Custer, Kostas & Blogging by the campfire

da man himself, Kostas (pickin steak outta his teeth)

Kostas' Antique Store

Custer's last stand

I saw these horses on the next hill over from "Last Stand" hill

Driving to Custer's last Stand/Little Bighorn. I expected what I hear of Gettysburg. A modern world built around a civil war site. Little Bighorn is nothing of the sort. Check it out if you're ever in Mid-Montana area. Great! I'll post a coupla pics.

Kostas. If you don't know him but listened to Country Music in the last 20 years, you've probably loved a lot of  his songs: Timber, I'm Falling In Love", "On Down The Line" & "Blame It On Your Heart"-ALL great Patty Loveless hits,  "Ain't That Lonely Yet" & "Turn It On, Turn It Up, Turn Me Loose"-GREAT Dwight Yoakam hits and one of my faves EVER "Lord Have Mercy On The Working Man"-Travis Tritt. Those are just a few. It's just laughable that this guy AIN'T in the “Songwriters Hall of Fame". Anyways, that ain’t my “card game”.  Well being in the land of Kostas, I thought I'd give him a ring. We meet at his place and head out to this GREAT steak place in his area (Manhattan,MT) and this is some of what we talked about (aside from Greek Orthodox Church history):

Born in Greece but moved to Montana with his dad, mom and aunt when he was young.

I made Kostas stop to take a picture. Guess he sees it every night, I don't.

His first job at 7 was “cleaning the chicken shit off of the eggs” for $2 a month.

His mom bought him his first guitar when he was 7 or 8, which was a Harmony Sovereign. He said they were “industrial strength” guitars that she’d probably paid around $35.

Grew up listening to Greek, Middle Eastern and Baltic music while in Greece. After moving to the US (in the mid 50’s) he and his dad listened to Faron Young, Kitty Wells, Elvis, Buck Owens, Wanda Jackson, Fleetwoods, etc….  

Kostas moved to Nashville in '89 and felt REALLY outta place winning the NSAI "Songwriter Of The Year" that year. He'd never heard of the organization long before that and felt outta place as hell at the awards. He said, I'm sure they were like "who the hell is Kostas?" (as he was thinking what the hell is the NSAI). He'd given some music to Claire Lynch back in the 80's and a few years later she'd given the music to Tony Brown (successful A&R guy and Producer) and the rest is what you'd call Country Music history.

Bloggin by the campfire

 Kostas still writes and played me a song “Indigo” I think he’d call it. It was more of a Samba typa song and was cool as shit! Kostas said he never wrote "for Nashville" and said he was never good at “copy-cat writing”. He wrote more based off of inspiration, I guess. Seems to have made him a good retirement. If you want to hear one of the most unique writers of the last 25 years of Country music songwriting, Kostas IS a must listen. No one else wrote, sang or played like him. He now lives above his antique store outside of Boseman. He seems happy. Kind and VERY wise man. Kostas makes me glad to have been lead down the road that I was lead down. I've learned something from every visit with him.
Onward to Yellowstone... en-route to Denver to pick up the kids.

What do you do with 12 hours of riding...

The Badlands of North Dakota

Western N.D.

Hell if I remember. I know I took it but damn if I remember where. Let's just call it Montana.

Didn't wanna waste the roll of film so I took this...

In the words of Craig Wiseman  & Don Poythress "Fields Full Of Summer Wheat, Peppered With Rounded Bales...". Always think if that lyric when I see these.

...you stare at the cars in western Minnesota, you stare at the landscape in western North Dakota and you try and keep your eyes on the road in Montana.
Saturday night was a BIG break from the crazy 4 shows in 3 days and thanks to John for getting us a GREAT deal at a Crown Plaza (Priceline BABY!!!) in Minneapolis where I just stood in the shower for a long time and washed off what felt like 5 days of dirt & exhaustion. Couple of us went and had a relaxing dinner and I had a hankering for a "glass of red". :)
This was a day of driving and the great thing with being 48 years old is that (I think) you enjoy looking out the windows more. Maybe it's early onset of what ends up being dementia and it evolves from staring out the windows to just staring at a corner of your room. All I know is it was a beautiful drive!
As you already know by reading this pitiful writing, I'm no Walt Whitman so I'll just show you pictures of the drive instead of describing it. OK., no Ansel Adams either but you'll get the point...or not. I drove the last 4 hours and Matt (I'm SURE) got tired of me pointing out things that I thought was just beautiful (even keeping his earphones in didn't help him). I REALLY fought to keep my damn finger from pointing but it was a useless struggle. All the while driving I was listening to the Texas writers of Hugh Prestwood, Walt Wilkins & Nanci Griffith with demo's of Montana's own Kostas thrown in for good measure "Turn it On, Turn it Up & Turn Me Loose", Dammit!!!!  8 more hours to Washington State. Journeying on...

"Have you started writing your book, yet?"

Not so sure what the guy on the organ was so worried about but that's John in the orange setting up his drums.

People loadin in for the show

Zac Brown's "Eat and Greet" set up AFTER the storm but before the actual "Eatin and greetin"

  Pulling into “Country Jam 2011” in Eau Claire, WI it looks like another hellacious rainstorm is about to hit. Zac Browns “Eat and Greet” trailer/kitchen has batten down the hatches with long ropes that have anchored it from blowing over. We sit in the van for a minute and then once it finally starts raining we find our backstage camper/trailer. There’s Richard again (from Blackberry Smoke), at the mess tent finishing breakfast. Those guys have been touring with a fancy bus for about a year and a half and Britt says (about keeping up with the payments) “once you get a bus, it makes you focus a HELL of a lot harder on making money on the road”. They had toured out of a van for many years. In setting up my merch table I got to be buds with David the BBS merch guy. Once AGAIN, him giving me so much great advice on how to best sell merch. He asks me after a few minutes of small talk “have you started writing your book?” I’m like “about what?”, he says “you see SO many things out here behind the merch table, you’ll wanna put it in a book one day”! Thanks SO much dude (in case you read this) and hope to see you guys again very soon. Because of the rain Jason didn’t get to come out and “sign” after his show which I can’t believe I’m saying but I was a little bummed about it. I think I get some enjoyment out of watching him meet his fans. It’s honest fan to honest artist and probably  one of my biggest reasons for getting out from behind a desk. We did sell more than I expected EVEN with Jason not getting out there. As a sidebar here, you know you just sweat a LOT out here. You get out of the van and start loading in, you set up and count in while the band is setting up sweating their asses off. You set up and stop sweating for a minute while the band starts playing and sweats a HELL of a lot more, then you pack all your shit up, jump back in the van with a shirt dripping with sweat (as does the band from the always frantic loading up of equipment and helping me with my gear) and hit the road soaked to the bone.
Anyways, because of my lack of thinking, I’m gonna have to steal a coupla pix of yesterday from Aaron. I took none. You’d think I’d get better at this blogging shit after a while, wouldn’t you?  Right now I’m typing on the 12 hour drive to Billings, MT. Then onward to Oregon.

In the words of Kostas (GREAT writer and one of my fav UNI writers EVER) and Trent Summar: “Sunday drive, Sunday drive, my whole life’s a Sunday drive, I’ll get there when I’ll arrive, honk your horn when you pass by …… let’s go on a Sunday drive”!