Saddle up with 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. |