Music for the Monsoon

The monsoon sweeps in quickly if predictably August afternoons. Monday, it started with a pretty viscious dust storm blowing through, bending palm trees and paolo verdes 45 degrees or more. Before the dust started to occlude everything in the sky, giant clouds stacked up over the mountains to the north. The storms begin about 120 miles north in the high ground, the humid air piling up over the Mogollon Rim and then wandering it's way down to the valley. Many times they miss us or fails] to develop into a storm. But when it hits, it drops like a grand piano from on high.

This storm landed on the night we had arranged for a baby sitter and had tickets to see Devotchka. Going out on a Monday night isn't easy, with the Doctor working long hours and then playing upon the good nature of friends to watch SkyGirl for an evening when everyone has to get up in the morning. A lot of logistics go into a night out on the town. The rain seemed ominous.

We waited as long as we could, and then under the cover of umbrellas and speed, we dashed to the car port with only a minor soaking. Sirens could be heard all around as we pulled out into the streets. Unlike the midwest, with it's rolling rolling hills and huge trees, the desert affords you a view of distant horizons and big skies. Magnificent during clear, calm days, but awesome and unsettling during an electrical storm. Huge arcs of lightning lit up the sky. Some spiderwebbed across the clouds. Others seemed to strike down in long, nearly straight bolts. Midwest lighting always seemed to have fractal branching, with bronchial splinters going everywhere; an intricate, delicate lace of light. These bolts were thuggish: thick solid lines that lacked the effervescence of normal lightning. I hated to think of what was absorbed by the unlucky tree or transformer underneath them. They stamped their image on the backs of my eyes so that long after they were gone, their insistent shadows obscured parts of the road and dashboard.

The rain would come in violent waves, seeming to wash over like a car wash. It poured off of the expressway berms, fast moving shallow streams washing across the pavement. On the surface streets, various lanes would be submerged, trees downed, signal lights out. All this we braved because we knew another chance lay far, far away in time.

The rain had drowned half of the parking lot. One SUV, obvioulsy parked well before the storm hit, sat in water nearly over its tires. We parked at the far end and walked in the final sprinkles of the storm.

Finally inside, the pint of beer never tasted so good. The Thrift Store Cowboys out of Lubbock opened. A good alt country band with fiddle, peddle steel and some loud guitars. Occasionally a banjo and accordian were trotted out. Four songs in the power went out, but the band refused to quit. They came off the stage and about 75% of the bar huddled around them, a few of us holding up cell phone flashlights to light the musicians. They did a very intimate acoustic set in the hushed bar until the power was restored.

Then DeVotchKa came on. They are, hands down, the best rock band with a sousaphone, violin, accordian, trumpet and homemade theremin. From the Washington Post:

"In truth, any label sells DeVotchKa short. Drummer Shawn King did thump with post-punk drive and was often surrounded by a lineup of sousaphone, violin and bouzouki. Singer Nick Urata played the latter as well as acoustic and electric guitars, but it was his singing — an upper-register melange of Roy Orbison, Jerry Vale and Bryan Ferry — and his stage persona — drunken groomsman crossed with Dean Stockwell in “Blue Velvet” — that created DeVotchKa’s indefinable vortex. The violin (and accordion) of Tom Hagerman provided the melodic zest in songs such as “Queen of the Surface Streets” and “We’re Leaving,” but it was the cohesive sweep and instrumental interplay that turned them from pleasant to crowd-roiling."

Dressed impeccably in suits and evening wear, the band cut quite a figure. Tom Hagerman in suit and tie, Shawn King in sharp tie and pressed shirt. Jeanie Schroder in willowy black dress with sousaphone draped around her, all covered in red italian lights. And Nick Urata in unbuttoned tuxedo shirt. As he hit the stage, he grabbed a bottle of red wine, bit off the cork and spit it into the audience.

They set these lonely, desperate Eastern European sounds agains a driving drum beat, a counterpoint that nearly tears the songs apart. A few favorite images: the crowd accompanying the mournful wailing chorus of "We're Leaving," the only song I knew before the show. The first time Schroder lit up her tuba after playing the upright bass for the first few songs. Urata, using the neck of his electric guitar to simultaneously rip out a riff and play the theremin next to him.

Scrivner, are you listening?