This is a song about a fish. More specifically, this is a song about a
Salmon. Sometimes, when you cook too much salmon, you have leftovers.
Last night, we had plenty left over, and made tie-dyed to-go containers
in ourselves to carry some of the joy home with us.

Leftover Salmon, Fillmore Auditorium, Jan. 25, 2002
with Paul Barrere and Billy Payne of Little Feat, Rev. Jeff Mosier of
Blueground Undergrass, and Peter Rowan

I could stop writing now with that line-up. Good God! Their sound often
had more of a full-on rock-n-roll quality, and their bill with members
of Little Feat capitalized on that. But it was mixed with some straight-
ahead bluegrass and folksy numbers as well as the authentic polyethnic
Cajun Slamgrass that showed not only their roots but their propensity to
explore and play.

I couldn't make up my mind about whether to go to this show, down to
Santa Cruz for the Hemp All-Stars, or go out dancing to the temple of
Dance Jam. A serendipitous phone call from my good friend Tim and a
well-timed e-mail from my dear friend Patricia convinced me of the
necessity of going fishing for Salmon, especially upon learning that the
"Reverend" was on the tour.

Even though their sound has changed a lot from my first foray into the
spawning streams with these guys in '94, they still cook up a mean mess
of polyethnic slamgrass, with a bit more of a rock-n-roll edge. There
were some Little Feat tunes like Spanish Moss. They did a bluegrass
medley with pieces of Two Dollar Bill, Old Joe Clark (I think, though my
memory is really bad), and another tune I didn't recognize. The "Rev"
had some great banjo solos. Either I was standing in an acoustically
weird spot (unlikely, since the Fillmore is such a great hall), had
unknowingly eaten some fungus, or Rev had the banjo channeled through
some effects box that gave it a funky psychedelic edge.

Rev is taking a break from southern living to trip around with Salmon on
a leg of their West Coast tour. Mark Vann, the banjo man with a plan, is
battling cancer and has stepped off-stage for the time being. I think
Jeff was quite honored to stand in and pick. He had some moments during
the "down-tempo" jamming to do his freeform "rap." The first two times
he talked about "play that banjo" and "let's hear that banjo," and it
kind of smacked of banjo-ego. But in the second set I totally got it,
when he said, "Play that banjo again" - he was sending out healing
musical vibes to Mark, and creating an on-stage reality of Mark being
the one behind the banjo, back on the train, exploring all the wild
frontiers of banjoism at which Mark is so apt and talented. Once I saw
this, I was overcome with emotion and just kind of shut down for a few
minutes to connect to my own place of healing and well-wishing for Mark.

Rev was ecstatic to be playing the Fillmore, and called it the "Ryman
Auditorium of cosmic Americana." Indeed that hall is steeped in rich
musical history, pioneers cross-cutting and blending every musical genre
imaginable. Rev compared music like this to a mongrel. Everything in the
American musical melting pot is fair game.

And Drew Emmitt. Drew! Ahh.. such a sweet, high lonesome voice. He threw
some really tight mandolin licks. My only complaint is his use of
"shredding" - building up a bar into a full-on mando attack that sounds
really raucous and psychotic. He used to use this when building up a
musical passage and then exploding it and whipping the audience into a
frenzy. Now he seems to use it indiscriminately, and launches into it
only shortly after starting what would otherwise be a really sweet
musical passage. Maybe it was an, ah, "altered state" having effect. But
he's still a shining star. His encore of "Bend in the River" took me
back to the day of boogeying down with these guys in Georgia, and his
fiddling and voice make that song such a sweet portrait of pure joy.
"Running through fields of clover, yellow hair flying through the
breeze. Now that the rain storm is over, sun's shining down on you and
me." Tim and I traveled right down front and center to get some high-
stepping boogeydown with all the other Salmonheads, and it was just
great.

No show review would be complete without a boy review. Whoa! I knew I
would be sad if I had chosen not to go to this show, because the boy
quotient would be high. Indeed! Amidst the straight couples licking on
each other were some heart-stopping beautiful boys, and lots of the
longhaired variety to ice the cake. Boys dancing, boys watching, boys
looking, drinking, smoking grass, talking, boys with their girlfriends,
and even boys looking at other boys. Well, I was the prime example :)
but I did have one or two guys watching me closely. Only once did I dive
into the opportunity to connect. At first I saw this stunningly
beautiful boy by himself, staring at the stage during set-break - either
too shy or too stoned to remove his gaze from one fixed point. I walked
by him, intending to speak but the situation was just not quite right.
He never followed me with his eyes, so after standing and admiring him
for a bit I walked on by.

I went upstairs to the bar room during set break, where a man and woman
were playing some simple, folksy tunes. At a table right next to them
sat a longhaired boy, alone, listening intently to their music. I had
seen him earlier in the evening, thought maybe he had been looking at
me. And now it seemed he was staring at me - or was he really just
watching the musicians? So I stood basking in the atmosphere - the bar
room is a real testament to the history of the Fillmore, all walls laden
with concert posters and their often psychedelic artwork, begging an
invitation to tell you a story about the freedom of music and its
integral role in San Francisco's past.

I walked back to the bar, and figured I would buy a drink and sit down
with the guy. After all, it was the only available chair in the whole
room, and I wanted to make penance to myself for missing my earlier boy
connection. A few times I saw him looking around behind toward the bar.
Was he looking at me, or just gazing around the room? Hmm, better go
find out. The bartender gruffed about short-changing him, and I had to
fumble to get another buck for a heavily over-priced beer. Someone's
approaching the table, damnit just my luck there goes my chance to go
over and talk to him. But no, the chair remained open. "Hi! Mind if I
sit down?" "No, not at all!" "Did you enjoy the first set?" A bit of
chat about the band, and the folk duo starts up another song. I sit,
awkwardly in plain view at the front of the room, facing not this
intriguing boy but a folk duo that isn't necessarily captivating my
interest. But the blessed thing I notice is that my mind doesn't wander
and tell as many outlandish stories as it has in times past. I remain
centered, and come to realize that, if nothing else, I'm sitting in
plain view of every boy in this room. Cool.

So finally after an eternity they finish the song, and I am determined
to break the awkwardness by striking up more conversation. We end up
talking about music from lots of different angles for about two songs
into Leftover's second set. But he doesn't seem antsy to get up and go
hear them. I appreciate this kind of engaged, interested conversation.
Of course, per the usual statistics of the male human populace, about
two-thirds way into our conversation he says, "This summer my girlfriend
and I are taking a road trip across the country." But at this point I am
more interested in our conversation and his smile and openness, not his
sexual orientation. At least I made a new friend. He plays guitar, and
I'm struggling to practice bass. He asks if I'd like to get together and
jam sometime. My number is already written down (I'm such a Virgo and
boy-chaser like that) but neither of us has a pen. Before leaving home I
pick one up, say "Oh I won't need this" and silly me, am unprepared. So
maybe he'll call. Maybe not. Maybe he'll randomly read this on the net
and be freaked. What's important is that I have no attachment to or
expectation of a future outcome, and have gratitude for the opportunity
to be active and grounded in connecting with someone very genuine and
interesting.

Okay, so the length of that tale shows how boys are just as important to
a show (or "Show," with a capital S, as a friend and I have determined
it should be called) as the music itself. The second set was a rocker,
and Peter Rowan came out with his brilliant musical dexterity for much
of it. God bless me if I could remember much of what they played. There
were more Little Feat tunes, including Atlanta (not sure if there's more
to the title, "Whoa, Atlanta!" and lines about Georgia - shows you I
was never a huge Little Feat afficionado). This was just delightful
because the Rev was standing right in front of me picking some really
juicy banjo, an Atlanta-area musician whose long-standing bluegrass
band, Good Medicine, pulled me full-on into the joys of Atlanta's music
scene many years ago at the now-defunct restaurant and music hall, The
Freight Room. I still miss Atlanta, my friends there, and truly I am sad
that my move to California took me away from the evolution of Blueground
Undergrass. Jeff is an amazing, heart-centered man filled to overflowing
with kindness. And damn what an accomplished banjo player. (Banjoist?
Sounds like construction hardware, or an obscure Eastern philosophical
and spiritual practice... perhaps it *is*...!)

After the show, we chatted with friends in the exiting crowd, then made
our way upstairs to the dressing room to hang out with the band and
friends old and new. I was truly grateful to visit with Jeff for such a
long time, seems like it's been ages. We did chat a bit at my dear
friend's post Zambiland party, but I was so wiped that night from
dancing foolhearty and reality lubricants (hahaha I love that term) that
I wasn't fully engaged. He has a really great, often twisted sense of
humor. Like wouldn't it be great to put on a play about telling ignorant
southerners what's REALLY on your mind, all those things you wanted to
tell your dear Christian family but repressed for way too many years,
and just be raw, distasteful and brutally honest. He looks at this
rather drunk guy, who's been somewhat participating in the conversation,
and says, quite emphatically, "So, what's your life all about?" turning
back to me laughing, and asks "Do you ever ask people that? I think
that's such a great question." But he's completely serious, and listens
engagingly to everything the guy had to say.

I am still touched by Jeff's playful queries about HipFaerie, which he
found on the 'net by doing searches for sites where the band (Blueground
Undergrass) appeared, and sending me the absolutely sweetest and from-
the-heart e-mail. He asked if I had written anything new for the site,
which I took for myself as a kick in the pants to do something with this
site. After my "boy review" above, I see that there's still a painfully
unfulfilled need for making connections among queer folk in these
communities, because they seem so damn overwhelmingly difficult to
forge.

We left absurdly late, and we weren't the only ones who were tired. The
band departed from party mode by slinking back to the hotel to get some
much-deserved rest. We crossed the Bay through a San Francisco winter of
mild chill, drizzle, and high fog. I clicked off the light to crawl into
bed at exactly 4:20, to slip into a green world of dreams of Salmon
swimming upstream in rivers of musical moonlight, spawning new life that
will swim forever free in the blissful cosmic oceans of higher musical
consciousness.