CULTURE MYTH - Days 8: San Francisco

Written by Chad Taylor. Originally appeared on the Culture Myth website on March 26, 2016.

Rae Davis and Sara Routh
all pics by Chad Taylor

California gets progressively more lovely, the further north you head. In the matter of the Great Divide within the state, it is clear that I sit firmly on the NorCal side of things. The greens are greener, the hills are lovelier, and the people are -- if you'll excuse the ad hominem painting -- more chill and genuine.

Rae Davis and Sara Routh are spending their time here quartered in different locations. Davis is staying with friends in Oakland, while Routh and a couple of her friends have rented an AirBnB in The City. After splitting up to unpack at their respective host homes, everyone heads into town for a gig at the Revolution Cafe, and right into a situation that has the potential to be the biggest clusterfuck of the entire tour.

The Mission District is one of the most vibrant, vital parts of the San Francisco landscape. It is exactly what you would expect any large city's heartbeat to look like: colorful, loud, frenetic, slightly gross, beautiful, dirty, and eternally entertaining. Looking for the best cafes? The best little places to eat? The best art? This neighborhood--no matter what each city calls it--is the place to go.

The one potential drawback to that much going on in one small area, however, is the chance for overlap in events. Like, for example, today, when Routh and Davis rock up to the Revolution, and find a full-on street fair happening on the street outside. A street fair including an actual stage with musical performers, literally 10 feet from the Revolution's front door. This could be interesting.

CULTURE MYTH - Day 7: Goodbye, Los Angeles

Written by Chad Taylor. Originally appeared on the Culture Myth website on March 24, 2016.

Our first two-day stint in a town, and it comes immediately before a four-day stop in our next locale. It's an easy week in California.

The appeal of Los Angeles continues to confound me, but more positives are showing their faces all the time. Rae Davis and I start making a list.

- The oppressively Californian weather

- There's a place on Santa Monica that sells $2 thrift clothing. It's all in a giant pile on the floor, but there you go.

- There's damn good food to be found

- The city is large enough and diverse enough to not only have a little China and little Italy, but a little Ethiopia.

So it grows. Today was originally scheduled as an off day. Davis spends most of it relaxing around our host home, while Sara Routh has brunch with a friend, then heads to a photo shoot. The hot LA sun blazes away as errands are run and friends are commiserated with.

CULTURE MYTH - Day 6: Los Angeles

Written by Chad Taylor. Originally appeared on the Culture Myth website on March 23, 2016.

There are people who feel that Los Angeles is a city you know about right away: you pull in, and immediately know in your gut if you're going to love it or hate it. Conversely, I've heard that LA is so big, so diverse, that you really need to spend a couple of years submerged in it before you really have a handle on how you feel about it.

For me, as the most superficial of interlopers into the greater LA biosphere, I can say that it seems very much to be a place with a purpose. Not so much a city, as a tool. As such, I can understand why some people live here. If you're involved in entertainment in just about any way, LA is where you have to be. So for actors and screenwriters and directors and media types, I get it. I can see why people are here. What I haven't figured out quite yet, is why people would WANT to live here, all things being equal. The greater allure of the city, outside of the entertainment industry, has so far eluded me.

There's a shabbiness to LA. Part of that is affected. Shabby-chic is a definite way of life here. But another portion--I'd wager the greater portion--is just how the city has become. It looks tired. The people and their cars are all very shiny and well maintained and beautiful. But the city around them, the set upon which everyone plies their trade, is worn and frayed at the edges. You can see it in the trees and on the faces of buildings. A lot of it is unquestionably the fault of this great drought that is ravaging much of the American west, and hitting California particularly hard. But it's not the only explanation, because there is a general weariness that you can feel in the spirit of the place. I don't know if I've seen more than a handful of genuine expressions of emotion or desire in my time here.

CULTURE MYTH - Day 4: Albuquerque and Santa Fe

Written by Chad Taylor. Originally appeared on the Culture Myth website on March 22, 2016.

We haven't even gotten the New Tour Smell out of our clothes yet, and Sara Routh and Rae Davis already find themselves in the middle of the longest, hardest stretch of the whole thing.

Leaving Omaha on the morning of day three, they drive eight hours to Oklahoma City for a show that night, then pile right back into the car for another seven hours of driving to Santa Fe where they grab a few hours sleep before playing an afternoon show in Albuquerque, followed by an evening house show back in Santa Fe.

Everything after this is cake.

CULTURE MYTH - Day 3: Oklahoma City

Written by Chad Taylor. Originally appeared on the Culture Myth website on March 20, 2016.

There's nobody here. That's not even that big of an exaggeration: the crowd is so small, that at one point Sara Routh makes everyone go around the room and introduce themselves. And yet, this place is what you wish every show could embody.

The venue. Holy shit, the venue. JJ's Alley Bricktown Pub is a tiny, dirty, glorious clusterfuck of kitsch. The walls are covered with such a jumbled, eclectic collection of doll heads, signs, doors, toys, glasses and various random fuckery as to be nearly overwhelming in their incomprehensibility. The first thing one does when entering JJ's for the first time is gape.

CULTURE MYTH - Day 1: Des Moines

Starting today, and continuing on or near the 10th and 25th of every month, we will be reprinting a post from Chad Taylor's blog, Culture Myth. Chad Taylor was the music reporter for Cityview magazine in Des Moines, although he has also written for other publications like DSM Magazine.

Written by Chad Taylor. Originally appeared on the Culture Myth website on March 18, 2016

Rae Davis' cousin came to see her play tonight.

"All this time, I didn't even know we were living in the same city," she says afterward, still in disbelief. "Then I look up from the stage, and there she is."

The Davis clan is not the only one represented in the Des Moines Social Club's Basement Bar tonight, either. For both Davis and Sara Routh, the venue is full of parents and relatives and friends and loved ones. It's full of family.

For nearly 500 years of our human history, it was customary for people at home to come to the shore and watch ships leaving the harbor. It was a chance to say a final farewell to loved ones standing on deck, and a way of wishing the vessel good luck as it pushed forth into the great unknown or, at very least, the great known but still really dangerous and unpredictable.

It can be impossible to know how luck will fare on a given voyage. Ferdinand Magellan left Seville with five ships and nearly 300 men, and returned three years later with one ship and 18 men, but those 18 men had gone all the way around the world by the time they were done, so everyone called it a net win.

But in those first moments, as people get ready to push off into the realm of adventure, possibilities are endless and hope is in easy abundance. Such was the feeling in the Des Moines Social Club's Basement Bar, as Davis and Routh kicked off the final leg of Routh's "Black Sheep" tour, in support of her album by that name.

The road is nothing new to Routh; she's traveled the world, lived just about everywhere, and hitting the road on Friday towards Omaha marks her third trip in support of this album alone. But no matter how many times you hit the road, having the camaraderie of family on that first stop is something that can not be overstated, nor replaced by some weaker substitute.

Every crowd means something. Just the fact that people have taken their time to come out and see what you do--especially in a new town, where they are often out on little more than a friend's recommendation or an interesting poster--means everything to a musician; the acts of performing and viewing a live show are mutual leaps of faith. So while an artist is grateful and appreciative of every single person who pays a cover or picks up a CD, a crowd of familial faces is uniquely loved.

We have things like GPS in our lives now. We have smart phones and wireless networks and cars that can run for 100,000 miles without a hiccup. When we look out over the distant horizon, we no longer gaze into the night and think "there be dragons." We know what lies out in the Great Beyond. So when family sees you off on an adventure, it is no longer a way of seeing your face for potentially the last time. Instead, any thoughts or fears for the future are replaced by a feelings of love and support. "Go be bold," they are saying. "Be brave, be amazing. Be great."

There will be other crowds on this voyage across the western United States. There will even, heavens willing, be bigger crowds, packed with friends both old and new. But for the first night, for the beginning of a trip months in the planning, there couldn't have been a more perfect one.

Davis' uncle passed away last year. She marks it as a turning point in the relationships among the various extended family members. Everyone came together to celebrate a great man's life, and in that time, they might have rediscovered something great about one another, and it's possible that each person, in some small way, inwardly promised themselves to do more.

Not that an explanation is needed, but when asked, it's the only explanation that Davis can come up with for her cousin's surprise inclusion with all the other parents and children and closest friends down at The Basement.

"We're family."

On or near the 10th and 25th of every month, we reprint a post from Chad Taylor's blog, Culture Myth. Chad Taylor was the music reporter for Cityview magazine in Des Moines, although he has also written for other publications like DSM Magazine.

The Culture Myth website:
http://culturemyth.net/


PREVIOUSLY ON IOWA MUSIC SHOWCASE:

YOUR OWN PRIVATE IOWA - Episode 16: Sisko Diq
https://iowamusicshowcase.blogspot.com/2018/01/your-own-private-iowa-episode-16-sisko.html

EPISODE 59: Favorites of 2017 (and The State of The Website Speech) -
http://iowamusicshowcase.blogspot.com/2018/01/episode-59-favorites-of-2017-and-state.html

A Whole Bunch of Boring Statistics on Favorites of 2016 and the Favorite Posts of the Year -
http://iowamusicshowcase.blogspot.com/2018/01/a-whole-bunch-of-boring-statistics-on.html

YOUR OWN PRIVATE IOWA - Episode 15: Morning Sex and The Good Weed -
http://iowamusicshowcase.blogspot.com/2018/01/your-own-private-iowa-episode-15.html

JAZZMAN JOE VIDEOS - Josh Duffee and The Graystone Monarchs at the 45th Bix Biederbecke Jazz Festival at The Waterfront Convention Center in Bettendorf on Aug 6, 2016 -
https://iowamusicshowcase.blogspot.com/2018/01/jazzman-joe-videos-josh-duffee-and.html

Two weeks ago...
YOUR OWN PRIVATE IOWA - Episode 10: H.D. Harmsen -
http://iowamusicshowcase.blogspot.com/2017/12/your-own-private-iowa-episode-10-hd_28.html

Three weeks ago...
YOUR OWN PRIVATE IOWA - Episode 9: Courtney Krause -
http://iowamusicshowcase.blogspot.com/2017/12/your-own-private-iowa-episode-9.html

One month ago...
EPISODE 58: Happy Hawkeye Holidays 2017, Part 3 of 3 - Scrooge -
http://iowamusicshowcase.blogspot.com/2017/12/episode-58-happy-hawkeye-holidays-2017.html

Three months ago...
EPISODE 52 - Happy Hawkeye Halloween 2017, Part 1 of 4: Killer Cows and Other Iowa Furry Monsters -
http://iowamusicshowcase.blogspot.com/2017/10/episode-52-happy-hawkeye-halloween-part.html

Six months ago...
OTHER SOURCES: Pants Off Mixtape Vol. 1 -
http://iowamusicshowcase.blogspot.com/2017/07/other-sources-pants-off-mixtape-vol-1.html

One year ago...
Episode 42: The Acts of Iowa Music Showcase Live -
http://iowamusicshowcase.blogspot.com/2017/01/episode-42-acts-of-iowa-music-showcase.html

Two years ago...
Episode 24: Favorites of 2015 -
http://iowamusicshowcase.blogspot.com/2016/01/episode-24-favorites-of-2015.html

Three years ago...
Episode 1: Iowa Pride -
http://iowamusicshowcase.blogspot.com/2015/01/episode-1-iowa-pride.html


OTHER IMSC WEBSITES AND LINKS:
Feed:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/IowaMusicShowcase
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Iowa-Music-Showcase/364796883703114
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/iamusicshowcase
Instagram:
https://instagram.com/iowamusicshowcase

Labels: 2016, black sheep, Chad Taylor, Culture Myth, Des Moines, Des Moines area, family, folk music, indie musicians, live performance, on the road, performing, Rae Davis, Sara Routh, singer/songwriter, touring