It’s the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, and Gary
Mackender, the creative force behind the Carnivaleros, is alone in his
car, driving on autopilot.

Beneath his trancelike demeanor, however, creative synapses are
firing in all directions. At some point, he’ll click on a portable tape
recorder that will capture newly created lyrics, along with the
semblance of a melody or two. These musings will eventually end up on
Happy Homestead, his third and most accomplished
Carnivaleros CD.

“I like to take long driving trips, and about once a year, I go back
to Kansas. Usually by the second day on the road, some things will
start to come. I wrote ‘Happy Homestead’ between Tucumcari (N.M.) and
Guymon, Oklahoma,” he said in a recent interview. When asked if he was
accompanied by his wife, Connie, he was quick to respond with a smile,
“Oh, no. I have to be on my own, or my mind starts to break apart!”

There appears to be something mystical at work when Mackender makes
this annual pilgrimage. “My family still owns the property my
great-grandmother homesteaded and farmed in Gove County, Kansas.
There’s just something about going back to my old stomping grounds, the
prairie, that moves me. I write what’s going on around us all, but some
are obviously more personal than global.”

Despite having nine other musicians contribute to the making of this
recording, Happy Homestead best represents Mackender as an
evolving solo artist. On his two previous CDs (Step Right Up! and Lost in the Graveyard), the Carnivaleros had opportunities
to learn and perform many of those songs before being recorded;
however, almost all of these tunes were written by Mackender during one
of the group’s extended hiatuses. Without a regular working band,
Mackender was free to experiment in a way that might not have been
possible had he been gigging.

As such, only a handful of these tunes will ever be performed live.
“We’re only doing four of them—the first four,” he said, although
that number is actually five if you count “Black Cloud Over Oracle”
(which recounts Mackender’s infamous encounter with the Pinal County
Sheriff’s Office at the 2006 GLOW Festival). “In order to gig, you need
to have dance material, and so some of this is just not
appropriate.”

If you only knew Mackender for his music, it might surprise you to
learn he has a day job as a University of Arizona systems analyst,
running a virtual-reality multimedia lab. This, however, is a backdrop
that has allowed him to almost single-handedly create the new CD. “I’m
in front of a computer all day creating content. As it was just me
sitting down with song ideas, I was here (in the home studio), and I
was ready and excited.” In addition to writing these tunes, he ended up
playing accordion, organ, drums and, in some instances, bass.

This, of course, leads to the question: Just who (and what) are the
Carnivaleros?

“I started writing for a fictitious ensemble when I first came to
Tucson in 1990, until I got caught up in the Mollys whirlwind (he was
their drummer) from 1993 to 2000. But that still fed the notion of a
polycultural, polyrhythmic music group, but with instrumentation that
was not socially acceptable.” Enter the accordion.

His self-authored bio on CD Baby states how he dragged his accordion
across the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Australia while
touring with the Mollys, and learned how to play it by slipping away to
practice late at night after the gigs, when everyone else was asleep.
Mackender said of the accordion, “It’s even more organic than the
drums. It responds to every move; it breathes, it wheezes. It can be
loud and demanding, yet it can whisper and seduce. I’ve discovered
material on it that would never have presented itself on the piano,
which is where I used to do all of my writing.” Much of this includes a
mix of dance-oriented zydeco, Tex-Mex polkas, blues, swing and Eastern
European-themed instrumentals.

“Chris Giambelluca (on bass) is the one constant, I suppose. He and
Carla (Brownlee on saxophones) were there at the beginning, in 2001.”
But they, like everyone else who has ever played with the Carnivaleros,
have periodically been in and out of the band due to a variety of other
musical concerns. Mackender acknowledges, “Not only does the band
change from year to year, but sometimes from performance to
performance. And that’s just the way it is here. Fortunately, I’ve been
graced by so many wonderful musicians and friends who have said yes
when I have asked.”

Actually, many of the players who have been Carnivaleros are
bandleaders in their own right. Guitarists Mitzi Cowell, Michael P.
Nordberg and Danny Krieger all have their own groups, while Brownlee
has also had her own band off and on. The current lineup for this
season’s slate of CD-release gigs includes former Mollys Catherine
Zavala (mandolin and vocals) and Marx Loeb (drums), along with Cowell
on guitar, Giambelluca on bass and Brownlee on saxophones.

The Carnivaleros are also unique in that Mackender readily admits he
is anything but a traditional lead singer. “I have a limited vocal
palette, but I do what I can do.”

Because some of these songs are so personal, however, there is an
authenticity to his vocals that cannot be denied. Mackender is also
seeing how and where he can share the vocal spotlight. “Catherine and
Carla are strong singers, and so I’m passing the vocals around where I
can.”

As for that tricky creative process, Mackender is quick to point out
how it can strike anytime, anywhere.

“Between January and August of last year (when this album was being
written), sleep was really intermittent. Something at night would start
showing its face, and so I’d get up and write it down. Fortunately, I’m
sleeping soundly now.”

This article appears in May 21-27, 2009.