Moving Target

Monday, July 01, 2002

Who were the Lones? Some time back - maybe seven, maybe as many as ten years ago - the band produced a tape I heard, along with many others, while working as a craftsperson. My boss also had a another job. He wrote a music column for our local paper (the Fort Collins Coloradoan). At the shop, which kept our hands busy but left our minds free, we listened to whatever promotional material found its way to Tim's mailbox each week.

My first hearing of Big Circle Texas was like a lightning strike. The Lones, a band out of Midlothian, Texas, reached and moved and captivated me like nothing I'd ever heard before. I loved (and still do) the female lead singer's voice and the harmonies with the male singer. I love the percussion in "I See the Tears," the danger and foreboding of "Trespassin'," the barely contained anger of "Giving It All Away," the biting sorrow of "Wino Dream," the spirituality of "From My Knees." All the lyrics of every song, especially one line, "I'd sell anything to buy some time." And oh yes, the driving guitar. I just purely love their sound - who can explain these things? Passion, whether it's for a person or for a work of art, is always, in the final analysis, unanalyzable, a mystery.

So I was going to hear the Lones live, because they were coming to Fort Collins on tour. Tim was going to write about them in his column. But when the day came for the phone interview, nothing happened. None of it ever came to pass, because the Lones had broken up.

In the years since, I've listened to that eight-song tape more times than any other album I have. It was the mood music I played constantly for months during the most serious era of my life as a writer, the sound track for the work I'm proudest of. Forget about "10 Desert Island Albums." Big Circle Texas is my one desert island album. It's on the shortlist of what I'd run for if the house caught fire.

Why am I looking for the Lones? Partly because I wonder, are there other tapes from practices or live performances, any rejected tracks from the demo? Somewhere in a closet or a file cabinet, is there more Lones music? And whoever has it, could they possibly be persuaded to share?

The second reason is: with the insatiable curiosity of a journalist and the inflamed imagination of a fictionalist, I long to know the Story. What happened to the Lones? What struggles and conflicts led to the dissolution of such an awesome collaboration? With so much going for them, what dreadful forces could have caused them to disband? What have they been doing since then? Not my business, you might say, and you'd be right. Still, as a writer, I wish I knew.

But the most basic motivation, the one that really drives this quest, is the simple impulse to pay tribute, to express my ever-expanding appreciation for their art. I hope that somehow they can know. Whoever they were, wherever they are, I want to tell the Lones how much their music has meant, and after all this time still means, to me. I want to say thanks for those eight songs.

posted by Pat on 9:00 PM |

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