Over the High Wire

: gingerdoss; November 26th, 17:00

13:14 Thankful for: my family both at home and on the road, to be alive and well, my music, my relationship, my planet - love to you all!!! #

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Tour Diary - Eureka Springs and Fayettville

: gingerdoss; November 26th, 15:24

As written by the incomparable Bekah Kelso .... ;)

Ah sweet Eureka Springs, how did we love thee? Seriously folks, if you’ve never been and get a chance to, GO! As we were driving through this quaint yet funky mountain town I was strangely compelled to tell Ginger “I think we’re moving here”.

I hadn’t even stepped out of the car yet! We hooked up with our long-time buddy Eric Young who moved to Eureka some years back and became THE booking man for all of Eureka’s music events. (And holy cow do they have some amazing music events) We’re clearly not the only ones who feel the incredible vibes of this town as Eric told us the population of this tiny town can swell from 2,000 to 30,000 at any given time, depending on the event! We had been invited by Eric to play at Basin Spring Park in the middle of their “town square” as featured performers during their Fall Diversity Weekend. Rainbow flags adorned the storefronts of so many of these cool, funky little shops that line the streets of downtown Eureka. It made our hearts happy to stroll the sidewalks and see so much diversity. It was inside the store windows with all the eclectic and eccentric fare, as well as outside the windows, walking beside us.

After the gig, a quick bite and a bit of exploring, we headed out to a HUGE Halloween-Samhain-Wicker Man party at a friend of a friend’s place there in Eureka. We’d heard rumor that our other buddy, Joe Credit, (aka Mandolin Joe) would be there. Normally I am a total wuss about attending parties where I may or may not know anyone there but the idea of surprising Joe was all the motivation I needed. See, we hadn’t seen Joe in over 2 years and that was in Missouri. He’d never expect to see us in Arkansas! As we made our way to the back yard

of the party and saw the giant bonfire blazing with at least 100 people around it, we wondered if we’d ever find Joe. But fate was sweet and sure enough, he was one of the first people we spotted. He could hardly believe his eyes and ears as Ginger called out to him and I said “It’s Bekah and Ginger!”… In disbelief he came our way: “What? No Way!!? (walk smile, walk laugh, walk) Oh my GOD! The LAST people I expected to see here tonight!!” We all shared big, minute-long hugs the way old friends do. We were also elated to reconnect with Foxfire, another Missouri friend, of the musical, magical, fire spinning kind. We were introduced to his lovely lady, the

incomparable Ms. Opal Fly. Joe had been on tour with Opal and Foxy for some time and was just beginning to wind things up with them before heading back to MO. A little note on Opal Fly: she is Billie Holiday incarnate, one sassy little faery who ALSO plays baritone sax like nobody’s business in addition to singing her butt off. We had a beautifully magical jam session with Joe, Foxy, Opal, some other amazing players whose names I embarrassingly admit I can’t recall, and one super-fly mama named Darlene. I had an OMG fan-girl moment when Darlene picked up the guitar and started to sing. I was totally star-struck. Like, I might as well have been in the room with Fiona

Apple. Ginger and I agreed it was one of the best – no, strike that. – THE best Halloween we’ve ever had.

The next morning we took a brief but totally necessary visit to the Christ of the Ozarks with Eric. He relayed to us

some local lore and facts, including the fact that the original plans called for the monument to be at least 30’ taller. Unfortunately it would have, at that point, become an issue for over-flying airplanes. Thus, the C. of the O. was cut off at the knees. A bit stubby he is. But you can’t really tell.

After frolicking and picture taking with the mammoth Christ, we stopped by the New Delhi Café where Opal, Foxfire, and Joe were gigging that afternoon. What a treat! They were SO sweet to us, bringing us up for some GBmojo songs and even passing the dang tip jar for us! Foxfire began plotting with us to bring us back for New Years Eve and Day to play the grand opening of Opal’s new music venue “Opal Fly’s Feel Good Lounge”: a full scale live music venue, dance & arts social club offering massage, yoga, drum & dance workshops with a smoothie bar & retail store… What the what! How great does this sound? Read their press release here. More about our part in this later…

After delicious Indian buffet at New Delhi Café, we headed over to Fayetteville to the home of the

wonderful Esyule. Both Esyule’s energy and her home are the pure essence of nurturing and peace and we quickly fell into our giant, comfy beds for the night, tucked in our little cocoon. The next day she took us to an open-mic for peace at the new OMNI center. OMNI is an incredible organization dedicated to peace, justice, and ecology. The open-mic is run by Donna Stjerna and Kelly Mulhollan: long time companions, VP’s of OMNI, and members of the Ozark duo “Still on the Hill”. This is one of the most original groups I’ve heard in a really long time. We fell so in love with these two! We also met new friend Jori Costello, local singer-songwriter and one bad maama-jamma. The OMNI group meets regularly for these “open-mics for peace” where folks gather to share music and poems that fit the theme of peace. Many shared their songs of protest and it was an incredibly inspiring night. We each got to do one song. Ginger performed Mask, her anthemic guitar song about hate-crimes and equality, to a wonderful response. I did “Upon Finding Myself”, citing that peace can never be without if it does not begin within. We made many new friends. Donna and Kelly invited us over to their house the next night for hang-time and jam session along with Jori and Esyule. They said we’d get a tour of the ball museum. I thought they were kidding.

You can’t help but notice as you walk through their front door that the spirit of “fun” permeates their home. Maybe it’s the fact that you’re immediately greeted by two of the biggest, most genuine smiles you’ve ever seen. And maybe it’s the fact that there are literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of balls in their living room. The ball museum is no joke with balls of every shape, size, color, texture, and function. (Picture shown is just ONE part of ONE wall) Donna says it’s their retirement plan. When they get too old to travel and play music, they’ll open the doors of their home and let people in to see the glory of it all, for a small fee of course… They can give tours and be the Ball Museum House Band. Genius! (It made us think - what can GBmojo start collecting??? And where do we put it?) We were honored to get the free tour. We all got to know each other over a few

glasses of good red wine and moved back into “the ballroom” for another one of the best jam sessions ever. We even got a tour of Kelly’s studio where Ginger played the pump organ and we did our cover of Eleanor Rigby. She sat down on a stool with wheels so as she pumped the pedals, she kept rolling back and every so often would shout out “push me up!” in the middle of the chorus. (it was very near a literal ROFL moment) Jori captured much of this awesome night on video and we’re told it will be mailed to us soon. So with any luck, you’ll get to see some highlights too!

Earlier that night, Jori invited us down to CAT-TV where she was running something called “Shortcuts”. Anyone can come in and get 5 minutes of air-time to perform, do or say whatever they want. How can you pass that up?! It was super fun and apparently it aired 13 times over the next week. Maybe we got a few new Mojo-fans out there now. We had a blast and look forward to seeing the performance when

Jori, in all her technical savvy, sends us cuts from that as well. Thank you Jori! And special heart-felt thanks to Esyule for opening her home to us, for our care and feeding, for the great company you give, and for plugging us in with some of the coolest folks we’ve ever met!

We loved Arkansas so much that we have made an exception to our “we’re not going anywhere January-March” rule and are announcing a 2 week Tour-de-Ark. We are very excited and honored to announce that we will be part of the musical lineup for the “Grand Opening” weekend event at Opal Fly’s Feel Good Lounge, playing shows on both Dec 31 and Jan 1 with these super cool cats. We’ve also booked a house concert in Fayetteville with Jori Costello for Sat. January 2nd and 2 gigs at New Delhi Café in Eureka Springs for Jan 8th and 9th. Wahooo! Even though we will have only been home, what, 2.5 weeks by the time its time to leave again, we cannot wait to get back to AR and all the lovelies we met while there.

Until next time, peace from the road!

XObekahandginger

Tour Diary - Nashville to Hot Springs

: gingerdoss; November 25th, 12:03

Current Location:: Melbourne, FL

Current Mood:: peaceful

How you doing out there, o ye of Mojo love? Hope all is going well with you and yours. Though Ginger and I are now perched in Florida at the home of our friends The Cooks, we have had so many adventures over the past several weeks that we haven’t gotten to journal about. So now that’s just what I’m gonna do…

Imagine your view getting blurry as the camera cuts away to a time before time… Decades in road-years! It was all of 6 weeks ago. (shot warps in dream sequence…diddely doo diddely doo diddely doo)

After parting ways with our St. Louis crew on Oct 12th, The Traveling Fates headed to Tennessee. Sooj and K split off and made for Memphis to catch up and cuddle up with some of their loves while Ginger and I headed for Hendersonville to stay with our dear friends Karla and Joe. Karla and Joe's is one of our very favorite places to stay for many reasons. The diggs are gorgeous with scenic views on nearly every wall (as we've noted in diaries past) and the energy here always seems to tread on a perfect blend of chill & party. Just our speed :) There had been a small dinner party planned for the night we arrived and I'd offered to cook some vegan fare to add to the party's mix: "Pan Sauteed Portabella Penne with Roasted Garlic and Sun dried Tomatoes". Yea. It’s ok. You can drool. I have made this once before at home in San Antonio to rave reviews (including my own, I must say) and was ready to blow all my omnivorous Hendersonville friends away with the creamy herb taste and complete non-animal-ness of this recipe. Here’s what I learned that night: I cannot catch up with dear friends and cook at the same time. Or I can but I better not expect fantastic food. Good food maybe, pretty good food even, but damn it that's not GOOD ENOUGH! (I am a perfectionist at times, have I mentioned?) Seriously, everyone appeared to enjoy the dish EXCEPT ME. Next time I’ll try to pay more attention to measurements and cook times than I to good conversation and wine. But enough about my pasta aspirations, it was such a fun night and we had a blast hanging out with Bob and Judy (and later that week with Amber and with Eric too! Friends always gather at Karla and Joe's.)

On Wednesday we reunited with Sooj and K at the beautiful First UU Church of Nashville for a Traveling Fates show. The main sanctuary was adorned with the colorful modern-art of a talented local artist (whose name, I’m sorry, I cannot recall), but her pieces made the space feel vibrant and full. We even enjoyed the sound of this room, courtesy of its fantastic acoustics and the company of all the friends in audience. The space was rather large and we had a nice but not overly big turnout on this Wednesday night show. Even still, hot damn! You could so not tell that the room wasn’t packed to the brim as the acoustics made their rabid applause positively thunderous! (And damn it we weren’t recording!) Kevin and Even kept me giggling as they tangoed back and forth across the room while Sooj sang “Alligator” to a captive audience.

After saying ado to Karla and Joe, we 3 ruffians headed to Memphis for Festival of Souls. A sweet reunion it was! We played FOS for the first time last year and were very happy to be asked back this year. We gleefully accepted and I’m so glad we did because this year was yet another fantastic event. We saw so many of our beloved Tennessee family and met many new faces as well. I must also take a moment to recognize the kitchen staff who made THE most wonderful vegan dinners. SO wonderful, in fact, that we did not believe they were vegan and kept going back to the serving counter saying “I’m sorry, are you sure???” It had been a while since we’d had a nice hot meal that we hadn’t made ourselves so THANK YOU to the awesome kitchen witches.

Saturday night was the big concert, as well as costume contest. As you may already know from pictures, The Fates went in full Wonderland style this year. Sooj as the Cheshire Cat (grinning up a storm); Ginger as the Mad Hatter (could it be any other way?), and I as Alice (after a psychedelic trip down the rabbit hole.) The hall was full-up and the dancing began almost instantly with our new friends Satyr and Sandie blazing across the floor. It climaxed with a long conga-line dance to Mama Dragon. Trudy, (Mama Dragon herself) was sorry she missed it ☹ but says she heard it in her dreams from her cabin down the way. The drums in the room practically lifted the building off its foundation for Come Down. We were high on this show for days and days.

After FOS we jaunted back to House Brokenface, the fabulous abode of our dear friends Scott, Andrea, and little Ms. Rowan Fae. Always a pleasure, we got some much needed down time AND chill time with them and the beautiful Ashley Brown. We shared many a back-porch conversation and played Beatles Rock Band into the wee hours. I even got to lose myself in a bookstore for a few hours one day. Seriously - so good! That Friday we arrived at the Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center for a GBmojo show (cause by then Sooj had departed for more SJ Tucker solo adventures.) The Center was so kind and welcoming to us, as always, and though we tried for an outdoor show this time it was just too damn cold. No worries – we snuggled up inside and made it work. Dat’s what you do…

Saturday we headed for Jackson TN to the House of Cats and Dragons (aka Flame and Ryan’s place) for a gorgeous evening house concert. We were delighted to see our friends Evan and Eli show up just after we did. These roadie-angels had been around for almost all our former TN shows and let us know right away that their hands were there for helping. (Thank you gentlemen for ALL that you did for us!) Coming back to Flame’s house felt like a toasty-warm blanket and it wrapped us up in its magic. Vegan chili was on the menu (Thank you Ryan!) and we played a very intimate and at times, very emotional show. Ginger broke down into tears while performing The Tor. This was a first for her, but she felt safe doing it in with a room full of people we love. Powerful songs sometime invoke more energy than we can handle…

After just a smidge more time in TN, we headed to Hot Springs AR for a show at The Poet’s Loft on October 29th. Unfortunately for us when we arrived to set up, we saw only a note on the door that read “Venue Closed. Show Cancelled Due To Flooding. Sorry” WTF???!!! We sat there for a moment looking at the sandbags resting at the foot of the door and wondered a) why we hadn’t been told earlier and b) what flooding? What you gonna do, though… right? You take your butts to a local motel and bunker down, that’s what you do. And that’s exactly what we did. It turns out it was an email snafu that kept us from being notified. The owner had sent an email at about 10am that morning. So no disrespect or love lost for The Poet’s Loft. They good peeps and I really hope we can make something work another time.

So while the rain came pouring down in sheets, Ginger and I goofed off and made silly videos at the motel complete with cameo’s from the pair roaches hanging outside our door. (Yes, just outside. Thank God.) We settled in for a good nights sleep before heading to Eureka Springs for a full Halloween weekend.

More to come as we catch up on dis here tour diary!

Fall Tour Diary 2 - Missouri & Indiana

: gingerdoss; October 22nd, 17:55

OK now it’s my turn to report. Ginger here from my comfy post in Memphis with hosts Andrea and Scott the wonderful. We just arrived a couple of days ago from Festival of Souls which was as wonderful as it was chilly. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s go back in time - back, BACK, BAAAAACK! OK not that far back – just to where our last diary left off a couple of weeks ago in OKC from where we would head out to the hippy delicious hide out of Steve and Willie Moses in the Ozarks of Missouri. Champion, Missouri to be exact, where the traffic flow consists solely of our S.U.V. and trailer driving through and missing the turn.

The street where we were going cannot be found on any map other the hand drawn version Steve sends you via email. And our GPS, we were told, will go insane if you type in the address. So off we went from OKC with map in hand. Tulsa anyone? Yes. We stopped in Tulsa for the night to avoid driving the unfamiliar dirt roads of Missouri in the dark - and boy were we glad we did. Once we got within in a five-mile radius of Steve and Willies, we realized that we did not understand the map at all. After we had enough of driving around the dirt road paradise in utter confusion, we stopped in Champion for directions. Champion consists of a store and a church. The store has been there since 1940 and inside it sits a radio, which has been tuned to the same station for just as long. Having a bit of small town experience I simply asked the clerk if they knew where the Moses place was. She said “Sure!” and told me how to get there. Turns out we just veered left when we shoulda veered right. After that we found our way just fine and were in heaven from the moment we arrived. This was as cool a hippy hang out as it gets. Warm wooden flooring and walls surrounded an open living room & kitchen, with details that had been lovingly crafted by it current residents. It was harvest time as well, and their ample garden had yielded tomatoes, lemon cucumbers, wild grapes, and much more.

Steve collected up a bunch of those veggies and threw em into a pot with noodles to make what he called street-walker pasta. After dinner he spun sounds from his old jazz records while we sipped wine and ate dark chocolate chips. An equally amazing meal and evening the next night when Willie returned. Such chilled out bliss; we had a blast! Leaving there was hard but we were so glad we came. We plan to go back as often as travel plans allow.

Next it was off to Wolvenold – their Samhain fest. I had not been there since Dreamtrybe played the very first Wolvenwold in 2000. It was hard to believe I was coming back after such a long time, but there I was. We pulled in and my distant memory became shiny and new. We went to the main house and said hello to Beltana and her chickens, which moved toward us in that “why are they surrounding us?” sort of way. Granted we reacted that way because we are city folk and we don’t understand that chickens can be as curious as they are lipless, and as harmless as they are cute.

From there we ventured onto their beautiful festival site where we were warmly welcomed and extremely well cared for. Shortly after setting up camp we were surprised by two of our favorite people in the St. Louis tribe, Mitch and Amber who camped next to us. They made us smile with their sparkly energy, their stories and their beautifully hand made masks. They even offered up to us some of their Starbucks “Via” which we tried for the first time. Good job Starbucks; really hits the spot out in the cold wilderness. The show was fabulous and so many people offered to help we had to turn folks away. ☺ Thanks to everyone at Wolenwold for such an amazing event.

Next we made the jaunt to St. Louis, where we would connect with Sooj and K for the first in our series of Traveling Fates shows this tour. Stephan and Anna opened their home to all of us and we collapsed into post festival slumber, postponing our happy reunion until we got some sleep. Our next GBmojo show was the extremely cool coffee house, Mokabes. I highly recommend it to all those visiting St. Louis. The way cool and super cute baristas were extremely laid back and they told us to set up “wherever we thought would work best.” We found a cool spot over by the front corner.

The place filled up and the show had powerful energy and a very appreciative response. Sooj came up and did a couple of songs with us as a preview to the upcoming Traveling Fates show the following Saturday at the Edwardsville SIU Campus Center for Spirituality and Sustainability. The crowd knew her well and greeted her warmly and the three of us were blissful to be together and singing again.

Next the Fates were off to Indianapolis for a quick detour up from St. Louis and back again. Unfortunately for us we did not realize our quick detour was a 5 and a half hour drive across a time zone (loose an hour) from where we were. We did not realize this until the night before we were suppose to leave. Whoops! A five hour drive ain’t so bad, but when you have a 5 hour drive before you play, and the very next day you have another 5 hour drive before you play again, it gets tiring. Now I’m not complaining. I mean, there are plenty of touring acts who go days and days and miles and miles before they even get a night off. However they have the help of roadies, drivers and managers handling everything while they sleep on the bus. We do ALL that stuff ourselves. Now let me just shout from the hills, I am happy to do it. The thing is since we do all the driving and loading we like to give ourselves a break in between the long drive and show time, and since we handle all the booking we can usually manage that. We are usually so prepared but for this show we typed the wrong city into google maps while calculating the routing and thought we had a two-hour drive. NOPE. Anyway it weren’t no big deal. We handled it like the hard-core road warriors we are.

We arrived a bit behind schedule and our host Debbie was ready for us. Her place was in the middle of some beautiful Indiana farm country and gratefully she had the makings of vegan spinach humus wraps for Bekah and I and sandwiches for K and Sooj ready to go. Even though we were behind schedule the timing was perfect. Right after we finished load in, set up and sound check the people came - like all at once. It was awesome. We performed some old favorites and got to try on some new ones as well. It was the Traveling Fates first performance of Tough Titty Cup Cakes – A song by Betsy Tinney that Sooj performs by bringing to life the character of Tough Titty – the sultr

y southern raccoon mama who steals food to feed her babies. Bekah and I took on the role of two of her little babies singing backup. It brought the house down and had Kevin kicking himself that he was not filming.

The next day we went back down to St. Louis and the SIU Edwardsville campus. We are very thankful to the folks at Bengal Home for all they did to put this show/benefit together. It was a beautiful space and we were happy to see our St.Louis friends again. The sound in the dome echoed off the geodesic walls in a way we had never experienced before making it sound like there were twelve of us on stage instead of three. “Welcome the Traveling Fates girls choir and their six piece band!” We had a lot of fun and a ton of helping hands – thanks to everyone in Bengal home!

Well that's all for now. Stay tuned for the fun filled entry coming soon about the awesome Traveling Fates show at Festival of Souls and beyond!

gingerdoss

Over the High Wire

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