Getting out of Dodge
Northeastern summer roadtrip opens new horizons

Greetings all. This month’s “Kill Yr Idols” – like this past May’s – is coming from afar. I left Durango in late June, have been in New England since early July and dipped into a very rural part of Canada for the better part of last week (including near-record setting humidity indexes – YIKES). It has been refreshing to see other similarly small destination towns at what seems to be the peakest of peak tourist/traveler seasons from the visitor perspective. It’s been a minute since I’ve crisscrossed the country with the throngs, and even longer since I’ve been truly disconnected from the masses, technology, etc. There’s nothing like coming back to seemingly seismic shifts in world happenings and further political upheaval and disarray. Harumph. I liked it better when I had no way of knowing current affairs. I miss the utter obliviousness that comes with digital detachment. Needless to say: I highly recommend unplugging for even a few days.   

The trip has been mostly devoid of live music. Wilco hosted its now-annual Solid Sound Festival in North Adams, mass., near the Vermont border, just a highway exit or so from me. Seeing Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Nick Lowe and Los Straightjackets, Iris Dement, Dry Cleaning, Wednesday, and many more was indeed tempting. However, I lacked the bandwidth. I forfeited catching Soul Glo and Upchuck in an art space/pop up by a few days in Portland, Maine. Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings are still an outward possibility, but I’ve been happily preoccupied with connecting with friends, old and new.

I say mostly devoid because I serendipitously happened upon the premiere of the Dawnland Festival of Arts and Ideas while in Bar Harbor, Maine, on the campus of College of the Atlantic on Mount Desert Island – and if all goes as I hope it will – I’ll never miss it again. From the Abbe Museum press release, “This unique multi-day event is an evolution of our popular Abbe Museum Indian Market (AMIM) and Native American Festival that featured invitation-only Native arts markets and performances … and will also spotlight conversations by Wabanaki and other Indigenous leaders on some of the biggest questions of our time, including climate, democracy and food systems.” Whoa. This was unexpected, to put it simply.

It was honestly, and surprisingly, transformative. In between quick dips in Frenchman Bay, just off the Atlantic, I caught partial sets from the Penobscot Burnurwurbskek Singers and Navajo/Hopi radical-folk singer JJ Otero. I was treated to a sweltering set – both literally and figuratively - from Tuscarora singer and vocal performer Jennifer Kreisberg, who’s onstage authenticity was as engaging and powerful as her music. The highlight came in the final hour of the festival with Nipmuck flautist Hawk Henries. It wasn’t just his playing. It was his total reverence for his quiver of handmade flutes and his onstage rapport, welcoming warmth and storytelling. It was his genuinely interested conversation with the audience. His self-effacing, dad-adjacent jokes and the total and tonal dynamic of his spirit. If you had suggested the impact he – and the festival on the whole – had on me prior to the experience, I may have balked. If there is a second annual Dawnland Festival of Arts and Ideas – and I truly hope there is – I will do whatever I can to go back.

But I digress. As I was grappling with the direction to take this column, it started off as a piece on concert/festival etiquette – which oddly and abruptly riled me as I got more into it. It morphed into an explanation and dissection of the road trip iPod Shuffle game, then swerved into an unanticipated, rambling travelogue of sorts. Good thing I have a crack team of editors and proofreaders. You can, of course, hurl topics at me for the coming months. I may or may not take your suggestions, but I ask you to send them my way anyway. You never know (I certainly don’t.) And, as always, reach out with questions, comments and gripes. Especially the gripes. KDUR_PD@fortlewis.edu