7/21/11—7/30/11
In which the Dirty Birds play a motorcycle convention, rock Gathering of the Vibes, start recording our second album, and get our feet stuck to the aftermath of a rugby tournament.
The morning after the Columbus show, we woke up and drove back home to Brooklyn. After a blissful night of sleep in our own beds, we woke up and got right back on I-80 East to Bloomsburg, PA where we had been invited last minute to play the annual convention of the BMW Motorcycle Association of America. The heat wave was still in full frontal assault mode, and our AC was still broken (it wasn’t until a week or so later after the heat finally broke that we had time to get it fixed). The festival was being held at the county fairgrounds just outside of town. We pulled up to the back vendor entrance and waited for our liaison, Lee, who turned out to be a wiry man from Birmingham, Alabama. He had a wide smile and spoke with a pronounced Southern drawl. “Wasn’t sure you’d be able to find us! A little out of the way. But here we go, follow me!” hopping on his golf cart, seemingly out of place amidst the sea of motorcycles. A whole tent city stretched before us, motorcycles parked like steeds amidst thousands of people in leather jackets or tank tops, jeans, riding boots.
The heat and humidity reached their true zenith that day. After unloading our gear we had a short soundcheck, then left our stuff in the backstage area and drove the fifteen or so miles to our hotel, where we promptly closed all the blinds, cranked the AC and fell asleep. Some hours later, we woke as if in an igloo and couldn’t have been happier. We still had the show to play, however, so we climbed back into the van and headed back to the fairgrounds, where there was a Zydeco band going full-force. A crowd of a couple hundred sat and stood watching appreciatively from the stage area, while untold more heard from their tents and on their bikes around the periphery, obscured by the darkness. It was still over 90 degrees and humid when we took the stage around 10:30pm, with even more people drawn to the music, pressed against the stage. By the end we were all drenched through, sweat towels strewn about the stage. It was a dirty, sweaty night, true Rock n Roll.
We drove home again that night, our van careening through the Pennsylvania darkness. The next morning, Arleigh, Sasha, Jax, Kim (my fiance), John (one of our best friends) and I all met and drove up to Bridgeport, CT for Gathering of the Vibes. This was Friday the 22nd, and although we weren’t playing until the following day we decided to drive up early, camp out and check out the scene. And what a scene it was: more than 20,000 people camped out up against the shore of the Long Island Sound, tie-dyed shirts and dresses and dreads and hula-hoops and a ferris wheel and swimming at sunset. While Arls, Jax and Sasha stayed behind to deal with the business of getting our van and gear into the festival and onto a campsite (which proved surprisingly difficult), John and Kim and I stole away to see the Levon Helm Band. What a band! Damn, I mean, I’ve seen them before, but every time is truly a blessing. Levon is such a light on this earth. Every time the man opens his mouth to sing, the heavens open up a little bit and I get all wiggly. Such a presence! Throw in the fact that I’ve idolized him as a drummer ever since I was 7 or so, and, well, it was a highlight of my time at the festival to be able to catch some of his set. I hope that someday quite soon the Birds’ll be able to play a Ramble. We’ll see. Anyways, we wandered around the immense fair grounds the rest of the night. Our manager Michael was there, and our booking agent Jon. A big reunion of sorts, dancing to Further on the VIP porch. We fell asleep to the sounds of distant revelry, fireworks being lit, drum circles, the late night set. Here’s a song from our set.
The next morning, we awoke with the sun. One of our tents had no rain flap and Jax ended up getting pretty burned from the sunshine filtering in through the open-air screens. We were scheduled for 3:45pm on the Greenvibes stage, the “up-and-coming” stage. We are up and we are most definitely coming! Some of the crew came and carted our gear over there, and then we hung out backstage drinking ice cold beer while the other Birds arrived from the city. Eventually it was time to rock. We set up, did a quick line check and away we went. Such a good vibe there! (no pun) The Greenvibes stage was right on the water, and there were about a dozen boats anchored offshore full of people dancing, to complement the mostly-shirtless crowd in front of the stage. We gave them our best, getting down and dirty, so much that a few of us (Arleigh, Jax and myself) got heat-stroke. Ha, seriously, it was over 100 degrees when we played. I took a long drum solo at one point, and as I came out of it I felt like I was gonna faint! You know that feeling where you can feel the blood draining from your head and the sparkles all start to shimmer? Light dancing off the cymbals, blurred vision of Arleigh jumping up and down. Anyways, we made it, but barely. Boy, was that a fun set though. Later, we read on some Vibes discussion boards that a lot of people said it was their favorite set of the whole weekend! As we continue to play shows around the Northeast we often run into people who say they heard us first at Vibes, which always makes us happy thinking back to that hot afternoon show.
We spent the next few days in the studio recording our as-of-yet untitled second album, due out this Spring. Can’t tell you how good it felt to get our newer songs recorded after playing them all over the country! Completely different sonically and conceptually from the first album, it’s produced and recorded by our dear friend and resident “Scientist of Knobs,” Mr. Brian Bender. It’s been almost two years since our first album was recorded, and our sound has changed a lot since then, really come into itself through playing together almost constantly, not to mention all our shared experiences. So while we love the first album and love sharing it with people, I can honestly say this new album is gonna blow yr minds!
Getting that classic reverb guitar sound in the bathroom.
As much as we would have loved to hunker down and finish the record all in one stretch, especially after the touring insanity of the past 2 or 3 weeks, we set out again that very next weekend for a run up through Hartford, CT to Burlington, VT and Saranac Lake, NY. Hartford was memorable mostly because Johnny’s cousin Paul and his wife Diana came out to see us, and then put us up at their beautiful house, with the understanding that “everything in the fridge is yours, please, enjoy!” And oh, did we enjoy. When we woke in the morning, there was a very detailed note explaining what food we should take for our trip. The apples. The bread. The hummus. Pretty much everything there, actually. Thank you so much for your hospitality!
We hit Nectar’s in Burlington on a Friday night and raged face. There was a jumping crowd out celebrating the joy of a Summer’s weekend, and we gave them a mouthful of dirt. Awesome show. John Kincheloe (my uncle, Arleigh and Jackson’s dad) was there on furlough from a college rugby reunion (actually, little did we know rugby was about to become a major factor in our lives for the next 48 hours…) with his old buddy Tom. After the show we went back to Tom’s amazing log cabin, which he and his sons built with their own hands over the past few years. It lies on this beautiful piece of land, set off from the road, only a 15 minute drive from downtown Burlington. Amazing, beautiful place. He’s built a golf course of sorts on the property—holes marked by poles with little flags waving in the wind. But we didn’t see that until the morning, mist rising from the green fields. I fell asleep right on the kitchen floor curled up next to his kindly old dog, who reminded me of my own kindly old dog from childhood, Tucker (miss you boy!) We bonded, what a good dog.
The next day we set off towards Saranac Lake, over on the New York side of Lake Placid, which we took an awesome ferry ride to get across.
Our show that night was at a venue called Waterhole Upstairs Music Lounge, and unbeknownst to us, we were to be the sole source of entertainment for some 500 drunken rugby players partaking in an international tournament in nearby Lake Placid. Every year, the Waterhole hosts the big after party for the whole tournament—though the finals games were the next day, most of the teams had been eliminated and were ready to party. And apparently rugby players like to party hard. Our only warning was that the staff of the place looked like they were girding for war—the grim, knowing faces of soldiers about to go into battle. Who knows how we ended up with that gig, but hey we bring it every time, don’t know any other way. We started playing at 10:30 to a half-empty room, but 20 minutes in the place was jam packed. Guys and girls, many teams came dressed in matching garb, some in their uniforms but others in random costumes—cowboy hats and bandanas, leopard-print leotards, there was even a team from Scotland all wearing kilts. Beyond the team atmosphere, there were a few lone-shark type characters drifting in and out of the fray. A couple big friendly guys from Australia really dug us. There was a toothless Russian thug-looking guy who drunkenly grabbed at us as we left the stage, yelling at us to “play Bob Seger! Bob Seeeegerrrr!!” Later in the night he stood weaving back and forth, somehow maintaining his balance, making throat slitting motions at Aidan for some reason. He loved me though, said he was a drummer. “I gotta … gotta twennyfivepiece set in… in my house… do you wannit? I sell it you!” “Umm, thanks, but no, I already have a set,” and then I somehow managed to escape up to the green room/office where we all hid out between sets. What mayhem! Someone lit off some fireworks in the middle of one of Sasha’s solos, smoke billowing up from the crowd. This happened two or three times before the bouncers found the guy and kicked him out. I’m surprised the whole damn place didn’t burn down! But we never stopped playing, ha, we played until 2:30am when they finally kicked everyone out. There was so much spilled beer that my boots clung to the floor of the club with each step I took. In fact, just from walking from the stage to the green room my boots were sticking to my hi-hat and bass drum pedals, making playing much more difficult than usual. Had a few shots with the bartenders, who looked equally relieved the night was over. The owners of the club were awesome—because of the tournament, there were no hotel rooms available within a 50 mile radius, so they took pity on us and let us crash in the green room, where we sprawled out on couches, a futon and the floor. We all stayed up late together recounting the insanity of the last few hours, and weeks, laughing sleepily. A night to remember for sure.
Good work put in by all involved.
Onwards and upwards, Birds!
Yr friend,
Bram
Jackson's pet.
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