“Bang-thud” is the sound your heart makes when you’re in Portland, Maine, forty-five minutes before a show, and you realize that your electric cello is still on a boat off the coast of Rhode Island, more than 200 miles away. This was specifically Harris’s heart, yesterday at approximately 7:15 pm, well after the Block Island Ferry office had closed, and not long at all before we needed to entertain a growing crowd of Portlandites. In a brilliant stroke of luck, the North Star Cafe sound guy, who’d taken up cello not two weeks prior, offered to fetch his acoustic for us. In a matter of a few minutes, and with HIS cello’s status still uncertain, Harris re-learned parts that had been written for six strings on the borrowed four-string acoustic, and the show somehow went without a hitch (if perhaps a hair behind schedule).

After a long night of what-iffing and an early morning of desperate phone calling, the cello was located and Harris made the solo trek back to Block Island to retrieve it. What could have been (and still maybe was) the most traumatic experience of our band’s short history is now in hindsight a colorful lesson about the perils of sea travel and the importance of double-checking the van.

Speaking of! Our fifteen-passenger van, which we’re calling [your favorite male celebrity], has been converted by way of seat-removal into an 8-passenger van with quite a lot of trunk space (our rehearsal space, on the other hand, has been converted into a chic 7-passenger lounge). The six-track EP, which we’ve effusively titled “EP 1,” is now on sale online as a digital download or mail-order disc, or you can buy one directly from us at one of our shows, as long as you’re willing to wait while we look for the keys to the cash box. The tour doesn’t have a name or a title yet, but it’s definitely a tour, because we have a tour van, who for the moment is Christopher Walken.

In all seriousness, we’re elated to finally have a van, and to have physical EPs in hand, and to have the cello safely back in Harris’ clutches. We’re also very happy to announce that tonight’s show at Church of Boston is our 50th show! Except none of the other guys know that yet, so unless they read this before we go on stage, I’ll be surprising them with that news in a few hours. See you in a jiffy, Boston!

This Saturday at the Iron Horse!

After this weekend we’ll be gearing up for a packed summer of more than 30 shows all over the Northeast. If you live anywhere near anywhere near New England and/or the greater Megalopolis area, check the tour schedule, because we’re probably playing in your backyard sometime soon.

Fourth in the lineup was the insanely talented string-rock quintet Darlingside from Northampton.… With their distinctive instrument choices, Darlingside seamlessly melded hook-drenched classical-rock melody lines with substantially infectious grooves, thanks in no small part to arguably the meatiest drums one has ever heard played under a string section. Even more impressive is that despite the overwhelming instrumental presence, the vocals were, if anything, even more noteworthy, as they resonated clearly and truly without being buried by the amazing instrumental skills. Arguably, Hampden Courtyard has never heard such serene and well executed harmonized vocals, much less from a quintet of string rockers.

What a kind, kind man. In other news, the Darlingside household has been Spring Cleaned! Springed Clean? Clean Sprung? Anyway it looks great, and the leaves are coming back in, and what a wonderful world, and all you need is love. Whoop!

Don and Dave performing at Toad. Photo courtesy Anand Jagannath

Having just played in Cambridge back in December with Caitlin Canty, to much the same crowd, this gig afforded us a particularly good opportunity to mark our progress over the last month, both with regards to the direction our music has taken and our general ability to perform it. In both respects it felt like we were a different band than we’d been back at Lilypad, and the audience seemed to agree. To be fair, we also had the advantage of playing to a more energetic, less sober crowd than was at the Lilypad show, which definitely didn’t not help. I even found out later that one front-row table of our friends was playing their own Darlingside drinking game, with rules like: Drink when two bandmates share a loving look; Drink when Auyon leans too far back, or when Harris’ leg starts to go crazy; Drink when Don says something particularly awkward, or when Dave makes a joke that nobody understands; Drink when Sam says anything at all. Sam, you recluse you.

Thanks a lot to Auyon’s friend Anand for snapping some great photos from the show, which you can see here.

After our set, we had a fantastic time hanging out with our Cambridge/Boston friends while the David Wax Museum performed their final show as Toad’s resident band. Their set was both fun and emotional, and at times powerfully charged; sometimes they quite literally took over the room such that it was impossible not to listen. It was great sharing the stage with them, and we’re hoping to bring them up to Northampton for another joint show in the near future.

We can’t help but enjoy the fact that our two Cambridge gigs thus far have been at “Lilypad” and “Toad,” which of course practically requires us to make stupid puns about how the second gig really “jumped off” of the first one, or about how “toads are technically terrestrial, so this would never happen in real life.” (Some of us were biology majors.) In keeping with that level of sophistication, we’re pleased to announce that the fable has a new twist: The Lucky Dog in Worcester, MA, where we played on Wednesday. What I’m thinking, maybe counter-intuitively, is that the dog is actually lucky because it DIDN’T eat the toad (maybe because the toad, having jumped off the lilypad just in time, is now safely underwater?). Many species of toad are actually quite poisonous, and dogs have been known to die from eating them. Please feel free to post your alternative theories below.

Oh, you actually wanted to hear about how the gig went…

Well, we had been warned, a few nights prior to the gig, that the Lucky Dog was a “metal biker bar” and that we shouldn’t expect a “good reception.” When we mentioned Worcester to The David Wax Museum, the response was something like pity. It was also the venue’s “free night” — essentially a brief audition to see if we were good enough to come back and play a paid gig. Our expectations adjusted accordingly, we were relieved when a lone female singer-songwriter kicked off the night, and with a great set at that. It was Misty Boyce, from NYC, and her sound ranged from edgy pop to gritty indie rock, and she was cute and funny to boot. She was followed by the hard-rock band Theoryshift, five really nice guys based out of Boston who fully utilized the catwalk-esque thrust part of the stage, as well as the upper range of their volume knobs. We followed Theoryshift with as much energy as we could bring, and were very well received by the crowd and the owner, who’s looking to have us back to open for his own band, which apparently always packs the place. Will Gattis was next, a wonderfully entertaining singer-songwriter down from Portland, ME, who is too easy to compare to Ben Folds, but really has his own quirky thing going on that I thought was great. Following Will was The Mile Run, two very friendly dudes rocking as hard as possible on acoustic guitars with raw, intense vocals that reminded me of Manchester Orchestra’s harder stuff (in a good way). The vibe throughout the night was one of friendship and mutual triumph, with some metal-biker-bar vibes mixed in, and a fair amount of vintage pornography vibes in the men’s room.

So, the Dog turned out to be very Lucky indeed, and we all had a great night and got to hear some really cool acts; hopefully we’ll find a way to hook back up with some of them for future shows. Meanwhile, Caitlin will be back in Hadley tomorrow to continue working on her upcoming EP, and we’ll be getting ready for the Haiti relief show in Rutland, VT this Friday. No animal-related venue names in the foreseeable future, so whatever happened between the Toad and the Dog — and really, it’s none of our business — the next chapter is a ways off.

Until next time,
Dave

“The unique combinations of instruments were mesmerizing. Every song was unexpected … as soon as the six-song show was over everyone wanted more … Their music was so powerful and beautiful … I can see them going far.” — Dominique Exume, Williams Record

We’re really thrilled to be featured in the Record, and a million thanks to Dominique for her kind words (and for coming out to the gig!). We really enjoyed our first-ever interview, and we noticed that we’re actually really good at being interviewed, because we do things like think outside the box, like when we answer totally different questions than the ones we’re being asked, or when we ramble for as long as possible on obscure tangents while our interviewer is shivering in the cold. We’re the biggest thing to hit interviews since case studies. Since verbal reasoning skills. Since Katie Couric.

The annual “Happy Valley Showdown” at the Elevens in Northampton is a revered battle of the bands that brings in indie acts from all over the area, takes place over many weeks, and boasts some serious prizes for victors and runners-up alike. The whole thing is managed by our old neighbor Mark Sheehan, who is so contagiously passionate about music and about giving exposure to up-and-comers that by the end of the night I was kicking myself for not having befriended him when we lived next door. Mark made a point of clarifying several times that having a “battle” was more of an excuse to get people to come listen to acts they hadn’t heard of, and it certainly exposed us to some awesome local and quasi-local bands. Auyon, always wearing multiple managerial hats, managed to book one of the other acts, Leisure Colony, at his workplace, Sam’s Pizza, on February 18th. We’re really looking forward to seeing them play a full set and we think you’ll dig them too, so mark it on your calendars. Finally, we were honored and thrilled to be asked to come back for the finals of the showdown next month! Check back for more info on that soon.

On Thursday, we drove down to Hamden, CT to play a 30-minute set at The Space, a great venue owned by Steve Rodgers of the band Mighty Purple. The Space is something like an art collective meets a community center meets an indie rock venue with great food. We walked in to see Steve’s brother teaching guitar to a group of kids, were then ushered to a private room upstairs where we could relax / rehearse, given meal discount cards, and then left alone to study their collection of old arcade machines and shop in the vintage thrift store. In short, the vibe was awesome, and the short set length meant we would only be playing our best songs alongside a variety of other acts, so we were ready to, er, huff and puff and blow the house down. By the time we went on stage, about half of the audience was made up of friends and family, many of whom hadn’t yet heard us perform live, and in a way it felt like the whole place belonged to us. It ended up being one of my favorite gigs to date, even given the fact that during the first song, I unwittingly had my bass effects pedal set to modulate some ungodly fraction of an octave (the pedal was set atop my amp, so i had to just sit the song out). It wasn’t a perfect performance, but we had an absolute blast, received wonderful compliments from friends and total strangers, and Steve seemed very interested in having us back.

The following night brought us to Rebel Sound Records in Pittsfield, MA for a gig that was similar in many respects. Again we were one of five or six acts, each scheduled to play for only 30 minutes, and again it was a listening venue with no alcohol. Instead of playing in “The Space”, we were playing in “The Room”. We played the same six songs (including a new cover — but if I told you what it was, I’d have to joust you) to a largely Williamstown-based crowd, many of whom came on a bus organized by the school. Again, we were received warmly and enthusiastically both by our friends and by complete strangers (including members of the other bands, whose styles were quite different from our own), and we had an incredible evening. The other bands seriously impressed us as well, and by the time we headed back home we’d made plenty of friends and exhausted plenty of ear-drums.

These two most recent gigs taken together paint a very clear picture of exactly how lucky we are as a band to have the kind of support that we do at this stage of the game, not just from our incredible friends and family but from the entire Williams community that continues to give more to us than we could ever hope to give back. A huge thanks to everyone who showed up to the gigs! There is simply nothing I can compare to the feeling of driving somewhere an hour away, going into some building I’ve never seen before, and then watching as people I love file through the doors so that I can show them what the guys standing next to me (or sitting behind me, Sam you recluse you) can do. There are times when writing and performing music as a career can seem like a misguided and confusing struggle — simultaneously too challenging to be worth the anxiety and too much fun to be worth taking seriously — but that feeling always goes away when the people start showing up, and your mouth starts to go dry, and you know that doing anything else wouldn’t feel right.

And so it goes with almost every song as we explore the strengths and limitations of each option, sometimes ultimately returning to the original key, sometimes not. Due to the nature of classical string instruments, the changes are more often than not either by a fourth or a fifth, which for a singer is the difference between sounding like Matt Berninger, Steve Perry, or a normal person (pick any two). So fine, maybe YOU’RE safe, wherever you are, because you know what key YOU’RE in… but remember what it’s like to be a Darlingside song, never knowing when the boogeyman might show up and flip your unsuspecting ass upside down.

Recently, I’ve probably been busking an average of twice per week, often with some configuration of other band members, and each time meeting with unusual success. In Boston, a few weekends ago, I had my must lucrative night ever, making upwards of $40/hour (thank you Newbury Street) and giving out my entire reserve of business cards. A week ago, in Northampton, Harris and Auyon and I were signing autographs for a crowd of German exchange students within maybe two minutes of playing, and we made enough to consider — strongly consider — going out for sushi. The prior weekend, Auyon and I had dedicated a song in broken Spanish, over the phone, to a man’s ex-girlfriend living in Miami, and somebody we didn’t see threw us a crumpled five dollar bill from a window somewhere in the apartmentmosphere.

Busking in Northampton

More often, though, busking lends itself to more simple, everyday pleasures, but happening in rapid succession, so as to give the impression that life is like one big hug: A couple give each other a loving look during a romantic song; a kid tells you enthusiastically that he, too, plays guitar; someone smiles and sings along as they walk by; an infant attempts to dance along; a group of German girls ask you to sign autographs… Ok, maybe the crazy stories are a big part of the fun, but then what’s truly amazing is the frequency and consistency with which those awesome, seemingly preposterous things will happen, and tonight was no exception.

As we picked our pitch (“pitch” = busking location) and set up to play, Auyon was particularly set on getting sushi this time, and particularly confident that we were going to be able to afford it (busk-for-dinner rules stipulate that you can only spend on your meal that which you just earned). We had no time limit for dinner, really, but cold weather is never ideal for the instruments or our playing of them, and so the goal was really to earn and to eat.

After thirty minutes, we’d earned about $4, nobody had stopped to listen, and I had broken the G string on my guitar (a relatively new string… this is the unfortunate price of busking in October) with no replacements. Several other buskers and street vendors had chosen nearby pitches, saturating the already noisy street with both acoustic and financial competition. Auyon, sushi bubbles disappearing above his head, was crestfallen. Then, a glimmer of hope: a young man in a t-shirt sat and listened to a song, looking like he might donate to the cause. When we finished the song, he applauded, approached and asked if we could play anything “funkadelic.” Jigga-what? Auyon started playing something of questionable funk on his mandolin, while I thought carefully about how to respond, and stalled by saying things like “no” and “probably not.” But suddenly, something Auyon played sounded sufficiently funkadelic to our new friend, and he started break dancing. He was good, with all kinds of hand stands and freezes and locking and popping, and he certainly didn’t care about the people nervously trying to pass by without getting breakdance’d in the face. After 5 or 6 minutes he stopped, exhausted, and we exchanged pleasantries. His name was Louis (I think), from New York, and he’d come to Northampton hearing that it was a good place for the arts. He thanked us for the music, expressed his regret that he hadn’t earned us any money, and then went on his way. Our circumstances still less than ideal, and sushi now a sure impossibility, we remembered for a moment what busking was all about, and decided to keep playing, G string or no G string, and to simply out-perform the competition.

Under new divine management, we did quite well for the next half hour, making about a dollar a minute until finally we decided we had enough to treat ourselves like kings. We walked over to the sushi place, ready to seriously deliberate over which rolls to order, and probably talking about how awesome we were. In retrospect, it’s pretty funny, but for some reason we decided that a twenty minute wait was ridiculous, and we opted to eat elsewhere. Sadly — and I say this with no ill will toward the establishment or toward our very friendly waitress — we ended up spending all of our newly earned cash on a meal that neither of us enjoyed very much, and we left the restaurant, again, crestfallen.

Determined not to leave the night a failure, and with some time yet before the end of busking hours, we decided to keep playing and see if we could cut our losses. Instantly, the vibe was better than it had been pre-dinnerlude. The location was better, the street was quieter, and I was beginning to get comfortable with the absence of the important, but certainly not crucial G string. Our minds were attuned to the music rather than to our stomachs, and people seemed far more inclined to stop and listen to a song. Some stuck around for three or four or five.

At one point, a very pretty blonde girl stopped and listened for about five minutes, almost directly across from me, smiling and singing along to “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley, and for the rest of the night she was all I could think about. (I’m the sort of person who declares his everlasting love for a girl that he’s just met, and Auyon’s the sort of person who then frowns at me and attempts to explain what love means, so it was a nice bit of affirmation that on this particular occasion he supported me in feeling as such.) That was right around when we hit our peak crowd, and then gradually it faded away as the brisk air reminded people of their destinations. We continued to play for a while, encountering some old friends and making a few new ones, until a pair of cops informed us we were playing after hours. We packed up and, as has become customary, got back in the car with a freshly renewed, broadly applicable enthusiasm for everything.

Finally, and this is too often overlooked as a crucial part of the complete experience: the post-busk. We arrived home to find Sam and Harris in the living room with Jay Cox-Chapman, a good friend from school in town for the night, and we dutifully bro’d out the remainder of the evening with good beers, good company, and good conversation. When you’ve essentially been yelling at strangers for three hours in the cold, this is exactly what you want to come home to.

And to the girl, if you’re reading this, maybe we’ll see you at the Amherst gig? Maybe you want to grab coffee? Too much? Ok, I’m stopping before this gets any tackier.