Photos and Text by Tim Van Schmidt

Sculpture and the Fourth Dimension

The Fourth Dimension is time.

Of all the forms of art there are in the world, not one fleshes out its influence into the Fourth Dimension like sculpture. Stone, metal, even concrete materials all mean that whatever shape a sculpture takes, it will last much longer than paper, canvas and certainly our current glut of electronic expression.

You don’t need a museum to protect it. You don’t need a machine to enjoy it. You don’t even need a nameplate. What a piece of sculpture becomes after being shaped stays that way on into countless years.

I have seen some timeless sculpture during my years as a fine art fan. I saw Rodin’s “The Thinker” in California. I saw Michelangelo’s work up close in Russia’s Hermitage Museum. I saw an amazing copy of Michelangelo’s “La Pieta” in Denver, with all its smooth and graceful lines supporting the grief of a mother.

But the echo of time that is inherent in works of sculpture was never more clear than at a recent visit to the famous “Hearst Castle” on the central coast of California. William Randolph Hearst was a big collector of statuary and the grounds are littered with pieces from a diversity of historical periods. People even as rich as Hearst come and go, but the sculpture work lives on.

There’s a famous poem by Percy Shelley titled “Ozymandias” and it mocks the hubris of an ancient ruler who claims his dominion is timeless as his statue languishes in lonely desolation.

While the ancient ruler’s empire was gone, I think Shelley got it wrong about his statue. It was still there after centuries in the desert — and may still be there long after Shelley is gone.

But sculpture doesn’t have to be tied to great places or great people. That’s what I have learned living so close to one of the top sculpture centers in the nation — Loveland, home to the annual Sculpture in the Park show that brings sculptors from all over the country as well as foundries and lots of public artworks.

Added to this are two excellent sculpture parks — Benson Sculpture Garden and Chapungu Sculpture Park — where anyone can enjoy the timeless quality of sculpture just about any time of year.

Benson Sculpture Garden is located at 1125 W 29th Street in Loveland and features a diversity of pieces ranging from abstract to whimsical. Chapungu is tucked in behind the Centerra shopping area off of Sky Pond Drive and features a rich cultural experience with Zimbabwean stone sculptures coupled with placards that highlight the thoughts and customs of a people far away.

But let’s also not forget the great Swetsville Zoo, nearby in Fort Collins at 4801 E Harmony Road. It’s a collection of fanciful sculptures made out of old vehicle and farming parts and other found objects.

All of these places are open to the public, pretty much all year long. They’re outdoors and invite return trips anytime. I have gone to these places often, with visitors and various friends, and always see something new. Each visit is different for me, but, really, the sculptures themselves do not change. That’s because they are standing firmly against the test of time.

This column is dedicated to the memory of my best sculptor friend Monty Taylor — truly a sculptor of life.

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Rolling Stones!!

Recently, I’ve written articles about The Beatles and Bob Dylan, so I thought I would tie up a kind of “classic rock triptych” with a quick one about The Rolling Stones:

I wasn’t in Fort Collins to see The Rolling Stones when they played Moby Arena in 1969. At that time I was still living in Phoenix, singing in the church choir and going to Boy Scouts meetings. Really.

My first time seeing The Rolling Stones was in Los Angeles in 1972. It was exciting just getting the tickets. Outside the venue — the legendary Forum — evangelists warned of losing your soul to the devil Mick Jagger. Inside, you could hardly see across the arena due to a certain kind of smoke.

In 1972, The Stones were The Big Time– maybe The Biggest Time. They had just released “Exile on Main Street” and, with guitarist Mick Taylor, were perhaps at their musical best. They were the first band I saw with video screens, making them literally larger than life.

The Stones returned to Fort Collins in 1975, playing Hughes Stadium, and I wasn’t there either. Instead, I flew into Los Angeles, booked a two night stay at a hotel across the street from The Forum and saw the band play two nights out of a three night stand.

In ’78 I saw them in Tucson, joined by special guest Linda Ronstadt on the tune “Tumbling Dice”. That sounds great, but to be honest, the band was sloppy and it had been a real hassle getting tickets. I wouldn’t return to see the Stones again for 16 years.

What turned the tide was the opportunity to photograph The Stones at Mile High Stadium in Denver in 1994 during their huge Voodoo Lounge tour. Who would turn down a Stones photo pass? It also was a hassle, but just an awesome experience to have Mick Jagger performing just a few feet away.

The real treat in 1994, and perhaps the best live show I ever saw by The Stones — next to that 1972 show, of course — was at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas only a few weeks after the Denver show. It was the only indoor venue on the tour, but they jammed their entire stage show into one end and rocked that relatively small arena — 13,000 seats — with the ferocity and intensity of their stadium shows.

There have been others, like the 2005 show at the Pepsi Center on a Thanksgiving Day. Not only did Jagger tell a bad, off color joke about Thanksgiving, but part of the stage picked up and moved to the other end of the arena — while the band was playing on it.

In 2016, I caught Stones fever again with the release of their tough and gritty album of blues covers, “Blue and Lonesome”. It’s a rough and unrestrained collection of 12 tracks — their most recent studio album — that sounds more like an excellent, smoking bar band rather than rock and roll royalty with something to prove.

But I had to step back from seeing the Stones most recently. When the tickets went on sale for their 2019 show in Denver, I was confronted with a bewildering ticket selling system.

You couldn’t just buy a standard ticket at your chosen comfortable price range. Instead, tickets were not all offered at once and tickets that had been purchased could be offered for sale at a price hike, turning the map of the stadium into an inscrutable mess with prices literally shifting every day according to demand. You should have seen prices tank when the show had to be postponed so Mick Jagger could have heart surgery, but they rose again quickly enough. But not for me — this kind of gold digging just wasn’t what I wanted in a concert experience.

What’s going on with the band now? Well, they’ve released a new tune and video, “Living in a Ghost Town”, remastered “Goat’s Head Soup” and gone into retail. Now they have a walk-in shop on Carnaby Street in London. Since even “The Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World” must step aside due to a worldwide pandemic, they probably figured they may as well sell some stuff — including Stones “lips and tongue” virus masks.

The Ethics of Bug Hunting!!

I’ve got a big Bug Hunter in my family. There’s only one thing he likes more than playing with his Transformers and that’s going outside on a bug hunt.

But more, he has bug books and bug posters and big plastic fake bugs and even stencils for drawing bugs. That’s right, it’s bugs, bugs, and more bugs.

But I have to admit that I am not completely sold on bug hunting as an ethical activity. I mean, do bugs have rights?

At least my Bug Hunter has stopped just smashing all the bugs he finds into the sidewalk. Now he makes his capture and puts them in a jar so he can look at the catch. We have even progressed to the point where we let them all go before the day is done. But the bugs may get smashed or lose a leg or lose a wing in the process.

None of this is a surprise, really. When I was a little boy I did the same things. I stepped on ants and spiders whenever I saw them. One time I made my own insecticide out of pickle juice, orange juice and ketchup to see if I could kill some bugs with it. When I plopped it on the box elder bugs that crawled all over our Illinois home, they died alright.

A little older, I caught butterflies and embraced the heinous policy of killing them in a jar with toxic fumes, then drying them with their wings widespread for my collection. They were pretty but I was kind of being a Grim Reaper of butterflies.

And then there was the period when we moved to Arizona during which I thought I would rid the world of scorpions, turning over rocks and dispensing with my unlucky finds with a stick of doom.

My Bug Hunter now wants to collect bugs too and I find I am discouraging him somewhat, despite my past experience. I have more sympathy for the bugs.

However, the thing my young Bug Hunter and I agree on is that bugs are very, very interesting. If you look at them close, you see things that look like Science Fiction monsters. Only these aren’t imaginary, they are very real — and tiny, thankfully.

Can you imagine if our bugs were bigger? Would bugs play by the rules? A quote I’ve always remembered from the great remake of the movie “The Fly,” comes as the guy turning into a fly asks his horrified girlfriend if she had ever heard of “insect politics.” “Insects… don’t have politics,” he says with dread.

I’m sure there are also plenty of farmers and gardeners out there who wouldn’t blink an eye at eradicating some bugs. I wouldn’t mind eliminating the yellow jackets that build nests in our eaves every summer. Mosquitoes are pretty irritating too and spread disease at that. Some bugs could be called our enemies — just ask the people losing their crops to locusts.

But bug hunting for sport goes someplace else other than protecting crops or warding off disease. It’s just for fun.

My young Bug Hunter today isn’t much different than the bug hunter I was years ago. The difference now is that I’m being a bug hunter with him and instead of wielding a net and a jar, I am wielding a camera.

When we find a cool bug, I get my camera out and get to work, then share the results immediately — that’s one of the beauties of digital photography.

My Bug Hunter has become pretty interested, especially when I show him how we can blow the pictures up and see the fine details. Even butterflies look pretty weird when you magnify the image. And that’s where I want to go with our bug hunting — to look at the details without putting them into a collection jar.

Do What You Want to Do!!

A close friend of mine is a Fort Collins jeweler. Much more than just “in the business,” this guy is a skilled and resourceful craftsperson.

This jeweler doesn’t have a shop, doesn’t have shiney glass cases full of beautiful bling and doesn’t have regular hours. His hours are all the time, he works in a cozy home studio and he hunkers down daily over precious stones and rare metals, peering at the minute details through a magnifying glass.

I’ve seen him carefully setting the smallest of diamonds in a sparkling spray across a gold ring. I’ve seen a necklace he made with a silver bird in flight, a ruby glowing warmly above its head.

I also watched as the wedding ring he custom-made for my daughter slid right onto her finger at just the perfect moment.

But like many skilled craftspeople, who must work hard especially when they aim at remaining independent, my jeweler friend has taken in a significant amount of work over his career that pays the bills but may be low on the creativity scale.

For him, this was putting his decades of knowledge and experience into jewelery repair work- fixing problems created by other jeweler’s poor designs, mediocre work and questionable materials.

He has done some custom work- like my daughter’s wedding ring- but also stuff like miniature steer heads and rings depicting Colorado 14ers. I’m not sure what stresses him out more- working on jewelery that was destined to break or making other people’s ideas come true, even as they keep changing their minds about what that is.

But apparently that is coming to a halt. My jeweler friend just declared that he was finally going to work on his own designs and to prove his point, he shut down another repair customer.

What does he want to make? Beautiful arrangements of stones and metal? No, he wants to make pieces with whimsy at its root- a ring featuring a boat or a sports car. A face pendant that looks like something out of Mad Magazine.

My jeweler friend has serious designs, but this funny stuff just seems to tickle him to no end. It’s just simply what he likes and I know that it is pretty close to his real personality.

What’s a little shocking about this is that in the face of Co-vid changing the world, is this the best time to make a change? Is there currently a market for rings with boats and sports cars on them?

What I get though, is that perhaps none of that really matters. For my friend, it is simply time to act. His head tells him to. His heart tells him to. And I think he’s going to do it.

I’m doing something similar perhaps- I’m writing for a newspaper again- The Scene Weekly-North Forty News. That’s my “thing I’ve got to do.”

For both my jeweler friend and me, though, I don’t think it’s a case of “do or die.” It’s just a case of “do.”

But enough about us. What about you? What’s your passion and are you ready to do what you want to do?

My Bob Dylan Concert 2020!!

Starved for some new music, I recently turned to an old, trusted musical friend for some relief — namely singer-songwriter Bob Dylan — and ordered up his new album, “Rough and Rowdy Ways.”

After spinning the disk a little in the car and at home while making nachos, I realized that even though the flow of the words was impressive and some of the tunes rocked, I just wasn’t listening.

So I thought I would fix that by experiencing my own personal Bob Dylan “concert,” circa 2020. You know, sit down and seriously listen.

Of course, this wouldn’t be anything like Dylan’s famous concert at Hughes Stadium in Fort Collins in 1976 — the soggy Rolling Thunder Revue show that became the album “Hard Rain.” My wife went to that while she was attending UNC and she says all she remembers is being crowded in close — and the rain.

There would be no crowds or rain when I settled into my media room to tune out virus concerns — and all the other bad news –and tune in to Bob Dylan.

To open the “show,” I brought in Bob Dylan, circa 1963. I pulled out a vinyl copy of Dylan’s 1963 album, “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan,” to remind myself of the feisty, clever, acerbic, tender, dead serious and crazy creative artist he was when he broke onto the scene.

“Freewheelin'” is Dylan’s second album — released in May 1963. The album is jammed full of classic young Dylan, including his most enduring song, “Blowin’ in the Wind.” But the most powerful track here is “Masters of War,” an unflinching, cold stare-down of a song, taking to task the military industrial complex with a resolve that might have been considered dangerous.

“The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” remains vibrant — it’s a true work-out of words, music and personality. Dylan even experiments with a rough band arrangement on the song “Corrina, Corrina.”

Skip through 57 years of other Dylan music making, and enter the main act of my home “concert,” Bob Dylan, circa 2020.

“Rough and Rowdy Ways” is as impressive an outpouring of words and expression for the 79-year-old artist as “Freewheelin'” was for that 22-year-old.

The music itself on “Rough and Rowdy Ways” is more or less wallpaper, although very effective at times, especially the full band stuff that’s far and away more sophisticated than “Corrina, Corrina.”

What’s really important here are the words that Dylan keeps spinning into a rich fabric of wry observations and whip-lash vision. These nine new songs, which are more like rap pieces at times, are perplexing, challenging, expansive and curious all at the same time – in other words, pure Dylan.

The encore for my Dylan home “concert” was the extra disk that came with “Rough and Rowdy Ways” — a 17-minute musing on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy titled “Murder Most Foul.”

It’s a sobering experience, listening to this modern bard tie together so many cultural and political threads. He does some riffing here- calling out to legendary DJ Wolfman Jack to play a whole list of his favorite recordings. But for the most part, “Murder Most Foul” stands with “Masters of War” as an unflinching condemnation of the worst of human scheming.

My “Bob Dylan concert 2020” left plenty behind. I’ll be thinking about what I heard for a long time to come and that’s the mark of a good “concert.” That’s also the mark of an artist that is still burning.

The Power of Flowers!!

You see it time and time again in the movies. When an errant husband wants to make up with his wife, he brings a bouquet of flowers to the meeting. Flowers are meant as the most sincere gift — so vibrant and yet so fragile.

Like music, flowers are often an essential part of many types of celebrations, from weddings to funerals, and they add a natural element of beauty you just can’t produce in a factory.

Or can you? I spent my first years growing up in a greenhouse my father hand built. He and my mother — both graduates of Purdue’s Horticulture School — grew geraniums. There were rows and rows of benches with hundreds of plants — and this was a small operation. So yes, flowers are mass produced for the marketplace.

But if you have ever seen a Rocky Mountain hillside covered with wildflowers, you know that the true power of flowers is much bigger than greenhouses. They are part of Nature’s bounty with or without human help.

Still, humans have been fascinated with flowers forever and can’t help but give them special attention.

According to an antique book from my shelf — “Floral Gift,” published in 1846 — flowers not only are beautiful but also have meaning. Roses, both pink and red, mean “love, ardent and sincere,” a rose bud is a “confession of love” and a rose, “full-blown,” means “you are beautiful.”

To make ends meet at our family greenhouse, my parents not only grew geraniums, but they also did custom floral arrangements for so many special occasions — they knew the meaning of flowers on an everyday basis. Their cooler was stocked with fresh cut flowers and I can still smell the cold sweetness of the carnations that would waft up whenever the door was opened.

Flowers have also been closely connected to art — quite literally. I had the good fortune to view the Milwaukee Museum of Art’s special exhibit “Art in Bloom” one year. It’s a special event where floral designers are challenged to interpret choice artworks with flowers, then the exhibit places the originals and the arrangements together. The flowers don’t last long — and the exhibit lasts for only three days — but the artistic thought that goes into the presentation is ageless.

Very recently, I was impressed with the thought, care and scientific know-how that have gone into The Annual Flower Trial Garden at CSU. It’s a no-brainer stop in Fort Collins if you love flowers — located at 1401 Remington Street.

This local garden is not so much about making the landscaping like a special environment. I saw that at the famous Butchart Gardens in British Columbia, where reality becomes a fairyland.

The Annual Flower Trial Garden is more about the innovations of growing flowers. The wide arcs of bright colors are beautiful to see and the diversity of flower varieties that are on full display is astounding.

Apparently, some varieties are better than others — annual winners are chosen. But to the person looking for some beauty in a world full of virus concerns, climate concerns, political concerns — you get the picture — The Annual Flower Trial Garden at CSU, even for a quick visit, is a welcome refuge.

An Ode to Red Rocks!!

Just about now, I should be sitting in the stands at Red Rocks, looking out over Denver in the distance, maybe watching some storm clouds skate across the sky, the moon rising above the monolithic stone jutting into the night.

But more, I should be grooving to the music of Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi at Red Rocks. The Tedeschi Trucks Band was my choice this year for my annual trip to the storied concert venue just above Denver. They were scheduled for two nights and I wanted to go on July 31 — that would be the 50th anniversary of the first rock concert I saw, in Phoenix, in 1970.

Anniversary or not, it wasn’t meant to happen in this world full of the COVID-19 virus.

That’s too bad because Red Rocks is one of the finest concert venues in the world — fans know it and artists make special provisions to play the place. Just go down to the Red Rocks Visitor Center and see the film they often play there with big name after big name artists testifying to the pleasure of playing there.

One of my frequent concert companions says everyone should go to Red Rocks at least once a year — at least everyone who loves live music.

My first show at Red Rocks was in 1981, featuring Jefferson Starship and .38 Special. My wife and I had just moved to Fort Collins and I was working at Rocky Mountain Records. My new friends on the staff were going to the show and invited me. I had never heard of Red Rocks and that first time I walked into the amphitheatre was just an awesome moment.

Since then, I have seen countless great shows at Red Rocks — a quintessential experience with The Grateful Dead, a challenging, artful journey into darkness with Radiohead, a very satisfying classic rock double bill with Steve Miller and Joe Cocker, many rocking times with Tom Petty and that recent performance by David Byrne that dispensed with all of the stage and technical trappings, playing on a big, open stage. I could name more — many more — like Robert Plant, Peter Gabriel, The Kings of Leon, A Perfect Circle and…

Perhaps some of the most fun I had at Red Rocks was photographing the Monolith Festival, an event that returned over several years sporting five stages on the Red Rocks grounds and featuring some of the coolest upcoming bands on the circuit.

I’ve seen some bad shows at Red Rocks too. For instance, there was that night of horrific wind and rain that ruined a No Doubt/Weezer show – – they put rubber mats on the stage floor and squee-geed the water away in between songs.

Then there was that mangled appearance by The Flaming Lips that pitted their wealth of gear against the power source and kept blowing the sound throughout the show. (Fortunately I saw a full Lips show a few years later at Monolith.)

Still, over decades of experiences, there’s no doubt in my mind that Red Rocks remains a great place to go.

And that’s what I have to remember as I wait out the virus. The Tedeschi Trucks Band dates from this year have been re-scheduled for 2021 — the good memories of the past will have to help me look forward to the future.

Big Screen, Little Screen: Movie Magic Remains!!

You take your seat. Maybe start digging into some popcorn. But then the lights go down and the huge screen in front of you becomes everything. For the next two hours, that screen and the stories that flicker across them push away the outside world.

That’s what I love about going to the movies — it becomes a whole world to itself, full of all the drama, laughter, heartache and joy of human life, but somehow more understandable because it’s all right in front of you. It’s just a little bit of magic.

And I’ve enjoyed the magic movie experience in just about all of the theaters in the area. The Movie Bistro offers luxurious comfort. The Lyric is the place to go for hard-to-find movies. The Fort Collins 16 corners the market on variety. The Worthington 6 is a favorite for catching up on the ones that got away.

I’ve been missing my regular trips to the movies because of the virus shutdowns.

But there is one theater — The Holiday Twin Drive-in — that‘s rocking. Isn’t that something — that a kind of old-fashioned thing like a drive-in theater, many of them disappearing around the country, would become the leading outlet for the movies? They are ideally set up for just this time.

I had my very first movie experiences at the drive-in theater in Wisconsin near where we vacationed in the summer. I’m talking about the whole classic American drive-in experience — throw the kids in the back of the station wagon, already dressed in pajamas, and go see a Western like “Stagecoach” or a World War II drama like “Sink the Bismarck.”

Of course, there are other options for enjoying movie magic today, thanks to the video revolution.

I remember when VHS tapes were first becoming available. My parents bought one of the first video machines and gave it to me when I moved to Fort Collins. The thing was that my wife and I didn’t own a TV. So we would hook up with a close friend who had a TV but no VCR — and movie night was a special living room occasion.

The progression from video tapes to DVDs to direct streaming has made watching movies at home a regular event — maybe even a little ho-hum. But we’re working on that. We just made a date with that close friend we would visit with our “traveling VCR” to sit down — six feet apart — and stream a current release on her big screen smart TV, making movie watching at home an event again.

But for me, nothing replaces that feeling of getting lost in a movie while watching in a dark theater. It’s more of a commitment than watching at home. First of all, you have to physically go to the theater and get settled before show time. But it’s also a mental thing where you must suspend your everyday concerns to get the most out of it. Thrills, challenges, conflict and love– it’s all there in the movies and well worth the trip.

Hire a Local Musician!!

Jerry Palmer and harp guitar

Usually, when I want to celebrate some particular date, I look for some live music to go to. To me, seeing a great concert by a hot artist is about the most fun you can have.

Most of the time, I think big — big stage, big lights, big sound. “Big” can be powerful, pushing the world’s troubles at bay with a whole bunch of electricity.

But we all know that in the wake of sweeping virus precautions, “big” has suddenly become out of style. It’s a temporary thing, I think, but serious enough for a live music fan in need.

That means that recently when I was planning to celebrate a birthday, I realized that instead of going “big” I should go “small” and hire a local musician to play for a very small dinner audience — properly spaced, of course.

But small is beautiful. When I’m with my friends and the subject comes around about favorite concert memories, the most precious currency in such a discussion is always having seen a very popular artist early in their career. You know, before they were popular and when they were still playing small places.

The reason those stories are so fun is because it usually means closer interaction with the artist — getting up close and personal.

Well, you can’t get much more personal with music than to hire a local musician.

My choice as to who to hire was an easy one. I’ve been listening to a lot of instrumental music recently and my favorite Fort Collins guitarist is Jerry Palmer. I called Palmer, set up the date and agreed on a set of acoustic music on a friend’s patio.

This concert did feature Palmer’s nimble guitar work — skipping around various cultural playing styles while balancing sweet melodies with more dynamic strumming. But instead of being a formal presentation, it became more like a conversation with musical segues.

For example, Palmer gleefully showed us his newest guitar acquisition- a locally-made, custom built harp guitar. We talked over some stories of influential guitarists. We also talked about our families and the virus and jobs and, well, regular life.

The scene was a musician and an audience of three — small enough for it not being such a big deal when the afternoon wind and rain started and we had to move our chairs around a little for shelter.

As Palmer’s fingers stretched deftly up and down the fret board, his other fingers busily adding rhythm and punctuation, he was as accomplished at making a melody breathe easily as building to a dramatic, note-filled flourish. Gone was the desire for “big” because right in front of my eyes was the essence of music — an artist and his instrument — with all the other distractions of concert-going completely out of mind.

As Palmer packed up to leave, he gave us copies of his latest CDs- “Soul Gardener,” “Collective,” “Cherry Picking” and “Desert Cinema,” a collaboration with Russ Hopkins. I’ll enjoy hearing these at home.

But nothing takes the place of the live music experience — “big” or “small.” It just makes a celebration more complete for me. So this is my advice for live music fans looking for fun: hire a local musician. “Small” can be very satisfying.

The End of Rock and Roll??

I finally received the message- The Who’s “Moving On” tour has finally been cancelled. This brings to an end a saga that started last year. After The Rolling Stones postponed their 2019 date in Denver because Mick Jagger needed heart surgery, I decided I had better go see another one of my favorite classic rock bands, The Who, when they came to Denver- before they f-f-f-aded away. But I was too late.

That September 2019 date for The Who was one of a handful of dates on the tour that were postponed because vocalist Roger Daltrey was temporarily sick. The new date was scheduled for May 2, 2020. That didn’t work out very well either.

The signs have been everywhere that the old guard of rock and roll was going down- both Elton John and Madonna cancelled dates on world tours, losing their voices and suffering from exhaustion. Others had already retired from the road- including Joan Baez and Paul Simon.

But it wasn’t age that finally did it — stopped rock and roll in its tracks — it was the world pandemic.

I went to my first rock concert in 1970 in Phoenix- so I am coming up on 50 years as a live music fan. The last concert I saw was a good one- Dweezil Zappa playing “Hot Rats” at Washington’s. That was on February 22. Soon after, everything was shut down.

I know that entertainment venues are hurting and itching to get back to business. But even when they open, going to a concert just isn’t going to be the same. I’m not sure I would feel suddenly comfortable getting into a crowd — even for live music — without a mask or social distancing. I’m not sure rocking out with a mask on is much fun either.

So maybe this is the end of rock and roll, at least the old way to rock with a scorching band on stage and a sweaty crowd pumping along to the beat. Maybe the big days with big concerts with big bands are over. Maybe The Who is done, The Stones will stop rolling and maybe even Springsteen won’t be able to overcome this major shift in culture.

But hope and help comes from unusual places in unusual times. That’s why I smiled when I saw that in Fort Collins, The Holiday Twin Drive-In has stepped up to fill in the gap with a new concept- drive-in concerts. That’s right, The Holiday Twin is becoming a concert venue with several upcoming events.

Will rock and roll die? Naw- it’s just going to change. Maybe The Who will become The Was, but where there are creative musicians, there will be new ideas. And besides, we can’t really live without live music, can we?

Poetry (and Drums) to the Rescue!!

A Poetry Pod in the foothills 2020 Photo by Tim Van Schmidt

Yeah, I guess it’s a little weird, a group of mature men meeting in the foothills to hike and read poetry. That’s right — poetry, that old fashioned art that has never really gone away.

You could say that our group of guys, who have been occasionally meeting in the great outdoors to shed some of the virus anxiety, are a Poetry Pod. But it didn’t start there.

We began by meeting and playing drums together- in big, outdoor circles. That’s a very effective way to deal with tension, to bang on a drum instead anything else. And when others are also banging on a drum, it gets to be pretty powerful.

But we do not live by drum beats alone and that’s where poetry comes in. Rather than discuss over and over again the conflicting “COVID-19 facts” being spewed by the media and our elected officials, we wanted some words that provided some verbal beauty and inspiration that was worth thinking about.

Poetry has kind of been following me around most of my life. I wrote my first poem, titled “The Beast,” in the throes of a massive crush on the girl next door — guess who was “the beast” and who was “the beauty.”

At Arizona State University, I enrolled in my first poetry workshop and there I got my first taste of “professional” poetry. A move to Santa Barbara underscored that and I began publishing my work in little magazines throughout the country. I was also an English major and had the stuff coming out of my ears.

But when I left college, I also seemed to leave the environment that fostered poetry. Real life — marriage, baby, house and dog — put poetry in the background.

That is, until I met some experimental musicians in Fort Collins who didn’t mind putting sounds to original poetry. We formed a group called TVS and two fingers and for 17 years, we toured playing festivals, schools and some pretty outrageous venues.

During that time, we ran into a Denver poet who was spearheading a movement in the area called “poetry therapy” — using the expression of words to work out feelings and problems. This poet used poetry therapy to reach young people and she enlisted our group to join her in bringing poetry to kids in need. The most intense of these experiences was working with the kids of Columbine High School a few weeks after the tragic events there.

But now, this is a crisis like no other and I find myself returning to poetry therapy — not for others, but for me and my friends. The first time I read a poem out loud at one of our drum circles, it lit a fire that the other guys caught and now reading poetry has become a regular feature of our meetings.

And it works. Poetry can be a powerful tool to find meaning in these times — even though it might be a little weird.

When I’m Sixty-Four…and Beyond!!

The last party I attended in Fort Collins before the virus shutdown was a Beatles party. It was at the home of a friend who had been a big Beatles fan when she was young. She had been a member of The Beatles fan club and saw the group at Red Rocks in 1964.

I also have been a lifelong Beatles fan and I brought all of my stuff along to the party. We looked through old Beatles magazines, books and even stacks of Beatles bubble gum cards.

But the most fun was getting out all of our old Beatles records — yes, vinyl versions – to spin great tune after great tune. It was a feast of melodic, upbeat music with those great familiar voices.

Of all the great Beatles recordings out there, the one that currently sticks in my head is from perhaps the band’s greatest album, Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, and that is “When I’m Sixty-Four.” There’s a reason for that — I turn sixty-four this year on June 8.

The picture The Beatles painted of turning sixty-four was certainly quaint — knitting sweaters by the fireside, digging weeds, scrimping and saving for a holiday, grandchildren on the knee. I’ve been doing some of that for sure. But there’s a lot about my “sixty-four” that doesn’t look anything like The Beatles’ version.

I’m living at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. My grandsons are half way across the world. I don’t stay out until quarter to three. And my holiday was cancelled due to a worldwide pandemic. Every day I am walking in the sunny foothills and wonder – what’s next?

But I’m not complaining, really – that’s just the story of my time.

But there is something that is the same about my sixty-four and theirs and that is love. And I don’t mean that hot, passionate young love but rather the love that deepens over many years. In their song, The Beatles imagined what love would be like over the long term, not only sharing the work and duties of everyday life, but also Valentines and the occasional bottle of wine.

I think that the song “When I’m Sixty-Four” approached this all with a certain wry humor, but also a sense of comfort. Now that I have arrived, I feel both.

Over my photo career, some of my proudest moments came when I photographed some Beatles. I snapped Paul McCartney in Philadelphia and Ringo Starr in Denver. And at the recent Beatles party, the records we played still sounded great.

But as great as The Beatles were – and how right-on they were on a lot of things –the greatest thing in my life is that long term relationship. My wife and I will celebrate 40 years together this year and if, by chance, I am out late, she doesn’t lock the door.

“Time Capsules by Tim Van Schmidt” on YouTube!!

Before settling in to become mostly a live music photographer, I was a writer, interviewing and publishing articles about musicians from all over the world in the Fort Collins press. I taped most of my interviews and in these strange, stay-at-home times I finally found the time to open that box of tapes and do something with them.

That something was to start digitizing the interviews, edit out all the dull or embarrassing parts, couple them with original photos or vintage press shots and post them on Youtube for music fans to enjoy- with no strings attached. That is how my Youtube channel- “Time Capsules by Tim Van Schmidt”- came to be- thanks to the Corona Virus.

Finding new life for these musical conversations though became an obsession during the confusing lockdown weeks. Sure, I was making the past come back alive in a unique 21st Century way, but it also became a daily routine that I looked forward to each day. It was like taking a music seminar from a different musician every day.

Thanks to my old box of tapes, I listened to Dr. John explain New Orleans music, George Thorogood define why “Bad to the Bone” appealed to everyone, Billy Preston remember his work with The Beatles and Leon Redbone admit he didn’t like most contemporary music. There were talks with great guitarists- including Sonny Landreth, Robben Ford and Johnny Winter. Richie Havens told me about Woodtock, Terre Roche described being inside The Roches’ heavenly harmonies and Dr. Demento talked about novelty records.

Some of the stuff has regional appeal- an interview with Todd Park Mohr during the recording of “Sister Sweetly,” a long rambling interview with Jock Bartley of Firefall, and two from 1988- a press conference with Yoko Ono in Denver on a day designated as John Lennon Day by then-mayor Pena and a back stage interview with Jimmy Cliff directly after his headlining performance at the first Reggae on the Rocks show.

But some of it just went out into space. Both Joseph Shabalala, of Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and singer-songwriter Al Stewart, for example, told me music comes to them in their dreams.

Most of my interviews come from the 1990s and I was shocked that so many of the musicians I had talked to had passed away, including Chris LeDoux, Koko Taylor, Odetta, Utah Phillips, Lonnie Brooks and more. I was glad to be able to offer their fans something that hadn’t been published before.

But mostly I’m glad to share these intimate talks about music. I’ve managed to publish 50 of them so far and there are more to come.

See and hear “Time Capsules by Tim Van Schmidt” on YouTube!!