News & Opinion

It’s a Monday afternoon in Woodland Hills, temperature a dry 102 F, and a Mini Cooper is parked on Ventura Boulevard, gleaming in the sun. Inside a young woman is napping, cooled by her air conditioning as her car idles. .

It’s the Friday kicking off Labor Day weekend and time to abandon this clearly godforsaken SoCal desert. Yes, fellow and feline Angelinos, we are living in a desert. Deserts have dry brown hills, very little rain, and occasional thunderheads swelling in empty blue skies. This year we easily qualify.

By the way, a brand new geo survey shows that arctic ice is melting at rates not predicted by any computer modeling–oh, never mind. We’re loading up the Yukon at chez Waller, greedy to escape the already 100+ heat. Done. Let’s roll. Rob and Shawn in front, Paul L and wifey Victoria in the back, cashews and water at the ready. 5 north, familiar moment of mild panic through Burbank as traffic stops, but it clears up as it always does by the time we clear Sunland. Aptly named.

The movie reruns: 5 north, Grapevine, mysterious 5/99 split, TA truckstop, we resist its high fructose song, all in blurry heat, but what’s this? We cut west on Highway 46, for we are heading, for the first time in Hawks history, for Santa Cruz. We’re opening at the Catalyst for our friend from days of Taix gone by Lucinda Williams. Bless her heart.The 46 is straight as an arrow west through abandoned oil fields–no, a few rigs are slowly pumping up and down. Who owns this baking field, who profits from its slow siphoning of near spent and twice abandoned oil fields, who turns the big wrenches, who hooks up the hose, who drives the tanker, to what refinery in decline? Our fascination with infrastructure’s twilight is in full wax. Twisted steel, rusting pipes, bleached cracked asphalt, honky tonks not filled with cowboy oil riggers, schools not reverberating with eager youth in boots and Levis made in America, brand new 2 bedroom stucco 900 foot square homes not stretching the bounds of Bakersfield, wedding receptions not booked at the auditorium in Pumpkin Center.

West into the low hills. Here’s where James Dean died. Once lonely. Now it’s overstated, like most pop history, makeover of the gods, a giant sophisticated James Dean face making vigil at the big Y in the road. But ahead, if you will ignore civilization’s black lines, are twin hills converging at a lone oak, surely a power spot where James’s spirit spills his waters.Paso Robles (see the three California native Hawks for correct whitey Californio pronunciation) is reinventing itself as robust vineyard land. Three new winemakers spring up for every ranch that calls it quits. It’s still way over 100, sun creaking past zenith, as we rather deliriously search for a plaza Rob half remembers from a long ago journey. We cover most of Paso Robles, hmm, looks like some pretty nice vintage houses out here, nice neighborhoods, hmm, Shawn could set up his studio and record local bands, maybe get a talent night going at the brew pub. Hmm. Because L.A. is the new Mojave.

We find a 50’s retro burger palace. American Graffiti ruined the 1950’s forever, stripping them of their viciousness and righteous hatred, leaving only overexposed Richie Valens and Buddy Holly. Paul L orders a surprisingly good veggie burger, further perversion of that Great Decade, Victoria gets a poorly executed tuna melt, and Rob improvises an upbeat retro country two step about blowing his brains out. Back into the heat. We’ve stalled enough to make sure that an on time arrival in Santa Cruz will involve luck–our standard procedure.

101 north, resume a different rerun, yes hills, yes fields, yes giant artichoke, yes convoluted conversion to Highway 1, yes farmworkers, yes shockingly big PG&E power plant at Moss Landing. And yes, cool, cool relief. Roll down the windows. It’s cool. Cool. For the first time in weeks, we are truly cool. We barely care that traffic is at a dead stop. We crawl forward. Are we missing soundcheck?No. Our wanton professionalism prevails once again, traffic moves, a few wrong turns into downtown Santa Cruz and we’re fifteen minutes early at the Catalyst. Two huge tour buses idle at the Catalyst back door. Wow. Lucinda’s a big deal. The internet implies it, but this confirms it. Dave Sutton, long time buddy and virtuoso bassist and nice guy, with Lucinda for 6 months, greets us.

The soundmeisters run us through a quick sound check in the cavernous room, Catalyst pizza and Pacifico, relatives on the guest list, compose 45 minute set list, vocals in the green green room, greet relatives, the time flies, it’s time.The Catalyst is packed with old hippies and scholarly crazies and lonely Lucinda listeners who know her heart breaks just for them, a few sleek youth, a few people that could pass for Southern Californians. We wade through the crowd, and it’s big. The murmuring is loud. We haven’t played for this many people since last summer.

And we want more, please. For a big crowd gives you energy. You can’t help noticing that little old you is bigger than life. Your music is very loud in a big space, and the crowd, in this case, is very loud when it roars. Whoa. Four songs to harness the energy, four songs to rock steady, two songs to peak out and exit. We end with Humboldt. It’s still our big song, despite somewhat conscious attempts to write a new big song, and it works its magic as we stretch it to maximum extension. We almost get an encore, it’s close, and we are pleased. This crowd has no idea who we are, as does not KPIG, much to our sorrow, but now the crowd knows, and they tug at our sleeves with compliments, friendly gauntlet to Green Room. Wow.

Lucinda brings her own sound system, and she and the band sound like a record, crystal clear, pristine, balanced. (Indeed, they tape the show and sell freshly burned CDs of that same show at the end of most nights.) Longtime guitar right hand man on stage left Doug Pettibone, superbass Dave, and Butch Norton on the massive clear drums like giant codeine bottles lay down a huge sound, and it is codeine at first, slow laments, then suddenly they’re rocking. The crowd gets their big money’s worth, long rocking encores, and Santa Cruz ambles off into the night, specimens under the bright lights by our merchandise table as we observe and chat with several specimens gazing at us sunbaked southerly specimens. Our mailing list fills, our CDs are liberated from the table, everything is just all right. In the cool cool midnight a new generation of kinda crazed Santa Cruz nightlife makes amorphous moves and tentative patterns, loud and raucous and completely mysterious to we the baked. To the vehicles! To the desert! An unknown mass destiny awaits.

Misses Kim and Pamita were kind enough to create a special Tuesday night Grand Old Echo so that Los Angeles could get its first taste of Polka Freakout. And lo, it was good.** A report from last night:

It was hot. It is hot. It will be hot. Los Angeles is drying up like weeds in a dirt lot. Mercy, please. And the Echo was hot. The air conditioning works flawlessly in the staircase leading up to the dark and haunted band room. Elsewhere it keeps the room at a steady 85 degrees, which is actually the correct minimum temperature for playing and experiencing rocking roots music. Hence New Orleans, Kansas City, and Denton, TX.

Denton, where Polka Freakout chief Bubba Hernandez has lived for a long time since graduating from North Texas State and joining Brave Combo, where he met similarly over-trained drummer Mitch Marine. Bubba and Mitch propelled Brave Combo’s legendary groove for six years, the golden age that got the attention of David Byrne and Matt Groening and legions of new polka fanatics from Wall Street to Frankfurt to Tokyo. Last night Bubba and Mitch, accordion virtuoso with an edge Alex Meixner, overtrained but wildly imaginative guitarist Scrote
were and hopefully will continue to be the new polka supergroup.

For those of you too sophisticated and narrow to know, polka kicks ass. Eddie Blazonczyk’s Versatones, Lenny Gomulka and Chicago Push, Jimmy Sturr, Brave Combo, and any number of hard toiling Tex Mex bands will wipe the floor with your average modern rock band. With one rehearsal and gig, Polka Freakout hit the heights. Influenced by and continuing the Brave Combo fearless adventure, Polka Freakout tackles odd meter Eastern European pieces, cumbias, hybridized polkas in the fast to ridiculous range, and sophisticated pop songs that Frank Sinatra could cover. Bubba and his brother Ricky harmonized on a “Volver” that should be put into a runoff with Christina Ortega’s version for American Idol: The Real Music by Real Musicians. Kick ass.

Bubba and Alex are in the van back to Texas, may their radiator be steady and true. And may Polka Freakout come back soon.**Yes, the Hawks had a great show, too. Dave Gleason opened the night and sat in with the Hawks, his tele adding a serious kick in the pants to “California Country” and “Humboldt.” Paul L sat in with Polka Freakout on a few tunes, including “Baby (Do You Mind),” the Waller/Lacques tune that Bubba sings on PF’s debut CD. .

The Big Lebowski is on our minds as we drive west on the 101 through 104 degree Woodland Hills exurbia. Sinister smoke from the Zaca fire, now six weeks old, billows orange and gray to the north. It’s Saturday afternoon in the Southland.

The two Pauls and Rob have seen The Big Lebowski at least ten times each. Shawn has never managed to sit through it, despite having Paul L’s DVD copy for the last several months. “Stay out of Malibu, Lebowski! Keep your ugly goldbricking ass out of my beach community!” says the stern Malibu sheriff to battered and beaten Jeff Bridges. A scene that cuts to the heart of the general public’s unconscious fear of subtly expressed wealth and its subtle death grip on what was once lonely Pacific Coast Highway Paradise, and before that a land so abundant with game, fish, and edible vegetation that Chumash and Gabrielino Indians enjoyed a truly laid back California lifestyle (“Malibu” is Chumash for “place of cliffs,” and Topanga Canyon marked the boundary between Chumash and Gabrielino territory, and the boundary of vast land grants from the King of Spain).

Yes, we are driving to Malibu. And yes, fear and gallows humor are in the frigidized air of the trusty Yukon as we head south and up into the chaparral on Las Virgenes Road. For we have been bounced off the opener slot for Chris Hillman and Richie Furay at the Malibu Performing Arts Center. And yea, we have fought back, with our ally Tommy Funderburk, big league session vocalist who guested on California Country and a good pal today, for he did indeed make phone calls and straighten out the situation. Powerful and heretofore unknown forces had been informed that we were a Gram Parsons cover band, hence the bounce.

But we’re back, and rolling to a 5:30 sound check. As we crest the ridge and gaze down upon gilded shores and the smooth green overwatered slopes of Pepperdine University, the temperature plummets 20 degrees. This is why $20 million estates cluster on ridges and beachfront canyons. Never hot, never cold. Geffen, Streisand, Groening, Cher, Dylan, Gibson and Goldberg, Hanks, Hawn, Hopkins and Hudson, Pagey and Axl and Britney and Charlize, legions of those before whom we plebians quake. All are sequestered here, or at least their housekeepers, as their masters escape to Ibiza and Lake Como.

And now we Hawks must do spiritual battle with the country rock fringes of this Pacific palaced province. We must prevail through the paralyzing atmosphere of American Class.Tom Petty is a rumored guest tonight at the Malibu Performing Arts Center. Which is another reason, we gather, that we had been bumped. “There’s too much music tonight,” was the unattributed quote. We have been granted 25 minutes before the king, from 7:20 to 7:45. Song selection is painful. Most of our children will be abandoned. A rolling tug on the Gray Label bottle (a serviceable 100% agave tequila) helps.

A few wrong turns, past the last functional agricultural field on the west side, and we find the sprawling anonymous MPAC, behind City Hall. A Malibu sheriff’s car discreetly dogs us, then rolls onward when we squeeze past the orange safety cone. Apparently we belong here. “Mr. Treehorn draws a lot of water in this town. You don’t draw shit, Lebowski.” We are greeted by Gene, Genial owner of MPAC, which on the inside is a dazzling pearl of a recording studio/performance space. A big league API board, 500 seat theater, mastering studio, discrete full service bar upstairs, and green rooms to the horizon fill the building. We’re told that it’s wired for satellite 24/7. Cool.

Richie Furay’s band has just begun sound check. A cluster of very young male interns surround the kick drum, which sounds like a dead body being thumped with a stick. What gives, in this Sonic Valhalla? We retire to the Hawks Green Room, and partake of pretzels and beers. And more beers. We wander the facility. Kind souls offer to sell our CDs. Seven p.m. approaches. We are summoned to the stage. A fifteen minute sound check, and we’re ready to rock in acoustic style. The vocal monitors sound legendary.

Our appointed start time comes and goes, and we finally hit the stage at 8. Five songs, great sound, great audience response. We are signaled to get off. We do. Richie Furay greets us warmly as we pass the shrimp trays (surely there were shrimp trays? dazzled we were), a big moment for Paul L who grew up with Poco’s well crafted tunes helping to form the songwriting templates in his skull. Journey through corridors, all is good. How many beers remain in our cooler?

Chris Hillman, Herb Pedersen, bassist Bill Bryson, and ace acoustic guitarist Larry Parks take the stage and the sound and performance are dazzling indeed. They do bluegrass like no one else, sweeter and somehow more real than the east coast superstar bluegrass bands. The Hillman/Pedersen vocal blend is a classic.Suddenly: piercing feedback, et in Arcadia ego? The Hillman band makes a hasty retreat from the stage. Richie Furay gathers all in the Shrimp Room for a prayer circle, and the feedback does miraculously vanish. The Hillmen return, music magic resumes, then a second, more mysterious miracle: the feedback returns, never to be quite banished tonight. Crush him with your heel you may, Feedback lurks yet in our deepest recesses.

Richie Furay and his very young band take the stage, anonymous electric song renditions come alive when the guitarist abandons his stratocaster and picks up a banjo, then Chris Hillman comes out and 60’s and 70’s magic is in the air. The evening is a throwback to the days when concerts started 3 hours late, security was a well packed bong, crowds milled and heaved like schools of fish in a dusty sea, and anything could happen. Those days are gone, the seats are plush and reserved, but the madness glows between the cracks. These gray headed Christians are larger than life.It’s time to go. The Hawks are weary. Paul M hangs for a rumored jam, then splits at 1 a.m., still awaiting jam. Paul L’s old friend Rob Rio has brought a young firecracker of a date, and as wee hours commence and cell communication fails, she’s stalking Tom Petty, who has indeed lent his royal presence to the country rock fringe. Good luck Tom. Farewell, Malibu.

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Uh? Eh? Er? Ah. Morning. Technically. Time to shake off the beers and spirits and rise, for it is the day of Ali’s wedding. Ali of Cole’s Bar fame and fortune, who did host us for three years, in downtown basement bar, who did hoist Chimays and Green Label, who did take care of spouses and friends, who did run off the more deranged of visitors from the 6th Street nightair, who did rather well from the Wednesday nights, as did we all.It’s a full blown Persian wedding at a banquet hall in Glendale. We’re dressed and driven and arrived just in time, 4:05 on the dot, Rob and the Pauls and wives and child. The Pauls are wearing nearly identical bolo ties. The wives are in print Americana dresses. The Persian men are in suits, the women in heavily sequined and revealing satin or satinesque. Intoxicating. Ali’s in a tux, and he and his lovely bride in shimmering green are mingling with arriving guests. None of the theatrical sequestering of the couple so prized by the Western World.

The ceremony is mysterious and moving. The bride and groom sit facing a mirror with symbolic foods and herbs on a low table in front of them. The wedding officiator of unknown designation should be a movie star, so gravitasladen is his chiseled face, so honeylike his vocal tone. And honey is dipped by Ali and bride, on little fingers into new spouse mouth, a kiss, and they are married. The women, and women only, break out into piercing and hair raising ullulations throughout the ceremony. Not only the older women, but the beautiful young teens. Tradition is a rock that will not roll. On to the celebration.We sit at table 22 with Allan Mason, ranconteur nonpareil of aforementioned Coles and music scholar, and some other cool folks, and a bottle of Red Label sits on the festooned table. Ali promptly brings over a Green Label with a wink.

Kick ass Persian hummus, five preparations of eggplant, peppers, potatoes, fish, caviar, and we’re stuffed. It’s time to dance.And dance. This is a dance party, disguised as a wedding. Bee Gees, funk, rap, and the Persian pop that knocks everything off the floor, and everyone dances. Food arrives, it won’t stop, we’re groaning, but the dancing stops only for a brief toast or two, and then a live band rocks the house, dumbek, trap drums, infinitely melodious synthesizer, and vocalist who sings like an angel all night. Friends and family get down: solo dancers with traditional moves, an art performance by a young beauty who dons an oversized tux jacket and does a seven minute mockery of male posturing. Circle dances, four couple dances, dances, dances. We’re beat, doing our best to be not unfunky in this super funky sophisticated movement. Ali, how do you do this? I’m tired, says Ali. We’re relieved at this one hint of mortality.

We stagger to the sidewalk seven hours on, and the scene inside shows no signs of slowing. A powerful groove, a powerful people. All the best, Ali and beautiful wife.

“Rove said he believed Mr Bush would leave behind two lasting pillars of future foreign policy – that harbouring a terrorist makes a nation as guilty as the terrorist, and the act of pre-emption.”
–The Guardian
“Huge amounts of charisma, swagger, cowboy boots, flight jacket, wonderful smile, just charisma—you know, wow.”
–Karl Rove on first meeting George Bush in 1973

The good news is that Britain is pulling out of Northern Ireland after 38 years. The bad news is that some of them are being deployed to Iraq.

County Galway

Paul L and Victoria went on their usual Tuesday hike in Topanga Canyon, and it was dry, dry, dry.

All the grass is completely brown, and the trail has an inch of powder dust in the low spots.

The plants still thriving are the tough chapparal shrubs.

Some of the shrubs are more like trees. The western slopes of L.A. County haven’t had a major fire in an unusually long time. The Topanga air vibrates with unresolved tension. New grass from the odd July rain has already flourished and died.

As we walked east on the trail out of the ranger’s headquarters, we passed a down and out couple moving their possessions through the dust, sad little pastel urban backpacks on plastic wheels, clothing bags, and an outdoor gas stove in its battered shipping box. They were dragging their stuff in shifts along the trail to a picnic area a mile away, where a similarly hardbitten sister or aunt was changing a baby’s diaper on a picnic table. I guess that’s their new home. Tom Joad has returned. It’s better than Sixth and San Julian.

We reached the ridge as a golden light filtered through smog or perhaps smoke from the Santa Barbara fire. In L.A. the sun seems to set in the north, because the Santa Monica Bay faces southward to a false west. A town of illusion. We were sweaty and parched, and chugged the rest of our water.

From the ridge a wide fire road dips back towards the canyon and thick oak stands, with a grand view of the Bay (ignore the greedy Palisades Highlands McMansion cluster that should never have been built). As twilight fell, a dense cloud blanket over the Santa Monica Bay crept up the canyons towards us, glowing.

The fire road dropped steeply into the fog bank, which we felt first, a drop of 15 degrees, sweet relief. Then we were in the mist, a fast moving ghost that filled Topanga in minutes.

If you are in the oaks at twilight, you are almost sure to see owls, and tonight a huge one dropped onto the dirt road 50 feet in front of us, hard to see in the tricky light. We walked towards him, and he took off for the tree branches above, picking a branch too small, flapping his huge wings to balance, now sharply silhouetted. We stood and gawked for a long while, hooting, pleased when he turned his head towards us with a distinctly annoyed attitude. At last Mr. Owl flapped off the high branch, swooped over an oak and roused a companion. The two disappeared into the last light.

Dave Zirbel is a remarkable man, grounded as his truck that traversed the 5 south from the far north to L.A. this weekend, yet able to soar to the heights of cosmic steel reached by Jaydee Maness and Sneaky Pete.
On Saturday and Sunday Dave stomped on his pedals and blazed through 11 Hawks songs, stopping only for midnight carne asada at a taco truck on Figueroa near Shawn’s studio. Beautiful shimmering textures, and it’s starting to sound like a record. Thank you Dave, and godspeed to your Monday noon downbeat at the Sonoma County Fair.

Speaking of Monday morning, it’s raining. Petrichor and distant thunder wake us and we pad to the back door and stand in the gentle water. Never was it needed more.

While the West, which is located east of California, burns, it’s been pretty mellow weather here in the Southland. A few scattered fires in the hills, and just hot enough to remind you that it’s summer, and you’ve got to get out for those long languid evenings.

Our languid evening Sunday last was spent trying to find parking for The Echo on Sunset in Echo Park, EP being inundated by visitors to the strange and quaint Lotus Festival on the lake shore to the south.**

We had time for a quick soundcheck and then the Hawks were onstage backing up Christina Ortega and her longtime great guitarist/mandolinist Tom Corbett, their first L.A. show in a while. The Hawks and fiddler Cliff Wagner bumped up the Tejano-Bluegrass mix of tunes, including “Tu Solo Tu” “Milk Cow Blues,” and “Corrido de Dolores Huerta,” to wall of sound status, if we do say so ourselves, and the crowd, which was already packed out well before sundown, called Christina and friends back for an encore. Christina, let’s do it again. Old Californio, led by the mysterious and mojo filled Rich Dembowski, is the happening new band on the L.A. Americana scene. If one must compare, think Bad Company meets The Band, with thoughtful lyrics, long guitar solos that count, a funky brainy sound. They’ve got a well deserved big following after only a few live shows, and their middle slot set riveted the room.

The Hawks closed out with another great Grand Ole Echo set. This funky room is really starting to feel like home. Wall to wall fans, request yells duly honored, a rocking show, with Cliff joining the band halfway through, playing brilliantly. Tom Corbett and the irrepressible Juke Logan joined the wall of men for encore song “Wonder Valley,” with Cliff burning through Orange Blossom Special midway through the journey. Summer west of the West.On the next two languid evenings the Hawks repaired to drummer Shawn’s hillside home studio and finished five more tracks for our new CD, including unabashed hippie wanderer love paean “Gettin Home Tonight,” and we’re done with basics. A toast with McCallan’s 18 year old, tasting a bit youthful for its years, and our next move is recording pedal steel wizard Dave Zirbel this coming Saturday and Sunday. A groove oriented July so far!

**check out Michael Webster’s song “Lotus Festival” for an acid tinged journey through the lakeside festivities