Page 143 - WINE DINE AND TRAVEL SPRING 2021 REDISCOVERING CALIFORNIA'S CENTRAL COAST

Musical Interlude
“How about a two-chord sing along in F and G?”
proposed Michael McNevin, a Niles-based singer-
songwriter who was hosting an evening jam in his
Mudpuddle music shop on the main street.
“It’s an effigy,” quipped a white-haired man in a
straw hat, prompting a chorus of groans from the
twenty or so folks squeezed onto mismatched
chairs in this tiny erstwhile barbershop. (Ah, how I
miss those halcyon, pre-pandemic days of fear-
less, unfettered, face-to-naked-face fraternizing!)
Aside from myself, nearly everyone played an
instrument, prompting me to ponder if you have
to pass an American Idol-style audition before
you’re granted residency in Niles. There were gui-
tars, banjos, bongos, a ukulele, a keyboard, and a
man with a bag of six harmonicas. “I should have
twelve,” he insisted, with a dolorous sigh. “Then I’d
have them all.”
Fueled by BYOBooze, the self-dubbed Los Hor-
ribles band seamlessly segued between tunes by
the Rolling Stones, Joe Cocker, Lou Reed, Pink
Floyd, Paul Simon, and McNevin’s own ode to
Niles, “This Town is Gonna Change.” His lamenta-
tion of how “pick-ups turn to Porsches, tire kick-
ers turn high rollers” was sobering, but not quite
sobering enough to undo the damage I had done
with my tumblers of wine.

In Sunol, a short train ride from Niles, you
can stop at Bosco's Bones & Brew for a beer
pulled from this stuffed replica of Sunol's
former canine mayor. Copyright Amy
Laughinghouse

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