Copper Creek* Plays Crest

My neighborhood folk/country compadres have us set to play the benefit for the new Crest Community center. For San Diego county, this is what most people consider out in the sticks. They consider me way out in the sticks. I have grown to like it maybe even more than I did when I first landed out here.

We have had very little time to get our set together, but tonight's practice sounded promising. This kind of music can be rather demanding because any mistake is definitely not easy to mask. Still, I find that even on slow melodic rides I play it different every single time. I can't help it, or don't want to. I'm always thinking I can find a better angle, or else some mood strikes. I keep it between the lines and it works out about 50% of the time.

By Saturday night, I'll probably have those tunes down well enough to put something in them. It is not the sort of thing that allows spontaneous combustion, my long time goal when playing on stage. One of these days maybe I will really feel like all of it comes together and I'm up to really breaking free. I've hit moments of it but I know that it never got quite there for long due to any number of things. It's a difficult feeling to explain. An out of body experience would be as close as I can offer. The energy seems to become a separate incarnation and it takes over the playing while I listen, and the intensity keeps rising.

That may sound silly but that is how it is. Good or skilled don't figure in as much as some sort of passion. It's a physical thing and all about the feeling. Chasing that is what has kept me from permanently hanging it up over the years. I tried many times. Finally, I at least quit throwing all the harps and equipment away in a fit of frustration. I've done that a time or two.

This gig takes only a microphone and the harmonicas. I'm playing with the mic on a stand, which I kind of like. That way I can float like a butterfly. Not a lot of bee stinging but maybe a second or two. I get to start one song with my slow to fast clickety clack train. It can hit a fairly rapid pace before I do that whistle thing. I'm more a blues jazz guy but there is more soul in country than you might think, and I am liking this experience. The real highlight is the great sound of the vocals of my bandmates, and their wonderfully kind happy dispositions.

So, if you are there at 7PM, pretend you like what we do and only throw fresh vegetables my way--no rotten tomatoes.

*For this affair we will call ourselves Copper Creek. I don't know why that is. I like the sound of it whether I know what it means or not.