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REMEMBERING RAINER "THE INNER FLAME" Third Anniversary Memorial Show Saturday 11th November 2000 at 'Solar Culture' 31 East Toole Avenue, Tucson, Arizona (520) 884-0874 with GIANT SAND - CALEXICO - KRIS McKAY "Friends and Family" Tickets available only at the door The show will be broadcast LIVE on 91.3
FM KXCI |
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Three Years Gone & Given By Fred Mills Memory is one of God's most amazing creations. In tiny infants its basic processes serve to strengthen neural connections, which in turn help bring about those necessary brain-body coordinations that most of us take for granted. As schoolkids we rely on a more intellectual form of memory applications to help get us through our daily regimen of math, science and reading. It's only when we pass into adulthood that memory's full reach and power is grasped; it begins to take on additional hues that involve how we consciously integrate our emotions with our physical senses (more than one writer has noted how "sense memories" operate, such as how the crunch of your feet on gravel can bring back a vivid image of running down your parent's driveway as child, or how strolling past a bakery can trigger a memory of Mom baking in her kitchen). Concurrent with this is the way memory operates to guard and enhance our here and now, often allowing the mind to block out severe trauma and other times simply having it recast events in such a manner as to give us a chance to view things from a broader, more benevolent, perspective ("time heals all wounds"). Which is perhaps why, as the third anniversary of Tucson songwriter/iconoclast/virtuoso slide guitarist Rainer Ptacek's death approaches, my memories of the Old Pueblo's favorite son are inherently sweet. A story I've repeated many times in the past is how I was on the East Coast on extended family business when I learned of Rainer's impending demise, and of the emotions that ran through my mind when, still not able to return to Tucson, I called him up one rainy afternoon. In all honesty, I can barely conjure that sense of dread and hesitation I know I must have felt at the time - What do you say to a dying friend? "Hey man, I'm gonna miss you?" - and, instead, a vivid image not unlike a movie's split screen effect is now what the memories effect in my mind. There I am on the left side of that movie screen, sitting on the blue couch in my mother's den with the glistening rivulets of rain on the windowpane next to me, and there's Rainer on the right side in his own den or living room or whatever, Tucson's gentle October sun streaming through his windows, and we're both smiling and nodding, talking about music we've been listening to and telling each other it's so good to hear your voice, hope to see you soon, manā? I've thought of Rainer so often over the last three years, and all the memories are sweet. The sorrow of loss seems to have been shaved off ever so delicately. What's left are certainly the fading impressions that big scars inevitably leave behind, but, for the most part, smaller, less hurtful scars are what remain, still tactile to memory's touch, a reminder of something precious that is to be cherished, not mourned. With memory, mourning must necessarily recede in order to make room for celebration of the good times. I'm sure this is not an isolated thing; surely others experience something similar. The release this year of Rainer's Alpaca Lips only served to make the memories stronger than ever, and as part of a posthumous trilogy that Germany's Glitterhouse Records is planning (forthcoming is a the concert disc Live At The Performance Center and a collection of Rainer's last studio recordings, The Farm), its intention is clearly to celebrate those good times and ensure that Rainer's legacy continues. In like fashion, the upcoming Rainer tribute concert "The Inner Flame: Remembering Rainer" (Nov. 11 at Tucson's Solar Culture Gallery) will in no way be a cause for sadness and reflection, but for joyful celebration as the local communal mind joins together. The bash is for a good cause too, as proceeds will go directly to benefit the Ptacek family. Organized by Rainer's close friend Howe Gelb of Giant Sand, the show will feature performances by Giant Sand, Calexico and Kris McKay. Most likely other artists will share the stage that night, as it's billed along "Friends & Family" lines, so expect some musical surprises. Indeed, the concert is an elaboration/outgrowth of the annual family and friends gather-round-the-bonfire remembrances Rainer's widow Patti Keating has held at her house on the actual anniversary date (Nov. 12) for the past two years. Says Patti, "Howe thought maybe we could do it differently this year so a lot more people could have a chance to gather, so I thought, why not? I'm thrilled about it! And the neat thing about Solar Culture is that the trains go right by it. Trains and the sounds of trains, those were always a big thing for Rainer and Rudy. [Their son Rudy, immortalized in Rainer's composition "Rudy With A Flashlight."] So this will be particularly special, the music, the venue, everything." Patti adds that she and members of the family will be manning a table well-stocked with Rainer CDs -- all of which Glitterhouse has worked to see that they remain in print -- for sale. (If you're reading this on the Giant Sand website, check the link where you can mail order CDs directly from Patti.) There may even be a special, as yet unspecified, artifact or bit of memorabilia that she'll have available only at the concert. Giant Sand, of course, is one of the Old Pueblo's longest running institutions, with whom Rainer frequently performed and recorded. The group's most recent album Chore Of Enchantment (issued by venerable Chicago indie label Thrill Jockey) has notched up enthusiastic reviews on both sides of the Atlantic and, most recently, in Japan, where the CD was issued with a non-US bonus track, "Vanishing Point," just to keep the band's core of completist collectors in hock. (Well, not really. Japanese distributors routinely insist on exclusive material to entice their consumers to purchase domestic product. In fact, Howe Gelb has kindly made the tune available as a downloadable MP3 on the Giant Sand website at www.giantsand.com. Worth noting, too, is that there are several other Sand items for sale at the site that you won't find in stores, including a new Gelb solo record of mostly unreleased at-home recordings, appropriately titled Down Home 2000.) Calexico, too, has become a local repository for extremely good musical taste - and the occasional mariachi band added to the formula - as Joey Burns and John Convertino are turning into virtual ambassadors of Sonoran Sound through tireless international touring in support of the third Calexico album Hot Rail (Quarterstick Records). As with Giant Sand, the band understands the value of keeping a rabid fan base agitated. To date a pair of UK CD singles have been issued, each with two non-album cuts: "The Ballad Of Cable Hogue" b/w "The Crystal Frontier" & "Hard Hat," and "Service and Repair" b/w "Crooked Road And The Briar" & "Banderilla." And currently in stores are Japanese editions of Hot Rail and its '98 predecessor The Black Light, both which contain bonus tracks. The former duplicates those found on the "Cable Hogue" single, but the latter adds a whopping four extras: "Lacquer," "Drape," "Minas de Cobre (extend-o-mix)" and "Minas de cobre (spatial mix)." Kris McKay, a close friend of the Ptacek and Sand clans, was once part of Austin's celebrated, beloved Wild Seeds combo. She eventually struck out on a solo career, landing for a stint on Arista Records (guilty pleasure time: her version of Duncan Browne's early '80s pop confection "The Wild Places") and later signing with Shanachie, where she issued one of 1996's finest singer-songwriter efforts, Things That Show. The album contained an even-handed mix of McKay originals and covers of Matthew Sweet, Jay (Son Volt) Farrar, Joan Armatrading, Jo Carol Pierce and the English Beat (a smokin' "Save It For Later"). Bottom line: one of America's best female voices from whom a new album is long overdue, so don't miss her set. ****** Howe Gelb's involvement ensures that the show will indeed do justice to his friend's memory. Since I've been dwelling on the subject of the power of memory, perhaps some of his firsthand, candid reflections are in order here. I interviewed Howe a few months ago for the Phoenix weekly paper New Times, about the time when Alpaca Lips was released, and a number of his comments seem pertinent here. After Rainer got sick, recalls Howe, "not only was he able to teach himself all over again how to play -- which was unbearably frustrating, given how his brain wouldn't work with him for the longest time to remember so many things, let alone the coordination it takes for his hands to carry out his brains ideas...things we take for granted all the time -- he had to focus so hard to regain his prior virtuosity. It was a stunning achievement to see him, over so many months, get back to what he knew he could do, and then, and I don't think he was aware of this exact moment, surpass his ability before he ever got sick! "What I heard when I came over [one afternoon] were a few new songs he was just putting together, one of them being that which would become 'The Inner Flame' [appearing on the Atlantic Records Rainer tribute album The Inner Flame]. I was well taken with the song the moment I heard it and could hear the progression of his writing ability as if he were never sick at all -- do you know what I mean? I'm not sure he knew at the time...but it was so inspiring. Like none of the disease had happened and Rainer was just progressing the way he always had done. This, to me, was astonishing since I had watched him struggle with relearning to even hold a guitar again! "I made a slight mention that maybe we should think about heading down to Wavelab Studios to catch that stuff on the big tape, and a few days latter he was calling me up to do just that. Listen to 'The Inner Flame' - it's a first take recording on his part, locking in so tightly with John and Joe's rhythm section. Then I went in later and worked up some ambience to it. But listen to his solo on it. It's impossible! You can hear the clunk of his slide on the neck of his dobro but still hear the notes during the fierceness of his attack!" Gelb additionally marvels at his friend's subsequent virtuosity captured on tape now slated for the second and third installments of the Glitterhouse trilogy of new Rainer albums. Live At The Performance Center will most likely appear in late December or early January and is a document of Rainer's June 6, 1997, Tucson concert, his last show prior to his final relapse. Gelb: "When I heard the tape of this live performance I was again amazed at two things, how well it was recorded -- the best live recording I have EVER heard from anyone anywhere anytime -- and how great he played and sang. If you listen with a critical ear, which is hard to do given the emotional status, he keeps getting it better and better as the set goes on. It's unbelievable - after the fifth song he gets to a plane I have never heard anyone ever get to. And I know his tricks with his digital capture pedals! I still cannot believe what the hell he is doing with them as he plays off his own captured rhythms, which I have since learned from using those same pedals is a random thing and an art in itself to capture a rhythm just right on those things. Every time I hear that recording I hear new things I can't believe he is pulling off. Man, what a treasure that tape is." The third in the archival trilogy is to be titled The Farm, tentatively slated for release sometime in the spring of 2001. This will be culled from the last studio recordings Rainer got down on tape prior to his death. Gelb: "The last piece on the [Giant Sand] Chore Of Enchantment record is from that session. [The song is titled "Shrine."] There are still a bunch of outtakes to sort through. That whole session came about after his final seizure. I raced home from a Euro tour to find him talking in numbers, and again he slowly began to relearn his guitar again...but this time the end was imminent. We all knew it. We had to tell him as well. "During that time we would jam in the back room where he was laid up at Patti's mom's house. I mentioned to him again, since he was coming up with all kinds of new ideas on the guitar, would he like to record again...to focus on that for the healing it can do and the relief of the art he gave himself to his whole life. A day or so later he was up for it, and three sessions later we had a slew of material. It was a great struggle for him at times to even read and make sense of the notes he'd made. But the spine tingle is the delivery from a man who is perched on the precipice and able to look over into the void and deliver still in this world what he sees on both sides." In Howe's case, then, the sweetness of memory is manifested in his very public efforts to get Rainer's musical archives in order and, ultimately, get them into the hands of fans, although I'm sure that for both Howe and Patti, the private sorrow of loss will always accompany them. It's simply a testimony to the power of Rainer's charismatic personality and the vibrancy of his music that these people are inspired above and beyond sorrow's private manifestations. For many of us, life without a stack of Rainer albums next to the stereo would simply be unimaginable. To this day, when I'm driving around and I hear a Rainer song come over the radio on Tucson's KXCI-FM, I laugh out loud and sometimes even pump my fist like I'm a kid again at some arena concert. It's that powerful a sense memory. And honestly, in addition to the music, what would life be without a stash of those wonderful memories of his time here with us on earth? --Fred Mills, Tucson, AZ October 2000 |
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