RiceGrass: Fischer, TX: March 27-28, 2010
Words: Sarah Hagerman / Photos: John Grubbs & Susan Roads
Local luthier Tom Ellis' banjo. Photo by Grubbs.
It’s often said that friends are the family we choose. This, then, is a story about family, and it began in 1973 at Camp Flaming Arrow in Hunt, Texas. A 14-year-old named Jeff Gavin arrived as a camper, looking up to two 19-year-old counselors from Midland, Texas – Rice Harrington and Dixie Watkins III. Harrington was Gavin’s art instructor, and, upon noticing the young camper played guitar, he passed on some musical lessons. Gavin would return the next year as a junior counselor, and was excited to find himself in Harrington’s cabin – Cabin 10. Harrington, Gavin, Watkins and a 15-year-old camper named West Warren would spend the next three summers at Flaming Arrow together. “At camp, it was very ‘M*A*S*H’-like behavior,” Gavin says of their youthful misadventures, which inspired personal mythologies and forged deep friendships that lasted several decades.
Harrington was the central figure in this bunch, with the creative spark and big heart that drew many to him. He would go on to teach art at San Marcos High School for over twenty years, bringing that energy into the classroom. But in 2003, Harrington unexpectedly passed away. It was a shock, and in the wake of his loss, Gavin, Watkins, Warren and Jack Harrison, a friend of Harrington’s from Fischer, decided the best way to honor his life and spirit would be to celebrate the things Harrington loved – art and music, especially bluegrass and acoustic music. So in August of 2004, Cabin 10, Inc. was created. This November will be the 7th year that they have held The Rice Festival in Fischer, Texas. Besides boasting an ace lineup of bluegrass and acoustic music, the festival provides funding for The Rice Harrington Art Scholarship. The award is given to a graduating senior from San Marcos High School who intends to pursue a degree in fine arts.
With the success of The Rice Festival, this year, Cabin 10, Inc. teamed up with The Central Texas Bluegrass Association to launch a spring festival, RiceGrass, to fund The Bill Gibbs Scholarship for the Advancement of Folk Music. Rewarded to performing arts graduates; last year’s recipient was Wimberely, Texas’ own multi-talented Sarah Jarosz. The scholarship is named after the leader of the Bill Gibbs Quartet that Harrington, Gavin and Watkins formed at camp. Gibbs, a fictitious character created by Harrington, was the frontman, but never saw fit to come to his own gigs, leaving a perpetually empty fourth chair on the stage. “Cabin 10, Inc., like the good ole camp days, has always been about not taking ourselves too seriously,” Gavin explains. One needs look no further than the “Cabin 10 Staph” shirts and the groups’ “Bored of Directors” to see that this is definitely an unpretentious operation. Although it was created in the wake of deep grief, what Cabin 10 does is an expression of pure joy. With that mindset, let’s look back at RiceGrass.
RiceGrass 2010 by Roads
Saturday, March 27th
Mind those curves on Fischer Store Road as you make your way south through the hill country. Tucked at the southernmost end of the road, before it forks and heads down towards Canyon Lake, there is a postcard-perfect Victorian farmhouse, with a tin-roofed, open-air cantina on its lush, rolling front lawn. Fischer Haus Bed and Breakfast is the quiet country spot city folks dream of in bumper-to-bumper traffic, but this weekend, as I rolled down the dusty driver’s side window of my little red Mazda, I could see folks milling around the cantina with beer mugs in hand, and hear fiddle music filling the warm, Texas spring time air.
You couldn’t have asked for a homier setting, and that hospitality was stitched in the details of the festival. If you purchased a souvenir mug or wine glass, on Saturday, you were treated to complimentary beer and wine. Besides the fact that few will argue with free libations, the reusable cup was a fabulously eco-friendly move. Water and soft drinks meanwhile were free all weekend, which was a definite necessity in the warm sun – or later in the evening, if you had gone to town on the free booze.
As I claimed my camping spot, I could hear the unmistakable “Haw haw haw,” of “Turkey in the Straw” inspiring peals of laughter and shout-alongs. Billed as Dennis Hubbard & Friends, Fischer Haus co-owner Hubbard (mando) got to reap the fruits of his labor as he stood on the stage he built, with Eric Gerber (guitar/vox), Kelley Mullford (fiddle, banjo), Biscuit (washboard, billed as “concusionist”), and Larry Wheat (guitar, fiddle, mando and vox). Taking us down “Old Plank Road,” Biscuit laid down some serious scratch on the washboard. It was the kind of make-a-band approach you gotta love at bluegrass festivals, where you just grab your closest buddies and start shouting out tunes.
Kimball & Painter by Grubbs
An intimate camping set-up in the gnarly live oaks was directly adjacent to the farmhouse, meaning you could bounce to your tent and back lickety-split (it also meant that you had the burly Fischer Haus rooster as an emphatic, old school alarm clock). Thanks to some help, I was able to decipher my tent’s physics, and caught some of Kimball & Painter with The Gibson Sisters. Rose Kimball and Judy Painter have been partners-in-crime for 17 years, and Bandera, Texas’ The Gibson Sisters (Laurie Gibson on fiddle and Sally Gibson on bass) provided an apt backdrop to their earthy voices, laid-back stage presence, and songs rooted in honest soil. Painter’s “The Ghost of Billy Grey” won second place in the Woody Guthrie song-writing competition last year with its tragic telling of a miner’s life. Another song about “dried up Texas blues,” and those, “big cracks in the ground,” was a reminder that harsh summer was coming ‘round the bend. But sitting in a lawn chair with grass between my toes, soaking in their nicely done version of Bob Dylan’s “Buckets of Rain,” this was pure springtime goodness.
Fiddle player David Bass discovered that imitating a rooster crow on your instrument can attract some truly fowl attention. When The Freight Hoppers were warming up behind the farmhouse, apparently that ornery rooster come charging to the sound, thinking it had some competition. Relating this story, as he demonstrated the sound, someone in the audience yelled “Here they come!” As the cantina erupted in laughter, The Freight Hoppers pushed full-speed ahead in their set, feet stomping, strings snapping and fingers flying. After going on hiatus in 2002, these North Carolina cats are back. They have a jubilant spring in their take on old time, with a warm, witty stage presence. They informed us that, “‘A cappella’ is a Latin word that means no banjos,” before crooning an old jingle for New Grape Soda (which was originally sung by a duo called the New Grape Twins). This isn’t mere nostalgia though. As they trotted out tales of repo men (“Mr. Reilly the Furniture Man”) and songs by blue legends like Blind Wille McTell and Mississippi Fred McDowell, they subtly drew links between our current troubles and those of the past, delivered with that vital energy that keeps it a living experience. Some things never change, but humor and musical catharsis can always pull you through the hard times.
Hello city limits
I see your sign
Left all my worries way behind
Left all my heartache and troubles there too
Hello city limits
I’m starting out brand new
THSB by Roads
I could hear those exhilarating lines from Red Allen’s “Hello City Limits” coming from the cantina and I bounded down from my campsite. It’s the clean-slate at the end of the journey that gets our feet moving, and few bands tap that excitement as well as Austin’s own Two High String Band on their latest album Hot Texas Bluegrass Burrito. Live, they really open up the throttle and let it ride, and this was a fluid set that moved with deceptive ease. During “High on the Ohio,” Billy Bright‘s bluesy mando rolled into Alan Munde‘s tumbling banjo, then Mike Montgomery’s fiddle took the lead before passing it on to Geoff Union‘s delicate flat-picking guitar. Meanwhile, my friend and her son twirled in the grass. Chojo Jacques joined the band on stage for a few tunes, including Monroe’s “Moonlight Waltz,” which featured him and Montgomery’s fiddles twisting tightly. During “Sonny’s Ride,” a song Bright wrote about driving with his dog down Fischer Store Road, the band pounded down the pavement in tandem, before pulling back. Bright stepped forward, ratcheting up the tension, drawing out higher and higher notes on his mando, before breathlessly breaking free and taking off running. I’m fixing to make tracks to Colorado soon, but I know what Texas will always sound like to me. It will sound like “City Limits,” which always reminds me of driving into Austin for the first time, seeing that twinkling skyline over the rise on the highway. It will sound like “Moonshine Boogie,” which brings up memories of blurry nights wrapped in downtown neon. It will sound like the bumpy “E. Compton Blues”, which I’ve danced to at the Cactus Café, Mexican restaurants, coffeehouses, and in the hill country grass with sun on my arms. It will sound like Two High String Band.
If we honored storytellers with the reverence they deserve, Caroline Herring would be commanding a lofty temple. Joined by Bright on mandolin for a spell, she certainly had the cantina hushed for her set. She drew heavily from latest album Golden Apples of the Sun, which takes inspiration from Judy Collins (whose version of W.B. Yeats’ “Song of the Wandering Angeus” inspired Herring’s own musical journey on the album), Cyndi Lauper (a stunning “True Colors”), and Ma Rainey (“See See Rider”) among others, placing her in a lineage of strong female voices. Every family has stories, and Herring’s own has a mail order bride from Costa Rica, a grandmother figure – “Abeulita” – who used to send Christmas trees via train to the family that was ashamed of her. “Mistress,” meanwhile explores the true story of a slave named Rachel, whose lover was her owner. Unlike many such relationships, they lived as husband and wife on an east Texas plantation, until his family had him declared legally insane and institutionalized, and sent her back to the fields. “But she kept on living,” Herring exclaimed. We often pave over our past shame, but those ghosts sounded hungry as Herring sang:
You can read all our names in the records.
You can deny all the days as they go down.
There’s a brick-laid pathway calling you to find us
Underneath a golf course in an east Texas town.
Stairwell Sisters by Grubbs
San Francisco’s The Stairwell Sisters are five badass women, whose concrete and glitter edge is balanced by the country soles on their clogs. Latest album Get Off Your Money was produced by Lloyd Maines, a Texas seal of approval if there ever was one. But even when playing a folk classic like Woody Guthrie’s “Hard Travelin’,” they kept a sweaty punk buzz rumbling. When bassist Martha Hawthorne and dobro player Lisa Berman leaned in close to the mic, Berman brandished that slide guitar with cool, confident rock star style. They may have been joking about covering Led Zeppelin, but they weren’t joking about Springsteen, and their cover of his devastating “Youngstown,” delivered in their potent harmonies, was a powerful punch to the gut as evening settled in around us.
Unassuming legend Laurie Lewis, joined by long-time musical partner Tom Rozum played an enchanting set, as the stars began to spread across the sky. Lewis switched between guitar and fiddle with ease, as Rozum played mandolin. They stripped the songs down to bare, glistening bones, whether the lovelorn sigh of Lewis’ own “Texas Bluebonnets,” or the simmering avarice in David Olney‘s gritty “Millionaire.” It was earthly heartbreak to manmade hell, but when Alan Munde jumped on stage for the last song, it raised the tin roof to the heavens.
Barnes by Roads
As much as we need those genuine roots, we also need visionaries to water the branches, otherwise we risk this music becoming mere nostalgia. There’s absolutely a place for all of it (if we can set aside the tired “traditional” versus “progressive” chatter). Thank god then for an artist like Danny Barnes. He stood on stage with his banjo in his hands and his laptop to the side, ready to lead us into fearless new territory. The slack-jawed crowd that got it hung on every shape-shifting note. On banjo alone, Barnes will blow a few new holes in your cerebrum, but add the laptop and his folkTronics approach, and it’s a whole other animal, as he uses Ableton software to incorporate samples while layering and manipulating the sound of his instrument. The jaunty, rump-shaker “Misty Swan,” from superb latest album Pizza Box strutted with a bass-heavy gutteral growl, a whomping beat that made someone behind me gasp, “WOW!” Sprinkling in bits of Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way,” Barnes than dropped the beat out entirely and simply played all over it in a dizzying whirl. Beside songs from Pizza Box, many of which got the folkTronics treatment, we were treated to banjo-only versions of “Good as I Been to You,” “Life in the Country,” Bad Livers‘ “Little Bitty Town,” and one fellow’s request for the moving “Big Girl Blues.” With moments of graceful note shaping and electronic fueled insanity, structure and demolition, this was an astonishing set by one of the most uncanny songwriters and musicians working today. At one point, I glanced up and noticed the sign behind him on the cantina stage that read, “Texas ain’t no place for amateurs.” No foolin’. Barnes is light years ahead but, as I watched the moon climb the rungs of the sky over the cantina, something tells me his body of work will be eternal.
Continue reading for day 2 of RiceGrass…
