Hello friends. I was in Albuquerque last weekend to play and teach at the Albuquerque Folk Festival at the Ballon museum. What a lovely venue. It was a nice festival with lots of acoustic music. I had a mention in the paper that was amusing.
“We have a really diverse thing culturally,” Day said. (festival director) “We’ve got gypsy blues and folk jazz. We’ve got bluegrass. We’ve got Americana and Chicana. We’ve got an Irish and Appalachian duo, Púca. (We have) a Native American, who plays flute and is a singer-songwriter and a storyteller, I think that will be really interesting. (His name is) Randy Granger. He’s from Las Cruces."
I did feel like a novelty or at least folks were certainly commenting on my appearance, braids, steam-punk top hat, boots, concho belt. My workshop went really well I felt with lots of questions asked and answered. My set was fine though I have no idea what folks were expecting. You never know at a new venue. I'm grateful for new listeners and new audiences too. Quite a few mentioned they hope I come back. I encouraged them to let the organizers know that as I always do.
Sadly, that morning, June 3rd, as I was eating breakfast inside the Frontier restaurant I heard my car description and license plate over the intercom asking me to go to my vehicle. I did, with a sinking feeling I might add. My back passenger window had been shattered. From my seat was stolen a new hand pan made by Arcana that I'd only had for two weeks. What a horrible realization. I was parked out on the street, it was broad daylight, lots of people around, the instrument was covered of course. They also took my toiletry bag which was next to it. This, of course means they were looking for prescription drugs most likely.
I had to go to the festival and function, which was a challenge I will tell you. But I am a professional so I sucked it up and did my best. I talked to every security guard there for advice. Finally, one mentioned the APD had recently hired over two doz PSA's or rookies assigned the task of taking mobile police reports. Once I found the number I called knowing it could take hours. And it did. I couldn't file online because the value of the instrument. By the third time dispatch called me I mentioned I was waiting to drive back to Las Cruces where I live three hours south. The officer, Baca, came soon after that. She gave me some advice on pawn shops. Luckily my friend Mark who lives in a nearby community came out and brought a huge piece of cardboard and some tape. We set up a temp window as the vibrating inside the cabin was very intense especially at hiway speeds three hours.
I've posted the info everywhere online, craigslist, reportit leadsonline, etc. you name it. Folks have helped spread the word on facebook. I don't know I will ever see it again. See, when you know about how criminals work they want something they can get rid of fast for cash. That cash is for drugs more often than not. I had to pay to replace the window yesterday, a cool $280 bucks and my 6th window replaced. The others were from rocks on the road. Ugh.
Albuquerque is notorious, just google it, for musicians having all of their gear stolen while at a hotel, eating, loading etc. Mostly the thieves just unhitch the locked trailer full of gear or uhaul. It happens to people moving and stopping overnight so often it's not even newsworthy. Everyone I talked to Saturday had a long list of stolen stories, car break ins, home burglary etc. It is so common people expect it. I heard there used to be alerts to musicians to actually avoid the area all together because of thefts. The pawn industry is huge in Albuquerque. I have never seen such huge pawn ships as the ones I visited Saturday looking for my pan. Drugs and crime affect everyone up and down the line. I'm not the first or last musician to have their gear stolen. I know a lot of musicians and have heard all their stories, sadly. Contact the APD if you have any news or leads please.
I have asked the makers to get to work on a replacement pan as this was the only one they made this scale. I had recorded two songs with it the brief time I had it. How i will pay for the replacement I don't actually know yet. I'm hoping some offers to help me financially will pan out. NO pun meant at all. I'm just sick about loosing it but the support has been encouraging though some of the comments are hard to take.
If you would like to contribute I would appreciate any help offered. You can PayPal me by clicking here. I can't print my email address here because then I get ridiculous amounts of spam. I'm not doing a burglary because I might run one in support of new album and you do have to pay a fee to them as well. I also have an active, ongoing Patreon fund on my main page or click Patreon.
