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Bloggarroo: "…can't hear it on the radio…"

'Woulda got this out sooner but there's no WIFI in Wartrace,
Tennessee. It's the only town that had a hotel room left to rent in
these parts with Bonnaroo goin' off down the road in Manchester. We
are lucky Olivia found it and she is good at it. Even Murfreesboro is
booked, far to the north. We are halfway between Chatanooga and
Nashville, in the horsefarms and vales. Its hot and muggy and reminds
me of Texas. I never did like being landlocked that much.

The Bonnaroo is why we come over here , to see Wilco primarily and
experience what else the indies are bubbling up with. Sorry, but
other than Wilco, String Cheese Incident, Railroad Earth, and Richard
Thompson its all mysto to me, but I am game for whatever. My wife is
keen to see a few novelties and I plan on looking for surprises on the
small stages, and at an early hour. I have known for weeks that the
Incident begins at Midnight on Friday, and my chances of being upright
for this, one of their last gigs since Billy Nershi announced his
retirement from SCI, are very slim.

Me and Mahmoud cooked the Bonnaroo plan up back in the spring as a
benefit to the boys for doing so well in school and to prove we are on
their side while performing stealth chaperoning functions. Dariush and
Dylan are good boys with good grades and are good musicians. Dyl
pulled a 720 on his English SATs late in the spring, so he gets
Bonnaroo. His mom says we owe it to him because the last two summers
we hauled him to weddings. Even if one was in Hawaii, it still was a
bit of a buzzkill. But now we are wondering who really enjoys the
prize more, me or him. By all means it remains special. They would
not be able to go without the supervision, loose as it is. They are
camping with the rest of the droves.

We, meanwhile, are at the Walking Horse Hotel in Wartrace 24 minutes
from Manchester, and the boys have put up a little tent somewhere in
Bonnacity, where there is a three case of beer limit per person, I
will have you to know, and only 3 liters of hooch per inebriant for
only three days.

As parents we don't have much to prove and are not so naïve to think
the boys would be bowled over by our sudden flare for the hip, if
Bonnaroo qualifies for hip. No, hip its not. Its something else,
probably fantastically awesome.


Dyl knows at least, as for my sketchy credentials, which I proffer
with humility and humor.

He'll be listenin' to Jimi some evening at home and I'll say:

" I saw him at the Winterland back in 1968 play that song with his teeth."

Dyl will just look back at me expressionless, sort of absorbing the
image of crazed old Jimi Hendrix playing a Foxy Baby guitar solo with
his incisors.

" Cool," is all he'll say, usually, unless he needs clarification.
I suppose it should be more amazing that Dyl finds my musical tastes
coinciding with his after a span of three or four decades. He listens
to Green Day, I listen to Green Day. Another example, to underscore
the paradox, somewhat bent backwards: I am familiar with Swing, but my
father and I never have shared much interest in Glenn Miller.
Ellington, on the other hand, could have been a different story. But
that will never come to pass.

On the other hand, Dyl's generation embraces and feverishly seeks the
raw, content-rich rock and roll of Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Frank
Zappa, and I enjoy a seamless attraction to Nirvana and White Stripes.

I think I discovered Wilco, but that is not an apt example because
many of Wilco's members have been professional musicians for close to
twenty years, and Dyl's only 17.

Olivia told her mom she would dress nice at Bonnarroo. She said she
would put ribbons in her hair and wear a linen top. I said she better
mix in some foxtail grass for her hair and some dirt, judging from the
dominant look we observed Thursday afternoon when we arrived. Olivia
is sporting some very badass little black boots with a velvety surface
festooned with sprightly little florals. The boots were for the mud.
Too bad we brought boots because if we had not then it would have
rained and the mud might have been preferable to the dust that ensued.

The next day we chowed down a late breakfast at The Waffle House in
Manchester, just off the 24. Waffle House was busy with Bonnarooters.
Our waitress, Kansas, for Pete's sake, was on the brink: talking to
her self, fumbling and desperately trying to make our Waffle House
experience pleasant. I concluded early that she was under the
influence of some medication. Zoloft or Vicodin was our guess. She was
a well mannered lass completely over her head with the flurry. She
apologized profusely for no reason. She gave us 300% more cutlery than
necessary, as if to cover some glaring deficiency that only she could
see. She needed to be prodded carefully in order to bring coffee a
number of times and finally got it right. Olivia's request for hot tea
was nearly more than Kansas could accomplish. She never did bring
Mahmoud his water.

" That seems to be a tough request," he noted sympathetically, when
Kansas was out of earshot.

A southern comic strip couple, red-eyed and wearing western, clops up
to the booth adjoining me and as the lady sits down and slides over
the gent apologizes for the ruckus he and his "tramp from Alabama" are
making.

" Your what?" she warns.

" My wife," he begs to correct.

" You got that right you sorry son of a bitch," she grunts, and as I
half-turn I see her lift herself out of the booth and aim a hard kick
at hubby's jewels. Her rascal pivots nicely as if from practice and
receives the whacking sharp kick in the flesh of his upper thigh.

" Ouch!" he exclaims.

" Ouch is right, now sit down and shut up."

Olivia and Mahmoud got grits with their eggs, which I thought was
very respectful of them, seeing as we were so obviously in the South.
I got the hashbrowns, which the menu ballyhooed as the best in the
world. Turned out they were not even close.

We later deduced that the lone serving of hashbrowns is what probably
sent me away vomiting like a champion seven hours later after a
decliningly dispirited afternoon. That was all I ate all day and I had
one beer, just to mark the record.

We haul the daring boys some waffles and eggs to-go and a gallon of
water. The grounds are big, the treks long and the sun warming at 11
AM. We meet up with Dar and Dyl near a falafel vendor. They wolf the
stuff down and between bites announce without rancor that a mounted
deputy safety patrol woman has seized Dylan's 14 unauthorized T shirts
he had been selling for only a few minutes. These are the best T
shirts in the whole place it turns out, featuring a large Statue of
Liberty proudly holding up a gas-station hose-nozzle in place of her
lamp.

" That's kind of screwed up. I guess they got to crack down on illicit
commerce early before it gets out of hand. You should try selling
ecstasy next time instead." I have heard "EX", 'rolls' and "E-bombs"
earnestly murmured sporadically in the short time we have been
traveling through the village.

While we hid in the shade waiting for Richard Thompson, a lovely
blonde photographer with 16 inches of telephoto asked us about
Woodstock, I lied, as if I also was one of the 14 million other
people who claim to have wandered into that seminal 1960s event.

"What is the biggest difference for you, comparing Woodstock to Bonnaroo?"

" The latrine angle seems to be better managed," I replied
thoughtfully, as if primed. "Oh, and there is a lot more water
provided. And the food operation is taken care of. No comparison
there. There is less nudity, which is not an upgrade, but its still
early. And it seems that there is more grass here, " She looked at the
ground around us.

"You know, weed. "

" Of course."

Not that we have not noted a huge presence, owing to the fact that its
only one in the afternoon. The prevalence of smoking pipe vendors with
fancy ware also serves as an indicator. But Canabis is definitely one
of the most prevalent smells on the big farm now covered with people.
Since our hosts have loudly and frequently suggested that illegal
substances are not allowed here, we think its some kind of crazy that
we have not heard earlier that marijuana use is legal in Tennessee. As
time goes on the smell of sweet burning bud is omnipresent.

That, and the odor of tobacco. I take to calling the show Bonnarette
to emphasize how many cigs are continually lit, many poked
unglamorously in the chops of some seemingly sweet and very attractive
young women. But their male companions are sucking them down mightily,
so there is your permission. American Spirit has a big demo-booth to
promote their non-cancer causing, non emphysema inducing brand. It's a
Twig light Zone throwback to the 1950s, when it was claimed that
cigarettes were a health benefit. The promise of tobacco without
consequences. Everybody, except around six people, is clutching some
kind of light beer, which automatically requires the accompanying
cigarette. Other substances induce the urge to smoke as well, we note.

Richard Thompson is way under appreciated. Though around five thousand
people are thunderstruck by his electric and acoustic ( Leo Kottke,
take a seat for sec.) guitar, we know and Thompson knows, that
side-venues are probably all he can expect in these Days of
Brittany-or even Manu Chau, who probably knows more than four chords
but figures they are not required. Thompson thanks us for coming over
to the "has-beens and over the hilI venue" at THE OTHER tent.
Thompson does not have three hands. I counted them.

I have followed Thompson since the mid-60s, when my friend Boe
Paschall started listening to eclectic folk-rock exponents like
Fairport Convention, which featured Thompson, and Bert Jansch and John
Renbourne, solo guitarists who later were members of Pentangle. They
were perhaps a more thoughtful discovery to go along with our Procol
Harum. Thompson's mournful storytelling has been constant over the
years. At Bonnaroo, he's accompanied by a vintage rhythm guitarist who
also plays a ska-inflected alto-saxophone, your basic master-drummer (
don't really run into too many bad drummers these days) and a bassist
playing an electrified stand-up that provides more than the common
beat; it's a featured instrument just as would be a piano. His
playing reminds me of a Stanley Turrentine concert I attended ten
years ago in Austin. I have some Thompson downloads in my future. If
you recorded this set, I need it. Richard Thompson does not have three hands.

I counted them.

Saturday may have been glorious elsewhere, but I lay in bed finishing
George Packer's Assassin's Gate and channel surfing deliriously
through the abysmal central Tennessee cable feed, puked out. Brian
Lamb's 2000 interview with Harold Bloom on CSPAN landed like a miracle
as I recuperated. I saw no Lips, no Mule, no Rice. I missed Railroad
Earth, Ziggy Marley, Xavier Rudd, Ben Harper and of course the
stardraw of the quarter century, The Police.

Sunday I improved and I had to. I felt like I had spent 4200 dollars
just to see Wilco because I had thought they were not going to play
the west coast. That is a brave admission. However, such activity is
not entirely out of character. The stars are aligned in a goofy way
about all of this though. A week before we leave town for Tennessee,
Olga and Trent say their daughter is going to marry the keyboard
player, which is too coincidentally preposterous. Then Wilco can eat
breakfast every Sunday they are in town at our place. We are somewhat
giddy with the novelty of fandom: Jeff Tweedy staring moodily at his
scrambled eggs in my restaurant, slapping jam on our all-organic spelt
toast, asking hoarsely how much coffee refills are.

Mahmoud and I are somewhat interested in the data regarding 'Bonna.
They are grossing sixteen million on ticket sales, and have bought the
530 acre farm adjacent to I24, probably for a million, since its
Interstate-handy. Plans are afoot to make green improvements and max
the place into a quasi-theme park. What are the principals making?
They have to be splitting over a million. What do the Police and
Widespread Panic get paid, versus Richard Thompson and Gillian Welch?
What is the fee for a food vendor, a non-profit, a clothing or art
vendor? How many mounted, T-shirt snatching Safety Patrol members are
there?

How many are employed at Bonnaroo and how many are volunteers? We
wonder how many outhouses there are for eighty thousand people. What
will it take to pump them all dry every morning? The coordinators aim
to recycle much more than the 56 tons of trash they handled last year.
How much does it take to insure this? The water in the center fountain
is being recycled and pumped back in to service after a dose of
chlorine. I suppose this means to eliminate whatever pathogen might be
in this ever-more densely foaming soup, but we wonder aloud if the
goals are being measured and if anyone else has wondered about the
other incidental pollutants that might be in the mix? Perhaps after
the second day its not necessary to apply sunscreen if you just douse
yourself in everyone's common shower. Drug residues also make the question provocative.


Shouldn't somebody print up a cheap primer for the 'Bonna employees so
that when you ask them something they know the answer?
"Sorrybutdontknowthat" becomes a running joke.

From across the baked ground Sirens beckon us into a tent but the
refuge is not false. Angel Band is three women who sing in a secular
choir with David Bromberg and his veteran cronies. They are not for a
moment in Tennessee and neither are we, but momentarily lifted to a
musical paradise together for as long as they sing. Their voices meet
in a three- cornered space a few feet above their heads, showering
golden notes down on us, amazed. Their cumulative effort, which they
acknowledge may be their greatest achievement to-date, is Just Call Me
Angel In the Morning . My uncharacteristic sobriety achieves a certain
cognition, wherein I am sure these Sirens are that good.

Sunday at Bonna was more of a trial than the other days with the dust
and the heat. Beneath the blessed trees battalions of festivalians
collapsed red-faced with the heat and red-shouldered with their
sunburned emblems of merrymaking. Some had definitely been to the
party and now lay sprawled, recuperating beneath the thin protection
of the sun-parched trees.

Slim shade was ingeniously discovered as a result of necessity, along
the narrow edges of fencing, to the sun's lee against various utility
islands built to enhance music or sell the beer and lemonade. The
smallest music venues provided intentional shade one hundred by one
hundred feet, but still hundreds and thousands were left in the glare,
sweating and waiting while they sucked down a beverage with one hand
and shielded their eyes with the other. The cigarette butts piled
higher and higher.

Bob Weir is obviously going through the motions of playing rather
perfunctorily with his better-intentioned mates in the ghastly-named
Ratdog. Because he includes Franklin's Tower in his set I will forgive
his perennial sloppiness. Aging, ragged Dead freaks gratefully repair
to the pitiful shade as Ratdog exits without an encore, which I find
perfectly predictable. They are so done with this gig.

Dusty dusk lay upon that part of Manchester where Bonnaroo unwound,
and the most resourceful folks put up wet bandanas against the dense
pollution. I had not seen dust so bad since I had walked the road
between Montero and Yapacani in central Bolivia with a mob of Cambas.
Now my fellow half-clad walkers emanated not from a third world
vision, but that of another millennium. All I needed to see was
Charlton Heston steering a chariot through the masses and my CB
DeMille hallucination would have been complete. Horrific hordes of
game but dazed aficionados and marginal tribespeople kept coming and
coming and stumbling through the haze. Its 96 degrees with nary a
breath of wind to scoot the storm of powdered clay away from our
faces. This is dedication. Being willing to ignore such affronts to
personal safety are a measure of how much the music means. Surely
there must be many more than me to observe this ardor. Mahmoud,
similarly inspired, relates stories his grandfather told him about
the dust on the road to Mecca during his life's pilgrimage from Tehran
to Saudi Arabia in the 1930s. At least we don't have to fear storms on
the Red Sea or robbers along the road. Just hashbrowns

We wait for Wilco to arrive in one of the Earth's longest half hours,
nearing four thirty on Sunday afternoon as the sweaty haze begins to
barely abate. The air is dirt. We are among hundreds of listless red
youth lounging as if in a prison yard. Men now outnumber women seven
to one. Is it intelligence that has driven the females into the shade?
Its impossible that Tweedy and Wilco's appeal is cut by gender.

A grown man next to us near the recording zone begins to cry in the
dirt because his taping device has stopped functioning. He may just be
frustrated that he is so witlessly high he is unable to process the
error and fix it himself, but he is a big red-faced mess. His sober
wife can not console him.

Wilco surfaces from backstage and launches into known work. Jeff
Tweedy is pleasing, pleading, wry and poignant. The Irishman can make
you cry. Its something in the genes, the W.B Yeats gene. He can paint
the little scary scenes and can make you think and wander around in
his words caroming off meaning and reference. I wanted to see if there
really were thirty three Thank Yous ( we counted on Kicking
Television). I miss Wishful Thinking, which Johnny and I use as a bit
1band are masters of the unexpected but perfectly placed lick or
transition. There is no rote, always a sense of practice and purpose
on message. Tweedy's music is the road meant for the lyric to travel
upon. The 4200 dollar rock and roll show is as much as I bargained
for. This is some shit to work by as your picking green beans.

Wilco has fashioned a sound, a repertoire, a musical effect that puts
one in mind of The Band. Such a broad claim can not be made unless
you are certain of the storytelling originality the two bands share,
the musicianship and magnificent complementation within the art, the
realization that you have never heard music like this before. And it's
a hard-won art, perhaps harder because Wilco's commentary relates to a
more commonly shared reality. With The Band, we reduce them not at all
by being mindful of Stoneman's cavalry tearing up the tracks, and the
partied-out hillbilly ethos up on Cripple Creek. Just as Chest Fever
served as a continually played anthem 35 years ago, Jesus, etc.,
serves now.