Tom Canford

Ghost Guitars Tom Canford

Fronting a country and western band called Bar-X Boys, Jack Linden wants out. The road is a bitch. Bed bugs and Gideon Bibles. Honky-tonks and tricks. He asks a talented kid thirteen years his junior to fill in on guitar for what he hopes will be the band's last hurrah, last tour. Pecos Farley welcomes the opportunity to hear his songs played live and to stretch his songwriting abilities with Jack. He puts his first year of college and girlfriend Ruth on hold. Can Ruth find solace elsewhere? Pecos does have a twin brother, Gila. Sharing lives, beds, and bodies and collaborating on songs, Pecos and Jack find themselves popular on the podunk circuit. Unexpectedly a single song catapults them to the heights of the politically-oriented rock music scene, and they become heroes of the anti-Vietnam war movement as well as rock stars. Pecos, influenced by zealous Students for a Democratic Society, begins thinking like them, spouting their rhetoric. Jack begins to feel he's just along for the ride, a hypnotic with guitar. The relationship is floundering on a more personal level as well, each knowing an inevitable split is coming, neither guessing how final and traumatic it will be.