During the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, I got word that the band ‘John-Ross Boyce & His Troubles’ would be playing at a private house party, up in the hills. I was living in a cabin in the neighboring area of Oakley.
That night we got hit with a severe blizzard, or maybe had been for days, leaving us buried under 7 feet of snow. The 20+ mile drive in white-out conditions to their location, through mountain roads, was a suicide mission. Literally. I made peace with myself. I tried to convince my wife Jenny to come with me. Hell, she introduced me to these crazy bastards in the first place. She had a history with them, and I did too by that point. I didn’t want to let them down. I knew it would be an epic experience. Unfortunately Jenny and I got in an argument, and she refused to go. Fair enough. I said the wrong things.
If I believed in the grace of God, I imagine that’s how my truck ended up where it was meant to be. Sort of. I had to join a caravan to the actual residence because my cell service was long gone and I was completely lost. The sheer force of the wind was knocking trees to the ground and shutting down roads. I had a kid named Willy potentially meeting me there to run the 2nd camera. He had a bit of experience with filmmaking, so I had to hope for the best.
When my snow covered boots finally touched the doorstep of that gorgeous house, I breathed a sigh of relief from my constricted lungs. Tears were frozen to my face. I hadn’t missed the action. John-Ross welcomed me with open arms. Willy had made it as well, and we quickly worked out how to cover the show. My fingers were still numb, as I fumbled to operate my Canon.
The upstairs hallway overlooked the living room where the band was setting up. I loved that vantage point, so I set up a 3rd camera on a tripod to catch overhead visuals. I obviously didn’t have a mixer to capture the audio, so I positioned my room mic on the second floor as well, to diminish crowd noise and prevent drunk people from kicking the stand over. The peak of the storm had passed, and the howling wind was gone. But if you hear 2 or 3 inexplicable knocking sounds on the audio track, that would be the bathroom door shutting next to the microphone.
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John-Ross and his bandmates also had speaking parts, in a soon to be restored pseudo-documentary I did, called ‘The Rythum’. Their song ‘No Doctors, No Priests’ made it onto the soundtrack. Boyce also gave me his visage and voice for an animated film I did called ‘The Magic Pot’. He played the Mad King, and his bassist, Barlow, performed the voice of The Devil. I recorded John’s voice and mugshots for that project in a hotel room in the middle of the night, with a mock green screen nailed to the wall.
As I was looking for contact info for John-Ross, to involve him in this project, I came across a wealth of artwork he’d been making for years. I’m including a few pieces, his instagram account, and a recent magazine article that really captures his story.
https://www.instagram.com/dawghands
The supplemental video included here regards John speaking about the formation of his band, and his songwriting process: