The Hackensaw Boys : Rob

Smokey Fontaine is doing his best to maintain the Dirty Bird’s equilibrium on this lonely stretch of Utah interstate. Gusts of powerful wind, blown from the mouth of Zephyrus himself, attack our aging bus as it makes its way across this stark, lunar landscape. Pee Paw, on the other hand, is doing his best to disrupt what little equilibrium we are able to achieve by relentlessly sawing away at a particularly dissonant version of “Black-Eyed Suzie” on his Depression-era B&H fiddle. I’ve decided to add my own sort of chaos to moment with my Cold War-era Smith Corona manual typewriter—the tap, tap, tapping of the keys is audible but is simply no match for the great immense blasts of wind that buffet the poor Bird and her road-weary crew.

*Note: For an exceptionally raucous and thoroughly gratifying version of “Black-Eyed Suzie” see The Old Crow Medicine Show’s Greetings from WaWa. For a manual Smith-Corona simply frequent thrift stores and sooner or later you’ll find one.

My goal when we set out was to take advantage of this long drive to summarize the Hackensaw’s recent experiences at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. However, since I began typing this entry (somewhere around the word “manual” in the previous paragraph) my good friend and fellow Hackensaw, Dante J. has broken out in a horrible case of hives and is in desperate need of hydrocortizone. So what began as a leisurely drive through Mormon country has suddenly turned into a headlong rush to the nearest hospital some 50 miles away.

But such are the ways of the road. A clever man once observed: “There is time enough for anything to happen and everything to get done and that time is Now.” A second-class carpe diem spoonerism to be sure, but a wonderful description of why one should seize the day, not simply for self-advancement but for survival as well. Because if we don’t sieze the day, the day will surely seize us.

So while Dante J.’s normally unblemished skin of healthful youth gradually turns the color of a desert sunset and while we cruise purposefully to the nearest emergency room, I will attempt to relate the manner in which the Hackensaws passed their few days in Telluride, Colorado the full-time playground of the wealthy and once yearly Mecca for music lovers of slightly more diverse economic backgrounds.

Day 1

Following an all night drive from Denver, The Hackensaw Boys pulled into Telluride at 9am Thursday morning with a scant three hours to spare before their main stage performance. All the boys were first-time visitors to the town and like many before them were impressed by the spacious majesty of the surrounding terrain—sheer cliffs of rock studded with conifers, snow capped-peaks and melt-water falls gushing from the slopes. The town and its inhabitants—both of which can best be described as cozy, clean and cute, seem to be locked into hopeless aesthetic competition with their view and despite the town folk’s best efforts there is little doubt in this writer’s mind that if the whole village were suddenly to be wiped from the cleft of the valley the mountains and waterfalls would not suffer an iota and according to some folks I talked to that weekend would be much better off.

Having gone without sleep or bath for 36 hours Pee Paw looked somewhat more crusty than usual as he deftly maneuvered the Dirty Bird through the early morning concert-goers constantly crossing and re-crossing the main street, excitedly yelling to their friends about coffee shops, designer sportswear and the outrageous price of alcohol. We dispatched two representatives to discover our instructions and were told to drive backstage by following a golf cart down a narrow dirt road clogged by ATV’s, dazed music lovers and tour buses. Upon arriving backstage the road numb Hackensaws immediately and without remorse fell upon the catering tent’s breakfast offering like a pride of lions descending upon a group of crippled zebras.

Thusly fortified by banana pancakes, eggs, sausages, tortillas, assorted fruits and remarkably good coffee the band proceeded to spend the two hours remaining until show time by changing strings, changing clothes (the Kooky-Eyed Fox practically had a nervous breakdown trying to decide what to wear onstage), tuning bass fiddles, untuning banjos and all the while repeatedly pointing at the mountains and saying things like “Holy $%#@, look at that $%#@ peak,” and asking things like “What time do they start serving beer” and “‘How much will it cost?”

(Update from the Now: Having reached the town of Price, Utah we are currently making our way to the local hospital. Dante J.’s hue has stabilized at something more than a sunburn and something less than a steamed lobster. As I watch him struggle to resist the urge to scratch his swollen skin I can also see the Kooky-Eyed Fox sitting opposite scratching absent-mindedly and with great vigor in his crotch area)

We were to be the second act of the Telluride Festival and the day was cool, threatening rain when the Open Road Band took the stage to play their hour set. Some of the Hackensaws including myself were already nervous given the austere surroundings and reputation of the festival and our nerves were not assuaged upon realizing we would be following the impeccable bluegrass stylings of the Open Road Band. But follow them we did. My one clear memory of playing that set was looking out from the stage at the mountains and thinking, “Damn.”

Once we were finished there was little left to do but carouse backstage—alternately watching the other acts, munching on the catering (our rights to which we found would cease at the close of the day), drink from Kooky’s stash of dearly purchased vodka, and at five o’clock when the kegs were finally tapped embark upon a steady and willful consumption of high-octane Flat Tire amber ale.

*Note for curious: The beer deal backstage at Telluride is that you must purchase a cup for one dollar and from then on you may drink to satisfaction or sickness.

Of the day’s performers Tim O’Brien and Susan Tedeschi (whose soulful blues literally brought tears to my eyes) stand out most in my mind. I have a distinct memory of lying very drunk in my bunk with the curtain drawn and the window open, listening to a group of strangers gathered outside the bus vehemently debating the merits of various psychedelics. Thankfully sleep soon came to me and darkness enveloped the land.

Day 2

After 12 hours of uninterrupted sleep I awoke to find that Pee Paw would soon be relocating the Bird from the backstage area to a parking space immediately adjacent to the “Fly Me to the Moon Saloon” in Telluride proper where we were to perform an opening set for the Horseflies that night. As our catering privileges had expired the previous day I was forced to Jedi-mind trick my way into a light breakfast and a cup of coffee from the catering tent’s early morning staff. It was a beautiful Rocky Mountain day that alternated between slightly chilly and a little too warm depending on the sun’s position relative the broken clouds.

The Hackensaws passed the day peacefully (which is a very good way to spend any day) in such benign activities as gondola rides, going to the library, taking showers in the campground, and playing with any number of pickers who line the town’s streets during the festival weekend like so many crows on a telephone wire. At three o’clock most of us made our way over to the main stage to watch The Waifs perform and double check the keg tapping time (which was four o’clock that day). While watching the Waifs several people sat in front of Salvage, Ink E. and myself—I nearly asked them to move but am glad I didn’t because I found our later it was Emmylou Harris (the Queen of the festival) and her mother. Emmylou is reputed to be one of the nicest people in country music and might very well have honored my request by forcing her aged mother to relocate. I would have felt so guilty that only some extreme act of contrition could have ever brought peace my tormented soul.

That night the Hackensaw Boys got their shit together (despite renewed activity at the Flat Tire beer kegs) to put on a solid high-energy set at the “Fly Me to the Moon Saloon” that was marked by quite a bit of dancing on the floor, quite a lot of bitching on the stage and a fair amount of drinking all around. Our new friend, a swarthy North Carolina fiddle player named Ferd, sat in for a extra-long version of “Elzik’s Farewell” at the end of the set and helped us steer that particular ship to shore.

Later that evening, my level of intoxication exponentially greater than only a few hours before, I encountered Ferd and Pee Paw acting as sort of Kings of the Hippies as they sawed away at two hundred year old fiddle tunes to the unrestrained pleasure of a couple dozen unabashedly tripping zombies in the chilly, 3am Telluride streets.

*Note: For those of you who have trouble imagining Pee Paw as king of the hippies I would refer you to a black and white photograph that I’ve seen in he and Ruby Pearl’s apartment in which Pee Paw (before he met Ruby mind you) is standing next to a VW bus with hair to his ass, laughing his fool head off.

Personally, my last memories of that second night in Telluride are of stumbling back from the campground where roving bands of self-medicated musicians howled into the night and arriving at the bus where my nostrils were immediately assaulted by the interior funk—a byproduct of the two overly ripe coolers which had not been opened for several days and whose contents had given rise to new life forms in the fragrant primordial soup of melted ice, vegetable scraps, leftover breakfast sausage, soy milk and half&half leakage. Blindly and most certainly drunkenly I was struggling to extricate the two mammoth coolers when I was surprised by the Kooky-Eyed Fox who flitted up from the back of the bus in his signature white quilted cowboy dress shirt. An immense and fixed smile upon his face, the KEF materialized from the darkness like an enormous moth. This good fellow, moth tendencies aside, was only too glad to help me move the coolers outside the bus where they sat until the next morning when their contents and possibly a whole universe of microscopic life were unceremoniously dumped into a hardware store’s dumpster.

(Update from the Now: We are currently awaiting Dante J.’s release from the hospital. There have been reports that he was seen being led from the emergency room to the rear of the building with large electrodes strapped to his ears. More alarming than this unconventional Utah method for treating the hives is the lack of any attempt by the Hackensaw Boys to question it).

Day 3

After four hours of interrupted (by returning Hackensaws) sleep I awoke to hear Pee Paw saying we needed to “Git on down the road.” I knew full well that our next show in Park City was a full day’s drive away and I felt unequal to the task. A bagel and a cup of coffee restored my spirits, however, and lessened my total wealth by such a significant amount that I found my reticence to depart this overpriced paradise dissipating even as the morning chill dissipated in the rising Colorado sun. So, with coolers dumped, second cups of coffee acquired and goodbyes said we steered the Dirty Bird out of town leaving behind some good memories and a cloud of snow-white high altitude diesel exhaust.

(Update from the Now: Dante J. has been released from the hospital. Apparently the electrodes were more for pleasure and were not intended to actually treat the hives. The nasty outbreak, believed to have been brought on by a frozen gas-station burrito, seems to have run its course without need for medication and after some leisure time in the hospital’s very sanitary toilet (a rarity for bands on the road) Dante J. pronounced himself cured and checked himself out. So we continue, north by northwest and hope that better things than hives, frozen burritos and electrodes await us at journey’s end).

So gentle reader, we continue to hammer away at this most pipeful of pipe dreams and come what may you can be assured that Today, the demands of the present and the distance to the end of our collective nose, will remain not only our focus and most immediate concern but our religion as well.

Faithfully Yours,
Mahlon