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Johnny Hickman: Old Dog, new tricks |
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Written by Kurt Brighton
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Friday, 21 September 2007 |
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 Cracker’s guitar player Johnny Hickman lives in Loveland, technically. But with all the traveling he does, he might not even have time to hang his hat before putting it on again.
Hickman has just returned from the third annual Cracker/Camper Van Beethoven Camp Out, a mini-festival for die-hard fans of the two bands fronted by Hickman’s Cracker partner David Lowery, and he’s about to head out for South Dakota to play a couple more shows. But the Camp Out, which drew upward of 1,000 attendees this year, will always have a special place in his heart.
“It’s up in the high desert, not too far from where David and I grew up,” Hickman said. “One night Cracker headlines, and one night Camper headlines, and we had 10 or 15 other acts. It was a blast this year. There was a heat wave last year and we thought we were going to be blasted out this year, but there was a nice breeze. And it’s the high desert so it cools off at night.”
With guest artists like John Doe of X and Neko Case, it sounds like a cool event indeed. They hold the event in Pioneertown, a California town that was built in 1949 specifically to be used as a movie set, and also as a place for actors to live. The otherworldly nature of the town—the Old West as seen through a Panaflex lens—also helped inspire one of Cracker’s seminal early ’90s records.
“That was where we recorded Kerosene Hat,” Hickman said. “And it’s the 15th anniversary of Kerosene Hat, so we played the whole record front to back, even some songs we’ve never played live before.”
And while Lowery and Hickman still enjoy playing their old Cracker favorites as well as newer Cracker songs— the band’s latest album, “Greenland” was released in 2006 to critical and fan acclaim—they also have too many side projects to count. Hickman’s latest endeavor is a partnership with Jim Dalton of Denver’s Railbenders. The duo is working on an ambitious three-CD set of music under the name The Hickman-Dalton Gang, the first of which is finished, although it hasn’t officially been released yet.
“About a year ago I started a friendship with Jim, and I almost started immediately trading songs with him, and writing songs,” Hickman said. “It’s a nice break from our regular bands. I don’t know how the other two records will go, but Volume 1 is sort of shaped this way. It’s a little more country, dark, Old West murder ballads. It’s just where our minds were at the time. And with his name, we had to explore all that, the Dalton Gang, the darker history of the West. There were a lot of people who were lawmen in one town and lawbreakers in another town, depending on who they were hanging out with. It’s all about good and evil.”
Although the record isn’t officially out, Hickman said copies will be available at the Hodi’s show this weekend, where Hickman will open for the Railbenders with an acoustic set. There might even be some mixing and matching of the bands.
“Jim might play some songs with me, and then the Railbenders will go on,” Hickman said. “Who knows—I might get up and play some harmonica or something with them.”
Even with Hickman’s hectic travel schedule, it sounds like he has found a home for himself in Colorado.
“I love the music scene in Colorado,” Hickman said. “I’ve met a lot of great musicians, and I get to hang out with guys half my age. It’s a real shot in the arm for this old dog.”
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TO GO
Johnny Hickman with The Railbenders
9 p.m., Friday, Sept. 21
Hodi’s Half Note, 167 N. College Ave., Fort Collins
$10 advance, $12-$15 day of show. Call 472.2034 or go to
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