Acoustic Music outdoors on the mountain every Sunday afternoon.
Join Denes playing at '5-Mile House' bar and restaurant. 1:00-4:00.
5 miles up the hill from Nevada City on Hwy. 20, CA
Denes McIntosh
On Sunday afternoons, the patio comes alive with the gentle strumming of Denes McIntosh’s guitar, drawing listeners into a world where music, poetry, and storytelling intertwine seamlessly. Denes doesn’t just play songs—he tells stories that linger in the heart long after the last note fades. His acoustic performances are a warm invitation to pause, reflect, and connect through melodies that reflect life’s joys, struggles, and quiet moments.
But Denes’s artistry extends far beyond the music. As a writer, his novels unfold with the same authenticity and depth found in his lyrics—characters crafted with care, narratives rich with insight, and moments sprinkled with humor and compassion. His poetry captures the fleeting, often overlooked details of life, turning them into timeless verses that resonate with anyone willing to listen.
In every musical performance (or with every page read) Denes McIntosh offers a glimpse into the human experience—raw, real, and beautifully nuanced. So if you happen to join him for his music you’re not just hearing a concert; you’re stepping into a shared journey of art and emotion that bridges music and the written word.
Wilderness Reviews
(The Novel)
Denes McIntosh
“The first time I read ’Wilderness’ I kept reading because I couldn’t wait to see what happens with the characters. The second time I read it for the sheer pleasure of the writing. Anybody reading it once is definitely going to want to read it again.”
“The gradual regeneration of the human spirit following the brutality of the ‘incident’ renewed my faith in others, and in myself.”
“Poetic, prosaic, insightful, getting to the heart of the human condition.”
“Harlen McCoy had me at ‘raking the invisible leaves’, and kept me with ‘wanting to hire a Judge Judy impersonator from Craigslist to come over and take a bath’.”
“’Kevin wore the same kind of shirt every day of his life, but with different colored sleeves’? We need more Kevins.”
“A story of faith, not prescription, or formula faith, but the kind that enables love to find a willing host.”
“The women in this novel are women I want to get to know. The men are the friends I wish I had.”
“Your description of Pastor Blauer is an Edward Hopper painting in words (‘He’s about 5’6” tall, with a cheap haircut, and usually wearing a powder blue suit. Sometimes he wears a brown polyester suit, kind of shiny from age. Makes him look upholstered, like an old hide-a-bed, or a couch you might keep out in the carport’).”
“I like that David watches Tom and Tracy Morgan through their window in the evening from his rooftop. I like that Tom sits on his couch naked. And I like that he doesn’t care who’s watching. If I were a character in the book, I’d be Tom Morgan.”
“Made me look at my own wilderness.”
“Sexy and romantic. I wish Gina would dangle her hush-puppy in my café.”
“Stimulated more discussion with my husband than any book we’ve ever read together.”
Wilderness Reviews
By Lisa Conner
You Have Crafted A Quality Piece Of Writing
Denes, I want to give you my overall impression of your work: You have a terrific writing style. You have obviously done a significant amount of planning and preparation in crafting your work.
Your prose is nicely written with details that capture the reader. Right from the start, your plot was very engaging. You do a nice job of slowly making your way through the story with details and a certain voice that allows your reader to really interact with the characters (who are all rounded out, and very nicely developed). The greatest value in fiction, it seems to me, lies in what we can learn about our own lives when we take time to analyze someone else's — even if that someone else is just a character in a story.
Characterization is one of the most important elements of any successful story. I always love it when I leave a story feeling like I know the characters. This is true for your prose. So many authors rush through their stories without really developing them. Not you. Your book reads like a movie in my mind. You have crafted a quality piece of writing. Bravo!
Congratulations again.
By Lisa Conner
Editor, Outskirts Press
Wilderness Reviews
‘Wilderness’ is a look at life
By Wendy Schultz
Author: Denes McIntosh
Publisher: Outskirts Press Inc., 2012, softcover, 381 pages
Cost: $18.95, e-book version $5, Amazon.com or Barnes&Noble.com
“Wilderness:
(Where One’s Inner Wilderness Meets the Natural World”) is Denes McIntosh’s first novel.
“The Old Coyote,” (as McIntosh is known) is a songwriter, recording artist, poet and cultural blogger, but “Wilderness” is his first foray into the world of adult fiction.
In “Wilderness,” David, a 58-year-old product of the ’60s, is writing a novel at “The Last Café.” His observations of the other regulars at the café offer insight into the human condition — people you want to know; people you probably already know.
When David becomes involved in a horrific situation, the moral dilemma it creates between his own altruistic character and the actions he feels he must take, cause him to explore his inner wilderness, searching for a way to make sense of it all.
There is a wide range of characters in “Wilderness,” from poetry writers and femme fatales at the café to the clients at the Center for Creative Living where David works as a counselor, to the characters in his novel who are facing their own moral and religious conflicts.
The line between reality and fiction becomes blurred when David’s actual world and the world he’s creating in his novel begin to co-mingle. He needs to resolve his moral dilemma in order to preserve his own sanity.
McIntosh, who is said to be 63, has a long songwriting and recording career beginning in the 1970s and continuing to the present.
The Grass Valley resident is completing a new album and in the midst of publishing his first book of poetry. He’s also working on a new novel, titled “As of Yet Unknown.”
Wendy Schultz
(Wendy Schultz has been a columnist for the Mountain Democrat since 2002 and a staff writer since 2005.) CALIFORNIA'S OLDEST NEWSPAPER -EST. 1851Volume 161 · Issue 102
On Behalf of One Another
Politics and Religion: The great dividers.
Hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and fires:
The great uniters.
Such a shame how it takes an horrific natural disaster for people to set aside their differences to begin to work together, and on behalf of one another.
Missing Joe and Janis
I miss Joe Cocker and Janis Joplin.
That’s right. Both of them.
Equally powerful, equally mesmerizing, each in their own inimitable and wonderful way.
If you’ve never seen or heard either of them, you may not know it, but you miss them too. And if you have experienced them you know you miss them. More so than I can even express.
I don’t need to be reminded about the void left in my once well-satiated soul. My psyche is just a little out of sync since they’ve been gone. My equilibrium is just a little bit off-kilter. The pop-star-strippers the star-makers keep running out in front of us are a mere wannabe’s, pickpockets, and imposters compared to the likes of Joe and Janis. There’s no soul in the pitch-enhanced vocals of these soulless singers. These pretenders are not here to enhance our lives with their pop drivel and corporate pornography. They have never been. They’re here to enhance themselves. They’re here to manipulate us into purchasing their product lines, and the obscenely priced tickets to their lip-synched shows so they can maintain their mansions, private jets, yachts and wardrobes.
Why would anyone choose to support these musical charlatans? I don’t know. Just a Pavlov's Dog response to the fake world we’ve all become accustomed to living in, I guess.
But Joe and Janis. . . . . Passionate, authentic, captivating, fascinating; each in their own peculiar way. Each one as unique as the other. Each with a voice the size of their desire, and a heart the size of their fiery voice.
Janis was the tortured soul-searing singer who could bring you to your knees in a passionate plea for mercy. She could give you gifts you never knew existed. ‘Take it. Take another little piece of my heart now baby. You know you’ve got it, child, if it makes you feel good’.
And Joe, the trembling vocal jester with convulsive soulful gestures resembling both the agony and the ecstasy simultaneously in song. ‘You are so beautiful to me. You’re everything I’ve hoped for, e v e r y t h i n g I n e e d. You are so beautiful to me’.
Joe and Janis. Gone too soon.
Gone but not forgotten.
Never have been.
Never will be.
Not in my house.
D.M.
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