Another beautiful evening in Bisbee. A Tuesday to be exact. Not Friday or Saturday when the town is jumping out of its skin full of too many happenings for the mind to comprehend, nor even a Sunday afternoon, when tourists spent after a great weekend ponder whether to head out or catch one more thing.
Nope: Tuesday.
Live in Bisbee long enough and you might succumb to complacency from time to time despite the sheer volume of happenings in town. All that talent, all that ambition to create spilling out of every nook and cranny in Old Bisbee can be overwhelming, but with enough time one gets used to it. Eventually the privilege of living here is joined by another privilege, that of taking it all for granted.
Last week your humble blogger decided it was time to shake off the rust and get out of the house on Tuesday evening, mindful that the phrase “count your blessings” contains a verb, namely “count.” Counting ones’ blessings is like love. It’s not a sentiment, a mood or a feeling. It’s something you do. Being blessed to live in good old Bisbee, Arizona I decided to get out there and do some counting. To show up and love it, on purpose, with purpose.
The sun had retreated behind the Escabrosa Ridge which forms the southern arm embracing Old Bisbee’s Tombstone Canyon, but it was not yet dark when I arrived in Brewery Gulch. The ladies at Lunar Studio Bisbee were setting up for the night’s classes. Elmos’ neon cast its glow, illuminating the cool kids standing outside for a smoke. Old Bisbee Brewing’s subdued Tuesday playlist hummed behind me as I made my way to Gene’s Place, a friendly establishment next to Bisbee’s iconic Broadway Steps.
The mission: to check out Dylan Panther, a local kid of not more than 20 years. Dylan is a songwriter, with big shoes to fill—or rather, a whole closet full of shoes to fill. His grandmother, Pat Panther, an old time blues aficionado and a finger-picker like none other, playing in Bisbee for almost 40 years; Pat’s brother, Robert “Buzz” Pearson, front man for Buzz and the Soul Senders, Bisbee’s legendary booty-shakin rhythm and blues band; and mom and dad, Danielle and Sam Panther, both members of the Soul Senders and prolific performers each in their own right.
That’s a lot of shoes.
I’d heard great things about Dylan and his songs and resolved to go check him out, and tonight was the night. Perhaps this will be familiar to some readers: a tendency amongst younger songwriters to sing in a witty, verbose style delivered in a matter of fact, conversational way. The weapon of choice being a ukulele often enough. Dense lyrics that sound like they’d be comfortably delivered without music, as verse, with rhetorical surprises that keep one from getting too comfortable. A child of his generation, Dylan did indeed bring his own spin on the style, but with a twist: a guitar rather than ukulele, with some finger picking—which is harder than it looks—to boot.
I will confess, Dylan had me in tears by the end of the first set. No spoilers, but I learned years ago that being vulnerable is the path to being relatable, to speaking to people where they are rather than getting lost in the sauce with grandiose metaphor and allegory. Some of Dylan’s words hit like a velvet hammer—you look over your shoulder and realize you’ve been smitten without realizing it.
You can check out Dylan Panther’s music for yourself, and you should. He’s at Gene’s Place most Tuesday evenings. Keep your eye on him. This kid is formidable.
But Tuesday wasn’t over, not yet. Time for a short stroll up Main Street to the Bisbee Grand Saloon, for an experience not to be missed. I am speaking of Foolaloof, a one-of-a-kind blob of an act.
That’s right: Foolaloof is an amorphous blob of varying size and composition, able to squeeze through the tiniest of cracks while expanding to fill the space it occupies. The central brain cell animating this amoeba is one Brian Mullins, a name we’ll come back to in a future feature. Foolaloof, a palindrome fun and silly to say, is Mullins’ brainchild. It is an improv group oozing its way through a fluid medium of jazz, psychedelia, poetry, chicanery and spontaneity. Sometimes Foolaloof sounds like beat-era cool jazz with Mullins’ freestyling jive like a reprise of 1970s Tom Waits’ patter. Other times T.S. Henry Webb paints sound pictures with an aerophone that wash over the room. Michael Gregory the Poet sprinkles in a dash of his verse at just the right times, punctuating Foolaloof’s primordial soup with the solidity of the word.
Tonight, the blob was the biggest I had seen. Eight people on stage, a full drum kit, saxophone, violin, a four-string electric tenor, flute, all undulating, assuming a semblance of structure before dissolving back into chaos. I strolled in just as they were finishing another on-the-spot masterpiece. A gentleman informed me I had just missed one of his “favorite songs of theirs” which caused me to laugh out loud. Foolaloof doesn’t have songs as we know them. The blob creates “happenings” instead, each one unique as a snowflake, never to be repeated.
Foolaloof is one of the most unique collectives in town, and must be experienced to be believed. Find them at the Bisbee Grand the third Tuesday of each month, or the fourth Sunday at the Hitching Post in Bisbee’s Warren district.
After a good set of brain-resetting Foolaloof shenanigans it was time to go home. Back by nine, back to Warren where things are a bit slower. Catching even one of these acts would have made for a great evening any day of the week. Beating back the complacency one can acquire after years of living in such a happening place, I was grateful to count two blessings in one evening.
And it’s only Tuesday. The week is young and so, my friends, is Bisbee. Forever.
Keith Allen Dennis is a Bisbee writer who, as one of the luckiest boys on the planet, got the chance to actually call this wonderful town home. And luckier still, to live the dream of becoming the songster he was meant to be. Find his music at keithallendennis.bandcamp.com.
