Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    

Yes and no.

Over the years I learned that I was a better rewriter/editor than writer, and
the hardest part was to get it out of my head and on the page.  All those
sessions with my mentor, David McGee, helped me learn how to rearrange my
spew so it worked as nonfiction.

The same thing applies to my songwriting, though (as I have said) I tend to
keep stuff incubating in my mind for quite a while before I let it out.
That's because a song has to be concise, to the point, and packed with
content.  In a magazine article you can take some time to develop your ideas
-- even though much of that stuff winds up being deleted after the essenaitl
information is packed into a couple of sentences.

My friend Regan McMahon, who works at the SF Chronicle, gave me a great piece
of J-school advice once that has always served me well: No matter how much
you like a line or idea, if you can't make it fit, you have to let it go.  I
have left some very good stuf out of my writing (music and prose) thanks to
that wisdom.
  

    
And remember, folks out there on the Web, if you're not a Well
member and you want to ask a question here, don't be shy! Send
it to inkwell-hosts@well.com for speedy delivery and response!

Meanwhile, David, since you're out on the road, have you got
any secrets to impart about making travel not so brutal while
not staying at Ritz-Carltons? Dealing with downtime without
climbing the walls? 
  

    
Stay with friends!  Eat wisely.  Drink plenty of water.

I travel alone on these trips, and I bring my own music along most of the
time.  NPR and oldies stations (which definition now encompasses the music of
my childhood -- see above) are okay for a while, but I am using the long
drives to learn songs and audition material for my radio show -- and to ejoy
the CDs by my fellow artists that I traded for at the Suwannee SpringFest.

I do check into a hotel from time to time, in towns where I don't know
anyone.  Not much you can do about the beds in those places :^)
  

    
That is a great point. All of your lyrics are pithy to overflowing. That is
the kind of Jackson Browne, Elvis Costello stuff I really dig.

Does Jack Williams have any records out? I've been looking for him since
last year.
  

    

Yes, he does.  "Eternity and Main" is the one to get.  The web address I have
for him is defunct (songs.com), I'm pretty sure, but his email address is
jackw@scsn.net

Jack knocked me senseless wiith "Eternity and Main" a year ago, and this year
he got me again wth "Outlaw's Dream," which is on the same disc.
  

    
thanks, i appreciate that.
by the way, when your in the atlanta area check in with WMLB-AM in Cumming,
GA (no i'm not kidding) We can't pick them up much in town but they are a
great americana station. I've caught them playing Townes and Chris Smither
among others. If you could drop by with a CD it might do you some good, too.
contact info at wmlb.com
call them though, they are slow getting to the email, esp when the bass are
biting.
  

    
Thanks for the pointer!  How far is Cumming from Atlanta?  Maybe I can drop
in on Monday.

There's also a link o the Americana Music Association (
<http://www.americanamusic.org> ) which I am about to explore.

Thanks for that, too!
  

    

My first review is up on the amazon.com page - contributed by my pal
dam@well.com (Dan Marsh).  Thanks, Dan!

<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005AUFQ>
  

    
Cumming is about 10 miles from Duluth. You'll be close.

We need an Americana station in Atlanta....at least one that has some power.
  

    
Maybe we can take a ride out there on Monday, Ray?
  

    
Sure!
  

    
And a question.

You've answered a number of questions about your songwriting, but how about
your guitar playing. How did you get started playing? Who are you
influeneces on the guitar? Are you self taught? Lessons? Do you have a
different approach now compared to your days with the Reptiles?
/
  

    

My older brother (Roger Gans, now noted as a sound designer fo the San Fran-
cisco Opera and other fine clients) set a couple of my tortured teenage poems
to music and taught me the chords.  It was all over for me after that.  Any
time he left the house I'd go into his room, grab his Gibson Blue Ridge, and
play and play and play.  I used the songbooks for the Beatles White Album and
Crosby, Stills and Nash at first.

I have never had a guitar lesson.

My early nfluences were Stephen Stills, Neil Young, David Lindley (from his
work with Jackson browne), Steve Goodman, and various local lights.  I was
pals with Dave Shogren, the first bassist of the Doobie Brothers, and I had
many opportunities to watch Tom Johnston and Pat Simmons - two VERY different
guitarists -- in the basement of the Doobie house on 12th Street in downtown
San Jose before they made their first record and started touring.  From Tommy
I learned a rapid flatpicking thing that he used to approximate fingerpick-
ing, and from Pat I learned fingerpicking proper.

In 1972, I was dragged to a Grateful Dead concert.  I immediately started
absorbing the very diferent but equally compelling guitar styles o Jerry Gar-
cia and Bob Weir.

I have also been in in awe of Jorma Kaukonen sincethe first time I saw him
play.

I long ago stopped trying to cop other people's licks, which I sort of regret
because I am acutely aware of the resulting limitations.  On the other hand,
it has helped me to develop a style of my own; what that style is, I can't
say.


>Do you have a different approach now compared to your days with the Rep-
>tiles?

I miss playing electric.  But I have some ear damage, and I wonder if I'll
ever get back into electric playing on a regullar basis.

My friend Mark Karan, currently on tour with Bob Weir and Ratdog, talks about
being a "tone" player -- paying great attention to the amplifier settings,
pickups, and all the other things that go into the sound of the guitar.
Since I started playing acoustic guitar almost exclusively, I have become
more of a "note" player -- thinking less about the tone and letting the music
speak for itself.

I miss those big nasty jams when I could make the feedback ring, though.
  

    
Wow, cool story about the Doobies formative days. Didn't know that about
you.
  

    
It's always great seeing you play with a band; a very different
experience than the solo setting.

You've been talking about wanting to put together a regular band
for some time.  What kind of lineup (in terms of instrumentation)
would you most like to work with?  Standard lead-rhythm-bass-drums?
Something more exotic?  Something more flexible (e.g.
people who play multiple things on stage)?
  

    
The band I play wth from time to time, Guilty Pleasures (nothing scheduled
right now, but stay tuned), is: me on gtr,/vox; Patti Cobb on kb/vox; Alyn
Kelley on vox; Mika Scott on drums/vox, and bass player TBA.  I love working
with singers again!  I don't know what my ultimate band configuration would
be, but if I had someone like Andy Stein who plays sax and fiddle, or someone
who can play oboe and something else AND sing, I'd be pretty happy.

I also love playing with The Reptiles, which usually has three guitars.
We've been playing together off and on since 1973, and we know how to stay
out of each other's way :^)
  

    

I've been asked what new music I'm listening to.  Here's something I wrote to
a friend tonight:



I am constantly listening to a wonderful band from upstate New York called
DONNA THE BUFFALO.  They are all stone old-timey music freaks, but what they
play at the hippie fests is a sort of zydeco-rock trance music that em-
phasizes the groove rather than individual virtuosity.  One of them writes
lyrics that would he total hippy-dippy crapola except for the fact that he
delivers them in this half-asleep barely-singing style that makes them seem
like the truth instead of a pipe dream.  Tara Nevins is slender as a twig and
pretty as a rose, with a big voice that's sweet as cream; she plays acoustic
guitar, fiddle, accordion, and scrubboard, and she sings lines like "I never
expected to be loved by you" and "life can be simple and still be hard," and
even though she's pretty you can tell her life is or has been hard.  The
third front guy, Jim Miller, gave up a major gig in the entomology biz
(American Museum of Natural History) to play a Fender Telecaster and sing
"Uncle Bud's got this, Uncle Bud's got that, Uncle Bud's got a pecker like a
baseball bat" and "I am the bravest cowboy" to audiences of kids who probably
don't realize this is 19th-century Utopianism they're dealing with, not the
babblings of people who have taken too much Ecstasy.

This is the first band I've seen in years that I would like to follow around
the country for a few months.  I get to share a stage with them twice a year,
and it's always a delight.

Their latest album is called POSITIVE FRICTION.  Jim and Tara both have solo
CDs that are much more old-timey and rootsy and every bit as wonderful.

I've been trying to decide whether to write a song or a magazine article
about them.


<http://www.donnathebuffalo.com>
  

    
They look pretty great, David. They're playing here in Boulder on June 20.

I'm wondering if you have some favorite defunct bands from the 60s &
70s... I was thinking about an old favorite of mine, Stoneground. I saw
'em perform at a show in SF, I think at the Fillmore, back in '72... that
was a great bizarre evening... Sylvester and his Hot Band and Dan Hicks
also played. Some of these bands, great as they were back then, are pretty
much forgotten now. (I could rattle off a bunch of Austin bands who've
evaporated as well.)
  

    

Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks were great onj record, but I never saw them live.
I really like the records of Clover, who never got far under their own name
but from whose ranks sprang John McFee (now with the Doobie Brothers and also
with Southern Pacific), and most of Huey Lewis and the News.

Stoneground was a lot of fun -- I saw them a few times.  The Hoodoo Rhythm
Devils were another great unsung Bay Area band in the '70s.


But I need to say more about Donna the Buffalo after dashing off that rant
last night.  The front man who always looks like you just woke him up is Jeb
Puryear.  The keyboardist is Richie Stearns, who rejoined the band last year
after an absence, during which time Joe Thrift was the keyboardist.  The bas-
sist is Jed Greenberg, and the drummer is Tom Gilbert.

What's really fun about Donna the Buffalo is when they get offstage, they're
all fiddle-music fanatics.  Several times at the Suwannee SpringFest or Mag-
noliaFest (the spring and fall events at the Spirit of the Suwanee Music Park
- see <http://www.magmusic.com> ) I have found myself in the middle of a
cluster of musicians -- Donna the Buffalo and Blueground Undergrass -- fid-
dling up a storm on a zillion songs I've never heard before but which they
all know as well as the sound of their own heartbeats.  Jed puts down his
bass and picks up a fiddle; Richie plays the banjo when he's not pumping the
organ onstage.  And the Blueground guys -- Rev. Jeff Mosier (banjo), Johnny
Mosier (guitar), Mark Van Allen (pedal steel, dobro), Edward Hunter (fiddle)
-- are all deeply into the same celebration.  (I haven't seen the two young
guys in the Blueground rhythm section -- Joseph ? the bass player and Vic
Stafford the drummer -- at these fiddle fests, but that don't mean they
aren't musically deep and versatile.  Vic stepped in at the last minute to
cover the drums for "Big Cosmo's Tribute to the Psychedelic Cowboys," in
which Mark Van Allen, concert promoter and picker Randy Judy and I celebrated
the music of Gram parsons, the New Riders, Merle Haggard and other favorites
from our salad days.  We talked Vic through all the songs, and he delivered
the goods as though he'd been playing this stuff all his life.)
  

    
A recent issue of Paul Williams' Crawdaddy has an article on
the Buffalo Springfield that's pretty interesting reading.
Apparently, there's a live-concert Buffalo Springfield CD
that's been in the works for years and may someday be released.
  

    
Donna Buffalo sounds pretty great... looking forward to their live
show. And thanks for mentioning the Hoodoo Rhythm Devils - that was a
great band! The HDR and Stoneground should be re-released on CD, dang it.
  

    
(Aha! I just found that Amazon lists a "Best of Hoodoo Rhythm Devils" CD
that was evidently released in February 2001)
  

    
A live Buffalo Springfieldd album!  That could be great.
  

    
Evidently the only live tapes of the Buffalo Springfield are from a
Monterey Pop performance, which had <croz> sitting in for Neil
Young. Every BS performance was taped, but the tapes were erased after a
performance critique.

There's a 4CD boxed set in the works, though, and that might include some
interesting stuff.
  

    
beautiful take on Donna the Buffalo, David.
what they do to an audience is a wonder to behold.
why not a song AND an article?

and now donna the buffalo a song by richie valens and peter rowan...