Hawks

“Grapevine” hit Number #1 on the Freeform American Roots chart this week. FAR charts are compiled from reports sent in by actual DJs with freeform (i.e. no playlists) radio shows on public, college and community stations round the country (and world).  Each of them lists the six albums they took most pleasure in playing, one of which can be their Album of the Month.  Many thanks to all the DJs who are playing us.

Three gigs in Nashville. We start off at Billy Block’s Western Beat at the Exit Inn. Cool place. Big room. Good acts. Billy gives us a great introduction to Nashville, explains to the audience what California country music is and that it exists. Billy is a good friend to the Hawks (see FOOD IN USA). The room sounds good, there’s a nice crowd. Folks dig it. Nashville is surprisingly welcoming to this skeptical band. Everyone is very nice, the band gets lots of praise, people hand us their business cards and shake our hands. Maybe we were wrong about this place all along?

No. We were not wrong. As the week goes along the darkness starts to creep in. Nashville has shattered and terrified so many of the songwriters who have come here. It’s as if this town is the saddest casino on earth and the song writers just sit there at the Toby Keith/Tim McGraw/Faith Hill slot machine, putting years of their lives in the coin slot, waiting for some big artist to record one of their songs. The darkness rubs off on us and is hard to shake. Still, we manage to convert some of the natives. As we stand out in front of The Sutler, a car drives by cranking music. It’s only after several seconds that I recognize it as “Nicotine and Vitamin C.” They wave. Whoa. The gig at Douglas Corner’s with Richard Ferreira is a mixed bag. The room is great, Richard is great, but the crowd has gone somewhere else tonight. Perhaps to see the Hacienda Brothers, or Jim Lauderdale. There’s lots of competition in this town.

The alarm, if there was one, came much too early. But the Hawks were on time and on schedule. PM and SN checked out of the Al Qaeda Holiday Inn, drove over the George Washington Bridge, picked up PL and RW and got us on the road headed for Marble Valley Regional Correctional Facility. Traffic was light and the Hawks made it to the prison nearly on time. And we would’ve made it to if it wasn’t for a blatant error in our Mapquest directions. DO NOT TRUST MAPQUEST. Their directions are often not the shortest route, rely too much on freeways, and, in rare cases, lead you in exactly the wrong direction.

The MVRCF experience offered much more than we expected. We had prepared ourselves for a romantic, classic country prison gig. Well, maybe romantic is the wrong word. But prison is just scary. Damn scary. We were lead through several heavy doors that locked behind us. The first thing to hit you is the smell. Prisons, like high school locker rooms, smell like sweaty men. They smell bad. The jacked up guards at the central console confiscated our cell phones, cigarettes, nail clippers, and made jokes about how they were not going to let us out now that they had us locked in. These jokes were not funny. These guys know how to intimidate people.We were soon to learn why intimidation skills are important. The marched us out onto the exercise yard right there with the general population. Some shirtless men playing volley ball. Some shirtless men playing basketball. One very heavily tattooed shirtless man and his small posse strutting around the perimeter bad-vibing everyone, looking for a fight.

But it’s not the prisoners that are scary. In fact, the prisoners who came to our show were quite nice. The listened closely, clapped and cheered. They particularly liked our tunes with overt drug references. “40 pounds in the back of my van,” got the loudest hoots. It is the prison culture which is scary. It strips away the dignity from both the prisoners and the guards. These kinds of hardened power imbalances diminish us all, I’m afraid. The folks in Attica had some solid demands. I don’t think things have improved too much since the early 70s.The show ended, we shook hands with many of the inmates, packed up, took some photos and headed for the warm home of Carter and Chani. Quite an experience.

If the election were held today, and the national demographic reflected the four members of I See Hawks In L.A. exactly:
John Kerry would get 50% of the vote.
Ralph Nader would get 25%.
Michael Badenarik would get 25%
Who? You might be asking. Who the hell is–John Kerry?
Someday we might find out.

July 29, The Bronx.

Okay, so last night the Big Apple kind of kicked our ass, in the same way L.A. tromps on sensitive out of town bands—through jaded, cell phone augmented chatter in the back of the club,Was that whooping for a particularly hot solo? Nope, someone took a funny cell phone shot of his pals doing shots of Captain Morgan.

That’s cool. The big cities of this nation will eventually crouch in fear and awe before the mighty roots music caravans going forth from Los Angeles, like a fifth Crusade to the corrupt Infidel, firing RPGs at Clear Channel billboards polluting the I-10s and I-70s and frontage roads of the other 49 states, those unfortunate vast citizenries as yet not touched by the light of Americana California.Anyway. The other Hawks assure this writer (PL) that it was a fine show at the Rodeo Bar, and we prevailed. I yield to their clear-headed judgement.

Today, a long subway ride, Paul L. gets off the D line at 59th St/Columbus Circle, Rob stays on to 4th Street in the Village. Paul L. was treated to a salmon based feast from the Polkaman, Tony Patellis, from the late great Rotondi, who is now an irregular on the Sopranos and touring the world with a revival of West Side Story. Tony and Paul reminisced on their seven years as polka purveyors, with the usual bitter complaining about the failure of polka to break through to a mainstream audience.At that very moment, Rob, Paul M, Shawn, Shawn’s brother in law Mark, and friend Jim were touring Washington Square on foot. They encountered a young Caucasian, shirtless, spot diagnosed as insane by Paul M. The Caucasian told them that white men were terrified of their own orgasm. He then blessed the group with a Superball, and announced that “the hexagram is now complete.”

Band twilight rendezvous outside the Bitter End on Bleecker St., a Village institution christened by Woody Allen, Dylan, and every famous folk rocker who ever practiced his Maybelle Carter licks. The Hawks and Christina and Tom did acoustic sets, sounded great, tip o the hat to the soundman and system. Our fine Coles friends returned, this time relatively sober, some Didyks, and Rob’s large NYC posse, all contributing to a full house that felt like home. The Hawks were followed by Yowza ( www.yowza.com ), a pair of NYC rockers doing their debut on acoustic guitar. Both pointed out that you’re really naked when you play acoustic. Might be related to getting exposure in the clubs.Many sad farewells and embraces outside the Bitter End, local posses, Ortega band, Hawks going separate ways, Paul M. and Shawn driving back to the Ft. Lee 9/11 Holiday Inn for the thankless task of compiling Paul L. and Rob’s festering piles of miscellanea and shoving them into the Yukon. The guitarist and singer grabbed a last minute Ray’s pizza and got on the D train for that endless ride uptown.

The near-saintly Charles and Gina were still up, catching a History Channel special on torture and execution, which Rob and Paul L. eagerly fell into. We switched to the recap of the Democratic Convention, made it through the Spielberg promo film on Kerry the mad dog Cong killer/loving father, fell asleep as the Kerry daughters gushed on and on. Good thing we missed the Kerry speech, as we didn’t need electrifying at that late hour.Not to get all political, but isn’t it a little scary that the Convention hoopla gave Kerry a one point negative bounce in the polls? The Democrats are busy denying Nader admission to the convention and hiring a hit team to lure away his voters (good luck with the old hippies), making sure they don’t have to actually propose something new. Not very presidential.

Waffle House visit number 3, 4, or 5, opinions vary, then we hit the road north on I-95, which Rob pointed out is both the heavy drug trafficking route (we’re pleased to make our modest contribution) and where Michael Jordan’s father was killed in a rest stop. Better a rest stop than a rest home, Mr. Jordan. We hit some heavy rain, Ford Exploder over the side in a ditch, then another vehicle. They’ve got ditches here. Paul talked to Judge Hinson in Texas today, who said just mail in the check, no personal checks, please. Wachovia Bank won’t do money orders or cashiers checks, even if you give them cash, unless you have an account (only then do they Wachovia you).

Pulled into Richmond, great old city, Confederate capital with old brick Lucky Strike factory and a very tall column with a Confederate General gazing out on a hill behind the club, Poe’s Pub. We had the privilege of setting up the P.A. and sound checking ourselves, so now we have no one to blame but Paul Marshall for how it sounds, which is good. A drive through decaying/gentrifying downtown Richmond to the Radisson, at bargain Southern prices. Then something sad happened. Shawn drove the Yukon with its unusually high Sears SV-20 roof rack luggage compartment down into the Radisson parking lot, shearing off the SV-20. We took our bags out of the SV-20, tossed the crippled unit behind the Radisson dumpster, drove to the gig at Poe’s Pub. About 20 enthusiastic fans, including some old hippies who knew all our songs. One 60’s vet is a geologist, says that there’s a maverick theory that subterranean bacteria is actually the source of oil, not fossil animal and sea life as the conventional theory says. This triggered a long oil supply crisis discussion among Paul L. and the geologist that the rest of the band widely avoided.
The show was pretty good, very enthusiastic audience, talking afterwards it was gratifying to see how dialed in people are to the music and lyrics.

Shawn and Paul L. walked up the hill to a Civil War Soldiers And Sailors monument, the mysterious column overlooking Poe’s Pub. 20,000 Confederate troops were housed in tents in what was the world’s largest temporary hospital. We didn’t see ghosts, but eerie shadows of the Confederate soldier floated in the fog high above, lit by the monument lights. Beautiful old brick houses and cobblestone streets. Packed up, back to the Radisson. —–

We have 22 hours to get to a radio station in Charlotte, NC. We’re a little behind schedule, but we’re not sleep deprived. Tomorrow could be a different story.

We’ve crossed over into Humid America, where your clothes never quite dry out and you wonder how people lived without AC.What river was that? We’re in green, green Oklahoma, contented cows in green fields, silos, woods, not forests. Crossed a big river on a big bridge, could have been the South Canadian River, driver Paul M says we’re low on gas, should make it to Ft. Smith, Arkansas, 38 miles away. It was the Arkansas River. Big river.

We have seen many combo names on our trip, a la Texarkanada: Arkhola Cement Co on a big truck, towns of Texoma, and, uh, the others. We’re really hungry, but holding out for a Waffle House. Smothered potatoes, raisin toast, simple, honest architecture, a tall sign reaching out like a beacon in a green Oklahoma sea. I have a serious aversion to grits, always have, but I’m going to try Rob’s heavy dousing with Tabasco.

Eastern Oklahoma I-40 is devoid of food stops. We are so hungry that we’re going to write about food:—–

Our first run-in with the law is behind us. We were pulled over doing 81 in a 70 zone. Pretty lame ticket. PL was at the wheel. The cop was pretty cool though. He wasn’t condescending or power tripping. He called PL “sir”, PL called him “sir,” the ticket was written, PL was told to telephone Judge Hinton in the morning. Here’s his phone and address if you’d like to contact him for any reason:
Hon. W. B. Hinson
Pct. 1 (806) 248- 7444
P.O. Box 43
Groom, TX
79039

Then off we went. It was very civilized. Thank God, no shakedown. The sun is about to set here in Texas just east of Amarillo. The night speed limit is 65. PL winds it down to 74. We all agree that less than 10 mph above the limit is cool. Hope we’re right.

“Spare”
“STRIKE!”
“Nasty split.”
“Oh, shit.”
PM is bowling on his cell phone now. PL wonders if they have x-rated cell phones. PM thinks probably in Japan. I think he’s right.