SADDLE UP WITH THE PSYCHEDELIC ROCK WRANGLERS SPINDRIFT AS THE COSMIC COWBOY RIDES AGAIN
by Shana Ting Lipton
photos Aaron Farley

      Disheveled and anonymous, a shadow of a man makes his way through the mosaic of landscapes, heading West-always West-across the land. Weary and gritty from his journey, which is a pilgrimage of sorts, he rides alone away from his past, into a vague and distant future. Guitar in one hand, six-shooter in the other, he is the cosmic cowboy-the ghost rider on his dogged and hunted trek, seeking freedom from the bonds of the world-a rock’n'roll Western archetype founded in the psychedelia of the ’60s, and most recently resurrected from the dead with a vengeance by a posse of local musicians and filmmakers.

       Kirpatrick Thomas, the founding member of Spindrift, a self-dubbed “psychedelic Spaghetti Western” band, made just such a journey-in true cosmic cowboy fashion-from Delaware to Southern California in late 2001. He was already heading up the experimental post-punk incarnation of a band called Spindrift when he took off. His fuel: fragrant dreams of the Western mystique rooted in the stylized ’60s cowboy movies of Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone (often grandly referred to within the burgeoning L.A. ‘neo-cosmic cowboy’ scene as simply “Sergio”).

        Like any self-respecting musician on the road, Thomas stopped by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, on his way. It was on this fateful day, in front of the John Lennon exhibit, that he literally ran into the Brian Jonestown Massacre guitarist Frankie Emerson pushing singer/guitarist Anton Newcombe around in a wheelchair. The latter, whose rowdy antics were made public in the 2004 rockumenary Dig, had broken his leg in a fight during a riot at a gig the previous night.

        Thomas-who sings, composes, plays guitar and keyboards-got to know the BJM guys very well. He credits them as a source of inspiration, collaboration and assistance in Spindrift’s California reinvention and activation as a spaghetti Western band. He later ended up playing guitar on tour with the band. That was when the Western bug first bit him hard. Thomas fondly recalls listening and jamming to the music of Ennio Morricone-the prolific composer who pioneered the haunting surf-guitar soundtracks on Leone’s ‘Spaghetti Westerns’-while driving cross country in the tour RV through the deserts.

       As if prescient to the next zeitgeist, Thomas’ spontaneous fascination with the West closely coincided with a greater nationwide passion and rekindling of all things western and cowboy related. In mainstream circles, Western-style music, culture and fashion (both nostalgic and present-day) are everywhere. Wim Wenders’ fallen cowboy film, Don’t Come Knocking, starring Sam Shepard is set to hit screens this month. The non-traditional gay cowboy love story Brokeback Mountain racked up its share of honors. And HBO’s gritty, hard-nosed and extremely popular Deadwood is heading into its third season. America has fallen in love with the cowboy all over again. But something’s different this time. It’s as if, as a nation, we are having a mid-life crisis and looking back on our early days with a mix of longing, disgust, hopefulness and perhaps an altered perspective.

       John Hawkes, who plays “Sol Star” on Deadwood, believes that the Western revival is due to today’s conservative political climate, but not in the way that one might think. “We’re at a political time where we’re so bankrupt of morals and truth that there’s something exhilarating about seeing a way of life that’s full of honor, albeit a twisted kind of honor,” he says.

        Where mainstream America might choose to embrace this outlaw character despite this twisted honor, Thomas and his musical cohorts are creating a scene that embraces the outlaw because of it. He calls this shady hombre the “spiritual vigilante,” adding a psychedelic ingredient to the mix. It is in the old films and music of Leone, Morricone and the general spirit of the Wild West that he and other neo-cosmic cowboys have excavated an essence that seems more relevant today than ever before, a surreal and dark cowboy anti-hero for a spiritually and ethically decaying world.

TIP OF THE HAT

       The dusty mystique of the classic American West has seduced artists of every medium for more than two centuries, and Bron Tieman-whose experimental fusion band Crooked Cowboy and the Freshwater Indians has shared a bill with Spindrift-is no exception. For him, this inspiration came in the form of the now almost stereotyped music of Ennio Morricone. “Ennio was dropping in harpsichord, banjos, all of that; he’s the inventor of this music.” Tieman says he was first blown away by the myth and the music at age 5 when his 8-year-old sister performed a cheerleading routine for him to the theme song from, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, which topped the charts at the time.

       If Morricone sets a mood through sound, then Leone provides the parables, psalms and parameters for what has become something of a religion for these artists. Director Quentin Tarantino dubbed The Good, the Bad and the Ugly the “best directed movie of all time.” Not so coincidentally, Morricone composed music for both the original Kill Bill and its sequel. Leone’s films are not unlike Tarantino’s in their stylish irreverence for the standards of a genre.

        From last July through January, amidst more traditional Western artifacts and lore, The Autry National Center - Museum of the American West in Los Feliz hosted the exhibit, Once Upon a Time in Italy…The Westerns of Sergio Leone. It was curated by Estella Chung, Associate Curator of the Popular Culture department, and Sir Christopher Frayling, renowned authority on Leone and author of the book, Once Upon a Time in Italy: The Westerns of Sergio Leone. Chung recalls a related evening event at which Alessandro Alessandroni-the ‘whistler’ on the Morricone/Leone soundtracks-performed in the museum plaza. “We had over 900 people and you could hear a pin drop.” She elaborates on the awestruck fans, “The people who love Leone and Morricone love them passionately.”

        Thomas is certainly a testament to that fact. He appears to take great pleasure in providing the details of Leone’s films’ philosophy and of the Spaghetti Western genre itself. He explains that the underlying tone is biblical in nature. Raised Catholic, Thomas sees a lot of parallels between biblical stories and Westerns. The Bible is, after all, not the sole jurisdiction of redemption. The central figure in the Spaghetti Western is, he adds, the ethereal nomad. Western superstar Clint Eastwood first rose to fame playing such elusive outsider characters in Leone’s films. “I like to romanticize the mystique of the drifter ghost/pale rider,” says Thomas.

CAMERA IN ONE HAND, PISTOL IN THE OTHER

        The saloon doors swing open, and in walks a man who nobody’s seen before. It’s unclear who he is, where he came from, or where he’s going. And with his dusty hat pulled down over his heavily-bearded face, his identity is as free-roaming as the tumbleweeds he rides alongside. It was with this idyllic notion of the mysterious stranger that Thomas set out to create the ever-morphing, hard to tie-down L.A. branch of Spindrift-a band boasting over a dozen rotating members coast-to-coast. On tours to the East Coast, members from Delaware may join in, many of them from other bands. Thomas is the linchpin between them all. Spindrift’s other West Coast players are Henry Evans (bass and guitar), David Koenig (harmonica and guitar), Morlocks guitarist Bobby Bones, Jason Anchando of the Warlocks (drums), Cameron Murray (keyboards and tambourine), and from the BJM, Dan Allaire (drums), Frankie Emerson (mellosonic), and former keyboardist Rob Campanella (percussion). It is in the latter’s North Hollywood studio that Spindrift records their tripped-out Western sounds. Campanella is coincidentally the son of Joseph Campanella, who appeared on Western TV shows like Shane, The Big Valley, and The Wild Wild West.

        Such peripheral influences fed Thomas’ hunger to make his own Spaghetti Western, a sort of homage to his god, Leone, with its own brand of added psychedelic flavor. Several years ago, he created a fictitious soundtrack for a non-existent spaghetti Western called The Legend of God’s Gun. This bizarre excursion into post modern references to pop cultural entities, that refer to other pop cultural entities, seems apropos in light of Leone’s own cinematic concept. “Leone was influenced by film,” says Chung, explaining that the director had never even been to the United States when he made A Fistful of Dollars, starring the young Eastwood. He was apparently inspired by Western movies, which is why he called his films, “Cinema Cinema” (films about films). “His influence was really another media,” says Chung.

        Thomas was happy with the resulting soundtrack, influenced by Italian Western movies, influenced by American Western movies. So he went on, for his own enjoyment, to craft the concept for the non-film’s trailer and discussed it with Mike Bruce, then-bassist for psych-rock band the Low Flying Owls, who was eager to direct. Bruce, who never went to film school but crafted a niche for himself making videos and the occasional short film, was equally taken by the Spaghetti Western genre. “When Sergio’s movies came out they were like what Pulp Fiction was when it came out, almost punk rock,” he says. Bruce is a fan of all cinematic things Western-everything from the wholesome but nostalgic Little House on the Prairie, to the pungent and sophisticated Deadwood series. But when it comes to Spaghetti Westerns, he is quick to differentiate them from their traditional American cousins (the films of John Ford and the like). “In a lot of Spaghetti Westerns, the hero has some supernatural ability or quality that’s mysterious, almost other-worldly, surreal, and not able to be killed.”

      It was precisely this quality that attracted Bruce to Thomas’ proposed project. “I want to make a movie where you feel drawn into this other world,” he says. Like some delectable drug, The Legend of God’s Gun gave way to a greater hunger as it metamorphosed from soundtrack to trailer. It wasn’t long before Thomas and Bruce were making plans to expand it into a short film. Most recently, the project has taken on a life of its own as Bruce’s first feature on mini digital video as both director and co-producer (alongside Thomas). Originally, caricatured characters had to be fleshed out and given a back-story while other amateur actors dropped out of the project, leaving the team with a cinematic mess. “This whole process of making this movie has been completely backwards,” muses Thomas. What better way to embrace the spirit of the outlaw?

       So Spindrift, Bruce, and friends set out to make a feature film about a little, godless town called Playa Diablo and a demented preacher man who sets out to proselytize his own breed of religiosity. Early filming of The Legend of God’s Gun took place in the desert or around public parks and begot its own set of adventures and curiosities, including snakes nestled in camera equipment, people taking mushrooms and “freaking out in the desert,” as Thomas describes it. “Maybe half the movie people were on something.” Even the horses managed to get wigged out, with one running off and ultimately falling on top of a cast member. “We’re all actually scared of horses,” Thomas admits. And apparently, park rangers have been known to provoke, if not a similar fear, at least some good old healthy outlaw disdain.

       Like something out of indie long-hair-versus-authority-figure film Easy Rider, it ultimately ended up being the funky looking God’s Gun crew versus the “evil” rangers, as he dubs them. At one point, a crew member was even thrown in jail. “If you take a rock n’ roll band out to the desert to make a movie, what do you expect?” Thomas asks rhetorically. Such authoritarian setbacks to the film’s agenda propelled the filmmakers to rent out the ghost town of Silver City in Kern County for some of the pivotal final shoots. “We were out there filming guerilla style,” says Thomas, recounting how they transformed friends’ living rooms into chapels and garages into saloons. Desperate for actors, Bruce and Thomas went the friend route. Members of the Joshua Tree desert/Western inspired psychedelic band Gram Rabbit were among them.

        For the band, who also contributed to the film’s soundtrack, it was a natural fit. “We’re all attracted to the same essence of the desert, that old special Western cosmic other-worldly feel that you only get in this part of California,” says Gram Rabbit front woman Jesika von Rabbit, “It’s very trippy, a million shooting stars…” This landscape has attracted bohemian artists for decades and continues to do so. Recently, generations collided when von Rabbit found herself at Pappy and Harriet’s Honky Tonk in Pioneertown (the old Western set that saw the likes of Gene Autry) at the same time as Led Zeppelin rock icon Robert Plant. “I sang impromptu duets with him like ‘Fever’ and ‘Sea of Love,’” she excitedly recalls. “I still manage to get in a fair share of trouble out here.” Von Rabbit adds with a note of oddly-placed hopefulness, “I’ll probably die out here.”

SHOOTING AT STARS

       Should von Rabbit’s prophecy come true, it would be the synchronous stuff of well-worn rock and roll legend. Gram Rabbit was partially named after ‘cosmic cowboy’ music patron saint Gram Parsons, who died in 1973 of a drug overdose in room #8 of the Joshua Tree Inn at age 26. So cosmically connected to the arid desert world was the former member of legendary band the Byrds, that he is said to have told a friend, “Please let my spirit be released in the Joshua Tree.” Despite the fact that von Rabbit had not been a Parsons fan prior to moving to the desert, she and Gram Rabbit co-founder Todd Rutherford first “bonded musically through Gram Parsons music,” by jamming to his songs.

       It was Parsons who first coined the term ‘cosmic American music’ to describe how he forged a connection between the psychedelic rock’n'roll culture and classic country Western through his own tunes and those with his band the Flying Burrito Brothers. He and his cohorts dressed in so-called ‘Nudie suits’ (Western suits elaborately adorned with rhinestones) fashioned by the legendary tailor Jamie Nudie at Nudie’s Rodeo Tailor’s on Lankershim Blvd. in North Hollywood. Cohen was the clothier to country legends like John Wayne, Gene Autry and Glenn Campbell.

        Parsons and his ilk were part of a ’60s trend towards romanticizing the Western landscape. As hippies idealized communal habitation and living off the land, controlling their own farming systems (beyond the grasp of “the Man”) that idealism naturally led them to California’s early Western roots. And now, today, the torch has been passed to those Western loving hippies, and they’re providing the historical context for neo-cosmic cowboys. A rare appearance this month at the Troubadour by country western hippie musician/songwriter Kris Kristofferson sold out immediately, drawing in everyone from actors Harry Dean Stanton and Luke Wilson to members of the glam metal band L.A. Guns. Kristofferson’s on-stage dedication to giants like Johnny Cash and Jimmy Hendrix speaks volumes about this historical connection between psychedelia and the Western mystique.

       DJ Nick Stahl keeps that hybrid essence alive alongside its traditional country roots on a weekly basis, Saturdays on his 88.9 KXLU radio show, “Toe Tappin’ Music.” On it he plays everything from ‘cosmic cowboy’ staples like the New Riders of the Purple Sage and Poco to earlier classics from country legends like Hank Williams. The spirit of Parsons is also around today in the form of events like Gram-Jam at the South by SouthWest music festival in Austin, Texas (Friday, March 17th) and the annual GramFest, where Gram Rabbit first met members of Spindrift.

       Just as Parsons and the other cosmic cowboys of the ’60s have attracted Spindrift, Gram Rabbit and Crooked Cowboy and the Freshwater Indians like horses to water, Parsons and the pioneers of the original movement were attracted to the scene of their predecessors. Parsons-along with numerous other psychedelic era rock musicians-lived in Laurel Canyon, where seminal cowboy star Tom Mix once owned an estate. Members of the Doors also shacked up in the rustic and dusty Hollywood Hills neighborhood. It was probably no coincidence that their sound was linked to the mystical Western ethos as well.

INTO THE SUNSET

       Far from the cracked desert floor of Joshua Tree and the rolling, grass-covered hills of Laurel Canyon, music pours like moonshine from a dank Downtown loft space. Inside, fans clamor as a crew of rough-neck cowboy-types with hats, holsters and hard faces jam alongside two drummers in front of a Leone film playing on a large screen. The motley crew is Spindrift; its members have taken lately to adopting their cinematic personas on stage. For Thomas, that would be a grubby, self-satisfying bandito by the name of “El Sobero.” Bobby Bones, who plays the “psychedelic preacher” in The Legend of God’s Gun, dons a priest’s robe and a quirky smile. Syncopations abound as Thomas’ low voice bellows out lyrics sometimes as mysterious murmurs, other times as howls.

       Howling and chanting seem organic to the desert landscape, rooted somewhere between ancient coyote packs and sacred Peyote rituals. Or at least this has been the case when Spindrift has taken its musical powwow to the wide open, arid spaces surrounding this city. The desert seems to provide Spindrift and friends with a sonic landscape above and beyond that of any recording studio. And the visual backdrop rounds out the experience.

       The band’s catchphrase is “Sound beckons across a desert wasteland,” and they’ve answered its call many times in the past. Once, a Death Valley video shoot turned into 20 friends and Spindrift ambling around the sand dunes at night in Marble Canyon, guitars in hand. Thomas led the group in a melody that ultimately echoed through the canyon, non-stop for a half hour. In mid-2005, an event called The Desert All-Nighter brought together close to a dozen bands, including Spindrift, in the Mojave Desert’s Jawbone Canyon for an insomniacs’ foray into indie rock. “It felt like some secret underground ’60s cult meeting of sorts,” says Kristine L. Barnard, a Los Angeles art director who, from that point on, became a Spinny (a term occasionally used to describe the group’s select but growing fan base). According to Barnard, it was cold and windy and the pitch black sky was littered with stars. Camp sites dotted the area, as if they were all satellites to the stage and an adjacent fire pit. All were surrounded by massive, monolithic rocks. Fireworks punctuated the constellation filled heavens. Barnard recalls her reaction to first hearing Spindrift when they went on at around three or four in the morning: “I felt like the music was made for those surroundings, part of the earth, the desert, the sky.” One can imagine that the locale and experience in and of themselves were psychedelic, any use of assisting hallucinogens notwithstanding.

       Clearly, landscape and surroundings are important to ‘neo-cosmic cowboys’-be it outdoors or indoors. Tieman, whose Crooked Cowboy and the Freshwater Indians has a show planned on April 21st with Gram Rabbit at the Echo, lives in his inspirational space. “Over 20 of us musicians record out of a barn made in 1923,” he says. Tieman calls his home/studio Crooked Cowboy’s Beat Barn and Antler Casino. Formerly the home of his late aunt, an animator for Chuck Jones (who created desert characters like ‘Wile E. Coyote’ and ‘Roadrunner’), the ‘Beat Barn,’ he says, was originally part of the historic Mount Washington Hotel constructed in 1909.

       Tieman, who is one of the founders of Hollywood’s Lava Lounge and a former member of the Blue Hawaiians, views his Barn as a community effort. He shares it with a fellow musician and has decorated it with antlers left by his aunt and an organ given to him by L.A. punk band Bad Religion. “It’s all about the community of everyone,” he stresses. And he lives up to his community stance, often verbally promoting Spindrift more than his own band. In turn, Spindrift and God’s Gun director Bruce invited him to contribute music to the soundtrack as well.

       The film crew had hoped to release their work to the public in true ’shadow rider’ fashion on June 6th of this year (6/6/6). But with Bruce carrying the weight of being his own one-man production crew buried in post-production work, it may be a little while longer before it hits any screens, at the festivals or otherwise. Perusing the shots he worked so hard to get-banditos busting into saloons, ‘perty’ ladies being raped, showdowns and warped sermons-Bruce daydreams of what a little Hollywood pixie dust might do for the film. “I would love to shoot it with Jack Black as El Sobero and Jack White of the White Stripes as the preacher,” he muses. Instead, for the moment he has something decidedly more gritty and raw to work with-a sort of diamond in the rough.

      In one of the early scenes of The Legend of God’s Gun, the cunning and coarse El Sobero tells his banditos about his lineage and the ominous power of a scorpion Mandela passed down through the family. “As each generation of my forefathers has passed-this warning has turned to legend.” This character could just as easily be talking about the dark, alluring, surreal myth surrounding the ‘cosmic cowboy,’ who rides again in enclaves of Millennium-era L.A. El Sobero continues: “A person appearing as an ordinary man of gauntly character and no redeeming qualities would appear seeking revenge, and if his revenge was justified he would achieve his aim.” Perhaps, as fiction and fact get blurred in the kaleidoscopic shards of time and space, this ghostly outlaw turned anti-hero will similarly achieve his aim-or at the very least he’ll play some music, journey into the desert, and have a hell of a time-or he’ll die trying.