Explore Steamboat, Margaret Hair: Count on getting quoted

Margaret Hair: Count on getting quoted

Friday, August 8, 2008

In reporting, I have a couple of very fixable regrets: I never took keyboarding in high school, and I have never owned a voice recorder that hooks up to a phone.

Not surprisingly, these challenges to typing and hand-eye-ear-coordination can make transcribing what people say during phone interviews difficult. Sometimes, they make the truly unexpected and off-the-wall conversational interludes — a 15-minute rant about rock operas by comedian Patton Oswalt, for example — impossible to get down on paper.

But more often than not, a lack of knowledge of shorthand means that only the most interesting things get written down. I’ve always considered this a policy in the spirit of accuracy, because I’m less likely to forget something that comes off as unrelated to the original topic.

Things that are completely insane — such as the singer-songwriter who recently told me, unprompted and somewhat randomly, that MTV is “responsible for the degeneration of our culture, as much as anybody else” and that, “even in the good old days that people talk about, I always knew they were up to no good” — also make the list.

Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for those little gems to have trouble finding their way into a story. Things that are notable for their irreverence have the tendency to stand out a little too boldly from the outline of a concert preview.

In the last couple of years, I’ve started saving those comments for the express purpose of sharing them out of context, which is really where all good quotes belong. Here are some winning phrases from recent and upcoming performers in Routt County:

— “I think really the hip people are people who don’t realize they’re hip. I think people who have a broad taste are the hipper people.”

— Howard Bellamy, of The Bellamy Brothers (performing Thursday at the

Routt County Fair)

— “I think Led Zeppelin has suffered generally a lot of misconceptions … about who they were and what they did … from what I’ve read about them. And I’ve read a lot, obviously, because this is my world that I’m living in.”

— Steph Paynes, of Lez Zeppelin (played the Free Summer Concert Series

on July 25)

— “It’s about youth finally having a voice without knowing how hard others had to fight for it, because it’s part of life. The fact of the matter is that we don’t own any of this; we’ve uncovered all of this treasure from the past. We’re adventurers.”

— Richie Havens, folk legend (opened the Strings Music Festival Different Tempo Series on June 29)

— “Old ladies don’t have a venue for naughtiness in this day and age.”

— Nathan Brady Crain, stand-up comedian/musician (played the Steamboat Mountain Theater in March)

— “We’ve got 14 years under our belts, so we can squeeze a lot of it into 45 minutes.”

— Cody Canada, of Cross Canadian Ragweed (played Thursday for the Free Summer Concert Series)

— “And sure enough they went to Colorado and got a record deal real soon, and I thought that was a bad deal on my part.”

— Jimmy Messa, of the subdudes (playing Tuesday for the Strings Music Festival Different Tempo Series)

— “I think that’s where the boat has been missed, not only in music, but integrity in our businesses, banks with corruption and everything. That’s the problem, it gets all to be about the money instead of the music. If it could stay that way (about the music) it would be wonderful, I can remember when it really was about the music. It’s not the artists to blame; it’s the labels.”

— Howard Bellamy (again)

— To reach Margaret Hair, call 871-4204

or e-mail mhair@steamboatpilot.com.