Odessa, Art, Tequila, Music, Dance

Odessa/Midland is flat. There are live prarie dogs preening from the tops of their prarie dog hills, laying in the sun, kissing one another as they scurry here and there. The white, fluffy clouds are stories tall, against a blue-eyed sky…and you realize, maybe, this is where the theory that the earth is flat originated because when I say flat, I mean F-L-A-T.

The art opening last night was a flurry of fun. Joe Ely, Butch Hancock, Ken Little, Joe Mancuso, Bale Allen, Terry Allen, so much art, so many artists, I can’t remember them all at the moment. A wonderful poet named Alyce Guynn read her exquisite, funny, bawdy poetry while showing illustrations by Jesse “Guitar” Taylor. Great live music, too, with this post-punk-Blondie-meets-Devoesque dance due, a husband and wife team, named HyperBubble…she is a hypnotic black and white shirt, black skirt and tights, mini-boots and he dancing like some angular bad-boy, bouncing behind a layer of three keyboards, occassionally singing on a tiny, distorted mic, popping a finger on keys to make the sound of Leon the cat. Amusing, witty, fun flashbacks to high school!

After pizza and cokes, we all rode over to Dos Amigos where the artists made music and the musicians made music and everyone was making music and as this was my first time to come to Odessa, and I don’t really do road-weary/party-type/college country sing-a-long songs, I was a bit nervous that my music would be too pop, but the crowd was wild and fun and cheering along and made me feel right at home in the midst of
what felt like an abandoned Mexican villa, complete with a bull ring to my left of stage. The sound guy had me cranked, and I used Joe Ely’s bose system for my guitar, so it was SMOKING!!! Afterwards, we all sat around and exchanged songs, singing-along, fiddle and guitar solos and voices going raw from yodeling and laughing and Tequila in a flask…via a woman in a very short blue jean skirt holding a baggie full of cut limes.
Everyone crammed into the green room, under a pool table light and I realized I was the only woman musician jamming so I pulled out all the stops to say, “Here we are!” and, oh, what fun! Route 66 to California Stars to Patsy Cline to The Shins to old school blues.

I wish someone had filmed the whole shin-dig! Art happening bonanza x 12!

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