High Plains Book Awards -- the adventure continues in Billings

Last weekend saw the High Plains Book Awards weekend arrive in Billings. I had planned to try to get to a number of the readings, but after an exhausting week, I only made it to one, and it was a good one.

The beloved and I attended a reading that included Shann Ferch (aka Shann Ray), who won both the best first book and best short story collection categories. Ferch won for his book American Masculine, from which he read a moving story based in eastern Montana. Also reading was Craig Lancaster, copy editor of the Billings Gazette and also a nominee in the short story category for Quantum Physics and the Art of Departure, who (if the story read was representative) seems to be putting Billings on the fiction map by demonstrating that characters living in this town can be just as hilariously perplexed by life as any other city's fictional characters. Last but not least was an old friend of the Montana blogosphere, Ed Kemmick, reading an unforgettable account of the "after-party" he experienced in Butte after Evel Knievel's funeral. That story came from Kemmick's The Big Sky, By and By, a collection of fascinating (and true) stories, many of which appeared first in the pages of the Billings Gazette.

The evening's awards banquet took place in a beautiful venue -- the Yellowstone Art Museum -- in the same spacious gallery where the "East/West: Visually Speaking" exhibit appeared. The food was decent fare, interesting conversation was plentiful, the beloved looked smashing, and the wine wasn't bad. We were about to experience the fun of "the envelope please" moments of learning who the winners were, and Tom McGuane was on deck as keynote speaker.

Things were obviously going way too smoothly -- but the fly in the ointment was soon to arrive. Most of the evening's budget had apparently been blown on the food and wine, leaving only $9.95 for the sound system. The rest of the evening was spent enduring a cheap microphone and an even cheaper speaker that was about the size of a Cap'n Crunch box. Those fortunate enough to be seated toward the center of the room could hear adequately, while the rest of us couldn't.

Our fine mayor, Tom Hanel, was one of the first speakers and welcomed everyone to Billings -- or at least that's what I think he was doing. You know it's bad when a politician has a hard time making himself heard. Knowing that the evening would lead to even less experienced public speakers arriving at the podium, things were not looking good.

Luckily for me, I have relatively sharp ears and reasonably good lip-reading abilities to augment them -- but it was hard work just to make out maybe 80% of the evening's content, work I wasn't really in the mood to be needlessly expending. Still, I was able to enjoy most of McGuane's remarks and anecdotes about his writing, his life in Montana, and his interactions with the world of Hollywood.

The beloved and I have been to a number of these awards banquets, and they have always been enjoyable -- one suspects that this won't happen again next year, so we will doubtless be back. I felt bad for all of those who came to hear McGuane and couldn't. Fortunately, the best way to hear any author is still through books, which are always available and are never dependent on a public address system...

About Town: Natalie MacMaster touches down in Montana

It seems like it shouldn't be time for concert season yet, but it is. I missed the season opener for the Billings Symphony, but since it involved mixing orchestral music with daring young women on the flying trapeze, it was probably just as well. Sigh.

Glancing over the offerings for the year, it was immediately clear, however, that whether I was ready for it or not, this week held one of the performances I least wanted to miss -- a visit from Natalie MacMaster, the famed Cape Breton fiddler. So, I scored front-row tickets and made reservations at Bin 119 so the beloved and I could have a nice meal and a couple of glasses of wine before going the block and a half to the Alberta Bair. (It also makes parking easier for ABT events if one patronizes that particular establishment.)

With a nice Shiraz and a light pasta pleasantly warming my innards, we strolled to the theater for the show. Some guy from New York was lost -- he and his hot dog stand were on the street corner. There were quite a few people out walking the streets in the dusky evening light, and I was reminded that we here in Billings are the home of what styles itself as Montana's only Urban University. There is a certain point to the claim -- all I have to say is that this country boy couldn't be happier to live in a state where Billings is the most urban place around.

Back to Natalie MacMaster, though. What can I say other than that she thoroughly won me over? I'm a big fan of acoustic music of all sorts, and in particular of traditional/Celtic music (it's a north country thing -- even we Norwegians have our version), ever since being introduced to it by my Scottish flat-mate when I was studying in Germany for a year back in college. He played the Northumbrian pipes and tin whistle, and we both played guitar. I didn't know a jig from a reel but was eager to learn. Alan and I had many a happy evening together with him playing on his pipes or whistle and me accompanying on guitar. Eventually a neighbor would tell us to pipe down (so to speak), and the nights thus usually ended by sipping a single-malt over a game of chess -- Alan taught me that life was too short for cheap whiskey, even for students like us.

I even learned to play a few tunes on the whistle, and such is the nature of these things that I can to this day pull out my D-whistle and after a little warm-up, throw down acceptable performances of a couple of traditional Scottish tunes from memory.

Anyway, Cape Breton Island is a part of Nova Scotia where Scottish Highlanders came in droves some centuries ago, in no small part because they were Roman Catholics seeking a place where they could practice their religion in peace. The world of Sir Walter Scott's wonderful Waverly novels in exile, so to speak. Speaking of novels, the beloved is a big fan of Alistair MacLeod, Cape Breton's most famous writer, and those books, filled with the depth and distinctives (and music and dancing) of Cape Breton life, are sitting on the shelf, marinating, waiting for me to read them, too.

Wherever Celtic folks went, they brought their wonderful music, and in places like Appalachia and Cape Breton, one can encounter various forms of the Scottish tradition and its descendents. By the time I became acquainted with Celtic music, the guitar had become the standard rhythmic accompaniment to the tunes. But prior to the 20th century, fiddles, pipes and whistles were largely unaccompanied, and the first instrument that was used, early in the 20th century, to provide backup was actually the piano. While the use of the piano in Celtic music elsewhere has pretty much completely died out, Cape Breton music has preserved the piano as the indispensable accompanying instrument, giving its music a characteristic sound.

It took a little getting used to on Wednesday night, even though I knew this history -- the tonalities introduced by the use of a piano just weren't familiar to me. But again, it didn't take long before I was won over. MacMaster's band was an eclectic one -- a drummer/percussionist (one who toured with Shania Twain in her heyday, no less), a fine guitarist, her excellent long-time pianist, Mac Morin, and a phenomenal kid (Nathaniel Smith) playing the cello. By the way, I just knew I recognized him from his performing with Sarah Jarosz, but she wasn't listed in the program as one of the people he had worked with in the past. Sure enough, when I got home and looked him up, it was the same guy. He is breaking new ground with the cello -- it works wonderfully, since it can creditably function either as a rhythmic acoustic bass instrument or as a upper-register melodic instrument for soloing or harmonic interplay.

I had heard about Macmaster's high-energy performances, but I have to say that I wasn't prepared for her fine dancing -- let alone for a woman who had recently given birth to her 5th child to be dancing up a storm while also rolling off breakneck reels and jigs on her fiddle at the same time. (There's got to be a joke about walking and chewing gum at the same time in there somewhere...) Her six year old daughter even made a cameo, playing fiddle like a little pro and dancing admirably.

MacMaster, like most modern practitioners of traditional music, has spent much of her career exploring the boundaries and borderlands of her genre, and I like that. Someone recently wrote that Alison Krauss and Union Station function as a sort of "gateway drug" for bluegrass music proper, and MacMaster has likewise introduced countless people to Cape Breton music.

For most of the concert, she stayed close to her roots, while regularly putting in just enough elements to make it more accessible to audience members whose ears aren't (yet) accustomed to traditional music.

I remember when I was a youngster playing music, one of my respected teachers told me, "assume that there is at least one real musician in your audience -- play for him." And indeed, the beloved and I found ourselves sitting next to the only other person in the building who was from Cape Breton -- a fiddler herself, no less, who had met MacMaster when she was growing up and playing back home. She had nothing but good to say about MacMaster and the performance. Good enough for me, then, too.

MacMaster's only other performance in Montana was in Helena last night, but she has been here before, and will likely come again. Don't miss it next time.

The next similar thing on my schedule is the Big Sky Big Grass bluegrass festival in February -- the great Sam Bush will be performing, along with many others.

About town: Alison Krauss/Union Station at the Billings Blues Festival

Better late than never, but it is really an impossibility that my heroes could come to town and not have me pay homage.

While I've been listening to Alison Krauss/Union Station for many years (and was irrevocably hooked from the first note), I've never had the privilege of hearing them perform in person. Their last visits to Billings were before I moved here 11 years ago, and by that time, they had hit the big time, and their only stops in Montana were at high-capacity venues in university towns like Bozeman, and I was never able to make the trip.

Krauss and the band played to a packed South Park crowd to close out the Billings Blues festival a couple of weeks ago and did not disappoint in the least. Having suffered through my share of outdoor concerts that had abysmal sound quality, I have to admit that I was a bit nervous about having my first (and perhaps only, who knows?) experience of AK/US be at an outdoor venue rather than in an intimate concert hall with great acoustics.

I needn't have worried -- the sound was perfect in every way -- vocals and instrumentals perfectly balanced, instruments perfectly in tune for every perfectly played note, vocals perfect. Just perfect.

That perfection -- artistic sensitivity and surefootedness combined with technical mastery -- has been part of what has made me an AK/US afficianado over the years -- never a sloppy note, never any muddy engineering on the recordings, never a miscue when it comes to choosing material (Krauss writes very little herself, but unsurprisingly has the pick of the finest material available in what can only be described as the "country/bluegrass/crossover" world.)

It is a world that Krauss and her band have themselves largely created and defined, drawn deeply from bluegrass and "roots" music but integrated with insights from an eclectic range of influences. It is music with the polish to fit in with the slickness of most modern country programming, but it is rarely played on those venues. Rather, it exists in a world that could perhaps be described as "underground," if only it weren't so huge. Perhaps the best indicator of what I am talking about is that their latest album "Paper Airplane" was the number one album on the country charts for two weeks, while no single from the album even made the charts at all as a "top 100" song. Huh?

It is a testament to the formulaic nature of country music today that Alison Krauss, with the most Grammys of any female artist and tied for the second most Grammys period (coming in only behind the legendary conductor of the Chicago Symphony, Sir George Solti, who racked up decades of uninterrupted clasical Grammys; and tied with Quincy Jones, the legendary Jazz/R&B producer) -- that someone like that can't get playing time on country music radio. OK, my rant's over now.

Krauss played a nice mix of new material from Paper Airplane and old material going well back into her catalogue, ending with a gentle encore medley/montage of snippets of her most well-known songs -- really quite brilliant, since playing all of those favorites in their entirety would have crowded out gems like Jerry Douglas's dobro pyrotechnics paired with Dan Tyminski's equally compelling vocals on "The Boy Who Wouldn't Hoe Corn."

And the gazillionth full-length performance of "When You Say Nothing at All" or "Whiskey Lullaby" might have caused me to miss my own favorite of the night -- "Daylight," from the 2001 album "New Favorite." That song has been bringing tears to my eyes ever since I first shoved the CD into the player more than a decade ago. It was the first fall I was back up here in God's country after 20 years away, and I was driving through eastern Montana along the Yellowstone, with the leaves turning to gold and the prairie burnishing to dun as autumn came on. I had finally completed what had seemed like a lifetime of exile, off in the (mostly) big cities completing the necessary business of education, surgical training, and military service. It had been an experience simultaneously irreplaceable and yet often somewhat akin to being buried alive. I was back again in the region I loved and where my heart had never left, and it somehow seemed like Alison Krauss gave voice to the full range of emotions I was experiencing.

Tears it brought again that Sunday night in South Park. I could spend several paragraphs analyzing the sonic landscape of just that one song -- with its effective mix of hurtling but gentle instrumentals and intense yet languid vocals -- but I don't want to. What I do know is that only Alison Krauss and Union Station could create that particular work of art -- one that never stops piercing me with its painful beauty. Like so many Alison Krauss songs heard for the first time, it was hard to decide what would be more painful -- to have to experience its sweet melancholy again... or never to be able to hear it again. Almost always, of course, we AKUS devotees choose the latter, and keep coming back for more, and yet more again.

Peerless professionals that they are, everyone got their money's worth from Alison and the boys, who finished up with Ron Block's iconic composition (and the band's traditional closing number), "There is a Reason." It is one of those rare songs that fully and sensitively acknowledges how difficult it is to hold on to religious belief in this life... this world -- and yet gently but firmly expresses that faith anyway. And really, would an authentic evening of "roots" music not have at least one moment like that? Not for me, and probably not for Alison Krauss, as best as I can tell.

It was a night to remember in Billings, and unsurprisingly, the crowd was mellow and at peace with the world, with each other -- and who knows, for some, maybe even with God -- as we walked away together under the fading light of a Montana summer sky.

Art: "East/West: Visually Speaking” at the Yellowstone Art Museum

It’s Friday, and time for some local cultural color.

The agenda was to go to the Yellowstone Art Museum to see the new exhibition drawn from the museum’s permanent collection, about which more in another post. While there, I went to see “East/West: Visually Speaking,” and ended up spending most of my allotted time with that fascinating visiting exhibition.

The exhibit consists of works by contemporary Chinese artists, who reflect the unique mixture of attitudes that China has today: its pride in her own deep indigenous traditions, its fascination with Western high culture, its ambivalence toward the pervasiveness of Western consumerism and pop culture, and the raw experience of living with both the tyrannical past of Chinese communism and its still authoritarian present.

Perhaps the most visually arresting pieces are Sun Ping’s acupuncture sculptures, in which he reproduces classic Western pieces -- of Laocoön, of Moses, of Alexander... but with Chinese acupuncture needles bristling from them along what appear to be the traditional meridians. Whether these needles are “anatomically correct” from a Chinese traditional medicine standpoint, the art conveys an impression that Chinese traditions have something to offer for the ills of Western culture -- or at least for ill effects it can have on traditional Chinese culture. The impact is visceral and surprisingly positive.

Two imposing works appeared to be large-scale prints of originals, in which the artist reproduces Bruegel’s “Christ Carrying the Cross” and Titian’s “Bacchanalia,” but with rigidly stark, almost automaton-like, Chinese figures taking the place of the characters in those paintings. The huge expanse of “Carrying the Cross” was particularly effective, with the viewer becoming lost in its vastness. It conveys the same frightening feeling of isolation that original does. In both, the tiny Christ figure is bent and broken beneath the weight of the cross, lost and alone though surrounded by crowds. As in the original, the crowds have their own interests and preoccupations. This Chinese version adds an element of modern existential crisis through the studied lack of individuality of the crowd members and soldiers.

A series of large oils with a Chinese man alone in a room, with titles of “See No Evil,” “Hear No Evil,” “Speak No Evil,” and “Don’t Make Inappropriate Gestures to Traffic Cameras,” feel like they could have come straight from a police interrogation room. There is nothing explicitly political, uniquely Chinese, or even uniquely modern about them. They rather touch on universal themes of the loneliness and fear of dealing with arbitrary authority.

Most numerous were pieces in a series by the Luo brothers, entitled "Welcome the Famous Brands to China.” Each incorporates the logos of modern mega-products like Coca-cola, Pepsi, and McDonald’s. In an earlier and larger incarnation of this exhibit at the Frost Art Museum in Miami, a reviewer described these pieces as "delivering corporate America a smack in the snoot.”

Maybe so, but the ceramic sculptures are as much parodies of kitschy Chinese-made knick-knacks as they are of Western corporations -- and anyway, who is choosing to eat the Big Mac’s and drink the Coke’s, I ask? A great deal of craft went into creating these works (a dragon was particularly beautifully done,) but one is hard-pressed to explain just how all of that work was really worth the effort.

More striking to me were the paintings in that series. They were eerily similar to revolutionary propaganda “art" in the Chinese vein. Even the title of the series, “Welcome the Famous Brands to China" sounds like something from a revolutionary propaganda poster. Given that many of the artists grew up in the midst of (or experienced the after-effects of) Mao’s bloody Cultural Revolution, these works seemed as much as anything to be a way of parodying the latter under the guise of being sarcastic about the former.

Art in a society that isn’t completely free takes on an importance that those of us in countries with a tradition of freedom of speech can perhaps barely understand. I remember talking to a Chilean student years ago whose family had fled the country in the wake of Allende’s rise to power. I asked him about the cultural prominence of writers in general, and poets in particular, in South American countries. His reply has always stuck with me -- he essentially said that in a place like America, if you want to say something, you just say it. In countries without those long traditions of free speech, controversial thoughts, whether of protest or of longing, have to be expressed in more indirect ways.

In a sense, oppression -- whether exterior and political or self-imposed and cultural -- has a way of forcing artists into subtleties and nuances of expression. What is a matter of scoring style-points for a Western artist can be a matter of life or death for an artist elsewhere.

Regardless of what the content is, or is intended to be, “East-West: Visually Speaking” is worth seeing. It is on display at the Yellowstone Art Museum through July 29.

About Town: Solas

Again, something I wanted to hear. Again, I was scheduled to be out of town -- on business this time. And again events beyond my control forced me to be back in Billings unexpectedly for the weekend.

My solace? Solas. Ever since hearing this fine Irish-American band on a Celtic music sampler CD back in the 90's, I have thought they were something special. The piece I first heard was "Crested Hens," a haunting, spare, and softly lilting tune that stretched the melodic boundaries of traditional Celtic music. Almost New Age-ish, but not quite... Tugs at parts of you that you forgot were there until gently reminded.

So, when scanning the Alberta Bair season, Solas was the first performance I marked on the calendar (only later to find that I had to be out of town that weekend.) As with most Celtic music concerts at the AB, I arrived to find a most pleasant gathering -- jackets, ties, and dresses here and there, cargo pants and flannel shirts (me and many others,) a good showing of Wranglers and cowboy hats... and everyone seemingly as relaxed and happy as if they had a couple good, relaxing drinks aboard. Which is of course possible. In short, I was reminded of why this particular ranch boy who also loves the arts finds Billings to be such a comfortable place to live.

Solas has been through a number of personnel changes over the years, but two founding members are still with the band -- multi-instrumentalist Seamus Egan and violinist Winifred Horan. The band members are Irish and American, to various extents -- Horan was born and raised in New York, Eagan was born in the US, but grew up in Ireland and has an accent to prove it. The rest were born in Ireland but are based out of the US now, hence allowing Solas to make a credible claim to be the most prominent Irish-American band on the Celtic music scene.

Regardless of geography or chauvinistic sensibilities, Solas is an exquisite acoustic band in the traditional music vein. They can spin off traditional jigs and reels with the best of them, but it is in their original material and adaptations that they shine, making use of modern chord progressions, unusual time signatures and bridges -- all very good stuff. Joining us was my 20-something son with musical tastes eclectic enough to encompass genuine passions for old-school jazz and West Coast hip-hop alike. He, too, was unexpectedly still in Billings, thanks to the happenstance breakdown of his truck that prevented his scheduled return to college. Last minute ticket purchasing was successful -- the house was almost sold out up through the loge, but thankfully there is still an occasional hesitancy in this town to sit in the front row. We therefore felt obliged to take a few seats up there.

A pleasant surprise was learning that this tour has a Montana connection. The historic center of Montana, Butte, hosted the National Folk Festival from 2008-2010, and while Solas was there performing, Seamus Eagan had the opportunity to explore an old family story of his great-great uncle who came to Butte to work in the mines at the turn of the last century. At the time when "no Irish need apply" was the rule elsewhere, Irish knew that if they could just get to Butte (no mean task in those days,) the legendary Marcus Daly (born in County Cavan,) had no such prejudices, and would give an Irishman a job. It being a very rough mining town that was dangerous for miners both above and below the surface, Eagan's relative unsurprisingly died a young, violent death.

Solas decided to explore the Irish-American experience in Butte with a combined recording and film project they have called "Shamrock City," and tonight's concert featured original music from the project. We greatly look forward to seeing and hearing the final project.

It is always a mark of confidence when a performer or band concentrates on their more recent material rather than just trotting out old favorites, and Solas did so tonight. Not only was there no “Crested Hens,” I was surprised that they didn't perform the one big hit co-written by Eagan -- "I Will Remember You," made famous when covered by Canadian Sarah McLachlan (another co-writer on the song.) It really wouldn't have fit into the set, and I respected the musicality they showed by leaving it out (assuming that Eagan still has rights to perform the song.)

Not much more to say than to congratulate the AB schedulers for getting Solas on the calendar, and to hope that they'll be back soon. All in all, a magical evening.

About Town: Step Afrika!

Well, the MH cultural correspondent didn't make it to Umphrey's McGee -- some mumbled nonsense about a long day at work and needing some rest. We had hoped for better.

Still, the month hasn't been a complete wash. Step Afrika! was in town tonight.

Aside: How exactly was the punctuation supposed to work in that last sentence? Maybe we should be Montana Headlines! if for no other reason than to confound critics who might want to quote us unflatteringly, but who would be stymied at trying to decide how to punctuate sentences like: "Montana Headlines! really outdid themselves (him/herself?) in publishing hopelessly silly drivel."

But we digress. MH has tended, over the years, to attend mostly Billings Symphony Orchestra concerts at the Alberta Bair (although this season it was hard to find any performances to get excited about attending, given the goofiness into which that organization's programming has descended... seriously...,) supplemented by other classical or traditional music concerts. But man cannot live by classical music alone, so off to the Alberta Bair to see Step Afrika! it was.

One of the most impressive feats of the performers was their ability to maintain their composure and good humor when attempting to get an audience that was 99.9% white (white with little or no personal exposure to black culture, no less) to do audience participation things that required rhythm. Really, if someone thinks that the opening scenes of the Steve Martin movie "The Jerk" are purely caricature, well, everyone is entitled to their little delusions. (Not a terribly funny movie, overall, it must be interjected.)

Actually, with patience and repetition, the performers actually did a pretty good job of getting the audience to clap, snap, shuffle, and exclaim things like "Hoo-ah" from the diaphragm in something that resembled rhythmic responses. Even more complex tasks like responding to the call of "alright!" with "OK!" and vice-versa began to be mastered toward the end. A couple of brave audience members who got up on stage to learn some rudimentary stepping even ended up playing bit parts in a Zulu village dance scene. We must confess to being jealous of the guy who got to carry a skin-covered Zulu shield and a tribal spear. One thought of asking if one could borrow it for Montana spear-hunting season, but then we recalled that unfortunately there isn't going to be one after all. Sometimes our politicians are so lacking in humor, a spirit of adventure, or both.

So, back to the performance. In a word, it was superb. Pace the name of the dance-troupe, stepping didn't begin as a distinct dance form in Africa, but rather in black fraternities and sororities in the early 20th century here in America. Like most American cultural currents, however, the roots are indeed from the old country, filtered through a century or more of the black American experience.

We recalled during the performance having read a grotesque Robert Ludlum novel called The Matlock Paper -- our 3rd and final try at another Robert Ludlum novel after having read and enjoyed The Bourne Identity. The Matlock Paper made a convincing case that Ludlum apparently only had the one good book in him (good as in a good airport or beach or ski-trip novel.) Anyway, in the book, a pretty caricatured black fraternity organization makes an appearance, and the white protagonist has the rare privilege (as we recall) of getting to see an initiation ceremony at the frat house. Ludlum's version had some dangerous use of spears or some other sharp weapons as part of the ritual, and thankfully nothing like that happened at the Alberta Bair. Of course, that Ludlum scene probably originated not in careful research, but rather in Ludlum's need to create some pulp excitement in a book that even he had to know was tedious enough to have airport readers reaching for a Barbara Cartland novel out of sheer desperation to escape boredom.

Where were we? Oh, yes. Black fraternities. One of the scenes in tonight's performance was a portrayal of the role of stepping in said fraternity ceremonies. Their version was far more artistic than we recall Ludlum's being. Another scene was a portrayal of stepping competitions that happen between fraternities and sororities. Tonight it was men vs. women -- we thought the men narrowly carried the day, but the audience called it a tie. But then, everyone is a winner these days, aren't they? Unless winners are being declared losers...

We've already mentioned the Zulu village scene. And then there was the South African miner scene, doing the gum-boot dance (See photo above,) done wearing "gum-boots" -- or what the Brits call "Wellies." We've liked Wellies ever since seeing Felicity Kendal in them in the old Good Neighbors episodes on PBS in our younger years. But one struggles to imagine even the lively Tom and Barbara
in that show being able to cut a rug in long rubber boots the way the Step Afrika! performers did in recreating this bit of South African culture.

Energy, style, considerable dance talent, a flair for cultural education and a little well-applied attitude -- all in all a great evening with a performing company that one hopes will swing through Billings again in the future.

Step Afrika!

Umphrey's McGee comes to Billings

Didn't think Billings would ever make the Umphrey's McGee circuit, but here they are, playing two nights from now at the Babcock. Montana Headlines may just have to send a cultural critic to the concert to see if they are all they're cracked up to be by jam band aficionados.

Any band that claims King Crimson, early Genesis, and Led Zeppelin as major influences is bound to be serious. Their approach to presenting their music -- few albums, lots of live shows, and encouraging people to record their music in concert and distribute it for free on the internet -- has been unique and for the most part brilliant.

They are doing pretty well for themselves, and while playing as many concerts as they do has to be hard work, it can't be a whole lot worse than slaving in the recording studio and kowtowing to record company executives.

Anyway, we're glad to see someone in Billings got us on the tour, and hope to be able to report on the concert. Oh, and for the record, as far as jam bands go, Umphrey's McGee is to the String Cheese Incident what Johnny Cash is to Kenny Rogers in the country music world. This observation is based on watching and listening to extended video of the concerts of each.

When they go into a "Jimmy Stewart," it takes improvisation to another level. One critic puts it well:

This is what, in essence, sets apart Umphrey's from the major jam bands who've come before them; those cues keep the players on the same page even as they're freely improvising, a clear distinction from the aimless hippie jams of old.