the hum / By Mark Shikuma

Independence and Connections

The Fourth of July and beyond, here and there

(July 2, 2009)  It was July 4th, 2001, a typical New York summer day, hot, muggy and sticky. I was working at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, just south of Delancy Street, during the week. On my days off, I sometimes went down to the heart of the Financial District in the lower depths of Manhattan. Wall Street workers were gone for the Fourth, and the area seemed abandoned. I met some friends at Battersea Park, located on the southeast part of the island, to see Emmylou Harris with her bandleader, Buddy Miller, an instrumentalist and singer/songwriter who also opened the show. The event was low-key and pleasant with the rest of Manhattan, it seemed, off at a beach somewhere to cool off.

At the end of Emmylou’s set with her tight band, I checked my watch. I had to run to the World Trade Center to catch The Continental Drifters, an all-star New Orleans-based alt-country band featuring Susan Cowsill (from the famed pre-Partridge Family pop group, The Cowsills), Vicki Peterson from The Bangles, Dream Syndicate bassist Mark Walton, Peter Holsapple (co-founder of the dB’s) and guitarist Robert Mache. The guitarist’s partner (now wife), Candace, was an old friend from my Memphis days. I wound up getting there a little early and sat on one of the folding chairs in front of a stage set beneath the looming towers of the World Trade Center. As I started to read a magazine, a lanky guy walked by. Though we’d never met, I knew his face from band photos. “Robert?” I said, “Are you Robert Mache?” He turned around, and in a thick Louisiana accent, declared, “You must be Mark Shikuma!”

File Photo

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I was a little shocked. “I thought you were just a figment of Candace’s imagination. You know how she makes up stories,” he continued. This was true. “Would you like a beer?” he kindly asked, and escorted me to a makeshift green room “backstage” in one of the first-floor conference rooms, introducing me to the rest of the band.

Later that afternoon The Continental Drifters tore it up, playing with a grit they lacked on their studio releases, especially during an unannounced rainstorm. Upon leaving, I looked back up at those epic towers, commenting how strange it was to be dwarfed by architecture, walking away, wet, hot, tired and content. It’s somewhat a mystery how these connections constantly occur.

I wish I could say The Continental Drifters are playing nearby soon. They’re not. But this Friday, the Britt Festival in Jacksonville, Ore. presents “Three Girls and Their Buddy,” with Emmylou Harris and her “Buddy” (the aforementioned Buddy Miller) along with two more notable women singer/songwriters, Patti Griffin and Shawn Colvin, all of themfresh from playing the Kate Wolf Folk Festival. This will be a rare performance, featuring four talented voices, stories and songs … and Jacksonville is near Medford, not that far from here. The forceful singer/songwriter/folk singer (and recent mother) Ani DiFranco plays there Thursday night.

Also fresh from playing Kate Wolf, the precocioussinger/songwriter Lila Nelson, who serves as this weekend’s special musical guest for the Dell’Arte House Band‘s pre-show set before the internationally-acclaimed Dell’ArtePlayers head into their second week of Intrigue at Ah-Pah atthis year’s Mad River Festival. The show runs Thursday, Friday and Sunday, skipping the Fourth of July. Jackie Dandeneau is the pre-show guest for Ah-Pah‘s July 9-12 shows.

After Friday night’s Intrigue performance, Blue Lake gets the Red Light, so to speak. Dell’Arte’s Red Light in Blue Lake, an adults-only cabaret at Dell’Arte’s Carlo Theatre, should make you feel like it’s truly summer (or at least they’ll attempt to get you, um, “hot”). Expect saucy fun, frolic, song and entertainers baring their all, literally. The show starts at 10:30 p.m. Advance tickets are suggested.

The Red Fox Tavern features Chicago-based Latino band Majestad de la Sierra, playing its own brand of norteño and other regional Mexican music on Friday. They’re on the road promoting their new release, Nueva Ilusión.

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