Telluride Piece

I was recently given my first ever press pass. background is that a kid I knew in High school started a magazine. Funny tangent, he originally decided, at Bonnaroo, that he was going to start a fake magazine whose sole purpose was to get him press credentials, but while making this happen, realized a real magazine would be just as easy and more fun. Anyway, I was given this pass to the Telluride Blues and Brews festival, and wrote this piece about it. I told him to expect something unusual...

2006 Telluride Blues and Brews Festival

The 2006 Telluride Blues and Brews Festival(link29) has come and gone. I happened to be there, and am here to tell my story.

For those of you who do not know, Telluride is nestled in an extremely scenic part of the San Juan Mountains in Colorado. Also, for those of you who do not know, great music, delicious microbrews and a colorful magic-carpet mountain setting tend to go fairly well together.

(pic of whole scene)

The festival is 3 days long, and because it started early on Friday (noon), the intelligent festival-goers, such as myself, arrived Thursday afternoon and started drinking. Hard.

Tents were constructed and Colorado microbrews were drank. The Oskar Blues microbrewery (link1) in Lyons, Colorado makes a few great canned beers including the phonetically pleasing Dale’s Pale Ale and the dead-serious Old Chub Scottish style ale. It felt right. The camping set-up was better than any festival I have been to, great scenery and seclusion were available to those who sought them.

As the night went on, bars were patronized, microbrews were slurped (New Blegium, Ska Brewing company, Flying Dog), (links2-4) music was heard, and timeless truths were attained (I bet girls that play professional volleyball give really good spankings.)

(photoshopped pic of volleyball player spiking/spanking)

Pizza was also consumed at the delicious Brown Dog Pizza place. The waitress gave us her phone number and free pizza, so it became inappropriate for me to deface the life-size, cardboard Joe Paterno, who had been giving me a stern, disapproving look since we arrived.

There are three saloons in Telluride, which has to be one of the higher per-capita saloon levels for a town this century. The Dynamites(link5) played at one of these on Thursday night. They played hard and they played funky. Their singer was short. And he was funky.

The festival began the next morning. It felt like Sunday to me, but it also felt like those first days of summer when you’re a kid, and you just have absolutely endless time for play ahead of you. I woke up to people quoting the Jaws movie outside my tent, which had allowed entrance of plenty of rainwater over the night. I cared not. There were blues to be heard.

Friend and Kemiks founder Jonny had arrived by this time, and together we jumped ear-first into the tide of the festival. Jimbo Mathus(Link6) and Lightnin’ Malcolm(Link7) were a solid start, and James Blood Ulmer(Link8) provided an early highlight. The man is blues. He has a look like he could open his mouth and 12 or 16 bars of blue guitar notes would come out, depending on what he had eaten. His music takes you to a different place.

(pic of James Blood Ulmer)

The crowd was older, but they were rockin’, and they were hard-drinkin’. I was not offered drugs a single time, but I think I heard someone slanging some “heady Lipitor.” After 5 hours of music, there were surprisingly few signs of fatigue, and that little bit were effortlessly wiped out by Bobby Rush.

(pic of crowd)

Something about the blues can keep a man young, and this phenomenon was evident in the crowd and personified by Mr. Rush. The man is 73 years old and looks in his early 40s. He has released 249 records, and plays like he still has to prove himself with every note.

He was a hard act to follow, but Lou Reed(Link9) closed down the evening in style. “Waitin’ for the Man” set the crowd off, and they were still talking about his version of “The Raven” (Link 10) when the festival ended.

(pic of Lou Reed)

For those of us who felt six shows and a blues competition were not enough for one day, one could exchange $25 for a wrist-band that provided entrance to all the Juke Joints, or night-shows. After all, nothing accompanies a day of blues and brews like a night of blues and brews.

I managed to attend four more shows at four more bars that evening, but can offer few details. There was even great Blues at the local Elks(link 11) chapter, which provided a lovely ambiance for my long-awaited deuce on a real toilet. That thing was a porcelain God, and as one does whenever one encounters a deity, I left a generous offering. At another saloon, James Blood Ulmer laid down some sweet sounds that perfectly complimented my New Belgium 1554, one of the finer beers on the planet. I also recall following through with my brilliant idea of smuggling a pint of Smugglers Pale(link 12) between the Jimbo Mathus/Lightnin’ Malcolm show and the Watermelon Slim (link 13)show.

(pic of one of these shows)

These are the days that can only happen at a festival. And we had two more left. Needless to say, the still wet tent full of 30 degree air provided a wonderful night’s sleep after all that, and Saturday was greeted with hung-over, yet open, arms.

The beer festival started at noon. The idea of offering all the beer one can drink, from over 100 taps, at 12 PM, to some must seem like the devil’s work, but we at Telluride that sunny afternoon thought it a grand idea, and a grand time for the Grand Tasting. We knew it was going to be a long day, and made a serious point of reminding ourselves to eat amidst the 14 hour stupor that lay ahead of us.

For the purpose of accurate journalism, I tallied my beers drank on my arm, and for the purpose of Gonzo Journalism (link 14), I aimed to make that number disgustingly high.

When noon struck, and the taps started flowing, it looked like it will probably look at Wrigley Field if the Cubs were to ever win the penant. A sea of smiles, embracing the tide of beer that stood before them.

(pic of tasting)

We were given 6oz cups, and with 55 microbreweries(Link 15), with an average of 3 different beers each, and a strong personal desire to try each one…..well I couldn’t do the math at the time, but here it is: 55 X 3 X 6 = 990 ounces, or 82 ½ beers. I knew it would be wise to dump out at least half of every cup, to be able to try more brews, but I just couldn’t give the grass of Telluride Town Park that kind of luxury treatment. I drank mostly stouts, and remember Three Rivers (Link 16), Flying Dog(link 4) and Bristol (Link17) being among my favorites. There was also a Bierbitzch (link18) brewing company, which won the award for best merchandise.

(Pic of bierbitzsch shirt)

The first hour was blissful. Joey Gilmore(link19) harmonized over the cheers and gulping sounds, and we all took advantage of our still-present ability to discern flavors. Buzzes were quickly acquired. The second hour was lovely as well. Stomachs were full and reminders of the virtue of patience were plentiful. I had about fifteen tallies on my arm, and still felt strong. Watermelon Slim provided the music, but I think my ears were clogged with barley and hops.

The third hour was….different. As it tends to happen with those drawn out drinking sprints, I went from feeling pretty well to completely losing my shit in a matter of moments. I was in yet another line, sipping yet another beer, and was slapped in the face by the imminence of voluminous vomit. I made it most of the way to the row of porto-johns, but upon noticing lines for all of them I was forced to let loose in the middle of the crowd. I quickly walked away from the scene of that crime but felt another coming on. I saw some little kids running around, and didn’t want to hit any of them with a Technicolor yawn, but my attempt to channel the next blast into my cup was ineffective, as it was only 6 ounces and had been filled up 18 times in the last two hours. That scene was fled as well, amidst a few little voices saying “ewww gross.” I made my way to the water faucet, rinsed my cup, attempted to clean my sweatshirt, gave up and took off my sweatshirt, and wandered over to the stage.

Grace Potter(link20) was rocking out, and by the time the next song began, I felt like a new man. I lowered my beer-goal to twenty, and set off to find Jon, who was probably wondering why I just ran away mid-sentence, and achieve my new goal. A blonde and a stout did me well, as they would for any ma, whether their form be beer or lady. All the sudden it was 3:00, we were filthy drunk, and had a whole afternoon full of blues, sunshine and college football ahead of us.

Naturally, I can provide little insight into the events of that afternoon. I know that I punched a picture of Ben Wallace and broke the frame, which surprised me because I’m a very jolly drunk, and was not even aware that I hated Ben Wallace. We watched Michigan trounce Notre Dame while I drank Pabsts at the Brown Dog. I heard it was great pizza, but I was personally in no position to objectively judge the quality of food, women or most anything else. I still had the capacity to know some kickass music when I heard it, and hear it I did. I think I also fell asleep somewhere.

(do we have pics of any of this?)

We stumbled back into the festival in time to hear Howard Tate(Link21) and Bruce Hornsby and the Noisemakers(link22). They were both probably good. I was reminded that we were not the only people painfully drunk for that early hour, which warmed my heart and filled my glass.

(pic of pants-pee guy)

Night fell with a cold vengeance some time during one of these sets, and we sought shelter in the only way two intelligent, drunken men could. In a Gondola. The Gondola took us up to the Telluride Mountain Village, where we warmed ourselves over rye beers and got funky with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band(Link23). They brought me back to life, and I remember it well, as one of my favorite shows of the weekend.

It ended, and we somehow managed to press on. We saw the ends of a Tab Benoit(link24) set, which was solid, and an even better Watermelon Slim(link13) encore, which marked his third show of the weekend. It also marked the point where I could not physically stay up any longer. We had vowed to attend the 2AM Backyard Groove, but we were devastated by last call at 1:30. It’s a strange, uncomfortable feeling to be drunk and hung-over at the same time, and after being finally unable to buy more beer, I was ready for it to be over.

I was given a tostado on the way home, and being unable to eat it while stumbling through the dark towards my tent, I brought it into my sleeping bag with me. It was a day where trying to eat a sloppy tostado while completely submerged into a polar sleeping bag was not nearly the dumbest or most challenging task. Sleep took me at about bite number three. It embraced me like a wife embraces a young soldier home from Iraq, but it was far less tender to the tostado.

Sunday began poorly. I made it to Blues For Breakfast, but attendance was limited, presumably because many festival-goers, like myself, had the too-hung-over-to-eat-blues. We brought chairs into the festival that day, and participated in one of the deepest chills I have ever known. The sun was shining, the hangover was sedated, and the chairs fit perfectly. A cascade of bands came and left, and we chilled right through it.

The Voice of the Wetlands Allstars(Link25) managed to finally get us out of our chairs, and we used the opportunity to buy some cool shit(Link26)from a vendor. They had a guy on stilts and a guy in some sort of full dress and a strong New Orleans groove that had the crowd moving on puppet-strings. Joe Louis Walker(link27) kept us going, and John Mayer(Link28) closed it out with a great set, that once again reminded the crowd he was more than just a pretty face, although that screaming adolescent girl factor did rear it’s ugly, braces-wearing head.

(pic of mayer or mayer fans)

The festival ended with that feeling all festivals end with; a pining eagerness for a bed and some down-time, combined with a sadness that the whole beautiful thing is over. I was left with a new appreciation for the blues, a reminder of why I love festivals, and a resolution to take a good week off of the sauce. I hope I’ve left you with all these. If not, well, get your ass to Telluride next September. Bitch.

Link1 - http://www.oskarblues.com/
Link2 - http://www.newbelgium.com/
Link3 - http://www.skabrewing.com/
Link4 - http://www.flyingdogales.com/
Link5 - http://www.myspace.com/thedynamitesband
Link6 - http://www.myspace.com/jimbomathus
Link7 - http://www.lightninmalcolm.com/
Link8 - http://www.hyenarecords.com/james.htm
Link9 - http://www.loureed.org/
Link10 - http://www.comnet.ca/~forrest/raven.html
Link11 - http://www.elks.org/
Link12 - (smugglers brewpub)
Link13 - http://www.watermelonslim.com/
Link14 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzo_journalism
Link15- http://www.tellurideblues.com/2004/breweries.html
Link16 - http://www.threeriversbrewery.com
Link17 - http://www.bristolbrewing.com/
Link18 - http://www.bierbitzch.com/
Link19 - http://www.joeygilmore.net/
Link20 - http://www.gracepotter.com/
Link21 - www.howardtate.net
Link22 - http://www.brucehornsby.com/
Link23 - http://www.dirtydozenbrass.com/
Link24 - http://www.tabbenoit.com/
Link25http://www.voiceofthewetlands.com/sunshine.htm
Link26 - http://www.harmonikstones.com/bottles.php
Link27 - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Louis_Walker
Link28 - http://www.myspace.com/johnmayer
Link29 - http://www.tellurideblues.com/