Café Nine is a real bar, with brick walls and a crudely walled stone basement and brick floor. Upstairs is a small stage and long bar with Bass and Guiness on tap, and posters of the top second tier Ameicana acts: Dave Alvin, The Iguanas, Los Straitjackets, Big Sandy, Robbie Fulks, and even BR549 have played this tiny room. Because it’s got that undefinable American classic barroom vibe. We’ll play there even when we’re turning down Conan O’Brien. As a matter of fact, just to feel empowered, we’re hereby officially turning down Conan O’Brien. Conan, we love you. You are very funny. But we’re going to have to say no.

The Café Nine night began with a good crowd, all a bustle with the anticipation of country rock. At 9:45, something strange happened. An earnest young man took the stage and sang an a capella version of an old slave song. He then brought up a keyboard playing friend and they jammed. The audience watched. The Hawks fled the room. Which was a big mistake, for the noodlers noodled unsupervised with self-empowered fury.for a solid hour.*By the time Tony did his set and the Hawks set up it was midnight. We played seven songs and the bartender announced last call. Good night, New Haven. We’d love to come back, if you bag the opener.

*A series of comments on the opening act:Improvising is not for the beginner. The most successful improvisers are arguably the jazzers, who are highly trained and have played complex tunes a million times before they are free to do what their inner voices dictate. When you know one or two scales, you should wank at home. — Paul L

It sure made me wish that samplers were never invented. – Paul MOr delay pedals. – Rob

Jon Brion can do this kind of thing. – Paul LSo then he played this bad part that he looped, and I’m hanging with it, and then he plays this part—de deee deet deet deet dee dee dee deet deet—completely unmusical, and that’s when I walked out of the room. — Paul M

We should have kicked his ass. Paul L and I were on the verge of kicking his ass outside the club. Sort of when the two writers beat the shit out of Dan Rather on the street, as an artistic act. They were wearing masks. – RobWhat do you think about a u-ey here? — Paul M (we’re lost somewhere in Connecticut near New York)

The two brothers later wrote this book about how they lost their family’s entire fortune gambling on the riverboats in Tunica, Mississippi. – RobBrothers? – Shawn

They were white guys. Shawn, you got any ibuprofen . . . bitch? — RobThere’s this guy in L.A. who always loops stuff, and I say to him, why don’t you just play it? –- Shawn.

End of conversation. We’re at the Athenian Diner in Milford, Connecticut, and it’s time to eat. Kind of hot outside.

There’s a Little Italy in New Haven, Connecticut. On one side of Wooster street sits Frank Pepe’s Pizzeria. On the other, Sally’s Apizza. For decades the lucky residents of New Haven have debated which pizza is better. Well, we didn’t get the chance to try Pepe’s but I SEE HAWKS IN L.A. is very seriously considering awarding its highest honor to Sally’s Apizza. Final votes are yet to be tallied but it looks likely that Sally’s could be declared the Best Pizza in America by these very Hawks.

What is it that makes this pizza so perfect? you must be thinking. First off, there is only one thing on the menu at Sally’s: pizza. No salad, no garlic bread, no pasta dishes. No parmesan or even red pepper flakes to adulterate their flawless formula. The menu is one page where you choose your size and toppings. That’s it. We ordered three Labatt’s Blue beers to round things off. They arrived and we waited for the pies. We chose a PL vegetarian pizza of mushrooms and black olives and a classic pepperoni, Old paintings of Frank Sinatra and John F. Kennedy looked down at us from their places on the wood paneled walls among framed newspaper articles praising Sally and his fine pizzas. We settle in, arriving just in time to watch the line form outside the door as each booth is now filled. The pizza arrives. Each pizza comes on it’s own rectangular cookie sheet. The pizzas are not exactly round, they are thrown roughly into the natural near-circles, appearing like flattened stones. There’s nothing fancy going on with these ingredients. There’s no goat cheese or stupid whole wheat crust. It’s just thin traditional crust, sauce, mozzarella cheese, chosen topping, but it’s perfectly executed. The crust is crispy around the edges and on the bottom, but just barely crispy. These pizzas have been cooked in a very hot oven for a short period of time. The pizzas look beautiful. How will they taste?

With the first bite, the pizza is still too hot. How often this happens, a pizza or two arrives, everyone dives in unable to hold back the anticipation, only to find it’s just too hot. Luckily none of us burn our mouths, it’s not that hot. And it still tastes good, don’t get me wrong. But it’s clear in a couple of minutes the pizza will be the perfect temperature for eating, the temperature where all the distinct flavors and textures can be fully appreciated. And so that time does comes. The Hawks grow quiet and focus on eating this deliciously simple and complex pizza. We feel a artistic kinship with Sally and his apostles. This is what good art is: a complex idea expressed in clear and simple terms with a respect for tradition and genuine culture. No short cuts. High quality ingredients. A deep connection to the land beneath one’s feet. We celebrate regionalism! Thank God for pizza like this.

As North Korea waves its impotent (taepo-)dong at the world, we’re driving boldly northward on I-95, America’s drug running corridor, not running drugs of course but running country rock. Country Rock! Country rock for America! Original country rock in defiance of North Korean missiles! If we stop playing country rock the terrorists are winning. Come to us ye merry Americans! We call out to you in harmony of tone and spirit with wings and arms spread. Our hearts are wide open for you. Do with them what you will, but be gentle, be gentle for we hold a dead man’s hand of Aces and Eights, waiting for a bullet in the back. Two pair, but not just any two pair. What was the fifth card and what will it be?

We’ve got a quarter jar of Wilkes County, NC moonshine sitting in the cupholder, spreading good vibes through our Suburban interior. Moonshine molecules float through our mobile enclosed space, tickling our nostrils and our country rock fancy. So–we flew in direct from LAX to Washington D..C yesterday in a brand new Boeing 777 leased and operated by United Airlines. Each seat had its own individual television with 50 cable-tvish channels. There was a great shark program on, as there usually is, called “Air Jaws.” Off the coast of Cape Town in South Africa great white sharks sim straight up from the depths at speeds approaching 30 mph. With prey locked in their jaws they shoot into the air, breeching fully above the southern waters. These prehistoric missiles, (not missals – the Catholic prayer book, and unlike the North Korean dongs) thrill and terrify us all.

Will Garrison Keillor address this latest Korean missile crisis in his next radio broadcast? Perhaps, but this hit or miss Robert Altman of the radio waves could just as easily ignore it altogether. He’s gotten bolder in his critique of America’s madness, veering into Martin Luther King territory, that area where the speaker must duck when a car backfires. When will someone stand up and pelt this writer/broadcaster, the soul of highbrow middle America? Perhaps, like the Simpsons, he’s under the radar and over the heads of the vicious beast that got JFK It’s 4 p.m. in DC adjacent Virginia. Not very Virginia up here. Jassa, our Sihk cabbie, whisks us away from Dulles International but quickly he realizes he’s made a wrong turn due to being distracted while trying to program his new GPS unite. We get back on the right track then lost again. The GPS is a step behind, recalculating as The Sihk gives Paul Lacques his map. The GPS proves to be extraordinarily accurate and even prescient, predicting our arrival in Leesburg and replotting the directions with our brave turbaned warrior abandons a clogged commuter artery. We make it to PL’s brother Gabe’s house in historic Leesburg, Virginia, within two minutes of the GPS prophecy.

We invade Gabe and Deanna’s basement, haul up our amps and drums, reload, sip moonshine, and drive to Vienna, VA, another DC bedroom community framed by trees, canals, and swamps yielding to Suburbia Americana. Jammin’ Java is in a mini-mall with a generous roadside parking lot. It could be the new roadhouse, as funk vanishes from the roads. Pierced and dyed young women in black smoke cigarettes on the concrete walkway. Some of them work at Jammin Java and direct us around to the back. The mini-mall isn’t so mini, it’s a long drive to the back entrance, and the interior of JJ is huge, brick walled, and mysterious. It doesn’t match its anonymous exterior. Very cool.

Tony Gilkyson and Rob Douglas greet us. (Kip is a newlywed, congrats, and subbed out till we go to UK in August.) Paul L puts new old stock 1950’s GE 6V6GT tubes in his amp, which promptly blows a fuse. You’d think Paul would have learned from past Ebay purchases, but no, he hasn’t. He puts the old tubes back in, and the amp works fine. Rolling the dice, he replaces a smaller 12AX7 tube. This one works, and the amp sounds great, rejuvenated. It was getting tired on the first leg of the tour, and now it’s frisky, even brash.It’s another small but wiry crowd in the dark halls of Jammin Java, but a good time is had by all. Gabe and Deanna, their cute and bright as a penny near one year old Carlin, Deanna’s mom Bonnie and her man Jake are full of enthusiasm and good cheer, hang for the Hawks and Tony. Jake’s excited, appropriately enough, by Tony’s barn burner instrumental “Late for Jake.” Two fellow Mayo Spartans from Rochester, MN surprise RW. The vibe is alright. The Java sound man and intellectual waitresses are great, and we want to come back.
Load up in the misting humid late night, bye to baby Carlin and keepers, 2 hour drive to Elksburg, MD, arbitrary stopping point discovered by Paul M in his hotel booking stint. A Hampton Inn bordering a woods and mosquito pond, comfy, with cookies and tea at 2 a.m. But it’s only 11 p.m. west coast time, and we’re not burnt at all. Watch France beat Portugal 1-0, and crash out.

Paul L was hoping for Germany vs. France. Nostalgia.We’re on east coast country rock time next, day, wake at 11 p.m. and load up. Rob and Paul L sprint the 100 yards to the Waffle House, a country rock exercise regimen that we can probably adhere to. Eggs, hash browns smothered (and capped for Paul M), two orders of cheese and eggs, and we drive north on the 95. Paul L accidentally averts a toll exit, driving blissfully through an EasyPass only lane. Will an expensive east coast traffic violation ticket be arriving in the mail?

The New York City Skyline rises up on the horizon. The first thing you notice is the missing World Trade Center towers. The band debates the Freedom Tower. Should it be built? What, if anything, does “Freedom” mean in this context? Stalin’s freedom, or Townes van Zandt’s? NYC gets the Hawks jacked every time. We cross the George Washington bridge and our pulses race. It’s so public. There’s the high rise tenements with the homies on the wall, and the elegant old smaller brick co ops where you know the yuppies grind their beans fresh. No anonymity, and thus anomymous. We’re listening to 1980 Mink DeVille, the perfect east coast soundtrack. She’s a mixed up shook up girl.

~ By RON GARMON ~
L.A. City Beat
June 29th, 2006

Anchoring a corner in one of Sunset Boulevard’s less tony strip malls, Safari Sam’s already feels like a cool drink at the well to this transplanted Appalachian hillbilly. Indeed, pull down the mezzanine (but leave the wreckage), and this spacious box-with-stage looks like a twice-scale model of the Wagon Wheel, a long-defunct West Virginia country-cooze honky-tonk from whose bar I lifted my first illegal beer. Here last Saturday (June 24), by the twos and threes, crept in the elderly hippies, the part-time rednecks, the Inland diaspora, tattooed girls in tight print dresses, hipsters-with-ears, and aligned buckaroos of all ages, both genders, and every ethnicity – yeah, the whole Hee Haw gang – for L.A.’s greatest practitioners of the high-lonesome tonal art, I See Hawks in L.A. and Dave Alvin and the Guilty Men. Looking about me at this friendly, flirty assemblage, I could see a Red State glowing in every heart.

When last I checked on ironists I See Hawks, they were pursuing a nice line in astringent, cannabinoid C&W, with but the merest hint of the cozmik choogle they throw down now. Their third album, California Country, can be filed alongside The Notorious Byrd Brothers and Burrito Deluxe as evocation of the acidhead West; a land of purple trees and hard times, of loss, predation, circling helicopters, and second-generation hippie chix shaking their asses. These Riders of the Purple Booj make honky-tonk sweetness out of this welter of good and bad and worse, with Angeleno THC meditativeness standing in for the beery familiarity of Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, and the Bakersfield sound.

Sophisticates may sneer (with or without surgery’s aid) and Westsiders squirm, but, like everything beautiful, such numbers as “Motorcycle Mama” and “Houston Romance” provide their own justification. There’s something of Haggard’s whimsical toughness in Rob Waller’s voice, and the songs evince some of Randy Newman’s knack for gone-dead Goya caricature. The eternal Huck Finn penchant for the wistful (“Raised by Hippies”), the tall-tale fantastic (“Slash from Guns N’ Roses”), and the fatalistic (“Jackpot!”) are stylishly indulged on disc, but they’re thrown down like a rock ‘n’ roll barn dance live. Patrons sweated and gripped each other as room temperature rose and outer garments peeled away.

June 24, Safari Sam’s with Dave Alvin

It’s late June, the longest day of the year has passed, and the Hawks are laying low. We’ve played almost every night, Phoenix to Richmond in 21 days, and didn’t escape 100 degree + weather till the last week of the tour, but then the humidity stepped in. We’re lounging with the wives and families, resting up for Tour round II. The Hawks reunite on Saturday night in the Southland, our maiden voyage at the brand new Safari Sam’s in East Hollywood, and we’re curious. West on Los Feliz, south on Western, oops, east on Sunset, just past the mega-99 Cent store and into the parking lot, park at the giant Tiki face and load in.

Safari’s Sam’s just might be the best club in L.A. It’s big but not too big, dark with many dark corners, funky but with good sound and lights. Steve Zepeda is a long time booker and a musician’s friend (not to be confused with the Guitar Center magazine, which local wit Doten has rechristened “Musician’s Acquaintance”). He knows how to treat bands and thus has a great lineup on the calendar.We’re opening for Dave Alvin, who has kindly requested us, and his gear is set up, soundchecked, and ready to go. We do our humble opening band tribute to a sound check and head for the beers, hanging with Drac in the back, as the public pours in. The sun is still setting. Ah, summer.

If time on the road teaches you anything, it is to ignore hideous onstage sound and keep playing. Don’t whine, don’t grimace, even if the monitor is feeding you ear splitting midrange sludge. Which greeted our first song, but we plowed through, and the packed house was perhaps none the wiser. Soundman got it together, and we got a great reception from the roots rock audience, packed with vets of L.A.’s first golden age of clubbery, the late 70s/early 80s when X, The Blasters, Plugs, Los Lobos, and many semi-forgotten but great bands played Wongs east and West, the Hong Kong, Cathay de Grande, Blackies. Young people went to Flip and Aardvark and bought thrift store suits and jackets and 50’s dresses and packed the clubs. If hippiedom was dead, this wasn’t such a bad alternative. And these folks are still rocking, with an infusion of youngsters in the crowd.

Rick Shea (whose name means “hawklike” in Irish) added his soulful pedal steel and then guitar to the Hawks set. It gets hot in Safari Sam’s, hot and dark like Austin or Memphis, and that’s a good thing. A great L.A. welcome home.

Dave Alvin and his mature Guilty Men hit the stage and played with fire. It’s Dave’s record release party for his brand new West of the West album. The crowd was borderline worshipful for such a hardnosed bunch, and Dave’s lead guitar was stinging and on the money. The Hawks mingled with old and new friends. A shoutout to our publicist Susan Clary, in attendance with her artiste husband Hudson Marquez, the guy who buried the Cadillacs in the middle of the Texas prairie and called it Cadillac Ranch. In America money buys you not only justice, but press coverage, and Susan has been kind enough to help us out at her Second Tier Country Rock rate, because she loves music and odes to altered consciousness.More greetings inside and out Sam’s, to the Coles family (rumor has it Coles is no more more! Alas! Alas!), Jeff from Santa Barbara, Chris Morris, Randall and his rocker mom Evelyn (“I know this sounds ridiculous, but have you seen my mom?”), as Dave and Men cranked out the hits of bygone California, including the best of the night, Dave’s own “Fourth of July.” Get yourself a copy before the weekend.

After staying out way too late, next morning Hawks Paul, Paul, and Rob gathered at a coffee house at Wilshire and Hauser, greeted by Chris Morris, pillar of L.A. rock criticism, who’s also the salvation of Indie 103.1’s Watusi Rodeo, taking over the show with wit, encyclopedic knowledge, taste*, and enthusiasm. Chris escorted us upstairs and led us through a charged up interview, despite having half the sleep we got (last night he taxiied over to Cinema Bar to catch Randy Weeks and get his dose of Tony Gilkyson guitar–FYI, it’s a $40 dollar ride). We played “Raised By Hippies,” “Grapevine,” and something else and were told it sounded great. We’re still waking up from that one.

It’s almost 4th of July, and then we hit the road again.*Overfunded westside “public” radio station DJs, take note.

For more on the Alvin/Hawks show check out what these fine publications have to say:Daily Variety

L.A. City Beat

by William Michael Smith

You might judge I See Hawks in L.A. by the company they keep. Rick Shea, Dave Alvin’s guitarist for the past half decade, sits in with the group as often as his schedule permits. Fiddler Brantley Kearns, another regular in Alvin’s band who played for years with Dwight Yoakam, is essentially a fifth member of the band. Chris Hillman adds mandolin to three tracks on I See Hawks’ latest disc, California Country, its title betraying the band’s debt to Hillman’s trailblazing work with the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers.

Shea says the Hawks lie somewhere on along the California musical continuum “from Sweethearts of the Rodeo to Captain Beefheart.” The three-part harmonies between guitarist Rob Waller, multi-instumentalist Paul Lacques and bassist Paul Marshall have become a distinctive element of their sound. Drummer Shawn Nourse, who’d previously played with Yoakam and James Intveld, rounds out the lineup.

Lyrically, the band has become know for stoner songs such as “Barrier Reef” — “the keeper of the leaf is the barrier reef to my sanity” — and “Humboldt,” a vivid ode to designer pot growers in northern California: “I’d be glad to plant corn in the ground/ But corn don’t go for three thousand a pound.”

With many Los Angeles country-scene players having communal ties to I See Hawks, the shuffling “who’s available” lineup lends a supple “how will it sound tonight?” flexibility to their shows. On their 2004 album Grapevine, “Humboldt” received a traditional big-beat Burrito-esque country-rock treatment, but a website live version sounds like a psychedelic electric bluegrass raga band playing after-hours at the Grateful Dead house.

Shea calls frontman Waller “an amazing singer — strange, sad, poetic, crazed, controversial. And any lyric, when he sings it, makes perfect sense, like you’re sitting around getting high talking to a good friend.” Waller, a creative writing instructor at USC, and Lacques, a successful playwright and comic strip creator, began to write together in Lacques’ Echo Park apartment in 1999. They issued their self-titled debut disc in 2001, with Kearns contributing fiddle.

Their songs are rife with mournful social commentary, environmental tragedy, wily humor, outsider guile, and political undercurrent. The title track of California Country elaborates on the eerie late-night cover photo of a lonely gas pump island along some Golden State commuter alley. The angst at the loss of California’s natural beauty to population and progress sends a message that is simultaneously spiritually uplifting and politically bitter.

Elsewhere, on the gently sarcastic “Hard Times (Are Here Again)”, Waller wryly bemoans, “There’s no ink in my printer/ It’ll be a long, long winter,” while the hilarious and surreal “Slash from Guns N’ Roses” drops a bunker buster bomb on Hollywood pretension.

Asked about the occasional political nature of the band’s material, Waller is bemused. “We’re not a polemical band, not right-wing or left-wing or any of that,” he says. “We’re just trying to react honestly to the madness of politics today in a way that’s not dogmatic or affiliated with any political group.”

And the marijuana anthems? Waller shrugs. “Ah, the misconception that we’re a ‘pot band.’ In a way those songs are political too, just a big ‘screw you’ to everyone who thinks pot is a crucial issue compared to all the horrific stuff going on.”

Waller is similarly cagey about the Hawks’ musical identity.” We knew it was going to be country, but that’s about all the ‘What kind of music is it?’ strategy we put into it,” he says. “We tried to write interesting songs and eventually found that Hawks sound. Paul had a very successful play in the ’80s about an egomaniacal polka band leader, so I sensed a kindred spirit. As we worked together, we came upon this common strangeness in each other that we both enjoyed.”

By Philip Van Vleck, Special to The Herald-Sun (Durham, NC)
June 15, 2006

RALEIGH — One of the genuinely interesting country bands on the scene nowadays is I See Hawks in L.A. The group is on the road in support of their latest album, “California Country,” and they’ll be making a stop at Raleigh’s Pour House Sunday evening.

I See Hawks is, as the title of their new album suggests, a California-based group. They’ve released three albums, with their self-titled debut disc coming in 2001. Each album has raised the ante in terms of what we might expect from this band. The mentality behind their vibe is expansive and still developing.

I See Hawks’ second record, “Grapevine,” was one of the best albums of 2004. The mood of the disc was somber, even cerebral, and the sound was a beautifully resonant evocation of California country music, albeit spun to suit the I See Hawks personality.

“California Country,” on the other hand, is long on wit and shrewd observation. The sound is often described by music critics as “cosmic country,” which is a reasonably coherent allusion to I See Hawks predecessors such as The Byrds, The Flying Burrito Brothers, and Gram Parsons.

The cosmic country label for I See Hawks’ music is “pretty close,” founding member Rob Waller, a Minnesota native who graduated from Duke in 1994, said. “I like the term surrealist folk.”

Some of the “California Country” tunes, however, are more topical than surrealistic. One of the most unexpected songs on the album is definitely “Byrd From West Virginia.”

Waller said he finds Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia a complex and inspiring figure.

“In the lead-up to the Iraq war, he was the one guy who really got up there and not only spoke against the whole idea — and did so eloquently — but also reminded Americans of our values and what the Constitution means, and the danger of going out on this foreign military adventure,” Waller said. “And nobody listened to him.

“This guy has some wisdom in his years and he’s definitely got a complicated life story. By no means has he been a pure example of righteousness and we tried to include as much of his biography as we could, both the dark and the light.”

“California Country” also features a very dramatic, amusing song about Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash.

“That song’s based on some true facts,” Waller said. “There was a Slash impersonator going around Los Angeles, getting all the benefits of being Slash at the peak of his career without having to actually be Slash.”

The song envisions a Hollywood party at which the real Slash confronts the fake Slash.

“California Country” is a different album, conceptually, from “Grapevine.” It asks us once again to revise what we think we know about I See Hawks.

“Our pursuit is to get more imaginative,” Waller said of the new recording. “The songs that we’re working on for our fourth record show that our vision is getting even more clear. I mean, we’re not at a loss in terms of where we want to go musically. Whether or not people will come with us, I have no idea,” he laughed.

“We want to make more vivid pictures that are more imaginative, even more surreal, or dreamlike. There’s a liberating thing that happens when you pursue that, when you pursue your strangest vision. From the beginning we’ve not wanted to write clichéd country lyrics. We wanted to see what it was like to write country songs and folk songs that had nontraditional lyrics. And at this point we’ve arrived at ‘Slash From Guns N’ Roses.’ “

I See Hawks in L.A. is definitely a band in an interesting creative situation. Their music is often evocative of the other California — the Buck Owens-Roy Clark California beyond the frantic glitz of L.A. On the other hand, they’re very much a part of what’s up in Los Angeles today. It’s a best-of-both-worlds scenario that’s generating outstanding music.

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.