The Mountain-Ear
The voice of the Peak to Peak
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| Music of the mountains & movement of time |
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| Written by administrator | |
| Thursday, 31 December 2009 | |
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Marc Tonglen Nederland The high mountain wilderness has inspired musicians and artists in these parts for centuries. Since the mid-1800s, as immigrant workers were pounding the rails through the great divide, fiddles and banjos have been heard. Raucous uprisings would be commonplace in the old hayloft, where miners, rail-benders and moonshiners would come to warm their bones around the fire, stomping out rhythmic counterpoint to tunes like "Old Joe Clark" and "Give the Fiddler a Dram." It was around this time that the historic songwriter, Stephen Foster's song "Hard Times" was being sung across America: “Tis the song, the sigh of the weary, hard Times, hard times, come again no more. Many days you have lingered around my cabin door; Oh hard times come again no more.” In retrospect, much has changed since these times... However, we still seem to enjoy our raucous uprisings, events which Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger termed, "Hootenanny's" while hitchin' across America during the Dust Bowl days. One thing is for certain in Nederland country: The music still plays and the dancers dance until the break of day. This past year (weekend), Leftover Salmon reached a milestone in the music industry which is hard to come by. After fifteen years of extensive touring, a two and a half year hiatus and two and a half years of major one off performances, LoS celebrated their Twentieth Anniversary during their 2009 New Years Run in Crested Butte, Boulder and Denver. Local resident and LoS frontman, Vince Herman, has enjoyed a successful year celebrating twenty years of Leftover Salmon while making leaps and bounds with his Americana / Alt-Country band, Great American Taxi (GAT). Since its formation in 2005, Taxi has been self-managed. However, in 2009 it signed under the management of Gold Mountain Management in Nashville. Great American Taxi plans to release their new album, "Reckless Habits," during the second week of February 2010. The album was recorded at Backbone Studios in Loveland in January '09. The record includes Vince's epic cut, "Cold Lonely Town," which includes The Black Swan Singers on harmony vocals. As local producer Evan Reeves explains it: “This may be the greatest representation of Nederland ever recorded in digital form.” Local resident, Bill Nershi, is most well known as the frontman for a band that some people around the world may know... The String Cheese Incident. Over the years, Nershi's good humor and positivity has garnered him the ability to attune to the higher good of his fans, inspiring great advances in the collective human condition. This past year Nershi and Drew Emmitt (LoS) took the Emmitt-Nershi (ENB) Band to soaring new heights. Releasing "New Country Blues" in October '09, ENB has been making waves from coast to coast. Known far and wide as the greatest traditional tinged bluegrass group to have ever come out of the Colorado Jamgrass Circuit, ENB is redefining the traditional Colorado sound. Elephant Revival toured until the Fourth of July in their 1989 International Thomas Vegetable Oil School Bus in support of their self-titled debut album. On a thirty seven hour drive (45 mph) from Chicago to Nederland to appear at a local festival, the bus' engine encountered some pressure trouble upon its return up the mountain to Ridge Road. The bus could have been repaired, but Elephant Revival's tour schedule did not allow the time for this to occur. The band resumed touring in their two Hondas, which proved to be a much faster approach to highway travel (75 mph). Elephant Revival is looking forward to great things to come in 2010, including the release of their second album around Memorial Day and a European tour in the autumn. Furthermore, it is rumored that ER might be signing a record label deal in early 2010 and that new management prospects are being seen in the oracle. Mountain Standard Time encountered extreme adversity in 2009. They traversed through countless personnel changes as well as having all their instruments stolen, while broken down on the side of the road. As Logotherapy founder Victor Frankl states: "The only really transitory aspects of life are the potentialities; but as soon as they are actualized, they are rendered realities. At that very moment they are saved and delivered into the past, wherein they are rescued and preserved from transitoriness. For, in the past, nothing is irretrievably lost but everything irrevocably stored.” With this outlook, MST carries on into the world of endless potential, having already traversed multiple accounts of dynamic band suffering and irrevocable change. Fat Rabbit spent 2009 bridging the gap between jazz and rock by evolving a new conceptual genre based upon unconventional arrangements and compositional ingenuity. As saxophonist Bruce Lish elaborates, "In 2009 we essentially created a sound that combines elements of the greatest progressive jazz of the late '50s and early '60s with the most epic rock band contributions from the late '60s and early '70s, finding similarities from genre to genre, generation to generation." The band has exceeded expectations in the past few months and plans to add a plethora of new original material to the mix in 2010. In 2009, the quintessential jazz guitarist of the mountains, John Ridnell (Blackdog), released an epic rock album entitled "Reliance." It was produced by Sally Van Meter and was recorded live at The Backdoor Theater in May '09. The record delves deep into the depths of Ridnell’s capabilities as an artist, accentuating John’s status as one of Colorado’s greatest band-leaders. As local saxophone legend Bruce Lish notes: “Ridnell has painted an entertaining panorama of the funky, relaxed and rockin’ world he occupies with his soulful songwriting and enormous guitar ability.” This album is the crowning achievement of his career thus far. This past year, Nederland's jam-rock hero's, Smooth Money Gesture decided to take some time off to reconnect with the earth. We hope that 2010 will provide fertile ground for their re-emergence into the local scene. The eleventh annual Nedfest turned out to be one of the greatest highlights on the Peak to Peak's entertainment calendar in 2009. The event took place Aug. 28 - Aug. 30 at Guercio ballfield and was jam-packed with fresh entertainment from around the country with bands that represent the musical consciousness of this region. With world class headliners such as Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder, The David Grisman Quintet, Particle, Split Lip Rayfield and The Drew Emmitt Band, the support for this festival was overwhelming. In 2009, The Trackside Tavern at the Stage Stop Inn (re)opened. Once more, the historic hayloft is home to raucous uprisings (hootenannys) whence the music and the dancing lasts until the break of day. The old line from the traditional Appalachian tune, Waterbound comes to mind: "Dance all night and don't you go home... Dance all night and don't you go home... Dance all night and don't you go home... Stay with me til' morning.” As in all things in life, time passes and nothing is permanent. Bands come and go and some of them last longer than others. The synergism between musicians is what most music fans notice; sometimes more so than great talent. The music thrusts the soul into infinite transcendent dimensions, inspiring our inner truths to shine brighter than our finite conceptualizations of the ego driven self. This inspires us to listen... This is why we dance. Accepting the moment, embracing the void - the world keeps spinning round and round. We are part of an historic American musical culture up here in Nederland. It's been this way ever since they began building that railroad through the Continental Divide way back in the mid 1800s. It must be the wind that keeps it this way. |
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