What was it? How many days ago now? The world slows down at the end of the year but the time still goes flying past in some candle lit holiday table of warmth and tears.
But it was the 18th - the Saturday before solstice. Down in Portland playing a "Longest Night" event. kindof a new agey gathering at a Quaker Meeting House.....A story teller, me, and a crew of belly dancers all followed by peace dances and snacks in the downstairs. It was good to play to a full room with no PA. Just candles and stories in the indoor wintery dark. The belly dancers were cool as they filed in through the back door of the round room. Candle flame cast shadows of dancing arms and rhythmic cymbal fingers on the wall. The music and scene made me feel stoney and my mind tripped out and pretended that the shadows were magic and didn't match up with the dancer's bodies as they moved. And if you looked close the shadow arms were actually snakes moving just so on their own ~ dancing on the wall.
Back at Jeff's apartment we recorded some songs on his computer, burned out, and played records. Jeff went the three blocks for the second six pack and the night passed in some hazey technicolor Mobius trip of HP Lovecraft with their Marty Balan harmonies, live Laura Veirs, two Mad River albums, and Clive Palmer's new solo record (he was in the Incredible string Band for the first album and now tours with Mike Herron again). I looked at the clock when that album went on and it was 5:29 AM (I wrote it down). Faded to sleep with Vashti Bunyan singing. The next day I completed a year-and-a-half long mission and found "Just Another Diamond Day" Vashti Bunyan's lost 1970 masterpiece. She left London in 1969 by horse and wagon and traveled north to Scotland to find Donovan at his camp on the Isle of Skye. My friend Derek Parrott didn't know Vashti but joined Donovan at his camp where he took the photo that became the cover of Songs for Miriam and Other People. That's Donovan's wagon there on the cover. Vashti missed Donovan and went on to Edinburgh to live in a row house with The Incredible String Band before returning to London and making her amazing album. And somehow that brings this all back to Clive Palmer singing and the fading night (or is it coming dawn?) at Jeff's apartment and the last thing he said before heading off to bed was "it crossed your mind and never left your head." I had dreams of waves and coastline cica Scotland 1969.
