.

Our motel was across the street. It was one of those classic motor lodges from the 50's, and, after sound check, we walked over and checked in. We only had about an hour to kill before we had to head back over to the restaurant. The show was sold out, and it was packed to the rafters when we walked in. Most of Sweet Sunny South made it for the second night, accompanied by several of their friends. It felt good to see them right up front. Martha was cool as a cucumber, and smiled at everybody before hitting the first chords. We got through the first tune no problem, then on the second, I couldn't get any sound out of my guitar. I panicked and started checking connections, while Martha and the rest of the band waited. Then I realized that someone had come up and turned all the knobs on my amp down to -0-. I don't know if the sound crew had done it as a precaution, or if it was some kind of a bad practical joke, but I was livid. I pulled myself together to get through the song, but was pretty shaken. Of course, nobody ever turns down anything when I play with The Wilders. We have no knobs to turn.

I settled down and turned in a decent performance despite the mishap. Later in the evening, we had a few "guests"- one of the sound guys came up to play drums on one of Ike's honky tonk tunes. He wasn't bad, he was horrible. He kept trying to do drum fills without any sense of where the beat was. Nate, who was already used to staying right on top of Ike to keep him in time, was on this poor guy in a second. He yelled, "STOP DOING FILLS, JUST PLAY THE SNARE!!!" The poor befuddled guy finally got it together- sort of- but I was glad when the tune was over. Later in the evening, Rob Miller- guitarist with Sweet Sunny South, told me that this was the moment that made the whole evening worthwhile for him. I guess he must like to watch train wrecks. Martha sang great, and Betse played some killer solos. We had already got our nervous jitters out the night before, and I felt that everybody just did a fantastic job.

After the show, Betse was pooped out. She said her goodbyes to everyone, and then turned in for the night. I had very much the same intention, but about the time I got all my stuff packed up, Martha walked up and asked me if a friend of hers could borrow my mandolin. Of course, I agreed and got it out of the case while Ike and Martha pulled up a couple of chairs to play host to a post-show jam. I took the delay in my imminent sleep in stride though, and used the time to catch up with the Sweet Sunny South contingency. The befuddled drummer pulled up a chair and whipped out a case of harmonicas to join the party. This was definitely an instrument he could play, and he sang and blew his harp with indefatigability. Then the other sound man asked me if I would mind it if he played my dobro. At this point, I realized I wasn't going anywhere soon, and grabbed it out of the case for him. He plopped down on my amp, and joined into the ruckus. He was pretty dang good too. Everybody seemed like they were having fun, so I didn't really mind. Then the Sweet Sunny South crew had to leave- which left me and Nate sitting at the bar, drinking free beers, critiquing the noises coming from the corner. I guess an hour or more passed before it finally wound down. I jumped off the bar stool and started loading stuff out to the van. I was surprised when Ike and Martha, who had been the eye of the jam-icane, apologized to Nate and I for keeping us up so late for such a, "lame jam". I said, "you guys looked like you were having so much fun, though". I guess I didn't realize that they had felt as trapped as me. We loaded all the instruments into Martha's room, so as to not disturb Betse, and then retired to Ike and Nate's room for a nightcap. When I quietly entered the room I was sharing with Betse, I saw that it was almost 4am. We were due to leave by 9am the next morning to get back over the mountains for our next gig in Denver- a 6 hour drive. Uhhhhggg.

Everybody looked a little beat the next morning, but our "little band that could" took it in stride, as we chatted and laughed all the way up the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. Soon, the conversation wound down, and so I DJ'd my iPod to keep everyone entertained- especially Ike, who was driving. We arrived with little time to spare in Denver, and spilled out of the van, delirious, but happy. The sound man at Swallow Hill, a nice 200+ seat theater in an older part of Denver, was waiting to help us get situated. We loaded in all our crap and began to plug everything up. The sound was great, and we all got a little excited to try our third night in a real concert space. Nate ran out to get us all burritos from a restaurant across the street, and I killed time by eating a chocolate cookie and drinking coffee. This was a mistake. I hadn't really had much to eat. and the sugar and caffeine made my heart race.

Just before we went on, Martha looked at all of us in the dressing room and confessed, "guys, I'm really nervous tonight, this is a folk crowd, and I'm afraid the drums and electric stuff is going to be too much for them." Even though I was about to pass out, I truthfully replied to her, "Don't worry about it Martha, we will do GREAT. These folks will LOVE it." I believed what I said, but something happened (I'll blame it on the sugar) when I walked out on stage. For some reason I forgot what instrument I played on the first tune and, by the time I realized what was going on, I had to scramble to get ready. This set off a domino effect for me that I did not recover from until almost the end of the first set. It seemed like no matter what song we were doing, my instruments were out of tune, my amp settings were wrong, or I just straight up forgot my parts, It was embarrassing and I felt terrible as I walked off stage for the break.

We reconvened in the dressing room and I apologized to Martha for screwing it up so bad. She was gracious and downplayed the whole thing. Then she said, "you know guys, screw it, let's just have FUN." This statement (along with the beer I gobbled down to counteract the sugar/caffiene) really seemed to help. We went back out and got through it with some skin still left on our teeth. After the show, Ike loaded up his drums and went to fall asleep in the van while we all chatted and ate our cold burritos. Then I went to pack up all my stuff, while Nate serenaded me on an old classical guitar he found lying in a back room. I'm not sure what it was called, but he played a lullaby he had written for his daughter Gretel. It was a great way to end a traumatic evening- Thanks Nate.

For the first and last time of our short tour, we checked into a really, really nice hotel for the night. Everybody was completely fried, and we only had about an hour to drive to the gig the next day. We all got in our rooms by midnight and crashed for a nice, long, comfortable night's sleep.

Martha had arranged for a late check out, and we all met in the lobby around 1pm to load up. We grabbed some lunch at a nice bar and grill in Denver before heading up I-25, just north of Ft. Collins to The Swing Station in Laporte. This is the current home-away-from-home of one of our best old road pals, Bradford Lee Folk. Brad was formerly the lead singer of the fabulous, but now-defunct bluegrass band, Open Road. He purchased the bar just over a year ago, and we had been wanting to visit him there for a long time. Now one thing I haven't addressed yet, is the fact that nobody was supposed to know that we were playing with Martha. We have several dates booked in Colorado later this year, and promoters take a dim view of bands barnstorming too close to their festivals for fear that, if somebody can see them at a bar, why would they pay to see them at a festival? So, even though Bradford knows us, he didn't know we were coming with Martha. The look on his face when we arrived carrying in our gear was priceless. I could literally see the blood drain out of his face when he realized that Martha was coming into Laporte with both barrels blazing. He quickly grabbed the bar phone and starting calling everybody on the front range.

Brad's business partner helped us get the sound going outside on the concrete pad/ beer garden, and we hit the first song while the sun was still blazing. The small crowd was in a great mood, and we just let all the tension of the last few days drain away. We even got Brad to come up and pick a couple of obscure old country numbers with us. It was a great way to end a great tour. Later that night, Brad invited us over for an after party at his home a mile up the road. We sat around his dining room table trading tunes and swapping stories late into the morning, before finally heading back to the doublewide trailer behind the bar to crash before the sun came up. I was asleep before my head hit the pillow and, after what only seemed like only a few minutes, Betse's alarm clock startled me awake. It was noon. We sluggishly got ourselves together and headed back over to Brad's to pick up Martha. I helped her load her suitcase in the trailer and took a quiet moment to thank her for the experience. I have to say, I got a little choked up. She gave me a hug and said, "we'll do it again soon, I promise."

It seemed like it took forever to get back to the Denver airport. We pulled up to the rental car area, and all bid Martha a very fond goodbye. As Ike pulled the van away from the airport terminal, I watched Martha disappear behind the glass doors lugging her gear behind her with confidence and grace.

It was 6pm. Now we had a 10-hour drive to get back home to KC. We were exhausted, but it was the best kind of tired.

BREAK!

A full quarter of 2007 has already slipped by. "What the heck," you might ask, "have you Wilders been DOING?" Well, I aim to answer that question right now...

We busted right out of the gate on January 10th for a 3-week run from Nashville, through the Carolinas, up to Washington D.C. & New York City, and into Pennsylvania accompanied by our Lafayette, Louisiana pals, The Red Stick Ramblers. Then we hauled our butts from Pittsburgh all the way to Madison & Milwaukee to play two shows with our old buds, The Foghorn Stringband. We headed home for just a few days before we did another quick run down to Springfield, MO to play a couple of shows with our new friends, The Arkamo Rangers. Finally, we rounded out the first weekend of February by returning to the Free State Music Festival in Lawrence, KS.

When the dust settled, there were four very-exhausted Wilders standing there scratching their heads- and we had only finished the first MONTH. February passed quickly and we all took a little time to rejuvenate, before heading back up to Wisconsin (dodging snowstorm after snowstorm) to host a three-day stand at the Oneida Nation Casino in Green Bay. After that, we came home and took a long-overdue break.

So, until recently, I haven't seen my band mates much. We all sort of splintered into our own pursuits and distractions. Everybody did their own thing and took care of long-overdue personal business. I, for one, luckily had the opportunity to play rock and roll guitar with my old band, The Pedaljets for the first time in over 10 years. It was a blast. The Wilders took almost 2 months off for the first time in over 3 years. Even before we went full time, we almost always had a festival or show at least once a month. This was a full on, no holds barred, vacation and I think everybody really used it to it's full advantage. We broke our gigfast by becoming the backing band for one of our favorite singers, Martha Scanlan, for four great dates in Colorado. I'll detail that experience in the next blog entry. Take care everybody.

Wilders Reissues- Available Nationwide, February 13th, 2007

WOD
Originally uploaded by brotherphilwilder.

Here they are folks! "Throw Down", "Spring a Leak" and "Wings of a Dove" are now remastered with better sound, bonus tracks and great new packaging. The reissues are produced by Free Dirt Records in Tacoma Park, Maryland and will be available everywhere quality cd's are sold on February 13th, 2007. You can get them first by ordering directly from our website: www.wilderscountry.com. I am currently having them added to our site and the price will be going up to $16.00 each. But, the upload hasn't happened yet, so if you want to save a buck, click on "Goods" and put down your cash money. All orders taken on our site from now on will be filled with the reissued cd's.

Wilders Reissues- Available Nationwide, February 13th, 2007

SAL
Originally uploaded by brotherphilwilder.

Here they are folks! "Throw Down", "Spring a Leak" and "Wings of a Dove" are now remastered with better sound, bonus tracks and great new packaging. The reissues are produced by Free Dirt Records in Tacoma Park, Maryland and will be available everywhere quality cd's are sold on February 13th, 2007. You can get them first by ordering directly from our website: www.wilderscountry.com. I am currently having them added to our site and the price will be going up to $16.00 each. But, the upload hasn't happened yet, so if you want to save a buck, click on "Goods" and put down your cash money. All orders taken on our site from now on will be filled with the reissued cd's.

Wilders Reissues- Available Nationwide, February 13th, 2007

TD
Originally uploaded by brotherphilwilder.

Here they are folks! "Throw Down", "Spring a Leak" and "Wings of a Dove" are now remastered with better sound, bonus tracks and great new packaging. The reissues are produced by Free Dirt Records in Tacoma Park, Maryland and will be available everywhere quality cd's are sold on February 13th, 2007. You can get them first by ordering directly from our website: www.wilderscountry.com. I am currently having them added to our site and the price will be going up to $16.00 each. But, the upload hasn't happened yet, so if you want to save a buck, click on "Goods" and put down your cash money. All orders taken on our site from now on will be filled with the reissued cd's.

50 Comment Limit Reached!

I'm just now starting to work on something. Your patience is appreciated. In the meantime, go read Tick's new blog entry...

http://ticksense.blogspot.com/

later, bp

It's hard to name a fiddle tune

Photo by Michael Kanemoto. From our Liberty Hall Holiday Hoedown, December 2006.

Thanks, LVJ, for the inspiration for a new post from me.

LVJ mentioned a couple of new fiddle tunes of mine that were played at Liberty Hall:

Christmas Eve -- which is NOT mine, though I wish it were. It comes from Jim Bowles, a fiddler of whom I know little. Well, I just did a little search for him and found out more... he was from Kentucky. Even cooler is that "Christmas Eve" is mentioned in this article... the link is in the blog title here, for those who are interested. Now, why that tune is called Christmas Eve, I can't imagine exactly. But it is a great tune and I'm trying to learn it a little better for next year.

[So far I have 3 seasonal fiddle tunes which only get played for our holiday shows. For a while all I had was "Breaking Up Christmas" -- you can find great versions of that by Benton Flippen and Tommy Jarrell. Then last year I got turned on to "Christmas Time Will Soon Be Over", which was recorded by Fiddlin' John Carson way back in the day... he was one of the first stars of the Grand Ole Opry. That tune/song (it does have a few lyrics -- "country haiku", as Ike calls it) also appeared in the film "Cold Mountain", and Jack White sang it. I notice when I do a search for it that some sites credit it as BY Jack White... interesting, and just a note on how traditional tunes sometimes do end up getting copywritten by someone much later. Is this a good or bad thing? I am not here to judge that right now, just a side topic for later consideration.]

The other tune was Douglas County. A funny thing about that tune. It's not a new one; we've been playing it for a while, maybe almost a year. I originally gave it a temporary title: "Bob Holt Meets the Crooked Jades". That's a mouthful, at least! Plus the confusion of folks thinking I was talking about Bob Hope made it not such a good title. Not to mention there are a precious few who know of the Crooked Jades (if you are not one of them, look them up - we think they are awesome). So shortly before we set out to record, Phil suggested (strongly suggested, you might say) that I come up with a REAL title for the tune. Good idea.

[If you want to hear this tune, you can find it on our listen page -- on the left column, with the title "BHMTCJ"]

So... it's really hard to name a fiddle tune, sometimes. My first tune ever, January Waltz, was a gift from the heavens and was easy to name as it came to me in January, several years ago, and is a waltz. The first dance tune I came up with was inspired by Art Stamper's playing, but I was bound and determined to give it a GOAT-y name. Thus, Goat Creek.

However, there's a more specific reason for giving it a watery name.

Many years ago, while attending the workshops at Augusta Heritage Center (man, I love that place... hope to go there and teach some day), I was bowled over by a lecture/demonstration given by Alan Jabbour. Now, this fellow was the founding director of the American Folklife Center at the Smithsonian. He also is a dedicated fiddler and before he was all official, he spent a lot of time in West Virginia hanging out with the old fiddlers and such. Doing what I wish I had time/money/ambition to do my own self. Anyway. One of the things that Jabbour spoke of was river/creek fiddle tunes. He said that those tunes tend to start out high, jump around some, and that the B part was almost always low, or lower, than the A part. Case in point with a very common tune: Cripple Creek. See what I mean? So that was one of many things that got me all excited during Jabbour's talk/play session. My students get to hear about other things from time to time when I'm really geeking out.

GOAT CREEK was written without a title in mind. It starts high, jumps around a lot, and then goes low for the B part. Once I realized that, I had my title!

Other tunes I have had trouble naming, too. The tune now called "Old Dirty Boot" didn't have a name for quite some time. We even performed it nameless... we'd usually play it at the beginning of a show so I wouldn't feel compelled to talk on and on about it without a name, etc. You know how I can be. We had to name it eventually when it was included in the music we chose to have available for that Merlfest live download deal earlier in 2006. I sat and thought about it for a while and for whatever reason, that's what popped out. Well, kind of. I had "Old Dirty Boots" in mind, and Ike suggested making it just one boot. Good idea! I love that title now.

"Rock in the Woods" is potentially mistaken for Rockin' the Woods, so can be problematic. I told the story of that tune for a while on stage. We were at the Hiawatha Festival in the U.P., Michigan, summer of 2005. I was alone at our campsite for a while. It was a beautiful wooded camping grounds, with very tall evergreens and plenty of shrubs and plants and places for little things to live. As I sat messing around with this melody, a chipmunk appeared about six feet from me. It was munching away on something, moving around, and totally unconcerned. Some of you know how fond I am of almost all animals, especially the really cute ones... one of my very girly qualities. Well, I kept on playing and that chipmunk kept on hanging out. It was a very cool few minutes for me. All of a sudden, the little guy took off, going 100 miles an hour and right by my left foot... I could almost feel him. (maybe I played a sour note...) I was sad to see him go, but you know what? He came back! After a while. By then I had the tune finished and I tried really hard to name it after my little friend. But the character of the tune is not chipmunk-y or cute. It's a rocking tune. And it was written in the woods. I started out calling it Rocking the Woods, which has a cool double meaning when you think about our wooden instruments. However, I ended up with the Rock because I like tune titles that bring about imagery, or questions, or those that are a statement in themselves (Hawk's got a chicken and flew into the woods, anyone?).

So... back to BHMTCJ. This tune was directly inspired by the playing of Bob Holt, from Ava, Douglas County, Missouri. Then we added a funky chord partway through that gets played twice, on one full A part. That's the Crooked Jades influence. But the main thing for me is the melody, which is, to me, very Bob Holt-y. There is precedent for naming fiddle tunes after counties... Robinson County, an Ozark tune, being one good example. So, I thought maybe I'd name it after Holt's native county. We just recorded the tune for our upcoming album. I gave it that title for the recording. Then, when I announced it on stage at Liberty Hall, everyone cheered and Phil mentioned to me that we were IN Douglas County. Oh, yeah.

I love Lawrence and the people of Douglas County. But I don't want to have a fiddle tune with a name that references a specific geological spot be confused with a spot of the same name but different place, especially one so close to our home. Yeah, there's probably a Douglas County in most states, anyway.

So... guess what. This tune starts high, jumps around a lot, and then goes low for the B part!

I'm currently doing some research on rivers and creeks in the area around where Bob Holt lived. I even wrote an email to one of his friends, Jim Nelson, a St. Louis guitar player (who happens to be one of my favorite all-time old time guitar players). I asked Jim if he knew of any waterways that Holt was fond of. Sadly, there is nothing conclusive to report from that query. However, I am sure Bob Holt got around to many of the waterways in his county. I'm going to choose one of them and then that tune will have its final, hopefully long-loved, name.

The Ritual of 6...

At 2am, we arrive at Motel 6-Iowa City-tired and grateful. I go to check in, leaving the rest of the gang in the van in various states of unconsciousness. The night clerk eyes me suspiciously as I walk up to the night registration window. I tell her, through the bullet-proof glass, that I have a reservation. We keep the nationwide Motel 6 directory book in the van, so we almost ALWAYS have a reservation. It sucks to arrive late at night and find the motel sold out. It means you are not going to sleep for at least another hour, and you will have to pay more, sometimes a LOT more. Worse yet are the motels you pay LESS for. But that's why we always reserve at Motel 6. We only got burned on a reservation once- in Lafayette, Louisiana. When I went to the window that night, they had given one of our rooms away. It was a costly clerical error and made for a tough night. We had to go to a Super 8 instead. It was more expensive, less comfortable, and had a peculiar odor. This time our reservation stands.

I ask the clerk for rooms on the second floor (this Motel 6 only has two floors). Although it's more of a pain in the ass to climb stairs with all your gear, at least you won't have an early bird walking around on your head in the morning. I also ask for rooms that are NOT next to each other. Noisy neighbors are a common hazard when you stay in motels, but for some reason. knowing your noisy neighbors is intolerable. I put the band credit card through the bullet-proof glass along with my driver's license. As usual, the night clerk has to run it as two separate transactions even though I'm paying for both rooms on one credit card. This inefficiency is typical of the entire Motel 6 chain. However, there have been a few times that I've been checked in by a star employee- one who has advanced training in Motel 6 computer ops. So I KNOW its possible to put two rooms on one charge card. Tonight's clerk is no star, and so I have to sign two separate charge slips, and fill out two separate guest information sheets. When I get to the vehicle line, I grumble and have to walk out to the parking lot to get the plate number. You'd think that I would have memorized it by now. But, I still have our old van license, HYF-493, cemented in my accessible memory. I am always surprised by the actual license number 382-YHT, and vow to remember it the next time. But I never do.

I return to the office and finish filling out the forms. The night clerk asks how many keys I want for each room. I answer two. Somebody always loses their key, or locks themselves out, no matter how short a time we spend in the motel. I finish up the transactions, and glance up at the floor plan map taped to the bullet-proof glass. I look for our rooms in relation to the office on the map. I can't figure it out. I never can. I decide to just drive around the motel and look at the numbers instead. I drive around the motel, looking at the numbers. I spot our rooms, slam on the brakes, and then everybody goes into immediate action. Like a swat team, we pull everything of value, instruments, microphones, computers, iPods- anything that somebody might steal, out and into the parking lot. One of us from each room grabs a load and heads up the stairs- while the other continues to grab luggage. This tag-team approach insures that the van is never left unattended. Nate and Ike have their load-in down to a science. Each of them purchased back packs at Wal Mart last year just for this purpose. Inside, they keep extra socks, maybe a clean shirt, pajamas, and their toiletry bags. Ike always makes his load in one trip. Sometimes Nate tries too. He looks like an overloaded camel as he lumbers up to the second floor with his backpack, bass and amp. Betse and I prefer the multiple trips approach.

Once everything is safely moved into our rooms, I move the van to a parking place that will accommodate the trailer. Sometimes this is impossible, and the trailer must be unhitched and parked in its own space. Tonight there's room against the curb, but I have to go around the motel once to get a better run at it. I turn off the van, pull all the shades down, and lock it up, then walk around the van, double-checking that all the doors are secure. I check the trailer too, yanking on the padlock to make sure. Then I head up to the room.

The rooms at Motel 6 come in one of three configurations. Betse has classified these as "A", "B" or "C". "A" rooms are usually older motels that have been bought, renovated and reopened as 6's. Their unusually shaped rooms are large and comfortable. "A" rooms have a table with chairs, and (sometimes) an easy chair for lounging. And the beds can be as much as 15 feet apart in these palaces of economy. We check into "A" rooms once in a blue moon. "B" rooms are slightly more common, and are smaller as a result, but still have plenty of space to move around. The beds in "B" rooms are 9-10 feet apart. Commonly, these types of rooms are at Motel 6 locations that are laid out on a single level, like a military compound. They are truly "motor inns" and you can park right outside your door making it easy to load in. And, because they only have one floor, there's never anybody walking on your head in the morning. Hands down, "B" rooms are my favorite.

I put my key card into the slot and open up the door. I groan because tonight we have a "C" room. I know it immediately because Betse is standing on the other side of the room by her bed unpacking her stuff. She is no more than 15 feet away from me, and I haven't even come into the room yet. There is only enough space for one person to walk between the foot of my bed and the poorly designed all-in-one shelving unit/desk/chair/TV stand. Betse's bed is against the bathroom wall and mine is on the opposite-jammed up against the heater next to the door. There is maybe 3 feet between our beds (think Laura and Rob Petry from the Dick Van Dyke Show). All other available floor space is taken up by instrument cases and our 2 suitcases.

It's now after 2:30am, and so we choose not to turn on the TV. Betse readies herself for bed in the bathroom, while I unpack my pajamas and toiletries. The room is freezing. Betse turned the wimpy wall heater on high heat, full blast when she first came in, but I still have my coat on. I hear a whimper of pain through the thin bathroom wall. Betse comes out in her PJ's and Robe shivering. "I hate to put on cold clothes before bed," she says as she jumps under the covers with a "hmmmmphh." I grab my pajamas and toothbrush and head into the bathroom for a hot shower. I prefer to wash off my filth at night before I go to bed. Betse is the opposite. She relies on a hot shower to wake her up. And she hates going to bed with wet hair. I haven't had to worry about that problem since my hair fell out in the 80's. The standard "C" room Motel 6 shower design looks like something from a Star Trek episode. The stall is round, and the shower head is above you when you walk in, pointing at the back wall. I turn on the water and wait for it to heat up before stepping into the transporter bay. The standard Motel 6 shower head is ball-shaped and sends out an uneven blast of water. Nate calls this type of nozzle a "horse piss shower". This is a particular pet peeve of his, and he often threatens to bring his own shower head with him on tours. So far, he hasn't.

Now nicely warmed, I turn off the water and step back into the cold bathroom. I put on my PJ's and brush my teeth. I walk back into the room and the chill begins to overtake me. Betse is reading in bed. I grab my own book, and jump beneath the covers. I check the heater- high heat, full blast. I put my hand over the vent, located right next to my bed. The air coming out is slightly warmer than cold, not an encouraging sign. I glance over at Betse, already lost in her book. Without fail, she reads before bed every night to get sleepy. Tonight, she is reading the new Charles Frazier novel, "Thirteen Moons". I open up my book, "A Riot of our Own-Night and Day with The Clash 1976-79". I read maybe three pages before I hear Betse exhale and shut her book. It's late and we both need to sleep. We wish each other a good night, and I reach up and turn out the light.

I am a crew member on an interplanetary space flight to venus. We have achieved orbit and are beginning our descent into the outer layers of the gaseous planet's atmosphere. As we begin to skim the upper mesosphere, a warning signal begins blaring. I flip open the control panel, and see that the exterior temperature gauge indicates a dangerous heat build up. I am worried that our heat dissipation panels might have been damaged during our long flight. My throat is scalding as the air becomes too hot to breathe. I fear we are not going to make it...

I awake in a pool of sweat. It is 6am, and apparently the wall unit is now working- high heat, full blast. It's easily 100 degrees in our room. I get up and crank the thermostat knob to "cold". I have to go to the bathroom, and I'm careful not to make any noise as I walk past Betse's bed. She is notoriously a light sleeper. I do my best to shut the door behind me as quietly as possible, so as to not disturb her from her delicate slumber. I pee and then drink 10 plastic cups of water from the tap. I open the door carefully and listen for a moment. I hear Betse's breathing, slow and steady, and gingerly move back toward my bed. As I pass by her, a joint in my foot cracks and she stirs with a gasp. She rolls over and groans.

The morning light is already spilling into the room from around the edges of the curtain. I pull off my bedspread and hold it up against the window, standing on my bed. I tuck the edge of the spread over the upper left corner of the curtain. Then, moving to my right, I work the bedspread over the curtain rod sealing out most of the light from the room. I then carefully tuck the bottom of the bedspread into the small gap between my bed and the the heater. It's still about 98 degrees, but at least cold air is now blowing out of the vent, and this makeshift barrier keeps it from blowing on my head. I lie back down, covers off, and wait for my body temperature to equalize. We don't have to check out of the motel for another 4 hours and I desperately need to go back to sleep. Thoughts begin to race through my head and I know sleep may prove to be elusive. I come upon an idea for a new blog entry. I go over various ways of telling it in my mind. I'm pleased with myself, but then begin to worry that I might forget some of this genius by morning. I briefly consider getting up and writing some notes. But Betse's breathing has steadied again, and I decide not to risk it. I'm not sure how much time passes before I finally drift back to sleep.

Betse's alarm goes off. At first I'm not sure where I am. I open my eyes and reality rushes back into my groggy brain. I am in Iowa City. I am on the road again. I am at a Motel 6. I am in a "C" room. And I am freezing again.


Dedicated to James Frey