Bluegrass and Pabst Blue Ribbon!
Once again struck by the musical artistry that is the Haight Ashbury, I walk the streets on assignment and am blown away by the soothing sounds of polyphonic harmonies accompanied by colorful melodies high and low! I stop, stare and watch in awe, and I am not the only one!
This group, Jugtown Pirates, stand on a porch with their instruments in hand fingering away at the stringed fretboards, strumming and plucking chords and phrases in folkish riffs. Crowds emerge throughout the performance and in between songs come new faces, and some old, returned.
“We were listening to them earlier,” says Roseanna Kauffmann, a Haight Street shopper. “And when we walked back, we crossed the street to hear them.”
Kauffmann and her friend Elise Filka were visiting from Oakland. Filka says that they were “just walking around,” because “it is a fun area.”
“We like to thrift!” Filka says laughing.
Like many other shoppers on Haight, the pair is moved by the sounds of the band on the porch that play effortlessly, like they are amongst friends, having a beer.
In fact… THAT is exactly what they are doing! Downing Pabst Blue Ribbon and playing bluegrass/folk to appreciative people!
One passerby, whom I am unable to track down, walked by applauding and yelling out, “Bluegrass and freakin’ PBR! That’s where it’s at!”
To sum it up, the clear-sunny sky needn’t worry about the bitter bite in today’s wind, because Jugtown Pirates kept Haight Street shoppers on their feet!
“They are fun! Folkish!” says Filka. “I felt like dancing.”
HAIGHTERS GON' HAIGHT 