The Rove was pretty much just that--a huge open field with small clusters of people gathered around performing musicians. No stages, no amplification, no merch tents, no concessions stands. Just people roaming around taking in all kinds of music. More than a few of the performers actually roved while they played, Pied Piper-like, leading their audience literally up and down hills and through dales in the course of a song or two. Now if this sounds like some painful melange of Renaissance Faire, earnest folk hootenany, and a Save the Whales potluck, you're wrong. First of all, more than anything, this was fun. The performers ranged in age and style from a ten-year-old pair of fraternal Amish twins--Horace and Gertrude--who played washboard and spoons, respectively, deliriously singing nothing but old Ike and Tina Turner songs to an octogenerian banging on a battery-operated Casio keyboard singing Frank O'Hara poems. There was definitely a Luddite vibe to the whole thing (later I found out that this particular Rove was unofficially--indeed everything seemed to be unofficial--named Pardon You, But Your I-Pad Is Getting Squished 'Neath My Foot), but no overt politicking.
I could go on forever about the sights and sounds, but nothing blew me away like Ewe Too. In the shade of just about the only tree in the field, a rather large (for a Rove, I'm told) crowd of about thirty people were positively carwooning ("combination of careening and swooning," Corky called it) to the hypnotic, multi-instrument music of the duo. We arrived in the middle of a frenetic call and response between the two--"Whatcha got for me?" "Mutton Honey!" "Whatcha got for me?" "Mutton Honey!"--accompanied by some reckless banjo playing by the woman and simultaneous harmonica whooping and trance-inducing tambourine flogging by the man. Somehow, maybe the sunset's rays distracted me, but without stopping the music, within minutes she was playing accordion and he was finger-picking a twelve-string and they were harmonizing on a gorgeous hymn that was a paean to the apotheosis of ovine--"God Of Lamb" I later found out.
"We met at 'MuneCon," Bonnie, who does most of the talking for the duo, said as I chatted them up at the end of the Rove. "It's a convention of communes. I was in one called Daylight Schmaylight, Hank was in the Tent Pitchers." Both appear to be under 30--I didn't know communes still existed, enough to actually hold conventions. "We ended up alone by a creek drinking somebody's homemade wine when we discovered our connection, our destiny. My real, un-commune name is Bonnie Shepherd. He was actually born Frederick, but after he displayed his hunger for breast milk his Daddy nicknamed him Hanker, as in, (deadpan and dead on redneck accent) 'At boy sure does Hanker for boob.' Now he just goes by Hank. Hank Lamb. Get it? Shepherd and Lamb!"
"Kismet," Hank, a clean-cut Eagle Scout-looking young guy, offered with a smile as he was packing up the accordion.
"Now we're not really vegans or anything," Bonnie made clear.
"'Cept for financial necessity," Hank put in.
"I mean I love a good cheeseburger," Bonnie, laughing a little nervously, sitting against the tree trunk in her blue jeans cut off haphazardly at the knees and her plain white t-shirt and unkempt curly dirty brown hair, with that confession, was about the down-to-earthest sexiest person in one moment I have ever encountered. "But we paired up our soon discovered musical talents, our commitment to living off any known grid, and our lifelong devotion to all things sheepish and decided to leave the communes and set out for this life of joy, music, and benign ovine proselytizing."
"Why should bovine get all the press?" Hank asked, quite profoundly.
"In our own little way we're just trying to entertain people with our music, be responsible in the way we comport ourselves on this Earth, and try to inspire people to respect the lambs of this world a little more."
"Live sheeply, man," Hank intoned and then reached in a satchel and pulled out a genuine 8-track tape. "Here's our concession to commerciality. Enjoy."
Thus I now have in my possession an 8-track tape of Ewe Too, entitled, Lambent, a campfire-sounding rough recording of the duo (the wherefores of the exclusively 8-track medium are mired in communal arcana) that is the greatest thing I've heard this millennium, and maybe the previous one, too. If I only had the technology I'd post the entire thing right here and now ("Sure man, spread the fleece, spread the fleece," Hank encouraged); as it is you'll just have to take my word that you've never heard music this mesmerizing, joyous, euphoric. From the quiet, nearly ambient airs of the title track, to the raucous hoe-down of "Wrack My Brains But Please Don't Rack My Lamb," from the warm, reassuring "Sheared Wool," to the punky "That Little Lamb Ain't Mary's Anymore," from the stark "I Breathe Aries," to the anthemic "Spread That Fleece"--all with banjo, guitar, Jews Harp, saw, accordion, harmonica, fiddle, slapping thighs, recorder, tambourine, etc. dervishly accompanying two sinuous, ebullient voices--Ewe Too's Lambent just might be what God had in mind when He/She/It dreamed up the concept of music.
And then there's "We Don't Need Another Gyro," the closer, the hit single if Ewe Too were interested in such pedestrian things. Just fiddle, accordion, and two voices, starting out in a frenzy, and slowly breaking it down to a waltz then ramming it back up into a whirlwind. Soul-levitating music if there is such a thing.
Sometimes you get lucky. When I dug my long-buried first stereo system out of the wreckage of the basement and discovered that it not only still worked but that its 8-track drive still clunked hardily, I realized I'm not just lucky, I'm blessed.
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