Western Swing & Texas (and Other Punchy Thoughts) - V.

V.

Journal in hand, I sit twenty feet out into the Blanco River, the seat of a collapsing chair immersed as the water flows downstream. My journal, dry and level on the arm rest as I dump whatever thoughts creep in onto the paper. A practice of allowing jot notes to be followed by sentences to evolve into rhyming couplets and finally into pencil sketches. Random but calming, like a pseudo-meditation. I turn the page over as I feel the sun starting to take its toll on whatever is exposed beyond the small shadow of my cowboy hat.

The week has been filled with the balance of focus and escape. Recording and relaxing. The band is called on, member at a time, to join Colter in making decisions specific to their role in a repetitive grind to lock into the moment and deliver. Ron and Jason, acting as one, laying down the bass and drums intuitively around their boss’ vocals. Pat, a wizard and a workhorse, able to seamlessly pick up a mandolin, dobro, baritone guitar or whatever else is needed to keep his worth - he is invaluable, especially behind the pedal steel. Final takes are usually captured in a second or third attempt and passed off to Jake to cinch all parts together. Big spaces intentionally left open for what would be honorary Scary Prairie Boys. Doug Moreland, brought in to authenticate the Texas feel with an accompanying fiddle throughout “Diamond Joe” and “Rocky Mountain Rangers”. His artistry with his instrument coupled alongside a separate endeavour as a chainsaw artist, the two trades entangled as he saws his way through self-expression.

The brown grand piano was relieved of the amateur attempts to tease out licks as honky tonk pianist and granddaughter to Texas legend, Johnny Gimble, Emily Gimble came in for an afternoon. Her humble tracking on “Western Swing and Waltzes” was followed up by a full on masterclass as we joined her down the road at Devil’s Backbone Tavern for an evening performance. Chairs were set up in a theatre-esque fashion, all facing forward, a welcomed alteration in a setting that usually has listener’s backs to the entertainment. As Colter, Beau, and the band hung around in the shadow of the room putting down tequila and beer, I refrained and pulled up a seat alongside the shuffleboard table. Under a ceiling stapled with past patron’s dollar bills, Emily, with her husband Michael on stand-up bass, filled my evening with standards. Their instruments flirted through “Tennessee Waltz”, “Jackie”, “Right or Wrong”, “Beautiful Day in Texas”. The room, a slough of personalities from the love-drunk middle aged dancing together in the corner to the Scary Prairie Boys attempting to drink the bar dry. We closed it down and I drove the Band Van back to the studio.

The coming weekend has another project booked in for studio sessions. The band is flying to their respective homes in the morning and I’m going to fill four days in and around Austin before joining back up with Colter next week as he and Adam mix the project. I plan to write during the days and sleep in the box of a rental truck somewhere in rural Texas during the nights.

I continue to pencil ideas into my journal having evolved strictly to bullet-point fashion, skipping between recalling my week and sussing out a concept for a new record when I’m smacked with dehydration. The last hour or so has been lost in flow and with urgency, I flee from the river and begin to truck up the hill towards the studio, barefoot and craving water. Legs wet, I hop over the short stone patio wall towards the kitchen’s screen door, grab the handle and pull. The hinges begin their slow wail as I look up mid-action to catch Colter mic’d up and clearly recording. I stall knowing I completely interrupted a take, a few more strums of his guitar as the door hinges catch his attention. Sonofabitch.

But if you’re down in Nashville and you’re tryin’ to look cool but you can’t tell a pretty palomino from a mule, take my advice and leave the buckaroo hat on the shelf.

He plays a Flatt Run, looking in my direction. Frozen in the open doorway, dripping water on the floor I make the second mistake of pulling the screen door back closed.

...screeeeeeeeeeeeeeech

Sonofabitch.

Parched and oblivious to my surroundings, I most definitely ruined the take.

***

With a 4:30 AM wake up call, Jake is behind the wheel of the Band Van driving us to the Austin airport. Farewell’s are listless, I’m dropped off at the Enterprise kiosk to pick up my rental truck, Jason joins me as his flight doesn’t leave until mid-afternoon. The remaining bandmates drive off as the van somehow is to make it back to Nashville. I don’t involve myself in the details, asphyxiated on finding a morning coffee and something to eat. Jason is sincere as he reluctantly agrees to leave the airport with me, not wanting to burden my day. I insist we find some food and that he’ll catch his flight in a few hours. Even though the week was spent together, the large group made for a lack of intimacy between anybody.

Borrowing a pillow and blanket from the studio bunkroom, my lodging for the next little bit will be a 2019 Nissan Frontier Crew Cab. Possibly missing out on fulfilling a total Texas stereotype, I opt for a lighter weight truck to save on fuel expense. Declining optional protection for collision damage, personal accident, roadside assistance, and supplemental liability, we throw our bags in the box and pull into the nearest drive-through.

“I’ll have two grande Pike Place roasts, black, please.”

We spend the morning indulging each other on more personal aspects of our lives over breakfast tacos at Torchy’s. Finishing our own meals and ordering another to share. Jason is more vulnerable outside of the band setting and although his loyalty is obvious, he confides in both the difficulties and excitements. The most profound is his belief in Colter’s writing and where the new record will take them. I listen, keep eating tacos and genuinely nod in agreement. What they captured this week was as bold as it was authentic, everybody eager for their support to hear it. Another coffee and we casually make our way back to the airport. The goodbye with Jason is much more affectionate than the departures hours earlier, he pulls his brown cowboy hat tight to his head and slings his backpack over his shoulder disappearing into the terminal.

I grab a third coffee and hit the I-35 to Helotes.

Whether it was coincidental or calculated, the surprise drop of Mike and The Moonpies’ Cheap Silver and Solid Country Gold on the same day as the anticipated Tyler Childers’ record Country Squire made for a mammoth impression on a genre as a whole. The tandem of the two records hit like jabs from each direction, separately representing current and progressive versions of two of the most influential regions of country music contributors: The Appalachia and Texas. Miles apart sonically, each carried their own intention. Neither attempts trampling the other while being massive augmentations in their respective catalogues. With Tyler’s momentum towards a mainstream appeal clearly unstoppable, Mike and The Moonpies aligned themselves with savvy and a flex that undoubtedly solidified them in a class of their own - Cheap Silver and Solid Country Gold was honky tonk alongside the London Symphony Orchestra and recorded at Abbey Road Studios.

Sweet Jesus, it worked well. The band’s writing stayed true to its foundation while the lush arrangements amplified everything from the lyric to the rhythm tracks without sonically clashing against what is conventionally occupied by keys or pedal steel. I was consumed by the record for months. It hijacked my inner critic. I would consciously hunt for production decisions that I would disagree with and consistently come up empty-handed. It felt unfair, even when making the decision to approach my mission through the lens of an altered state, I only became more convinced of the record’s wonder. In fact, the more trusting I would fall to the point where the album became a comfort zone, an anxiety suppressor, a straight up connector.

The stringed one-and-two-and-three-with-a-trill before Mike Harmeier discloses himself as the ultimate good-guy with the lyric “I think I’ll buy us all a round” and a clean slow phased electric strum is as much encouragement one needs to agree to the trip. If they deviate, they never abandon the brand - hook after repetitive hook. We’ve been given countrypolitan over the course of almost three decades from the sixties through the eighties but simply never with this batch of songs and no more than eight are needed for a masterpiece.

I’m listening to the record yet again as I’m through New Braunfels and nearing Helotes. I exit onto Bandera Road, slowly roll through town and park my rental by an old green truck up on blocks that hasn’t moved in years. Where the paint is worn, an aged brown metal speckles the body resembling camouflage print, its flatbox carries a small homemade billboard

CAFE

“WORLD’S BEST”

FOOD • DRINKS • DANCE

It sits amidst a slough of other signs boasting the quality of experience through the doors of the green cinderblock building that harbours them.

50 YEARS IN HELOTES, THERE MUST BE A REASON

WORLD’S BEST TAMALES SAUSAGE & BREAD

FREE DANCE SUN. 6:00 PM

WILLIE NELSON EVERY SAT. NIGHT

And what looks to be an iron plaque, placed by the Texas Historical Commission:

JOHN T FLOORE COUNTRY STORE

How will Mike and The Moonpies would execute one of my favourite records in ages in the absence of such an integral element to the recording - tonight they’re about to do just that and I’m on the guest list at one of the most iconic honky tonks in Texas.