I went out to the woods this weekend. To see my friends play some rock and roll in the trees. The event was in Big Sur, a Folk Yeah number. I assembled a road crew late in the day. Eric rode shotgun with Tyler (Lumerians) and his friend Tiare riding limo style in the back of the minivan. We had a sing along to Neil Young and early Beatles on the way there. This, of course led us to realize we must stop for burgers and milkshakes, as it seemed only fitting. We rolled into the coast listening to King Crimson, the fog was heavy and the air was wet to the point of a drizzle. As we drove through town, every resort and campground was already full. It was summer camping season after all, and Cruise Americas were everywhere. With no real end plan in sight, we decided we would cross that bridge when we got there, and headed off to the Henry Miller Library. As we parked the car, we heard rumbling in the distance of the sounds of Assemble Head’s crashing final notes. This was a serious bummer, as they are most wonderful and Charlie is one of the most inspirational guitar players I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. Not to mention that Camilla (his sister) is equally righteous and the two of them are some of the finest humans you might ever have the chance of meeting. But, so it was. We packed up our things with talk of motion: a bottle of Absinthe my brother had brought back from Prague, a 12 pack of Modelo in the can, a bag of pot, some cigarettes, and two most delicious caramels. The powers that be had graciously put us on the list so we breezed through the door and saved a $100 cost between the four of us.

            The setting for the show was more than one could really ever ask. A giant silver screen was strung taught between the trees, thick rugs lined the dewy lawn, the air was filled with beautiful people who looked much more at home here than back in the cities we had all retreated from. A band I hadn’t heard of was playing and Flea was dancing in a circle of children. It really was a welcoming scene to walk into.

            Friends surrounded us immediately. We ate the caramels and shared the absinthe and beer and smokes. Tiare wandered off, over to a log slide net outside the back of the library. If you haven’t seen one, it’s a huge grid of circles made out of thick cables. Each ring is about 5 and a half feet in diameter, about Tiare’s height. They’re for stopping trees from tumbling down waterways and crushing buildings and such. She climbed up with the grace of an animal. Instinctually she headed for the highest ring, high above the creek bed below. She sat up there for a while. Twisting and turning and hanging upside down, coyly flirting with certain death, or at least, serious head trauma. People gathered and shot photos. Tyler even climbed up to say hello. Soon K.P.’s crickets and jangly guitar started wafting in from back in the venue and she climbed down as simply as she had climbed up.

 I sat cross-legged in front of the stage for Spindrift’s set. Eric and Camilla (Assemble Head) were each lying with their heads, one on each of my knees. They were rocking out and kicking their legs, rolling around like dogs on the rug. I felt like some sort of Muppet Hindu creature all flailing arms and legs. They would watch the birds above that were swooping and diving as Spindrift played and then howl with laughter. You would swear that the birds really were dancing too, but then, who can say such things. If there’s a band that hawks would dance to it’s Spindrift, though, that much I can say for certain. I went back to our blanket to find the bottle of absinthe near its end amidst Tiare and a group of girls, all wearing flowing dresses and tiny gold harmonicas on chains around their necks. I figured this was probably the most appropriate place for it to end up, and had a few final swigs and rolled a joint. Before I knew it, Sleepy Sun was set and ready. They paced about for a bit, and then were introduced by an elderly man with a Swedish accent. He read letters from the 30’s about the torment and triumph of artistry. It was received to mixed reaction, but a worthwhile try nonetheless.  Soon in strode the Suns. They played with driving conviction laced with a lighthearted ‘are we all having fun, are we taking this too seriously? Are we not taking this nearly seriously enough?’ kind of veiled smile. It was all very Mona Lisa. Their dynamics were really on point and you could hear the reverb trails rushing off into the woods and sea. The band was being projected fifty feet tall on the silver screen in the trees, which totally tripped Rachel out, but her bursts of laughter and shifty glances up at herself only added to the performance. At times, she reminded me of a little kid, looking in her parents’ giant mirror for the first time. Are we taking this too seriously? Are we not taking this nearly serious enough? I was dancing with Tiare and her friends, and a young man with an angular face and a wide floppy hat offered the girls some wine from a mug. They all took a sip one by one, and it all felt very ceremonial in a way, though unstated. They handed him back the mug and then he handed it to me. “I didn’t mean to skip you brother” he said, and handed me the glass. I looked at him with kind eyes and saw in his sharp cheeks and almond eyes a loving Lucifer, offering the devils bargain. And this is my blood. I sipped the wine, it tasted meaty and rich. I handed it back to him and thanked him kindly with a long glance. I was thinking about the story of the whole interaction. It felt like a playful devils bargain, selling in to the tribe. These were all of course, unstated thoughts, gestures in the mist. As all these notions of the devil as an archetype were rolling through my head, and suddenly I smelt the stink of fuel and felt a sudden burst of fire. I turned around to see a blanket on fire with people not really knowing how to react. I pulled another blanket away and someone smothered the fire. Under his boot was left a crushed red lantern, and a burned patch of grass. I laughed deeply and turned back the show. Sleepy just kept pumping and rising, it was all really grand, and as they were reaching the absolute peak of their last jam I was thinking about God. I wondered if such a benevolent being would smile down upon seeing and hearing this gathering in the trees. And then as the band reached their highest peak, the giant screen went blue with the words “no signal” tiny in white at the center. This lasted for only a moment’s time. A few brief seconds at the peak of their peak. And then blasted back to a close up of old Brett, his face cringed like he was dragging the notes up from some forgotten alternate past. And probably, yes, it was just a volume peak, voltage dip that caused sensitive equipment to fail, but maybe, just maybe, the old one upstairs winked at us, just for a moment, but didn’t want to be caught on film.

 ....

            I felt physically exhausted after their set and so after talking about this and that with Spindrift and pals, went to go rest up against a tall stump. I laid back into its pillowy bark and laid my hat over my eyes. I was just thinking about the whole thing. There really is something going on out here. And it’s new, and it’s our own, and it is so beautiful. And everyone is invited, for now anyhow. And some will stay and some will go and some will overstay their welcome and others will leave us far too soon, but something really is going on. The bubbles are breaking the surface. It’s hard to explain, we’re drawing on the 60’s and 70’s, hell even the 80’s and 90’s, but it’s not pastiche, it’s an amalgamation, its immediate, and it feels like ours.

            Dead Meadow began setting up and soon prisms and oil lamps were dancing all through the trees and upon the screen. Tiare climbed up a structure in front of the oil projector shining onto the big screen and soon became a massive silhouette. Her feathers in her hair and on her bracelets were much more crisp upon the screen than they had ever been in life. People began to stare. “You’re making a really lovely painting” I called up to her, and Charlie turned and laughed. She started dancing a bit and kicking her legs. Making it look like she was the silhouette stirring the colors. This drew mixed reactions, catcalls, sneers of “who does that girl think she is” laugher, and appreciation. Someone told her to do Marilyn. Soon the Swedish man came back again, this time with a guitar. He asked everyone to sit down and it seemed that no one really wanted to but some obliged. He sang a song half in Swedish and half in English about nuclear bombs. All the while Tiare was putting on her spectacle of light, kicking up little bubbles of color. The whole thing felt so absurd, are we taking ourselves too seriously? Are we taking this nearly seriously enough?

I said to Eric that I was getting cold, and at that moment, the staff came and asked Tiare to “get down from there” she tossed her coat off and it landed square on my shoulders. I just looked up and laughed. Good timing. Then Eric lamented that he had run out of cigarettes, and Tyler had done the same. I turned to my right and immediately spotted a blue pack of American Spirits, half crushed, with three perfectly intact cigarettes inside. I handed them to Eric and we all had a smoke and a good laugh again. I was feeling very provided for.

            As dead meadow was finishing their setup I could hear Steve saying to she sound man, barely picked up by the reverbed out mics, “oh, you don’t need to mic those guitar cabs”. This amused Tyler to no end. Soon they fired up and played an absolutely enormous set. I spent most of it laying on the blanket, watching the lights in the trees and feeling the bass resonating up through the ground. They played with a freedom that is rarely matched, notes fighting through feedback like a door drifting open and closed in a draft. It was heavy and thoughtful and playful and downright psychedelic.

            As the night was winding down, it became more and more apparent that no one really had any place to stay, or any destination in mind. Word quickly spread of a meadow that was state land, which could be reached by sneaking through a campground. We did this, probably about 30 of us maybe more, really it’s hard to say, as it was very dark, and we all broke various camps in the meadow. I played acoustic guitar with Dave, Henry and Plucky (Spindrift) and a bunch of people I didn’t know but got along quite well with. Our new friends generously offered whiskey and wine. It wasn’t until one lit a cigarette and I saw the flame flicker on his face that I realized I had been jamming and hanging out with the same guy who had offered the wine during the Sleepy set. I laughed again to myself. Eric and I hung with those guys for a good while and struck up a friendship. When we finally headed back for my minivan, which was serving as our home base, we found Tyler and Tiare already asleep and quickly realized it was literally impossible to sleep four back there comfortably. It became a comedy routine, one person would move a leg, which would require someone to move an arm, and so on and so forth, around and around for about an hour until I finally gave up. As being 6’7” I was clearly the biggest hindrance to the success of anyone getting any sleep at all, and someone was going to have to get some sleep and drive the car home, I grabbed my guitar and walked over to the river. The sky was milky black, with an aura of beep blue over the trees’ silhouette. I dropped to D and droned on an Indian groove for a few hours until the sun came up. I’m sure I felt more rested from that than I would have from pretending to try to sleep for the rest of the night. I sat upstairs and watched as everyone awakened one by one. By 7:30, fifteen of us were sitting outside the general store, waiting patiently for it to open at 8. We sat and chatted, all watching a cat on a table cleaning itself without shame or mercy. But soon enough the store opened and more people filtered out and we all drank our coffee and recalled the night before. Everyone lingered for quite a while, no one really wanting to go anywhere.  It felt like the last day of summer camp, but a camp that had only lasted a night. Eventually I bid everyone farewell, and knew that I would see them soon as paths crossed again on the road and in the studio.

            As I drove home, aside from utter exhaustion, I was filled with the feeling that I have found my great American dream. It’s happening right now, and I’m happy to play whatever part in it I am cast to fill. It’s not the 60’s and it never will be again, and yes we do pull elements from that period, but nobody is trying to recreate anything, and really that whole notion of hippies and psych is just dated and silly. We’re just trying to have our own thing. It’s filled with different influences, as we now have the world at our fingertips, and really we’re making it up as we go along, at least I am. But what I do know for certain, is that there are passionate, irreverent, beautifully driven people, people very dear to me, who are crisscrossing this country and this globe, wandering from town to town, chasing the unsung siren, and when we all get a night like that in the woods, it really just is beautiful.

by, 

Rob