Flagstaff for the Long Haul

So this past weekend I had a chance to take a quick trip out of town to see a good friend. My friend Darin is playing in a band and they are out touring right now for their album. I decided to go see them play in Flagstaff. About a 4 hour drive, but I was also interested in checking out the town. I’ve driven through many times, but never really had a chance to explore. Well I can certainly claim it now. I stayed down in the historic district at a hotel called the Monte Vista.

According to the hotel brochure, more than 100 movies were filmed in Northern Arizona in the 40’s and 50’s. The Hotel Monte Vista became the destination of choice for a number of Hollywood stars. I ended up in the Lee Marvin room. The movies I came up with for him (with some help from Dad) are The Dirty Dozen, Paint Your Wagon and Cat Ballou. The brochure even has a picture of my room in it. Hmmmm…yeah, my room didn’t look anything like the brochure.

There was a pair of his boots nailed to the wall and a picture of him passed out drunk on a horse from Cat Ballou in the closet they called a bathroom. The hotel is also rumored to be haunted, but there were certainly no ghost sightings while I was there. The only thing from the brochure picture that I can say was in my room is the horse statue on the dresser. Oh well, not the most interesting part of the story, but a good place to start.

So I breezed into town Saturday afternoon and checked in. I had some time to kill before Darin and the band came in, so I decided to go do some exploring. The historic district is about a 4 block radius of bars, shops and restaurants. The town square is an open red brick affair with iron benches and a little area for bands to play. There was a band setting up as I strolled past. As for the people, it was clearly divided by 2 groups: college kids and tourists. There were plenty of both as I walked up and down the streets. My goals were simple: find the bar where the band was going to play, find the coffee places, find a place for dinner and find a place for breakfast Sunday morning. I accomplished all of these things in about 30 minutes. That’s how small it was. (Reminded me a bit of Yellow Springs, actually.)

The band came in to town and set up around 8 that evening. The bar (Uptown Billiards) was part of a pool hall. Nice place, really. Small playing area for the band, but probably not the worst place they’ll ever play. The bartenders were friendly and the drinks were cheap, so who could complain? The band was awesome. Although they are out promoting their album, they also played a lot of covers. Given the fact that they were playing to a bar crowd, playing the familiar made a lot of sense. The songs they played from the album were my favorites, so it really was win-win for me all night. They also played a song about a trip to Vegas (not on the album) which I really liked. Maybe it will make it on the next one.

I had a chance to meet the guys and they are all pretty cool. (I think traditionally it will be the dreaded sophomore album where the egos emerge, the money, fame and drugs kick in and the “behind the music” cautionary tale begins, but maybe I’m just having a glass is half empty moment.) I also saw the van they have stuffed themselves into as they drive across the country. It suffered a breakdown in Wyoming, which I personally think is critical to the “rising from obscurity” part of the band back story. I told Darin he couldn’t put a price on memories like that. He very smartly told me that the price was a new alternator on the credit card….touché.

Dan Tedesco and The Long Haul rocked out for a few hours. Sure, there was a tense moment with broken glasses being kicked around as well as a bit too much plumber-butt from an “enthusiastic” fan, but it was still a good time. After the show it was time to check out the rest of the nightlife in town. There were still some bands playing at other venues, so off I went with the band. Turns out, the nightlife was winding down in the rest of the town too, so options got limited real fast.

Some of the friends also in town to support the band were staying in the same hotel I was so I got an opportunity to check out the Presidential suite of the hotel. Not sure which president, but the red walls, black trim and gaudy knickknacks made me think it might have been a “chicken ranch” kind of official. Do they have presidents?

I think I finally passed out in the rustic Lee Marvin suite about 4 am. The train station is a block over from the hotel with trains running through about every 30 minutes. So even with the air conditioning unit on and the ceiling fan trying to give me some white noise, there I was awake from my “nap” by 6am. By 7 I gave up and decided to embrace the day. Darin and I got some coffee and found a bench to smoke and take in Flagstaff in the god-awful AM of Sunday morning….

…only to be accosted by a Native American intent on giving Darin a “reading” and a healing, I suppose. There was a laying of hands (germs!) and the Good Book was revealed for a bit of scripture. Now Dad would say that you meet people for a reason. We both sat and listened politely for a bit and personally I marveled at Darin’s patience. Finally, he got to the part where he asked for money. (And THERE was the reason for this soul in our lives at that moment.) We ended up politely breaking away from our hungry shaman and decided to do another circuit around town.

Eventually, we decided to go and have breakfast. The rest of the band was still sleeping in various places and I had no place to be in any hurry, so breakfast was the right choice. The Downtown Diner was a quaint greasy spoon with tape on the torn vinyl booths and a collection of license plates and historic town photos covering every square inch of wall space. The food was fast and hot and cheap. Not bad either, although Darin found a little extra “floss” with his food. (That’s what you get for avoiding tasty breakfast meat, you hippy!)

Eventually, people started to wake up (it was closing in on noon after all) and I dropped Darin off and headed for home. I was so punch drunk from the lack of sleep and the long drive that I literally fell into bed by 6 pm and didn’t move until the alarm went off this morning. I don’t know that I would recommend the town or the hotel, but I would definitely recommend seeing the band. In true band-supporter fashion, I will now insert a link for Dan’s MySpace page so you can check out the tour dates and even hear a couple of songs.