I think I found my club or something.

My wife and I are going to ZoukFest next week, because I’m the Webmaster and everything is free, and because it’s cool. Last year’s ZoukFest World Music Camp at the College of Santa Fe was the best one yet, and this year’s should be even better. They’ve branched out from strictly Celtic and Middle Eastern to include a lot more musical styles this time, and I’m taking two classes: Cajun Ensemble and Jump-Start Bouzouki. The bouzouki class will tell me all I’ve ever wanted to know about my G.D. Armstrong resophonic bouzouki, which up till now I’ve only played in open GDGD tuning. That’s probably the best sound in the world, anyway. And then there’s the Cajun Ensemble class. I’m really getting excited.

We’re going to form a traditional Cajun dance band for a week. I’ve been listening to recordings of Cajun music from the 1920s and playing along on my Guild 12-string and the bouzouki. Sure, I heard Cajun music all the time back in Texas. It was always in the background somewhere, at least from Austin east, and I always loved the passion and the sound, for all the little I knew or understood about it. But I never really played any Cajun-style music, which makes sense, because unless you play an accordion, you can’t create that sound all by yourself. That’s what’s so cool about the class, that I’ll finally get to be in a group. The instructor, Doug Goodhart, is extremely versatile and a killer musician. It’s going to be an interesting ride.

The amazing thing is, I’m going to have some fun. I already play the guitar, etc. in my crazy self-taught way, I’m as musical as laziness allows, and these guys play just TWO CHORDS, mostly in the keys of C and D. Two chords! I’ve listened to some of the early recordings. They sound like accordion punk, just a bunch of guys with squeezeboxes, whooping and hollering and whumping along on TWO CHORDS!!! Well, sometimes three, but rarely. Being an intergalactic master of two-chord guitar, I’ll be in heaven. I’ll be able to relax, let go and cut loose.

Two chords! And I know right where they belong.

Oh man, Bo Diddley died today, and I’m sitting here with tears running down my face. What joy that man brought into this world. I finally got to hear him play in Santa Fe, back in January of ‘04, and wrote about it in one of my old GRACK! columns that I later developed into a full-length article for Horse Fly. What follows is that longer piece, by way of tribute.

Here’s to you, Bo: may you keep on rockin’ through those pearly gates…

Bad Seed Blessing
by John H. Farr

Bo Diddley at the Lensic?

I was broke and might die tomorrow, but no way was St. Peter gonna wave me through that gate if I didn’t grab a credit card and go: “You say you passed up your last chance to see Bo Diddley in person? GIT ON OUTA HERE!” So that was that.

At the very last minute, the Ford wouldn’t start. No buzz, no click, no nothin’. The last time this had happened, I was halfway across Cebolla Mesa. That time I’d gotten the juice flowing in the F-150 by banging on the battery posts with a wrench, so I tried it again and got the cab light to come on. This showed me I was on the right track, so I took off the cables and gave everything a scrub with a wire brush. When I refastened the clamps, I knew it would start. It did, and off I flew.

Getting from Llano to downtown Santa Fe in a little over an hour is possible, but it ain’t pretty. Once there, I took a quick walk to clear my head and then hurried to take my seat. Right away I recognized Bo’s famous custom-built “square” guitar resting on a chair. That also meant he’d be sitting down, old blues-man-style, but hey, the guy was 75.

Bo Diddley’s guitar, photographed at intermission

As it turned out, someone forgot to tell him. My boyhood idol came out and played for almost two and one-half hours straight, no breaks, accompanied by the very capable Alex Maryol Band, who’d opened for him as well. Bo played the old songs, some blues, even a rap number I swear he made up on the spot. He was loose and he was happy. “You got my back, right?” he’d say off-mike to Alex, then hit the special effects built into his guitar and take off into uncharted musical space, laughing all the way.

It wasn’t so much the music as the man himself that had me reeling through one wave of emotion after another. Twice I found myself all choked up and wondering why. Whatever it was that went through the heart and soul of the 10-year-old boy who first heard Bo Diddley on Armed Forces Radio in Germany in 1955 was special, all right. If I could put it in a bottle or a book, it would save the world. When he finally announced his last number and launched into a classic Diddley romp with his signature beat, I didn’t want the feeling to end. It didn’t, either.

Without explanation or intro, Bo changed his mind and jumped right into “Bad Seed,” a song about going through life his own special way and nobody else’s. In between verses he asked all the “bad seeds” in the audience to stand up, and some of them did. I was trying to take a picture and stayed in my seat. I already knew who I was, anyway.

On the way home I stopped at a Pojoaque mini-mart that was just about to close, nobody there but me and the law. My hair was flying in the breeze as I swung down out of the cab. Inside, I felt the tribal cops’ eyes on me as I put too much fake cheese on a cold hot dog and fumbled with the foam cup for my coffee. Shades of times past! Climbing back into the truck, I just had to smile: Man, do you think I’d look like this if I was holding?

All the way back, I never saw another car until I’d climbed out of the canyon. The three elk standing by the side of the road just past the Horseshoe let me pass but woke me up good, so I slid into Llano and played my electric guitar until four in the morning. I don’t think the landlord heard me.

He’s real polite though, and probably wouldn’t say.

I took other pictures at that concert, most of which didn’t turn out so well. This is the best one I have of Bo. It captures a certain energy, but of course you had to be there — and now none of us can anymore:

The one and only Bo

Back in ‘78 I bought an amazing album by Tonio K. called “Life in the Foodchain.” (Yes, he’s still around, and here’s his website.) Every song on it is loud, more aggressive, and hard-hitting than 95 percent of anything I’d ever run across since. To get you started, here’s a two-minute intro of one of my favorites (courtesy GadFly Records, where you can buy all of Tonio K.’s CDs). Once you have a listen, you can sing the rest of the lyrics by yourself!

[audio:funky_western.mp3]

THE FUNKY WESTERN CIVILIZATION
(Tonio K.)

come on everybody
get on your feet
get with the beat
there’s a brand new dance craze
sweeping the nation
and it’s called the funky western civilization

well there’s a riot in the courthouse, there’s a fire in the street
there’s a sinner bein’ trampled by a thousand pious feet
there’s a baby every minute bein’ born without a chance
now don’t that make you want to jump right up and start to dance?

let’s do the funky
the funky western civilization
it’s really spunky
it’s just like summertime vacation
you just grab your partner by the hair
throw her down and leave her there

they put jesus on a cross, they put a hole in j.f.k.
they put hitler in the driver’s seat and looked the other way
now they’ve got poison in the water and the whole world in a trance
but just because we’re hypnotized, that don’t mean we can’t dance

we’ve got the funky
the funky western civilization
it’s really spunky
it’s just like summertime vacation
you just drag your partner through the dirt
leave him in a world of hurt

you get down
get funky
get western
(own up to it boys and girls)
and if you try real hard maybe you can even get, you know, kinda civilized·

(mesdames et messieurs, bon soir. this is joan of arc. tonio has asked me to personally deliver a rather special message. he say he just cannot get enough of my 15th-century wisdom. he say he loves it when i talk with him like this. and after many a saturday night of doing ze funky western civilization together, i know for a fact he agrees with me when i say [in french]:
you can bullshit the baker and get the buns
you can back out of every deal except one)

this is the funky
the funky western civilization
it’s oh, so very spunky
it’s just like summertime vacation
all’s you gotta do is find some little kid somewhere
and throw him way up in the air
(never mind the parents)

yes it’s a funky
a funky western civilization
and it may seem kinda skunky, you know
but it’s hitting every nation (all across the universe)
that’s ’cause all’s you gotta do is grab your partner by the hair
throw her down and leave her there

©1978 Worthless Music and Propane Publishing Co. (ASCAP)

For the very latest on this outstanding songwriter and performer most of you have never heard of, here’s a recent article.

I think we all need some of this! I know I do.

Behold the Finnish rock band called the Leningrad Cowboys performing “Sweet Home Alabama” (in English) at a concert in Moscow WITH the Red Army Chorus. I suggest having a stiff drink first, and maybe a few other things. Listen all the way to the end for a fine Slavic finish!

Great shoes, huh? And how about them “mushrat” hairdos!

Yes, this is still on the front burner!

We’re looking hard for the right place, crunching Craigslist every hour, checking the paper, running down leads. Not looking to buy, but you never know. What we really need a long-term rental. I’d consider a lease with option to buy if the place were right. The main thing is, we need a deal… That’s what the best places are always like, something happens with a kind of mutual attraction. A personal relationship with a landlord is usually involved. Friendship, an exchange of energy. You stumble on it or it comes to you.

We took a drive to Las Vegas, NM the other day to help break in the new car and also just to get away. [Mouse over my photo above to see a chunk of the road.] There was a store that had a great selection of wind chimes and we bought one. It’s black, not shiny metal, one that would hang in the shadow of a tree and not be seen but only heard. I like that idea. We figured getting this now would help us find a house. It’s hanging inside now — not outdoors in this location! — and we give it a push whenever we walk by.

It’s time. I want to drive us to Iowa in the new car in the spring, so my wife can supervise the piano moving and get that sucker here. It needs a home, and so do we.

Oh, I’m a sucker for this:

Members of the iconic ’60s band said Friday they will hold a one-time-only jam session to drum up support for the Illinois lawmaker ahead of the “Super Tuesday” caucuses and primary elections.

“Deadheads for Obama” will feature Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, Phil Lesh & Friends at San Francisco’s Warfield Theatre on Monday night. It will be the first time that the band has performed together since 2004.

Man, I didn’t revise it, I CONDENSED it! See?

If I’m doing what I really want to do, everything else falls to an appropriately lower level of concern.

You really don’t have to read any further, that says it all. However, I did write some more in the original post. Not exactly resolutions, but they are timely:

1. For anyone following my crazed flailings re blog addiction, etc., know that I’ve rebuilt my “Blogs” bookmarks folder with the same political blogs I’ve deleted and reinstated at least four times already since last summer. This is a very dangerous thing, as just a single click on the Safari bookmarks bar folder opens them all at once, allowing near-instant scanning of all the nasty bits. However, I was cheating — I am an addict — so why pretend?

The issue isn’t the blogs per se but my own self-awareness, or lack of it. In the short term, draconian measures always seem to work, but lasting change requires a lot more attention to living in the present moment.

2. I want to write. LOTS. Music and podcasts, too. There’s a lot of creative energy in the air.

3. I feel good about 2008. I think it will be chaotic and desperate for many, maybe even for me, but I welcome the opportunity to change the way I’ve been living for the better. All you sweet young things should know (but you won’t, and it doesn’t matter) that the unfolding never stops, the potential never ends, and neither does the struggle. I know, because I’m still here, when by rights I should have been dead or incarcerated long ago, straight A’s or no straight A’s. Why? I was raised to be afraid, to shoot low, to always expect criticism, and to try to play it safe. WHAT A CROCK! — and not a destiny to savor. Does a chipmunk ever feel fear? Of course, in the presence of actual danger. We’re so evolved, we learn to cringe at phantoms. Bah!

4. A very transformational thing occurred over New Year’s: I listened to Patti Smith and her band play a live gig at the Bowery Ballroom in NYC on Sirius satellite radio, at THUNDEROUS VOLUME, for a whole 2.5 hours. It was absolutely glorious and stupendous, beginning with a long performance of a poem about “art rats” (this is the Year of the Rat, remember) and moving on to exciting rock and roll. Patti was brilliant and fearless. That was the theme of the evening, NO FEAR, just do the right thing and feel good about it. As for the patriarchy and its stupid fear of Dionysian release, I FUCKING QUIT! Patti knows from release. Great music!

• I’ve been reading the financial blogs. Basically, the patient died some time ago, and we have him propped up behind his desk to fool the photographers. Everything is gonna be cool, though. Stay loose, we have all kinds of choices. Give land away, let everybody have a little bungalow and garden. Tan your naked body in the sun among the cantalopes, it doesn’t cost a cent.

Onward!

You will not believe this: the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is now attempting to sue someone for copying legally purchased CDs onto his computer. Don’t millions of people do this every day? Just last week I imported three CDs into iTunes, lock me up!

CD sales keep going down, and they want to give me less reason than ever to actually buy one. Man, I can’t wait until someone is arrested for whistling.

Maybe it’s just religious Christmas music that gives me fits. I honestly don’t know. But in case anyone is following this dreary saga, I just listened to an entire CD of Christmas songs with Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters, of all people, and somehow, it was [gasp] okay… Now that is really weird, or is it?

The songs were all from the early 1940s to the early ’50s. Popular music, mind you, including hit radio singles. Most of them were quite unfamiliar to me, although I might have heard the later ones. (I was very young, after all.) So they were songs from the time of my childhood, and as such were fascinating historical artifacts. What struck me most about the music were the spaces in it, and how well everyone could sing.

Earlier today I remembered another time or two when I actually enjoyed Christmas music as an a adult. There may be more. The first one I want to mention was during our first Christmas in San Cristobal, New Mexico. A couple of ladies we’d barely met invited us up to a little house way back up in the valley to sing traditional old Spanish carols. There were only about six or seven of us there, all Anglos, including a high school teacher and a son or daughter home from school in Russia. One of the women played violin, my wife played the piano, and I played guitar. It was very cold and snowy. We were all crowded into one little room. It felt like being marooned in the Alps with all the hot cider and cookies you wanted. All very civilized and genteel, as I recall. Another time was a long-ago Christmas party back in Maryland. For some reason I’d brought my guitar and amp, and with the hostess on piano, we jammed to what could only very loosely be called Christmas carols by the time we got through with them and had a rollicking good time. Later we tried that again at another party and it flopped like hell.

Fascinating, I’m sure. But after listening to that CD of Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters, it hit me that I grew up in an age when the CLARINET was prominently featured in popular music!

That’s right, the clarinet.

I think I’m done now.

Okay, this is hard.

My sweetie put on one of those Christmas-themed CDs, this one of the alleged “jazz” category. Well, Oscar Peterson was okay, so long as there wasn’t a recognizable melody. (Aieeeee…)

I’m trying, I’m really trying, but I’m afraid I have a visceral reaction against Christmas music. Enmity, even. The weird thing is that the feeling gets stronger every year instead of weaker, like you would think — you know, we get older and wiser, mellow out, etc. Or do we? There was a time in my life when I actually enjoyed singing carols, but I just can’t do it now. My lips won’t allow the words to form. I’m not a believer, and I need to look after my self. It’s like there’s this huge newness and resolve. I can’t ignore that. It wants honoring. I honestly don’t know where this comes from, and I’m having a devil of a time keeping things open and straight with my wife.

My Iowa girl… she’s anything but conventionally religious in her heart — vital, raging, and free — but Christmas means a lot to her. She gets teary for family and distant friends, likes to pull out all the old ornaments, remember who gave us what and when, that kind of thing. Her family Christmases were so wholesome and loving as to be from another planet to me. When we first got together, my emotional baggage and I weren’t such a good fit at those gatherings. There were several times when I should have been taken out and shot, but ultimately, that was just a sideshow, with me as the freak. Infinitely greater than that was the energy and love of the gathering families, and this is what she misses, even now.

It’s not all love and nostalgia, however. She also gets wound up tighter than a busted pocketwatch this time of year, what with hurrying around to buy presents that need to be packed and mailed, and is usually involved with some kind of musical performance as well. It gets busy. Her blood pressure shoots up, she gets exhausted to the point of staggering, and for most of the years we’ve been married (when her parents were still alive), we added a 2,000 mile winter road trip to the mix.

That’s quite a package, obviously, and dealing with it has never been easy. But there’s something demanding deeper awareness now. She feels it, too, and makes adjustments here and there, but a deeper shift is coming. It has to, on her part and mine.

Possibly related to all of the above is the fact that I find myself focusing on the winter solstice this year more than ever. That’s the beginning of the astronomical year, the true New Year, and I like to feel the change right then, when the sun is reborn. The significance of the solstice is enormous in this hemisphere, and yet so many people simply miss it. Perhaps that’s changing (I’d like to think so). Imagine how strong and solid it would feel if our calendar moved in step with the sun and the moon. That’s how it used to be, and when we lost that, we lost our connection to the cosmos.

The precise moment of the 2007 solstice will be Saturday, 1:08 a.m. EST (06:08 UT). That would be 11:08 p.m. MST Friday night, a few hours after we come home from hearing Bone Orchard at the Taos Inn. I’m not sure whether that has anything to do with it, but it might: my plan is to allow myself to be reborn.

WHAT???

Yes, that’s right: I’ll be relaxed, receptive, and open. If the timing opens up the circuits, fine. Call it my personal “Christmas.” What I give myself is permission to drop the past and start anew. I give myself permission to be new. I’m quite serious, at any rate. That moment (and the days that follow) will be, well, holy for me.

I like that. Why the hell not?