Bluegrass Good-byes

Well, it could have been titled "Semi-annual Bluegrass", but that would only pertain to how often I post these days, not the frequency of bluegrass in my life, which promises to remain an almost daily obsession with me.
Fact is, along about May of this year I realized I had enjoyed about as much of The Lost Ramblers as I could stand, and quit the band I have moiled with lo these many many years to concentrate on enjoying myself and learning more mandolin, a goal I might have to re-examine, considering the shifting sands of bluegrass, another outstanding name for a band hehe.
The Shifting Sands of Grass.
what a nice ring that one has. You could dress up like an Arab and maybe get a camel, or smoke Camels---something like that.
Anyhow, I say that because it seems like everybody and his uncle and aunt are playing the durn things these days, so at HickoryFest this past weekend, you couldn't swing a cat without hitting a mandolin player, many of whom were way more better than me.

Sheesh. Anyhow, off to Wellsboro I went as a single unit, got the Palamino set up under a large tree for shade (very sweet!), running water and electric included in my little home away from home, outdoor shower, heater, refrigerator, pretty nice neighbors, great locale. I really enjoyed being back in population like it was in the old days when about twenty of us would commandeer a piece of Rudy Klein's Grove, hoist the Rebel flag (don't ask me---it wasn't my-un!), get an industrial sized tarp or tarps strung, and proceeded to pick until our fingernails fell out. phew!

Weather was ideal, although to be honest I did not pick as much as I might have---people were laying low during the heat of the day, and by the time the stage shows were done, so was I, so that left little hours here and there that people would sit down and pick---kinda nice because the cast of characters changed every hour, like a TV show or something, just with more beer.


And we played "Corn-hole", which many mistakenly might call "bean-bags", and found it to be highly addictive: under the lights, there was a game on almost 20 hours a day. I did get some nice jams in and finished the story-board for my dissertation, which was kinda strange. Storyboards are usually reserved for films and stuff like that, but outlines have never worked for me, so I did a storyboard for Bluegrass that really helped me keep all the action and characters straight and the stuff happening in a logical order.

Anyhow, no celestrial inspirations like Stony Deer, a tune I wrote there 2 years ago, although I did work up that tune I heard Dan Paisley singing to me this past WinterFest. The story on that was that I was joking with Dan very very late one night about a tune called "YOu can't talk to Jesus with whiskey on your breath", went to bed, slept too long, but woke up with this song jammed into my head, like I heard it in my head in my dreams, I guess you could say.

Really, I'm not going loopy on ya; not any moreso than usual. But I just wrote the dang thing down, chords and all....not a bad little tune, if I ever get to sit down and record the dad-durned thing, along with a "Bluegrass" novel on tape.

Man, I got a long list of to-dos!

Hmmmm. UYep. Anyhow, went to the Mennonite store and bought killer tomatoes, chicken salad, great bacon, and other little niceties, and spent 4 glorious days just having fun. The other ramblers showed up, John in his 27,000 dollar VW bus and Neil and John Ace, joined at the hip. I went for a ride with them to some supposed jam in Ansonia that turned out to be nothing except a local song-writer that is pretty good to listen to for about 10 minutes, then you gotta clear your auditory palate and burp or whistle or something hehe.
All in all it was a nice end to a delightful summer, as I have been simply camping and playing bluegrass without having to run all over creation playing every freakin' weekend. I sat in my camper Sunday morning at 10, drinking my coffee and relaxing while the boys ran around getting stuff together for their show, which sounded exactly like it did six months ago except Kendell is playing bass and not me. Listening to it made me realize that being a bassplayer for the Ramblers is not for the faint-of-heart, you might say.

Anyhow, Kendell did fine, even with the other clams that are still swimming in the rambler soup that made me laugh.

I mean, making the same mistake in the same place in the same song for 29 years? wow. You gotta admire that kind of consistency! *L*

Well, perhaps I will work backwards towards the first WInd-Gap. I mean, how cool is this music? Just like civil war battles, we have firsts and seconds; first Manassas, second Mannassas, first Windgap, Second Windgap....an embarrassment of riches!

Oh--no rattlers this year, although the campground owner said they went up into the woods and caught the one from last year that tried to get into the front gate without a wrist-band.

I swear, those rattlers have no scruples at all!*


*I almost wrote "snakes", but I want to be fair. Maybe mambas are better behaved. I don't know, never having seen one. Oh---and I almost forgot the signiture asterisk, which it seems to me Gary Bonds is gonna have to start paying me for the use of it, just my opinion.