Come gather ‘round you people
Come see this po’ rambler go down
                           -- Dock Boggs

                                  ***

Never mind what you’ve  heard about the Deliberate Strangers. 
The rumors. The gossip. Setting Porter Wagoner wigs on fire? 
Former members ending up decapitated, others in Federal 
Witness Protection Programs? Gigs ending in riots? It’s all 
a pack of festering lies. The media has painted a false picture 
of our band. The interviews, the quotes taken out of context, the
little bits and pieces, the melted crayons… Now it’s time to set 
the record straight. So gather ‘round you friends and extrapolate 
the truth of the Deliberate Strangers beginning with our first
 installment... 


                         Exiles On Mountaintop


     Twenty-five miles from Alloy City up the ancient Allegheny 
and off the beaten county road, I am shotgun Deputy Gravy Jones 
to Shereef  D.A. Kotex, who, at the wheel of the van, spits out 
his toothpick, pulls another cold one from the twelve-pack of 
tears in the cooler, rolls up his sleeves to expose the neon suit 
of lights that is his tattoos, and declares, “I reckon I’m stickin’
 my head in the lion’s mouth.” Ragged, hungry, torn and tattered, I nod, 
“I reckon so, D.A,” knowing we must live and die in 
uncertainty, a band blown by the winds.

 
	It’s a cool sunny sixty degree June Thursday evening 
and we’ve got opening slot for the 15th Lion’s Mouth Mountaintop
 Bluegrass Festival “where we can do the least damage.” That’s 
what Francine said. Today I am an impostor for the old sneak-the-
heathen-Gravy-drummer-in-on-acoustic-guitar trick. I peer out 
the rear-view as Ms Stephanie and Ms HutterButterPeanutButterThighs
 complete the Deliberate Strangers caravan in separate unmarked 
cars. D.A. puts the pedal to metal and cuts left at the Stark Feed
 Store where the sign says, “Bluegrass this a-way.” The van’s 
tires churn dust and spit gravel up the holes in the floorboard 
as we fly up the long serpentine road to Ed and Francine’s 
campground farm. We blow under the busted steerhorn sign over the
 gate that says, “Enter At Own Risk”, and below that, “No Rude
 Behavior. No Drugs. No Drums.” Just a bit up the road you can 
tour Ed’s Mine…if you dare.


     For the Deliberate Strangers there is considerable risk. We are
 bluegrass impostors and there is most definitely something wrong
 with me to agree to this baptismal-dismal trial by fire—my first gig
 on rhythm guitar.


     We pile out and set up camp, D.A. in his white cowboy hat and
 gray High Marshall O’ Hell Suit. Stepping from her car, Ms
 Stephanie’s fresh purple rose tattoo shines brightly on the
 dangerous surface of her leg. Miss HutterButter steps out of her
 black ride dressed in black denim and leather with darkly vague
 fantasies involving whips, pulleys and a certain Pony Man.

 
     The best campsites are along the outer rim where you can 
see for miles across the steamy primordial river and rolling hills
 and farms up and down the hazy green Penna. countryside. We walk
 around Mountaintop passing the Rebel Yell and a six pack of tears
 taking in the RVs and swapping hellos and how ya doin’s with the
 campers at the hog roast. We come under the spell of immaculate
 aluminum camper-machines with bug screens and blue zappers, yawny
 dogs and old farmer coots with their feet up around fire pits
 telling boastful tales. We pass crafters and pens full of sheep,
 pigs and ponies. Children sleep on straw-covered wagon beds, hair
 full of dust and their fingers black and sticky. We are smack-dab 
in the middle of homefires burning and mystery meat sizzling and
 charcoal fumes—a sweet-smelling bustling bluegrass scene. Across 
the way the funnel cake lady is open for business as a dozen music
 circles take up and proceed to torture Miss HutterButter—who 
hates bluegrass—with fiddles, mandos, guitars and high keening
 voices. There is Jimmy Martin’s merchandise table full of coon
 hunting videos across from his airconditioned Widowmaker Bus.
 Everything seems enlarged and the keening voices, winsome fiddles,
 mandos and guitars mix with the smell of burning fat and woodsmoke.


     As we tune up behind the pavilion stage, Floyd, the suspendered
 Mr. Green Jeans knife-sharpening emcee, greets us warmly. Ed and
 Francine stop by to say hello.

 
     The dust rolls away over the field and the departing sun sets
 the scene ablaze with colors. Night comes on, horses whinny and now
 the children run wildly about lost and lustily crying. We take the
 stage and begin our ten song set with “How I Found the Lord” 
(minus the usual “motherfucker”) and from there, do our most down home
 numbers, the most traditional tricks up our sleeve. When D.A. breaks
 his finger pick before the rare banjer version of “Trippin’
 Trucker,” he lets slip “Fuck!” and the bluehair ladies in their
 lawnchairs go a paler shade of blue and watch us with feverish eyes.
 Their dignified, unsettling silence is almost terrifying. We
 proceed, our broken sounds floating out across the stone faces. 
They bring to mind the countless figures of men and women before our
 time who came out of the nothingness of the world, lived their lives
 and again disappeared into nothingness. They have poured in from the
 towns and the country around—farmers with their wives and children—
and at the end of the third day of this festival, they will return in
 darkness along lonely country roads to nothingness. I realize
 looking about that, excepting the children, on all sides of us are
 ghosts, not of the dead, but of the living. Already we hear death
 calling, keenly aware of our isolation and insignificance in the
 scheme of things.

 
     Finally, twenty minutes in, we hit our proper stride and by the
 last two songs we’re warmed up and ready to get these folks
 shimmyin’ and wobblin’, but Floyd holds up the two remaining fingers
 on his right hand. It’s time to make way for the West Virginia
 Children’s Choir.

 
     At the concession stand after the set I order the gourmet
 mystery meat pizza pocket. Starved, I woof it down and instantly 
I am nauseated. I stumble and stagger over to Ed’s Mine and blow
 mystery chunks in the nearest coal tipple. Then I crawl back 
the tent, dosed by the pizza pocket, my eyeballs cracking like
 auggies and ropes of vomit hanging from my mouth and I see folks
 wilting in their chairs. I am tripping, alright. Then I look 
over at Shereef D.A., Ms Stephanie and Miss HutterButter sitting at
 the Deliberate Strangers merchandise table where chubby boys gawk 
at the black and red serpent t-shirts. We look like dark, sullen
 vampire gypsies among the old-time squatters at this goodtimey
 convention. Suddenly, in my fugue state, I see Miss HutterButter
 jump into the pony pen and vanish into Ed’s Mine on the back of a
 certain well-endowed pony, bellowing, “Giddyup Pony Man, giddyup-up-
and-away!”


     And this is only Day One. Tomorrow we’ll have one more chance…


By JON MANNING


Views expressed are those of the author, not Payday Records, etc.     




COMING SOON...THE DELIBERATE STRANGERS AT CAHOKIA