Retro Dan is unloading his truck as I pull up.
The two of us are among the first to arrive at the parking lot in downtown Bargersville. During the next three hours this stretch of pavement will be transformed into the Bargersville Farmers Market. It’s pretty hot at 4 p.m., but it’s an afternoon in August, so we accept the weather as the reality of the situation. We begin setting up our equipment.
Warm or not, we figure the Farmers Market gig is a cool deal. Back in May, The Retro Brothers were asked to play on Wednesday from 5 to 7. This led to an offer to play every Wednesday during the run of the market which goes until the end of August. We would be the house band — or, at least, the parking lot band.
Assuming people visit farmers markets to look for locally grown food and other local products and not to hear a concert, we were happy to accept the role of providers of sonic ambiance. As two old musicians who still love to make music, how could we say no?
Now more trucks and trailers are pulling into their marked and assigned spaces. The position next to us has been occupied these weeks by a Kiwanis Club group that donates its profits to Riley Hospital for Children. They’re good people.
We kid around with them as we set up speakers, and they unfold tables and set up tents. “We do the same thing in exactly the same way every Wednesday,” someone jokes. “Like in the movie Groundhog’s Day.”
At 5 p.m. we start playing. People appear. Families with little kids and baby strollers, dog-walkers, browsers sipping drinks and sampling food, curiosity seekers, laughing teens and, of course, bags bulging with plants and produce.
Once in a while someone sings along with us as they walk by. We play familiar pop songs from the 1960s through the 1990s, songs people have heard throughout their lives on radios, movie soundtracks, TV commercials and in the grocery store background, songs that cause listeners to remark, “Oh, yeah. I remember that one.” Familiar, almost ageless songs — at least familiar and ageless for the next generation or so.
I briefly pondered tailoring our song list to reflect a farmers market. I considered the song “Homegrown” by Neil Young although it was never a familiar radio hit. Still, it has a fitting lyric:
“Homegrown’s all right with me/ Homegrown Is the way it should be/ Homegrown Is a good thing/ Plant that bell and let it ring/ Sun comes up In the morning/Shines that light around/One day, without no warning/things start jumping up from the ground.”
“Homegrown” might be a little awkward to do, however, since I suspect Neil was writing about something else and people might get the wrong idea. It might be a good lesson, though, in remembering that once an artist releases his or her art into the world, its meaning no longer belongs to them.
We would just as soon play as not, so we strum, pick and sing through the two hours with no break. Then we are done. A couple of vendors start tearing down early, but most wait until 7.
My sense is the people who show up week after week are here partly because they are gardeners and gardeners love to share the results of their work. And if they make a profit, so much the better. In a similar way, this is why the Retro Brothers are here.
Finally comes the part where we break down and lift equipment then pack it in. It is not high on the list of favorite parts of a gig, but like “Groundhog’s Day,” everyone knows exactly what to do and in what order to do it. “We’ve got to get some roadies,” Retro Dan and I say.
As the other vendors drive away, we smile and wave.
“See you next week,” we shout.
