The Buskers Blog

Out of the Cellar and Into the Back Room; A 25 Year Journey

This nondescript cellar door on the square in Bristol, New Hampshire ("Gateway to Newfound Lake") was once entrance to the tavern at Abel's restaurant. It's now long gone, but back in the 90s, Abel's thriving, eclectic weekly open mike first brought the Buskers together (where's the historic plaque?). It was always crowded with musicians and good music until 11 pm, when second shift ended at the Freudenberg factory up the street and the bar grew too boisterous for acoustic jamming.

I was back in Bristol with my jazz trio the other night, playing across the street at the Purple Pit Jazz Cub (and coffee shop/café), which opened in 2014. Other than old Abel's still sadly empty storefront, things are clearly looking up around town. I had to park blocks away from the newly beautified square; the new Mexican restaurant in town was packed; and we found out later there was an auction in town that night, too.

This Saturday the Buskers return to Bristol to play the Back Room at the Mill Fudge Factory (below), which overlooks the Newfound River–and is directly next to the former Abel's. It only seats about 40, with a stage so small I am considering bringing just accordion and bass this year, leaving the keyboard at home. It is an ideal venue for listening, and we have had some of our best audiences there.  

Now 25 years older, a little wiser maybe, certainly more experienced and accomplished, if only a little better known than when we started out (!), we still come back to play in the little village where we first met. Roots. 

 

 

 

 

The Mill Fudge Factory, Bristol, New Hampshire, where The Buskers are playing this Saturday, Aug. 4, at 7:30 pm. $12. Advance reservations recommended, as seating is limited. BYOB. Menu orders can be made in advance.

Link to tickets: thebackroomatthemill

 

Music Returns to the League of NH Craftsmen Fair

Music has been fully restored to the annual League of New Hampshire Craftsmen Fair and we were invited to be a part of it. For several years they scaled it back to next to nothing. Apparently the reason wasn't so much the cost of paying performers; it was the ASCAP licensing fees and live audio engineer that made it prohibitive. This year the board finally got around the problem by having performers provide their own sound, which we are all used to lugging around, anyway, and only hiring groups that can play exclusively original and public domain music. So The Buskers returned, after several years, to the stage (which could have been smaller, though a bigger tent would be an improvement–a lot of the audience ended up listening from the food tent across the way to get out of the hot sun. Next year!).

Our three sets yesterday were, more than ever, a tour of our extensive original songbook, and though CD sales will never be what they were back in the days before streaming, we did a pretty brisk business at the merch table, thanks to an older, old school crowd (and two very charming salespeople). Why pay money to own music when you can stream it for free? Because the income from CD sales and digital downloads is the only way a band like ours, with limited exposure, can afford to keep recording our music. With as little as one tenth of a cent per streaming–on songs we have to pay a fee for to upload to iTunes or CDbaby, we can never recoup the four or five thousand dollars spent in the studio. So thank you, again, to all of you who have supported us along the road with a CD or download purchase. 

 

Karen, one of our two lovely merch table tenders.

"Ridin' High in Lowville"

–the title of a song Paul wrote back when we first performed in the northern New York town of the same name, but not, as it turned out, the same pronunciation. Who knew that the "Low-" rhymes with "how," not "go?"  Undaunted, we took it in stride and adjusted the vowel. The lyric still worked... visually.

For our return to the Black River Concert Series last Saturday we had fun dusting off and polishing that tune. What a great night.  It didn't hurt that volunteers met us on the street to help tote gear, that we were taken out to dinner (thank you Carmen and Connie), and given plates of baked goodies to take home after the show. It didn't hurt that the room (the Lewis County Historical Society, a former Masonic Lodge) has the best acoustics we have ever known, and the audience was a pin-drop-attentive, standing-ovation, buy-our-cds crew. Damn. They set the bar so high for the year can it be only downhill from here? Hope not.

Chillin' in the green room before our Lowville show.

Framed by doric columns, naturally. Craig appears to be meditating.

And then there was the gig the night before, just a few miles from KZ's house, deep in the boondocks. Hey, we're cool with playing honkytonks, too. Good people, and Kathy's friend Melinda gave us a dozen delicious carrot cupcakes. 

"It may not be exactly Carnegie Hall / No flowers and no curtain calls   

But you play harder when your back's against a wall / you're not just putting on a show"

Honky-Tonkin' at the Redwood Tavern

The aroma of popcorn, beer and a hint of sweat. Semi-darkness; available light from a neon sign in the window and a shaded lamp over the pool table. We’re playing by the dartboard in a corner in a dive in KZ’s village of Redwood, NY. But the house fills with KZ’s friends—we had to grab her by the elbow to get her to stop schmoozing and play; and Buskers fans, including one couple who had seen us just once, years ago, in Morristown, NY, but—dig this—happened to be driving behind our little convoy, noticed the Buskers bumper stickers on our cars, and followed us into the parking lot on the off chance that it was us and we were on our way to play somewhere. 

You just can’t predict when or where or if the magic is going to happen; this was just a filler gig between higher status, better paid shows, but something brought out the roadhouse honky-tonk best in the band. We played a hot set, and people, including some young regulars, were out on the dance floor-and we don’t even have a drummer. Just tight interlocking rhythms from the guitar and piano, hot licks from the fiddle, and Craig’s feet (thumping foot pedal bass lines and foot pedal tambourine and cowbell). Pay: $48 each, due to some generous tips. Memories: priceless. As Fats Waller used to say with a wink, “One never knows, do one?”

Paul Hubert across the street from the Redwood Tavern, Redwood, NY.

Craig Jaster and accordion outside the same venerable establishment.

Wellesley Island, 8/17/14

Wrapped up four days of shows in Northern NY with a very acoustic set in Densmore Church on Wellesley Island, one of the thousand in the St. Lawrence Seaway; a little restored jewel box, packed with folks, the front row so close we could reach out and touch them.   Excellent acoustics and a ridiculously appreciative, close-listening audience of around 75; mostly retired people.  We hope to return next year. 

                 

And two days ago we played for soldiers in an intensve outpatient progam for P.T.S.D. and other anxiety-related disorders in Alex Bay.  They (and the staff --hugs for the band, no less!) were very sweet, and we hope they'll have us back next year, too.  We played while they ate barbecue, fished, in the river next to us, and listened.   (No pics of us with them, though, respecting their privacy).  

The Music Box, Craftsbury, VT

Looking at this picture, how could you know that inside, upstairs off that porch, is a beautiful, high-ceilinged open room dedicated to house concerts, and that in the cozy, wood-heated downstairs lives a special person who has been connecting musicians and audiences in the Northern Kingdom for at least 14 years.   This is The Music Box in Craftsbury, VT, up near the Canadian border, the kind of place sometimes refered to as the middle of nowhere, where The Buskers played to an audience of about thirty people last Saturday night--people who came out in a swirling snow squall,  parked in the mud, paid ten bucks and listened with the greatest attention to everything we played.  And we got to play with no microphone or ampage for once. Thank you to host Lisa Semmett for having us, and to everyone who came. Very inspirational, places and people like this, that with great humility keep us connected.  Folk music lives.