Provo Canyon: the past, present, and future of music touring

I've had a great time hanging out with my family this week in Utah County, especially playing with my nephew Pace ("peace" in Italian), who waddles to his toy box and pulls out his rainbow colored xylophone whenever he sees me.

On Wednesday I got to participate in Ashley Sander's Weekly Discussion Night down at Brigham Young University. Ashley's been busy organizing BYU's Alternative Commencement (www.byualternativecommencement.com) to the official one which'll feature Dick Cheney as the keynote speaker. With BYU's reputation as one of the most conservative campuses in North America, the efforts of Ashley and her friends have definitely sent some feathers flying, and peace shaking into smithereens. I love these people.

While there I got to explain the sustainable rock & roll vision to folks (about 30 people) and answer some questions from the crowd.
My favorite question was (don't quote me on the exactness of the quotes, but it was basically): "do you ever wonder if, or worry that, your hope and faith in people, and your vision, aren't rooted in reality and might even be naive?"
I answered: "I think my vision is rooted in reality because of nights like tonight. I mean look around this room. We're at BYU, in the reddest of red counties, in the reddest of red states. Most of you here tonight are Mormon. Most of us were raised here. And yet here we all are - talking about sustainable rock & roll, an alternative commencement, the environment, the importance of being stewards of the community of life, etc. I mean, even in the places on earth most people would never think it would be possible - a new consciousness - trans-religious, trans-ethnicity, trans-political - is emerging. The proof is all of us here tonight. The proof is our bicycles out in the hallway. The proof is the words coming out of our mouths."

On Saturday, The Caravan met at the Orem Public Library. While there we held up a sign Raquel Callis had made in support of the larger www.StepitUp2007.org effort. And it was GREAT - I almost died laughing when this dude in a BMW shouted at us: "Global warming is BULLSHIT!" like he was straight out of Jerry Springer. Just comically irate. Hilarious.

The ride up the canyon was mellow - passing giant rock fins and 12,000 ft. peaks.
The trail up into Johnson's Bowl was way steeper, thinner, and longer than I remembered it - so it was pretty exhilirating for my brother-in-law Andy and I to try manuevering 120 lbs. of bike up it without falling off the edge. I imagined what it must've been like for the American pioneers to navigate these passes with wooden pushcarts, and wagons filled with cast-iron stoves. Nuts.

Coming over the last rise, we looked over Johnson's Bowl - an almost totally flat meadow the size of 2 football fields, mysteriously carved into the side of Mount Timpanogos. Scattered in one area of the bowl are giant stones that look like Druid altars, or like where Aslan got sacrificed by the White Witch. The feel of the bowl however, is very serene and magical - like standing in the center of a giant grassy sattelite sending off gentle signals to The Mystery that are just barely inaudible to the human ear. Up above the rim of the bowl is almost 360 degrees of the craggy snow-topped Wasatch Mountains, filled with shaggy white mountain goats, cougars, and moose.

Dusk settled in suddenly but softly like a navy blue bedsheet getting tossed over your head when you're a little kid. We were turning into ghost people - outlines of faces getting foggier. So Oliver Callis took charge of making the fire while I got busy setting up the PA.

It was amazing to see the juxtaposition of the ancient light of fire and the ultra-modern green neon light of the pedal-powered PA. But suprising to us all, was how in this elemental, ancient, and timeless wilderness kind of setting, the two forms of human-made light seemed equally appropriate and harmonious. The gathering of human beings, wrapped in blankets, surrounding a fire and musicians, all surrounded by monument mountains and the western sky, resonated in all of us in a truthful and primal way. It felt like we were part of a long chain of humanity, with our pedal-powered PA interpreting it in a uniquely 2007 way, but participating in a ritual that our great great great great great great x 600 grandparents had also participated in without a doubt~ the action resonated in our bones.

Debra Fotheringham opened the evening, and played til her fingers became icecubes - what a player, what a voice! She was followed by The Galaxy of Heartbreak, a musician who I've believed (and still do) is the greatest Utah songwriter ever since I first saw him at Juice & Java (Orem's only coffee shop at the time) in 1998, in 10th grade. Honky tonk, country, and folk echoed through Johnson's Bowl while The Caravan pedaled on with gusto. I could only imagine that 3000 years ago my ancient Uto-Aztecan grandpa might've been sitting here in this bowl awaiting his turn to step forward and share his music and tales with his friends. And though the stage is ours now, that mountain, that night, this earth, is ours now - in our modern interpretation of this ancient human ritual I felt like our actions weren't modern at all. I got the sense that what I perceived as a glimpse into the future of music and rock & roll touring, was actually a glimpse into the reality that "sustainable music" is a timeless action, no matter what generation. So for my great-times-a-million grandparents, and my great-times-a-million grandchildren, I yodeled, hollered, and sang like this night was my first and last.