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Frank Sanders
Trad climber
Devils Tower. Wyoming
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Topic Author's Original Post - May 11, 2007 - 01:13pm PT
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Well if You've heard me play, You'd know that this was the only way that I'd ever get recorded !!! Many Thanks to Buzz Kemper & Susan Hofer and the Higher Power that helps us Live Out Our Dreams !!
Conklin: Devil's bargain swaps studio time for climb
MELANIE CONKLIN
608-252-6187
mconklin@madison.com
Buzz Kemper has interesting clients come through the door of his Madison recording studio, Audio for the Arts. He's recorded such diverse artists as Ani DiFranco, Yo-Yo Ma, Dar Williams and Bruce Cockburn. And last week, he recorded Frank Sanders.
Sanders is best known in the climbing community as the man who has topped Devils Tower in Wyoming more than 1,000 times and leads regular expeditions up the national monument - the one featured in the 1977 movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." Sanders lives near the base of the monolith where he runs a bed and breakfast.
Kemper began climbing at Devil's Lake here and drove by Devils Tower on a vacation with his pal, Onion editor Scott Dikkers. "We both saw this tower and vowed we'd climb it some day," says Kemper, who made that happen in 2001. But Dikkers wasn't with him, so they went together in 2004 and hired Sanders as a guide so they could take a more difficult route. "I told him I wanted a route I could do, but just barely," Kemper says.
Then last year Kemper got a call from Sanders, who also plays piano, asking "What would it take to do a recording at your studio?" Kemper proposed swapping studio time for a guided climb he'd always wanted to do. "I'd heard of a few brave souls who'd climb the tower, watch the sunset from the top, and then rappel down in the dark. That's what I wanted."
So last summer, Sanders took Kemper and Erik Schaefer (Audio for the Arts co-owner Steve Gotcher couldn't make it) on that climb, which Kemper says was "incredible." Then last week Kemper recorded Sanders on piano for a CD, and even loaned him the vocal talents of his girlfriend, Susan Hofer, a jazz singer. The sessions went well. Says Kemper: "I'm really amazed that a guy who beats the heck out of his hands on rocks can play so well."
The climbing-for-recording trade also worked well. "It was more than a barter," Kemper says. "It was two people both really achieving a Dream. He thought he was getting the better end of the deal and I thought I got the better deal."
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Doug Hemken
climber
Madison, WI
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May 11, 2007 - 01:24pm PT
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This article got onto the front page of the Local section in the Madison paper last weekend.
It made me smile twice. Once when Kemper declares he wanted to see sunset from the top of the Tower - how many people do I know who have rushed to *avoid* seeing sunset up there? - and again when Kemper says "It was two people both really achieving a Dream. He thought he was getting the better end of the deal and I thought I got the better deal." Because its obviously not about who got the better deal.
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