Since the folks who posted the news of the ALLMUSIC get-together on http://www.addimension.com/all.html are known liars and degenerates, I'm writing the true facts here in my private diary in hopes that a historian will uncover it and set the record straight for future generations.
Kelly and I arrived in Nashville Friday afternoon and checked in with ALLMUSIC central (Chuck and Carol's hotel room). We were advised to take a nap for an hour or so while... well, we never did figure out while what, but I heard Libby shrieking in the background "Faster, you Texas bronco" so I assume they were watching the rodeo as Canadians and Texans are wont to do.
Anyway, upon verifying that we possessed a car built in Atlanta, we gave in to the whimpering entreaties to save them from rice-burners and Chevys and drove them down to the Market Street Pub, located, unsurprisingly, on the corner of 2nd Avenue and Broadway. We sampled the local brew: a golden ale and a Coal Porter (when we read that name on the menu, we all said "Get out of town"). The latter tasted remarkably like the Baker's unsweetened chocolate that is the vehicle for transmitting to all of us in our youths that life is a far trickier proposition than we'd reckoned on.
After an hour or so, after we'd enjoyed a brew or two, and busied ourselves picking out the shards of chattering teeth that dropped into our beers every time the door opened, Jeff "n.n." Preston joined us. As he unbuttoned his coat, the bar fell silent and mouths dropped open; Jeff had managed to find a tie that could appall even the residents of the City that Style Forgot.
After a mercifully brief game of car-tag amongst the Nashvillians scurrying from happy hour to happy hour on the Interstate, we ended up at a fabulous Mexican restaurant not far from the hotel where we convinced them that despite our desperate looks (due mainly to not having recovered yet from Jeff's tie) we should be seated and fed and got rid of as expeditiously as possible. Ignoring the cries of small children: "Mommy, what kind of people are those?" we proceded to tuck into a wonderful, and wonderfully cheap feast.
Kelly was feeling under the weather a bit (which led us to reflect on how it was that restaurant was able to charge so little), and so off to bed, alas missing Helen and Sonia till the following morning.
Up at the crack of noon, with no consideration for those late-nighters who hadn't gone to bed with the Crispens and the Baptists (some time I'll explain the details of that night and how it was the Baptists were in our bed). A call to Allmusic Central and Chuckie answered "ALLMUSIC rules, appose to all that death. No, wait a minute, all to death..."
I told him his mother smelt of elderberries and suggested they get the gang together at IHOP forthwith. Which we did -- Kelly having seen the Castner-Knott sign and detoured briefly to give the employees the rest of the day off since they had no merchandise left to sell. The, uh, laying on of hands the previous night had had its usual miraculous effect.
The ALLMUSICi, now numbering Carol, Chuck, Helen, Sonia, and Tom, plus us, agreed that waiting in line for IHOP was giving the international cuisine there more credit than it deserved, proceeded to follow Jeff's dimly remembered directions to Media Play, at which, after many interesting adventures involving Baptists by the busload, we finally arrived. Since we were in spitting distance of our goal, and indeed had even got up to the very sidewalk in front of the place, we decided this was far too easy and adjorned for lunch at a haunted-house-looking Texan restaurant I'd spotted, figuring that Chuckie got far too little Texan food.
Apart from this restaurant having no discernable doors, we made our way inside and once again held forth in fine fettle, polishing off the armadillo eggs and terrifying the local denizens with Libby's napkin folding.
Then back to Media Play, at which I discovered all sorts of things that can't be had for love nor money in Decatur AL -- some Penderecki, some Britten, some Ives, and the Simpsons Sing the Blues. Well, all right, I admit it; I'm a whore. I only got the Simpsons to impress the others with my advanced musical taste.
I even managed to get a copy of Peter Gabriel's Xplora 1, and after talking it over with Kelly, decided that we'd buy it. So, after bidding farewell to one of our smaller children, into our shopping basket it went. We also hung around with Tim Howe (discovering him to have been not only a former tuba player, but an extremely tall person) and Pat Padua. Having no class whatever, I asked Pat how to pronounce his last name ("Schultz") and then got the biggest shock of the weekend:
After seeking out a Carmina Burana, I finally picked up a CD of the Michael Tilson Thomas/Cleveland we have on vinyl -- pretty good: the soprano solo is slow enough, the tenor who's "ustus fortiter" chews the scenery marvelously, and the baritone even plays his high notes to the galleries (I just love that stuff). So I went around from ALLMUSICus to ALLMUSICa asking "Does this suck?"
And this is the part you won't believe: of the 8 ALLMUSICi and one honorary ALLMUSIC spouse, not one would venture an opinion! Evidently they have their postings to ALLMUSIC ghost-written! Either that, or when they aren't safe behind their terminals and have some bug-eyed, swearing bearded man in their faces demanding their opinions, they clam up.
Well, you could have knocked me over with a cowboy hat feather, of which, along with odd men's haircuts, Nashville is fraught.
It must have shocked them, too, because we went up to wait for them in the little coffee shop in the front of the store. BTW, we didn't see anyone else there, so we helped ourselves to Cokes from behind the counter -- the counter person objecting rather more than the situation warranted once he got up, I thought. Anyway, we hung around, and went to see what was keeping our friends, and they'd abandoned us in search of yet more CD stores and rumors of the Mystical $0.50 Cut-out Bin.
Well, finally we made it back to Chuck and Carol's to confront them with their obvious rudeness (actually, I wasn't upset at all -- with all the librarians and lawyers and the like, there wasn't an engineer among them, and 9 was way too high for them to count). They were appalled (at how soon we'd shown up, thinking they'd successfully ditched us), so Chuck blurted out the correct directions to that evening's party at Jeff's boss's house.
Which we dutifully showed up at, and madly snapped pictures of one another snapping pictures of.... Now we were 10: me, Kelly, Chuck Vance, Carol Watson, Jeff Preston, Helen Mourat, Sonia Kovitz, Tom McCown, Pat Padua, and Tim Howe. Plus Jeff's boss, Jeff's boss's wife, and their daughter. Apart from the latter family, who showed their mettle at keeping up with the mad cavortings of the ALLMUSICi and swiftly moving the more breakable objects to the higher shelves, those are names to reckon with -- the very ALLMUSIC Cabal (less a few notable members whom we dearly missed and hope will make it to our planned Memphis in May get-together next year).
There was an extremely adorable Akita there who, when those among the ALLMUSICi who were civilized gathered in the garage for a smoke break, proceded to take roll -- an Akita with the soul of an accountant: "Let's see, Helen petted me for 5 minutes, and I licked Bob's face for 6, so it's time to head over to Tim who only scratched my butt for 3 minutes." If ever a dog could be petted enough (a proposition of which I have grave doubts) Ki managed that night.
Then, as you can see on the URL above, we busied ourselves with such dexterity as the bar left us, to create a webpage, and to listen to Jeff's guitar virtuosity and the DC Express's vocal perfection, and such noises as I could coax from the keyboard. Hint: Hanon is worse than crack; if you lay off for a couple of months, you'll try to play with all 10 fingers, but the ring fingers and pinkies won't work any more. Just say no to Hanon.
Tommy Muck had to leave early in the evening because he had to work today -- truly ALLMUSIC dedication, driving up to Nashville and back just to be with the lot of us. And alas, we had to leave early today as well. I'm sure the DC Gang will report on the bacchanal we missed.
Many, many thanks to Chuck for arranging everything and to all the others who, despite yielding to their natural impulse to run screaming from us once, managed to tolerate us.
As we had no reason to doubt, the folks I've met in the flesh from this list are wonderful people, whom I admire greatly. Each of them nagged me about the Collaboration Tape no more than 3 or 4 times during the weekend. My only gripe is that the weekend was too short. So what I'll be doing is moving in with each of you for a month or so. I'll proceed alphabetically. I don't eat much.
p.s., Kelly has asked me to inform you of what the Cabal have decreed shall apply as mandatory behavior on ALLMUSIC next year (uh, actually she and I talked it over with a couple of folks who said "Gimme another drinkie" which we took to be overwhelmingly enthusiastic assent).
We were thinking about renting our a little bit of the Radisson or some other downtown hotel within staggering distance of Beale Street, possibly for the Memphis in May festival or perhaps some other time next year. This would prevent additional automotive wear and tear upon the fine citizens of Tennessee (who, to be frank, seem perfectly capable of wreaking mayhem amongst themselves without our help). And, too, Tim Howe was in a funk all weekend because he couldn't pay homage at the shrine of the King, so this will stop him from his incessant "Well, why the hell *isn't* Graceland in Nashville, dammit?"
Stay tuned.
Rev. Bob "Bob" Crispen
crispen@hiwaay.net