Reid Genauer and Jon Trafton circa 1991
This coming Saturday, Strangefolk will return to the stage at the Flynn Theatre in Burlington, VT. This will be the quartet’s first indoor performance since last year’s two-night Thanksgiving run at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, NY. It also will be a special evening as three of the band members [Jon Trafton, Reid Genauer and Luke Smith] graduated from UVM and this will be a 20th reunion weekend for many of their longtime friends. Speaking of reunions, it was in March of 2012 that the original Strangefolk quartet [which is rounded out by Erik Glockler] took the stage together after a nearly 12 year hiatus. The band’s return to the Flynn also coincides with the creation of the Strangefolk Scholarship in Environmental Studies. In the following conversation, Jon Trafton reflects on all of these developments, discusses the band’s early days, recalls a misstep at the Flynn in 1998 and looks to the future as well.
Let’s start with the scholarship. How did that come about?
The credit there goes really to Andre Gardner, good friend, classmate and road manager for many years. His motto was “Be good to each other”—that is how he would always sign off his section of the newsletter. He just wanted to give back, remembering his UVM experience, how we all connected through UVM and what a great time we all had. He wanted to give another person a chance to go there and hopefully have a great time as well. That’s really where it all started—he ran it by us and said he had this idea but wanted to expand it and involve the band because he felt that was a focal point of all of our lives at that time.
Now that is associated with us, we’re going to donate to it and figure out a structure so we make sure it takes off.
It is going to support people who are studying in environmental studies program?
Yeah, that’s right. Luke, Reid, Andre and I were all in the environmental program either fully or peripherally and it was a core for all of us. We were in a lot of classes together and I remember sitting next to Luke in classes, walking around with Reid…
Speaking of which, this seems like an opportune moment to look back on those days. Can you remember the first time meeting Reid, playing with Reid and the same with Luke?
Sure. I remember Reid and I were in the same orientation. I don’t know if we actually fully met then but we were aware of each other because as our first month there was unfolding, we were playing in a lot of guitar circles. We lived in different dorms on different campuses and he would come over with a guitar slung over his back, hunkering down in our guitar circle. He had a great voice and he kind of took over and we were like, “Wow, this guy really has it going on.”
Then the Slade dorm had an open mic and when he played down there, I played separately with a buddy of mine. After that I went up to him and asked, “Hey, would you be interested in making some music together? I think we’d have something cool.” And the rest for us is history. We got together in the dorm and made a recording that I still have.
Meeting Luke is a little different. My recollection might be wrong, I’m sure I met him before this, but what I really remember is Reid and I were playing a little bit on campus as a duo and at parties and stuff and I think he heard us and just set out to join us. He really wanted to play and he was like, “If you guys are willing, let’s hook up, let’s jam together.”
So we scheduled it for one afternoon in a chapel of some sort on the Redstone campus. When I showed up Luke was there already, all set up with his drums. I walked into the room and Reid hadn’t shown up yet but Luke had this guy in a half nelson on the floor and I was like, “What, what the hell is going on here?” Apparently when Luke had come in he caught some kid trying to steal the stereo system out of the room. Luke fully busted the guy and he ran for it but Luke tackled him to the ground and held him in submission. I think it was a kid from town, a young kid maybe 17 or 18 with a look of absolute terror in his eyes because Luke has some authority. I was like, “Wow, that’s really awesome.” [laughs] It was such a bizarre first encounter and the kid was so scared and Luke let him go. I think the kid learned his lesson, I don’t think he went around trying to steal any more stereo systems [Laughs].
And then Erik of course I met him in third grade and we have been best friends ever since but that was obviously not UVM related.
How long had you and Reid been performing together before that time when you first played with Luke?
I want to say the meeting with Luke was in the spring of our sophomore year. I think the open mic thing with Reid might have started the spring of our freshman year. Then we kind of loosely got together and did a little jamming in the fall and decided to formalize it. But I could be completely wrong with my dates. [laughs].
So to complete the story of Strangefolk, at what point did you suggest, “Maybe we should try things as a quartet with my friend Erik”?
There was definitely a formal “Okay, now we are a band” moment and I want to say that it might have been during the summer of our sophomore and junior year. I remember SAE, Luke’s fraternity, was empty during the summer time so they would let us practice there. I also remember all of us being like, “I don’t know if this is even going to work.” It wasn’t quite clicking at first and we just kind of kept at it.
It was around that time that Erik moved to Vermont and it was just like that: “I’ve got this buddy, we go way back. We’ve got a couple of songs we’ve written together. He is a great musician and a guitar player but he can play anything, so I’m sure he will be happy to join on bass,” And that’s exactly what Erik did. Up until that point I kept thinking of Eric as a guitar player and then he switched to bass. I think that was ‘93.
It’s tough to see through this thing
On Saturday [October 11] you are playing the Flynn Theater in Burlington. Can you remember the first time you were there to see a show as well as your experience the first time you guys actually took the stage?
I saw a number of shows there. I was lucky enough to catch Phish there back in the day. I also saw Bad Hat which was awesome [Bad Hat was Trey Anastasio, Jon Fishman, Jamie Masefield and Stacy Starkweather. They played The Flynn on 9/19/94] I think that Bad Hat might have been the first time I went to a show at the Flynn. It was on the back stage with a real tiny audience and it was really, really cool.
Our first time playing there [10/31/98], I remember there was a live radio broadcast, so there was sort of a nervous element like, “Wow we better not screw up!” I also remember a SNAFU-ish feeling of walking out on stage. We had these alien costumes and I thought “This will be great” we will do this Close Encounters of the Third Kind alien theme and we walked out and I couldn’t see a damn thing. We were wearing these masks that were the equivalent of wearing purple heavily-tinted sunglasses and I couldn’t see anything, none of us could. We were stumbling over stuff and I think we had to take our masks off before we could reach our stage positions. So it was like, “Oh great, off to quite a start” and then the rest is just a blur. I really don’t have any recollection of playing or even being on stage making music for some reason. I remember the before and the after but the during, I think it was such a blur of excitement that I don’t really remember it, to be honest [Laughs].
I think sometimes that happens when you’re younger and perhaps take things for granted a bit but I’d imagine that this time it might be a little bit different.
Yeah, I mean it is the Flynn Theatre. It is such a great room, it means a lot to be playing there. We wouldn’t normally book a gig there, we would go to Higher Ground—that’s our comfortable stomping ground. So this is a very special show and it has this elevated sense to it because of that.
But the other thing we bring to it is back then it was all so new and we were new at it. I remember we tended to over-analyze, with long soundchecks belaboring the point. Now we trust the technical folks who are working with us to do their jobs well and we can usually get a great sound on stage really fast. With that sense of calm and maturity it feels like we are in command of what we are doing. And it’s more enjoyable really, we can actually focus on the music.
As you look back now on the experience of the original Strangefolk getting back together, what does all that mean to you? What has been your takeaway?
It has meant a lot. The main takeaway for me is that we are all friends. We already were, but there was obviously some animosity around our original breakup. It just felt good to mend that and let that water flow under the bridge for all of us. That was hugely important for the soul. To be able to come back to this thing we all did when we were younger but we all walked away from, that was really important to us. It just felt really, really great. So that is one piece of it.
The other piece of it is it’s nice to just revisit the music that had lay dormant for all those years. These songs are almost like your kids, and with estranged parents some of them didn’t get seen for 20 years. It’s nice to bring those back to the surface and play them and learn them again from a different perspective. I wish we played more so we could dive more into it. Just as we get warmed up, we do our shows and then we head our separate directions for months and months. It would be nice to do a more focused long-term group thing if we ever could, but I am really content this is an outlet for us. It feels great.
Are there songs that have surprised you or felt particularly good as you’ve played them again?
They really all do. They all feel new because we really haven’t played that many shows in a while. There is a song called “Burned Down” that was one song we had just put together right before we broke up, so we never really got to air that one out. I remember great versions of it back in the old days, around 2000. So that feels like a work in progress and we play it now with a lot more confidence because it has some strange timing, twists and things. It’s easy to lose that one but when we’re riding high on it, it feels great. Another one is called “Songbeard”—the ending really launches and it just feel like we’re flying a jet when we play that one. But they all feel great, so it’s hard to single one out.
Beyond Strangefolk I’ve noticed that you’ve played out a little bit lately near your current home in California. Can you talk about what you’re doing out on the West Coast these days.
Yeah, I am trying to get out there a little bit more. Through Strangefolk reuniting I met Jason Crosby, an East Coaster who moved out here to Mill Valley which is just a little south of me. We got together for his birthday and that was amazing and I am trying to get out and do more. I got some friends together and did two shows a couple months back, just to test the waters and it was really fun and I think we will do some more of that.
What has really inspired me lately is being at home with my acoustic guitars, and just writing and working on new stuff. I’ve been trying to get the wherewithal to get out of the house, go somewhere and play a couple songs at an open mic or something. I’ve got a four year old son, I’ve got a good job in Napa and that stuff really keeps you occupied, so I really have to fight for my creative musical time. As my son gets older it becomes a little less intensely focused and I’m finding I’ve got a little more time to sit in the office and do some more recording and work on demos. So I’ve got a lot of creative stuff flowing and it’s all kind of coming together now. I am living in California and there is a really great community of musicians out here, so I would like to get more involved in that and force myself out of the house a little bit more.
In terms of the current Strangefolk repertoire, have you considered introducing some of the material you wrote after Reid left the band?
I think anybody is open to anything. There is a lot of great material from that period and I am really proud of it. Again, it is sort of like, you don’t want to have the fruits of your labor go to waste or disappear. Erik has some great songs too. So I think those are all fair game. We just need to put the time and the energy in to make that happen but because those songs are fairly old as well, we are always thinking, “We need to write new things.” We all know it and Reid and I talk about it a lot. We just have to force ourselves to do it.
We are all eager to create something new and I know we have it in us. I think we would like to come up with something new almost before doing anything old but we will see. I think Reid has been writing. I love his new album Sunshot, so I know he has a lot of great songs in him and I like to think that I have many more songs and riffs to throw his way.
When I interviewed Luke last year, he suggested that a new Strangefolk album would yet happen. Is that still on the horizon?
We have all talked about it. We have brought 20 years of our past back to life, so now what? I think we all know the answer is new material. And what would follow logically from that is to get in the studio and record it. I know we all want to do that and it is a matter of finding the time and just getting everybody together at the same place, with the same direction and the same goal. It can be really challenging and I know that it is what we all want to do, we just have to make it happen.
Like I mentioned earlier, for me time is of the essence. I don’t have a ton of time off during the year, so I have to carefully plot out my days. That is a challenge for all of us. First we have to write, and then record and those things usually don’t happen overnight. So we need to devote a fair chunk of time to it. With the technology of today, I sent Reid a ton of little demo snippets and then we sent things back and forth. Erik and I are working in the studio, writing new stuff just for fun. The creative juices are flowing, so hopefully we can get everybody in Strangefolk on board and work together for a Strangefolk project.
So do you have anything on the books yet for either studio time or live gigs in 2015?
We don’t. It is wide open. I know our intent is to continue playing. We just have to have that conversation and say “Now, this is what we are doing.” I think if we want to record, we might have to take those days off from playing shows and devote it to that other creative process and that may be what happens.
We are wide open to anything, so if a show comes up that sounds great then of course we will be there. Otherwise, I hope that we can get together and get creative. I am always working on it by myself and I know everyone else is. Hopefully we can just channel that in the same direction and come up with something together.
