sam lardner

DECEMBER 2011: HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL

SEPTEMBER 2011: THE VALLEY OF THE SUN

Dear friends,

I hope this newsletter finds you well. We are back in Barcelona, having faced Irene head on last weekend and barely snuck out of New England on the first available airplanes from Boston and NYC, in some cases via Toronto. Family rule: when in doubt, scatter and regroup later at the designated rendezvous point. I know that many of you had a rough go of it in the New York area and northern New England, and our thoughts go out to you.

I missed the chance to write you about so many positive moments this summer, but it was two months of flat-out music and kids and music and kids and music and kids that left me wondering how anybody ever sits down to write anything at all. I’m not complaining, but I am definitely going to have to “ramp up” the discipline (I had a lot of conversations this summer with folks from the business world, and I learned some pretty good investment banking jargon).

So let’s “dial in” the highlight of the summer.

Actually, one thing first that will make this story richer. In a former life, I was a very serious flyfisherman. I made annual trips to the American West with a few side trips to Iceland and Canada, and I got to know some of the world’s greatest rivers on a personal, and in some cases, spiritual level. I scrimped on food, splurged on flies, slept in the dirt and tried to get as far into the mind of a trout as one can go without totally losing it. I was 26, single, and insane.

One of my “shrine” rivers was Silver Creek just south of Bellevue in Sun Valley, Idaho. This pristine spring creek is so rich with aquatic insect life, so full of impossibly large trout and so gin clear, that it stands out among Blue Ribbon rivers as a “do it before you die” kind of experience. Its abundant curves through the lower valley are so intimate and nichey that it only rewards the most cautious waders and delicate casters, the most patient observers and mule-headed problem-solvers. It is quite simply the perfect trout stream.

On one trip to Silver Creek, I remember being outraged when a young couple, “total idiots”, allowed their dog to swim a few hundred yards below where I was fishing. Didn’t they understand ANYTHING?? This was a shrine!

OK, let’s “dial it back” to the summer of 2011. I am now 48 and a recovering trout bum. I have just performed with my “big band” (Annabel Villalonga, Juan Flores, Sandra Sangiao, Nuna Garcia and special guest, Rob Morsberger) at the Sun Valley Wine Auction & Festival. So fun was our concert yesterday at the 2000-person picnic culminating the week’s events, so rapt are we today with the perfect weather and drop-dead natural surroundings, that we have decided to spend our last afternoon in Sun Valley on our own private picnic with our very own Michelin Star chef, Jean Luc Figueras.

Jean Luc and his assistant chefs, Inma Ranera and Jeffrey Weiss, have presided over the culinary side of the Wine Festival with their killer Catalan cuisine and more or less won the hearts and stomachs of central Idaho. To celebrate this triumphant tour de force, Jean Luc has declared that today he will catch a trout from Silver Creek, por cojones, or his name is not “Jean Luc Figueras”. 

I have taken the precaution of buying a one-day license because I know how well patrolled Silver Creek is, especially on a Sunday. Jean Luc has not bought a license because the wonderful old couple at the Chevron station in Bellevue could not figure out how to enter a Spanish social security number into the Idaho Fish and Game computerized licensing system. Not their fault, but Jean Luc has decided it is not his fault either. So he is vigorously trying out his newly-learned casting technique on these mythical waters without a license, por cojones.

I think wistfully, “I am on Silver Creek. I am not fishing. I am having fun”.

When the Game Warden pulls into the dirt parking area above the stretch of river we are fishing (as I knew he would), what he sees has now surely become the story of the summer for which he has been treated to countless rounds of free drinks at the Hailey Hotel.

Through his binoculars he sees me standing just behind Jean Luc (while I have seen worse attempts from a novice, and while I would never want to hurt Jean Luc’s feelings, I have just reminded him that it looks like he is whipping a thousand pound bull from Extremadura). Just upstream from us, lying midstream in a shallow current in their colorful bikinis, are Inma, Sandra, Annabel and Nuna. They are absolutely and abundantly beautiful. Almost lethal to look at through binoculars. They are laughing hysterically at Jeffrey and Juan, who for lack of real bathing suits have just cannonballed into a deeper pool upstream in their underwear and screamed at the surprisingly cold water temperature.

The river bank is littered with clothing and shoes, and under the willows below the clearing behind us lie two huge blankets with guitars, a bucket of chilling wine bottles and the mother of all Catalan picnics spread out and waiting for Jean Luc to catch “his trout” (which, by the way, he has proclaimed he will eat – now you other trout bums are dying of laughter, I am sure).

One thing I have learned over the years is to be proactive when busted by American authorities. I think they respond to people who are forthcoming and willing to deal honestly with the situation at hand. So I wade over to meet the warden at stream’s edge with my license. He is a big strapping mountain lad with a deadpan expression and a deep, steady voice.

“Can your friend come here, too? I need to see his license.”

“He doesn’t have one. He’s from Spain. I bought one so he could fish”

“That’s not the way it works”

I give him a respectfully abridged explanation of our perceived deficiencies of the Idaho Fish and Game online licensing system. My half naked band watches with quiet amusement from their mid-river lounging positions in the golden, sunlit water. 

He politely responds, “Please call your friend over here”.

I call Jean Luc, who has been feverishly flailing for “his trout” throughout my conversation with the law. He, of course, is executing the Catalan strategy on these types of confrontations: ignore them, and maybe they will go away. Jean Luc gives me a look like, “What’s up?”, then shrugs his shoulders and starts stumbling across the river at a painfully slow pace. Stalling… Thinking… Stalling some more… He is in his aqua blue flowered bathing suit, white button down oxford shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and he is barefoot. He is smoking a cigarette and muttering to himself. You don’t get to be a Michelin Star chef without having a pretty good dose of dragon, and I begin to fear an unnecessarily complicated confrontation.

When Jean Luc arrives at the bank, the warden asks him to get out of the water. Jean Luc gives me another look like, “C’mon, really?”

Before I can warn Jean Luc that the black mud of the inclined bank is slippery as an eel’s ass, he is down, face first, and wearing it. The rod flies up onto the bank and lands at the warden’s feet. Laughter explodes upstream. To my surprise, Jean Luc is chuckling in the mud. I am hanging on the reaction of our still expressionless warden, in whose hands the fate of our happy infidel picnic on Silver Creek lies. He picks up the rod and carefully observes it: reel, rod, line and leader. There is no fly. Jean Luc has unwittingly snapped it off in one of his over-passionate back casts. By definition, we are not fishing.

Our Michelin Star chef rises to his feet like a small boy on his first outing to an ice rink. He manages to ask, “¿Y la mosca?” (What happened to my fly?) before returning anew with alarming speed to his face-down-in-mud position at the warden’s feet. More hysteria from the midstream muses. Inma and Annabel are now holding their stomachs and openly crying with laughter. I give the warden the faintest of noncommittal smiles, and slowly, like the melting of an iceberg, the laughter comes. His mouth opens. He realizes there are no words. Then his shoulders start shaking. Still no sound. Finally, from the very depths of his chest comes the reluctant, head shaking laugh of helpless disbelief.

It’s all going to be ok

After much backslapping, picture taking and hysterical cackling from the muses, the warden leaves us, composure now fully recovered, back to his mission of protecting one of America’s most precious trout rivers from real poachers.

Later, as we down savory crepes, chorizo, olives, tortilla de patata, and a wonderfully cold and crisp Chardonnay from the Torres winery, I realize that not only am I a fully recovered trout bum, but that there are many ways to celebrate and glorify a thing of beauty.

Jean Luc naps in the shade, troutless and still giggling in his half-sleep, as his clothes dry on the banks of Silver Creek in the Valley of the Sun.

………….

More to follow next week on fall tour dates and some pretty cool news!

Take care, and be well.

Always,

Sam

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APRIL 2011: HOLY EARTH WEEK!

Dear Friends, As always, I hope this letter finds you well. I am fresh back from a great trip through New England with the Oceans Are Talking trio, and I am already looking forward to the summer trip through the Rockies with the full Barcelona band. As excited as I might be to begin working up the new repertoire for the summer, that will have to wait because tomorrow is the kickoff of Holy Week here in Spain.

Ah, Holy Week… that itinerant 10-day vacation that pops up every year somewhere between mid-March and mid-April. For many, it pops up like a wonderful spring flower, a thing to be cherished and enjoyed. For some, it pops up like a foot blister, bringing all momentum to a grinding halt just when things were starting to gain a nice rhythm and pace. Personally, I can empathize with both flower cherishers and blister sufferers. I know their joy. I feel their pain. It all comes down to where you happen to be on the personal-professional wheel of fortune when Holy Week hits.

This year, it will hard for me not to enjoy this break. My kids will be supercharged when they get out of school tomorrow. We have multiple play dates already scheduled, a sleepover soccer tournament in Castellón, bicycle rides on the new green belt along the Llobregat River, 2 (two) FC Barcelona-Real Madrid soccer games, and for Henry, my eldest, surf is up down in Sitges. Mine is but to shut up and drive. Still, once in a while, I do think it would be convenient to have a clone of me that could keep the momentum rolling on the artistic/business side of things while the other me is out there on a Holy Week extravaganza because some cool things are happening on the music front.

Last week when we were in New York, we were told that “Oceans Are Talking” had been awarded a 2011 Parents’ Choice Award for outstanding childrens’ music. We are extremely proud of this award. Thanks again go out to Ann Luskey and Noel Paul Stookey for the roles they played in bringing this entire project to light. I have attached a link to the review below, and as I said, it’s pretty cool.

http://www.parents-choice.org/product.cfm?product_id=28971&StepNum=1&award=aw

What this means in the short term is that, while I am driving my kids around Catalunya next week, “Oceans Are Talking” will be featured in the United States on Kids’ Place Live on Sirius/XM Radio during, believe it or not, Earth Week. Holy Earth Week! That’s a lot of heavy stuff going down in one week, AND I NEED A CLONE! Please give a listen and let me know how it goes. I have told them that “Shrimp!” is the hands down favorite. So let’s see what they do with that information.

Many of you have asked when the Oceans Are Talking trio will be back at it in the USA, and the answer to that question is, quite precisely, September 24th. We will be kicking off our fall tour with a fun show in Narragansett, RI for Save The Bay, a wonderful organization dedicated to saving the Narragansett Bay for the many future generations to come. They will be distributing 2000 free CD download cards early this summer, and we are really looking forward to celebrating their annual family event with them in September.

After that show, we will be in New England for about 3 weeks, with a lightning-fast trip down to Florida to play shows in Clearwater and Miami. Then it’s out to California for two weeks of singing/screaming kids from San Diego to San Francisco. Lots and lots of fun is in store, and we hope you’ll let us know of any schools or environmental organizations like Save The Bay that would be interested in sharing our message about the oceans during this tour. We have a ton of work to do, right now, for the oceans!

For you Barcelona “Adult Show” fans, there are two open dates remaining on the east coast during our summer tour before we head to Montana and Idaho. Those dates are July 7th and July 9th. So let us know if there happens to be a venue near you that we don’t yet have on our radar! We’ll take care of the rest! I wish you all a happy Holy Earth Week, and I look forward to seeing you out there soon!

Always, Sam