Pulling up the Tweeds: Smith&Weeden and Ian Fitzgerald (Part 2)
If you are just tuning in, be sure to check out Part 1 of this interview on over HERE…caught up? Ok good.
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RLR: So why you are excited for Tweed in particular this summer? How did you guys first hear about the festival and getting on board with playing it? Who else are you really excited to hear up in VT that weekend at the festival?
Dylan: The Gentlemen did a few shows earlier this year with Bow Thayer and The Curtis Mayflower, and Jeremy Curtis from the Mayflower actually sat in with us on bass for the shows. Bow and Jeremy are both on the board of directors for Tweed, as well as our friend Michael Panico, who attended all the shows. (Panico deserves a shout out for being a pretty amazing super fan in the local scene, but definitely not enough of a shout out where he starts to get the idea that I like or admire him as a human being, because that couldn’t be farther from the truth). Hearing the three of them talk about the past Tweed weekends, as well as their visions and hopes for the upcoming festival, made it abundantly clear how much passion they felt for curating a really unique and special event. I had been aware of Tweed for a little while, but that weekend with those two groups solidified by excitement to play the festival.
A bunch of our friends and groups we have played with will be up there: J.P. Harris, Joe Fletcher, the Silks, so on and so forth. It’s always awesome to hear them. The two acts I’m excited to catch that I’ve never seen are Lydia Loveless and The Suitcase Junket. I think those were the first two acts announced, so that got me uber pumped.
Ollie: I don’t quite remember how I heard about the festival, but I first became aware of Tweed in general when Bow Thayer rolled into Providence on the Got Tweed? bus a few years back. We were playing a show together at Local 121 and he just rolls up with 10 or 15 people in this old school bus and they’re all drinking and hollering and having a great time. It was quite a sight. Then Bow proceeded to kill it with his band. I was impressed.
I agree with Dylan, the best part for me will be seeing old buds and listening to new ones. We’re gonna get into some serious trouble when we get together with the Silks and JP and his band. Somebody’s bound to lose an eye or something…
Ian: I’d seen the Tweed name pop up a lot; I wasn’t sure what it was, but there always seemed to be really good people involved. I went to see one of those shows that Dylan and The Gentlemen played with Bow Thayer and The Curtis Mayflower. First of all: great show. Second of all: Michael Panico asked me at that show if I’d be interested in playing the festival this year, and we’ve gone from there.
I’m always excited to see Joe Fletcher. I just heard Caitlin Canty’s new album recently, so I’m looking forward to seeing her live. I’ll be on a bill later in August at Passim with The Suitcase Junket, so it will be great to meet and see him at Tweed. And I have no doubt I’ll leave that weekend with some new favorites.
Jesse: Yea, that’s pretty much covers it! But for my part again huge shout out to Michael Panico and Jeremy Curtis. Those guys have both helped us a bunch. I’m also really excited to see suitcase junket. We are both from the Amherst/Northampton area and have swum in the same circles for awhile. We’ve even talked about show swapping. So pumped to see it finally. Always love seeing our good bromigo’s Fletch Master Flex (Joe Fletcher), JP Harris and his boys, and The Silks. Going to be an epic weekend camping hang bropile.
RLR: Ok, so aside from music do you guys have any other hobbies? (I expect this one could get interesting)
Jesse: Oh no. You asked Dylan what his hobbies are?? This going to get very NSFW
(redacted this part of the conversation for obvious reasons)
Dylan: In all seriousness, I am hilariously inept at anything not related to music, and many would argue that there’s not much going for me in that area as well. I enjoy watching a good film, and I have other minor interests as well, but I have very few notable skills outside of performing. I am envious of so many of our musician friends who also lead double lives as amazing cooks, contractors, visual artists…it’s pretty incredible. Ollie and Seamus are fucking great cooks. Jesse is also an expert belly dancer.
Jesse: Hahahaha But if you want an honest answer there’s very little time left between work/music. I like to read, go through phases as far as genre and content. Most recently I’ve been on a non-fiction military history kick mostly focused recent conflicts of Afghanistan and Iraq. Before the nonfiction phase it was turn of the century dead British white dudes. Graham Greene, CS Lewis, Evelyn Waugh and such. I’m trying to get into fly fishing and IT’S trying my patience. I used to have a ton of hobbies but then music happened and now I’m boring.
Ian: In terms of hobbies, I more or less spend what free time I have going to see other people play. And even that I don’t get to do as much as I’d like.
RLR: Well, how about what you guys think the future holds for the music community around here. I went from never being able to get a gig to being up to my neck in what is the shitstorm we call a music community. Do you see it getting stronger over time? What do you think is needed to keep it moving along? The Providence/Boston connection has definitely grown a bit, but it has a long way to go still maybe?
Dylan: I think as long as groups like Deer Tick, The Low Anthem, Joe and The Wrong Reasons, and Brown Bird keep gaining national success and recognition, the rock and roll/folk/Americana scene will continue to grow and thrive. The wealth of talent in New England is honestly stunning. Jonah Tolchin and Christopher Paul Stelling have both been signed to respectable labels recently (Yep Roc and ANTI), which rules. Haunt The House landed a well deserved slot at the Newport Folk Festival this year. Roz and the Rice Cakes and Last Good Tooth have been working with Team Love Records. People take what’s going on here seriously, so I think the music community here can only grow stronger.
Jesse: The Providence/Boston connection has grown but it’s still very much in it’s infancy. There’s tons of opportunity for growth there. I feel like the Providence scene is highly developed at this point though insular. There’s so much talent here that folks stop looking elsewhere. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone see a national that would sell out in any other city play to 20 people. Then go see a local band that’s probably unknown everywhere else sell out a 300 cap room. It’s wild. Cool for us Providudes, tough for out of towners. As for Boston, we’ve really only started to scratch the surface there so I can’t really say.
I will say that when we were coming up most people down here treated Boston like a gated community and said to not bother up there. We however have been pretty fortunate to play a bunch of good shows and be welcomed by the Boston “scene.” So maybe that’s turning around. It seems like there’s a lot of newish venues too which always a good sign. And there’s obviously a strong talent pool. Curtis Mayflower, Brian Carroll, Ian Fitzgerald, the Blue Ribbons. And the older bands Tallahassee, Coyote Kolb, VIVA VIVA
Dylan: Hopefully this collaboration between Ian and us will help the bridge between the two cities as well.
RLR: I agree. I think Ian has been hugely instrumental in shining a light on Prov musicians, at least to me. Half of the next volume of Locals Covering Locals is Rhodey Folks.
Ian: As for the music community: I have the benefit of having lived in Rhode Island for a bit before I moved to the Boston area, so I’m lucky to have met good people there who treated me really well. (Allysen Callery was the first and still among the kindest in that category.) I’ve been in the Boston area for a while, but there’s no barrier for me between the two cities. And even beyond that, recording at Dirt Floor has introduced me a lot of great Connecticut musicians; I’ve been lucky to meet great folks from New Hampshire and Maine; and I want to get out to western Massachusetts more because I know there’s a whole lot going on out there. I don’t know that I’m a member of any of these communities, including Boston, but they let me drop in from time to time and play and hang out and hear a lot of great music. I’m really appreciative of that and grateful for the supportive people from all of these areas. I guess my hope for the greater community would be that more people will take some chances when deciding what shows to see and not allow geography to be so restrictive. It shocks me when these guys tell me they had a low turnout for a Boston show; or when someone from Boston hasn’t been to the Columbus Theatre yet; or someone from Providence hasn’t checked out Atwoods. I promise the effort is worth it.
Ollie: Preach!
Jesse: Testify!
RLR: Ok, here’s another. Something I always find interesting to find out what other jobs musicians have to supplement the costs we so often incur and have a tough time recouping as artists (yes, music is a job for any assholes who think its a hobby or a pasttime…so I said other jobs). If music isn’t your primary source of income, what else do you dudes do? I, for instance, sit in an office and hate my life for 40-50 hours per week.
Dylan: I have worked at Looney Tunes, a local record store in Wakefield, RI, for the last 5+ years, mainly just on the weekends. For a couple of years, I worked full time with special needs kids as a direct support professional, helping them at job sites and integrating them into the community. I left that job last summer, but I still work with one kid twice a week. He’s a complete fucking badass and I love him more than most people in this world.
Jesse: I stack fruit for a living. And do a damn good job of it to!
Dylan: Can confirm. I’ve visited Jesse at work and the fruit looks beautiful. Fruitiful?
Jesse: I’m the produce night supervisor at a Whole Foods in town. And I actually love my job. The nice thing about working for Whole Foods is that everyone is overqualified and probably would rather be doing something else that doesn’t pay them enough ie. art, music etc. or they are working there because they love food. Either way you get a pretty cool, creative mix of people.
Plus there’s something super zen about stacking fruit.
Here’s some stuff I built. I love showing off. SHOUT OUT UNI HEIGHTS PRODUCE! BEST IN THE BIZ!
(photo of Jesse’s fruit stack…for real)
Dylan: Yeah, those are cool, but they have nothing on the clay dishwasher I made in eighth grade art class.
Ollie: I am a line cook at a French restaurant and the “chef boy-ollie” for a mobile catering/food truck company.
Jesse: And he’s damn good at that too
And….sadly that’s the end. Check out the boys at the Tweed River Music Festival this summer. They are slotted for August 1st, but from the sound of it they will be hanging for most of the weekend.
ENJOY!
