On Wednesday night at Brooklyn Bowl, Jon Trafton, Reid Genauer, Erik Glocker and Luke Smith will come together and perform their first show as Strangefolk since Genauer’s departure from the group in September 2000. The Brooklyn Bowl locale is fitting because the catalyst for this reunion was Bowl owner Peter Shapiro, who first approached the four about returning for a gig at the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, NY which Shapiro will re-open later this year.
Just days before the band’s return to the stage, Trafton took some time to discuss how this all came about, what fans can expect over the four shows and what the future may hold. The conversation began with some reflections on craft beers and fine wines (Trafton’s day job involves the wine industry) at which point Trafton introduced a musical analogy, comparing his beverage affections with the “lasting musical loves of my life, the Grateful Dead and Phish. Some days I’m in the mood for one, some days for the other.” With those thoughts on Trafton’s musical inspirations (and potable preferences), here’s what he has to say about Strangefolk.
After their performance at the Bowl, the original Strangefolk will then go on to play two shows at Burlington’s Higher Ground on Thursday and Friday, followed by an appearance at The State Theatre in Portland, Maine on Saturday night.
Stop by Relix.com for an interview with Reid Genauer about the group’s return.
So let’s start with the Capitol Theatre, which is how this all first came together. You’ve commemorated that connection by releasing your show from 12/27/98 at the venue. What do you remember from that evening?
I remember a really special night and knowing the history of the place going into it. I knew the Grateful Dead had played there a bunch and I felt tapped into the energy of that room, although memories of the actual show itself…I recalled Luke did a poetry spoken word thing. I remember that we played well, although for some reason I don’t remember being on stage or looking out at the audience. I think I have mental picture of the place but I doubt it’s going to jibe with the real image because we’re going to stop there and do some rehearsals. So I’ll be interested to see if the image in my head matches what the physical room is.
So you’ll make it there anyhow, which seems fitting, given that the Cap played such a role in all this.
Pete Shapiro was the person who got us talking to each other and ultimately got us going where we’re going this week. He reached out to us and said, “It would be special if the first show back would be you guys, would you do it?” We said, “Sure” and that was the first time that we had an actual reason to get off our asses and do something together.
It ultimately didn’t work out due to timing issues but we had another place slated for rehearsals this coming week which fell through at the last minute. So Pete rose up and being the gallant knight that he is, came and saved us and gave us a place to work out for the next couple of days.
We’ve had some of the nicest rehearsal spots that a band should ever have for such a venture [Strangefolk’s initial rehearsals took place at The Barn outside Burlington, Vermont].
Speaking of those sessions at The Barn, when you guys showed up on day one, plugged in and counted off, what was the first song?
It’s so funny you ask because I don’t even know…I want to say “Valhalla.” It all just kind of morphed. We were sitting around sipping coffee and Luke was banging on drums, taking some time to get everything screwed in and adjusted correctly, so we all kind of meandered over to our instruments. I think we were all just jamming and noodling around and then we had to stop ourselves,: “Okay, let’s look at the list and see what we want to do.” So I don’t remember the first thing we played, which is kind of sad.
Well on flip side some people will say that there’s a beauty to that because it’s not about that one song but the totality of it all.
We came into it really organized with a mission in mind. We had this list and we really stuck to it. I know the first song on the list was “45 Degrees”—since it happens to start with a number it rose to the top of the list. So that might have been the first one where we buckled down and said, “Okay let’s tackle this.” We were very systematic in our approach.
It was very organic in the way it all came together. The whole thing flowed. We recorded the whole thing and Ben Collette, a friend of ours who was engineering the sessions, sent us the audio. I listened to it and there’s stuff, I don’t even remember playing. I felt like we were in the zone the whole time. We covered our list backwards and forwards a few times and it’s a pretty substantial list. So we played a ton of stuff and it all became a blur.
As I understand it, there were about 60 songs on that list?
That’s right. The list is about 60 songs and we discussed a few others but we had a working list of about 60.
And that list focuses exclusively on songs written and performed by the four of you through September of 2000?
Yes. In an effort to keep everything organized, I created a doc on Google Docs with a song list. I scoured the web a little bit, found a couple lyric sites and we have a database in the Strangefok.com back end. So I stuck the song list up there and gave everybody their own column and said, “Let’s vote one to three on all of these, with one being ‘I really want to play it.’ Then I sorted out the ones and twos and that became our list of 60.
Were there songs on there that might not feel right to you in 2012 but you suspect that Strangefolk fans from that era might to hear?
Absolutely.
How did you approach those tunes?
I was very cognizant of that in my voting because at first when I did it from the gut there were songs that Erik and I have played fairly regularly after Reid left that didn’t feel as necessary to me, so I might have given them a lower vote. Whereas Reid hasn’t played those since then and Luke as well. But as fans of music in general, we tried to put ourselves in the shoes of what we would we want to see if we went to a show like this.
There’s the obvious list of the greatest hits, so to speak, and you’ve got to have deep cuts too. There are songs that we all really missed and couldn’t wait to play and then there’s a song like “Two Boys,” one of our early songs that we probably didn’t play after 1997 but is important to the history of the band. So some songs are on the list for reasons like that. It wouldn’t be complete without tipping our hat to some of the early stuff.
When I heard that you guys worked up 60 songs, I had mixed feelings. While I was impressed with the effort and commitment to shake things up each night, I’m only going to attend one show, so I was also concerned that I might not get to hear some of the songs that really resonate with me. Has that been a consideration as you look ahead to these gigs?
Yes, that was another factor in all this. We have some people who will go to all four and some people who will only get to see one, so we’ll have to have that balance. It sort of worked out perfectly because when I saw that our one and two votes gave us 60 songs, I thought, “Well, we usually play 20-ish songs an evening, so that gives us about 80 to play overall.” So 60 spread out will give us a nice core but there definitely will be some repeats and we definitely have to view it from both perspectives and have some of the big stuff, as well as some of the deeper cuts and more obscure ones. And for us, for our own experiences, I don’t want to play “Reuben’s Place” just once. We relearned all this material and spent so much time over the past couple months just breathing this stuff in again, I don’t want it to be over in one song either.
On that note, this otherwise might have been my last question but what are your thoughts as to playing additional gigs beyond these four?
We haven’t really discussed any solid plans but the fact is that we are open to discussing solid plans if things go well. What we had was a very special thing and we realize it’s been a long time and there’s a lot of nostalgia around it and we want to be sensitive to that. So I guess the short answer is we’re open to discussing future dates.
We decided that we’ll give all our energy to this reunion, this run, and if things go great and we all feel really good about it then we’ll talk about what comes next, if anything, and take it from there. So we’re literally taking this one step at a time.
I imagine that’s all somewhat complicated by the fact that after Reid left, Strangefolk continued on and is now a quintet that includes yourself and Erik.
Exactly. You touch upon a relevant factor in that the name Strangefolk has continued and evolved and we’ve had this conversation with the current lineup and it definitely brings up “What’s in a Name,” a phrase that’s all important in this scenario. I’ve been sitting in this seat for the whole drive, so I see it as two distinct phases and even though the name is the same, the bands are different, the material is different, the chemistry is different and I’m proud of them both. One of the good conversations with current guys was, “There’s this band Strangefolk and our past has come back. It’s alive but I don’t think we need to discuss necessarily rebranding ourselves or anything, I think people will understand the original lineup versus what we are now.” As it has turned out I don’t think there has been as much confusion as we all thought there would be. I think people are pretty clear on what’s what.
In terms of general reaction to the reunion, as we get closer, I’ve noticed a real intensity on the part of fans, including many folks I’d assumed had just moved on. It’s almost tangible. I’m curious if you’ve sensed this and what your reaction is to it?
I’ve felt a lot of it and it’s been really touching and an affirmation of something I kind of let myself forget which is just how special this was to a group of people at a certain age at a certain time. I was always very proud of the community and I always felt that the coolest thing Strangefolk ever accomplished was the sense of community. It felt like we were all really connected and I was pleasantly surprised to see that feeling come back and so many of those people and faces and names come out of the woodwork. So it’s been really fun and exciting on that level. It’s a reunion not only of us as a band but I’m seeing lots of reunions of friends. So there are lots of reunions within the reunion. It’s really neat coming together. It’s almost overwhelming.
What impact might that have on your performance?
It’s something we’ve discussed amongst ourselves. For me personally, I need to have an internal governor of the energy. I can’t allow allow myself to get too swept up in it because it will make me play badly, I’ll just overplay. I can’t get too excited or I’ll overdo it and sing sharp and I need to keep some inner center and that’s what I’m focusing on. I think as the day of the shows come, the energy level will ratchet up even more and we’ll have to protect ourselves a little bit from our friends and family and well-wishers, who want to hang out and say hi. That will be a challenge because we’re going to want to buckle down and focus to keep ourselves balanced so we can put on a good show. So it’ll be interesting to see how it all pans out.
Going back to rehearsals, as you revisited some of that old material, what most surprised you about the songs?
There are couple things. One thing that surprised me right off the bat and it was a very pleasant surprise, though a tiny bit frustrating, is that there are passages in the music I wrote where I had a hard time figuring out what the hell I was doing. It took me forever to reconstruct certain passages. So there was a mixed feeling of pride and frustration. I’m happy to say that I got it all together but there were some songs that took me an entire afternoon.
Another thing that happened was we tested the waters a little bit during the rehearsal. My thought was, “Sure we can learn these songs, we can come and play the right chord sequences and note sequences and sing the harmonies but can we play? Can we get down to it ?” Because that was the other half of what Strangefolk was good at. We had wonderful songwriting with Reid and all of us working as a team but there’s also all of us working as a team of musicians improvising together.
At the Barn we really were focusing on playing the songs and playing them right but there was one where I took some time to let it breathe a little bit and started throwing a jam in there that was completely different. The song was “Pooh Bear’s Mistress” and that jam has a kind of a Middle Eastern vibe to it with some of the scales that I run. But this time I played it as a blues with a dominant 7 (chord) and everybody jumped on it. It was neat to see that everybody’s ears were there and the responsiveness and willingness to break out of its mold. I did it on purpose to feel it out and I was pleasantly surprised with the results.
How about the Capitol Theatre show from December of 98, what if anything did you discover about yourself or the band from listening back to that performance?
One of things I willed myself to forget is how good we were. I’d forgotten the little nuances. I remembered the songs and thought we had good songwriting abilities but I forgot the movement of the music and the pure improvisation of it—the willingness to dive-bomb into musical zones where none of us knew what was coming next.
That “So Far Gone” at the Capitol is just fun to listen to. When I saw the track listing that it’s like 26 minutes long or whatever it is, I was like, “Oh no, please don’t let this be a Jon Trafton guitar-a-thon that’s embarrassing to listen to,” because there’s certainly enough of that in Strangefolk history. But I was pleasantly surprised by what I heard. It was a very collective groove and improvisation and it was really neat to revisit that old show and it brought me back to a time and a place very strongly. This whole process of rehearsing has forced me into our past which I had kind of shut out for my own sanity to not dwell on what we’ve done and keep looking forward. It’s been a real fun trip for me on that level.
Earlier you mentioned tipping your hat to the early days of Strangefolk. It all began as an acoustic duo with yourself and Reid. Then after Erik and Luke joined the band, you continued to perform on an acoustic guitar for many years until you finally gravitated to an electric. My recollection is that you agonized a bit about that decision. So do you plan on picking up an acoustic at all for these gigs?
There’s a guitar that I have that was an early trademark of Strangefolk both visually and audibly. It was this acoustic guitar with a hollow body that for all intents and purposes was an electric guitar. At the time I had felt that I would be betraying this trademark thing that we were by moving to a standard configuration with the electric guitar but then once I did make that move I realized there was so much more freedom in the electric.
There’s a little anecdote related to this: when were getting signed to Mammoth Records, one of the reps came up after a show we played in North Carolina and said, “Hey, when are you going to stop pretending and just pick up an electric guitar?” And Reid jumped to my defense and got into the guy’s face and I thought it was cool that Reid jumped up and did that. But it wasn’t long afterwards that I did start playing more and more electric. It was just one of those things where I couldn’t go back. But that said, I’m going to bring that guitar with me. I’ll probably plug it in and check it out but the honest truth about that guitar is the intonation is terrible. I don’t like playing it anymore because it just doesn’t sound right to my ears. There are certain things it does well and I might break it out just for that but there are technical reasons why I don’t want to play it, so I may not go there.
As for those really early days as an acoustic duo, can you talk a bit about your relationship with Reid over the years?
We started out as two guys sitting out on the campus at UVM playing acoustic guitars. He was across campus and he had a little group of friends and I had a little group of friends and we had a little green in front of our dorms and he’d come over. It was like two gangs merging with all their acoustic guitars over their backs. I have very fond memories of those little jams where we’d all find common ground whether it would be a Grateful Dead song or whatever. We didn’t come together right away but I’d see him play. There was a great dorm there called Slade Hall and there was an open mic there every Thursday night and that’s when I started connecting with Reid and doing it.
It was cool. We’re totally different people but we also had a lot of common ground and I think it was “Things That Fly” where I said “I’ve got this piece of music without lyrics, do you want to see what you can do with it?” And he came back with words and I think that was the first song we wrote together. It was just like, “Wow, this works really well” and it went from there. So especially this last couple of months looking back at our old music and the way we meshed together, the work we did together, the songs we wrote together and the parts we contributed to each other, there’s a real yin and yang and that was always really cool.
Of course we drifted apart when he left the band but we’ve stayed more connected than people probably realize with emails and mutual friends and weddings and things like that. When I got sick and I had my cancer episode [in 2005], I came out of it feeling life’s too short for squabbles, too short for all this crap. And for me that was the catalyst as well. There was this special thing I had with these guys, they’re my brothers and it would be cool to put some light on what ended in such a dark way.
We’d see each other in passing at places like the Gathering of the Vibes and catch up. The feeling was always positive and mutually respectful but when [longtime Strangefolk tour manager] Andre Gardner got married a few years ago, Reid and I had a chance to sit down and have that heart to heart where we just kind of told each other about the past and hurts and we exorcised that.
So that kind of cleared the decks and it’s a good relationship, like a long lost brother. We’ve been through so much together, been creative through so much together. So for me, just to be working on the same thing with the same goal on the horizon together it just feels right. When we all came into this I’d never really been in a proper band before to speak of and the four of us went through so many firsts together. It feels like this coming together is like a lot of years lost, a lot of water under the bridge but I’m glad we’re doing now rather than never. It feels like the right thing to do at the right time. It just feels good.
