Voodoo, String Cheese and Colorado Playboys

by Lindsay Nelson

Run away. It’s that time of year, when the pressures of holiday preparations – the shopping, the decorating, the card-writing, the baking, the frantic attempts at weight loss, the travel plans, the obligatory company Christmas parties where you must devise a strategy for avoiding drunken, pervy Stan from accounting – it just gets to be too much. Christmastime was so magical when we were children, and it’s so hard to hang onto that innocent excitement now that the burdens of adulthood loom large.

What to do (assuming fleeing isn’t an option – who’s going to frost the gingersnaps)? Well, fortunately for us, the Durango area exists in a sort of bubble, a soft, pine-scented sphere of blue sky that keeps the worst of the modern-day insanities at bay. Rather than fighting your way through the three-story shopping mall with 10,000 other cranky Christmas consumers, we can stroll downtown, popping into nice warm stores with neat stuff, then back out into the refreshing cold air in search of latte number three down the block. Downtown shopping will be extra-nice next Thursday, Dec. 14, on Noel Night. Bunches of downtown merchants stay open late and offer discounts and goodies to intrepid wintertime shoppers. Except for the fact that you can buy stuff of plastic on plastic, you could be right back in 1886, without the horse poop and hoop skirts. And while you’re down there, be sure to enter the Holidazzle drawing at every store you visit, for many chances to win free things on Dec. 24.

Speaking of time travel, I hear spats tapping, zoot suits flapping and the scent of pomade wafting in the night. Is it a remake of “Swingers?” Has Vince Vaughn returned to his fighting weight and donned a white undershirt and derby once more? Sadly, no, but in Durango it is 1996 all over again, at least for two nights this week when the swing-revival kings Big Bad Voodoo Daddy cast their spell on the Community Concert Hall on Monday and Tuesday. This “wild and swinging” holiday party experience should have both Grandpa and little Ramona hitting the floor for high-energy swing versions of “Blue Christmas,” “Zat You Santa Claus?” and “Rockabilly Christmas.” Whether you’re old enough (or young enough) to remember the late 1990s when the “swing craze” hit American pop culture, or yearn for the hey-day of original swing music in the ’40s and ’50s, the Daddy will be good to you.

This must be the week of flashbacks. Remember String Cheese? Of course you do – you were a sophomore at Fort Lewis in the late ’90s and one of your new hippie friends made you buy a String Cheese Incident bumper sticker and informed you that they were the best band ever. What about Leftover Salmon, you may ask? No, dude, it’s all about String Cheese.

Well, the String Cheese has gone moldy, but some of the jam band’s membership is still alive and ready to noodle. Saturday night at the Summit, Jason Hann and Michael Travis (percussionist and drummer from The Cheese) have created what they call a “100 percent improvised live looping project,” EOTO, wherein they use loop technology to create “truly original and melodic dance music in the moment, with the undeniable power of live drums.” The music is all created on the spot, looped, then mixed and remixed live. I can scarcely fathom it, but they promise that every night will be a “unique dance experience.” That sounds totally sick, dude.

Jamming has not been fully relegated to the world of electronica. Nosiree, you can still hear yourself some fine pickin’ music in this town once in a while. A special performance on Wednesday night by the sometimes-band The Colorado Playboys has talent from a variety of bluegrass and old-time acts, including John Frazier from Hit and Run, John Stickley of the Biscuit Burners, Andy Thorn from Larry Keel and Travis Book of the Stringdusters. They’ve gotten together for a Colorado tour that includes a stop at the Diamond Circle Theatre Wednesday night. Local bluegrass band Rock and Rye also plays.

Another Colorado (transplant) boy by the name of Chuck Pyle graces the stage of the Durango Arts Center on Sunday. Known to some as the “Zen Cowboy,” Pyle also is known for his phenomenal fingerpicking style, wise Western witticisms and his affiliation with the Unity Church of America. Pyle’s songs have been recorded by John Denver, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Suzy Bogguss. He’s played for the King and Queen (of money, by whom I mean Bill and Melinda Gates). He wrote “Cadillac Cowboy,” recorded by the late great Chris LeDoux, and “Jaded Lover,” recorded by Jerry Jeff Walker. If you like your spiritual wisdom poured out of a 10-gallon hat, Pyle is the man for you.

I don’t know about you all, but I’m getting up early on Saturday to have breakfast with Santa. Even if they don’t have my usual Cap’n Crunch and Sunny-D, I’m gonna go so I can ask him to get me a new IGB PC 3200 DDR SDRAM (DIMM).

What do you want for Christmas? lindsay_damico@yahoo.com. •