Sex With Gregory Alan Isakov

So, this was actually the second column I wrote for Stray Pickers. The first one was about one of my favorite Colorado country bands, The Dalhart Imperials, but I'm expanding that one a bit, rewriting it for a future blog posting. In the meantime, this one, about Gregory Alan Isakov, generated more responses than any of the others.  Er, the other two that were published, anyway.


Sex With Gregory Alan Isakov


So DJ Loki, the gun-toting, ukulele-strumming morning genius who along with the encyclopedic mind of Uncle Jeff Holland hosts Radio 1190’s Route 78 West, calls me and asks if the Hi Beams wanna play a show at the Trilogy Lounge in Boulder. He says he and Jeff are going to record it and play it on the show.

Cool. We love the show. Love Loki and love Jeff. Love it all.

We show up, unload, get situated and jabber about Eldon Shamblin’s coolest western shirt, when the lights go down. I’m standing with Loki when Gregory Alan Isakov takes the stage, sits down and sings.

“Look at that,” Loki says. He points to a group of beautiful college girls three deep seated on the floor directly in front of the stage, at Gregory’s feet. “The estrogen in this room is so thick you could spread it with a paper knife,” or something like that.  

Gregory Alan Isakov sings and the room swoons. He steals the show, the dirty bearded bastard.

And that was right before I had sex with him in the men’s room. But I’ll get back to that in a second.

First I want to tell you that his album, “That Sea, the Gambler,” if you haven’t heard it, is so beautiful that it’s stunning. If you have a soul, it will massage it. If you are the poetic sort, you’ll be depressed when you go to your book shelves inspired to read Robert Lowell’s “For the Union Dead,” and John Berryman’s “Dream Songs,” and find them missing. So then you’ll put “That Sea, the Gambler,” back into the cd player.

If lines like “out of this blue Sunday dream/ come to me with your smoky mouth, raindrops fall on this old town,” evokes Bob Dylan’s “With your mercury mouth in the missionary times,” and the minor chords and ringing tones rhyme with a heart full of Nick Drake, I tend to give Isakov the benefit of the doubt, to trust him as he looks for an American voice. While songs like “all there is” and “that sea, the gambler,” or my favorite, “salt and the sea,” might take a while to sink into your consciousness, once they do they’ll help you get by, like the bible or percoset.

Normally, of course, I’d wanna talk to you about some honky-tonk crooner like Les Cooper or the perfect pitch and twang of Jessica Smith (Spring Creek Bluegrass Band), but once you’re seduced by the moody folk vibe of Gregory Alan Isakov you gotta go tell somebody.
So, back to sex with him in the bathroom.

I frequently feel like artists, especially those isolated by mountains and miles of farmland and prairie, are easily overlooked by a public that loves reading about Brittany’s shaved head, or her sister’s teen pregnancy, or Amy Winehouse’s smack trouble. These scandals are worth millions in advertising and don’t seem particularly hard to come by.

So, if I start nasty rumors about Gregory Alan Isakov, maybe some people will take notice. Even if it’s NOT TRUE that his kids have been seized by the state, that he shaved his head after consuming three bottles of Apex Fat Burn 3, or that he ever had sex with weirdo country singers in nightclub bathrooms. Why would you ever think any of that’s true?

Go see him play. Or buy his record. You’ll at least want to have sex with him. He makes love to his audience so you might as well admit it. Maybe everyone could wear t-shirts that say “I had sex with Gregory Alan Isakov,” and it’ll be a huge scandal and he will be a star.

Hi.

Welcome to my nightmare...I mean my fantasy...I mean my blog.  I'm gonna start, and try not to falter hereafter, with a few articles and cartoons I wrote/drew for a now defunct bluegrass magazine out of Lyons, Colorado, "Stray Pickers."  Lots of typos, lots of whiskey, lots of missed deadlines, but I thought it'd be good to post them again somewhere.  The column was supposed to focus on Colorado Roots music, though I was just beginning to get off topic when the rag defunked.  What's a boy to do?

Bookmark me, write me, call me up, come see a show, and/or visit the Hi*Beams myspace page.  All comments are welcome.