PicoBlog

  I went out to California on my own just after the Outlaw Country Cruise. The reason was to join an old friend, Roy Ruth for a reading he was giving of some of his work in his hometown of Fresno. He and I go way back to the early oughts when we met at a now defunct coffee house in South Austin called The Green Muse. This was in my cigarette smoking days when me and my young family lived on Wilson Street off of Oltorf. The Green Muse was my local coffeehouse I could walk to, though I often drove. It was next to a gas station, across the street from a Popeyes chicken and a Churches chicken next to each other. There was a pawnshop, porn store and a mechanic nearby. The Green Muse abutted to a park that was basically the front yard of a low-income housing project.  It was then a high crime area. Having been broken into many times I finally learned not to leave valuables in my car. Once I had a cell phone stolen out of our car. This was when cell phones were not so important and we might leave them in a car. We didn’t live with them 24-7. Flip phones were not sexy. They were utilitarian at best but still cost money. I called the phone and a young man answered. I asked him why he stole my phone. He claimed he just found it in the park. I asked if I could come get it from him. Hey refused. I said I could meet him at the Green Muse. He refused. I went to the Green Muse anyway that day to smoke my cigarettes  without my children around. I was trying to be a good example to them. But for anyone that’s ever been addicted to nicotine you know how hard that can be. This day I remember meeting on the porch, approximately 10 years older than me, with a Donegal beard, smoking camels I believe, Roy Ruth.  His real name is Chris Giffin. He commented on my smoking “the healthy cigarettes” American Spirit blues, the hard ones. He was disheveled looking yet scholarly, well spoken with a deep baritone voice. We talked Robert Caro biographies about LBJ, Kennedy, Vietnam, Reaganism, Texas, California  the heat of the day. Our friendship grew after that and we later did a show together at the Green Muse. I would sing a song, he would read some of his writing. He was traveling the country on a motorcycle writing novels, in verse form like some kind of James Dean meets Homer, The Odyssey Without A Cause. Jeff Brown referred to him as "The Motorcycle Poet."

  I suspect he had never performed for the public in this way and it inspired him. It sent him on a long journey, an epic years-long project combining his monotone scrolls with music and recording it. He spent a great amount of money, time and energy creating this vast multimedia project  of which I had nothing to do with. But  many of my friends were embroiled and heavily invested in creating this with him. Chris went back to California some years later. Though he comes back-and-forth occasionally to Austin. Usually we meet for breakfast and coffee. I quit smoking years ago, though he still imbibes in the devil tobacco. I tell him he needs to stop at his age. He just laughs and lights another one. I went out to Fresno to support and perform with him again maybe one last time; hard to say. We were joined by an Austin guitar player named Landis Armstrong who is also close friends with Chris. And it was a fun show for us. Chris didn’t have a great show, but me and Landis supported and enjoyed our time with him.

  I decided it might be fun to pick up a couple of solo shows so I booked one in Sacramento and one in Novato. I seem to have only been playing California cities that ended in the letter “O.” I asked Landis to join me on guitar for that and then my old friend Grubdog Mitchell from Sacramento, formally of Austin suggested he could play percussion and sing some harmonies. The more the merrier I thought.  We formed an unexpected delightful trio the three of us.  Sacramento was rough but fun.  By the time we got to Novato on the 24th we had a little bit better feel for how to perform the songs, a mixture of Shinyribs favorites and some other unusual selections.

  This performance is a song from Late Night TV Gold. It is the last song on the record though it was one of the first songs that made me decide I was going to make a record at home. The concept originally for late night TV was to make one song with one track that people would have to listen to the whole thing. That’s why Favorite Song ends with a long instrumental bit on that record. I soon caved on that concept and just started putting together a conventional sequence that I am proud of. I think it’s a unique record. We’ve never played this one with the band. I remember Keith Langford suggesting that it maybe wasn’t finished and needed a horn part or other parts. He was right it was hasty. Which is why it ended up at the end of late night TV. But I like this song. It is about the feeling one has for their beloved like that of a favorite song.  One day perhaps there’ll  be a horn part and that will be fun. For now this is a little video of our of our funky California Trio, at the HopMonk Tavern in Novato, California: me, Grubdog Mitchell and Landis Armstrong doing favorite song hope you enjoy it . 

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