Gruene Hall

Saturday, August 15, 2009.

Sometimes life can be a whole lot like soda. But sometimes, life can be the White Ghost Shivers.

It is about 40 miles. It is a quick 40 miles. That is what happens when you take the highway 38 miles of it. It is a hot Saturday and a little past noon. The car is filled to the max with five. The air conditioning is screaming out at full blast with the slightest bit of coolness hitting the three passengers in the past. The music is blaring random songs from my past life. I can recognize most of them in between the stories that the members of the car are sharing. The ladies in the back are enjoying a few fine imported Italian beers. This is officially the first road trip of the crew in Austin.

Gruene, Texas is nestled between Austin and San Antonio. It is a very small town that is close to New Braunsfels. The attraction of New Braunfels is Schlitterban and water related activites. The motto for Gruene is my favorite label that a town has ever placed on itself: “Gently resisting change since 1872.”

We pull down the main street and see old buildings that look like the backdrop to “Pleasantville.” To the left there is a very large flea market consumed in a sea of tent tops. To the right, there are people drinking root beer and sitting in rocking chairs. I think if I looked hard enough I would find Norman Rockwell drinking a Shiner. We found parking and patiently waited in front of the dance hall as Greune does not believe in traffic lights, but rather having a police officer at the main intersection directing traffic.

Gruene Dance Hall is well known as the oldest dance hall in Texas. When you take into account the size of the state and how many little towns like this make up the population of the Republic, that is no label to laugh at. And, if that wasn’t enough, it is the location of the famous dance scene with John Travolta for the film “Michael.” So there you go, we were about to enter some pretty significant territory.

Gruene Hall has two main entrances in the front. Both are screen doors. They gain you access into the bar, which like the rest of Texas, is strictly wood and nails with neon signs. There is a corridor that leads from the bar to the actual dance hall. The corridor is lined with framed and autographed pictures of any performer of significance that may have earned their stripes at the Hall. The dance hall itself is made of very worn wood that allows for easy dancing while wearing your favorite pair of black and yellow boots. Picnic tables are set up in three long rows to allow for families to sit and congregate. The hall is very long as these 20 or so tables take up less than half of the hall, leaving the back cavity empty for a few billiards tables and plenty of room to stand or dance to the music. The hall also has a side door that empties to a wood shaded patio that allows for a little more of an intimate setting with views of the stage inside and the rest of the town down the main street outside. This is the perfect venue in the perfect town.

“White Ghost Shivers” is chaos. They are a band hailing from Austin, Texas. As with anything of any interest, they can not be simply classified on your iTunes and they do not fit into any standard format for your National Syndicate radio schedule. They are a band of pure entertainment. The ensemble on stage consisted of one lead singer over seven feet tall with a banjo, fake mustache wearing overalls. The other lead singer was a dead ringer for a French Burlesque dancer wearing a shorter white dress type. The bassist was wearing jeans and sporting a cigarette for pretty much every song of the day. A gentleman was playing what looked to be a stand up bass or a harp or, to be honest, who the heck knows how he was making music but it sounded good. Finally, a set of three men played trumpets, boxes, jugs and any other type device that can produce any sort of sound. Throughout the day this band of seven played well over a dozen instruments, including my personal favorite, a banana.

Honestly, I had no expectations for the show. This is what I knew going into the vehicle to make this trip. Number one, I had met the lead singer the first moment I set foot in Austin after a 13 hour drive with an SUV that was about as overworked as Michael Jackson days before you know what happened.
Number two, we were driving about an hour to a place in the middle of nowhere to an establishment that had no air conditioning. Number three, when it comes to music I am very picky and will be very critical of the smallest of things. This was learned while in Master’s classes and has proven to ruin many a good artist because I was too pretentious to admit liking something. Lastly, the set was to begin at noon and last until 5 PM. I asked myself as I heard the news, “Who in their right mind sings up to play a five hour set in a place called Greune without charging a cover at the gate?” My answer at the moment, “Probably a band that is desperate to just get some face time.”

For the record, those were all questions that I had as I was filling up my gas tank about an hour before the time we left for the show. I would like to apologize to those reading for my unwarranted judgments and my discriminating thoughts toward the concert I was about to witness.

I stood in the back of the dance hall with my notebook opened and my pen in hand. I was trying to capture the mood. As I learned in my very first sports journalism class, you need to have your story written before the end of the game. You just leave the ending open depending on who wins and in case something unforeseen happens. This is a tool and writing style that I have taken to my life. Therefore, I will take notes about everything and anything so when it comes time to sort out the plotlines, I have my notes and the story is already written. This was not the case that afternoon in Gruene. I was prepared. I was ready. I was pacing my Shiner ingestion to ensure that enough details will be written down to remember the moments. After the first few songs, I found myself in a trance. I was no longer worried about details. I was no longer being critical of the music or trying to find a flaw in the design. I was no longer worried about where I was or what else was going on. I was fully and completely entertained. I was full fledged, head over heels in love with the experience.

White Ghost Shivers creates this sort of show utilizing time tested entertainment methods. They are part sketch comedy part magicians. The show is part vaudeville and part really good music. The charisma for which each performer has is impressive. If you have been to enough concerts, you can tell when someone is going through the motions to collect a paycheck. One of my last concerts in Arizona was for one of my all time favorite songwriters and in the middle of his set a song played while he was changing microphones. Nothing like finding out one of your idols is lip singing. But, the Shivers have none of this, they are pure.

I opened with a random quote about life. It is something that I have been kicking around my head for a little while now. It first came to me when I drank soda for the first time years as it was the only cold beverage at our house after we first moved in. As everyone reading this knows, as everyone reading this has drank a soda at least once in their lives, the experience is a fraud. Example, I finished unloading the trailer in which we moved in. I was drenched in sweat, which is no new occurrence, but experiencing the humidity of Austin, I was much more parched that I usually had been. Therefore, I reached for a soda from the fridge. I drank the soda in about two gulps and felt worse after.

Soda is sexy. It comes in cool colors. It has fancy marketing. It is cheaper than any other beverage. It is packaged to be consumed and enjoyed. It does not provide anything to body that is positive. After you finish drinking one, you are thirstier than when you began. The sugar in soda will either have you gain 20 pounds or if you reach for the diet, give you cancer with the nutrisweet. If you place the facts on a graph, you will see that soda is a fraud. It is a comfort food that people consume to enjoy the experience of drinking it not because it makes their body feel good, but the image they are being sold and packaged within the marketing of the product portray a lifestyle they hope to achieve through the consumption of the beverage.

On the other hand, you have the White Ghost Shivers. They are a no nonsense, in your face, pure positive energy tonic that you better love and not worry about why because if you don’t you’ll miss out on one hell of a party. They will rock your socks off for 5 hours straight and still leave you wanting more. They are not phoney packaged. They are not a band that sounds good on their records because of the magic in the studio. They do not care about anything but your enjoyment. In the current landscape of music and the society as a whole, it was refreshing to see a group that truly played for the love of the music. With insider information, it was learned that the band had played a club in Austin until well into the early morning hours. They went home, caught a few winks and shipped out the 40 miles to Gruene for the marathon Saturday set. With this said, the Shivers still made their money. Throughout the show, they made their way through the audience with a tip bucket and utilized the amazingly cute children in the crowd to assist.

So, to get metaphysical before the conclusion of this post, if you look at your life. Ask yourself this, are you leading a Coke and Diet Pepsi life or are you leading a White Ghost Shivers life. Are you following the beat of the drum that offers empty promises of happiness if you listen to a certain type of music or drink a certain type of beer. Or, are you tossing every rule you were ever taught by your teachers and bosses out the window and experiencing everything with an open canvas of possibility. I wish I could say that I rock out with the Shivers, and I do very often, but it is daily struggle to dig up from the expectations of a lost society that wants to fit your square body into a round hole no matter how much it doesn’t fit.

Moral: If the White Ghost Shivers are playing in your town, get your ass there; also, lay off the soda and drink in a little positive, uncontrollable energy.