Distinctly Montana Magazine

d i s t i n c t ly m o n ta n a • s U m m E R 2 0 1 4 42 Learn how to yodel with Wylie and some other dudes www.distinctlymontana.com/yodel143 DISTINCTLY MONTANA | DIGITAL The amount of construction going on in China was astounding. In every direction the skyline is filled with the looming silhouettes of cranes erecting skyscrapers and condos. China is a booming supernova economy, and the promise of the fast growing infrastructure was palpable everywhere we went. Everyone seemed to have access to cell phone, a car, and a fast food joint. Apparently, the American dream has slipped its moors and slowly drifted to the shores of China. Every city we played there seemed to be a bit of Silicon Valley, Fifth Avenue, and Memphis splashed up on flashing LED billboards. rIDE CoWboy, rIDE I, the yodeling horseman from Montana, wanted to get out of the rat race for a bit to get a close-up look at the infamous little ponies that old Genghis Khan used. The festival organizers in Hohhot had pre-arranged a horseback ride that was to be topped off by an authentic Inner Mongolian meal for the band and its crew. On our second day in Hohhot we drove three hours out of the city through a range of large hills and climbed until we reached a tableland of grass. As we drove upward, we got a good glimpse of China's past with its empty and dying little villages... ghost towns of a less tumultu- ous time. The weeds grew thick next to the old villages' crumbling walls as China was surging forward with new high-rise cities to house its inhabitants. The dichotomy of the old versus the new blurred as our van full of band members and a half-dozen Hohhot hosts headed out to find the herds of tougher-than-backhoe-bucket ponies that grazed on the great plains of Inner Mongolia. As we reached the prairielands, the famous Mongolian horses started dotting the pastures of bunchgrass. It had the familiar open feel of the high plains of Mon- tana. I was anxious to inspect the tough little horse. I was certain that my cutting horses back home carried a few of the genes that made these ponies so hardy and tenacious. We passed small bands of dude strings tied to picket lines to fulfill the new tourist trade of city folks wanting to get out of the cities. The irony of this new career for the noble steed appeared in the gelding's sour countenance as he stood tied in mute defiance of his new lot in life. The grassland on the edge of civilization had a reservation feel to it as these ancient clans confi- dently balanced themselves on the precipice of two very different worlds. One by one we threw our legs over the cranky little equids. The wonderful creatures were throwbacks to a different era: half-donkey, half- Przewal- ski, half-thoroughbred type of horses that added up to a horse and a half for their diminutive size. We took a two-mile trail ride up to a colorful prayer hut whose strips of cloths danced in the prairie winds, then trotted back down for a five-course meal of mutton, cheese curds, and stuff you didn't want to ask too much about. We hoisted a toast with vodka-like mare's milk wine and headed back to the city for our concert. We were a bit less theatrical that evening because of our full bellies. On the last night of the Hohhot festival our tour manager Josh Kohn arranged for me to yodel with a female Tuvan throat singer who joined me onstage for an improvised slow yodel. It was a quite an unexpected convergence of musical styles but somehow it worked. Wylie onstage with the Tuvan throatsinger for an improvised number

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