The Wayback Machine #7 – Eberle & John’s Musical History, part 4

Two weeks ago the Wayback Machine took us to 2001 when Eberle & I collaborated with Judy Anderson & musicians Art Troutner, Barb Dixon & Lois Fry on the McCall-Donnelly drama troupe’s production of Antigone. The play was a success—in some ways, against all odds, because in retrospect I see that we were asking a huge amount of the students to carry this off. But they rose to the occasion: a big credit to them & to Judy. I’d like to think that the music inspired them some, too.

In spite of or because of this success, I had a reaction I’ve often experienced at the end of a big project—a big let down. However, I managed to come up with a solution for this bout of the blues—don’t recall the details, but after some discussion with Eberle, we decided it would be fun to re-form the “Antigone” band as an ongoing group, with the addition of one of the students from the Antigone production, Kati Sheldon, as the singer.

In fact, everyone agreed to this arrangement, & the Alice in Wonder Band was born. Actually, tho, the band didn’t have a name for quite some time—we just couldn’t get consensus on one. There were several proposals, including:

The Wampus Cats
The Pixilations
The Wrong Trousers
The Penny Ante 6
The Madrigal Scientists
The Charlotte Corday Jazz Band [this was one of Eberle’s contributions!]

It actually wasn’t until the band’s first gig in July '02 that the band had a name. The person designing the poster for the McCall Folk Festival called to ask what name to put on the poster. Eberle & I made an executive decision & said we were the Alice in Wonder Band, a name Eberle had used when she & Lois & I played music for the McCall-Donnelly production of Alice in Wonderland in ’98. Fortunately, the rest of the band liked it.

You may have noticed that one of the band names (The Penny Ante 6) mentions a sextet, but if your math skills are up to snuff you’ll recall there were only five musicians to begin with. But as it turns out, Lois introduced us to her friend, singer Deadre Chase, a few months down the line, & from that point on we had the very happy dilemma of counting two extremely good singers as band members. Deadre’s role was smaller the first year, but she later became the real front woman for the band. Also, her rendition of Eberle’s composition “The Once in a Blue Moon Waltz” at the Alpine Playhouse show in September was one of the show’s real highlights.

Knowing what I know now, I’d have done a lot of things differently, but we didn’t know any better at the time. By the time of the Alpine show, we had a good repertoire of over 20 songs—mostly originals by Eberle, but a few diverse cover tunes: the hot jazz number “The Jazz Me Blues”; an Mbuti song called “Lukembe”; & Tom Waits’ “The Last Rose of Summer.” But the time we put into rehearsal (weekly, at McCall’s Idaho Academy of Music—and the rehearsals often were marathons) really should have been balanced with more performances (Lois: if you read this—you were right on that score!) That first year we played at the Folk Festival & the Alpine Playhouse, & that was it. The McCall Folk Festival (held in Roseberry, a restored “ghost town” south of Donnelly) was a bit nerve-wracking—our first show, & we played during a windstorm so fierce that it blew over my electric guitar on its stand three times & sent music stands flying (one note: these days I don’t play with music & I REALLY don’t miss music stands). The Alpine Playhouse performance on the other hand was really a rousing success. The crowd was pretty much unbelievable, right from the get-go & continued to be in a kind of electrifyingly supportive mood right thru two sets of music.

I’ve included a slideshow with more images from that first Alpine show; all of the pix in the slideshow were taken by Tim Hohs except for the first photo, which was taken by Michael Richardson. The song is our version of “The Owl & the Pussycat”; Eberle set Edward Lear’s words to a mellow Brazilian background, & she & I played “dueling ukes” center stage next to our singer Kati Sheldon. Eberle wrote the melody specifically to show off Kati’s spectacular vocal range—& remember, folks, she was singing unamplified at this show! There’s a very slight recording error at around 4:15 of the clip—this error is in the original Sony minidiskrecording—sounds like a small skip on an lp. But that aside, hope you enjoy it.

& stay tuned: we’ll be back later this month with more musical history!

Pix from Top
The McCall Folk Festival 02
The Alice in Wonder Band: from left: Kati Sheldon, Deadre Chase, yours truly, Eberle, Lois Fry, Barb Dixon & Art Troutner
Another shot from the Folk Festival - Deadre & Kati duet on Eberle's song Crocuses
Deadre during her Once in a Blue Moon Waltz performance at the Alpine
Lois, Eberle & I at the Alpine
We had a blast & the crowd did too!
(first three pix by Michael Richardson, last three by Tim Hohs)

The Wayback Machine #6 – Eberle & John’s Musical History, part 3

When we last travelled in the Wayback Machine to look at Eberle & my musical history together, we travelled to ’99. On this, our next excursion, we’re skipping 2000 altogether—that simply wasn’t much of a “musical” year for us. Eberle performed, on harpsichord I believe, with the McCall Chamber Orchestra that summer, but the only pictures of the concert aren’t much to look at—the photographer (yours truly) was way too far from the stage. We also didn’t take part in any of the plays at McCall-Donnelly high school in ’00; we were both very much into the "ranchette/going up to the country" thing at this time, & while we no doubt played a bit of music together, it wasn’t a focus in our lives that year.

So we move ahead to the summer of 2001. I don’t recall specifically when we first got this idea, but Eberle & Judy Anderson (the drama teacher at McCall-Donnelly) & I had come up with the idea that we should stage Antigone, & that furthermore, we should stage it with music & dancing, in a nod to its true Grecian origins. We’d provide the music; Judy is excellent at working with her students on movement; & as fortune had it, the group that was involved in drama at that time included a number of gifted singers & dancers.

Eberle realized that to get the sound she wanted, we’d need more musicians. We enlisted Lois Fry again, the violinist who’d worked with us on Alice in Wonderland & Under Milkwood, as well as oboist Art Troutner & drummer/percussionist/flutist Barb Dixon. Eberle would play marimba & drums & percussion, & she & I would trade-off electric bass duties. When not playing the electric bass, I’d play electric guitar. Eberle’s compositions also made use of the fine singers from the troupe, especially Kati Sheldon, who later joined Eberle, Lois, Art, Barb & I as the original Alice in Wonder Band (singer Deadre Chase joined soon thereafter).

Here are some musical pix from 2001, followed by a slideshow of the “Ode of Entrance” from Antigone, recorded live by Audrey Bilger who, like the true friend she is, made the trek from sunny SoCal to bleak wintery Idaho to support our efforts: not just to see the play, but also to record it. Audrey’s tape of the December 8, 2001 performance was transferred to digital by Audrey & her spouse Cheryl Pawelski. Thanks for preserving the play, Audrey & Cheryl!

& thanks also to Rebecca Stone who took the great photos of the play that I used in the slideshow.

Top Pic: Our friend J.D. & I with guitars, & Eberle with accordion: Thanksgiving 2001 in Oregon’s Blue Mountains.



Eberle, Barb Dixon (foreground with large Djembe) & I (behind Eberle) marching in McCall’s Winter Carnival Parade—it was so cold that day!

The Antigone dress rehearsal: Molly Shaver (l), one of the Choral leads, & Sarah Mello (r), as Antigone, with Eberle’s marimba & djembe in the foreground

The chorus (fronted by music stands), also from the dress rehearsal

2001 was the first year we actually had a dedicated “music room” (tho for awhile it was also the computer room). This room was also designated as “the arctic room” (& yikes, it had been our bedroom for awhile. Here we see: electric guitar, electric bass, lap steel guitar & keyboard

More of the music room: the Ibanez electric guitar I used in Antigone & also in the Alice in Wonder Band—& oddly & unexpectedly in our Moominpappa at Sea soundtrack. It’s a good guitar, but may be designated for sale once I get up enough gumption to sell some instruments.
The marimba (with bongos, doumbek & zither & assorted cases). I’m sorry I can’t recall the name of the fellow who made this instrument—it was modestly priced as such things go, has a good sound & is relatively portable. I do recall that the maker lives in Northern California.

The Wayback Machine will be back in September with our 2002 Musical History—the beginning of the Alice in Wonder Band!

The Wayback Machine #4 Eberle & John’s Musical History, part one

One thing that has always bound Eberle & me together is a shared love of music. It’s true that how that love manifests itself is a bit different for each of us: Eberle is much more of a composer, despite her proficiency on any number of instruments, & I’m more of a performer. Eberle tends to be happiest with music in the midst of a modal improvisation with intricate rhythms & a melody line riding atop an unusual harmonic structure; I tend to be happiest playing traditional music. Still, tho I’ve had the chance to play with some fine musicians, there’s no one I’d rather play music with than her. Yesterday we had a lot of fun playing various modal improvisations with our friends Sister Mary Ellen & Sister Rebecca Mary—an enjoyable morning of switching instruments & experimenting & listening—the key to improvising in a group. This, along with the enthusiastic response y’all have given to posts containing our music, put me in mind that folks might like to take some trips on the Wayback Machine to see a bit of Eberle & my musical journey together. Here are some pix from our first couple of years together:

Top Pic: I believe the first two instruments Eberle & I played together were the lap steel guitar & the electric bass (we also played guitar/flute & guitar/dulcimer early on). Fact is, I really had no idea how to play the lap steel, but I bumbled along & Eberle was very patient. The lap steel we had at that time was an old Regal; a pretty nice instrument, but it kept developing electronic problems. We’ve since replaced it with a Gretsch, which is a nice instrument. Eberle’s bass is an Ibanez 5-string. Check out that great old Bassman tube amp! & the amazing (for lack of a better word) fake wood panelling.

Eberle with the 5-string bass in what was a sort of office in our old house. The room later became our bedroom—reasonably cozy except when the full moon would come streaming in the large south facing windows. The lap steel & bass pic also was taken in that room.

Yours truly in the Idanha Hotel in Boise (fall 1997)—a wonderful old establishment, since turned into condos (no comment). I’d just bought this Takamine guitar at Old Boise Guitar Shop & couldn’t wait to play it. Our friend Joshua Housh has said this is a sort of archetypal “guy with guitar” pic.

Eberle on our old front porch with our beloved Windsor 5-string banjo, sometime in the early spring of 98. I was living in Indian Valley by then, & the banjo is the first instrument we bought together—sight-unseen from a shop in Salt Lake City. We were lucky! It’s a wonderful instrument. The tiger cat off to the left is one of my many favorite cats, Romeo by name, since sadly gone where the good cats go. He was a big & rather fierce tomcat, but liked humans a lot. Romeo used to visit me quite frequently in my dreams after his disappearance.

Yours truly with same banjo in our old living room.

The original Alice in Wonder Band—Lois Fry, violin; Eberle, bass; me, keyboard(!?!) We did the background music for the McCall-Donnelly Drama Troupe’s Spring 98 production of Alice in Wonderland. Although I’m very far from being the piano player Eberle is, I can fake it ok, & playing with musicians like Lois & Eberle makes things pretty easy on a guy. We can see, tho, in this pic which musicians are relaxed & which one isn't so much so.

For fun: a pic from the dress rehearsal for that production of Alice in Wonderland.

On the porch of a cabin at Burgdorf Hot Springs, where Eberle & I spent my 42nd birthday in September 98; my present? An Epiphone soprano uke, which I’m modeling here (looks like an F chord). Tho I’m not uking much these days, & when I do I prefer the concert & tenor sizes (they’re bigger), I still am very fond of this uke, which has a sweet sound.

If you like this, check back for more pix in chronological order in future Wayback Machine posts.

The Wayback Machine #3 – Council, Idaho July 4th 1998

As regular readers here may recall, 1998 was the first year I lived in Indian Valley, ID; as such, how could I miss the big local event of the year, July 4th? Council, ID is a very small town (tho the largest in Adams County, & the county seat), with a bit more than 800 inhabitants (actually in the late ‘90s there were about 100 more residents than there are now), & is mostly a sleepy town. But July 4th is a grand celebration, with four particularly big events: a parade, the porcupine races, the logging skills contest & the fireworks. There was also a town softball tournament for a few years that was quite fun, but that’s now defunct. The Fourth of July festivities also run in conjunction with a month-long quilt show.

The logging skills context may seem pretty exotic to folks outside the U.S. west, but such competitions are fairly common in this part of the world. The unique event is the porcupine race. It involves timed heats: two men & a porcupine “race” down a course, in as straight a line as possible (there are plastic barriers to keep the porcupine “on task” & also quills out of the spectators, tho I believe a few too-ardent fans need to have the EMTs remove quills every year. One man is equipped with a garbage can & lid (the porcupine is in the can pre-race, & the other man has a broom. These implements are used to steer the porcupine down the course, but can’t be used for “propulsion.” Although this may seem hard for some to believe from my description, PETA monitored this one year & decided it was relatively benign. There’s betting on the races, too—folks bid on individual porcupines, & the person who “owns” the winner gets all the money in the pot. It’s usually a few hundred dollars. After the race, the porcupines are released into the woods.

I heard rumor that there’s a video on YouTube of the Council Porcupine Race, but I couldn’t find it this morning with any search that seemed obvious. If anyone (especially anyone local) knows the url, please let me know & I’d be happy to add a video to the post. Barring that, hope you enjoy these photos taken in 1998!

Top pic: A pick-up full of bluegrass musicians in the Council Valley Museum pick-up truck. The museum is an interesting place with lots of artifacts from the town's frontier beginnings in the late 18th & early 20th century

I love this photo of the "old-time cowboy" on an ATV with a horse's head. In fact, the ATV has supplanted the horse for many ranching operations.

Pride of our hometown: Indian Valley Fire & Rescue; check out the dalmatian!

US Bank tellers qua horses, distributing candy

Rodeo Queens, of course! The Adams County Rodeo is held in late July; it's possible Robert Frost's Banjo may report on the event this year.

Norm the porcupine, one of the race participants. There used to be a pizza establishment in Council called Norm's (it was in business in '98), & this porcupine no doubt was its representative. All the porcupines are displayed in the pre-race parade.

Two llamas from the local Llama Joy Ranch; man, we never got ours to look that groomed!

Tractor on parade!

Last, but very far from least: porcupine racing!

UPDATE: Thanks to good friend & faithful Robert Frost's Banjo reader Jan B., here's the Porcupine Race video.

The Wayback Machine #2.2 – Bellows Falls, VT 1984

As you may recall, last week we took a tour of my old stomping grounds, Bellows Falls, VT. For those of you who don’t know (which easily could be just about everyone) Bellows Falls is a town in the southeastern corner of the state, about 25 miles north of Brattleboro. The town stands right next to the Connecticut River, so New Hampshire (specifically a little town called North Walpole) lies directly across the river.

Last week we toured the town courtesy of some photos I took in the summer of 1984. I haven’t been back to Bellows Falls since 1988, so I don’t know how much has changed. But this week we’re going to look at the two industries that were crucial to the town’s development, & also crucial to a marked economic downturn thru most of the time I lived in the area as those industries—paper & railroads—either moved away or became less relevant in the overall economic picture.

My father could remember the days when lumbermen brought the logs downriver from the forests of northeastern Vermont to be processed for pulp for the town’s mills. From what I understand, Bellows Falls was a booming town at the end of the 19th century & at the beginning of the 20th, with the mills in full swing & a thriving railroad industry. According to my father, it was the end of the log run—which meant payday, & some rather lively times for the men who’d come downriver. Apparently (again, according to him) the town of North Walpole (quite a sleepy little place in my day) was then nicknamed “Hell’s Half Acre” because it was the scene of so much rowdiness.

Three generations of Hayes’ men worked in those mills—my grandfather, my father (who was a millwright) & I (worked on the shipping crew). One of my earliest memories involves my mother & I riding a freight elevator into the Moore & Thompson mill to meet my father at the end of his shift. Later I worked at Robertson Paper, one of the last two mills in Bellows Falls. Moore & Thompson both made paper & “converted” it—they made construction paper, & I can recall the end of their workday when they’d pump the excess dye right into the Connecticut & the water would turn red or green or yellow. Robertson Paper was strictly a “converting” mill—we made Christmas paper (pretty much old school) & florist’s tissue & old style wax paper. I believe Robertsons closed in 1986 or 1987 (the last year I worked there was 1984), & I believe the one remaining mill closed shortly therafter.

Of course, the story of the U.S. railroad industry, especially in the Northeast, is pretty well known. As the interstate system developed, trucking became a more economical way to deliver freight, & the railroads diminished in importance. Was this a “wrong turn?”

The photo at the top of the post shows a C&P Trucking rig backed up to the Robertson Paper Co. shipping dock. In all honesty, I can't remember the name of the fellow represented by the "P"—don't believe I ever met him—but I'll always remember "C" for Charlie Miller, an old trucker who was also boss of the shipping crew. He was about as old school as they come, & I probably learned more working for him than I learned from any one man. He was a really great guy. It's true Charlie could yell at you with the best of them, but he cared about his crew & worked as hard as anyone—probably harder. He chain smoked, but he always had a smoke to offer to his fellow workers, & he had a great sense of humor. My father knew him well, as Charlie used to haul freight out of Moore & Thompson. Apparently Charlie's driving skills were pretty much legendary.
















The dam. There really is a falls at Bellows Falls, of course, so there's a dam across the Connecticut producing hydro-electric power. Of course that's New Hampshire on the other side.
















The depot at Bellows Falls. There were still cobblestone streets in this area well into my youth.
















A C&P truck backed up to a freight car. The shipping crew also helped the receiving crew from time to time, especially when the freight cars rolled in. No one particularly liked that job. Robertson Paper was a throwback. We literally did everything with two-wheel trucks & pallet jacks—no fork lift. The rolls that came by freight car were very large (up to around 800 pounds) & the work was dangerous. Although I got banged up here & there, I was lucky never to have any major injury.
















A beautiful arch bridge, built in 1905, used to span the Connecticut between Bellows Falls & North Walpole. The bridge was demolished in 1982, tho that was the stuff of local legend, since the bridge resisted five attempts to dynamite it. Eventually cutting torches were used. At the time the bridge was built it was a bit of an engineering marvel. The bridge you see under construction is it's replacement (there was/is another bridge between the two towns a little way downriver). I have a small piece of the arch bridge on a plaque in my sitting room. The postcard below shows the bridge when it was new.













Although the old arch bridge was deemed unsafe for traffic by 1971, I've always thought its demolition was a bit of a scar on the town's psyche at a time when the town was really in the doldrums.
















The railroad bridge
















Robertson Paper Company, est. 1892
















The train tracks headed toward New Hampshire. The hill in the background (at least a hill by western standards) is Fall Mountain, a local landmark.
















The shipper & the millwright at my parents' old home in Westminster, VT, an even smaller town outside Bellows Falls. That's my father's woodworking shop in the background.

The Wayback Machine #2.1 – Bellows Falls, VT, 1984

I’m finally back from a long & rather hot day in the wilds of downtown Ontario, OR—hot in particular because the errand that took me there was the air conditioning in our Subaru going south. This post would have been up this morning, but to make a long story short & to state the obvious—it wasn’t. Anyway, here comes the non sequitor….

No, I hadn’t forgotten about the Wayback Machine! & this time we’ll be traveling quite a ways back, to 1984 (& in the case of one photo even a few years earlier), & also quite a long way from where I currently reside.

As I’ve mentioned here before, I grew up in Vermont in the town of Westminster (usually pronounced something like “West-min-i-stah” by locals—very important to get that extra syllable in). In many ways Westminster, VT from the late 50s thru the 70s bore some striking resemblances to Indian Valley, ID these days. The town covers quite a bit of land, but isn’t very populous (Westminster was somewhat less rural than current Indian Valley, however), & the town at that time had way more cows than people—of course, these were dairy cows as opposed to the Idaho “beef cattle.”

Another similarity is that both Westminster & Indian Valley are about a dozen miles from a somewhat larger, but still small town—Indian Valley is near Council, & Westminster is near Bellows Falls. On top of that, both Council & Bellows Falls have suffered economic woes due to the decline & closure of railroads, & also due to the closure of mills—in Council, a lumber mill; in Bellows Falls, several paper mills—the last I knew, there were no more paper mills in Bellows Falls.

I have a set of Bellows Falls photos taken in 1984—my last summer in Vermont before moving to Charlottesville, VA in August for the MFA writing program at UVA. I’d completed my Bacherlors in the fall of 83, & I worked in a paper mill for the few half of ’84—a mill I’d worked in from 1978-1980 also, under very different circumstances (see caption to final photo). This first batch of photos takes you on a tour around town. The next batch (I think I’ll post them next Friday) will concentrate on the railroad & the paper mill I worked in. The photos aren’t of particularly high quality—they were taken with a cheap instamatic, & the colors haven’t improved over time (& yes, I did use my meager PhotoShop skills to spruce them up a bit), but I think they give a portrait of this small Vermont town in the mid ‘80s.

The picture at the top of the post shows Atkinson Street, one of the town's main ateries, which I remember both as where the office of the family doctor, Dr. John Stewart was located (however, Dr. Stewart did make house calls!) & also where once upon a time there was a Super Duper supermarket. I believe the market's logo involved an elephant.
















The Elks Building in the town square
















The American Legion/VFW - my father was a member, but I can't ever recall him spending time there. Sadly, I think he was haunted by his experiences in the Pacific theater during WWII & tried not to think about them.
















Barbieri's barroom, looking back toward the town square (south). Bellow Falls was a very working class town, with a large population of second & third generation Polish & Irish immigrants who worked in the various mills. As a result, some of the town's bars were "workingmen's bars" - they opened early & closed early, & they were pretty hard-bitten spots. Despite the sign, very few went to Barbieri's for a Coca-Cola.
















The Dari-Joy, with its own Big Boy burger figure, stood at the north end of town; I honestly don't know if it's still there or not.
















The Miss Bellows Falls diner. I spent many a lunch hour here dining on open faced hot turkey sandwiches with mashed potatoes & gravy, or on chicken croquets & other food of that ilk. I even posted an appreciation of the Miss Bellows Falls diner here on Robert Frost's Banjo last September. As I understand it, the diner is still a going concern, tho it may have undergone some "gentrification."
















J.J. Newberry's, a real 5 & dime store (tho as you see, the sign reflected some amount of inflation). I loved this store as a kid - they had toys & kick-knacks & caged birds, including a mynah bird that almost bit me when I tried to get too friendly! I remember that it always smelled like hot buttered popcorn.

















The Polish-American Club - see my remarks under Barbieri's. You didn't have to be of Polish descent to hang out there, tho. I did; it was mostly a "watering hole." They also had a shuffleboard table.
















The War Memorial - a memorable & oddly mobile landmark. When I was very young, it stood at the bottom of "Stop Light Hill," a very steep grade that led toward the town square. I think it briefly inhabited some other location I know forget before winding up in this small park on School Street - which could have been called Church Street easily enough, as witness the Baptist Church in the background. The United Church of Christ which we, as Methodists, attended, was also on this street, & I believe there was another church at the street's end.




















Yours truly, some time in 1980 (I'm guessing autumn). I was pretty down on my luck at this point, which is how I'd managed to parly a promising college career into a gig on a paper mill's shipping crew. By the time this photo was taken, however, I'd sobered up & would return to the University of Vermont the next year & finish by Bachelors even with some distinction after the sketchy start. These were also the days - which sadly would continue another 16 years - when "everything he touched turned to cigarettes."

Next Friday: the conclusion of the Bellows Falls tour!