And now we’re here. The mountains actually managed to catch me off guard. I was taking a picture of something off to our north and Heather let out a little “oh!” and I looked forward and there it was! Pike’s Peak was the first thing visible but soon enough, as we climbed towards Limon the landscape changed and soon a wall of mountains appeared before us.
I think this was our first time as far south in Colorado as Colorado Springs, and the booking at Jive’s Coffee Lounge was more an enablement of my own misplaced curiosity than anything else. Knowing the historical connection betwixt Colorado Springs and Nikola Tesla from my Science Center days, and knowing that there was a Tesla Museum in town, I kind of REALLY wanted to go see it – but as the date got closer and I started doing my research it turned out that the museum was less science and more Church of Tesla – and I just wasn’t interested in that side of things.
the lonesome train tracks running past the grain… thing. Coffeyville has lost a lot of its industry and with it much of its population and is a very lonesome town. It’s horrible to see how Walmart came in, wiped out the mom and pops, and now with the declining population, Walmart closed its doors and now there’s just…. nothing. The refinery of Coffeyville, KS. Lit up like Christmas. It doesn’t smell like Christmas.
Tesla was a genius, no doubt, but an eccentric one – and I think it’s unfortunate that in some circles the eccentricity and conspiracy theories have overtaken the very legitimate wonder at the things he DID accomplish. He can transmit power through the air just fine without communicating with Venus or having discovered perpetual energy.
Anywho, with Tesla crossed off the list, Kristen turned up some other wonderful things as well as a park we could hang out in learning some songs. The former was delicious and the latter was Lovely, but unfortunately interrupted by a couple of possibly homeless peeps getting into a shouting war with one another. Other than that it was a perfect autumn day up in the mountains. Colorado Springs takes its Christmas lights seriously and it could’ve been a peaceful day in the run up to winter holidays back home – except
for the looming backdrop of the Rockies!
I Love it here. Everything just seems more immediate somehow.
the locomotive across from the hotel we stayed at in Coffeyville, KS. I’d really wanted to just walk around for a while on our last night in town – and I got to experiment with some night time shooting. I’m pretty damn pleased with the results! Locomotive 1079 was built in 1902 for a line from Santa Fe and is stunning after a makeover after the flood of 2007.
Anywho – we had the show at Jive’s coming up so we retreated from the altercation into the coffee house and started setting up. I was a little bit worried about how my guitar was going to sound because of the problems I’d been having with my pickup – which I don’t know that I’ve written about at all… Over the past year or so I’ve had a little short in my pickup. Anyone who’s seen us play or run sound has heard it. I’ll plug it in and then it’ll give me some nasty pops and I’ll smack the guitar a little bit and then it’ll settle down and be fine. Well, a little over a month ago at the Board and Brew it didn’t settle down. It got worse. All sorts of weird static noises and popping. I pulled it apart later and unplugged and replugged things and it worked fine again. I think the problem cropped up again and I did the same thing, pulled it apart and put it together again, this time being more careful with the clips and everything.
Well – it worked great through the Listening Room show in Waxahachie, but when I plugged it in on Wednesday for the Coffeyville Community College it got staticky and nasty and fritzed out. I miked it for the show and figured this was the last straw. I got on the phone with LR Baggs (the maker of the pickup) between our gigs that day and they walked me through a couple of tests and determined that the Element (undersaddle piezo pickup) had died. This was contrary to what I’d figured before – because of the electronics issues I’d been having I’d assumed it was the preamp – but when the Element was unplugged it DID seem to solve the problem. So I went through and put everything back together, leaving the Element unplugged and LR Baggs agreed to mail me a new one ASAP. I went through the process of setting up the board so it actually sounded pretty good using the other half of the pick up (the Anthem microphone) and was pretty confident that if worse came to worse I’d be able to play it that way.
Thursday comes and I check in with the office and before I open my mouth, the gentleman behind the counter, in a thick accent says “You get mail, I leave it on your bed”. I thanked him and ran upstairs, ripped my guitar apart AGAIN and shoved the new Element in, wired it all back together and plug everything and… STILL no hyperdrive! Same static issues, same popping and crackling! So I unplug the NEW Element and reset to just use the microphone – and it doesn’t solve the problem! I unplug the microphone and this time THAT solves the problem! I get back with my new friend Bryan at LR Baggs and he now agrees to send me a whole new system – but by now it’s too late to mail it to me in Kansas. And the fastest they’ll do the warranty replacement is two day shipping – and sometimes, just by the nature of things, two day shipping becomes three-day shipping, and you can’t count Sundays… So if it got in the mail Friday…. Sat, Mon… possibly Tuesday. It’ll miss us in Colorado! I check in with our friend in Wyoming – she reports that mail is HIGHLY variable in her remote corner of Daniel, WY. I can’t have it shipped to us in Yellowstone… the next place it can connect with us is SEATTLE a week from now!
We’re driving north from Colorado Springs to Fort Collins. I get to see my old college friend Jennie. We haven’t seen one another in seven years. I can’t wait to see her. But in the back of my mind is this feeling that my gear is breaking. I HATE playing into a microphone. Sigh. Just two church services, one bar gig and an open mic to go.
Fuck.
Well, no matter – it works with just the Element – I just have to re-EQ everything and I can do that at the show… right?
Well… back to the Jive’s show. I set up everything, I sound check everything and it’s showtime… and my pickup doesn’t work. I have to play the show through a microphone. Trying to control myself enough to stand in front of a mic is very, very hard – to the point that I’m ready to play the house guitar – but that doesn’t have strap buttons. Play in front of a mic? Or play sitting down? I play in front of a mic and it works, but it’s not right.
The gig goes well. We sell CDs, we make tips. We make new fans and reconnect with old friends. I have one of the best Aztec mochas I’ve ever had. But now I’ve got two church services, one bar gig, a radio show and an open mic to play through microphones. And that really, really, really sucks.
Really enamoured with the windfarms our here in Kansas. Sunset was fortuitous making these things into stunning silhouettes. There are hundreds and hundreds of these and they are spectacular to see all working together. To the right – an old school windmill providing mere mechanical enery – and one of those omnipresent collapsed structures. I’m sure these abandoned barns and homes and houses have relatively mundane stories, but I find that they’ve been left to simply dissolve rather than being repaired or stripped and scavanged fascinating.
Kristen is an interesting addition to our long-distance road apparatus. Not only is she an excellent finder-of-foods on the road – but she’s got her own aims and desires and things she likes to hunt. One of these is the Little House on the Prairie. Like… THE Little House on the Prairie. Above is a recreation of the Little House on the Prairie built on the site of the original little house on the prairie in … like… NOWHERE Kansas. LHOTP Selfie! Heather hunting four leaf clovers while Kristen vLogs.
