Spindrift @ Pappy & Harriet’s (High Desert), 2/09/08
Photos by Laura
Late Saturday night in the high desert, Spindrift played to a bizarre mix of hippies, rednecks and marines from the local base at Pappy and Harriet’s bar. Evoking Nuggets-era garage rock this Angeleno cult phenomenon is perhaps best described, to the uninitiated, as a Spaghetti Western jam band. The riveting stage show culminated in a kind of a cult of joy with the entire audience joining the band chanting wildly. Billed as a birthday party for two of the band’s members (Dave and Plucky), festivities continued until sunrise in the adjoining hotel in Pioneertown, near where Gram Parsons shuffled off this mortal coil.
The event was as much of interest for the locale, a reproduction of an old West saloon (whose steak chili fries have legendary status) as for the crowd it drew. In addition to a handful of weatherbeaten desert dwellers and clutch of marines down from the local base the show drew out luminaries from the fringes of the alt-country scene as well as devoted groupies from across the country whose styles mixed freak folk, indie, old school psychedelic metal, and my personal favourite, the “Man With No Name” look –replete with poncho, porkpie Stetson and an attitude of general disdain for pleasantries and small talk.
RELATED (Franky, Dan, Plucky et al)
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» Do Not Throw Shit
