News & Opinion

Raleigh, North Carolina

It’s Monday June 19th and the Hawks have scattered. Shawn and the Pauls are steaming toward Washington, D.C. to catch a 7 PM plane back to L.A. RW and family are headed back down the I-40 to Memphis and a night in the Waller Compound. We had our last show in Raleigh last night. Like many shows on this tour there was a small but enthusiastic crowd. Our dear friend Mona brought her father and several other members of her family for a Father’s Day night with the Hawks. Pour House booker and all around sweetheart Marianne cooked a ham for these hungry and travel weary souls. The show got a good preview from Philip Van Vleck, a wise and forward thinking writer from the Durham Herald Sun. Check out the full article here. As usual, North Carolina was warm and welcoming.

The Pour House sits on the old town square just down the street from the capitol. The square was dedicated in 1740, and has a large copper sculpture of an acorn at its center, a modern addition. The capitol itself is genteel in scale. Constructed in 1840 of granite slabs carried over the rolling North Carolina hills on an experimental railroad, the building is crowned with a small green dome. There’s a simple grace to the building which lacks the ornamental imperial arrogance of many other state capitals. This building comes from the era of limited government, before it became involved in legislating seat belts and cigarette smoking. From the era when government proceeded on a tight mandate from the people. Will we ever again see such an era? Report from Paul: The drive from Raleigh to DC on the interstate is devoid of romance and southern charm. The Interstate system was designed to prevent, or perhaps facilitate, an armed takeover of the continental United States, but it also serves to funnel those of us racing faster than nature intended us to down time-defying corridors. It leaves the rest of the country picturesque and relatively unstandardized, although creeping Interstateism, like kudzu, may eventually have its way with all of this great land.

The Cracker Barrel restaurant chain is a southern institution. Here the rain falls, plants grow like weeds, green assaults the eye from every angle. So why the canned vegetables?

Paul L dropped Paul M and Shawn at Dulles International Airport. watched them disappear into the glass 1970’s modern terminal, and drove down a long highway past endless brand new tract-home-and-the-corporate-malls-that-serve-them intrusions into green earth, to Lee’s Ferry, a brick and wood frame little town dating from the 1740’s that is miraculously untrammeled by pastel makeover.Paul’s brother Gabe and his wife Deanna and their too cute baby girl Carlin spent a leisurely day visiting the Potomac River, where, upstream from the Pentagon, it is wild, full of rapids that swell prodigiously in winter.
The Powtomack Canal, instigated by George Washington himself, remains in ruins paralleling the river, its tiny width just enough for small cargo boats hand poled around the fierce rapids of the river. Beautiful woods still prevail in the cradle of American democracy.
A last DC to L.A. flight, and now all the Hawks are home. Peace in the Valley.

Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Winston-Salem is a city built on cigarettes. The RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company is still the city’s largest employer. Second, interestingly, is the Bowman Gray Cancer Center. We are playing a gig at the Garage, a cool old punk rock club in the shadows of the city’s handful of skyscrapers. The club reminds me somehow of Al’s Bar, the historic L.A. punk rock venue downtown. The inside is all graffiti and boxes and chairs are stacked up here and there. The seating is an assortment of old chairs and couches and mismatched tables. The attitude is relaxed and slow. Several box fans buzz in high windows barely cooling the humid still air in the former body shop.

Since our last visit they’ve built an actual stage. 2 X 4s and plywood rise about six inches off the floor. It’s carpeted and deep, a nice improvement. Tony and Kip play an inspired set, at home in this classic punk rock venue. The Waller family dances outside in the parking lot, the music loud and clear in the summer night.Before the Hawks’ set, an old friend and fan from our last visit bestows us with a mason jar of genuine Wilkes County moonshine. No shit. She advises us not to mix it with anything and to chase it with cool water. The Hawks consider a life of blindness for a moment, then jump in. There’s nothing to fear here. Nothing at all. And it’s smooth, god damn it. Smoother than Wolfschmidt’s gin, that’s for sure. It tastes homemade and powerful and after a few minutes you can feel as if some kind of knob has been twisted in your brain. What a treat.
The set is relaxed and strong as the Hawks lay back into the old Carolina haze. Kip and Tony join for a big ass rock band closer of “Humboldt” and “Houseboat.” It’s a good night.

Charlotte, North Carolina

Fifteen or twenty years ago, the Charlotte, N.C. skyline was desperate for a style. New money and global banking had arrived for good in this city competing with Atlanta for financial capitol of the New South. Blueprints for banking towers stacked up on bankers’ desks. What would they choose to skin the steel and concrete bones of their skyscrapers with? Classic art deco? Edgy modern computer shapes a la Frank Gehry? Straight and modest Minneapolis glass? No, they would choose the strange neo-gothic Batman like magic of a Tim Burton film. The result is a scary, cold, artificial skyline that just plain creeps the Hawks out.
The gig is far from the downtown center in a gentrifying section of the old industrial part of town. It’s better, much better, than downtown but it’s still a little freaky. There’s a mish-mash of restaurants and bars which borrow cultural themes from across the globe: fish tacos here, Cajun stews there, a Chinese restaurant seemingly owned and operated by 20-something white hipster kids. Outside, a drum circle has formed. Hot teen chicks in ’80s style Madonna outfits stand on the edges smoking cigarettes in the black bras and white t-shirts as the ignore their amateur drumming boyfriends. Son, do you have a license for that djembe? We carry our amps and guitars by them, living in an entirely separate reality. Do these teens listen to acoustic music?

As we arrive the Evening Muse, our home for the night, is over flowing. A group of women with five or six acoustic guitars and one snare drum are on the stage singing to an entranced, nearly all female crowd. It doesn’t seem like this crowd will be hanging for our set. But we are wrong. Once again, we are reminded that we don’t know anything about anything. And there are Hawks fans there too. Some request songs before we play. A few tie-dyes are in attendance. The tough thing is the sound. It’s a big brick room with high ceilings and they like their music loud. We’re battered by the monitor mix and struggle simply to know where we are in the song. Communication between band members is nearly impossible. We have to land the plane on instinct and instruments alone. Luckily, our training has prepared us for this. After the show we try to land some fish tacos but they’re closed. We follow some directions, scrawled on a napkin by a drunk, to an all-nite diner. When our waitress isn’t crying to herself at the table in the corner, she’s eerily maternal over at ours. But the biscuits are top notch. PM even boldly orders livermush. We fill our bellies and make it somehow back to our hotel downtown amid the freaky gothic scrapers. Weird night. Strange town.

Johnson City, Tennessee

Johnson City, TN is way up in the mountains just on the other side of the North Carolina border. The city is made up of old brick buildings and pretty two story wooden homes with classic porches. The air smells great and it’s actually cool as we unload the Yukon. The Down Home is celebrating its 30 year anniversary and we’re kicking off the weekend. The Gourds will be here tomorrow. The local paper has put together a nice bio sketch of the band piecing together all the things we’ve said about ourselves into one article. The place is made entirely of wood. Ed Snodderly, a folk music legend himself, greets us kindly. They feed us. Give us pitchers of beer. There’s cute tattooed waitresses and a good sound man. There’s even a quiet dressing room far from the bustle. Jaime, a friend of Paul’s wife Victoria from L.A., surprises us with a greeting. This is a good place. Firebugs light up the old, graceful neighborhood around the Down Home as Tony and Kip begin their set. It’s getting near longest day of the year, kind of nice to play music with the sun on the horizon. Johnson City is down home.

Athens, Georgia

So we roll into Athens for the first time late as hell. We have a radio gig at 4pm. Not until we’re almost to Athens do we realize we’ve lost an hour thanks to our old friend the Eastern Time Zone. Shit, we’re going to be late. We listen to the station we’re scheduled to be on. Weirdly, it’s a classical music show. 4pm rolls around, we’re still not there, and WUGA is still playing classical music. The DJ comes on, says the four o’clock concert guests are running late. Then puts on a classical guitar quartet. So we’re stressed. We’re missing our radio gig, and we guessing they’ve misidentified us as a classical group. Could this really be? We bust ass across the campus of the University of Georgia and arrive at the station at 4:22pm. The DJ throws up a mic and hits the button. He’s a pro. We’ve got 8 minutes. We play the Fern song, talk a little bit, and it’s over. The DJ puts on a Bach symphony and says goodbye as if this is all very normal. Maybe it is. We’re a bit spooked as other than the DJ and a few plain dressed civilians, the campus is largely deserted. It’s summer. It’s hot. The students have headed for the beach or mom and dad’s air conditioned house. The only signs of life are around the club next door to the one we’re playing. Beck is there tonight and his big silver bus is parked out front like a big silver bomb. We suspect this is trouble for us as any surviving music lover in Athens is more likely going to see the Beck show tonight instead of coming to see us.

Our fears are confirmed as show time nears and the club, Flicker Bar, remains quiet. We flee the club for a high concept restaurant next door called Farm 255. All the food they serve is raised on their farm just outside of town. We eat beets and bread dipped in olive oil and Vidalia onion rings. There’s organic beef and shrimp and grits. It’s a great concept this farm to table thing. Can’t believe we ever got away from it. If Athens has taught us anything it’s to eat farm fresh foods. Well the good news is, Flicker Bar is a great little room for acoustic music. A cool red curtained cave, with great sound. Tony and Kip do their acoustic duo, sound magnificent. Coles listeners, you missed a good one tonight. The Hawks do a very nice set as well.

Bad news: Pretty low turnout.Are Americans staying home with their mega entertainment centers? Watching Beck and old Merle Haggard clips on YouTube, while today’s country rock heroes toil in obscurity on $3 gas? Americans: abandon your Hi Def TVs, get in the car, accelerate slowly and brake infrequently, and come down and see the band!

Nashville, Tennessee

Holy shit, we’re back in Nashville. Somehow it’s not nearly as scary this time. It doesn’t feel like the Death Star or anything, just another desperate town of desperate entertainers not too unlike L.A. But we’re playing our good friend Billy Block’s Western Beat and that always makes for a good time. Billy is dressed in his own take on classic Nashville style: cowboy boots, jeans, cowboy hat with long white hair flowing out, bolo tie, and a hot pink t-shirt that says, “Got Bail?” He looks great. This guy is a real showman. And he can play drums.As we wait for our slot, RW and family stand on the corner outside to escape the smoky bar. Suddenly a white Mustang comes flying around the corner and smashes right into the Waller vehicle. The Mustang backs up. Sits for a moment. Then speeds away. A partial license plate is all we got and the cops don’t want it anyway. Too much trouble. The damage isn’t as bad as it could be and it offers a perfect opportunity to sing “Stop Driving Like An Asshole.” Will our luck turn?

We stay at Kregg Nance’s brand new tract palace perched on a steep embankment carved out of the Tennessee woods. Which are now a part of outer Nashville, they’ll be happy to know. Kregg and Paul had a touring country rock cover band, Straight Up, in the late 70s, back when Cuervo was the only tequila, and you got $100 a night for doing six sets (at least some things never change!). Kregg has gone Nashville, has a song pitcher, writing partners, and a better voice than some of the artists he’s pitching to. We hope he remembers those country rock heroes banned from inner Nashville when he hits it big.

Lafayette, Louisiana June 11

The Blue Moon Saloon and Guest house is quite a place. Located in an old two story Victorian with a wide wrap-around porch and expansive grounds, it’s quite a bit different from the city club scene we’re used to. Funky wood walls with found and forged art, the Virgin Mary prays under ivy in the back yard, and the band plays on the porch.

It’s hot and humid as we put our gear on-stage but we discover a cooler of ice and Abita beer is already waiting for us. They know how to welcome a band in Louisiana. The sound man tells us there’s a good write up in the paper and there is. Instead of being thrown in the cosmic burrito bag this writer calls up Townes Van Zandt and Ray Wylie Hubbard. We’re thrilled. Check out the full text here.As Tony and Kip set up the folks start to roll in. There’s white folks and black folks and young folks and old folks. Frat boys and their girls. Serious dancers types who trade partners and keep their feet moving song after song during the Gilkyson/Boardman/Nourse power trio set. Military looking wives there by themselves.

On stage there’s a salvaged door scarred with the big red spraypaint FEMA “X” Someone has painted a New Orleans street scene on it in an effort to commemorate this great lost city and culture. You can really feel the loss and the pain just over the tops of the bayou trees.

We realize early this crowd likes loud, long guitar solos. So we serve them up one after the other. We bring Tony up and he adds his thundering Super Reverb to the mix. Humboldt is particularly stirring and suddenly there’s shots of whiskey being handed up on the stage. A dog wanders through and we sing him his tune. The owners have offered us accommodations in the band bunkhouse but we’ve got to get to Memphis to have the AC fixed the next morning. Reluctantly, we hit the road after a late night dinner of crawfish etouffee and rice. Paul L stays behind to enjoy the steamy Lafayette late night atmosphere.Paul, Kip, and Kip’s GenXYZ cousin go on a late night walk through back streets of Lafayette, walk on campus, where there’s a 5 acre swampette complete with 2 alligators, surrounded by classroom buildings. Kip’s cousin regales us with tales of his volunteer work in New Orleans, living in a crazed modern hippie den with dreads, outsized egos, and altruism in the soup kitchen. It’s hot and humid at 2 a.m., but the mosquitos aren’t bad.

Next morning we meet the owners of the Blue Moon, a beautiful Cajun queen and her husband and her child. Their other lodger is a geologist with Halliburton. He’s hopefully moderate in his political views as we drink coffee, says he believes change can happen through the electoral system. “Hey,” says Cajun queen. “They’re corporations, right? Shoot ’em. Just shoot ’em.”

“Just shoot ’em,” repeat Tony, Kip, and Paul, as they drive north through a highway tunneling through endless woods, bound for Memphis under muggy blue skies. A discussion ensues on the decline of regional differences and accents, and as if to prove the point, we pull off the highway seeking food. A fish store proprieter gives us directions in a Mississippi accent so thick that we can only nod in fake comprehension. Regionalism lives!

We’re trucking down clear Texas highways towards our evening gig in Lafayette, LA. Shawn the trucker’s son is at the wheel and we’re calm and confident we’ll make it to the show. We’ve been watching “Team America” on the computer. Jesus, it’s funny. Now we’re listening to “The Handsome Family”. Hands down some of the finest and most delightfully strange lyrics on the scene today.

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We roll into the city that killed Kennedy ahead of schedule for our afternoon appearance at Bill’s Records presented by KHYI 95.3 FM. Bill’s records sits quietly in a dying mall in the suburbs of Dallas. There’s several abandoned store fronts, a strange restaurant called simply “Chicken and Rice” and cavernous Bill’s warehouse. A big orange sign in the doorway announces they are preparing to move the store to a new, upscale downtown location. We’re glad we get to play at this one. When we walk in, it seems imaginable how they will move this store. In the same location for almost 30 years, Bill’s records is a Dallas institution. The place contains miles and miles of LPs, 45s, CDs, posters, bumper stickers and buttons. There is a piece of rock memorabilia from every moment in American pop music history. No of it seems to be organized according to any system we can identify. We linger over a poster of Tiffany and a original Doors sticker. There’s a freezer in the corner with free ice cream. We’ve heard about this freezer. Shawn has found it and unwrapped an ice cream sandwhich before any of us miss him.

Two other bands arrive, a curious mix of cowboy hatted young trailer park beauties and older guitar dudes, and the gear starts to stack up by the rear entrance. This wise and road-hardened band jumps at the chance to play first. We set up as a surprisingly thick crowd gathers. There’s a barefoot bearded guy near the front wearing a Jimi Hendrix t-shirt with flowers in his hair. He’s carrying a basket of more flowers. This is interesting. He’s an original hippie, for sure. We go electric and the room sounds good. Folks are smiling and even singing along to some songs. Everyone in the audience seems to have brought their own case of Natural Light, or Natty Bo’s as we used to call them in college. Do people drink in record stores in the middle of the afternoon other states? We just don’t know. Friendly Dallasonians offer us beer and smokes after our set. Bill himself, a kind white-haired man smoking Marlborogh Light 100s buys a bunch of CDs for the store. Where they’ll end up, no one knows. Bill was an early champion of Ben Harper, gets very emotional as he points out a gold record on the wall. What a guy. We pack up and wish our new friends farewell and head for our $39 Quality Inn rooms arranged by the finest club owner in the Southwest, Mike Snider of the Allgood Café. After a quick check-in in the 100F Dallas heat we head over to the Allgood for dinner. The food at the Allgood is homey and filling. We order Chicken Fried Steak and Beef Short Ribs and mashed potatoes and green beans. Mike has the wisdom and good fortune to hire the kindest and most beautiful waitresses in all of Dallas, and that’s saying something. Devin and Haley take good care of us, filling our wine glasses and getting us whatever we need. Few establishments treat bands this way. We feel like kings at a feast.

Unfortunately, the night takes a bit of a turn. At show time the room is thinly populated. We just don’t get it. The Hawks got a good write up in the Dallas Observer and Tony got the big pick in the Dallas Morning News. Even the radio play has been pretty good. Yet it appears to be the lowest turn out of the tour. Perhaps it’s the stiffling heat and humidity of the Dallas night, the temperature still hovering in the 90s at 10 PM. Perhaps there’s some other big L.A. country rock outfit stealing our thunder. Perhaps we’re purveyors of a dying craft, like jazz musicians grousing about the Beatles. Should we purchase samplers? We’re all a bit baffled but somehow Mike Snider and the staff of the Allgood Café make it all fun. We laugh and rock and drink more wine. The lucky folks who are there hoot appreciately. As usual, Mike takes better care of us than we feel we deserve. We leave the gear on stage and make our way past Dealey Plaza to the hotel. We could’ve had a worse day in Dallas for sure.