Jim Kalin of Zachariah and the Lobos Riders is working on an L.A. roots TV show called Hayride, and in 2007 year filmed the Hawks in a live performance at a Hollywood theater, check it out--and other videos and live performances too:
MOTORCYCLE MAMA ROAD TRIP directed by Dave Cole, filmed by Dave and Cisco, Doran Tyson producer and beautiful mystical girl, Stadler Tyson production coordinator
EXEUNT PUB (by Paul L and Rob, Hawks in Swindon pub,
England, with Tony Gilkyson & Kip Boardman)
WE ARE BIRDS(video for children by Paul L and Victoria)
February 05, 2007
A TRAVEL GAME
The Hawks came up with a fun travel game whilst driving south on the 5 through the Grapevine. The hills were brown and gray, and a blackened gray hillside from a recent fire smoldered. The afternoon air was a hazy blue.
The game is called Guess The Distant Object I'm Looking At. The first person scans the horizon, in our case the distant hills ahead, and picks out a barely visible landmark. Guess what it is.
For example: "I see a cut in the road on a chaparral ridge." The rest of your car buddies now scan the distant horizon and their perimeters looking for your road cut. "There it is! Almost straight ahead, to the right?" "That's it!"
The winner now gets to pick. "I see a water tank on a hilltop." Repeat. This puts the travelers in hunter mode, eyes sharpened, leaning forward, alert.
Try it on your next car trip!
iPOD IS FUCKING WITH ME, DUDE - LATE NIGHT THOUGHTS IN THE CENTRAL VALLEY
Admit it, iPod Shuffle has consciousness. Shuffle Consciousness. It's not random, we all know that. Today one tune flows seamlessly and perfectly into the next, heavy with symbolic associations--and tomorrow an irritable sequence of tunes assaults the ear. How? Well, we all have our good days, our bad days. Consciousness. It's the funky iPod consciousness, BROTHER! Go ahead, ask yourself, "does the iPod have consciousness?" We have to talk about this, friends. We must. We've all secretly been asking ourselves this question for some time. Come out into the open. Don't be ashamed. Ask the question. Does the iPod have consciousness? Probably. Probably.
"I believe in Digital the way Christians believe in Jesus," Paul L says. Who of you can disagree? Who of you will throw the first stone?
P.S. -- Should we do any up tempo country rock version of "The Rose?" My dream says yes.
February 04, 2007
AGRICULTURAL ODORS IN THE CENTRAL VALLEY NIGHT
We are in Newman. East from the 5 in the flatass Central Valley, about 40 miles west of Merced (Gateway to Manteca). Flat, flat, flat. You can see a long and lazy distance across hazy gray green to a horizon of palm trees. And it's pretty great. The theater we are playing tonight is a converted 1940's movie palace on Main Street in this old/new/abandoned/reclaimed farming town. On the marquee out front in giant Hollywood Golden Era letters: " I SEE HAWKS IN L.A.-- YOU'LL SEE THEM IN NEWMAN." We feel warmly welcomed by the volunteer crew busy at work on many projects around the space in the pre-gig hours. There's the sound guy of course, a lights (lighghts) dude, the booking agent, a Fixit guy working on door handles, a guy prepping the popcorn machine, some kids setting up chairs, a crew of ladies cooking a huge meal for everyone. It's a great community project. We make it through sound check, eat a fusion Asian meal, and then they take us to the house they've got for us.
The house is great, if a little spooky. It was built in 1914 out on a farm, and moved to what was a booming Newman subdivision in the 1950's. No one appears to have lived here since the late '60s. Portraits of people who may be dead stare from the mantle and walls. That's the great and the spooky part. It's spring time in the Central Valley and they smell of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and a fresh cropdusting hangs in the air. It's a little freaky. But we'll try to ignore it.
Our new friend John has signed on to be our Merch guy for the night. It's an arrival for the Hawks, as John only merches to the big guys like Chris Hillman. How long we've needed John. We met on the Internet.
The show in at the Westside theater was dreamy. Standing on the stage in the art deco palace, looking out at the Newmanians, dreaming of the old days and imagining the future of this town. Will family farms return? Will the furniture shop and department store on Main Street once again be filled with shoppers and products? Will some new corporation move in and employ everyone? Will it become a bedroom community for Modesto when it reaches Mega-city status late in the century? Or will it just continue to exist in this unusual peaceful equilibrium it seems to have discovered all by itself?
We played two sets. Both band and audience got progressively rowdier as the night wore on. Howls, bird calls, and meows filled the air during "Dog." These are animal loving people here among the crops, just like us Hawks. Two Hawks (you guess which two) engaged in after-show Jager shots with Farris, her one-of-a-kind little dog, and several other crew members. Show business. I love it. Yes, I RW did the Jager shots and I'm not ashamed. It's herbal after all and good for the digestion.
Good people of Newman, we hope to return soon! Be well.
SWEET SWEET SACRAMENTO
The Hawks are feeling lucky so trouble must be just ahead on the horizon. It's three o'clock on Saturday afternoon and so far everything has been going just great on our mini-tour of historic Upper Central Valley theaters.
We took off almost on schedule before noon on Friday. The East-siders met up in Highland Park. Intense but fruitful negotiations yielded a meet-up point with Paul M at old buddy Wayne-O's Burbank abode just blocks off the 5. The drive up was typical in all ways but one: the Yukon seems to be getting unusually high mileage. Paul L drove 95 mph for most of our northward journey, yet we're still on the same tank of gas after turning the corner in Sac and heading back south. (Another anomaly: Shawn's phone's battery refuses to die. Just after we crossed the Grapevine Shawn realized he forgot his cell phone charger. With only one bar left it seemed he would be borrowing band mate's phones all weekend but at this late hour his phone is operating perfectly. What's going on? Are we experiencing the benefits of some kind of spell or charm? Unbeknownst to us, have our friends, families, and fans started praying for us with a new found intensity and frequency? Are we n-sync with a northward migration of true magnetic north? Is this some unpredicted side effect of global warming?)
Dear reader, can we depart from the expected narration of sound check, gig, etc.? Suffice it to say that things were great last night in Winters, at the beloved Palms theater, run by beneficent and enlightened Dave Fleming, with our co-bill the highly talented Chuck Prophet and his crack band of musicians creating lush soundscapes, with the standing ovation we Hawks gratefully basked in from the wondrous Winters audience, our own lush soundscape augmented by the talented accordionist Richie Lawrence, capped off by a stay at our Central Valley patrons the Tyson family and their elegant but low key residence in the Yolo fields and wetlands, with egrets, foxes, truly free range chickens, and artisanal bacon slabs awaiting our awakening on a chilly Saturday morning.
And may we confine to summary our most pleasant morning, of which this moment is a continuation, driving south on the 5 in the Yukon back bench and reflecting upon our immediately precedent hours, hours spent at KDVS on the Bill Wagman show, in which we did perform live to great mutual satisfaction, and our long idyll in the Naked Coffee lounge in Sacramento, accompanied by Richie and lovely wife Katie, whereupon couches we did discuss all things green and urgent, and made great plans, and did imbibe a great variety of espresso based drinks, did purchase espresso beans, did then drive to the Co-op and purchase red carrots, garlic, fermented Kombucha drink, and did then take leave of our good Central Valley friends, making haste against a low winter sun for the unknown environs of Newman, California? May we, dear reader? We thank you in advance.
Now, on to more pressing items: Henry James, WOOF organic farm network, kombucha.
Rob is obsessing with his bottle of Synergy Cosmic Cranberry and Kombucha drink. He is feeling very, very good, and has sworn lifelong fealty to this new age product. A devil's advocate might mention that dark organic chocolate, a double espresso from master roasters Naked Coffee, and last night's audience energy are also coursing through his veins, but let's keep an open mind. Kombucha--lifestyle altering?
Egrets and sheep share a brown field to our right.
When we firmly commit to sustainable cities and localized economies and food distribution, there will be much work to do. Interstates, once clogged with "commuters" and "vacationers," will now carry caravans of trucks engaged in the Great Dismantling. Elk Grove is being removed, wall by wall and hibachi by hibachi to its new home in downtown Saramento. Concrete blocks create square block raised plateaus connected by walkways looking down on rail corridors. "Automobiles" have been melted down into railcars. Former In N Out Burger cashiers have found honest work returning exurbia to farmland, planting hemp and clover to regenerate the soil. Country rock musicians ride the rails to play nightly concerts for our hard working friends in the work camps. You can drink right out of the stream.
Someone said that the Hawks are effortlessly fashionable. Someone in the band, but at least the statement was made. There it is. Effortlessly fashionable. Perhaps only in a dream.
A collective dream -- The Great Dismantling.
February 01, 2007
BARRIER REEF - DIRECTOR'S CUT
Check out Paul L's version of the stony stony stony:
