Fraters Libertas

Someone’s Screaming His Name

Readers of Fraters Libertas, you can stop the flood of emails asking, begging, demanding to know when part II of the greatest story ever told on the Internet will be posted. Because that day is today.

Man from Silver Mountain has descended from his sky borne perch and has delivered to me the second stone tablet inscribed with his riveting tale. An epic journey to confront the demons that seduce him and to find his very soul amid the blood stained wreckage of his breathtaking triumphs. Or, in other words, the account of his trip to see a country western show in Iowa with JB Doubtless.

When we left the story, the two of them were sitting quietly at the Surf Ballroom in Cedar Rapids, near the soundboard I think, drinking Bud Lights and watching the opening act do their respective things. And what spectacular things they promised to be. Here now is the second and final chapter from Man from Silver Mountain:

He Never Even Called Us by Our Name

The Dallas Moore Band’s final few songs were awful. The band was like a cross between Lynard Skynard and Motorhead, with far less musical talent than either. Adding to the annoyance factor was the fact that Dallas Moore himself thought that profanity was a form of punctuation. “My name is Dallas MxxxxxFxxxxxx Moore,” is an example of the childish nature of his commentary between songs. Fortunately, we only caught about fifteen minutes of the set. “Less is Moore” would be an appropriate motto for this band.

We wondered what David Allan Coe’s performance would hold. Coe is a noted songwriter and performer. He penned “Take This Job and Shove It” for Johnny Paycheck and his own song list includes “Please Come to Boston”, “Divers Do It Deeper” and “Jack Daniels if You Please”. He also recorded several X rated novelty songs. So we didn’t know exactly what to expect. What we didn’t expect was the most bizarre performance either of us had ever seen. J.B. Doubtless and I have seen thousands of bands, but never one like this.

Coe entered without his band, playing the Ritchie Valens song, “La Bamba” in tribute. Next up was a Buddy Holly homage. Coe looked old and not incredibly sharp. His band joined for “Longhaired Red Neck,” a much tighter number that got the crowd going. Things were looking up. Next Coe told the tale from 1970 when he had a number one hit. The president of his record company made him wait five hours for a meeting. At the meeting, Coe told him off, suggesting that his time was just as valuable as the execs, then getting vulgar with him and requesting a sex act. The crowd roared with laughter. Little did we know this would be the high point of the show.

We thought that he would break into another song. Instead, his story degenerated into a ramble: he had been in prison for twenty-two years, including time on death row, he was bankrupt and received no royalty income, and most importantly no one appreciated his genius. Never mind that fifteen hundred people were there to hear his music. He was particularly angry with one critic who suggested that he hadn’t written a decent song since 1975. Tonight he would prove this guy wrong by only playing recent compositions. The reaction was that of any crowd hearing that their old favorite band would be playing the entire set from the new album with no greatest hits, unenthusiastic. This enraged Coe. He chastised the crowd, explaining that his new songs were better than his hits and we were stupid for wanting to hear the oldies. We only liked the hits because we had heard them over and over again. Never mind that the reason we had heard them over and over again is that someone somewhere had made the judgment that they were good and we had concurred.

After ten to fifteen minutes, the ramble ended and he broke into a new song. I don’t think the band knew it, because they didn’t play along. The song made us long for the incoherent ramble. In fact, it was similar to the ramble, only set to music. After six or seven verses, J.B. Doubtless turned to me and asked if I thought this was the last verse. I agreed that the song had dragged on. We weren’t even halfway through. After ten or so more verses, the band began to figure out where they could join in. Their help wasn’t enough to improve on the twenty-plus minute song. We were approaching early 1970’s Yes territory, only minus five virtuoso level musicians.

The crowd was divided into three groups: fifty-somethings who owned Coe’s greatest hits, youngsters who knew that Coe had worked with Kid Rock and Uncle Cracker, and hard core country rednecks who enjoyed Dallas Moore and were probably looking to hear some X-rated tunes. It was kind of sad watching the fifty-somethings in the crowd sadly begin to file out, their hopes for the evening dashed. After the long song, Coe satisfied the youngsters by playing a couple of tunes he had worked on with Kid Rock and Uncle Cracker. The hip-hop style was bewildering to the hard-core country folk and many of them began to leave.

Mixed with his songs were some more incoherent rambles, and many outrageous claims.
He finished with a bunch of covers, and fortunately mixed in a few of his oldies. The band wasn’t sharp and he had already driven out the portion of the crowd that would have appreciated those tunes. Before he joined the encore, the band played a medley of AC/DC songs, thoroughly confusing everyone. Then he returned to play some Allman Brothers covers and a few other songs. J.B. Doubtless and I had concluded that he probably wouldn’t play “You Never Even Call Me by My Name,” the song we both most wanted to hear. We were correct. He left for good as the band jammed to some more hard rock numbers.

After the concert, we hit the Internet to research his claims. To be kind, I would say that many of his stories were exaggerated. For example, he couldn’t have served twenty-two consecutive years in prison, his biography didn’t have that kind of gap in it. His death-row claim was harder to debunk, but it’s not likely that he would be free today if he had been on death row. J.B. Doubtless and I debated whether he intended for the show to go that way or whether he was completely insane. Saturday night he was playing Des Moines. We decided to pass on the opportunity to see if our luck was poor or this Coe performance was the standard.

THE END

.... Or is it? This does conclude Man from Silver Mountain's contractual obligations and as is his style, he's fled the scene without word of his future plans. But rest assured, he's out there somewhere. Watching, listening, drinking, and being. And someday, if you truly believe, he might re-emerge to enthrall us once again with his unique, unforgettable, fantastical world.

Best guess for a re-emergence: January 4, 2004, to coincide with the appearance of National Country Artist Tommy Cash at the Medina Entertainment Center.

(In fact, if you'd like to attend that show with Man From Silver Mountain, please forward your name to me by December 23. As a gift to the readers, on Christmas Eve a drawing will be held, with the lucky winner getting the pleasure of driving Man from Silver Mountain to and from the show and buying him drinks throughout. Good luck and Merry Xmas.)