Home, home again…upcoming shows and some words on Rooster Walk and Phish tour
06/29/09
After an almost exhaustive month, I’m back home and can honestly say that I’m very pleased about that. True, Phish tour was a lot of fun, but I’m not 23 anymore and hauling art everywhere is definitely a full time thing.
Prior to tour, I had the pleasure of working with the wonderful folks at Rooster Walk, a festival that was borne out of a group of friends wanting to raise money in memorium to some of their fallen brothers. Nestled in Martinsville, VA, Rooster Walk was a two day fandango that showcased a lot of local talent, stellar bluegrass, Charlottesville favorites the Kings of Belmont and even saw some electronica courtesy of Richmond based Existor.
I got there later in the evening on the pre-party night and caught a great set by Gunchux. Comprised of members of various Charlottesville bands, Gunchux definitely kicks out the goodness. On this particular evening, their performance gained an even more heightened feel, as R. S. Hornsby had also been a part of their crew (and our local music scene) but had died in a car accident earlier in the year. The somberness of the reason for the event was balanced with the joy of celebration and community that all three passed young men shared, and that we enthusiastically embraced over the weekend.
I set up the art booth the next morning and proceeded to paint a few works for the event. All of these were given away as charity items for the event. Prints of the larger piece, Rooster Walking on the Moon are available, matted and framed, for $60 + shipping/handling/insurance. I’ll be working on printing larger sizes that will be limited edition, with partial proceeds going to benefit the charity.
Blooster’s Mojo
King of the Walk
Rooster Walking on the Moon
So, post Rooster Walk, it was off to Phish tour. I stopped in on my friend Mike just outside of Boston. After a funny run-in with the Milford police involving me napping in my car and him telling me that I was scaring the neighbors, I got some time to hang with Mike and then paint the following work in his broadcasting studio. He works for a local station and kicks out a show called Organic Jam on Sunday nights at 7PM. On this particular evening, he rocked a near 5 hour Phishtory show in honor of the upcoming Fenway tour opener. Here are the deetz if you ever want to tune in online, and I suggest that you do:
7pm-11pm eastern time
Phishtory @ 9 PM
GD @ 10
And here’s the painting.
Fenway was an amazing show, complete with a tour opening rainbow after a brief spattering of rain. I felt the Tweezer was aptly placed as the upper levels were cold, cold, cold with the wind. A surprise Destiny Unbound and Curtis Loew were welcome bust-outs and solid performances of some new tunes like Ocelot and Light were great as well. All around a rocking time in Boston’s Fenway Park, my first visit to this historic site. I wasn’t able to vend in the heart of Boston as you can imagine. Strike one.
Jones Beach was a wet but welcome experience. The first day was the only time I could really take out merch and a lot of people responded well to it. Even sold a few posters. We were even graced with another rainbow. 2nd in a row. A third would come the next day. Apparently, God seems to love Phish.
I could take all day talking about the shows, but will simply say this: night 2 was my all around favorite with a transcendental jam out of Drowned into Meatstick. The first set was a monster and I could’ve left at break and felt like I got my money’s worth.
Despite the rain of the second evening, I busted out a canvas and, inspired by the Drowned, the tower in the parking lot and most likely the fact that I’m reading Stephen King’s Dark Tower, I painted the following:
It has Time Turns Elastic, YEM, Drowned, Simple (from night 1), Squirming Coi, Meatstickl and Ghost references included. My friend and fellow live painter Brianne Diomede helped me work on this a little later at the 19th annual Stonehenge Music Festival in Kellyburg, PA last weekend. She’s my soul sistah.
This work is still in progress.
Next came Great Woods, where I almost got arrested for painting in the parking lot and literally cursed out by a police officer, then Knoxville (much more pleasant), then Bonnaroo. The folks at Bonnaroo wouldn’t let us in with the paintings that we had, suggesting we might hide them in the woods or bury them somewhere. I laughed in their faces and asked them if they were serious. Unfortunately, they were.
This forced us to have to get a storage unit in Tennessee for a month. Ridiculous. I said I’d never go back after the second one and Phish forced my hand. I say again, I WILL NEVER RETURN TO BONNAROO. Phish was great, and seeing NIN’s last US show was great, as was Snoop Dogg and David Byrne…but we won’t be back. Speaking of backs: Julia pretty much threw hers out on her walk back from the 1st Phish set on Sunday. She hobbled back to the camp and then decided to visit the medical tent, just to see if they might be able to give her a massage or a heat pad or something. They proceeded to insist that she take a golf cart ride to Centeroo to go to the other medical tent. She asked them to please make sure she got a cart ride back. At this point, she literally couldn’t walk without being in severe pain.
So they took her to the other tent and they told her they couldn’t do anything for her. They insisted on taking her vitals which she thought was highly unnecessary. She informed them that she hadn’t taken any drugs or drank anything. She had taken a Tylenol 3 or something like that and refused any other aspirin because she strictly adheres to the advice on the bottle. Anyway, they told her she had to go to the emergency room. She told them that there was no way that was happening and to please just give her a ride back to camp.
They refused and said they couldn’t do it. Remember that they’d already agreed to this prior. So they made my girlfriend, who hardly ever cries because of ANYTHING (she’s very stoic that way and strong) cry her eyes out in frustration. She had to lurch bent over at the waist more than half a mile back to our camp (I was still at the show and knew nothing about all of what was going on…we’d agreed that I’d meet her after Phish concluded).
She even asked the taxi carts and they refused to give her a ride because she didn’t have $5. All of her money was in the car and she even promised to pay them more than $5 if they’d PLEASE give her a ride. They refused.
On her way back, one of the taxi’s stopped and, oblivious to her condition, the driver made some party-wise comment and then drove off laughing.
When I got back to the tent she told me all of this and I proceeded to take the best care of her I could while being livid at the Bonnaroo people. A final time: NEVER AGAIN. Seeing Bruce join Phish on stage? Epic. Terrible, inhumane treatment? Forgivable, but not forgotten.
We both chalked it up as a learning experience in the end and definitely made the best of it with our neighbors for the rest of the time that we were there. Don’t get me wrong, aside from those incidents, we had a blast. But, the Roo was another place we couldn’t vend obviously. At this point, I’d pretty much been leaking money like a sieve.
Tune in a bit later to see that things always come around: Stonehenge, the end of tour and a rocking night with Raw Dawg and the Kings of Belmont. More new art coming!!!
