Take me back to Tulsa
Im in Tulsa now for a quick little roadtrip. I had hoped to take a few of these while I had the break.
This weekend is the Claremore Bluegrass and Chili festival. I’ve heard of this a few times over the years. This year the headliners are Tony Rice, Russell Moore and IIIrd time out, Rhonda Vincent and the Rage, Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver as well as Dan Tyminski (the singing voice of George Clooney in “Brother Where Art Thou”).
Unfortunately, Tony Rice…the guy I wanted to see the most, had to cancel due to Hurricane Gustav. (?? I’m not sure why…but whatever). His backup band, Mountain Heart, is usually a headliner anyway so they just played a longer set. The sound was excellent.
I didn’t find much jamming last night…but it was a Thursday. Bluegrass festivals in Texas/OK are much
different than the ones I’m used to in California. Out in California, the shows start Friday night and continue on until Sunday finishing with a gospel set and a few more winding down acts in the afternoon while folks procrastinate between packing up or having a few last beers.
Out here, the shows start on Thursday and are done Saturday night. I guess folks need to get back to church.
Bluegrass festivals are largely alcohol free as opposed to the “Texas Music” festivals like Larry Joes. Note that even the beer soaked festivals don’t have shows on Sundays. The two groups don’t seem to mix much.
Tonight should be pretty good. I hope to find a little more jamming…I’m kinda selective about thegroups I play bluegrass with. I like them to be better than me.
Tulsa is kinda neat. Its definitely an oil town. There are two refineries smack dab in the city center. Doesn’t seem to make gas any cheaper.
There are tons of neat motels on route 66 that herald a day when all you needed was a 15 foot blue whale in front of your motel to get customers to stop and stay. Thats WAAAY better than free wi-fi. Lots of neat old signs.
Downtown has a ton of older buildings. Very Art Deco.
I drove around a bit. There are plenty of independent coffee shops and art stores.
I read about one part called the Brookside district. Its supposed to be hip and trendy. Coming from Dallas that reads “New Urbanism“…blech. In reality, it looked like an older neighborhood like Lower Greenville in the 1980’s. Hope it stays like that and doesn’t end up like 2008 Lower Greenville.
There are a lot of pottery shops too. Guess with all these artists, the coffee shop I’m at got a deal on custom coffee cups.
I had hoped to drop by the Mercury Lounge too to say hello. The Sues had a gig booked there a year ago that was cancelled by the booking agent. Unfortunately, it was one of those situations where the disgruntled booking agent cancelled the acts and didnt tell the club. We are still on the website as a featured band…but have never played there. The least I could do is step foot in it for a minute or two.