Music took Ashley Raines down a long road

Ashley Raines and his crew just got home from a touring run that included 120 shows, four vans, two bassists and one pair of pilfered shoes.

They left a transmission in the Grand Canyon, a starter in Ohio, lost their first bassist to a cover band, and jettisoned one beat-up van at an airport.

“We’re still waiting for a call from Homeland Security,” Raines said.

As long as the feds don’t catch them first, Ashley Raines and his band will play a homecoming show at Pine Gables Stray Dog Saloon on Saturday night.

Life on the road is nothing new to Raines, 34.

He’s spent the past 15 years chasing after this dream of playing music. The first four he spent doing the “holy-bum ramble,” playing on street corners, Dumpster diving for meals and sleeping where he could.

He worshipped the Woody Guthrie “Bound for Glory” ideal, sure that the pinnacle of life was drinking wine in a box car.

“It seasons you. The response is immediate. I’ve been spit on, and I’ve been given hundred dollar bills,” Raines said. “It’s definitely easier for me to deal with the guy shouting ‘Free Bird’ at my shows.

“When I feel like I’m losing my perspective, I go back to street corners and play.”

He gave up the holy-bum ramble a decade ago, when Howlin’ Dog Records in Alamosa offered to record his stuff.

And he migrated north to Colorado Springs in 2005.

Raines was banged up on the road around Christmastime in 2006, in a car wreck, on a trip back to the Springs. A few days later, he watched his music equipment get stolen from his car, helpless, as he lay recovering in his house.

After that run of bad luck, he thought hard about giving up the music game.

But he can’t.

He no longer tours in the winter, but he fills the time with local shows, songwriting and producing other artists’ projects.

Since then, he’s put out his seventh and eighth albums, had a song on the “Sounds of the Pikes Peak Region” compilation, and found a band.

Raines used to play alone, learning several instruments because he got tired of depending on unreliable musicians.

But now he’s teamed up with sensual singer Xanthe Alexis (formerly of Poesis), Chris Vigil on bass and Bryce Abood on drums.

The lone wolf is even looking forward to turning his private world of songwriting over to the group, to see what comes out. If that doesn’t work out, keep an eye out on local street corners for a guy named Ashley playing a rootsy mix of folk, blues and country.

Ashley Raines & band

Where: Pine Gables Stray Dog Saloon, 10530 Ute Pass Ave., Green Mountain Falls; 684-2555

When: 8 p.m. to midnight Saturday

Cost: no cover