Sometimes, in song writing, it’s a matter
of craft: you measure this bit o’ wood,
you pound this nail here, you screw in this screw there.
Sometimes, it just flows, and it seems you have most
of a song in what seems like no time.
At other times, it sneaks up on you.
You know it’s there,
but you don’t want to rush it.
You don’t want to wreck it.
You’ve got two or three lines of lyric that you like.
You have two or three bits of melody that might work.
Things are floating around out there, but you’re not sure
how they will connect, or even if they *will* connect.
You can *make* things fit, but it usually won’t satisfy.
For the last month, I’ve been working on a song about
Forestiere Gardens.
It fell into that last category.
I kept re-visiting it, re-shaping it, adding a bit, taking away a bit.
It remained blurry and unfocused, but full of potential.
It came together this weekend.
What would be the best metaphor?
The watched pot finally boiled.
The jello hardened.
The picture came into focus.
In fact, a bunch of things came into focus at the same time:
a Rogue Festival Show, this song and a possible title for the
Trike Shop album that I’ve been tinkering with/slaving over
for so long.
Forestiere Gardens is a fairly well-known, but little-visited
oddity/wonderland in the northwest corner of Fresno.
In the early part of the 20th Century, Baldassare Forestierre
began digging in the hardpan dirt up there, transforming a bit
of not-easily-farmed ground into an amazing home beneath
the surface. By the time he was 44 years old, he’d excavated
10 acres, transforming them into a labyrinth of caves, hallways,
archways, and atriums filled with fruit trees and astonishing
architectural features.
A song needs a focus....a point of view. The song slowly became
to be about a dreamer, who having found his own unique way,
put it into action. The folks around him thought Forestiere’s
project was interesting enough, nice enough, even impressive,
but it wasn‘t going to affect they way they did things--even if his
way made a lot of sense. Forestiere was not going to divert the
mainstream, he was destined to make his own unique
...what shall we say? side-stream.
I started thinking about how this was a perfect metaphor for the local music
scene. Many Fresnans *know* about Forestiere Gardens, and they
might even take the cousins from Des Moines there when they visit once every 20 years. But most of the time, they drive right by it, and
might even resent the fact, that from above and outside,
it looks like someone’s unkempt backyard.
And that’s another thing that makes it perfect and fun metaphor for a
music scene: all the ‘goodies’ are “underground”.
So there it is: a song, an album title...and the final piece in another
stew I was stirring up to present as a show in next March’s
annual Rogue Performance Festival.
I was thinking of doing a ‘talk show’ sort of presentation. I’d have
myself and another local musician be the ‘hosts’. We’d play a couple
of each other’s songs to get things flowing, then we’d speak to our
‘guests’. These guests will be folks who’ve been around the local
music scene for awhile. Maybe they used to manage a music club.
Maybe they worked in radio. Maybe they used to be in bands.
We’d find folks from different eras and ask them to tell their stories.
If they’re musicians, we’d get them to share their songs as well.
Since the Rogue Festival allows multiple performances, we’d make
each show unique by having different guests each time.
And the apt title?
The Underground Garden: Fresno’s Local Music Lore