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Homecoming — Grand Old Echo with Old Californio

Hard times may be here again, as the song says, but some things assert themselves when you can no longer buy your way to happiness–friends and music, for example. Us Hawks are rich indeed.

april5hawkscalifornio2.jpgSunday afternoon kicked off the Grand Old Echo ’09 in style, with the outdoor patio and the indoor Echo more packed than we’ve ever seen it. Good vibes and rich musical textures filled the room from the getgo, as Whispering Pines played elegant and ethereal Allman Brothers influenced country rock, with our favorite outmoded device: sweet twin guitar lines. Nice.

The room got even more packed as Old Californio, launching their great new CD Westering Again, hit the stage. With new guitar virtuoso Woody Aplanalp blazing, Old Californio hit a new level–more muscular and focused, with their 60’s psychedelic layer intact. And great songs. The crowd freaked. Paul L of the Hawks was pleased to sit in on steel for the OC encores, at the same time wondering how the Hawks were going to follow this assault.It was our first full on electric show in a while, but we locked in pretty quickly, and our brand new Burritos 1973 style song “Dear Flash” felt great, like a new old friend. Likewise “Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulet,” which was first written as a cajun rocker, but we’ve been playing it slow and spacious, for the bittersweet verses that reflect on a battered life fully lived. The memory of Duane Jarvis was informing this evening, and although we didn’t know him well, we hope he was digging it all.

So many friends out there on the floor! Hot, steamy, dense, an embracing energy we love. Our friend Randall’s mom Evelyn fainted, the paramedics were called, and she was walked out to an ambulance, where the paramedics tried to convince her to come to the hospital. “No way!” she said. “I’ve got to see the Hawks!” And onstage friends too–Christina Ortega, Queen of the Bluegrass Murder Ballad and emcee for the night, got up with us and totally rocked on “Moundsville Pen.” Message to Christina: first of all, it’s not fair that you can take six months off, get up and own the stage like you’ve been on tour for six months. And second of all, the public wants more. Rich and Levi from Old Californio, on guitar and sweet organ, jumped up and added their good taste to “Motorcycle Mama,” with a satisfying guitar wankoff, er, tradeoff to bring the song home. We did a pretty ferocious “Humboldt” for an encore, and that was it. A long hang with family and friends, with the young Waller redheads and cousin Francis commanding a great deal of attention, big thanks to Kim and Pam, fare well to our Californio brethren, then the Echo security began their customary clearing out for the mysterious young pop bands that mysteriously take over the Echo after the country rock fest. It always seems strange that a packed out and beer and whiskey loving crowd gets festus interruptus every Sunday, but then Los Angeles is a strange, strange place. But good. On this warm April nice it was very good.

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photo by Crystal

I SEE HAWKS IN L.A. TURNS 10!

I See Hawks in L.A. was founded ten years ago today in the East Mojave desert west of Las Vegas. The day started bright and clear with a stiff breeze blowing from the east. Paul Lacques, brother Anthony, and Rob Waller were en route to Las Vegas to celebrate Anthony’s 30th birthday. The three comrades pulled off the road near Cima Dome to take a desert hike.

Cap2.gifThe hike quickly devolved, the hikers transforming into prehistoric, pre-homo sapiens versions of themselves. Screeching like monkeys, throwing rocks, tackling each other, zigging and zagging through the Joshua trees, the proto-hawks found themselves suddenly lost. Which way is the highway? All ways looked the same. Instead of getting freaked, the three men came to their senses just a bit and awaited their vision. ” I see hawks in L.A.” one of them said, though it is unclear which one. “We should have a country band called I See Hawks in L.A.” said another. They all agreed.

And so it came to be. A powerful vision was visited upon these souls that day. Somehow they made it back to the road and on to Las Vegas but not after losing and finding PL’s girlfriend Kathy with the help of the California Highway Patrol. But we’ll leave that part of the story out for now. It would be more than a year before the band played their first show but they’d already have a record under their belts by then. Ten years on and the journey has been a long and winding ride full of music and mystery. Paul Marshall joined the band. Then Shawn Nourse. Brantley Kearns floated in and out. David Jackson helped launch the musical boat. An incomplete list of the wonderful musicians who have played in/with the Hawks includes: Rick Shea, John McDuffie, Dave Zirbel, Marc Doten, Marcus Watkins, Joe Berardi, Danny McGough, Richie Lawrence, Bubba Hernandez, Amy Farris, Carter Stowell, Chris Hillman, Gabe Witcher, Dave Markowitz, Dave Raven, Dave Rubin, Tommy Funderburk, The Chapin Sisters, Jeanna Steele, Mark Follman, Jimi Hawes, M.B. Gordy, Old Californio, Steven Woodruff, Ethan Allen, Paul Olguin, Peter Lacques, Matthew Lacques, John Lacques, Keith Miles, Ed Barguiarena, Carlos Guitarlos, Tony Gilkyson, Mike Stinson, Kip Boardman and on and on and on.

Thanks to all for their musical contribution, thanks to our fans for coming to shows, taking us into their homes, keeping us going. Thanks to all the bookers, lawyers, record folks, auto mechanics, press people, and others who have understood our vision and connected to our music and played a crucial role. Thanks to our friends and families for supporting the us all along. Onward!

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Original Hawks 2000: Brantley Kearns, Rob Waller, David Jackson,
Anthony Lacques, Paul Lacques, backyard Echo Park.

WATCHING THE MUDDY WATER — FOLK ALLIANCE CONFERENCE, MEMPHIS

Greetings from Memphis, TN. It’s February 21st and the sun has just set. The sky is clearing after a day of light rain and an orange glow is settling over the Mississippi River to the west, far below this 19th floor Marriot Hotel balcony. It’s 37 degrees and day two for the Hawks here at the massive Folk Alliance national conference. We are I See Hawks In L.A., LLC. We are executives of Western Seeds Records. We are here to play music and make contacts. The first we can do. The second is a tall order for Rob Waller and Paul L. Rob is a moody semi-recluse and Paul L is a semi-kempt hippie who loathes any self promoting tendencies in his elitist soul. Paul M is a balanced and well adjusted human, but there’s only so much one man can do. And yet we breathe deep the Marriot beige recycled air. Paul L is wolfing down a hardened slice of buffet pizza that is screaming a warning. We are building a career here.

Yesterday: we woke well before dawn in L.A., argued our baggage and guitars onto the dismal Delta flight and made our way across the country by uneventful jet plane. Mild turbulence, no food, free water. Safe landing. Then it was down to the Marriott, and five showcases between 3 PM and 2 AM. Quite a day.

Good friend and director of 120 volunteers at the Folk Alliance extravaganza, Laura Barnaby has greased the wheels here for the Hawks. On arrival, she guides us through registration, provides us with a comfy hang in an obscure corporate meeting room, beer, coffee and exotic varieties of Red Bull, and attends each of our shows. She shows us the ropes and we get our bearings. There are hundreds of guitar cases and guitarists, side men and women, stand up bassists, and thoughtful song writers, eager young folk singers belting out American Idolized vocals, dazzling soloes on fiddles and guitars at every escalator and echoing high ceilinged foyer. Posters and flyers and free CDs cover every table and wall. We wander packed hallways, rubbing shoulders with legends of folk and country, past cases of the ubiquitous Red Bull and the kids to drink them. There’s a new wave of young folkers entering the scene and that’s exciting. There’s Japanese folk singers, Canadian accordionists, Texas swing bands, veteran bluesmen, zydeco queens. It’s quite a scene. We are bedazzled.

But with each showcase set we’re a little more connected to the rhythms of the house. We play a small showcase room to a small but responsive crowd. In the front row watching us stolidly is Guy Carawan, a legend of 60’s folk. Damn. We’re acoustic, no mics, so our vocals are at their best blend. Everything is all right. We exit the small room and resume our wander, lugging our cases through the sea of aspirants. It’s an erratic and jumpy rhythm but we’re catching the groove. The 17th, 18th, and 19th Marriot floors are literally hundreds of rooms filled with folk music, some too loud with amplification, some delicate flowers on the verge of being crushed by the sonic onslaught. We return often to the balconies to breathe outside air. The river far below is swollen with winter rains, snows, and ices. It has a powerful gravitational pull, we’re never out of its reach. Rob W spent his childhood near the river and feels at home back in its watershed.

But back to the folk scene. James Burton, Albert Lee, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Rodney Crowell, Charlie Louvin, Roger McGuinn. There’s some real baddasses hanging around the lobby. We check our guitars and start to mingle. How is this done? Well, not very well. We approach no famous or powerful people with our CDs. We meet our peers, and lots of people come up to us, so our group agoraphobia is blissfully buried. We swim the sea of folk humanity. We hear very bad songs, well played and sung. A few good songs. Rodney Crowell plays in a conference room, singing Emmy Lou Harris vintage tunes, backed up by James Burton and Albert Lee. Our good buddy Dan Montgomery’s new band, with Robert Mache (ex Continental Drifters) on guitar and Andrew Simons on upright bass, is soulful, subtle, and the perfect vehicle for his great new batch of tunes. This is very, very good.

Everyone is gently but relentlessly on the make. Singers and players wander in and out of rooms, check out their peers/competition, ever roving. Interwoven with wide eyed ambition is a wild enthusiasm for playing. People are jamming everywhere, in intensely focused small circles in every corner of the Marriot. Paul L sat in with Julie Christensen and Kenny Edwards, a big treat for him. Our five showcases went well. Lisa Haley sat in with us on mesmerizing fiddle, bless her heart. Our last showcase was at 2 a.m. We were fried. We staggered out of the Marriot, drove east through Memphis to Rob’s parents. We slept.

We began today, Day 2, in the afternoon at WEVL radio, in funky old downtown Memphis, down the street from a former whorehouse that serviced the railroad trade. Program director Brian Craig greets us, DJ Ron is elegant and genteel, and we do a live acoustic performance that sounds good. There are five or ten truly great radio stations left in America, and this is inarguably one of them. Check out their show schedule and be amazed. We get coffee at a very hip café across the street and Brian regales with his encyclopedic knowledge of early radio and the arcane ways of the FCC. Then it’s back to the Marriot, that bracing stale convention air, and more showcases. Our sleep deprivation has made us mellow, and we do some very good relaxed showcases, no tune repeats. We hung with the gracious Amilia K Spicer in her showcase room, with whiskey and coolness abounding. We saw Randy Weeks and Tony Gilkyson’s high altitude set, hands down the best music we witnessed. Be proud, L.A. Americana. You are second to none. L.A. pals Stephanie Bettman and Luke Halpin sat in with us on our last showcase. What a treat. They sounded so good, and kicked us into high gear. Dan Navarro caught and dug our new Cajun style love song, another big lift, as we have terminal anxiety and need for affirmation when we debut a song. We wandered the halls, got separated, got delirious, many things happened. We did our final stagger out of the Marriot at 3:30 in the morning. Down the dark and somewhat shabby highway to chez Waller.

The collapse of the air travel infrastructure worked in our favor the next day, as we bade farewell to Memphis. Understaffed, Delta Airlines had no one at the gate to keep Tony G, us Hawks, and several other bleary eyed folkies from walking on the plane with our guitars. We took up much of the overhead space, and civilians with their rolling baggage trying to avoid the $15 baggage fee had nowhere to stash. It was a fleeting grim payback for years of airline abuse of guitars and guitarists. We watched stonefaced as the civilians and flight attendants huffed and puffed, and finally retreated, the greedy luggage stuffed below where our guitars normally suffer. Home, you massive gravity defying beast. We have bested you this time.

MEET THE MEAT PUPPETS

We’re driving to San Diego on a warm January dusk. The sun is hitting the brown layer delicately painted end to end over the flat ocean horizon with the unerring stroke of a master calligrapher. Two Marine helicopters hover, silhouetted in orange light, and in the shimmering sea a churning wake of–what?, a new top secret amphibious military vessel?–is viewed as a white blurry mist on turquoise becalmness.

We’re suspended between eras, and the feeling is almost physical, not exactly paralysis, but a resistance to progress, purpose, destiny in an air thick with future. The present is weightless.figure1.jpg

Two hours later. San Diego, somewhere eastish, off the 8, a cozy condo. The very kind Hawks friends Howard and Doreen have just cooked dinner for us. Delish, and interesting talk of local lore, and draft dodging in the early 70’s. It’s the coolest thing about being a Hawk. Grounded with friendship wherever we go. And it’s time to go. As usual, we are flirting with lateness. To the Casbah!Flash forward if you will, past our evening at the venerable rock club, to which we shall return. It’s 11:22:51 by the clock on this laptop in the front seat of our faithful Yukon driving north by the sure hand of Shawn Nourse, Son Of A Trucker. We’re listening to Townes Van Zandt’s “Houseboat In Heaven,” for which we have a particular fondness. “Houseboat” is forever associated with our 3 year home at Coles downtown, rest in peace, those times. We will think of you always.

Things are good. It was a good night in San Diego. After leaving our givers of kindness we drove a strange freeway path to the Casbah, where the jets fly over at an altitude we didn’t think was possible in a city. Like, low. Like low enough to look like they’re going to clip the parking structure across the street.But they don’t. This is our lucky night. We load in, and the Casbah looks just like its legend. Black, with punk rock stickers. Rob played here 13 years ago with the late great Apple Pork Four, whose single had a mini buzz at the time (Rob promises to do a blog about the show and their subsequent late night drive to Las Vegas). Shawn’s played here with James Inveldt.

The Meat Puppets are playing a song at their sound check, and they sound great. We saw them at the Echoplex a few months ago and they were powerful, a rich, mature sound. It’s the logical destination, and a good one, for their musical trajectory.We meet Kurt and set up. The bartender’s cool. The beers are cool. The sound man’s cool. Hey. Everything here is cool. Sound check is cool. We hang, and the people filter in, and it’s cool. We play, and now there’s a crowd, and it’s cool. We dig it. They dig it. We start with Hope Against Hope, end with Humboldt. All right.

We hang a bit with Dennis Pelowski, mad genius of the frozen north, who flies frequently, brainstorms endlessly, litigates when he must. He’s put us on the bill with the Meat Puppets, and introduced our music to them. We listen to the Shaky Hands, a young band from Seattle. They rock, in a way both warm and mathematical, and muscular. They use odd meters, hyperactive and grooving bass and drums, and sparser but nicely ambient guitars and harmony vocals. Good, unique songs. Kind of reminds RW of the AP4. Very cool.And so to Yukon, for many a mile have we to trek, and early risings tomorrow. Good night, San Diego. We have seen thy finer side.

WHO THE F IS PARSON BROWN?

To all our fans, friends, and family,
Merry Christmas, Happy Hannuukah, and all the best in 2009!
Love,
The brothers of I SEE HAWKS IN L.A.
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Why America Won’t Starve

It’s a wintry day here in the usually overly sunny Southland. It feels very cold to SoCal native Hawks like the two Pauls and Shawn, and like a hint of real winter to Minnesotan Hawk Rob W. The snow level is thrillingly low in the San Gabriels to the north.

We’re cozy in our Northeast Los Angeles houses, working on songs and recordings, making ginger chocolate chip cookies, drinking hot tea and whiskey. Our hearts and good wishes go out to our fellow Americans entering a winter of real cold, or real economic peril, or both. The rest of the globe is far deeper in crisis, but our hearts and imagination aren’t big enough to embrace them. We’ve got enough troubles here at home.

Perhaps enough troubles to start minding our own business, bringing our troops home from U.S. military bases that occupy almost every time zone around the globe. Obama’s talking war in Afghanistan, but he might not be able to afford it. Dire economic trends might unleash the pacifist lurking inside the tough talking neo-JFK.Another strange silver lining: the crash in oil prices has suspended environmental wreckage in some of the last unspoiled places on earth: oil shale territory in Colorado and Wisconsin, coal tar operations in the Canadian wilderness. These desperate scarrings of earth are only profitable when oil’s above $50 a barrel. May their operations, heavy equipment, and rigs rust forever.

There might be quite a bit of rust in our collective future. And a reacquaintance with dirt and real physical labor. Our children may look back on the period from 1950 to 2008 as a time of mad excess, when humans thought they’d have big fast cars, big houses, comfy jobs, and 24 hour entertainment forever.A few nights ago, at the Westfield Century City Mall, Paul L and his brother Anthony, nephew Emilio, and friend William glided on a cloud of outdoor heaters, giant video billboard dream images, Leonidas dark chocolate and ultrafrappucinos, wandering gleaming labyrinths of Apple, Bloomingdale’s, Louis Vuitton, Tiffany & Co. The air was balmy and perfect, and so were our lives. Ron Howard’s “Nixon/Frost” somehow found the sweet side of Nixon’s carpet bombing of Cambodia. Even these sardonic mall wanderers were seduced and sedated. Never were four humans more comfy, not in the history of the globe.

Is this dream over? What do you think? Wethinks yes. 2012 doesn’t need an ancient prophecy. The Idiocracy scenario is far too optimistic. The black and towering storm clouds approaching may look worse than they are. But we can’t count on it.Can we remain calm as our physical assets diminish and our lifestyles collapse or get a little more real? We must. We must remain calm. Some of the Hawks, take your guess which, welcome a collapse. We picture days on the back porch, TVs somehow silenced, picking our guitars as neighbors come over to share turnips from their backyards. We are naive enough to wish for this, just as we were naive enough to believe that all would continue as it has for our entire lives.

We have wishes for our culture, hope for collateral damage: goodbye to celebrity worship, day trading, Hummers and their mysteriously prosperous owners, the paving over of hills and farms so that we can enjoy free junk from China in pastel junk mansions that are going to collapse in 50 years anyway, the smugness of Fox News and NPR, and the worst decades of music and song in the history of popular music. We’ve been far too proud of far too little. What have we doing with our lives? Where’s the drama, the struggle to survive that’s a given for the Plant and Animal Kingdoms? An ill defined injustice haunts our years of too much stuff. Something’s got to give. But it could be a little bit of all right. There are reasons for calm. America is a vast and heavily armed fortress that can only be conquered from within.

The Animal Kingdom needs food and water. We’ve got plenty of it. We waste most of it. The big change will be ending waste. McDonalds, Starbucks, blueberries from Argentina, driving 20 miles to sample the new cutting edge Euro/Thai bistro, jumping in the Volvo for an impulsive brew and bagel–these may end. But if we let a thousand farmer’s markets bloom, make meat eating a limited and special occasion, grow graywater backyard veggies, and stay calm–we’ll make it through these times.

Here’s a bright and shiny glimpse of the new paradigm, coming to an exurb, suburb, or urban plot near you:The Audacity of Parkland, by Alan Farago, in the latest counterpunch.com

GOOD TIMES IN CLAREMONT

Okay, guilty as charged. We’ve been polluting the clear country rock waters with dark and negative political screed. Let’s step away from our Kountry Kassandra persona and look fondly on this last Saturday night.

Claremont. Mysterious land of colleges and green lawns fronting stately and immaculate early 20th century mansions and lesser architectural gems. Surrounded by less green and unloved Inland Empire suburbia, where road rage and foreclosure lead our nation down its strange path (oops, stay away from the darkness). We always get lost on our way to downtown Claremont. This time is no exception. Paul M and Colleen are already arrived, and they guide us late comers (Rob, Paul L, Shawn, and Victoria) by cell phone to the fabled Folk Music Center, formed 50 years ago in the same folk explosion that gave us McCabes and the Ash Grove.

We screech into the parking lot, late for soundcheck, charge through the back door through the repair rooms, putting hundreds of ancient stringed instruments at risk. Into the big room, a museum of priceless sitars, African drums, Gibson mandolins, and hundreds of acoustic instruments lining the long walls. Like McCabes, the walls constantly hum with resonating strings. We greet our long lost sisters the Chapin Sisters, whom we haven’t played with in several months. The Folk Music Center people are swift and kind, and we do a quick sound check. The Chapin Sisters take the stage, while we lurk in the office on the other side of the concert room.

It’s a strange moment in the little room filled with Ben Harper posters and gold records. The Hawks are a bit tweaked out from events global and personal. As the angelic Chapin voices filter through drywall, Paul L and Rob wonder whose self loathing and negativity is greater. Paul L describes Shawn as “optimistic,” to which Rob claims that this optimism could be crushed like an eggshell. Shawn doesn’t disagree. We all decide that Paul M is indeed an optimist. Paul M nods with quiet assurance. How does he do it?Rick Shea appears at the office door. Rick projects a fatalism that makes negativity look like a childish indulgence. He’s just the antidote to our group angst.

The Chapins finish. The crowd loves them. We tune up and hit the stage. Hey, all our friends are here! Our cares vanish. We do a long acoustic set, and Rick Shea joins us on mandolin. It feels like there’s a fireplace in the room, Autumnal good feelings. For an encore we bring out the Chapin Sisters and stand at the edge of the crowd for an unamplified version of an old Crystal Gayle song and our song “Never Alive.” We head back to the office and the crowd hollers for more. What should we do? How about “Silent Night?” The Sisters nod. They can throw something together. We go back out, do a dobro version of the melody, and then Abigail, Jessica, and Lily let forth a seamless shimmering three part harmony. We imagine the Chapin singalongs of Christmas past, a rich family legacy, leading to this. The best harmonies you’ll ever hear.

[continue reading…]

THEY POINT THE CANNON RIGHT AT YOU

We love Obama. He is the coolest President since JFK.
Oh, wait, he’s not President yet. Well, we will love him.
Unconditionally. We’ll even forgive him for allowing without comment or objection the Bush administration’s final middle finger to what was once known as “America.”

Twenty thousand U.S. soldiers are now stationed on U.S. soil to deal with domestic disturbances. Like what? The Battle in Seattle? The L.A. riots? A new march on the Pentagon to stop Obama’s invasion of Pakistan? Oops, we’re ranting. We’re a country rock band, not a clearinghouse for information on the collapse of American values. We yield to the professionals, with gratitude and admiration:Check this out, from COUNTERPUNCH, absolutely the best website for knowing what’s really going on in
“America.”

The New Generation of “Non-Lethal” WeaponsBy MIKE FERNER

“Violence is the first refuge of the incompetent.” — Isaac Asimov

The Army Times reported on September 30 that a combat brigade, about 4,000 troops, which could be called on for “civil unrest and crowd control,” had been assigned inside the United States for the first time since Reconstruction. Civil libertarians reacted immediately, noting the Posse Comitatus Act prohibits federal military personnel from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the United States. Peace activists condemned the decision as well. “It is a sad day for America when our government is preparing to protect itself by using the military on its own citizens,” Michael McPhearson, Director of Veterans For Peace, said in response to the news.

Now, in a December 1 story, the Washington Post reports that the Pentagon plans to have not just that 4,000, but 20,000 uniformed troops inside the U. S. by 2011. Dedicating 20,000 troops to domestic response “would have been extraordinary to the point of unbelievable,” Paul McHale, assistant defense secretary for homeland defense, said, but the realization that civilian authorities may be overwhelmed in a catastrophe prompted “a fundamental change in military culture.”The report in the Post made no mention of “civil unrest and crowd control,” focusing instead on the troops’ ability to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe.

However, the Army Times report of September notes that the First Brigade Combat Team’s commander, Col. Roger Cloutier, said his soldiers will learn how to use the first ever package of so-called “nonlethal” weapons the Army has fielded, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment and weapons designed to subdue individuals without killing them.”It’s a new modular package of nonlethal capabilities…they’ve been using pieces of it in Iraq, but this is the first time that these modules were consolidated and this package fielded, and because of this mission we’re undertaking we were the first to get it,” Cloutier added.”

Where are these unruly American crowds and who are the dangerous individuals these “nonlethal” weapons will be used on? Exactly what is in the Pentagon and local police department arsenals? What, indeed? Read on, dear reader, and head for the hills:
http://www.counterpunch.org/ferner12082008.html

FUN

This looks fun. Fun times ahead. Peacemakers. Good vibes. Fresh new faces. Bursting with new ideas.
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President-elect Barack Obama with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Gen. James L. Jones in Chicago on Monday.