Did I ever tell you how much I love Dave Alvin?  Have you got a couple of days?  Oh boy, when I heard that Dave Alvin was coming to the Tractor Tavern for the Monsters of Folk Tour, I just about peed my pants.  You see, he is the man I'm going to marry.  I'm convinced of it, I tell everyone I know that, all I have to do is convince him of this too.  And here was my chance.  If I could just talk to him, he'd see that we were meant for each other.  The music would swell, we'd fall into each other's arms - yea right!

Anyhow, I do try to see Dave Alvin every time he comes to town in whatever incarnation he happens to be touring with.  This time he came to town with Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Tom Russell, and Chris Smithers.  We had no idea that they would all be on stage at the same time, so we showed up a bit late and missed about half an hour of the show.  We couldn't believe that they were all sitting on stage together!  I thought I'd lose my mind!

The Tractor Tavern was packed, so there was no place to sit.  We ambled to the side of the stage and noticed a couple of bare spots on the floor, right at Sir Dave's feet!  We had found our home!  Yippee!

This was the first night of the tour, so the guys were a little rough.  It made for some amusing and charming moments though.  And the surprise of the evening was Chris Smithers, I'd never heard of him.  He was the smoothest damn guitar player I'd ever seen, his fingers just appeared to float over the fret board.  And his voice had such an ache in it, oh, I could've cried!  This show was almost enough to make me give up my hopes of ever becoming a better guitarist myself.  Who could possibly be better than these guys?

Each of them did several songs solo, then they'd all do a few songs together.  It was truly beautiful and amazing.  And they each had amusing tales to tell also.  A truly magical evening.  But wait, there was more to come!

After the show, I approached Tom Russell and asked him to sign two of my cds.  He was very nice and kind of shy, which I thought was adorable.  I then waited for Dave Alvin to come out.  I had his book of poetry "Any Rough Times Are Now Behind You" (which is beautiful, by the way) and his Guilty Men cd for him to sign.  He was very nice and seemed a bit embarrassed when I told him that I had read one of his poems at a writing workshop I had attended.  I was dying!

We stuck around a while longer, and we saw our friend Pattie of Heads Up Gorgeous Theater there.  It turns out that she KNOWS Dave from corresponding with him.  She spoke with him for a while, then she introduced me to him and told him I was writing the music for "Vikki Gadget Saves the World" which is the next play she will be directing.  Another conversational "in" with Dave himself!  I was dying!  He was so charming, and funny, it was almost too much to bear.  Already this night had turned out to be something special.

Later that evening, Michelle and I had two more opportunities to speak with Dave.  Michelle had him sign the inside lining of her coat, and mentioned that John Doe had done the same to another coat at a Pleasure Barons show in La Jolla.  Dave actually remembered that!  We were blown away.  And he was intrigued that Michelle had access to a video tape that was made of that show, the very last Pleasure Barons show.  We gave him our names, addresses and telephone numbers.  I also gave him a tape of two of my songs, which I'm sure he's long since chucked out of the window.  We told him about our ideas for our play "Go Go West" and he seemed to find it amusing.  We were on cloud nine at this point, not quite believing that we were having a long conversation with him!

When we finally left, we got into my car and just screamed our heads off!  Dave Alvin is truly one of the most beautiful and amazing men I've ever met.  If only he knew that he's destined to marry me!  Ha ha!

Visit the Dave Alvin web site!
Visit the Tom Russell web site!
Visit the No Depression web site!