Nightflying: The Entertainment Guide

---Michael Acklin

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    It’s 3 a.m. and I just woke to find the above on my laptop, right next to the dog. Day off and all that. In a more or less real way, that’s close to the point this issue. 28th anniversary time. After 25 we started celebrating every year just because, and well we might. Each year a boatload of musicians go on the Night Shift. For a more complete list of the dearly departed, see Doug Treadway’s scratchings elsewhere in this mag, Meanwhile, I’m tasked with the subject of them years theyselfs.
    I’ve begun a push to occupy time in the manner of Prof. Hawking, as a sort of "ticket that exploded" Reality lies scattered in drifts of crumpled notepad all around Poverty Ridge. Each shard of foolscap reveals a piece of the musical puzzle that carries no obligation to order. Each fragment suggests enough events that the effort to connect them died long ago, beginning with Phillip McCorkle (here someplace…lose my head if it wasn’t such a cliché) and just recently Tim Q, master luthier and all around swell fellow. There are others, like Leo Thomas, that have simply gone missing from MY life. For all I know he could be king of a small island off the coast of Erewhon. Then again, since MY life is the only one I’ve got, this sort of thing is as important as I want it to be. Next frag: John Dodson, owner of the old Levee club on a two lane road that was originally Hayes Street. The little leased storefront with its tabletop Coke machines and naked beer kegs was all there was for folk singers back in the 60s. Kay Wallace, Randy and Scott, the Solip Singers, And Jerry Merrick. Tim and Burger, Whiskers, and the Wooha Band. Peter Read actually played a piano!
    The Seventies were and still are a foggy window. Looking through it one finds boatloads of time compressed into ever-shrinking focci. 80s Progressive Country made the accumulation of a band an absolute necessity, but brought with it the sit-and-listen crowds and the shrinkage of the dance floor.
    After a few years of a sweaty little single act (Dobro, mandolin, guitar, and banjo) I found a band and single spots dwindled into a few spots in Eureka and LR. The addition of Ms. Vicky brought a new direction and a move to Fayetteville, where we met the Boston Islanders. It was during this time I met PR and paste-up, between trips to the liquor store and Col. Sanders, gave life to good ol' Nightflying. The mag has held a spot open for me for longer than is comfortable to ponder, including, along with the usual self-promotion, the occasional poem.
    The Nineties were a time of excess and extreme, spent mostly in the woods on Mt. Gayler, with frequent soirees in the company of Steve Ward and Ms. Vicky. When Ms. V lit out for points east, the single act returned for awhile and even got itself out to Paris, Normandie, and other points Euro. After a couple of years, Ms. V came back to the group and a scattering of gigs around the Ozarks. This is how it is today,
    With occasional invitations from other bands and a growing porch-playing series. Add to that the recording activity at Poverty Ridge and some poetry nights and the Mudcat show appears to still be on the road despite all my efforts to quit.
    I can’t honestly say that Nightflying has made it all possible. We’d have all gone on playing in the haphazard manner of pre-mag days. What the Nightie means to me is a place where band, audience, and most critical of all, owners and managers of venues could see the scene in a periodic snapshot which, over time, gathered enough volume and frequency to count as a market. It also keeps me anchored firmly where it cannot be denied that there’s stuff going on besides MY life. It gives me the pleasure of periodic violation of the protocols of the elders of newsy-papering and, as is only fair, ends its life productively on the floors of bird cages across the region. Finally, it provides me with the only regular check I’ve ever gotten from the music biz. So here’s to PR and everybody else. Hidden away here on Poverty Ridge (whose initials you’ll notice are ALSO PR) we hardly see anyone but the dog. Hmmm..wondering now about them initials..where’s my aluminum-foil helmet…?????
    "Reality is merely an illusion,
     albeit a very persistent one."
                     ---Albert Einstein

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