Colorado, Texas & NC
June 15, 2006
Dan the Tan Van Mileage: 266,376

Nobody does sky like Texas. Much as I love the mountains of North Carolina, I do find that it's good for me to get to Texas once or twice a year to take in some sky. I took this picture from the side of a highway between Abilene and San Angelo, on my way down to Kerrville and Hunt after shows in Colorado.

Of course, the down side of the reckless wide open skies is also present. I took this one the same day. It was just an oversized dust devil, not a full-fledged tornado, but it was enough to make one's heart beat a little faster. I had watched it come across a field on a path perpendicular to the road, and pulled over to shoot the picture behind me after I was well clear.

It was a good tour out through the west. I had a great time in Colorado playing a couple of band shows with Sean Kelly on bass and Kort McCumber on bazouki, harmonica and mandolin. I also veered back up into Wyoming for the first time in a few years. This was unlike any Wyoming I had ever experienced. I knew something was different when I pulled into town and saw peace protesters standing on the corner holding signs that said "Honk for Peace" and things along those lines. I went and stood with them and held a sign for a little while. And people were honking! And waving! With all five fingers! Then, to make the day even more surreal, I ate in a vegetarian restaurant. The first time I drove into Wyoming, ten years ago or so, I recall a billboard emblazoned with the words "Wyoming: Vegetarians Not Welcome. This is cattle country." I told the waiter I was a little surprised to see a veggie restaurant in Wyoming and he grinned and said "Yeah, it's the only one." At any rate, I've always loved Wyoming. The truth is that aside from that billboard I never got any grief about being vegetarian except for some good-natured ribbing. It was good to be back there.

Texas was great, too. I did a handful of things, including three workshops with three pretty different populations: youth at a wilderness camp for juvenile offenders, retirees at an elderhostel and college students at a week-long conference. The last two were both meeting at the same camp at the same time, so I was running back and forth between the two, which was actually a blast. We've already booked it again for next year. Then I hung out at the Kerrville Folk Festival for a week catching up with old friends, playing music and lazing around generally. In the afternoons we beat the heat by heading to a friend's house on the Medina River. You can see how tough this duty was. In this picture I'm hanging with my friends Amy Speace and Jagoda from New York City. This was their first time at Kerrville, and they appeared to be having a great time. Even Jagoda, who told great stories of his urban naiveté, including the fact that until very recently he thought that when people talked about seeing by moonlight it was just a metaphor. In the city he had never realized that the moon could be bright enough, and there could be such a complete lack of other light, that you could actually see fairly well by the moon.

Before I even got to Texas I pulled into a truck stop for gas and wandered the snack aisles stretching my legs. As I stood in line to pay for my nibbles and drink I noticed a large bright yellow sign directly above the exit door that said "Homeland Security Alert Level: Yellow." And in small letters below that it said "See cashier for details." This struck me as funny, and kind of strange, so just out of curiosity, while I was paying for my stuff I said "Hey, can you give me any details about the yellow alert level?" She looked at me sort of blankly and stared at the sign for a moment, then looked back at me and said "All I know is that it hasn't changed since they put it up there." She gave me my change and said "Hang on a second," so I did, though I didn't know why she had asked me to wait. A moment later an older guy with green tattoos on both arms came walking out from the back and said "Yes sir, can I help you?" I realized she had pressed some button to ask him to come up. Kind of her to take my stupid question seriously, though it wasn't meant to be serious. The guy was open and friendly, though, so I chuckled and said "Oh, I'm sorry to bother you - I was just looking at that sign and wondering if you had any details." He stared at the sign, too, like he had never noticed it there before, with his mouth half-open, in a sort of deer-in-the-headlights way. I explained that I was mostly kidding, and not to worry about it, and hadn't meant to call him out from the back, I was just curious as to what sorts of details Homeland Security was providing you guys with. He said "Yeah, that's pretty much it - what's on that sign."

I couldn't help picturing, as I pulled back on the highway, a tense meeting of high level military officials in the Situation Room in the White House basement - with satellite surveillance photos and diagrams on the screens and men speaking urgently in clipped voices to the president about what needed to be done - then the Decider deciding: "General Jones, you head up the tactical operations! General Smith, you brief the Intelligence people! And for goodness sake, General Johnson alert the truck stop cashiers! Pronto!!"

...but I digress.

Often.

And I have lots of time on the highway to think.

At any rate, it was a great tour, and it's good to be home now. The summer will be pretty relaxed after pushing pretty hard all year. I'm taking the month of June off completely and doing just regional shows in July while some dear friends visit from Germany. Then in August things start to really pick up again. We'll be sending the new CD out to radio around then, and starting the CD release tour. Several shows this summer and fall with feature the new David LaMotte trio - with Mike Alexander on cello and bass and River Guerguerian on percussion. Mike and I spent all afternoon yesterday playing on the back deck and working out bass and cello parts. The first public show they'll be joining me for will be Bele Chere, the huge free street festival in Asheville. We're playing from 5 to 6:30 on Friday, July 28, so come on out if you can. And speaking of the new record - I just got my own copy of the mastered CD on Monday, and it will go out to be manufactured in the next few days. As a sneak preview, here's the cover:

Fun, huh? As usual, we're making a big ol' full-color sixteen-page CD booklet with lyrics and song notes and a short essay about the record. One thing that's different about this one (among several things that are different, but more on that later) is that the booklet features mostly my own photography (sixteen pictures of mine and four by others - I was curious, so I just counted). We'll be officially releasing the CD in August, but will be shipping it to folks who pre-ordered in mid-July (you can still pre-order up to July 1 with free shipping).

OK, so one more story before I let you go... Playing at the LEAF (Lake Eden Arts) festival again after many years of absence was a blast (I played at the very first one many years ago). My first set this year was in a smaller tent venue on Friday evening, and the highlight of the set was performing a song with kids from Oakley Elementary in Asheville. We had spent two days writing the song together as part of an outreach program run by the festival, and they came up on stage and sang it with me.

The second set was in Eden Hall at three in the afternoon the next day. It was absolutely beautiful outside, and I was sure there wouldn't be much crowd. About 30 minutes before showtime I ran into my old friend Mike Alexander. Mike has played bass with me from time to time over the years, and it's always been a delight, both musically and personally. I told him that I wished I had known he was going to be there, because we could have gotten in a bit of practice and played together. He shrugged and said "that's never stopped us before!" So I took another look at my set list and figured out which songs would be good to add bass to, and we had a twenty minute rehearsal standing under a tree. Mike sat in on six or seven songs, and nailed it. It was great to be playing with him again.

While we were rehearsing, several big guys were unloading tons of gear for the band that was going to be playing after me - some drums, some guitars, some more drums, some amps, more drums, stands, even more drums, etc. The stage manager walked over and asked if it would be OK if they loaded in some of their gear while I was soundchecking, since they had so much stuff. I said that was fine, then realized who it was. Artimus Pyle, drummer for Lynyrd Skynyrd, was playing just after me. It was obvious which one he was, a head full of ringletted hair and the general demeanor of a rock legend. I went over to say hey and he proceeded to belie the stereotype entirely by being a completely genuine nice guy. He thanked me profusely for letting them load in early and assured me that they would be off the stage the moment I said the word. Very cool. Then I noticed he was loading in congas and a little lightbulb appeared above my head. I asked if he wanted to sit in on a couple of tunes at the end of my set. He said "How do they go?" and I played him a few chords of the first one - A few strums in he said "OK, I got that. What about the other one?" I played him a few more and he said "Cool - just let me know when you want me."

As it turned out, the hall was packed, sunshine and all. And did I mention that Artimus Pyle sat in as my drummer? Now I'm trying to decide whether or not to add his quote to my press kit: "You're a monster, man! Everything you said and everything you played!" Those are words I never expected to hear from Skynyrd's drummer. Just goes to show you that you never know what's going to happen when you wake up in the morning.

Of course, the best part of this all is that I now have a response for anyone who yells out "Free Bird!" when I ask for requests... "Well, actually Artimus backed me up one time, but he wanted to play my songs."

Thanks for your interest in me and my songs over the years. Hope to see you soon.

David