Muriel and Tommy Fest

[Supertramp78]

Needed to archive this stuff.

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Okie dokie, let's see if I can get all this on one post.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times….

Nah, that sucks.

Four sleepless days of fun, great music, food on sticks, fasting, guitar lust, picking awe, missed opportunities, side splitting laughs and a double homicide.

I’m not sure why this is, but whenever Bill is around, the apex of many humorous situations seem to be when he gets diss’ed in some way. Bill is truly the Rodney Dangerfield of guitarists. He don’t get no respect. So Bill, pardons in advance if some of these stories are at your expense, but you know we love you. Group hug.

This thread is going to be VERY long so how about this? I’ll post this thread in one day increments.

Thursday
Got into town on Thursday and called Bill so he could come and fetch my butt. Then I found out that my suitcase wasn’t there. “Well, there are several options, Sir. It could have missed the connection or someone else took it by mistake.?? Goodie. Other than clothes, which I feel are overrated anyway, the case had my digital camera, camcorder and tripod stashed inside.

Bill comes, sees the guitar case and a burlap sack and says, “You got EVERYTHING in the guitar case!? OUTSTANDING!” Good try, Tonto.

We head to El Rancho de Hammond and we have a few hours to kill before Gentle Ben (aka MajorMinor, aka Steve Morris) shows up. We decide that a trip to the local Cheers slash sports bar slash Mexican food eatery was called for. Bill leaps up (for a man his age, he leaps up a LOT) and heads for the door. He takes a few steps out into his front yard like he is looking for something and finally he turns around and says, “We’re walking.” Now I’m from Texas. The plains state. Flat lands where the temp in AUGUST is generally over 100. At night. Cars in Texas are designed to provide little air conditioned zones of comfort to move you from one place to another. Walk? Then it dawned on me that this is Minnesota. Where hot is relative, trees block the sky and Ol Mexico is at the END OF HIS STREET. If I had a place like that at the end of my street I would be there every night. But wait, there’s more. Next to this place is a MUSIC STORE! Cheesy, but what the heck. 16 year old boys need some place to buy bad electric guitars. Past that, a great Bagel shop, several diners and other assorted cool stuff. If I was Nolan Ryan, I could hit these places with a baseball from Bill’s, well from a few houses down from Bill’s front yard.

Once we got to Ol Mexico we partook of buffet Mexican munchies (more on the regular menu later) and played that addictive bar trivia game. Quick side note. For some reason, Bill knows everyone in Roseville. EVERYONE. He knows the ID of every person playing trivia and they have names like “Skunk”. I found out that Bill, who has seen every movie released between August 3, 1982 and August 9, 1982, knows absolutely nothing about movie trivia. So I wait for a music question to come up so he can do more than listen to me tell him the answers. “David Bowie is married to what former supermodel?” I know he is going to get this. Seconds pass. I have to tell him it is Iman. “You know that?” he says as if I shouldn’t be too keen to admit it. We eventually lost out to a guy who lives at the bar and seems to play trivia professionally. We did beat the brain damaged biker dude. Small victories.

Bill runs to the airport to pick up MajorMinor while I lounge around his house enjoying the weather. MajorMinor (MM from now on) is a big guy. He used to be a bouncer for a strip joint in college and then he found religion or simply got tired of neurotic naked girls with tragic pasts being ogled by lonely old guys with pockets of one dollar bills. Sounds like a hell of a job to me. Let me state for the record that MM is one of the funnier guys I have met. Unlike myself, who tends to tell too many jokes in the hopes of connecting from time to time, MM lurks in the shadows until the perfect opportunity comes along to unleash a calmly delivered line that just KILLS YOU! Kevin Lee (MartinFever) is a lot like that too. Bill can be funny when he tries really hard too. He’s getting there. Timing, Bill. Timing. (tee hee hee) So imagine the four of us in the same room for the better part of four days. Better people to just hang with would be hard to imagine. Later Thursday night MM is unpacking in the master suite when Bill walked in and announced “I want to take a shower.” MM turns to him and says, “Well I appreciate the offer, but the least we could do is have a drink first.”

Yup, a house full of sweaty manly men.

[Supertramp78]

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Friday –
Today the estrogen level increases at Château Hammond.

We awake Friday and stroll down to the bagel shop for munchies. Next stop, a new guitar store in St. Paul that is notable for nothing except for the fact that they sell Morgan Guitars. Sekhmet has been praising these guitars for months an we (Bill, MM and I) decided we HAD to check them out for her sake and mine since I was thinking it might be my next guitar.

We found the place and they had three. A mahogany dreadnaught, a rosewood concert florentine cutaway and a mahogany jumbo. Keep in mind that Bill and MM have the golden ears in the bunch. It was their heartfelt opinion that the Jumbo was far and away the best of the three. They loved it. The store wanted $2,075. Bill is thinking that is a GREAT price for that guitar. I’m thinking that is high and he says “The manufacturer won’t let us discount.” News to me. News to Sekhmet too I would guess. The Dred was $1,965 and the cutaway was $2,890. Turns out these are full up list price. Do a quick search on the web and find a dealer in Kansas that sells that $2,075 jumbo for $1,224. The dred goes for $1,169 and the cutaway for $1,699. Anyway, Bill fell hard for a mahogany Breedlove 12-string and I got a shot of him with a Tacoma that I will post later. Something about soundholes.

Off to the fair. Bill dumps MM and me at the fair and he runs off to collect Guitar Hottie (Muriel) at the airport. We catch the 1:00 Tommy Emmanuel show and everything they say is true. He is outrageously good. He’s go home and burn your guitars good. Not only that, but he is SUCH A HAM on stage. He cracks jokes with the crowd, mugs and has a blast up there. A plane flew over once and he started playing notes on his guitar until he figured out what pitch that plane was producing. “That’s an E-Flat plane.” His best joke was the following. “Guy came up to me at a show once and asked me if I could do anything Irish. I said ‘Yeah, I can do something Irish. I can blow up your car.’”

Wandered around the fair until the 4:30 show. Found Bill. Muriel was backstage doing the “hey how are you’s” with Tommy. Once the second show started she came out, found us and watched the show. At one point she walked up and handed him a cup of beer. Tommy said “Now SHE is a real musician. She brought beer.” Little did I know that this was a beer that Bill had given HER! Thus began a trend in Bill gift transference that would pop up again later. After the show we did the pictures and autographs thing and then Muriel announced that she had to eat something on a stick. All of you will be very happy to know that I didn’t say ANYTHING at that point. I was good. I eventually went with her to find walleye on a stick. On the way we passed “Deep Fried Twinkies” (on a stick) and she had me take her picture in front of that.

That night, Bill ditched MM and myself (the second of several instances of this) and took her to a wine store. We eventually had a wonderful dinner of salmon surprise. I say surprise because one of Bill’s fake fingernails popped off during the cooking process and we never did find it. Actually he found it in the kitchen and tossed it, but he didn’t tell US that until after dinner.

Then, Muriel pulled out her Harp guitar and proceeded to explain the workings and limitations of these unique instruments. The guitar was made by Doolin and it is a ‘travel guitar’ because it is nylon and a short scale nylon at that. Bill called it the Thalidomide guitar. I called it the Harp Backpacker. I think she liked my joke better.

It seems that there is an unwritten rule that when anyone of stature shows up in a room full of guitar players, that person has to play and pass judgment on everyone else’s guitar. First up was MM’s brand spanking new Kinnard. This is a 12 fret slot head with a very wide neck and wide string spacing at the saddle. We figured that she would love it because 1. it sounded heavenly and 2. the neck was classical in nature ad would seem familiar. She started playing it and said, “Wow, this is a wide neck. It really makes you work to play it.” Seems she thinks differently when she picks up a steel string and expects a more narrow neck. Hands it back to MM. By the way, did I say his guitar sounded heavenly?

Next up G1. She started playing it and TWINK! The high E string hooks around a fret and sticks. “Wow. These frets are starting to pull up. Bill, you need to get these fixed.” She sets it down in a gesture that basically pronounces it unplayable. I look over at Bill and he is about 4 inches smaller. So she starts to go fret by fret down the fingerboard, “Yup, this one too, and this one and this one, these two, and that one. See how I can hook my fingernail under the fret wire right here?” Bill is now about R2-D2 size. Then to rub micarta in the wound, she reaches over and grabs my Seagull and runs her fingers down both sides of the fingerboard and says, “See? These are fine.” Ouch. Seagull 1, Goodall 0. In fairness, the humidity in Minneapolis was crazy and my frets were dressed three months ago.

Next up G2. Bill’s pride and joy. His love child. She picks it up and starts playing it. “Yeah, these Goodall’s are really strong in the midrange.” She starts hitting chords all over the neck and picking some stuff. “Hear the low end vs. the mids or the highs? Wow, these mids are really out there compared to the rest.” Bill said something like, “I’ve always really liked the low end on that guitar.” She wouldn’t hear of it. “Yeah, but the mids are really all over it.” I looked over at Bill’s chair and he was hard to spot. Part of this is that Bill sets the lights in his house to levels consistent with bat caves. Here we are trying to look at these guitars and the entire room is lit with one 40 watt lamp and a candle (that Muriel pulled from her Mary Poppins like suitcase that also produced tea bags and all other items of ephemera). It is funny because whenever Bill looks at anything he peers over his glasses and gets right up next to it. He might not have to if HE TURNED ON A FEW MORE LIGHTS.

Next up the Seagull. She ended up playing bluegrass on it and didn’t wince all that much. I was saved because while she has no qualms trashing a $4,000 guitar, she had enough sense to not trash a $300 guitar. Bless her petite little heart. Listening to her play it I’m convinced that in the right hands it can sound great. Unfortunately, history shows that I have to take it to Minnesota to find those right hands. I mentioned to her that the guitar, compared to the others, wasn’t all that good and she said, “There isn’t anything wrong with that guitar. You just haven’t put enough great songs into it yet.” I liked that.

We ended up playing and picking and grinning and jammin’ until WAY past midnight. We did a bluegrass jam with Muriel and MM and ME and I think Bill. I joined in because if all you are playing is G D C, then heck I can do that! Bill, MM and Muriel traded leads while I strummed rhythm. We went around for longer than she wanted to I’m afraid. There were a few times when she tried to slow the tempo in that “let’s wrap this up” cue and we missed it. (probably because we were having too much fun and didn’t want to stop) She finally got us to stop by kicking her left leg out in what she called “the universal sign for LAST TIME.”

It was a great night. She worked on several songs including many that she has yet to record. There was one melancholy tune that just killed Bill and me. We fell for it so hard we yapped about it for 15 minutes. Turns out it has no name so she challenged us to think of a name for it in that brainstorming manner that the gang thought up names for Bill’s next CD.

What did I learn? She can play. She can play anything. Classical, show tunes, blues, bluegrass, Spanish, Japanese and Celtic. She can play anything. Steel string, nylon string, harp guitar, banjo and mandolin. She can get any sound she wants. Make a nylon sound like a banjo? No prob.

Night falls, we clean up and we retire for the night with visions of 13 stringed harp guitars dancing in my head.

[Supertramp78]

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Saturday-
We awake to the arrival of the Monkees! What? Oh, not those guys, the Monkeys. Mr. And Mrs. ArchMonkey. Fine folks they are too.

Today was the Muriel workshop at Bill’s church, the Podium run, and the Muriel house concert. Bill scurried around like a bride on her wedding day. You know, lots of talk about churches, catering, guests and schedules. He did look good in white though. Very slimming.

Eventually we got to the church and the workshop came off with nary a burp. Nodak Dan was there! First time I’ve met this studly young buck. He is slim, fit and hunk like in all the same ways that Arch and I and MM and Bill and Kevin aren’t. Radtke was there as was Claire Van de Crommet fresh from RoseJam V. About 15 minutes into the 2 hour chat I look over and at the end of my row is James Olson of Olson Guitars.

Muriel had called James to see if she could borrow one of his guitars for the house concert. The entire exchange was filled with the kind of one liners that just make you go “Huh?” First off she looks at Bill and asks as casually as a baby burp, “Do you have James’ phone number?” Bill is deadpanning her with this, “Oh yeah James Olson and I swap spit all the time” look on his face and she says, “Oh, wait I have it here in my phone.” I’m looking at Bill miming “You mean you DON’T have his phone number?” She calls him up and she asked him if he has any guitars in his shop that are completed that she might be able to borrow. He says something like “Well, what kind of guitars do you like?” And Muriel says, “Oh, I don’t know. Do you have anything GOOD?” She is trying to keep a straight face and MM and Bill and I are screaming in laughter. “I like Kevin Ryans and James Olsons. You got any of those?” She eventually agrees to hook up with him for lunch and a shop tour that afternoon.

After the workshop, Nodak takes his hunkiness and splits for lands down south. Thank GOD! I’m finally the best looking one again. Muriel bolts with James, and we all lug her stuff back to the house to prepare for the house concert that night.

Bill and Kevin leave MM and I (ditched again) to go transfer folding chairs to the house concert site. Left to our own devices, we sign Bill up for lots of internet porn sites, watch Tommy’s video, listen to some of Muriel’s CDs and vegetate. Eventually everyone is back, Muriel has made her guitar selection at James’ place. I imagine a tonewood version of the Dating Game. “Guitar #1, are you more woody or more toasted wheat underpinnings? Guitar #2, since you were once a tree, what kind of tree were you? Guitar #3, how’s your pickup?”

Arch, Bill, MM and I head for the Podium while Ethel and Muriel chill at the house. The Podium is a very strange place to go. Two rooms full of guitars. One room full of guitars you can’t afford. Well, me at least. People take a guitar off the wall, play it and say things like “Wow, this one is great and what a bargain.” I look at the price tag that has four digits and starts with a 3 and think, “You must be using some definition of the word ‘Bargain’ that I’m currently unaware of.” We escaped with our credit cards intact and headed back to the house just as Ethel has completed the accordion concert she had given Muriel. Great NEW accordion joke from Muriel. “What do accordions and hand grenades have in common? By the time you have heard them, it’s too late.” Muriel also had a t-shirt that said, “If we are afraid of Banjos, then the Banjos have won.”

Off to the house concert. Lovely house on one of the 45,000 lakes in Minnesota. Absolutely beautiful venue. Stained glass walls, wood floor, about 25 or more in attendance and Bill running around like a squirrel with his head shot off. The Olson guitar that James brought (we are on a first name basis now) was beautiful. I can say I strummed the strings while it was still in the case. That was about as close as I dared get to a guitar that costs more than my car … when my car was new. I toyed with the idea of having James autograph my Seagull. Then I could post it on Ebay as an Olson and see what I could get for it. Or I could have got Tommy and Muriel and James to sign it. Missed that opportunity.

The concert was wonderful. She had played two songs the previous night that I fell for hard and despite the fact that she has not released either of them, she played them for me when I asked. After the show we decompressed until about 2:00 in the morning, shooting the feces and talking guitars and music.

I asked her what the best low cost guitar was on the market today. Without even thinking she said, “Morris.” It seems that Morris is a Japanese guitar company that makes a bunch of low cost guitars in Korea but has recently started a small luthier shop in Japan to build high end axes. They approached a business associate of Muriel’s looking for a fingerstyle person to consult with and he suggested Muriel. They had also approached Phil Keaggy who didn’t have the time so he suggested Muriel as well. The first guitar they sent her was a nylon string that was terrible. “Basically a steel string with nylon strings on it. 14 frets and everything. But I was at Phil’s and saw this steel string they made and it was incredible. They based it off of the Ryan grand concert and sound wise I would say it is about half way between a Ryan and an Olson and it lists for $2,500. I’m arranging to get one for one of my students.”

So now there is another guitar I have to track down and hear. The same dang weekend I finally hear a Morgan, I find out the Holy Grail is somewhere else. Oh well, I could always get both.

Night fell with everyone exhausted, hungry (because we all forgot to eat and just had cheese and crackers at the concert) and pleased that the show went off without a major hitch.

Things I remember: Kevin and Bill playing together is one of the best ways to pass the time. They are great together. Stellar. Cute too in that middle-aged gay couple kind of way.

[Supertramp78]

Sunday –
And on the seventh day, we rested. Well, we at least slept late. Muriel was going to give a private guitar lesson that morning at the house, we go to the fair to see the 1:00 Tommy show with James Olson in tow and then Bill scoots me to the airport in time to get back and have dinner with Muriel, Kevin, Tommy, Tommy’s girlfriend and road manager and agent and James Olson and James’ wife. All that was going to go on while I was in the air.

The morning was filled with videotaping Bill play some songs that MM wants to learn. The two songs in question were on Bill’s demo CD that he took to the Swanoonie camp a few weeks ago. He decided to give one to MM but he didn’t have anymore and I sure as hell wasn’t going to give him mine. I had just announced to MM that I would burn him a copy when Muriel overhears the whole conversation from the other room and announces for everyone “I’ve got one. You can have mine!” So she comes out and hands her copy of Bill’s CD to MM.

The sound you just heard was the knife going into Bill’s heart. Did I mention that many of the jokes were at Bill’s expense. This one sure was. She said something later like “I’m sure you will send me another one.”

By the way, MM and I are minions. I’m not exactly sure when MM and I became minions. I don’t recall if Muriel referred to us that way or if Bill did or if we did but eventually we were the Minions, or the Minonettes.

We head off to the fair with Muriel’s guitar. I’ve got my trusty bag of digital camera and 8mm camcorder and Tommy swag for him to sign. We park at the park and ride and the kid asks, “Are you playing guitar at the fair?” we respond yes (like we all are) and the kid says, “COOL!”

This reminds me of another missed opportunity. Saturday morning at the local park is a regular gathering of bluegrass musicians. These folks get together and jam and supposedly people can join in. The plan was to put Muriel in jeans and a t-shirt and haul her butt (there, I said it) down to the park and suggest she walk up and ask if she could join in. Best odds are that they wouldn’t know who she was. I wouldn’t have known who she was a few months ago. She gets up there and like Michael Jordan in a pick-up game, proceeds to wipe the guys off the stage. Then casually announcing she has to go, walks off leaving only a silver bullet as a memento. That would have been wonderful if it weren’t for the fact that she had no interest in hearing the band and the band didn’t show up anyway.

We get to the fair, and after dropping Muriel off at the stage to go get ready to perform for hundreds of Minnesota’s finest, we head off for food on sticks and beverages. While Bill and I were sitting on bar stools at the turkey leg place, the most beautiful woman in 200 yards (hey, I hedge my bets because there could have been better looking women that I didn’t see) walks by obviously looking for someone. She waltzes past us right to left, turns around and starts to walk left to right away from us. Both views were equally impressive. Bill is waving his arms in the air shouting “I’M RIGHT HERE!” when we see Kevin BOUNDING down the street, arms outstretched, corndog in one hand, chasing after this vision like a five year old running after his mommy. Well, maybe like a 20 year old running after Miss April. Bill and I are laughing so hard we spit our brains through our noses.

The 1:00 Tommy show was probably the best of the three I saw. Muriel joined him for two songs and Bill wet himself repeatedly over Tommy’s playing. It was either that or run of the mill incontinence. Afterwards we chatted with Olson, Tommy and Muriel and made plans for dinner that night. Muriel stayed for the 4:30 show (she was going to play again) and we left to go home and prepare to dump my posterior at the airport.

I make my goodbyes, gave Muriel the goodbye kiss I know she wanted, (actually it was “see you later” “bye”) and we headed back to Bill’s house. A few blocks from his house the traffic grinds to a halt and we make a hasty detour for alternate routes to the abode. One thing about Bill’s driving. He thinks that a car is meant for MOVING. FORWARD. ALL THE TIME. If the traffic stops, hang a right or a left and KEEP MOVING. He would rather be going the wrong way at 30 mph than the right way at 2 mph. Turns out he knows about 93 alternate routes to get from Point A to Point B and all of them involve going 60 down a residential street.

Kevin and MM, following in another car announce that the delay was caused by a rather brutal looking car wreck right at the end of Bill’s street. “Yeah, there are cop cars and a hearse.” Hearse? Isn’t that jumping the gun? Cutting out the middle man? Turns out that one of the car occupants was killed instantly in the wreck in a manner that is most assuredly final. As the official munchkin coroner says in the Wizard of Oz, “She’s not only merely dead, she’s really most sincerely dead.”

Seems some 88 year old woman gets in her car and hits the gas and takes out several cars and two occupants of another sedan before she finally figures out how to not hit the gas instead of the brake and stops.

After seeing all this, LUNCH! Old Mexico, home of the video trivia, is also a damn fine Mexican restaurant. Not bad for being a million miles away from Mexico and probably at least several hundred miles away from the nearest Spanish speaking person.

I make it to the airport after hugs and long goodbyes (Later! You too!) and the highlight of the day is YET TO COME! I make it to the Atlanta airport for my connecting flight to Dallas around 10:00 local time. I stop off at the news stand to buy something to read on my flight home when I notice that the cleaning lady with the upright vacuum is singing to herself. Loud. Really Loud. And she has a great voice. Not Ethel Merman voice, but kick butt on American Idol or Star Search voice. Now here is where all my preconceived ideas really let me down. I see a middle-aged African-American lady from Atlanta vacuuming and singing to herself and I immediately think, “She is singing some gospel song. Probably an old Negro spiritual.” Wrong. The more I listen to her the more I begin to realize that I have HEARD THIS SONG! That’s right, she is singing show tunes! Broadway! Chorus Line! And the song in question is “Dance 10, Looks 3” better known by the subtitle “Tits and Ass.” I’m going to list the lyrics to this song at the end of all this so you can understand why I’m doing my best to keep my jaw off the floor. This is a great song. A show stopper and RUDE as all get out. And she is belting it out to the back row while the rest of us look on in shock and awe. She is amazing! She is incredible! She is singing about TITS and ASS at the top of her lungs at the Atlanta airport and NOBODY is saying anything about it because she is SO DAMN GOOD! I am beside myself in amazement. I’ve got a flight to catch and I want to follow her down to the next shop and see what she plans to sing next. Maybe a rousing version of the Beatles’ “Why don’t we do it in the road” or maybe “Sweet Transvestite from Transylvania” from Rocky Horror?

Anyway, I’m done now. The weekend was long and wonderful. I laughed very hard and slept very little. The music was great and Bill was a wonderful host as always. I don’t know why he does these things when they almost kill him. Bill, the best thing I can think to say about you is, “You don’t suck.”

Now for those of you who stuck around this long, here are the lyrics to “Dance 10, Looks 3” from A Chorus Line. Imagine it in the setting I described above. The set up is a VERY shapely member of the chorus line is offering advice on how to get jobs. She talks about not getting a job and stealing her score card after the audition and reading for Dance, TEN but for looks, THREE. Well…

Dance: ten; Looks; three.
And I'm still on unemployment,
Dancing for my own enjoyment.
That ain't it, kid. That ain't it, kid.

"Dance: ten; Looks; three,"
It’s like to die!
Left the theatre and
Called the doctor for
My appointment to buy...

Tits and ass.
Bought myself a fancy pair.
Tightened up the derriere.
Did the nose with it.
All that goes with it.

Tits and ass!
Had the bingo-bongos done.
Suddenly I'm getting nash'nal tours!
Tits and ass won't get you jobs
Unless they're yours.

Didn't cost a fortune neither.
Didn't hurt my sex life either.

Flat and sassy,
I would get the strays and losers.
Beggars really can't be choosers.
That ain't it, kid. That ain't it, kid.

Fixed the chassis.
"How do you do!"
Life turned into an
Endless medley of
"Gee it had to be you!"
Why?

Tits and ass!
Where the cupboard once was bare
Now you knock and someone's there.
You have got 'em, hey.
Top to bottom, hey.

It's a gas!
Just a dash of silicone.
Shake your new maracas and you fine!
Tits and ass can change your life.
They sure changed mine.

Have it all done.
Honey, take my word.
Grab a cab, c'mon.
See the wizard on
Park and Seventy-Third
For

Tits and ass.
Orchestra or balcony.
What they want is whatcha see.
Keep the best of you.
Do the rest of you.

Pits or class.
I have never seen it fail.
Debutante or chorus girl or wife.

Tits and ass,
Yes, tits and ass
Have changed...
My...
Life...!