Thursday, January 03, 2008

:::
In Memoriam Evan Farrell

However counter-intuitive as it may seem, it's usually much harder than one would imagine to foster a positive communal interaction between musicians in bands while on the road together. We've been in the practice of regularly inviting members of the bands we tour with to sing, clap and bang on any bit of percussion along with us on our song "Union Hall" for sometime now. During our US tour with Rogue Wave in the Fall of 2006, then bass player for the group, Evan Farrell joined in with us by about the third show or so- very early on. As the tour progressed Evan ended up writing his own harmonies which I still to sing today. By the middle of the tour, Evan joined us on stage for two songs, 1/3 of our complete set, playing guitar with us on our version of the Townes Van Zandt tune "Waitin' Around to Die." The end of the tour saw us all just jamming backstage at night after every show- for which the final show in Santa Cruz, California saw an extended all night session at one of his friend's near by home.

More than just rising above and beyond our idea of a fellow touring musician, I think it was Evan's humor that really got us. He'd sometimes speak in this loud old-drunken-hobo voice that would really make us all just laugh endlessly. Laughing makes tour live-able. I remember one morning walking back to the van after spending the night on a riverboat casino hotel in the super downtrodden antebellum town of Vicksburg, Mississippi and hearing that voice shout out to us: 'hey you, yous the ugliest bunch of motherfuckers I ever have seen!'. We laughed and shrugged it off as Evan joking about, before realizing that an old, totally shitfaced-by-11-am homeless man was actually very upset, yelling at us and chasing us...
and with this, we remember Evan Farrell, our hearts are with you.