A Jamboree Story

There is a town. There is a man. There is a fairground. There is a Jamboree. The town is tucked away in the northwest corner of Washington. Like most towns in America there are roads that will take you there. Dirt roads, curved roads, roads that are nick-named or numbered. Old roads and new roads any and all roads...were well in use this August.

This tucked away northwest town is comprised of life. Including..., but certainly not limited to: coffee, college students, car wrecks, train tracks and freights that ride those tracks, and tramps that ride those freights, rich folks that run parts of the town, poor folks that bum around..., smiling on the streets when drunk or grumbling on the streets when drunk but..., mostly drunk. There are seasons as well as activities that change with them. The cold, dark and wet winter is mostly for knitting, reading, potluck dinners or inventing new card tricks. Those who know of these winters

either love them or despise them. The spring is for flowers, farmers, and fog-lift. The summers that follow are talked about all the way from one leaf-changing, fog calling Autumn to the next. They are for swimming in lakes. Swinging from a rope, swing into cool emerald green water or fishing from the banks. Fishing from a rowboat with a worm and hook and ice cold beer...fishing with a fly in the Mighty Nooksack River and cooking up your catch over open-flames later that very night. Sailboats sail the Puget Sound, hikers hike the trails or blaze their own to the tops of the surrounding mountains. The farmers will sell their home grown produce at the Market on Saturdays. The vendors will raise and lower prices, trade a bagel for an apple or patiently wait to see the face of an old friend, unexpected. While the jugglers juggle and the balloon man blows up twists and bends a red balloon into a cow for the kid with chocolate ice cream and their chins...the junk band is pulling out their instruments from antique and well worn cases. To play for change. To play for fun. To play to play. The music. The music is certainly in the air in this town. The music is living, foreign sounding at times, old sounding most of the time, but sounding off all the time on the streets, and from attic windows, basements, dim-lit bars, and kitchens of coarse..., there?Äôs always a good song in the kitchen. Everything is happening everywhere and everybody knows it. One man, one bearded, red and black lumberjack plaid wearing man knows of all of this all too well, and still...it is not enough.

His name is Robert Blake, and this is the town he lives in. This is the town of Bellingham. Just a few miles east of this town and on the Mount Baker Highway is the Deming Log Show Fairgrounds. Ancient, massive machinery once used to cut down, grind up and move trees lay around the grounds on display collecting rust. What is intended as an outdoor museum, may be mistaken for as a bit of a Catapillar grave-yard in the pines. The Fairgrounds lay bare and desolate until Robert comes along. He wants music to be played here. He wants dancing in the sun, wants good food, friends and campfires. Robert wants a Jamboree on these fairgrounds, and for the past six years he had been the ring leader, the match-striker of just that...,The Subdued Stringband Jamboree.

The 6th Annual Subdued Stringband Jamboree can only be compared to as pie..., that's right, a pie. A blackberry pie. For if it wasn't for all the berry pickers, ingredient collectors, oven-setters, dough rollers, time watchers, pie-puller-out-of-the-oveners, fork and plate bringers...,the warm sweet taiste of blackberry pie that can only be attained in the month of August would not have been taisted. So first of all..., a big thank you to all of everybody's pie making endeavors.

The Campers began to arrive on Thursday around five while the flat stage and the slanted stage were being built. By campers I mean The Prozac Mountain Boys. After the work was done for the day, and a cold beer was cracked- and in hand-I could hear the Boys warming up over at their camp. Midnight Moonlight was the song that did it for me. It was that song that really brought into what it was that was happening. Well, we all found ourselves(ourselves being Robert, Dean Devin, Dream, The Boys and I) Sitting around a fire telling stories of Bad Christmas gifts and making up a song about a dead possum on the side of the road. More stories...more songs sung and on into the night. Friday came and by the time I woke up things were already happening. That's the thing about a festivals though..., once you?Äôre in 'em they don't really stop. The finishing touches were made on the festival grounds...tiki torches planted into the earth, tents were raised, campfires stocked with fresh cut fire wood, the Jamboree signs were painted and hung on the highway, helping hands were chopping vegetables and boiling water for dinner...and all this and more would go on as the bands, the fun seekers, mama, papas, and kin were arriving. Right about the time when everyone was standing around wondering when it was going to happened ...Lucas Hicks rolled up in his Blue Beast Betsy...rallyed up a band and kicked off the weekend with a Square Dance. I like those square duncing things...kind of a reminder that it's alright to get silly and hook arms with a stranger and a smile. Big Time Highlights for Friday night were Robert Blake accompanied by Yogoman on the drums as well as the breath taking brood tunes of Miss Jesse Sykes. Robert and Yogoman works...,it really does. A drummer who listens as hard as he plays is a big plus. The pair were dressed in all white conjuring up a paradise riot.

Later on Jesse Sykes took the stage and the mood changed. The moon waned over the pines as the ghost-like sounds blew as cold wind into the night. The crowd all came down to the front of the stage and sat and stood all huddled in with complete attention to that strange and beautiful music. There was a red balloon in the audience...and there was wine. The bonfires were, as always... epic. They were drunk and they were loud, fun and filled with music. By the early hours of the morning the music was still playing. The music played while the sleepers dreamed and the music was playing the dreamers woke.

Slugs and steamy cups of fresh brewed coffee accompanied the tales of yesterday while Kevin Carlson, Shawnee Kilgore, and Brother Mud tuned up their guitars for an ease-on-into-the-day songwriter in the round session. And an easy day it was. Why all you had to do was lay around in the sun listening to great music or roast up a hot dog. Rich Chrappa of Gaia Chi Massage had a tent set on the fairgrounds in case anybody was feeling a bit sore from all the dancing or ground sleeping. There was a Thai food tent, a First Aid Tent, a Bison Bookbinding and Letterpress tent, a Jamboree Headquarters tent where one might aquire band merchandise or drop ones name into a hat with a note of what instrument one plays.... Which brings me to one of the Jamboree's latest additions this year, The Band Scramble. After said directions have come into play, over the course of the day..., all who dropped their names met at the slanted stage to see what happens next. Well, the names were drawn of coarse...one at a time...and in a matter of minutes... three brand new bands were formed. Now, while everybody else congregated at the Flat Stage for another Square Dance... the impromptu musicians titled their group, came up with a song, rehearsed it...a couple of times...and forty-five minutes later..., TA-DA! were performed on the slanted stage.

The Tall Boys had a tap dancer, clickety-clacking on a wooden board while the band harmonized around a center microphone. They got the folks kicking and dancing... that's for sure...but nobody got the boot heals kicking up dust like the good time, ragtime, hat-trickin duo, The Gallus Brothers. With a guitar, a suitcase, a collection of bells, horns, kazoos, acrobatic acts, an accordion, banjolele, ukelele, ear to ear smiles and of coarse, suspenders, the stuck-in-the-wrong-century Gallus Brothers fired up the entire fairgrounds who could not for the love of all that is sacred get enough.

Headlining on Saturday night was Bellingham's own, Sweetheart of the Rodeo. As soon as the well dressed band set foot on stage the audience knew what was coming. Rock 'N Roll. Sweetheart of the Rodeo was prepared to deliver just that..., and with style The drummer wore snake skin loafers while Stell Newsome on guitar and vocals was halfway through a bottle of Jim Beam before the electric blast of blues and country was even heard. Towards the end of their atomic set..., Robert Blake was seen sneaking on stage with a guitar and a look of mischief. This was the signal that the All-Band-Jamboree was about to begin. The crowd went wild as Dean from the Red Wreckers, Lucas from the Gallus Brothers, and Andy Piper, of many a Bellingham band, took to the stage for a triple washboard solo-jam. The drummer pulled out a hellhound solo and I got a few spitty barks in on my harmonica. It was madness..., gladness-madness. After midnight we returned to the flames, the music, our loves and may we all return in August and may we all return again.

And so, as they say, all good things must come to an end. The flames were put out and all the tents were packed in stages. There were hugs and prayers that we all meet again next year. And slowly...ever so slowly..., pick-up trucks and car loads dirty dreamers, singers, and all walks of life would wave and honk and drive away. The stages were being struck and still the band would play..., and still the music played. But of coarse, dear reader, you must understand that this is but one mans interpretation of his experience, and a mere fraction of, and interpretation at that. This is the Subdued String Band Jamboree. This is Bellingham... This is life.

6th Annual Subdued String Band Jamboree Master of Ceremonies: Jeremy Parrish