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Monrovia — Topanga — Northward Again — Mother Teresa — Do Not Resuscitate — Victoria Upon Drum — Strawberry — Hail and Gypsies — Tea and Cookies — Main Stage Manias — Allison Krauss and Union Station — Revived at the Revival — Listening Ship — New Morning — An Afternoon of Shooting — Insulator Resonator

101, Marin County, north to rendezvous with the 5. Always the 5. An all American breakfast at the oustanding New Morning Cafe in Tiburon, followed by a golden triangle of bourbon, snuff, and that herb of ever changing legality; a quick pack, and we’re Yukoning it.

It’s day five of the I See Hawks In L.A. first tour of summer. Summer begins with the release of our lead singer from the rigors and responsibilities of university professorhood. The rest of us Hawks feel a contact lifting of spirits, a ghost of the schoolboy seasonal rhythms. No more teachers, no more books. Summer. And it’s only May.

Summer brings a new chapter of the Hawks saga in the person of Victoria Jacobs, Paul L’s wife. Victoria surfaces in brief moments from the Hawks earliest days: back cover photo of eponymous first CD; background vocals and tambourine on Humboldt; cover of Hallowed Ground and songwriter of “Open Door”; and occasional drums in the live show. And now she’s going to be our drummer on our Ireland/England tour in June. A thumping rock drummer whose bands have co-billed with The Red Hot Chili Peppers and toured with Iggy Pop, Victoria has learned the mysterious train beat that is the anchor of Hawks country rock, getting a crucial lesson from Shawn Nourse and nailing it in three weeks. A rather startling transformation. At rehearsal it grooved from the start.

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Our first gig with the Waller/Marshall/Lacques/Jacobs lineup is at the London Gastropub in the Noho of the San Gabriels, downtown Monrovia. It’s a good trial by fire. Difficult front door load-in through a gauntlet of iPhone people locked on the crucial (if basketball be crucial) Laker wide screen game and conversing at aggressive volume. Our 9 p.m. start time gets bumped by the inevitable slow agony of the Lakers defeat.* We have to set up the P.A., always a grim task, and we line up along one hard wall like prisoners about to be shot. We launch our first song over the roar of the crowd, who respond by upping the volume ante.

But we do rock. Snare and brushes, upright bass, two acoustic guitars. Victoria is a rock of rhythm. We’ve got our sound. Our diehard fans, bless ’em, huddle in front of the band and egg us on. Victory is snatched from the jaws of Lakerdoom.

*The turmoil in the deepest heart of Kobe Bryant will bring down (and raise up) the Lakers until he retires.

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Next day a sleep deprived band motors to Topanga Banjo and Fiddle Contest, in the hot hills that separate the San Fernando Valley from civilization and ocean breezes. It’s very hot. We run our second gauntlet in 12 hours, past parking guides determined to keep us away from our elite musician parking lot. We stand our ground. We’re waved in. The hills are yellowed out from a winter of little rain, dust dusts our shoes, and banjoes and fiddles battle it out on the wooden stage under the stern eye of the Judges in nearby tent, among them the most brilliant of them all, Brantley Kearns, taking copious conscientious notes. We hit the stage at 11:30 a.m., with powerhouse banjo/fiddler Cliff Wagner powering us into bluegrassland, a land we visit sporadically and humbly. The band powers through, gets a good response from the lawn chaired crowd. It’s time for a hot drive home and a nap.

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Three days later begins the tour, this tour of which we now blog, with a Wednesday late May drive up I-5 and 198 and 101 and 1 to Soquel in the sleepy hills of Santa Cruz. Paul L and Victoria leave a day early, hang with Paul’s mom, get the lowdown on the latest machinations of the local corrupt city hall, as Rob and Paul M power up the next day in the faithful Yukon. We meet at the Ugly Mug, an unfortunately named cafe that’s actually very cool, on a corner in laid back Soquel downtown. We have a groovy little semi-acoustic set. Semi-, because Paul L is still struggling/experimenting with his new Fishman piezo pickup in 1981 Takamine dreadnought with light gauge strings into L.R. Baggs pre-amp into Trace Elliot acoustic guitar amp. It just doesn’t sound like an acoustic guitar yet. But should it? We get a big psychedelacoustic sound, with Richie Lawrence adding sweet and sassy, er, muscular, accordion. The crowd is full or family and old friends. PL’s mom Teresa brings along a fine gentleman friend with a card pinned his sweater that reads Do Not Resuscitate — I’m Serious. He’s damn funny and we all admire his courage and spirit. It’s a good start to the trip. Our combo is ready for our next stop, the Big Stage at Strawberry Festival.

We pack up and sneak out of Soquel at 9 p.m., Paul L caravanning in the family CRV behind the Hawks Yukon as Victoria catches some shuteye in Santa Cruz. A darkened sleep battling dash over the Santa Cruz mountains, eastward across the San Andreas, eastwarder across the San Joaquin, through midnight in Manteca, up into the Sierras on black and winding roads under bright stars. The last hour is rough. We’re beat. We lumber into Camp Mather, home of the legendary Strawberry Music Festival, in the deep woods at 2 a.m. We’ve been thinking about this weekend for months. It’s a mark that (maybe, just possibly) you’ve arrived if you’re on that big stage at the Strawberry Festival. For months our fellow musicians and fans have been letting us know: “Strawberry–wow.”

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Our first weary-induced impression is murky. The skeletal 2 a.m. staff is uncertain of what to do with us. An ambulance whines past. There’s been a (singular, as it proves to be) altercation in a tent. Young hardened outdoor mountain people are doing cartwheels by lantern lamp outside their tent, comfy in t-shirts and tats in the chilly mountain air. Late night volunteers on golf carts escort us down narrow lanes among thousands of tents nestled into trees and darkness, winding, searching. We find cabin 119. We unload to the sound of distant banjo and fiddle. We survey the spartan room, pick beds, crash hard.

Five hours later Rob’s alarming smartphone alarm wakes us. Whoa. This feels challenging. We dress, unwashed and unawake. It’s very cold outside, somewhere in the 30s or low 40s. Our kind volunteer escort, Mary from San Francisco, trucks us and gear down winding trails, as we get into a little of the SF vs L.A. wordspar (we vainly try to dispel Mary’s firm vision of L.A. as packed with augmented breasts and faces), to the Amphitheater stage for our first show, a workshop with the theme Geographical Songwriting. Of course we’ve prepared nothing in advance for this general notion that Rob’s cooked up, so there’s the nervous energy of that, but we’re also confident in Rob’s finely honed art of guided conversation. It’ll be good.

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We unload at the stage, where an energetic gypsyesque rock band rocks a super enthused and winterized crowd under cruel and leaden skies. It’s 9 am. These are the Strawberry regulars, the people who live and breathe music, without whom there is no forest to catch the sound of the falling tree. They love the gypsy band. The scene feels like a gathering of old friends, though new this friendship be. Hmm. How do these players move their fingers over mandolins and guitars in the chilled morning air? How do we follow this?

We set up on the wood plank stage, flex frozen fingers, and hit it. We play our geographical songs, the audience whoops it up with us, we catch a little fire. And then, as we launch into Humboldt, a distant fire, the sun, drops in for a moment, and the meadow brightens, and a hail* falls upon us, white spheres brilliant in the light above us, bouncing off our guitars, and the guided madness of this place hits us. We’re playing in a hail shower. Now it’s snowing.

Strawberry Music Festival is a living legend. And it lives as legend, as a legend would live. Play in the snow, and dig it. These things happen up here, and they are the things you’ll remember in your dotage. The traditions, the infinite musical moments disappearing into the ether of forty years in the woods, the credo of cooperation, filter into your day as a Strawberry day passes. We’re entering a state of tree heightened awareness.

We hang at the stage with friends and, yea, some new fans, sign CDs, and get trucked back to cabin 119, where we try to snatch back some missing hours of sleep. Spurned Morpheus deigns to decline our invitation, and we slumber little.

*some locals call this unusually fluffy light hail “snow corn.”

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In the afternoon a thicker, heavier snow falls as we walk through the camp, get checked in at the Main Stage, a wide flat green meadow tucked into forest slopes, a modestly stunning sight. Lush and fertile. We walk to Wildflower Meadow and Eric and Christina Rice’s caravan yard, a full blown T-Party rocking the grassy campsite. The tailer/pop-up tent scene is elaborately decorated in fancy tea-party style. Except the tea pots are filled with quality tequilas. And there are some special molasses cookies, fine baked by a Mendocino grower that are dangerously delicious. Lubrications takes hold quickly. We play a no mic acoustic show as our KVMR friends and friends of friends and their companions piled into the yard, sampling sophisticated tequilas poured from Olde English teapots into teacups. The idea of cold has faded. Was it cold? We’re adjusting to a new, post-warm reality. The tequila helps. But our tribe, our fine friends in their elaborate hats, that’s where the real warmth emanates.

We wander from camp to camp, indulging and conversing as the day remains steadfastly chilly and gray. The campgrounds are densely packed with tents, cars, colorfully appointed compounds layered with the whimsy of 30 years. People have met their wives and husbands here, married here, and come every year with their children, who race madly down mud paths on bicycles, climb into the giant metate on a rock outcropping. There is not an ad or corporate sign to be seen, and your cell phone won’t help you here, my friend. We are in this together, as snow flurries and hail hails as the sun allegedly makes its path to the horizon.

The remaining 2/5 of our band, accordionist Richie and drummer Victoria, with Richie’s wife Katie, arrive in early evening followed by the Waller family. They get their artiste wristbands, we dine behind the big stage in alpenglow as Joan Osborne’s crack ensemble fills the valley. We head back to cabin 119, and shelter from the the cold. There are tempting jams going on in the camps and in a brightly lit public washroom, and everyone sounds great, jembes played with taste, double-stop fiddle champs, and some burning banjo. How do they do it? Top caliber bluegrass jams, these folks should have a spot on a Strawberry stage (but then all the Strawberry is a Stage, and we but players on it), cranking out tune after tune until three in the morning in just above freezing tents. These people are superhumans. It puts our own whimpering about the cold into perspective, and we’ve long since given that up.

The midnight trek in long johns down a dark path to distant communal bathhouse becomes no big deal. We’ve been outdoors all day, and are starting to breathe into it, as the Old Californios say. But enough is enough for Rob and the Two Pauls. We need sleep. Richie joins some sessions, but the rest of us Hawks are too sleep deprived. We crash pioneer family style in the cabin, Waller children and Hawks and Hawks wives on the spartan beds or just outside in a tent. It’s pretty fun, an extended family for the night.

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Saturday dawns, and we breakfast in the big hall, serenaded by local folk and bluegrass bands including the great Doug Blumer and his band Bohemian Highway. We’re instant brothers with these cats. Barbee sings and grooves along center stage with BH and she’s signs up to help us manage our poorly managed merchandise at the big stage. We’re deeply grateful. We get in a rehearsal in the cabin, guitars, bass, accordion, and snare drum, and the groove feels good. We’re ready for our big stage debut. We eat a nervous early dinner in the musicians’ tent behind the main stage. A sea of lawn chairs surrounds the island of stage, light, big speakers.

We’re about to haul our guitars onstage when a shiny big rig pulls up, backs in, unloads, pre-empting our sound check. It’s a not-to-be-named, focus-group-constructed, alt-country band straight outta Nashville, and their serious crew make sure we’re kept far from the stage as they wheel an alarming amount of gear up the ramp to stage. They follow us in the evening’s events and seem to have been placed here as a result of some Nashville corporate blood oath, (or maybe we’re just pissed about our pre-emption?) but they’re running late and have grabbed what would have been a leisurely sound check for the Hawks.

Time passes. Hmm, this isn’t just a load-in. Are they line checking? We lurk in our tent, hear the electric guitarist and the drummer noodling in jazz fusion style. The whole band eventually kicks in. Wow, they’re doing a full on sound check. Are they out to get us? Pre-performance paranoia is as typical as the Sierra snows but this is different. Is this some kind of battle? Are they our musical enemy, the furthest reaching tendrils of the Nashville Death Star with its faux populism and compressed bombast? Stay on target. It’s no good I can’t maneuver! Stay on target. We’re too close! Stay on target!

We get that brief and longed-for sound check, and we’re off, to a big crowd on the majestic meadow and all is quickly great. The sound crew here as everywhere in the fest are top notch and icy cool, dial in our sound. They knew just how much time they needed. We rock the place acoustic style, Victoria laying down her ultra solid beat on snare and ride cymbal, Richie digging in on solos, our vocals sounding big league in the big league signal path. We get an encore, and float off the stage as the sun goes down. Things couldn’t have gone better.

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It’s dark. It’s cold. The crowd is massed in darkness around the main stage. No corporate lighting here, just the glow of the hardiest elements of hippie nation. Allison Krauss and Union Station hit the stage in casual style. This band is good beyond belief. Each player is a virtuoso, and the ensemble is selfless, complex but uncluttered textures, rich. Are there really only five people on stage? They sound like an orchestra. Allison Krauss is subtle but forceful on fiddle, sings more angelically than ever, is funny and dark in stage banter, and generously shares spotlight time with all the players, who could and do front their own bands. Dan Timinski is a solid and driving old school guitar flatpicker in addition to being the voice of George Clooney, and they bust out Man Of Constant Sorrow with a glee that belies the thousands of times they’ve had to play the song. Timinski’s harmonies are spine chilling. This is the best harmony singing in the land, a land that includes Welch/Rawlings and the Chapin Sisters. Haunting, lovely, haunting. Jerry Douglas takes a solo turn and does things on dobro that are not decipherable. How does he do it? What is he doing?

The band come out for an encore with just a single condensor mic, like the old bluegrass radio days, and sound at least as good as the fussy miking and pickups version, do a long old timey set that includes Your Long Journey, a monumental song from the days of our direct link to death and the divine. The Union Station bus is down the road and out the gate before the crowd can catch their breath. Godspeed. We filter out with the crowd, down darkened wooded and campered lanes to good old Cabin 119. Even more kin are packed into the cabin tonight, as it’s just as cold and maybe colder than last night.

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It’s Sunday morning. Alleluia. Blue, blue skies greet us as we emerge cautiously from our warren. And it’s warm. We’re woodswise and acclimated to our mud caked jeans and dusty boots. We do a bit of cleaning, sweep the dust from the cabin, some packing, then walk down a lane to the lake for our Gospel morning show. The lake in soft green meadow is perfectly still and glassy, the trees in reflection as real as their counterparts above. We dig into the danish and coffee on tables behind the temporary stage, are handed Bloody Marys by a buddy who’s been writing us in on the Band Suggestion form for the last six years. We accept the perfectly spicy drinks without hesitation, tune up, play a few warmup songs in the meadow. First up before the big audience, an audience that rose at dawn to pick out choice lawn chair acreage, is Tim Snider, part of the new generation of virtual folkies, laying down loops through the laptop computer in his onstage anvil encased sound rig, chanting good vibe lyrics and launching into wicked electric fiddle solos. Tim invites Paul L on dobro and Richie on accordion for an extended jam on Bill Wither’s “Lean On Me,” and the crowd digs it.

The Hawks hit the stage acoustic miked, another great sound dialed up instantly, and we play our version of Sunday revival music. Zola, Rob’s daughter, has requested “River Run,” Evangeline has just requested “I See Hawks In L.A.,” and we close out with “If You Lead I Will Follow” and “Spirit of Death.” This is the Gospel According to Hawks, and we feel the vibrations sink into the earth and scatter to the skies. Have we made ecclesiastical peace between our doubting minds and our longing hearts? During “I See Hawks In L.A.” we do our customary acapella “do you watch clouds disappear?” and the crowd hollers in the pregnant pause. Serendipity under the first blue skies in four days.

Eric Rice, master electrician zen master and towering spirit of Strawberry, gives us a lift in golf cart to the main stage, where we grab our CDs; we hightail it back to cabin 119, pack, bid complex farewells to wives, children, and extended kin. We hit the trail and the road, Paul L and Victoria caravanning behind the Yukon Manteca/99 bound, Katies and Richie and kids staying behind. Down into meadows, down into dryness and chapparal, into the baked yellow grass flats and a dash westward. At a $4.19 Arco, Paul L climbs into the Yukon, Victoria heads south. The trio Hawks are Sebastopol bound, north, west, north, west, zigzagging Sacramento river delta roads, feeling mellow and more than a little ragged.

May we offer one more big thanks and bigger admiration for the Strawberry staff and their rich tradition and effortless appearing doing of things right and righteous? And add thanks to our KVMR extended family for clearing the way and guiding us to the gold and hills. And thanks to the overworked guardian angel who fixes our foibles and leads us to way more good and foolish times than we deserve.

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Sunday afternoon is mellow as we motor west, north, west, back roads zig zag from the 99, spot the foothills that rise quite abruptly at the western edge of the central valley and usher in a mysterious and genteel culture that we don’t quite understand but want to know better. Who are these farmers of these sprawling gentle fields with grazing cattle and wise oaks? Napa Sonoma is mysteriously unspoiled, with few incidents of eye averting disposable architecture. The hills draw us deeper, the vineyards glow in late afternoon light.

We follow complex directions down narrow lanes through wood frame house and storage shed estates to Studio E, just past the barn abutting the road, amidst chickens and cacti. Laurie Schaefer greets us, bassist/producer/E kingpin Jeff shows us around, top notch sound man Peter dials up a crystalline acoustic mics only sound, we are wined and gourmet dined in the cozy kitchen, some sisters and L.A. origin friends and cousins show up, and we have one of those intimate shows that keep us going in the uncertain and perilous world of the Music Download Era. The sound in the room is pure pleasure and we sail upon its calm seas, thank you, Peter, and the audience is with us on every word and phrase.

We bid another complex round of farewells, dash backtrack southward for the free and comfy lodgings of the senior Waller house in Marin. We crash hard once again. Now we’re truly beat.

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And now we are returned, or planted, Pulp Fiction style, at the origin of this diary. Morning in Marin, decent night’s sleep, New Morning Cafe breakfast, right? A few more details: the tobacco shop off the 101 is closed for Memorial Day, so no sampling of new snuff varieties. We fly up the 5 into Oregon. Near Grant’s Pass we divert into a mysterious transverse range unknown valley, through the town of Jacksonville, OR, home of a brief separatist rebellion against the federal government that was ended only by WWII and the need for violence against a more distant foe. A long and mellow oak and madrone fields drive down a two lane road of no traffic brings us to the five acre compound of Brian and Sue, long time friends of Paul M. These are intense and complex people. Sue has an English degree from UCSB but plunged recklessly 70s style into the world of homesteading, forestry, and deep knowledge of woodland flora and fauna. Brian is a self described radical hippie, singer/songwriter, wanderer, mechanical engineer, surfer, and avid gunsmith.

Brian and Sue are six solar panels and an artesian well away from being off the grid. Their house is set against wooded BLM land, insuring them from any bulldozer invasion for the forseeable future. They make us an elegant dinner and we jam into the night with Brian, trading off on dobros and guitars and old time tunes.

Next morning–two nights in a row of full sleep, and we’re feeling sane again–Sue conjures divine eggs and pancakes. Brian’s got a gleam in his eye. Are we ready for some shooting?

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The Hawks are ready for some shooting. All three have fired guns from a young age, Paul M is a card carrying NRA member, and Rob and Paul L share a lust for havoc and blowing things up that’s a classic dichotomy/accessory to their hippie ethos. Perhaps there’s no conflict here. We don’t mean no harm.

Brian leads us up the path into the woods, where targets of cardboard, metal disc hanging from tree, an iron tombstone in the dirt, and an array of logs balanced upright on tree stumps await at distances from 30 to 60 yards uphill in the narrow clearing. Two of us don noise muffling ear covers. Brian and Rob stuff .45 bullets into their ears. What shall we sample first? Like a sommelier of shootistry, Brian crafts a carefully constructed menu. We start with a 1955 Smith & Wesson big black .45 revolver, brutal in its unadornedness. This thing is heavy. Paul M goes first, hitting the black target with all six shots. We’re quite impressed. Rob hits three out of six, Paul L hits two out of six. We move on to the 1911 Colt .45 semi-automatic pistol with a pull back clip. This one’s even heavier, with a noticeable kick. You want to aim and shoot quick, or your arm will get tired and your hand will quiver.

This is all feeling very good. The Hawks all have good gun etiquette (finger off trigger, point barrel up and away when not shooting, never cross the barrel across a person in front of you, announce what you’re doing, ask questions) and we settle into a relaxed bullet-bonded bonhomie. Next comes a .9 millimeter British folding stock semi-automatic submachine gun. The Hawks are more at home here in rifled barrel territory, and take out targets with pretty damn good accuracy. Most satisfying are the logs balanced on tree stumps. Boom! Those suckers spin, stagger, and go flying. The orgy climaxes with a pristine but cranky 1920’s Thompson machine gun complete with circular drum magazine, yes, dear reader, the fabled Tommy gun. The Hawks and Brian consistently nail their targets. Rob goes on a particularly impressive rampage, rapidfire taking out stumps in quick succession, barrel smoke flying, metal targets clanging. When the dust settles, not an inanimate object remains standing.

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We depart the homestead satisfied, thank you Sue and Brian, wind our way to and up the 99 to the uneventful 5, hit Portland at the end of a Tuesday afternoon. We check into the clean and functional Red Lion Inn in the flight path of deafening incoming jets, drive hooker festooned Avenue 82, cross tracks that slingshot us into immaculate vintage homes with comforting old trees, the Portland of our dreams and aspirations.

The LaurelThirst pub is as comfortable as its surroundings venerable scarred brick within and without, damn good pub food (oh how you wish you could generate such gravitas, Umami Burger, you overhyped fraud), young and old elbow to elbow with a refreshing lack of age consciousness. A local tells us that Portland attracts the wistful introvert, but these folks are robust, notes of log, barge, and Masonic hall. An exhaustive beer selection. We play to a small but friendly Tuesday night crowd and plot ways to crack this fine nut called Portland once and for all. We’re still very much outsiders here.

Luckily, whiskey is your friend. In good times and bad.

I don’t need

Much whiskey

Just enough to put me to sleep

In the night

That’s not all right

When my thoughts run dark

And deep

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Where are we, dear reader? From whence now originates this narrative? We’re heading east from Portland on I-84 for an informal house concert in Richland, OR. We’ve had a fine breakfast at the Detour in a pocket of hippest Portlandia. But we’re eastward of all that’s green and urbane. The terrain becomes dry sage, lava flows mutter on distant ridge, the road follows the barge laden Columbia River past two huge gray eminences of hydroelectric dams, wind buffets the Yukon, the land is weary and engineered and long overworked. Rob reads the final paragraphs of Anna Karenina on his unusually smart phone as the miles unfold. What has he learned? Feeling trumps the unanimity of intellect. Morality comes from God. Love and vanity are so often tragically intertwined. Sometimes suicide is the honorable and moral choice. Rob reads us an iPhone article about Obama’s massive pot intake in his Hawaii days. This is the President now waging war on medical marijuana clinics with a vengeance, after promising in the ’08 campaign to leave them alone. Is our president a sociopath, or merely a craven phony trying to eliminate Ambien and Prozac’s organic herbal competitor? And who are the mysterious Camry drivers with fresh Obama 2012 stickers on their rears? Are only the Tea Partiers and the far left awake these days?

Such are our thoughts on lean and mean terroir. And the Yukon gently lets us know that its tank will soon be empty. There’s been a quite long stretch of no amenities or roadside attractions. A key part of the Hawks roadmodus is to flirt with running out of gas, and this time it just might happen. Ah, but no. Our guardian angel won’t give us the satisfaction. At lonely Boardman, OR (lonely as Kip Boardman? do we exaggerate?), a Shell gas station stands sentinel. And because this is Oregon, an espresso hut sits buffeted by the sage wind. A gentle rez maiden with brightly silvered nails rings us up amongst the fishing magazines and on the fringe vending machine temptations.

The Hawks have never been to eastern Washington. Richland is at the confluence of three rivers: Columbia, Yakima, Snake. Yet for all that water coming together the hills are treeless and parched. The climate is reminiscent of a cooler Palm Springs. The main industry of the area has been nuclear power, from plutonium for Fat Man to electric plants. Hanford Reactor B of Manhattan Project fame is nearby. Today the big jobs are in remediation, cleaning up the 60 year old mess. We arrive in town to meet up with PM’s friend and Strawberry Alarm Clock archivist Jeff Ziemer and to play a concert at his home. Jeff is surprisingly young (34) for being such an expert on late 60s psychedelic rock. We get checked in at the hotel and get a call from Jeff. It’s urgent that we come to his parents house to begin eating and drinking. Setting up the PA can wait. This is going to be a happening scene, man.

Sure enough, bottles of local Deschutes Brewery IPA and a golden moscato appear before we’ve shaken off the dust, and the barbeque is smoking. We meet Jeff’s vibrant parents, Paul and Cheryl, and their warmth is like a comforting blanket that says Hawks are welcome here. A waddling 80 lb. basset hound named Armani with sad, bloodshot eyes adds a touch of comedy and completes the picture of backyard bliss. Jeff’s dad Paul has an amazing power line insulator collection that we delight in. The Hawks themselves have collected insulators in the high desert and RW recently fashioned one into a lamp. There are several solid layers of common ground here. These are the kinds of surprises that make life on the road livable.

Weeks ago, Jeff had the ambitious notion to book us in Richland on our night off between Portland and Seattle. Turns out, booking a band in Richland, WA on Wednesday night is not as easy as one might think. After trying the local honky-tonks, community centers, ladies’ auxiliaries, and fraternal lodges, and getting lots of thanks but no thanks, he decided to take a bold step. He’d just throw a party for some friends in his backyard and have us play there. So crazy that it just might work!

So, after our feast, we head over to Jeff’s house, where we wrestle the rented PA into a kind of submission, and play two rocking acoustic sets as the evening glow turns into a darkness without chill. Between the sets, PM offers an acoustic version of “Incense And Peppermints” to bring the Strawberry Alarm Clock connection full circle. It goes OK, but it really comes together when PL and RW join in on the ending “sha-la-la”s. Jeff beams with satisfaction, and the gathered crowd revels in the moment. Just a band making friends. Richland has provided.

Not . . . too . . . hungover. Not bad. Where are we? We are at the Quality Inn in outer Greer, South Carolina. The two Pauls are roomies. They rise in intervals an unknown duration apart. Next door are Rob and his longtime buddy from Duke, the estimable Buck Schall, or Buck Shall as we like to call him. Buck’s wife Liz and the boys drove back to Asheville last night and Buck has bunked down with us in a return to his freewheeling youth, and his quinquennial conjugal visit with Rob.

Miraculously, we are packed, relatively cleaned up, and in the Camry before noon. We drive five blocks, and, what have we here? It’s a Waffle House, the Waffle House of last night’s deliverance from evil. Do we stop? Oh, yeah. Breakfast #2 at the Waffle is just as good as yesterday’s. Pure country rock goodness. We’re surrounded by thick regional accents that give us a warm anti-facebookgoogle glow, and are feeling smothered, covered, peppered, and home free.

Buck takes the wheel. He’s a solid driver, fast and purposeful, and we’re in Asheville in no time. Another bright day, now with poetic clouds that augur whatever they might augur. We hang at chez BuckLiz, play soccer and atonal guitar with the twins, and suddenly, it’s 3 p.m. Time for the foray into town in search of Asheville’s finest espresso based beverage. We scramble down a wooded slope behind Buck’s house, come out on a dirt road shaded by towering trees. Slumbering peacefully, like an alligator after a huge meal, hidden from potentially scandalized neighbors, its beige skin blending in perfect camouflage with the woods, is Buck (and Rob’s) 1968 Pontiac Bonneville station wagon. Purchased for $400 for a cross country drive to San Francisco (where the wanderers ran out of money and got jobs, their fate decided by necessity and their own Visions of Cody), later bored out to 440 cubic inches by a mad motorcyclist mechanic, this beast from the heartland has achieved a patina and gravitas only gained by exposure to the elements and the recklessness of the human heart.

Buck fires up the Bonnie, which rumbles menacingly as we wind down the dirt road onto civilized pavement, Asheville cite bound. Now Buck fully channels Neal Cassady, powering past all modern sensible combustion craft, through glen and parkway and over the French Broad River. There are no seat belts. We are free. We rummage through the rust and back seat detritus, find relics. Buck’s hippie mom’s 1960s owl necklace; a 50 caliber machine gun bullet; an alligator claw; and a tin of Dental Sweet Snuff, in archaic packaging one might have found in Schwabs of Memphis before Beale Street’s Disneyfication.

Snuff. Snuff said. Do we dip? Of course. If you present virtually any mind altering substance to a quorum of Hawks, they will likely give it a spin. Nothing has ever been turned down. We pry off the lid. Paul Marshall leads the exploration. This quiet man will reveal surprising secrets, and only at the appropriate moment. Now he tells us that he was a dedicated snuff dipper for five years. He takes a pinch with thumb and finger, a practiced sniff in each nostril, and enters nicotine heaven; he leads and we follow. Damn, it stings, the eyes water, the back of the throat swells reminiscent of snuff’s more famous cousin, and the buzz is very, very nice. Clarity, optimism, an expansive horizon that is strangely calming. Snuff, where have you been all our lives? Our foursome snorts and sneezes and goddamns as our Pontiac prowls Asheville back streets to our destination. We are in the heart of Carolina’s new mind. Yes. The heart of a new mind.

Which deserves a paragraph of its own, dear reader. The Asheville area is full of grace, a forest hiding houses, no billboards, Broad rivers and bridges, wildflowers everywhere. Asheville has two great music venues, the venerable Grey Eagle and the Orange Peel, and old brick and stone small factories with grassy vacant lots. Up on the main drag all is organic goodness and microbrew, homespun couture, and our destination, the The French Broad Chocolate Lounge. This is an establishment we might have conjured up in a fantasy tour blog. Exotic single source chocolate bars fill a display case, home made delights crowd the glass shelves, and wise young baristas pull first class espressos. These little crema surfaced cups rival L.A.’s best (and make no mistake, SF and Portland, L.A. does have some of the best baristas in this great land). The cinnamon cayenne brownie is solid fuel, the azteca pozole chocolate brew is dense and wicked, and Paul M’s thick black chocolate drink is a lake of black magma. It sucks light from our cozy upstairs table, and the light is that of a total eclipse of the sun. That’s right. A total eclipse of the sun.

We are euphoric. Like the careful combining of psychedelics from an Ecuadoran shaman ritual, our snuff, espresso, and chocolate form a symbiotic golden triangle of altered mind, a specific landscape upon whose ley line we walk in warrior single file. Another unexpected moment that the following of one’s dream occasionally rewards one with. An inexplicable 1999 choosing of country rock has led us to this moment. This is our home.

Why, Carolina? Why Carolina? From the moment in 2004 (exactly ten years after Rob departed Carolina for the golden shores of Cali) that we staggered from the Yukon, this same trio of Rob and Pauls, out into the Carolina night to offer our newly minted music to our musical motherland, at the Garage in Winston-Salem, these hills have offered refuge and a new way out of the jaws of modernity. We did embrace tradition, faltering with fiddles, stumbling with stanzas, doubting with dobros, harmonizing with uncertainty, alt experimenters of uncertain worth courting the Muse of the Carters, Stanleys, Scrugges, Monroes and Coes. We failed, we tried again, we stayed the course, and now we feel at home here like never before. Last night we felt our spot on the spectrum of tradition and innovation, surrounded by musicians doing the same thing, with a dazzling variety of colors emanating. It’s really happening.

We recross the French Broad River in lumbering wagon, stop off at a local homegrown and much cooler version of Whole Foods, pick out blood red steaks, blood red and green chard, green beans, and local Highland beer in a big box, head back to Buck’s, where the Waller/Marshall/Schall team conjures up a grilled feast.

It’s 6 p.m. We load up and Buck drives us northward, on a winding two lanes into more hills and glens, past riverbottom fields with rusting automobile histories lined up at woods edge behind collapsing barns, sinking sun hitting golden trees, truly blue ridges beckoning. We reach Hot Springs and turn off the road into French Broad River Festival grounds. As promised, this is New Hippie Haven. Lovely unshod belles and their new pioneer young men throng the dirt trails. An electric peace sign hangs from the trees. A young country psychedelic folk band, badass musicians, of course, rock the tent and surrounding fields. The audience loves them, and they love right back. We meet festival king Chris and his lovely girlfriend Amy. They’ve got us covered. A Fender Deluxe Reverb amp with working foot pedal, an excellent bass amp, four way monitor mix with a great sound mixer. We take the stage. It’s been four years since we toured the state, but people are hollering out song requests as we tune up.

Drummer Jamie has fully absorbed the songs from our Skunkfest set of the night before, and he takes command. We rock. We’re flying on the love from the crowd, they sing along, we hit a peak, and . . . the crowd drifts away. At first, this is baffling. Then we realize that the festival headliner, Lukas Nelson and The Promise Of The Real, have kicked off their set on a stage 100 yards down the trail. We falter for a moment, then regather our mojo and finish up, to a diminished but energized audience of our diehard followers. We hang with the love, with the other festival musicians, sign CDs for the folks, for a heavy cat from Trinidad who buys three CDs. A golden angel brings us chicken and tater tots from his campsite. He’s a young former (not ex-, which signifies dishonorable discharge) Marine proffering a unique solid fuel pipe delivery system, who has us hanging on every word with tales of his Marine grandfather, father, and mother. When our Marine was eleven years old, his Marine mom was physically challenged by an eleven year old school chum. The mom calmly reached over, took a young shoulder between thumb and finger, and gently squeezed a young punk pressure point until the schoolboy sank to his knees. Way to go, mom.

We’re flying. The moon is shining. We drift to the main stage, and now we understand why our rapt audience deserted us. Lukas Nelson and The Promise Of The Real are a force of nature. It is no exaggeration to compare them to Cream or Led Zeppelin at their peak, if those bands had hailed from America’s heartland. The drummer, the percussionist, the bass player are monsters, raging when they feel like it, grooving when they must, which is all the time, shifting dynamics on a dime and talking with the ESP that only bands touring round the calendar, 200 shows a year, reach. It’s devastating. Lukas Nelson is a flatout star, like Prince or Hendrix or Pete Townshend. His guitar playing meets the collective ghost of the 60s giants as a peer, not as a wannabe or humbled acolyte. Lukas is right there with these guys. If he never opened his mouth this would be a performance we’d remember for a long time. But when he sings he evokes his dad Willie, his tribal elder Lefty, and contemporary cousin Mike Stinson. Country. He sings Amazing Grace and you can weep if you like. Was that a quote from a Byrds song, you good dog Blue? He does a solo Willie song, with nasal behind the beat phrasing and chromatic guitar runs. Yes, I am Willie Nelson’s son. There’s no coyness about this legacy, because this 23 year old holds his own with the old man. This is the big leagues.

Rob and Paul L and Buck wander, not sure what to do with this ephiphany (sic) and its energy, head for the railroad tracks, walk the silver straight line under the blue moonlight. We head back, find Paul Marshall. He’s been hanging with Lukas on the tour bus, just him and the lovely belles allowed access. Paul tells Lukas that he played with the old man back in the 70s. Lukas caught some of our set, tells Paul he dug it. This is music to our starstruck ears. We bid farewells and promises of return to Chris and Amy. Our new drummer, who apparently can outparty all of us combined, is nowhere to be seen. We drive off into the cool Hot Springs night. We stop on a bridge over the French Broad River and gaze over the side at the moonsilvered placid waters and looming dark hills, in silence. This world is still magic.

Morning breaks o’er the Red Roof Inn. We rise groggy, pack in haste, for it’s time for one of the big perks of this region: Waffle House. Oddly, it takes 10 minutes of interstate driving before we spot a yellow sign. Down the road, and there it is, glowing. We enter. There’s our booth. Joie d’vivre flows through this amped up tribe of diners and Waffle providers. Rocking hard at 11 a.m. The food comes fast, covered, smothered, scattered, peppered, and capped, fluffy eggs that defy natural law, and the dying ensign of a passing civilization–raisin toast with apple butter. This is better than our hopes, and our hopes were sky high. There is nothing like Waffle House.

We motor motorways through glen and field, brick churches with spires aspiring to steeple, their big wooden crosses on lawns draped in cloth, a sight familiar to Presbyterian Rob but foreign to Catholic Paul. To Isothermal Community College in Spindale, NC. Where awaits the high tech and impeccable studio of WNCW, our longtime Carolina boosters who are indeed playing our new record on a constant basis, we’re told. Sound Engineer Guru Dennis greets us. It’s been a long time. He’s got cutting edge mics set up in a perfect semicircle, a nice little Fender amp, and SVT bass pre. We don the cans, and damn he’s got us sounding good. We meet John the three camera videographer, and put on contacts and long sleeved shirts. DJ and interviewer Joe Kendrick steps in a cool minute before downbeat, leads us through a smart and casual interview, and we play four songs. We’re dialing in our acousticelectric atmosphere.

Fond radioadieus and we’re off to the southwest and the South Carolina border, which we cross without even feeling it. The hills are smaller and rounder, the hollers hollower, the shacks woodier. We’re in and out of pines on the highway to Greer. We see the painted wood sign: SKUNKFEST, make a screeching left onto a country lane past funky vacation homes loosely sharing red clay dirt acreage among not a fence in sight. Down a sloping dirt road and we’re on the grassy parking fields of the Albino Skunk Festival. We first meet Toothbrush, then Hacksaw. Are we in some kind of heavenly bluegrass labor camp? Festival king and mastermind Zig emerges from the woods on a four-wheeler. He greets us warmly and we hang by the barbeque pit with beers and biscuits and salad.

Zig’s embracing spirit is spreading year by year over his 40 acre plot, the woods filled with camping spots, ancient buses and mobile homes that host the bands and staff, and a funky but cleverly rehabilitated old barn that’s now open air shaded backstage and down home front porch stage looking up to a green grass natural amphitheater wisely shaded by big old trees, where camper music lovers hold court in lawn chairs or on blankets, digging the eight hours of wall to wall music. Big swings and an outdoor movie theater are there for the kids. We find good friends Buck and Liz and their twin boys swinging from high limb on towering oak. Another warm homecoming ensues.

As the sun goes down a couple of young regional bands play some pretty kickass modern hybridized country music. We meet up with Jamie Hurlston, an Asheville area drummer that Chris from French Broad River Fest introduced us to. He’s a super cool and energetic sparkplug, has studied our material, and is about to give this veteran band a shot of new energy. We talk through the set in the funky band green room/rehabbed early 60’s trailer with spruce siding and functioning toilet. On paper we’re ready to rock. The Corduroy Road finish up a rocking set–damn, everyone out here can play! — and we set up, with borrowed bass rig and borrowed Peavey Classic 30 amp (thank you mysterious guitar player who lent the gear).

Last time we played here, in ’08, we were strangers, but there are a lot of hollers for us as we plug in and tune up. We kick off with Raised By Hippies, drummer Jamie is right there with us, and all is good. A healthy 70 minute set, the 6,000 mile closer supermoon beams down, the firepits glow, the crowd dances or hangs in the lawnchairs, we get a sweet encore, and we’re feeling home in Sweet Home Carolina.

We’re offered four kinds of moonshine, including peach and butterscotch infused, from mason jars in tents in the hills and backstage. There’s even a strong but soft-handed masseuse named Emily who loosens and soothes our tight, hard-working shoulders. A phenomenal band takes the stage: please check out Larry Keel and Natural Bridge when they come to your town or festival. This is kickass and even groundbreaking bluegrass and old timey played with knowledge, mastery, and fire. Virtuoso flatpicker Larry Keel, with a stripped beard that could pass for a full-sized skunk in indirect light, rips off intense and flawless solo after solo, his wife Jenny lays down solid and unusual lines on baby upright electric bass, mandolinist Mark Schimick surprises and texturizes. They’re backing up, with an assurance that makes you think they’ve done hundreds of shows together, the star of the show, banjo player Danny Barnes.

Danny Barnes has reinvented the banjo almost at the Earl Scruggs level. He nails the Scruggs style, but does things we’ve never seen another banjo player do, making it sound like a flatpicked guitar, or a soft ambient background texture. His chemistry with Natural Bridge is that of highly combustible fluids combining, with all the accompanying danger. These people are taking chances and making it up as it goes along, with mesmerizing results.

It’s late, we’re in an altered state, and we roll out of Skunkfest hollow after many a farewell. Our Brave Leader has consumed four kinds of moonshine, but gamely takes the wheel, as none of his bandmates are any closer to the legal limit. But that was hours ago, well before the massive meal of steak kabobs and roasted potatoes and the aerobic set of full-on country rock. We made it legal but we can’t make it right. After a mile of country lane, we’re trailed by a county sheriff the winding curving drive into Greer and safe haven of Quality Inn. As we reach the promised land, a four corners with blazing Waffle House and gas stations, the County Mounty peels off in an aggressive I Could Take You Down If I Wanted To acceleration and disappears into his miserable night. Whew. Our Brave Leader has maintained, bro. Not too fast, not too slow. Right between those lines.

Oh, Charlotte! You lovely southern city, you. Your warm humid nights, railroad tracks, and brick buildings fill my heart!
— R. Waller as we step off the jetliner and into the long tube

at Charlotte International Airport. Rob’s dutifully checked guitar waits dutifully, faithfully at tube’s mouth. We amble, truly amble, towards baggage, through humidity and heat that feels like a distant memory. We’re in the South, and slowing down. It feels good and we’re still waiting for bags.

We rent a sweet bronze (beige?) Toyota Camry at HertzSoGood, and at Budget a mile down a sleepy road grab Paul Marshall, just arrived from a week’s visit with his son Scott in Fayetteville. We meander towards University area Charlotte, along leisurely interstates through tree stands, carefully groomed highway grass with shockingly bright wildflowers, and rollingfields. It’s hard to get your bearings for a California man. There are no peaks to spy for orientation, just noncompetitive old and relaxed hills in all directions.

We find our Red Roof Inn on Equipment Road, as donks* cruise the access roads up above, drive past several sketchy but intriguing underground economy transactions. This place is hopping, in a slow kind of way. The rooms are adequate if you apply a soft focus (bofus?) and don’t inspect mysterious stains too closely. We decide to drive to the NODA area, a rural crossroads by the tracks that’s densely packed with shops of the new, globally informed yet locally committed entrepreneurial mindset. It’s a cool little spot. We check in with the Evening Muse, an 1800’s brick building at the very corner of the brave new crossroads. Ah, cool inside. The sun’s pretty intense at 5 p.m.

In the cool Muse interior, Don’s behind the bar, pours sophisticated local drafts for us band, a warm reunion. Joe the soundman is doing something technical and esoteric with a mysterious aluminum box. Laurance Juber, who’s doing a separate show at 8 before our 10:30 set, walks in, we introduce ourselves. Is that a flash of alarm in Laurance’s dark eyes? He reminds us, as per our facebook communication, that he can’t stick around to see any of our set. We don’t blame him. He’s played with Paul McCartney and we’re a sketchy country rock outfit he’s probably never heard of. Are we stalking him? No, Laurence. We’re cool. Do your thing.

With the sun still quite blazing to the west, we stepped down the block and into Boudreaux’s, as cool as the Muse, and ordered seafoodgumbo, crabcake croissant, redbeansandrice, with andouille sausage and greens and cornbred. We went with the Abitabeer and sweetea, and damn it was good. The staff they were mellow, a bearded young fellow, who handles the people with grace. We pick up our forks, smile to ourselves, and delight in the delicious taste.

We’re in an entreprenurial mood. How can we join the new paradigm of commerce? We decide to purchase a crossroads and create an artificial, but really tasty, local epicurian/mercantile experience, always cutting edge. On one corner Paul Lacques will open a Clam Chowder and Espresso joint called The Jittery Clam. Only New England Chowder (in winter), Red Clam Chowder (in summer) and espresso. That’s it. On the opposite corner Rob is opening a wig and hair piece store called Sweet Merkin. On the third corner Paul Marshall runs Indica/Arabica, an herb/espresso bar with the sleepier varieties of herb and bean. On the fourth corner is the Kommie Korner, a barter only bazaar with open bar called Lac Du Joie and dark hidden chambers, shaded passageways that hint at the Medina of Fez. On the fifth corner–oh, no, we’re done. Accepting applications to enlightened startups for all four radii outward from our crossroads.

It’s evening, we have sampled enough the pleasures of the Red Roof Inn, and we return to NODA. Laurance Juber is dazzling a rabidly enthusiastic audience seated at his feet. We take the stage with gear kindly provided by soundman Joe and his friends, the amps sound great, Joe dials in a pristine sound, and we do a satisfying acousticalelectric set for an involved group of new friends and old. It’s good to get our feet truly on the ground.

*a donk is a jacked up car with eye catching paint job with fancy rims, often rented.

22C, 22B Anonymous seat designations unless, of course, this plane goes down in flames. A child screams in terror. But not one of mine. United Flight 1422 (operated by USAir) LAX to Charlotte. To my right, a well groomed southern man with anxious pale blue eyes reads the latest spy novel on his new iPad. Just in front, a heavy southern woman wears all black, brushes her dyed blond hair, drinks diet coke, wedges herself into her creaking seat, To my left, Paul Lacques reads a biography of Napoleon while snacking on Traders Joe’s trail mix: almonds, pistachios, dried cranberries, and dark chocolate. We’re feeling good because we gamed the system again, loaded extra crap into a large $3 yard sale suitcase after it was weighed at the ticket counter and before we dropped it off at TSA. Emboldened by our cleverness, PL breezed past the gate agent and slid his soft-bagged guitar into the overhead bin on this full flight. It’s tough to pull one over on the airlines in the post-9/11 era but we’ve done it this morning. Hawks 1, Airlines 0. But we don’t want to get over-confident. We know all too well that the airlines could smack us down with one fell swoop, or one stomach churning drop in altitude. For the moment, we’ll toast our victory with sparkling water.

Today marks the genuine start of our summer travels. Our trip with Old Californio up to Auburn and beyond was a prelude, an introduction, a foreshadowing. This is now the real Summer of 2012. The papers have been graded, the kids kissed goodbye, the bills paid. We must now hit the festival circuit. Airports, motels, and porta-potty adjacent stages await our unique brand of country rock freedom. And oh, how we long for them.

But don’t think it’s all Bloody Mary’s and bong hits, dear reader. Being a touring Country Rocker on the road in 2012 takes a great deal of preproduction work. Booking the gigs, routing the tours, buying the plane tickets, renting to vehicles and the rooms, the endless emails. It takes the kind of genuine clerical skills we all got in this business to avoid in the first place. So we make our compromises, shuffle our papers, curse our keyboards, and practice our guitars so at this moment we can Sikh and Discover the Freedom of the Road.

We Hawks have perpetual wanderlust. If we don’t hit the road or the airways several times a year, we get antsy. Los Angeles, like New York, will turn you into a local, a denizen, an Angeleno or New Yorker. As we all know, New Yorkers are a bit warped, and in a distinct way. Or maybe shaped, or bruised. Angelenos, who were once tabulae rasae that never had much written on them, are now becoming regionally distinct. Los Angeles did indeed used to be laid back, like the Eagles would have you believe, but that (actually rather meanspirited) Iowa By The Sea atmosphere has vanished along with the smog alerts. Now the air is cleaner, but the pickins are leaner. The freeways are always clogged, even in the darkness of 5 a.m. The West Side is usually gridlocked. (Say, Westsiders–you’re hip, you’re fit, you’re eco conscious, you’re considering a whole house filter and you set your own hours. Why don’t you get out of your Lexus Hybrids and get on a bicycle for that trip to Huckleberry or Peets? Haven’t you about had it with the traffic?) The clash of cultures has made L.A. all of a sudden not dull, suddenly rich in culinary, streeet, and musical experiences. But the intensity is ratcheted way up. One must escape often or go mad.

Or go local. The L.A. basin is so huge, its development from the 1880s to now so explosive and ungoverned by anything resembling planning or vision, that it would take a lifetime to explore the weird and surprising nodes of culture embedded in a concrete plain of chains, tracts, and malls. While mini-oases do exist in the vast flats of L.A., it’s a good bet to seek elevation for the old, the strange, the unique, the slice of parallel universe that makes you forget where you are. The hills, with their crooked streets, harbor this strangeness. And the closer to downtown, the better the odds for the odd.

HM157, for example. There’s a good chance you’ll drive right by this bulky Victorian mansion on North Broadway in Lincoln Heights, for its fellow mansions are long gone. The Laundromat Familiar crowds its tree shaded flank, and a MacDonalds glows across the street. HM157 appears to be an urban commune, with an indeterminate hierarchy of hipsteressence, but they get the job done. This is a gem of a concert going experience. We arrive as an acoustic trio, Rob, Paul L, and Marc Doten on the big upright bass. Or an intended trio, for Paul’s last minute soldering of a pickup wire on his refurbished Takamine acoustic guitar has failed. So the telecaster prevails. Paul hates acoustic guitar pickups and everything about them–the tinny, clunky sound, the lack of control from working a microphone, the extra gear that must be lugged, the way the sensitive electronics expose his hamfisted picking technique. The aesthetic battle will be resumed on another night.

At eight p.m., scheduled time for the opening band, there’s nary a soul in sight. We explore the odd shaped little rooms the mansion has been carved into over generations, check out the big back yard with old plants and new art pieces, chat on the comfy old front porch with Weba and Mark, our longtime friends from EP, and Marc’s girlfriend Michelle, who has just finished a kid’s music album, and has her piano students play both hands in treble clef just to expand their fledgling musical minds. The soundman shows up. The two other bands, RT and the 44s and Run Down Hill, load their gear in. Both bands are dressed sharp in unified and calculatedly retro style. By contrast, we have our usual disheveled look with a token effort at ruralism. Stage clothes and presentation are definitely our weak suit. Hopefully our music and sparkling stage banter carry the evening, because we are and always have been indifferent to all other aspects of show.

Nine o’clock rolls around with no apparent move toward the stage by any musical entity. We volunteer to go on, since the flyer and its electronic facebook equivalent promise Hawks at 9 p.m. The other bands and Charon, who may in fact run HM157, are cool with it. Cool. This is the cool kind of cool, a casual cool that isn’t masking ambition or adherence to rules. It’s cool. Tonight we explore songs from our new CD, a training run for Marc, who is our main bass sub and will be our fellow adventurer in Ireland and England in July. The music feels ramshackle and poetic, like the contours of the Victorian parlor with shifting lights and new bohemian audience that is quite enthusiastic. This is good. We will be happy to return.

RT And The 44s have carefully put together a rough edged, Beefheart meets Johnny Cash sound, the lead singer testifying through a distorted old microphone, a strange indistinct low end thump emanating through a home made bass, washboard player and drummer alternately locked into and producing parallel versions of a groove. Strong stuff, like an Angola chain gang that’s been handed instruments. Gwendolyn and her posse show up, having missed our set because we went on on time. We all hang out. HM157 is as good a hang as you will find in this town.

Run Down Hill , hitting the stage in the wee hours, are the surprise and the delight of the evening. These guys are tall, all but one at least 6’5”, but they mostly sit down, the lead singer sitting on a cajon and playing it as he sings. This is truly mysterious music, unhurried, lush, impassioned in a subdued manner that can’t be plotted. Steel guitar, electric guitar, a kinda Doc Watson acoustic guitar, weave textures unique to the band. Beautiful songs. This is a band to keep an eye on.

The boho crowd and their good vibes hang to the end, no filtering out to race home catch TIVOed trivia on the wide screen at home. All are present in the misty night in Lincoln Heights, next to Laundromat Familiar.

It’s two a.m. The epic Auburn show is a fading memory. The mountain tribes are returned to their lairs. A light rain falls. The aging Hawks Yukon is packed up in the wet cold lonely parking lot of the Auburn Liquor Outlet Community Center. Old Californio’s shiny new Yukon Eco Forest is in a similar state. A strange and weighty silence.

Inside, Rob Waller and Levi Nunez are sobbing in an embrace on the green room couch. They’ve taken the verbal jousting a big too far, a bit too personal, and things spiraled. At one point Paul Marshall drew his .38 special and aimed it at the ceiling. “You two can start acting like men, or you’ll see what real men face.” Evangeline screamed, threw herself on the weapon, which discharged into a box of wine. Everyone is drenched in a frisky but complex pinot.

But it’s cathartic. The War Of the Hosers is over. Both bands pile on in a tannin soaked tantric love hug. Even Rich Dembowski, the half Polish, half Mexican, half Polish wordsmith wunderkind, wipes away a tear. We chalk it up to a sibling spat. There’s peace in the Valley-adjacent.

The Hawks drive west and down, Sacto adjacent bound. Bryan Thomas gave us a copy of Christina Ortega’s high school punk band, Kay Lastima and the Muertones, and we’re digging it. She could belt it out even back then.

Next day we trek back up the hill for Wesley Robertson’s very groovy afternoon radio show in lovely Nevada City. We’d like to interrupt this program to send a huge shoutout to KVMR. They have given us far more than our share of support over the years, and this year is no exception. We’ve always fantasized moving up here, growing medicinal marijuana in a sprawling unkempt steep sloped back yard with wood shingled cottage with wood burning stove, except that we might get on people’s nerves after a while. But absence makes our Hawks hearts very fond of these hills and airwaves.

The radio show goes great. Old Californio with Pete Grant sitting in on exotic 8 string dobro get a sweet sound going huddled around mics in the little room. We fuel up on local barista juice and take over the show, doing an all Wesley request set with Pete and Richie adding their licks. We steam up the room and saturate the mics.

Back down the hill in ramshackle fashion for Winters, CA, orchard railroad spur turned post 60s cultural refuge and game reserve. A mellow town with a hint of neomercantilism. Dave of the Palms, Dave who is the Palms, greets us. We unload gear and trudge up the long and familiar steps into the hall. Onstage the mics are set and ready to rock. We sound check, acoustic through real mics. Sounds great. Soundman Jeremy has got this room dialed in. Old Californio sound check and we check out Fortify restaurant, a hop skip and no jump at all up the street. We feel Fortify is worth a:

HAWKS RESTAURANT REVIEW: FORTIFY, IN WINTERS, CA 3 1/2 Stars

Fortify, in a gentrified old shop building, promises an intelligence that will be informing the cuisine. We Hawks take seriously the visual cues that a dining establishment will display. This room has a soothing color scheme, an open feel with tables made from old bowling alley lanes. The chef/owner admits she’s brand new to the mechanics of restauranting but says with great confidence that the food will be great.

She’s spot on in her description of the mechanics–orders are mixed up, portions gotten backwards, with much shuffling back and forth. But in context, charming, because: the food is delicious and indeed enlightened. We had chicken tortilla soup that was complex and an energy boost; chicken tacos and white bean soup prepared with a deep regard for properties of the legume. A subtly flavored green salad. Two tone tapioca and austere carrot cake. We are feeling good. A bearded mountain man plays old mountain tunes on mandola, fiddle, and mandolin. We hope this place flourishes. Check it out. Fortify. Worth the detour north from I-80.

Old Californio sound and look great in the hallowed hall of The Palms. Woody and Pete Grant, sitting in again on exotic 8 string dobro, engage in fierce musical battles, Jason’s got his Phil Lesh thing going tonight, and Rich and the boys’ crystalline vocals crystallize.

Our set feels like a warm glow from start to finish. Flanked by Pete’s dobro and Richie’s accordion, this is the acoustic version of the Hawks orchestra launched the night before. Lush. Kevin lays down a subtle brushes on snare groove that gently rocks the room. The crowd is our family and tribe, just like the night before, we get the big standing O and play some more. Big thanks to Dave and Kate, long may they divine.

We hit the late night road for Davis and our buddy Z’s roomy house. Next morning Kevin and Paul L, who share the inability to sleep in, leave their slumbering bandmates and prowl the streets of Davis, find the perfect balance of walking and caffeinating: a one mile walk to Davis’s hipicenter at the edge of the UC campus. Kevin observes that life’s great moments are such as this–a walk in the sun on a leisurely morning, no cares or plans, basking in the glow of last night’s show. And caffeine. Caffeine. Just knowing it’s on the way.

If one must be an addict, is not coffee the noblest of addictions? Other than the anxiety that a poorly timed collision of circumstances and triple macchiato can induce, there’s little downside to this proof of Intelligent Design. In Kevin Jarvis, Paul L has met his caffeiphilian match. This man loves coffee. He does indeed order a triple macchiato on a regular basis, and a few hours later, he’ll do it again. If it’s seven p.m. before a show, Kevin will suggest a coffee, if a hip cafe has caught his eye. Paul is very grateful for this unabashed enthusiasm. Any ambivalence about these benevolent chains of mental slavery are banished at the barista’s door. Accordionist Richie and his wife Katie are at that same rarefied level of coffee love, and often guide the Hawks on prowls of Sacramento’s ever expanding espresso empire.

Today Mishka’s cafe wins the Yelp competition. Walk, imbibe, walk back, Paul M and Rob are up and ready to rock, breakfast at the alarmingly fecund Black Bear Diner, pack up and roll westward to Marin. Rob finds a gorgeous back road through lush green fat oak dotted hills and deep into redwoods filtering golden afternoon light, out into the open again and there it is, at the end of a dogleg on rural road, hill framed as if by an overly sentimental painter, Rancho Nicasio. This roadhouse has been here for a long time, the stuff of Californio legends, and is a hangout for 60s and 70s rockers to this day. Elvin Bishop was in the night before to jam, Nicasio tech guy Mike Duke tells us (Mike is a songwriter himself, wrote hits for Huey Lewis and the News).

We set up on an afternoon where we should really be out climbing the hills, are well fed and watered by the kind Nicasio folks, and at 5 p.m. sharp or a bit later we launch into our first set. It’s mellow, as the sun blazes behind us and the audience dines on rural road fare. At the break Angela Strehli and Bob Brown, the Nicasio owners and brain trust, greet us, and we hang with friends, friend fans, family, and fan friends. The second set builds from dinner to full on extended jam version of Wonder Valley. It did get loud. We hang, we pack, we hit the road. We’ve decided to pull an all nighter.

Sugar can be your friend when you hit the road at 11 p.m. I-5 gas emporia offer a variety of tempting treats, and we sampled them all, took turns driving and yakking, humped over a now bone dry Grapevine, big trucks and speeding lunatics our only road companions, hit L.A. at 5 a.m., decamped at casa Waller, and scattered to the four winds, well, three. An action packed weekend that passed as in a dream.

It’s 5:03 p.m. The Hawks Traffic Guardian Angel has been kind, and we fly through Friday Sacramento traffic with nary a slowdown. The clouds lift as we race towards the foothills. We’re on time in Auburn. We weave through Auburn streets, aim for the water wheel marking the Liquor Outlet Event Center and see our lovely and benevolent host Evangeline waving us towards the load-in. But right in front, awkwardly blocking the entrance and two parking spots, sits the deathly black Yukon XL. Clearly the El Californios need to be put in their place.

It’s raining under a bright sun and blue sky as we load in. The interior of the Liquor Outlet Event Center is quite surprising. A bland 80s exterior doesn’t hint at the warm, inviting barnlike room with long bar and long stage, country rock posters and arcana lining the walls. The verbal jousting with the El Californio boys begins immediately and never stops. We deal a serious blow by hogging all the soundcheck time. Hawks 1, Old Californio zero. They make a strong comeback by dialing in a great sound in five minutes. Score tied. We take a sharpie to the green room sign and presto: it’s an exclusive Hawks dressing room. A second bit of penmanship and the men’s room is now the Californio green room. They see through our ruse and both bands pack into the green room, pouncing on pizza and beers with the intensity of rival hunter gatherers.

Love fills the room as the Gold Country and Sacto adjacent music aficionados filter in and showtime approaches. Old friends, old bandmates, cousins greet the bands. KVMR is in the house. It’s 1972 tonight. Old Californio starts off low key, as a humble opening band should, but then builds steadily to a slamming 90 minute set. The dance floor fills with hippies and townies young and old. Old Californio’s fiendish plan is working. They’re going to be a tough act to follow.

We open with a majestic “Mary Austin Sky.” It’s big, sweeping, cosmic Americana. And we’ve got a secret weapon: Pete Grant, legendary steel player, he who was invited by Jerry Garcia to join the soon to become Warlocks soon to become Grateful Dead jug band, he who played steel on Aoxomoxoa, joined the New Riders Of The Purple Sage, and inherited Jerry’s steel rig. Pete sends the sound into the landscape of our minds, the Platonic Hawks ideal. We ride a big soft cloud and the audience climbs on board for the ride. Lovely lasses fill the floor, cowboys and bohemians shuffle and spin. Take that, Old Californio.

But wait! They’ve infiltrated the dance floor, in matching denim shirts and levis. No–but yes. They’re doing their mock Urban Cowboy side step, one part metrosexual and one part macho. They sweep Evangeline off her feet, charm the lassies, and, yes, appear to mock us. Are Old Californio mocking us? As we launch into Hope Against Hope, our fears are confirmed. At the climactic chorus, Levi steps onto the floor right in front of Rob and launches into a calculatedly spasmodic Jennifer Beals Fashdance number. Where did he get the chain and water bucket? The three singers start laughing. The chorus collapses. Score one for Old Californio.

But we rally, recover, and rock. Richie Lawrence has brought his big growling accordion into the mix. We entice Woody from Old Californio onto the stage, and he betrays his mates by raising the rock ante, and raising the roof. The Hawks Orchestra burns through Humboldt, Motorcycle Mama, I Fell In Love With The Grateful Dead, and Good and Foolish Times. It’s a long set, and over too soon. Thank you, Auburn. We hang with the audience, sign CDs. The audience filters out into the cold wet night. The verbal jousting with Old Californio resumes immediately. We battle to a standstill. It’s a dead heat. Pete Grant regales us with tales of Garcia and the Bay Area at the moment of creation. We go our separate ways. Thank you Evangeline, Scott, and people of the north.

Is the blog going the way of 35 mm film, CDs, and the eco-marketing scare of the mid-oughts? Facebook has drained the bards of Hawkdom of some creative energy, it would appear, dear Reader. Tweets and posts peck at the muse often, and leave her just as she’s waking.

And the Hawks blog is a travel blog, after all, and we haven’t hit the road as much in the last couple of years. But some good road trips are in our near future, and so we beg the Muse for longer conversations.

On this Friday the 13th of April we’ve packed the Yukon, with its new tires and wiper blades just in time for a rainy morning, and we’re heading up the 5. Will we beat the shutdown of the Grapevine due to snow? Our companions on this tourette, Old Californio, had an efficient departure and are already over the pass. Just to show us up, they’ve rented a 2011 Yukon XL Flex/Fuel, jet black with leather seats and big wheels. Our ’99 Yukon (regular length) looks a little road weary next to this fresh, young model. Is Yukon Extenze available? Yukonal Rejuvenation? The youth and spirit, nay brash immaturity, of the OC lads raises out ire and stokes our competitive pride. It’s seven hours to Auburn, up in Gold Country, and we’re going to be cutting it close for sound check. As is our way.

The central valley is looking very good. A series of odd late rains has greened our fair state, just as we were heading for a dried out summer. Lupines have dusted the Grapevine, where there was indeed snow, but just on the high ridges. We’re in an unbroken San Diego to Sacramento/San Francisco 60 mph caravan under gray and black clouds, with a startling blue over the hills to the west. Lovely.

Kevin Jarvis is driving; Rob Waller sits in the front passenger seat; the two Pauls sit on the rear bench. This configuration will probably be our constant, as the two shorter members of the band are packed like sardines among soft bags. We didn’t attach our Thule pod to the roof. Rob lobbied for it. The Pauls lobbied against it. A certain injustice prevails.

This version of the Hawks has a wide conversational topic spectrum. Soil maintenance and the philosophy of the untilled field; current relations in the L.A. country rock scene; what is country rock?; golf; golfing with Randy Weeks; golfing with a cruel golf cart duo that mowed down an egret; the shocking and dismal experience of seeing Tiger Woods up close; old Augusta; child psychology; acoustic guitar pickups; state supreme court approves half hour lunch break per ten hour shift; Obamacare (fuckin’ Obama); Justice Roberts’ internal conflict; the inevitable bad taste of public art; the giant LACMA rock; drummers and drumming; hawk flies over big rig stack, survives, good omen.

Green and gray, green and gray, lush blue black ponds and canals, egrets, infinite white black clouds rays of rain and sun, doh! eco inappropriate suburb in the middle of fields; whew, back to green and gray, green and gray. So lush. Life lives in the San Joaquin.

Old Californio has beaten us to Auburn by at least 45 minutes, those upstart bastards. It’s going to be tough to overcome this psychological advantage, but we will figure something out. We’re passing through Sacramento and hoping for merciful traffic.