Giving thanks and Kanoka moments

Thanksgiving for northeast Iowa
by Brian FitzGerald

People have been asking me for a while what “Kanoka” means.  Is it a Native American chief?  Some town in Minnesota or Kansas?  Kanoka, the title and first track from our latest studio release, describes a destination of the soul, what the great mythologist Joseph Campbell called “finding your bliss.” 

Playing northeast Iowa over the years has always been chock full of Kanoka moments for Marty and me, each experience showing us we were on our path.  The influence of the Driftless Region on our music is everywhere for those who want to get a sense of the Switchback Sound. For example, the cover of our second release, Check on Out, has a photo of my then 8 year-old son straddling his bike on the Blackhawk Bridge.  That album has the song “Stranded, Ragged and Poor” about the flooding of the Mississippi.  

The first time we played the City Club in Waukon, the brass who ran the legendary Dar’s Place caught our show and we were immediately herded over to that club for a mind-altering experience.  We soon became the house band with a following hungry for traditional Celtic, rock and country originals and our own take on some scorching covers.  There was a local expression, waygood, which was used to describe an exceptionally fun time.  WayGood became the name of our company and independent label.  Many a night when we were finished playing Dar’s we would sit with the bar maids and listen to the unbelievable eclectic jukebox. That eventually led us to release Dar’s Place, an equally eclectic mix of original tunes.  The cover shot featured the proprietor, Brenda.  The disc had everyone who was in the bar on it.  Lenny and Big Gary brought their Harley’s out and we took shots of them with us in front of the club.  Playing Dar’s was always a Kanoka moment for us. 

Nancy Whiskey, our second Irish album, was recorded after several nights playing for the crazy folks at the Haymarket in Decorah.  Engineer Bruce Larsen was sometimes kept awake turning knobs until the birds were chirping.  The late, great photographer Larsh Bristol always wanted to photograph Maxine, a celebrated Waukon character, and we knew that we wanted Larsh to shoot the cover for Nancy Whiskey.  When Larsh learned that Maxine was to be the subject, he was in like Flynn, and a mutual Kanoka moment for Switchback and Larsh was born.  To this day, people still ask about our cover girl on Nancy Whiskey and we love to tell the story.  As they say in Waukon, it was waygood. 

Less than two years ago, the Steyer Opera House hosted a benefit for KPVL, a local independent public radio station that people loved to call “the voice of Postville, Iowa.”  It was the first time we publicly released our 12th collaboration, Ghosts of the River Folk, to a full capacity northeast Iowa audience.  The inspirational stomping grounds for Ghosts was again the Driftless Region.  The centerpiece of that collection was the song “The Mayfly Dance” that captured another Kanoka moment.   In it we recalled opening for the legendary musician and riverboat captain, John Hartford, at the Iowa State Sesquicentennial celebration that was held in Lansing.

And those are just a few of the memories of playing for the folks of the Driftless Region.  So many more have shaped our music through the years.  This November 16, we will celebrate two new albums, Kanoka and our new LIVE Volume One collection, with a dance at the Steyer Opera House in Decorah.  It will be our way of giving thanks for and to a place where the land and people have given so much to our sound.  Though you can’t manufacture a Kanoka moment, there’s no better place to set the table for one than Decorah.  My bet is that Nick, Marty and I, as well as our Iowa fans, will have one.  And it will be waygood.

Just Like Me

One of our favorite parts of The WayGood World is being invited to play Outreach Programs for students.  From the University of Texas in Tyler, where we played for 400 students, to a small linoleum-lined cafeteria workshop with 20 grade-schoolers in East Chain, Minnesota, we are always faced with a fresh challenge and quite often astonished to hear the best quips.

Our Outreach Program in Dubuque, Iowa has taken on marathon proportions at times.  One year we played for 9000 students in just 10 days.  The most recent jaunt to Dubuque was for two middle schools where we presented an after-school workshop on songwriting that we call "Why Did We Write That?".

We were working on a song as we drove the three hours to the school.  Usually Marty drives while Brian plays the mandolin and holds a pad of paper at the same time.  When we get a good start, Brian turns his cell phone's recorder on and we can lay down a rough idea.    This rough idea was what we shared with the students at Madison School.  We pulled out our instruments and played it for the students to see what they thought.  They liked the song. We had thus established our credentials as "cool" songwriters.

Brian asked why these ten kids chose this particular after-school activity.  One young girl with red hair said that she wanted to write a song for her dad as a birthday gift.  Another girl, who sported an Abercrombie shirt, would write songs but had a hard time remembering what she had written.  And a shy girl,  who never stopped doodling on her song pad, quietly told us she would randomly open a dictionary to find an interesting word and then begin writing a song.  Finally, the only boy, who was pretty reticent being in a room full of girls, revealed he was a multi-instrumentalist who loved writing melodies but just couldn't write lyrics.  We had our team.

So we voted on what type of song to write.  The girl's birthday gift was chosen as the best project. In five minutes we had important facts about dad listed on the chalkboard.  He was a first child of four and this daughter was also the first of four.  He was the only boy in the family and his daughter had one brother as well.  They shared the same date but different months, both being born in the fall.   When they would have a daddy-daughter outing, they loved bowling, sledding, and going to movies together.   Marty would write these ideas on the board with a marker.  Later he found out he used a non-erasable marker and we had to spend 10 minutes cleaning the board.

The red-haired girl wanted the song to resemble a slow version of "Happy Birthday," so the young multi-instrumentalist was called on to strum a melodic variation on the guitar.   It came out like a cross between "Frere Jacques" and Mendelssohn's "Wedding March." The students all got excited as the song started taking shape.  We all approved the melody and began to assemble the information on the board to develop the lyrics.  A working title was chosen: Just Like Me.

Abercrombie shirt enthusiastically waved her hand.  "How about we have her ask her dad for new clothes?"

"But it's his birthday," said the shy girl, glancing up from her doodling.

"I DO ask Dad for new clothes on his birthday," said the red-haired girl matter of factly.

"OK, OK," said Brian, "reality is good.  Let's run with that as part of the song."

At the end of the hour we completed "Just Like Me" with two verses, a chorus and even a bridge!  With our multi-instrumentalist on guitar, Brian on mandolin, and Marty on bass, we had a full band.  The entire group loudly joined in the singing, each kid feeling the pride of ownership that comes from crafting a work of art.

We recorded the song on the cell phones and the students took the lyrics home to share with their families.

Right before we were to leave, Abercrombie enthusiastically waved her hand.

"Can we sing 'Just Like Me' in a British or Australian accent?" she asked.

This April, we will have our second Annual Switchback Songwriter's weekend at Four Mounds Conference Center in Dubuque.  We are bringing in a guest songwriter, Kevin Gordon, to share his experiences with songwriting.  We also will have our resident songwriter, Scott Momenthy, on hand to help coach individuals.  More information is on our website.

Last year, we had writers and guests (yes, you can be a spectator) come from as far as western Kansas to participate in this weekend of relaxation and creativity.  There were beginners and seasoned performers mixing in the endeavor.

Like that red-haired girl from Madison School, who gave her dad a wonderful birthday gift, everyone has a chance to leave this weekend with a personal treasure of original music. We hope all of them will be as proud of them as the kids who wrote "Just Like Me."  And maybe they'll sing it in an Australian accent.

~ Brian and Marty

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