THE FOLLOWING IS A FIRST PERSON ACCOUNT OF MY TRIP TO LIGONIER PA. THE WRITER IS A TWISTED SOUL (PEDRO) WHO SEES THROUGH APRICOT GOGGLES. HE IS THE GONZO WRITER RESIDENT OF THAT TOWN, A CYCLIST AND A LIBRARIAN OF OBSCURE MUSIC TRIVIA. PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK..... USE YOUR DECODER RINGS KIDDIES.
the
irish-floridian brothers were ostensibly in town to help their cousin George
pack his worldly belongings (including wife, kids, cats) for their move to
Colorado. But if you were to ask Davey’s
guitar, she’d say that everything they do
is for the music…Were you to pose the same question to his younger brother
Terry, the enfant terrible of a sextet of Clark dudes, he’d pull you into a
swirling vortex of explication,
positing sound dynamics, voodoo, and marihuanical standard
deviations.
After 20 hours of
Ameri-roading from Tallahassee, the brothers made it to cousin John’s hacienda
in the hollow here in the wilds of Pennsyltucky. John is better known in these parts as Ratzo,
Rat, The Ambassador of Boulder (AoB), but his most accurate appellation is “The Mayor of Unsavory Characters”. It is
this phalanx of philosopher-madfolk with whom we would cavort for two evenings
of music, intoxicants, and confabulation.
On Thursday afternoon, Rat,
el terrible, and I (Pedro) suited up for a mountain bike ride. Terry’s more of a cross-country/road wheeler
while we are of the Genus/species Houndus rockus.
But the kid rode like Pegasus, flew atop tombstones like Icarus, Christ
almighty he rode like a serpentining ellipsis…And we didn’t take it easy on him,
either, subjecting him to the treacherous Blood n’ Guts trail, the unrelenting
Wolf Rocks loop, and the bone-jarring Wraparound. Back at the car, we traded musical parries,
the enfant preferring his southern soulers, me offering Torontonians…we toasted
the good life and tried to let the other raconteur finish his story (this is a
particular failing of mine)…
on Friday, we met again,
not on the trails, but on the ramp to a moving van. The brothers, having drunk and sung their
souls silly the night prior, evinced bedragglement. They’ve been at it for hours and the truck is
62.5% full, but the packing of finery will be left to the felines. They make a quick exit (was it something I
said? halitosis? spectral castigators?) and Jorge makes a trip to the bank. I’m left in the kitchen, alone save for my
music files, and it feels like I’m
moving. Last time our family moved was
august ’98, a new record for me…16 years in the same house, same town, same
socio-scene…George returns. We load some of my shakily-packaged boxes &
reduce storage capacity by perhaps 5.8% and wrestle with a glass top display
case, an artifact from his former alliance w/Rat in the goldsmythe
thing…
Later that evening Davey, el terrible, and the Rat sit atop picnic tables under the pavilion behind the Runaway (home to the unsavory lads)…Bridey & I have made the short trip up from town – she caught a few Davey O’Clark songs the night before and has bravely opted to be on the scene, though she hasn’t been up here since her teens, when it was called Larry’s Lair and Rat and Flip used to serve her coterie of lovely lasses before their time…
The crowd swells
to a dozen. Bridey politely declines
when offered pipe, then joint, then pipe.
Never a toker, she opines, “I do like the smell.” Eventually, even
stoners get the hint. David O’Clark sports a smile that warms the evening air as
happy musicianodos split their time between the fire circle and the pavilion. I
remain devoted to the man, listening carefully to his keen choices, occasionally
closing my eyes to accentuate the aural. I dutifully detail a list of songs on
my phone, and offer them here for your perusal:
Song
Composer
Does She Mention
My Name? (i) Lightfoot,
Gordon
Past the Point of
Rescue
Hanly, Mick
Blue Eyes Crying
in the Rain Rose,
Fred
Pancho and
Lefty
Van Zandt, Townes
I Was Only
Joking
Grainger, Gary & Stewart, Rod
Colorado
Roberts, Rick (Flying Burrito Bros.)
Landslide
Nicks, Stevie
Everything That
Glitters (Is Not Gold) Seals,
Dan
Back Home in
Derry
Sands, Bobby (R.I.P.)
Wreck of the
Edmund Fitzgerald
Lightfoot, Gordon
Missing You
Moore, Christy
Natives Grace
Ronan
Here Comes the
Sun Harrison,
George
Don’t Close Your
Eyes
Whitley, Keith
Did She Mention My
Name? (ii) Lightfoot,
Gordon
Sweet Baby
James
Taylor, James
Teach Your
Children
Nash, Graham
When You Say
Nothing at All
Overstreet, Paul & Schlitz, Don
San Francisco Bay
Blues
Fuller, Jesse
Wayfaring
Stranger
Trad.
Danny Boy
Weatherley, Fred E.
Amazing Grace Newton, John
Old Man
Young, Neil Trilogy:
On the Way
Home
The Needle and the
Damage Done
Toby’s Holler
Travelin’ Man
Fuller, Jerry
The Stevie Nicks
cover is delicious, for he has found a way to match his baritone to the
loveliness of the melody. Personally, I
favour the Peter Green days when Fleetwood Mac rumbled and roared, so it’s a
revelation and I find new respect for the song. The Rod Stewart number has a
similar appeal. You don’t hear it very
often in these days of satellite radio, Pandora, Spotify, 180 gram vinyl, and
24/7 access to all the music ever digitized…It’s a remarkable song, and
O’Clarkie’s penchant for inhabiting a tune shines on, crazily…the night air is
beatified, and we wake to discover was just a faerie tale…
Saturday, I get a text
message: (WE ARE AT RUNAWAY...DAVEY IS PLAYING..GIT YER ASS DOWN HERE!)
I’ve just returned
from a hellacious-by-design ride with el otro amigo – Rosco…he had to miss Friday’s fun as his boy
was graduating from hs…we pounded thru some rock gardens on our way up and
bombed down at speeds we don’t normally attain, but ‘twas a glorious Saturnalia
in June…
I decide I can
make an appearance at The Runaway, but after a couple of songs a local Grimm
feller pulls a custom dulcimer resonator from a velvet sheath – and I know I
can’t leave…
the afternoon
becomes a seisun – and I’m transported to Waterford, Ireland, or Galway, or any
of those places where music grows in the spring…Davey trots out some from the
night before, the tunes now more alive with an audience of happy hoisters, mild
tobacco smoke replaces Friday’s humo…
Vince, an acoustic
bluesman, gives us “Keep on Truckin’”, as though he had made a pact with Jorma
to possess the Hot Tuna mojo…Grimm man digs in on “Pancho & Lefty” and the
whole bar howls, “all the federales say they coulda had him any day” and “pancho
needs your prayers it’s true but say a few for lefty, too” and, for an hour,
maybe 90 minutes, we’ve got heaven on earth, dark pub on a sunny day with the
neighboring woods’ resplendence buoying
our interdependence…but perhaps the music is the sun and we’re the flora,
photosynthesizing the heat of the guitar strings and the light of the patrons’
eyes…
Traveling south on
Rt. 81 in Virginia, the irish-floridian’s car engine quits. el terrible enfant steers it onto the nearest
pull-off as semis shake the Volkswagen. Bang, bang goes something in the
trunk. The elder sibling intones, “I’ll
handle this, el hermano diminutivo,” and Terradude pops the trunk. “Oh, Jaysus,
she’s done it again,” moans the troubadour. The Martin has popped the lid to its
case, the tuning keys releasing their strings so they’re able to slither out and
pry the clasps open. “I’m gonna have to play her,” Davey announces solemnly as
he re-strings her, praying for the patience of a luthier.
He’s all played
out. Played out on playin’. Played out on singin’. Played out on
collaboratin’. Played out on
drinkin’. Played out on drivin’. But, never, never, are these two
siblo-conspirators played out on music.
The first notes
remind him of a dream he had sleeping at Casa Linda on their last night in the
valley. “Hey, listen to this. I dreamt this song,
chords and lyrics.” He strums
plaintively and sings;
I’m tired
I’m tired
tired of
Tallahassee
tired of the
city
wanna live
up
on a mountain
slope
where everyone
grows
uber-dope
the fauna are
fair
and the
people
never
despair
up
among
the
conifers
and black
bears
where the
wind
whispers
secrets
only the
cognoscenti
can
hear
“You put fucking
cognoscenti in a song!,” critiques
Terry. “No, I didn’t. She did,” says
Davey and he points to his old friend.
They get out and
find a deer trail that leads to a large boulder by a stream. Back among the ferns and philodendron,
Terra-brother starts to feel the strain of the road slip into the
ether…
Davey O’Clark
looks up, smiles, and begins to strum: “I’m tired…”
PEDRO....
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