MONSTERS of Cotati

by Paul Magistretti

FOUR YEARS AGO THE FRANKENSTEINERS of Cotati hoisted their Tesla coils into the atmosphere and began gathering radiant energy from all over the world. Amps poured into this tiny non-Transylvanian burg and the accordion, an air-swallowing creature from the mists of time, stirred.

Two thousand people came in '91. Powers assembled like storm clouds. Galla-Rini, the Godfather of the instrument, blessed us and Rhapsodied us Blue and played better with his left hand than most of us can in a group of a hundred. Leo Aquino came, too, and Dizzy Fingered us (politely). He's from Vancouver, not New York. Lou Fanucchi riffed.

Art Van Damme played mystical chorus after chorus that came out of the ether through his soul and no one knew how. Cossacks, Leprechauns, Klezmorim, Cajuns, Paesani and Urchins de Paris assembled. DiBono, Soper, Smiell, Wisniach, great artists all, came and un- leashed reedy incantations. A field of energy was brewing. The force stayed with us and doubled. Everyone came back in '92 and brought someone else.

More energy arced - five thousand were electrifed. Music of the earth thumped and bumped and generated electro-magnetic fields that four-beated, tangoed, waltzed, polkaed, chanted, enchanted, cadenced and fandangoed. Van Damme once more found quarks the rest of us are still seeking.

Lou Casanova and Tommy Gumino bee'd and bopped anthems to Diz and Bird. Ken Olendorf fused melodic fantasies from Porter and Gershwin that made you smile and weep. And Frank Marocco solved the paradox of perpetual motion and showed it's a natural property of swing - and every wave of every sound went straight to our hearts.

Five thousand begat fifteen thousand in'93. This thing was getting like loaves and fishes. The force that doubled, tripled. Chains were reacting! Again, Marocco red lined and melted down. Again, Olendorf Pied Pipered feelings. Berger, Van Eykan, Sanders, Gallandre, Marian Kelly, Barbara Ann Martindale, TDA, SF Ensemble and more - each one generated megawatts.

Hey! Hola and Begorra! The Irish and Latinos were here - and Slavs and Jews and Zydecos whirled as if ecstasy wasn't for Sunday Best but for every day. And throughout all this Jim Boggio was the talisman, both Igor and Mad Doctor, our very own, Buddha- power, swamping and dogging us and blueing and black flshing us with prayers and laments that were too good to be holy but were. And then, colpo de grazia, Peter Soave, invoked Bach and Scarlatti and made them appear before our eyes and ears, Stregone!

And during every festive moment hundreds of people attacked the nights and days playing the streets and tents and lawns and bars and out of the backs of cars - everywhere we turned we were impromptued and spontaneoused. It was beyond ritual and incantation it was magic itself.

So, after three cyclotronic years of heat and soulful extravagance and millions of arcing volts, we reach the fourth power (year). The lightning bolts are running up and down the sparking coils and into the body of the creature - it's a great and fearsome monster of passion and beauty, a beast with as many souls as there are on earth, a monster than can be everything to everyone, a mutant specie whose metabolism inhales and exhales orchestras and organs and clarinets and violins and trumpets and the songs of happy and sad mortals & a beast with ten thousand notes, the Frankenstein of instruments: AAHHHKKKK... AHHKKK... A.C.C.O.R.D.I.ON!

Did you hear? It stirs! It breaths and moves. It talks! It's alive! Ahhh-ha-ha-ha! It's alive!