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George Burt's Texas Diary


 
Saturday
pissing rain... meet George L at the theatre in Hope Street where we are to pick up the enormous sarcophagus that will contain the Double Bass... we follow GL to the Glasgow airport... Martine McCutcheon wanders about looking completely vacuous... some lad from a boyband who had recently made a big fuss about coming out is mobbed by a lot of schoolgirls... by exercising our management and negotiating skills we manage to get all the gear and ourselves on the flight without incurring excess baggage charges, though this will return to haunt us... We are told to take the sarcophagus to the "double doors"... these Kafkaesque portals are at the end of the line of check in desks... I knock politely. No response. I thump politely with the side of my fist. Nothing. I hammer on the doors with both hands and kick repeatedly. An entirely different door opens. "You're not supposed to be there...What do you want...?" I explain about the bass. "Wait there." We wait and wait. Finally three big guys make George open everything up. This takes ages. GL is not pleased.
In the departure lounge we have a coffee and look at each other. The MacDonald Family charm-vibe gets going. Allan starts on about airport architecture. GL squints inscrutably through fag smoke... It dawns on us all separately that we are now going to be inseparable for the next seven days... Raymond and I pass out a couple of pages which will ensure we're all going to tell the same story at Chicago immigration...
The inflight movie is the blandest piece of crap imaginable. I read "Inversions" which is not much better... How much longer can Iain Banks go on writing books on the theme of "things are not what they seem...?" GL reads a life of Kafka... Allan sleeps...
Chicago airport. We get through customs and immigration without fuss. We start to think we might have enough time for a quick trip downtown before our connection to Austin... but no. We drink more coffee, and lose count of the stretch limos....
The flight to Austin is quiet. There are huge thunderstorms over the Midwest, lighting up the sky... we fly over cities I've only read about, or seen in films...
It is an astonishingly hot night in Austin, like sticking your head in an oven... Hope Young, the head of the Center for Music Therapy in Austin is at the Airport to meet us with a 4x4, borrowed from a neighbour, and Stefanie, one of the therapists on her staff... Hope gets mixed up with her Georges... her little son, Brendin is curled up in his p.j.s in the front seat of the 4x4, anxious to see a bunch of Scottish people. We load up. This seems to take a long time...I suppose we're tired. I sit up front with Hope. She explains carefully about the route from the Airport to her house... we're on the I-35. Pretty soon we'll be on the Ben White Boulevard, going past Manchaca Road, where the Center is, and where the great western swing band Asleep at the Wheel have an office and a studio...
We have a few beers and go to bed, GL and I share a big room with a huge bathroom. Allan gets a bed in an attic which he can use until Gustavo arrives from Buenos Aires... Raymond trips up the stairs and bruises his toe really badly...
Sunday
I wake up at about five their time. I've brought my granddad's old pocket watch to keep on uk time. He loved a good Western. The moon here lies on its back like the grin on the Cheshire cat... It is unexpectedly cold... Breakfast is canteloupe, cereal, and herbal tea, including stuff made from "peppermint leaves, spearmint leaves and the words of a shaman." Raymond's toe now looks broken to me... GL starts performing reiki on it... Hope gives us a peptalk about Texas fauna... two kinds of coral snake, both beautiful, only one will kill you... "Red & yellow, you're ok fellow; Red and black, you're dead, jack." Black widow spider. Brown Recluse spider. Copperheads. Cottonmouths. Scorpions.
Hope arranged a potluck dinner to introduce us to her staff, who are all, like Stefanie, startlingly goodlooking, energetic and capable. Drank a good many bottles of german beer. Texans love it. Wound up singing the Shiekh of Araby accompanied by a neighbour called Andrew, aka George Carver, who is a casually good guitarist... he's got a regular gig at a famous joint called the Broken Spoke, which has one of Bob Wills's cigar butts in a glass case. We never get to go there, much to GL's disappointment.
I'm really worried and anxious about nearly everything, Hope's grand Texas hospitality, the effort put into this whole project, the expectations we've got to live up to, the strangeness all around, the expertise and learning of the staff of the Center, the prospect of the Stanley Jordan gig, all this starts to get to me... I'm especially worried by the children's music workshop we are booked to do this afternoon. I phone Kay back in Scotland to tell her we've arrived ok, and to have a moan, but while I'm whining away, a humming bird bumps gently on the window, and starts feeding on the flowers...
We get to the Center, and set up for the workshop. I give the least inspirational manager's peptalk there's ever been about any human activity since the dawn of human society... The children come tumbling in, and we get started. The stuff we prepared isn't suitable, and we start making things up about storms and droughts. My confidence wobbles, and Raymond works hard at keeping things going, leaping about on the floor, injured toe and all... Stefanie and Tiffany look after some of the more needy participants. "It was a difficult group", they assure me after we're done. Yes. But so's every group. A minor miracle: six weeks of rainlessness come to an end while we're imitating thunder and rain with percussion instruments. Prosperous Texans lead their dancing and polite brown children through huge puddles to their Volvos, trucks and Suburbans, laughing and singing under teeming warm rain...

Monday
I thought Hope was busy at the weekend, but today was just ridiculous. She expects to get a little time to herself in a few weeks. She and Raymond go to borrow a p.a. and a Twin Reverb from one of her guitar students who now has his own band. Raymond also visits a friend from a previous visit and comes back EXTREMELY WIRED on coffee. We've been off it. Hope takes no caffeine, and we keep forgetting to bring the coffee maker from the centre. We are cold turkey, and proud of it. We are all very anxious to get some rehearsal time in. We try to get started, but the thing limps along... I suppose we're still a bit tired. Raymond joins us for a few numbers, and we have a pleasant lunch. Things start to look a bit brighter.
The documentary crew arrive to interview Raymond. The producer is a very drily witty woman called Shelia Cosper, and a plump guy called Core. I have a chat with him later in the day. Our accents are mutually incomprehensible. He explained his nickname. "My given name is Ty. You know. Ty. Core. Ty Core."
I find that I do not understand this.
Hope runs us into Austin while Raymond gets interviewed. GL, Allan, Nicola and I spend a pleasant afternoon pottering about book, record and souvenir shops. Iced Tea could become a habit. GL buys "The Autobiography of a Yogi". Allan finds a pub clock from Portobello, his home town.
We are picked up by another of Hope's extraordinary team of therapists. Tiffany is small dark haired woman from California. She has a lovely low even voice. "I have to go get my husband." "Damn," says GL, quietly. We get back to Hope's a little late. We have a gig at Mozart's Coffee House on the shores of Lake Austin. Raymond and Core have heroically loaded the 4x4 and Shelia's truck with the gear. Hope turns us all around, and we head back to the city.
Will George B get over his wobbly? Will Hope ever slow down? What will Stanley Jordan make of a pretty young Scotswoman? Is Gustavo Rodriguez Espada cooler than George L? Don't miss the next exciting episode!!!

 

George B's Texas Diary Part 2
 
Driving to the gig at Mozart's Coffee house. Raymond is driving our borrowed 4x4 Bronco, and he looks great; wraparound shades, left elbow protruding just the right amount out of the drivers' side window... he gives himself away by hugging the side of the road...
"Why does he DO that?”, asks Hope rhetorically..."Of COURSE, you guys drive on the LEFT, don’t you?"
The weather is gorgeous, a perfect summer evening by a scottish lochside. The Texans think it's autumn, and have their jackets and sweaters on. We set up under a tree growing through the acre of decking overlooking Lake Austin. The place is full of students and their laptops and cellphones. The gig goes pretty well... Hope collects seventy four dollars in the sax case and sells four CDs. The irate manager tries to stop this, (it's probably illegal), but Hope turns on the charm, and we get away with it. Raymond overhears a couple of college girls: "They're good, aren't they?" "Yeah, but the guy in the blue jacket (GL) is AWESOME."
Back at the house, Brendin gets the pull down bed in front of the fire (the sudden changes in temperature and humidity at this time of year are hard on little kids). We have a quiet supper of beer and quiche and go to bed, quietly.

Tuesday
We arrive at Pillow Elementary School at the end of the school day to do a workshop. Hope gives me a pep talk about the Principal. She is new to the post and doesn't approve of the elitist practise of some kids getting access to this kind of thing on the basis of their parents' ability to pay... Anyway, Little Train has been going well, and we get the children working away quite well... there are a couple of stars in this group... Penny, a plump 10 year old, was completely delighted with us, and seemed to think we were a cross between family pets and world superstars... Joseph (5? 6?) was a very good drummer... he got he 2 & 4 thing at once at became quite creative with it... Robert (one of Hope's clients) played some very nice bluesy things on guitar... another boy couldn’t play the guitar at all, but produced some very good turntably scratchy sounds from it...
This was a lot of fun, with a some really nice music being played. It nearly makes me forget about how awful I felt about the Sunday workshop. But not quite.
We dismount the stuff. I get as close to the rock'n'roll lifestyle as I'll ever get by loading a Gibson Les Paul and a Fender Twin Reverb into the back of a Bronco in the middle of Texas.
The George Burt/Raymond MacDonald Quartet are, it has to be said, utterly useless at loading gear into automobiles. There seems to be a general consensus that if we gently push the stuff toward the vehicle it'll somehow sort of go in... We get slightly better as the week progresses, but it's always a chore...
We now drive out to where the haute bourgeoisie (Andrew's term) live, out by Mount Bonell... Friends of Hope's, Dr Bill and Mrs Nancy Gorman are having texas style barbecue and we're the band... we set up on their astonishing lakeside patio and have a beer... There's a quick drive back to dockside at Mozart's to pick up our boat(!) We get a guided tour while zipping about Lake Austin at ridiculously high speeds..."That's James A Michener's house... Governor Bush lives up there.. he says it's the most romantic spot in the whole of the USA... you can see the corner of Sandra Bullock's guest house over there... that's where Lance Armstrong lives..." Our captain who was telling us all this had made two separate fortunes, one in video distribution and one in real estate... we tie up at Dr Bill's house, and are greeted extravagantly... barbecue turns out to be an extraordinary collection of all kinds of dishes served in some extremely hot sauces... bulging with highly spiced food and excellent beer, we play for a bit... I have a chat with Dr Bill. He's been to Scotland and loves Golf. He asks polite questions about the Scottish Parliament...
Wednesday
Hope & Raymond are busy with Centre business and filming. GL, Nicola, Allan and I go for a swim. Later we decide to take the truck and get some groceries. I find a shopping centre on the map that's not too far away... what could be simpler?
First off, I take fright at the automatic controls of the Bronco... nothing seems to be where you expect it... I finally get the engine started... the terrible thing starts creeping backwards down the drive... I have a sudden flash of squashing the little kids who scamper about the safe and clean streets of the Travis Country estate... I stamp on what should be the brake pedal... the bronco gives a surly roar and leaps forward... I stop the thing with the handbrake... and get out shaking like a leaf.... Nicola has a go, and we cruise gently round the block... this seems ok... we leave Allan sunbathing and head out to the highway. We immediately get lost, but don't immediately realise it, not until we're heading out into the scrub. We look back, and see the highrises of downtown Austin shimmering in the heat, miles away.
We do a U-turn and head back in the general direction of the city. We see several shopping malls on the wrong side of the road. Eventually we find ourselves going north on the I-35 looking for slip roads, surrounded by mad Texas drivers and huge Trucks. After driving about three quarters of the way round Austin, we manage to get into a shopping mall somewhere north of the University. It's on the right side of the road, so we don't have to do anything sophisticated like drive across oncoming traffic. We load up with groceries, and I go to a clothing store to look for presents. I get a Willie Nelson sort of waistcoat for my brother. I decide to put this on while walking across the parking lot. A Texan leans out of his pickup;
"That's a cool vest, man. You're not from round here, are ya ?"
We get back in the bronco, and head south, which is about all we can agree upon to get us somewhere close to home... We eventually wind up out in the country someplace at a kind of new age gardening centre. After driving round for a bit we stop beside a construction site and ask the guys for "Travis Country" in Scots accents. We get home and get ready for our gig at the Elephant Room...
After another episode of van loading, we drive downtown to the gig. It's the same kind of greasy basement that we usually play back home, though the beer and coffee are better... we feel right at home. The leader of the band that played the early evening slot "The Jazz Pharaohs" makes us welcome. Like many Austinites he comes from somewhere else, in this case Indiana. He tells us tales of Hoagy Carmichael, and helps us set up.
The gig has it's moments, but is patchy. It's not that we're under rehearsed or anything, I think it's just excitement at our strange surroundings and the fuss that's being made of us. Raymond confuses Austin's Elephant Room with Aberdeen's Lemon Tree "Good evening folks and welcome to the Elephant Tree".
The people from the centre show up. Tiffany drinks a pint of Guinness that's as big as she is. A bearded guy with a leather waistcoat shows up. This is Gustavo Rodriguez Espada, head of the music therapy course at the University of Buenos Aires. He looks extremely cool, like the grandson of a Borges knifefighter. Transport becomes a problem at the end of the gig... as well as all the gear we've got to get some people into the unfamiliar motors. We get the bartender to order us a cab, But Steve (another member of Hope's excellent team), produces his friend Alfredo ("call me Freddy") who has a beat up old TransAm and offers us a lift. I squash into the tiny backseat of this huge Machomobile. Gustavo gets in the passenger seat, and establishes communication by means of his grandee spanish and Freddy's border dialect. Freddy translates for me when he remembers, but most of the talk is in pure machismo, and needs no translation...
A: I sold my other car. I'm selling everything. I'm getting divorced, and that bitch is getting nothing...
G: One car equals one wife...
A: You're right, man! One car equals one wife, and you can have two girlfriends for the cost of one wife! Hahahahaha!
G (gestures at football pitch sized bonnet) How many Litres?
A: Quatro Litros! (VRRRRRRROOOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!!!) Hahahahahaha!!!!
G: How much did you pay?
A: Fifteen hundred.
G: Fifteen Hundred!!! Amazing!
A: (suddenly serious) Yeah. It needs a lot of work, but I can do it. I've got a friend who can do the hood, man. It's going to be beautiful, a firebird on the hood, man ...
G: Beautiful.
All this time we're trailing the Bronco round the streets of downtown Austin. We take a wrong turn and lose sight of it, but Freddy bumps the TransAm up across the sidewalk and zooms back down the road. We exchange more or less good natured abuse with some of the citizens over the roar of the V8.
A: (to me) Let's show your friends a little something.
We overtake the bronco with contemptuous ease, laughing at the occupants and giving them the finger.
A: So where are you from, man?
I tell him, and tell him that Raymond's middle name is Alfredo also. He asks how come, and I try to explain about Glasgow Italians.
George: So what business are you in, Freddy?
A: Me? I'm a Nurse, man...
We get back to the douce estate were Hope lives. We all admire the ghostly outline of the heraldic bird emerging from the flames on the rusty hood of the enormous car. Alfredo waves goodbye, and hurtles off in a cloud of exhaust and bowel-loosening noise, vanishing into the warm Texas night.