Happy hookers, Wailers and Black Lillies
by Chris Aaland
Sometimes the heart longs for old, stinky gear. Sure, we love our new toys. But the old stuff just feels right. A favorite shirt. A pair of Chuck Taylors. Or an old fishing vest that you’ve worn for 20 years.
A float trip to the majestic San Juan River last week proved to be just what I needed after a busy three-month run in the radio station, with what seemed like one fundraising event after another. Don’t get me wrong – my job at KSUT is a fun one, full of concerts, festivals and countless musical memories. But the stress of hitting budgetary goals for one fiscal year while wrapping up the past year’s audit makes my head spin. Math is not my friend.
When Aaron Hyder took Otto sledding at Hesperus on New Year’s Day, we hatched a plan for some quality man-bonding the next day on the Juan. The kicker? I asked if 8-year-old Otto could tag along. Last winter, Otto received his first fly-fishing outfit. Uncle Billy gave him his old fly vest from when he was a kid. Grandpa threw in a box full of flies and outfitted the vest with leader, weights, strike indicators and dry-fly floatant. He even tossed in the fly reel that Otto’s late grandma – my mom – used to use. My contribution was my first-ever fly rod, a cheap Cortland rod, reel, line and leader combo that probably cost us $35 at Dave Cook’s in Lakewood back in the early ’80s. Aside from a couple of brookies up La Plata Canyon last summer, Otto hadn’t broken in the rod yet.
.jpg) |
|
Tennessee Americana band the Black Lillies play the Balcony Backstage on Monday night, Jan. 11. |
Aaron pulled into our driveway at 8 a.m. I had a pot of coffee on (seemingly a ritual for father-and-son fishing excursions the world over) and had made breakfast burritos for the road. The temperature was somewhere in the teens or low 20s when we piled into Aaron’s boat and set adrift into Texas Hole. A minute or two later, a spunky rainbow of about 9 or 10 inches chomped Otto’s black bunny leech. Float after float through the popular San Juan run yielded one strike after another, mostly from tweakers and dinks. For a little boy still figuring this fly-fishing thing out, hungry hatchery trout were just fine. But then, his indicator twitched ever so slightly (the stockers struck hard, in comparison), and Aaron yelled for Otto to set the hook. A few minutes later, a fat 17-inch rainbow met Aaron’s net. Otto was hooked.
We traded fish the rest of the day, each of us finishing in double digits in terms of fish landed. None proved to be larger than Otto’s first “real” trout. And I felt an old, comfortable feeling that I recalled from fishing trips in the late ’70s and early ’80s with my step-dad, Bill, and grandpas John Aaland and Ralph Raines. I looked into the water and saw the reflection of an old man who looked a lot like the old men earlier in his life. I plunked my hand into a bag of Doritos on the ride home, took a sip off an overpriced fly-shop cup of coffee and smiled.
Half the fun of seeing live music is that same familiar feeling. Reggae royalty comes to the Community Concert Hall at 7 p.m. Saturday in the form of The Wailers. Often considered the greatest living advocates of Jamaica’s reggae tradition, The Wailers were originally formed in 1969 by Bob Marley, Bunny Wailer and Peter Tosh. And if you were ever a college student from the ’80s forward, Marley’s “Legend” album was required listening. The trio of icons recruited the Barrett brothers – bassist Aston “Family Man” and drummer Carly – to record what would become a series of legendary records. Family Man, who was Marley’s most trusted lieutenant, remains with the group. Special guest Mike Love opens.
The Peking Acrobats, a modern-day kaleidoscope of entertainment and wonder, return to the Community Concert Hall at 7 p.m. Wednesday. Accompanied by a live, exotic Chinese orchestra, the 26-member troupe of elite athletes – gymnasts, jugglers, cyclists and tumblers – performs the 2,000-year-old traditions with astounding grace and agility.
Whiskey Tango, a mainstay on the Colorado music scene the past six years, plays the Balcony Backstage at 10 p.m. Friday. Denver’s Westword named them Best Jam/Improv band four years in a row. Just last year, the same magazine elevated them to “Denver Westword Icons.” Their music blends jamgrass, country, psychedelic, jazz, rock and funk.
The Outskirts, a Durango band that spent its formative years on street corners in Crested Butte and the dark corners of the Olde Schoolhouse, visits the Mancos Valley Distillery at 7 p.m. Saturday. They started as a bluegrass trio, but soon added drums, electric bass and a lead guitar to stretch their territory from jamgrass to southern rock and singer-songwriter fare.
The Black Lillies return to Durango on Monday when they'll play the Balcony Backstage. Veterans of numerous Reservoir Hill festivals and Dolores River Brewery throwdowns, the Lillies are touring in support of their fourth album, "Hard to Please" ... one that contended for my Top 10 albums of 2015. Their brand of honky-tonk remains a vehicle for Cruz Contreras' outstanding songwriting. But they've morphed into something much more, a musical territory forged by the Mavericks, Lucero and other like-minded souls.
Elsewhere: DJ Kaztro spins at Moe’s at 9 p.m. Friday, while DJ Noonz runs the turntables at 9 p.m. Saturday; and the Black Velvet duo plays the Diamond Belle Saloon at 5:30 p.m. Saturday.
This week’s Top Shelf list examines things I found in my comfortable, old fly Orvis fly vest that now hangs above the fireplace awaiting its next deployment.
1. Boxes filled with patterns that haven’t seen the end of a line in a decade or more. Think olive woolly worms and RS-2 emergers tied with Cul de Canard duck feathers. Today’s new, fancy versions feature foam wings.
2. Old bobbers, spoons and spinners rescued from the bottoms of rivers and lakes. I can’t remember the last time I made a cast with my old spinning rod. But every year, it seems I find more hardware stuck to rocks and trees.
3. Bottle caps from macro beer. I haven’t popped the top on a bottle of Coors or Bud in years.
4. Montana, New Mexico and Colorado licenses from my twenties. My twenties!
5. A half-eaten granola bar from a brand that hasn’t existed in a decade. Good thing it wasn’t a tuna sandwich.
It’s as big as a god-damn baby? Email me at chrisa@gobrainstorm.net.