by Chris Griffy
Link to Full Article
I See Hawks in L.A. is a band that has won over a ton of fans with their seamless blend of California Country-Rock and Psychedelia on their five previous albums, as well as through their strong live performances.

Of late, I See Hawks in L.A. have increasingly flirted with all-acoustic shows, hosting a one-mic acoustic series in Los Angeles’ Cole’s bar and with acclaimed tours in support of Americana superstars like Ray Wylie Hubbard, Dave Alvin, and Chris Hillman.

After years of teasing fans with glimpses of a what a stripped down I See Hawks in L.A. sounds like, the band has finally pulled the trigger on their first all-acoustic album, titled New Kind of Lonely, releasing March 6. [continue reading…]

Our new, all acoustic CD is almost here! Here are all the lyrics, music to follow soon:

BOHEMIAN HIGHWAY

Rivers in the sky
Layin in grass so high
Morning glory spied
By Mr. Darcy’s eye

I’m not alone in Freestone
Old friends reflecting
All my rarefied and better light
Green Apple meadow take this weary mind

Bohemian Highway
August river road
Bohemian Highway
Carrying me home

Pure black wooded night
Dipper in the sky
Seven Sisters fight
I ain’t takin’ sides

I’m the lonesome satellite
Following the Dipper lines
To true north my companion since the day before I chose delight
Abandoned my old sacred burden

Bohemian Highway
Rivers in the sky
Bohemian Highway
Rivers in my eyes

Thank you for wandering
Sweet curves and bitter hollows
Abandoned stone marked pastures
Return to random useless wonder
Return to random useless wonder

Bohemian Highway
August river road
Bohemian Highway
Carrying me home

DEAR FLASH

Dear Flash
Dear Flash
It’s been a long long long long long long time

Well I surely do respect your need
to fade into the hills
But damn, old man, I’ve got to say
the effort nearly killed me

I miss your prose and your sensitive nose
Do you still hunt chanterelles?
I miss those days
And freedom’s way
And the lovely unshod belles

Dear Flash
Won’t you lend me some cash?
Won’t you lend me some cash?
Dear Flash

As I sit in Angelino
there’s a rumble in the air
The feds are flying gray Chinooks
to pacify our cares

And yes I need a Greyhound fare
But I also need relief
I spent my youth in bitter truth
Now I want to lie in green

CHORUS

I won’t be a nuisance
You’ll hardly know I’m there
At the far in of your acres
I’ll be a cropper
If you’ll share

CHORUS

THE SPIRIT OF DEATH

I went out dreaming to the bottom of the sea
Under the whispering weight of the people gone before me
The song of the sinking sun summoned me to shore
That old friend I’d known a thousand times before

It was the spirit of death
The spirit of death
The spirit of death
The spirit of death
My heart is blessed
With the spirit of death

When I was a younger man
The good times eased the way
But now the stars are falling every other day
The dreams of childhood are returning to say
Your dance is coming, better pick a tune and play

CHORUS

Sweet sister Amy left us in the fall
Her spirit lingers in the hearts of us all
I asked my old friend if Amy was okay
He said that blazing spirit carried her on her way

CHORUS

If you visit my grave you won’t be alone
I’ll be dancing on my own gravestone
So bring your pretty woman, bring your fruit of the vine
A whole lot of laughing and a little bit of crying
Little bit of crying
Little bit of crying

NEW KIND OF LONELY

Our favorite young couple
Came by to watch some TV
They felt a strange loneliness so soon after their joyous
Matrimony

It was a rocking wedding
All the friends came in from out of town
Now they feel like they’re letting
Everybody down

There’s a new kind of lonely
And it’s sitting right next to you
There’s a new kind of lonely
Ah but even the sky is blue

Randy went out and got wasted with the boys
Chasing skirts and getting hurt, recollapsing
All the young man’s joys

Mona stayed home, slept with the cat
Too tired to wonder when Randy’s
Finally coming back

CHORUS

Little dove
Where’s your love?
The one always beside you
I guess it’s true
The lucky twos
Sometimes refuse the solace of their garden

Now I’m sitting on the back porch with my long time lovely bride
Waiting for the sun to set, the breeze to blow
Everything’s all right

CHORUS

I FELL IN LOVE WITH THE GRATEFUL DEAD

I fell in with the Grateful Dead
Hippie melodies in my head
I did what I did and I said what I said
In the parking lot caravan Grateful Dead

Me and my sister snuck out of the house
Took the Sunset bus into Hollywood’s mouth
To an acre of heaven in a concrete mile
Palladium, Palladium, Palladium smile

In the deep summer fog in Hampton Sydney
With the sweet southern girls who were oh so pretty
We smoked marijuana on the Chesapeake Bay
Fed the horses with handfuls of hay

CHORUS

In the summer of ‘72 I rode up the coast
On a sputtering Triumph with draft dodging freaks from my college
‘Twas the Santa Barbara Bowl and the New Riders opened the show
With a black wall of speakers as big as the ocean
Jerry came out smoking his cigarette
We hollered like wolves
He played his guitar seven days of the week
And the little man next to me was starting to peak
Oh, Donna, earth mama, smile down on this freak

CHORUS

My lady knew the crew
So we were granted backstage
Ate organic vegetarian curry and rice
Sat down in the wings on the hardwood floor
And the music washed over me
A foaming green gentle sea
A sea without jealousy
And I was the shore
I was laughing and crying without even trying

CHORUS

What, may you ask, is this song about?
It’s a cry for the tribes of peace to come out
We got the numbers, we’re fast and we’re strong
Consult your Whole Earth Catalogs

Take this hippie faded love and use it if you please
Or scatter us all gently on a Santa Cruz breeze
Or an Arkansas storm

To Winterland Meadowlands Soldier Field Tivoli
Rotterdam Amsterdam Newcastle Wimberly
Hey, batter, batter
You can’t destroy matter

I fell in with the Grateful Dead
Hippie melodies in my head
I did what I did and I said what I said
In the parking lot caravan Grateful Dead
A blonde hippie girl shared my bed

MARY AUSTIN SKY

Even her mundane objects are beautiful
Human folly cast in stone
L.A. river from the 6th street bridge
Weedpatch Highway, Old Road

Mary Austin Sky
Mary Austin Sky

She made the desert more sacred for me
Temblor Mountains, Carrizo Plain
Palo Verde, Saline Valley
Holy landscape, human stain

Mary Austin Sky
Mary Austin Sky

Holding
Back the
Inevitable

Mary Austin Sky
Mary Austin Sky

BIG OLD HYPODERMIC NEEDLE

She called me on the telephone and waited all night long
I never showed up at her door to carry her along
She scratched and scratched and smoked a pack
That itch just wouldn’t quit
Drank some wine, some Vicodine, and bought some time

It was that big old hypodermic needle
Nothing else would do
Big old hypodermic needle
Trusted, tried, and true
It was her steely shot of courage
It was her red white and blue

Four days later on the floor she didn’t feel so sick
Sun came through the kitchen door
Thank God she’d finally quit
Got out of the house, that brave little mouse
Facing the world on her own
Oh, but flying in on that clear desert wind
Her very best friend
Gonna be with her to the end

It was that big old hypodermic needle
Just a taste for the road
Big old hypodermic needle
Two sisters’ secret code
One last time for the memory
In a sunset turning gold

It was that same ironic ending to the fable at the wooden kitchen table
When you get too much of what you’re looking for
And what also killed the messenger, straight off the plane from Amsterdam
Was sweet and uncut heaven and I found them where they fell

It was that big old hypodermic needle
Who’s to say and who’s to tell
Big old hypodermic needle
Did you ever feel like an empty shell?
Comin home was easy
When you hear the angel bells
Two sweet sisters in the sunrise
Hear the angel bells

RIVER RUN

Now the river flows
Mostly underground
Summer rains
Have moved further south
Mosquitos in the sun
Miles of empty wells
Remember how we lived so well

My canopy abides
The strange new times
Open sky
Is hard and dry
Memory
Returns to me
I’ll root down
To porous ground

Run, river, run
River run, river run
River run
River run
River run

Now the river runs
Swiftly down my face
Wednesday brought the rain
Rain is holy grace
Grace be in my heart
My heart is in your hands

CHORUS

She said cottonwood, cottonwood
Don’t you cry
My source is the mountainside
If you keep me in your mind
My waters will find you

I will always pass on by
Reflecting changes in the sky
A thousand years is just a breath
A thousand miles before I rest

CHORUS

HIGHLAND PARK SERENADE

Slow down Figueroa
You’re breathing too fast
Twenty miles of boulevard
In a town that can’t last

I wake up at night
Hear your Saturday sounds
Helicopter, helicopter
Mission: surround

It’s a Highland Park serenade
Some are in love and some are afraid
It’s a Highland Park serenade

Five generations in this tumble down valley
From the concrete arroyo to T’s Bowling Alley
And a boy sprays his name on a newcomer’s walls
Just to let you know he’s not leaving at all

CHORUS

Calma te, calma te, calma te, mijo querido
Te amo, te amo, te amo, mi cuidad de pueblos todos

When the sun gets low
And the barbecues glow
There’s the asada you fear
And the asada you know
We’re living at the end of Monte Vista
Where the sun sets down right when I kiss ya

CHORUS

YOUNGER BUT WISER

We said our farewells
In songs and warning bells
The oracles won’t tell
Where we are going

We climbed the mountain trail
In lightning and black hail
Carrying the seeds of the revival

Younger but wiser
Addled, drunk and wild
I’ll meet you on the other side
Younger but wiser
Carrying our lives
I gotta say I kinda dig the ride

You and Karen sailed beside the great gray whales
Telling your own tales of the insurrection
Hope is burning bright
Southern Cross tonight
Wondering at life beyond the horizon

CHORUS

You and me alone
Cottages of stone fill our dreams tonight
Sheep up on the hill, brandy in the still
Feasting through the winter time
Flax, hemp, silk, sweet goat milk
Heaven’s so nearby again
Baby’s in the yard, learning all the stars
Heaven’s so nearby again
Heaven’s so nearby again

CHORUS

HUNGER MOUNTAIN BREAKDOWN

Hunger Mountain Breakdown
Hunger Mountain Breakdown

I’d like to introduce you to the mountain
I’d like to introduce you to my friend
You know that if I’m up here on this mountain
My problems will soon be at an end

I traveled all the way across this country
To climb above these pastures once again
See the smoke rising from the chimneys
Like memories scattering in the wind

The view through the leaf-bare trees
White birch and white snow
Following animal tracks
While the stark, strong, winds blow
Oooooohhhh

Welcome to the top of Hunger Mountain
400 feet of granite cliffs below
please tell all my friends in California
I’ll find satisfaction when I go

Hunger Mountain Breakdown
Hunger Mountain Breakdown

It sure is nice and quiet on Hunger Mountain
Now that my screeching demons are gone
Last night I dreamed about the ocean
And the time has come to travel on

Joy riding fighter planes
Golden eagle dips its wings
Slipping through the alpenglow
Back through your bedroom window

Hunger Mountain Breakdown
Hunger Mountain Breakdown

YOUR LOVE IS GOING TO KILL ME SOME DAY

Thirty pages of Ulysses
That much closer to the day
When one of us is leaving
And the other must remain

Well the western sky reminds me
Of the time you went all fiery
From my moment’s hesitation
At our wild and wicked ways

And it wasn’t just your beauty
Or your cosmic sense of duty
Or the dolphins in the gables
On our fabled wedding day
Giving you away

Your love is going to kill me
Someday
Your love
Your love
Your love is going to kill me

You believe in beliefs yet have none
Sleep your deep sleep when day is done
Laugh as you chop down my grandiositree

Now I watch myself rising to your elevated plain
Listening to Terrapin Station in the rain

If you leave me I’ll ramble, I’ll jump, I’ll go mad
Our love is so good that it’s exactly that bad
You believe in blood medicine just like your dad

CHORUS

Heaven is in your kitchen
My inferno is in remission
If only fate was a decision
If only we could hold hands for oblivion
The skies of our own Armageddon
The skies

CHORUS

IF YOU LEAD I WILL FOLLOW

The wheels are rolling in the ruts of the wheels
That have rolled down this trail before
Tumbleweeds dreaming, the cactus seem to be
Pointing towards some distant door

Where’s the stewardess on this wagon train?
I need something to cut the fog in my brain
When I just can’t take it any more

If you lead I will follow
You give me comfort from the world
When my heart is feeling hollow
You fill it up with your diamonds and pearls

On the shores of Independence Rock
We roll and laugh and dance and talk and shake off the dust from the day
And I stand on the granite
Just like I planned it
And I’m wondering if I could stay

But the sun is sinking in the west
And this whole long trip is just one big test
And damned if I’m going to fail

CHORUS

The angels are singing and I’m still clinging
To the crag at the end of the ledge
You’re calling to me
Denying gravity
I close my eyes and step over the edge

CHORUS

We’re excited to announce that our CD Release show for “New Kind of Lonely” will take place on February 24th at McCabe’s in Santa Monica. Come on out!

For more info on buying tickets, etc visit www.mccabes.com

We just finished tracking 13 acoustic songs for our new CD “New Kind Of Lonely.” We recorded old school, sitting in a circle around some fancy microphones. Cliff Wagner played some blazing banjo, Gabe Witcher added some fiddle, and Dave Raven played drums on 3 songs. We’re getting ready to mix, master, and make CDs, and calling on our friends for some financial love to see this through. Here’s the website if you want to kick in for the cause, we have some hard to resist premiums: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hawks/new-kind-of-lonely

This is super drummer Dave Raven’s first trip with the Hawks, and it’s been so great that we fear we’ve set the expectations bar a bit high for him. “It’s not usually this cushy, bro.” Our third day extended and heightened the mellow dreamlike nature of our northern wandering.

We took the 5 South of course, back on what our friends Old Californio might call The Mother Road**

Then westward on Highway 20 and some beautiful hairpin mountain roadage that transformed the landscape from dry grass and oaks to lush vineyard — ringed by dry grass and oaks. Southward through mysterious valley to edge of bustling Napa prosperity. The streets are jammed with Ferraris and tour busses. It’s a cross between Park City in the winter and Yosemite Valley in the summer. The highway becomes Main Street, St. Helena, mysterious St. Helena. New and old wealth manifested in immaculately kept Victorian and Craftsman houses on huge redwood shaded lots.

We pull up to our host Joanne’s turn of the (last) century two story wood frame house, yard drenched in balmy afternoon Napa sunlight. This party is a mini-summit of local vintners and friends, and the tree shaded lawn is action packed, local wines and cheeses laid out on long tables as the guests filter in. Paul Marshall, whose lovely and cool wife and daughters are also here, is in oenophile heaven. The vintner’s wares are sampled, to much earnest discussion among the imbibers. This is indeed wine country. There’s a refreshing and earthy Viognier. An elephantine old vine Zin. A Pinot Egregious just coming into its own. A not overly-oaked or malolactic, lean, crisp Chardonnay. Paul Lacques seems to randomly favor the Chablis, which he pronounces “cha-bliss.”

We do two electric sets alternating with funky folk rock jazz combo Free Peoples, a quintessential northern California band, with a fat groove, great playing, a phenomenal young violinist (or is he a fiddler?) named Karl, who sat in with us, to most beautiful effect. A blast was had by all, perhaps us Hawks most of all. The dream state continues.

** note: Old Californio’s Mother Road is Route 66, they’re all Pasadena/Temple City locals. The only truly all-locals band in the Southland?

The Hawks have grown and thrived in the same time frame of the spread of capuccinos to rural American culture. We have witnessed the grand opening of a Starbucks in Provo, Utah, sampled sophisticated single source brews in blue highway towns, stood behind bearded mountain men as they enquire into croissants and scones, their trucks idling in the gravel parking lot. The nasty swill that was a pillar of rural Americana is being knocked over town by hamlet by town square. Change is as possible as it is unlikely. Yes we can.

Could left wing organizations win America back via coffee culture? Let’s not forget that this was a land of radicals, Wobblies, Communists, socialists, beats and bohemians, powerful labor unions that delivered the vote for representatives who feared and served the people and the common good. The collapse of this commonality has been breathtakingly fast. We live in its rubble now. The average working man now votes Republican, watches Fox News, and thinks teachers are overpaid. Will green shoots rise from these ruins? What if the funds donated to Moveon.org and their now tedious and salaried dance with the power structure went towards a chain of socialist free trade coffee houses staffed by sexy and brilliant eco aware youth handing customers a copy of Counterpunch with each impeccably pulled ristretto? Could Environmental Baristas For America (modeled after Teach For America) recruit the best and brightest to serve high end espresso to under-served middle America? Cafe begets outdoor farmer’s market begets local small farming vegetable swaps, bicycling, political discussion groups, local activism and cultural happenings. Rural America finds the balance of 1936, or 1926, or 1876. Facebook falters. Twitter withers.

We get ideas. On this post-wedding morning we walked across the street from our Town of Mt. Shasta modest motel, the Alpine Lodge, to an enticing stone storefront espresso establishment, Seven Suns. Jackpot! Excellent breakfast burritos, scones like big cookies, Americanos and soy capuccinos a cut above decent, reggae wafting through cool subdued lighting back rooms. Hence the above speculation on the rebirth of American culture. It’s not impossible.

We get more ideas: The death blow to wind and solar generated power in any eco debate is the lack of power storage. Winds often blow strongest at night, when electricity demand is down. Solar power declines in winter. Giant batteries aren’t practical. How to store electrical energy? Well–how about mechanical storage? The new 1776 foot high World Trade Center could be built on a hydraulic platform. Excess electricity from wind turbines and solar panels now covering every square foot of Manhattan rooftop can be routed to motors that raise the hydraulic platform and the World Trade Center 200 feet in the air, raising its peak height to 1976 feet, making it even more height prestigious and bolstering America’s deflated self esteem. When Manhattan’s electricity demand exceeds solar/wind output, the platform lowers, the Trade Center’s massive weight driving generators that light up the Great White Way.

The presidents of Mt. Rushmore could be similarly jacked up, the gigatonnage of a mountain top storing a whole region’s worth of electricity. The ruined coal mountaintops of West Virginia could be converted to energy storage platforms as they’re being cosmetically rehabilitated. Let’s jack up all of Las Vegas as its population flees for more rational places to live. Put our wastelands to good use. Phoenix. And West L.A.

Not all our ideas are good ones. A chain of Nevada brothel/medical marijuana clinic/gas station centers called Ass, Gas, and Grass (Kids Eat For Free) might create more problems than it solves. But noted in the interest of not spurning The Muse.

Saturday morning, hard clear blue skies, we do indeed rise at 7:30 a.m., load up, are treated to a hearty eggs and espresso based breakfast at Evangeline’s, more thanks upon thanks. The Yukon powers over hills and county lines to Nevada City, a picture postcard Gold Rush town gracefully tucked into wooded ridges, rows of beautifully preserved 19th century buildings. We pull off a pretty solid ungodly hour live show in the radio KVMR studio, with erudite host Larry. KVMR has played us generously since our first CD and are a big part of our Sacto adjacent family. Long may they enlighten the airwaves.

We power north on the 99 through Functional Country, earthen dams, water pumps, giant power line, dry olive orchards with metal square barns. This passes, and we find gentle rurality, sight Shasta towering white through haze in the distance. We are in the Land Of Interesting Topography, lava based. Is Shasta volcanic?

Yes it is. According to Wikimassbrain.com, it’s actually four separate volcanos merged together. We exit the 5 amidst tall trees and mountain ridges. We’re playing a wedding. About once a year we play a wedding if, and only if, the bride and groom and their families pass our stringent screening exam. The Shasterians excelled with honor and distinction. Not surprisingly, the groom is a geologist (another fated Hawks geology encounter). We like rocks, and rock gardens.

All signs point to a memorable evening. The wedding tables and home made huppa are bathed in the beautiful light of a meadow surrounded by tall trees, with Mt. Shasta’s snow packed whiteness beaming down in the near background. Tables are named after rock classifications and we’re seated at the igneous table. The centerpiece? You guessed it: rocks. The soundman is a mellow young dude mit ponytail in three piece flannel suit, the stage was built by the groom, kegs of beer and roasted carrots are waiting. Sound check, long restful hang in the meadow, and the coolest wedding party in our memory filters in. Cool as in mellow, unpretentious, totally relaxed, dare we say very very happy? The groom’s dad is a classic Louisiana man from deep in Cajun country, the bride Michelle’s family has lived a half mile from the meadow her entire life. This is a zone sheltered from the uprooted angst of our Too Young Republic. We eat, we play music, we mingle with the families as the bride and groom take the stage for their own family and friends bluegrass band, damn, they’re pretty good. We do a few more songs, depart into the night, partied out. Was that work?

Late July, 2011. The Hawks have taken once again to the summer road. Green oaks rise above the yellowing grasses. Mount Volcano Shasta peeks over the foot hills white and tall. Streams and rivers across the West are fat and full. We cross over deep green rivers crowded with Saturday boaters in cut off shorts with coolers of ice and beer, pink shoulders and fading tattoos squeezing out of tattered tank tops. It’s been a while since Californians have felt the calm that comes from an abundant snow pack and an end to the rationing. We can sprinkle at will for a while. Our glass is half full.

So, it is with loving nostalgia that we return to our blog. In the mid-2000s when we first took to the road, it seemed that the blog would last forever, the new literary form. But so quickly was it replaced by ever shorter status updates. 140 characters of attention span. So indulge us, dear reader, as we let our vocabulary run free on the open range of the page.

Last night we played at Evangeline’s in Colfax, east on the 80 in oak and evergreen foothills past the encroaching reach of Sacramento commuter traffic, a backwater only recently ravaged by a drive through Starbucks and still retaining its beyond the pale local culture. Such a place is great to find in this stiff corporate age — a genuine community that appreciates music, life, and dancing. Evangeline has created a sanctuary, a refuge, for the traveling musician. Oh, yes, Evangeline is real, not the imagined muse of a cafe seeking cred through colorful moniker. She knows cool music and books accordingly, pays the bands astonishingly well for the modest square footage of her espresso based den.

Dave Raven, drummer phenom and Renaissance Burning Man, is making his maiden voyage with the Hawks, and we introduce him to our ways by pulling the faithful Yukon up to Evangelines in the nick of time. The locals, firmly committed hippies with jobs and medicinal cards, greet us warmly as we hustle our gear through the cafe’s front door. Several custom rolled cigarettes are handed to us, and we haven’t even cracked a beer. Richard March and his tight acoustic combo open the show with the sun still above the horizon. We ease into an electric show in the tiny room as our smiling audience swims in and out of Evangelines, watching us through the front glass on the breeze gathering front porch, coming in for some AC and unfiltered sounds, dancing, singing along. We stand in the middle of it all, beguiled and then digging in as the set catches fire. Dave rocks our rockers as they are meant to be rocked. A good time is had by all.

A long hang with friend fans, farewell to our kind hosts, long philosophical discussion with Jamesons at the Colfax Motor Lodge, and to bed. We have an early rising.

event details
talent

Tom Brosseau, John C Reilly, The Chapin Sisters, Jenny O, Stone Darling, I See Hawks In L.A. with Tony Gilkyson, The Damn Sons, Driftwood Singers, Wimberley Bluegrass Band, Emily Lacy, Fort King, RT N’ The 44’s, Olentangy John

info

A fundraiser for Japanese Red Cross Society and a tribute to the Louvin Brothers on Ira Louvin’s birthday. With performances of the duo’s country classics by:

Tom Brosseau & John C Reilly
Chapin Sisters
Jenny O
Stone Darling
The Damn Sons
I See Hawks In L.A. ft. Tony Gilkyson
Driftwood Singers
Olentangy John
Fort King
Emily Lacy
RT N’ The 44’s
Wimberley Bluegrass Band

with beverages provided by O.N.E. Natural Experience coconut water and Metl Mezcal & Tequila

co-presented by The New L.A. Folk Festival and L.A. Record