Dave Memories
“Dave Grant’s lust for life permeates his posthumously released CD “Bubbalon By Bass.” Sessions with Dave were always special events. He set up favorable conditions and then let chemistry take its course. I smile when I hear this music.”
Wolves in the Kitchen – Dave, Jeff Saine, Greg Sims, Tim Anderson, Tony Fisher
Playing with Dave was like having a conversation with the Tasmanian Devil. Occasionally we could have a normal conversation, or he would play a bass line in a way that was familiar to a generic ear. Most of the time things would spin. Shit would fly. A minor chord over a major. A country song gone Ska or Reggae. Bob Dylan turned Polka. For a photo shoot he might come dressed in long underwear, a camouflage vest, sporting a large broad-ax….wearing a turban. He might show up for rehearsal covered in red clay, with raw oysters he harvested from the ocean or a slab of corned deer meat shot from his third floor window. Keep that in mind when you listen closely to Dave play the bass… Where’s the rum?
Hellbenders – Dave, James Leva, David Winston, Mary Winston, Bruce Molsky
Dave’s wife, Darlene, has, on numerous occasions, seen shooting stars at moments when she was strongly feeling Dave’s presence. This has happened to me, too. And it seems appropriate. The night sky is filled with stars. The fixed constellations are relatively easy to find, having been charted by folks who do that kind of thing. The stars are beautiful and intriguing, but cold and distant. The reality of the stars is that they have little to do with this world. They exist in their own beyond; what seems to be a cold, piercing point of light, is actually a great flaming ball of gas, and the light we perceive from the stars, taking light years to reach us, is another space and time.
A shooting star, or meteor, on the other hand, is made of rock and water. It blazes as it flings itself into our world and enters our atmosphere, but is visible only to those who scan the dark places in the sky looking for the unexpected. The meteor is transformed from rock and water to energy in the form of heat and light as it comes into contact with the envelope of the earth. It glows as it sheds its skin, scattering its essence into the air and earth and water, enriching the world, becoming part of it and us as its fire fades away. Dave Grant was not a star, but he was a meteor who, as he embraced this world, dazzled those who cared to see with his unique light, and left this earth and its inhabitants, his kin of clay and water, enriched with what he carried from beyond to become part of us.
Here’s the morning’s question: “Dee Dub, you wanna go sight seeing? We can take Aaron (my five year old son) - he’ll love it!” We’re in Kitty Hawk and Dave wants to take us up in his Cessna. Mary and I had invited Darlene and Dave to share a beach house with us over the long Thanksgiving weekend. They had flown down in his plane with infant Ryan.So I mull over the things I know about our band mate. This is the guy who deemed it prudent to scale an eight foot chain link fence with his upright bass, late one night at Mt. Airy. “You don’t um, happen to have a hangover or anything?” I get that great laugh. “No nothin’ for twenty four hours before flying.” So I think about how Dave obsesses totally about everything in his wide net of interests. And Darlene flies with him. With Ryan… She’s as solid and rational as they come…
Meticulously working through the pre-flight checklist, Dave’s focus and obvious competence puts me immediately at ease. We climb into the perfect November blue to view a tiny strip of sand known as the Outer Banks from twelve hundred feet. “Look at that high rise built right on the ocean. Like giving God the middle finger. Who’ll get the last laugh? See the beginning of the National seashore? Oregon Inlet… Hey let’s look for fishy spots!”
Descending to five hundred feet, Dave outlines how to fish with Cessna. “Look over there, see the birds working that area? See how the water is choppy and cloudy? The blues are tearing through baitfish! If we were serious, we’d dip down low and drop a motorcycle tire painted orange on the beach and mark this spot. Then we could drive along the beach to the tire and catch some fish!”
Dave rails at the few cowboys and assholes not following proper protocol, laughs at the radio chatter, and is in love with the freedom and controlled excitement of flying. He explains the required landing approach when the wind is from the south. Exhilarated, we go through the post flight checklist.
All seven of us are piled in an old war Jeep driving past a row of vehicles sheltering fishermen from the stinging wind. It’s turned cloudy with a November ocean bite. “Look, the birds are still working that spot we saw this morning. Why isn’t anyone wetting a line? Too cold for them?” We rig up on this favored section of beach near Oregon inlet. “They’re watching us like hawks to see if anything happens. They’ll only drag their sorry fat butts off those seats after they see us catch something, then it’ll be like a circus down here.” I’m thinkin’ sorry, fat, warm, butts. The girls and kids have the sense to return to the house. Dave and I cast across the forty-knot wind into a churning ocean that sweeps the lure along and then onto the beach with remarkable speed. Another laugh. ” Well at least the beer is staying cold.”
The anemic heater and canvas doors of the old Jeep do nothing to remove the chill. We stop to gas up and grab a tube of peanuts. “How much money you got? If we gonna be great white hunters we better find us a fish store.” As we get back in the Jeep, a big Dodge truck pulls in, hauling behind it a battered wooden scow filled absolutely and completely with bluefish.
“Sure, you can have any fish on there for two dollars. Take um all. Those sons a bitch wholesalers won’t give me ten cent a pound.” Our sixteen bucks buys us eight enormous Blues. We slap them down behind the seat like cordwood, and return in triumph.
“Dee Dub, you needs de rum and tonic for to clean de fish! Mr. Myers helps you clean de fish!” The first two huge fillets get sent inside for preparation. With dry clothes and the help of Mr. Myers I’m finally getting warm, but I’m beat.
Four fish down, four to go. “Dee Dub, we got to get these babies in the freezer right away. Bluefish get a bad rap cause people don’t get um bled and frozen fast enough.” It’s dark and we’re finally on the last two monsters, when the girls call us for supper. Dave leans over and lets out that great laugh, “Dee Dub, think what would have happened if we’d been flush with cash back at that gas station!”
Dave had so many interests he could connect with anybody. When he soared skyward I’d hang on like the tail of a giant kite.
Free Will Savages – Dave, James Leva, Dirk Powell, Al Tharp (missing is Spencer Lathrop)
My favorite Dave Grant story may not be suitable for public consumption, but I still love it. I MUST have told you, the great “Fuck Dave Grant” moment? In the unlikely event neither Dave nor James nor I have, here’s the basic deal, still cracks me up to this day!
This was back YEARS ago maybe just when we were getting the idea of the Savages, at Mt Airy. Dave, James and me and some other folks (I forget just who, sad to say) had all just found each other for the first time of the fest and were all hot to play tunes, coctail hour was upon us as well. So of course James and I had our instruments in hand, easy for guys with tiny axes. So we send Dave off with EXPLICIT instructions to go get his bass and get his Dave Grant ass back ASAP, no visiting! Off he goes.. and time passes, and passes.. and we’re gettin all antsy, time for tunes, nobody’s even had an opportunity to get a hangover yet! No Dave Grant and we KNOW what he’s doin, he’s stopping by every bud and camp bullshiting, which normally we love but we want him HERE NOW.. so I say… “Hey let’s just play, fuck Dave Grant… he’ll hear us and show up”. And James says in that wierd festival way “Ya, fuck Dave Grant!” So I say, shouting now, “Ya FUCK DAVE GRANT!” And this just escalates back and forth, and pretty soon we’ve got a good sized crowd of people chanting at the top of their lungs “FUCK DAVE GRANT! FUCK DAVE GRANT!” seeming at the moment about the funniest thing on the planet to be doing. Festival humour you know. At which precise moment Dave tops the rise, bass slung over his shoulder and espies this mad crowd of people screaming his name, digs the situation for what it is of course, except not the process, and comes on in with that “Who me?” kinda faux innocence, “What’d I do to deserve this abuse?” but totally knowing and absolutely LOVING it! He was so fucking cool, Dave Grant absolutely in his moment and element! Played the whole thing with such understated fun and good humour and accepted the love with such sweetness, cause of course that was what it was all about. Hard to imagine but Dave Grant was kinda cute at that moment!!!
And of course a monster session followed the details of which grow blurry with time and the level of imbibational gymnastics. Anyhow I loved to give him shit about that. Ya, Fuck Dave Grant. Strange way to express the tender emotions, but ya had to be there.
Well if you’ve heard the tale, sorry to repeat, but it’s one of my favorite moments. All the goofiness of what we did, how could it all have really happened?
Clayfoot Strutters – Pete Sutherland, Dave, Lee Blackwell, Peter Davis, Jeremiah McLane
I was playing with the Clayfoot Strutters early on, before Dave played with the band. We stayed with you guys in Barboursville. When we arrived, exhausted from the long drive, Dave said, “What’s the chance I could get you guys into the studio to lay down a few tracks tomorrow morning?” Before anyone could say anything Dave said, “Well, it’s not everyday I have the cream of Yankee scum in my own house!” Some might have been offended, but Dave had just the way to communicate, just the right ironic twist on everything- funny, iconoclastic and against all pretense anywhere in the world. We all cracked up and laughed about that for years later. Also, when it came time for me to put my tracks on Bubbalon, Dave would not let me hear the music ahead of time. He told me the key and the groove, but he said he just wanted me to respond. “Don’t think! Just respond!” He had my instrument up and running and let me go. It was exhilarating and really made the music live. I made an entire CD (Evil Diane) with this same command to my soloists overdubbing. It has been played quite a lot as the intermittent music on All Things Considered. Dave was brilliant at getting good results from musicians.
Guano Boys – Spencer Lathrop, Jeff Saine, Andy Rowland, Nate Hawkes, Dave, Chris Leva, Ryan Hughes
Dave loved music in a such a fundamental way that as it completely turned him on, it simultaneously penetrated his deeper consciousness, to be called upon at a moment’s notice. This is why musical conversation with him was so fun- his voice was so deeply informed, he could enjoy himself and really be in the moment because his reservoir of musical understanding consisted of everything he ever heard. And so all the outrageous musical detours emerged from a combination of playfulness and a respect and understanding of all the musical forms from which he drew inspiration.
And since the profane was sacred to Dave, this ‘all bets are off’ mentality made playing with him more fun than just about anything.
There never has been and never will be anyone even remotely like him, and he will always be a member of Guano Boys. He named the band (obviously) and supplied much of our musical vision, and as long as we keep getting together, whenever we make a musical choice, our number one consideration will always be WWDGD (What would Dave Grant do?). (Guano Boys)
It was late July of 2001. I had just driven 1500 miles from Austin, Texas to Camp Washington Carver in Clifftop, West Virginia. It was a 24 hour drive. I’d talked to Dave on Friday before leaving, and we’d decided that we’d all try to make it to the festival by Sunday night.West Virginia was getting really big rains that week, and forecasts were for more over the weekend. All of us who had talked knew that getting there Sunday was a best-case-scenario, but we were going to try. I hadn’t seen Dave since Mt. Airy, the previous summer, when we’d packed up my car and spent a week “recreating,” Dave’s holy pastime. That event had been one for the books, a five-day Dave Grant immersion that I’ll cherish forever. Before that, it had been his trip with Darlene and Ryan to visit me in Hawaii. Since I’d left the Blue Ridge a few years earlier, I didn’t get enough time with Dave anymore, but I was very lucky to get concentrated periods when I did see him.
I pulled in right around dusk Monday evening. I’d already delayed a day to avoid the weather. Friends had held spots for me and Dave and Darlene and whoever else was on the way. I set up my little tarp cave in the woods, looked up and saw that green Subaru wagon pulling in with a pop-up camper in tow. After a combined few thousand miles of driving, Dave and I had arrived within 30 minutes of each other. And those of us who knew Dave knew that when Dave stepped out of his car, the party got a lot bigger. I hadn’t had to wait long.
We had a relatively tame first night. I was fried after my drive, totally sleep-deprived, but managed to stay up until four o’clock anyway, and somehow managed to make it to the point when, (a recurring moment over the years), Dave announced that his, “vertical hold was wavering.” I think that was even the night that Kelly Perdue and I literally caught Dave and his bass on their way to the ground. Maybe it hadn’t been such a tame first night after all. Regardless, I passed out hard and figured I was probably down until at least noon the next day. I put in the ear plugs, popped a painkiller that I had left over from the dentist and was out.
It was a strange dream I was having in my comatose state in my dark tent early that next morning. I had the sensation that I was hearing a very quiet but insistent voice. And then after expanding a few concentric circles of awareness, I got an even stranger sensation that the voice was directed at me. But I was deep, and there wasn’t any bringing me to. My exhaustion and pharmaceutical-induced state were unrelenting. But so too, it seemed after several minutes, was this now regular drum beat of a beckoning voice. It was a bass tone stage whisper, meant to imply quiet, but absolutely intended to be heard. And what I began to hear, even more clearly as I pulled out one of my earplugs, was, “Cornboy, (long pause)…Cornboy, (long pause)…Cornboy, (this is what Dave and a few others called me), Cornboy…” and this went on and on.
After several minutes, and as I finally became fully aware that this impossible scenario was actually really happening, that, yes, it was only a few hours after I’d passed out, after a rediculous drive and an almost-all-nighter…yes, it was Dave actually whispering through my tarp and tent and continuing to do so. It really was Dave, and he really was waking me up, and it seemed he had something very important to say to me. I could absolutely hear it in his voice as I pulled out my other earplug and muttered, “Dave…? Dave…?” And he said, “Cornboy, I’ve got something important I’ve gotta tell you.” I believe I lifted my head just a little bit, as though something startling were about to happen, sort of a suspicious, concerned posture, maybe even up on one elbow, and then Dave said, “Cornboy, I have an announcement to make.” And then he said it, words I’ll never forget for the rest of my life…indeed, among the most important, profound proclamations to which I’ve ever been witness:
“Cornboy,” he said, “today….is rum day.”
