soooo glad to be up there for some epic music from them...
reaaaaaaally such a gift of experiences always!
love them so much, & it's soo crazy they've been playin it for 10 years! Best.Houseband.Ever, fer sure!
It was quite HOT up there, much more so Sunday (& apparently Thurs., but luckily, i missed that day of 110 degrees)...& a dis-concerting, very large fire (i heard 11,500 acres Sat. from a USFS ranger in the natural foods store) that made things pretty smoky the last day.
heading to the ol' swimmin' holes (Oakland Camp!! w/ rope swing--seen in some of those pics) or the pool was ESSENTIAL...esp. Sunday, for me at least...it saved me both Sat & Sun...so refreshing. spent most of the rest of SatDAY in town, which was great, hangin at the Plumas Club, spinnin an inspired jukebox mix (a lil' Gambler, Outfield, Man in the Mirror, AC/DC et al) for the locals who were diggin' it (so, i'm not just sayin' so myself
& eatin at Moons, which I'd highly recommend.
The SMMD late night kicked things off IN total STYLE for us!!!...was just so glad to get up there & settled in...and my friend rolled in JUST in time, capturing a lot of video on her phone so we'll see how that turned out & i'll try to post some if it's decent. She also painted a beautiful improv piece during The Slip's Meadow set the next night.
That 1st song (from Vaudeville) is apparently called Skull & Bones, as Nathan told me (his song, as I recall) during Aimee's artist playshop w/ the Mammals, Ashleigh Flynn, & another guy (5 total...Brett Dennen and a friend Tom Freund were listed, but not there---Brett did an EPICly gorgeous long set right after w/ Lebo & Steve from ALO and another drummer--i recommend this set highly...first whole set I'd heard of Brett's and they really just didn't miss from start to finish, great to hear right then)...
i also mention the playshop b/c Aimee covered Lonely Boy while all of SMMD listened on. Brad said it was the first time he'd ever heard someone else do one of his songs solo...besides him...he thought!! IT WAS SWEEEEEEET. Her voice/songs definitely made me cry several times during that very nice semi-spontaneous set, and she was playing Nathan's acoustic "This Machine Fights Terrorism."!!!
(actually, that guitar got ALOTTA play up there last wkend, w/ Brad playin it quite a bit on & off stage, even walkin around playin in the middle of the road post-SMMD late night, by where a few of us were still Twisterin' in the early a.m. hours...along w/, of course, the topless girl who was Everywhere the boys were that night!...they did a few acapella things, including The Last One Ever, that whoever was standin around, & knew it, all sang---that 5am happenstance interlude was a simple lil' wonderful
ditto...Camp Harry is THE BOMB...much preferred being there then at the other late nights, & in fact only caught some of two other Vaudeville late nights, Bassnectar & Dumpstaphunk (who really did FUNK IT UP w/ sit-ins by SoulLive guys & Anders Osborne harmonizin' a short while) before headin to C.H. for some awesome late SMMD action.
bottom line, too...Brad Barr was the biggest rock* there!...
royally ragin it up during many points of the Vaudeville set (this set was REALLY interesting to me...a lot of great interplay btwn them, and Brad took some major solos throughout the whole show, some pretty dissonant and far out stuff, & breaking out a bottleneck during the latter half of the encore), and of course during Heartbreaker, esp. I thought Paper Birds was SPECTACULAR at the Meadow set (by that time, a lot of the sound kinks that Brad wasn't pleased w/ at least w/ his set up, were worked out), and damn, WEIGHT of Solomon was OUTstanding to these ears....such great fun into Heartbreaker! unfortunately, OooBelle didn't work out quite so well, in that setting, as i've heard it before.
REALLY wish i wouldn't have missed their earlier impromptu set w/ (Surprise ME attendee) Zach!! on drums, Brad on bass, et al. wonder if anyone taped that?? would love to hear if so.
did this happen before ALO?? i caught a bit of that, and then didn't get back til later. so, glad to catch the last 1/2 ol' White Thighs live, all up close & personal, too...ending w/ a Travelling Willbury's cover--which i can't remember. ??
ONLY time, crazily, i even made it into the mainstage area was for Les a while...we were camped back there tho, so got to hear some other sets...shoutout to Galactic kick startin' the fest for me from there, ThaMusement & Mama's Cookin' the next day, Chicago Afrobeat Project also sounded good on mainstage from camp.
Fav new discovered band (in Vaudeville Fri.)= Devil Makes 3 from Santa Cruz (girl playin upright bass has a HUGE longhorn skull tattoo across her upper chest!)
alrighty, well, there's my partial Gonzo account... reporting in & out post-High Sierra w/ a tip o' the hat to Hunter S....signing off slipsters...but wishing i could just jump on the Slip/SMMD bus for the next tour & that it was like.... tomorrow....aiayaiaayai!
XOXO