Musical Mayhem!
An Interview With Rani Arbo

How to describe the music of Rani Arbo and Daisy Mayhem? Here’s one way: Start with a fiddle (Rani), a guitar (Anand Nayak), and a standup bass (Andrew Kinsey). Add a cardboard box with a suitcase bass drum and tin can cymbals (seriously!), played by an ex-rock and zydeco drummer (Scott Kessel). Over that fine groove, hang Rani Arbo’s expressive alto, seamless four-part harmonies (yep, all four band members sing, and sing really well), a splash of banjo and ukulele, and voila!

Can you classify the sounds of Rani Arbo and Daisy Mayhem? Not really, but rest assured that you are listening to a unique blend, a mix of musical mojo that will stay with you long after your ears first attempt to capture it. The “Boston Globe” refers to Rani Arbo and Daisy Mayhem’s music as “neo old-timey with cosmopolitan splashes of contemporary pop and jazz.” I guess that is as good an attempt as any.

As a fellow musician from greater New England, I’ve been following Rani’s musical arc for years. I remember hearing her play with her first bluegrass band, Salamander Crossing, back in the mid-1990s. Their version of “Tear My Still House Down” still remains in my memory all these years later, due largely to Rani’s beautifully earthy vocalizing and capable fiddle work. Her more recent work with Daisy Mayhem has proved even more compelling. Their first two albums – “Cocktail Swing” and “Gambling Eden” – are about as different as two musical projects can be. The first is all about fun – a collection of Mayhem-infused ukelele numbers and old timey standards (I know, it sounds crazy, but it works) - while their second possesses a more contemplative Americana-focused vision and a philosophical depth that might intimidate the Buddha himself.

I caught up with Rani to ask her about music, life, marriage (she and drummer Kessel recently tied the knot), kids, and the future.

Q. You’ve been performing for years, but have experienced some big changes in your life of late - the first two being marriage and now, a new baby. How has this affected your relationship to your music?

A. It makes for a deeper well, certainly. My highs are higher and the tough stuff is tougher, and of course I never have quite enough time to process it all. My music has gone through the same change — I have more to give on stage, more life and emotion to draw from, and a deeper appreciation for the chance to make music at all. Not to mention the chance to have my partner in the band and our son on the road with us. (I can now get from poopy diaper to sound check in 60 seconds flat.) But I don’t have the same time for songwriting, practicing, or learning new music. It gets squeezed in around the edges.

Q. You’ve also recently been diagnosed with cancer…

Yes. I recently finished treatment for breast cancer, and before I say anything else, I will say: Ladies, Get Your Mammograms! It has been a marathon. But it also has been positive, not unlike getting married or having a child. I’ve met some very elemental parts of myself, and I hope I can keep them nearby.

Q. Whose music or artistic work do you draw sustenance from beyond your own composing?

This is going to sound a bit mushy, but I get most of my sustenance and inspiration from my band mates. There are lots of artists I swoon over, musically, but my immediate inspiration comes from the people I’m making music with, live — at home, on stage, or in the studio. For example, Scott and I just finished a week of recording with John McCutcheon down in Virginia. The musicians and songs were amazing — the piano player alone gave me inspiration for months. For me, it’s more about how a musician plays than what he or she plays. I’m moved by anyone who is fully in what he or she is doing. I go for soul over skill — and my favorite musicians have lots of both.

Q. When you look into your crystal ball, what do you see for “Daisy Mayhem” in the future?

Ahhh, sorry, my crystal ball is in the closet. Life is too short for predictions.

Don’t miss Rani Arbo and Daisy Mayhem this Saturday night, April 23, at 8:00 at UVM Recital Hall.

For tickets and more information, visit www.uvm.edu/laneseries, or call 802.86.FLYNN.

For more information about the band, visit www.raniarbo.com

Green Mountain Jukebox: The Work of Big Heavy World

Since 1998, Burlington-based nonprofit “Big Heavy World” (BHW) has worked to preserve and promote music originating in the Green Mountain State. “Vermont’s arts are unique and genuine and help define our state’s character,” explains BHW executive director James Lockridge. During the past seven years, BHW has catalogued, using student volunteers, more than 1,300 commercial and live recordings in their “Vermont Music Library,” open to the public, and involved itself in a wide variety of youth-focused musical endeavors around the greater Burlington area.

This winter, BHW launched an ambitious brand-new initiative called the “Jukebox” Project,” a collaborative endeavor with the Vermont Department of Buildings and General Services to bring Vermont music to tourist information areas all over the state. We caught up with 26-year-old guitarist, vocalist, and drummer Spencer Crispe, who plays in a hardcore punk band called “My Revenge and works as Big Heavy World’s outreach and marketing coordinator, to ask him about BHM’s work and impact on the state of Vermont.

Q. What makes “Big Heavy World” such a unique musical endeavor?

A. A lot of what makes Big Heavy World unique is that we are really the only entity in this state that is doing what we’re doing. Big Heavy World’s mission is to promote and preserve Vermont-based musical artistry. No one else is doing this at the level that we are right now. As a non-profit organization, we have a genuine, vested interest in disseminating the music that originates in this state, because we see its value as an artistic contribution. There are so many artists, songs and albums by Vermont artists that we’ve come across that are truly great works. Our philosophy is that all musicians as artists have inherent value and worth for what they produce. Our job is to ensure the preservation and bolster the exposure of these expressive cultural works. Vermont musicians have produced some outstanding songs, and we’ll be damned if they get swept under the carpet.

Another aspect that makes Big Heavy World unique is all the auxiliary projects that we take on related to musical preservation. We have crew in our offices five nights a week working on various Big Heavy World musical projects. For instance, we set up all ages, substance-free shows where local up-and-coming bands are afforded the opportunity to play a variety of venues around the region. We maintain an extensive website, which includes an online message board, comprehensive venue guide, band guide, and photographs of local area bands’ performances. Our website functions to connect artists around the state and act as a resource, empowering them to maximize their creative output.
Big Heavy World also operates the Vermont Music Shop, which retails over 400 albums by Vermont artists through our Web Site, www.vermontmusicshop.com. On a regular basis we have over a dozen college and high school aged volunteers who participate in operating the label. We release compilation albums of Vermont artists, and our volunteers and interns are integral to the process of getting these things completed.

Q. Why is BHW’s new “Jukebox Project” so important?

A. The Jukebox project is important because it furthers our goal of having as many people as possible hear and be exposed to some of the great artists making music in the state of Vermont. Currently, we have Jukebox’s at three Vermont rest areas, with many others on the way. This is exciting, because anyone visiting a Vermont state rest area can access a plethora of albums by Vermont artists, via a DVD device that plays the music through the public address system at the welcome center. It’s really cool, and also serves to help out artists because it gives them exposure to people who are likely from out of state to their music.

Q. What evidence do you have that BHW is making a difference in the lives of Vermont young people?

A. We have an abundance of evidence, and that is very gratifying for us. Over the past nine years, at least 200 people have interned or volunteered at Big Heavy World. A lot of kids who come to Big Heavy World earn college credits for their work during the semester here and we give them an outlet to apply their skills to real projects. These students get to exercise their talents – be it with Photoshop, marketing, design, promotions - in a real world setting, where at the end of the semester they have something meaningful to show for their work.

Many high school students also fill their required community service hours through working at Big Heavy World, which makes a difference to them in the same ways that it does college interns. More importantly, Big Heavy World is an expressive, open door, creative outlet for a lot of kids who have nowhere to go after school, and might otherwise flounder through not being afforded the outlet of getting to contribute the skills they have to offer. A lot of kids spend many hours here after school and consequently are learning and being productive, when they otherwise might not be. Big Heavy World is a resource, not only for musicians, but for the people who volunteer here and get to apply their skills and have something to show for their hard work at the end of the day.

Q. What plans for the future do you see for BHW?

A. Big Heavy World has a so many aspirations and projects in the works. Unfortunately, there is a severe shortage of financing to complete them. However, during the past nine years, we have been able to create so much, with very little resources by way of funding. The biggest project we have going on is that we just received the permit to construct a radio station. This is exciting because it’s something we always wanted to do: have a community access radio station. We are in the process of getting the antenna put on top of our building, and renovating the two rooms for the radio station headquarters. We are intensely excited about all of this, and we feel it will more vastly enable us to reach artists and bands in the community. Plus, having a radio station works to further our goal of promoting Vermont-based music. The more people who can be exposed to the artistry coming out of Vermont, the better, in our minds.

Q. What does BHW need most right now from the Vermont community to succeed?

A. Big Heavy World has managed to exist for nearly a decade with virtually no funding. We generate all the money it takes to undertake projects ourselves. We have fundraisers, benefit shows, and occasionally get grants. However, Big Heavy World has absolutely no regular source of income - we have no benefactor or endowment as means of an operations budget. The people who sweat and toil here are volunteers and do it out of passion. Jim Lockridge and I often fantasize about the magnitude of what we could achieve if we simply had a meager operations budget stemming from regular, annual funding. We have accomplished so much thus far, starting from scratch, and with just under $90,000 a year we feel we could conquer the world, because that’s all the operations funding we need to be self-sustaining. Life would sure be a lot easier if we had a consistent source of revenue to operate. If we had this, the possibilities and degree of achievement would be infinite.

Find out more about Big Heavy World at
www.bigheavyworld.com
www.vermontmusicshop.com
802.865.1140

first printed in the Vermont Guardian.

Brought To You By?
WMRW Raises Money To Broadcast Our Voices

Last year, Mad River Valley residents did something truly worth celebrating. Bucking national trends and conventional wisdom, which suggests that corporatizing, consolidating, and commercializing our publicly-owned radio airwaves is the best way to go, we in this little central Vermont valley invested our time, energy, and money in our own low power FM radio station.

Last October, WMRW – low power, non-commercial, volunteer, grassroots, community-oriented – began broadcasting from atop the historic East Warren Schoolhouse at the corner of Roxbury Ridge and East Warren roads. With a legally obtained FCC license obtained through parent nonprofit Rootswork, and a dedicated group of tireless Valley volunteers, we raised the money needed to launch a radio station that reaches seven towns – Granville, Roxbury, Warren, Waitsfield, Fayston, Moretown, and Northfield. WMRW (95.1 on your FM dial) can also be accessed through Waitsfield cable, and soon, perhaps, via the world wide web.

WMRW’s mission bucks the national trend, too. Instead of selling stuff – songs, ad space, Arbritron ratings, listener mind share – we are interested in sharing stuff – music, opinions, information, entertainment, stories about Valley residents and the lives we are living. WMRW’s mission statement reads as follows: “WMRW-LP, Community Radio for the Mad River Valley, strives to inform, entertain, involve, educate, and connect the diverse Mad River Valley community through independent, volunteer, non-commercial radio programming.” It is an ambitious mission, rooted in the notion that community radio, if done right, ought to truly reflect the diverse nature of the communities it serves. On any given day, any Valley listener can tune in and hear a wide variety of programming – from nationally syndicated news programs like Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now” (on from 12:00-1:00 every weekday) to tunes’n’talk offerings featuring the voices of Valley children, like DJ Serena Fox’s Sunday night music show.

There are no paid staff members at WMRW, only volunteers. Much of our gear is second hand. Most of our music library is donated - vinyl, CDs, and tapes. In a remarkable community effort, Valley residents donated all services and materials – other than new broadcasting equipment and requisite wiring – to get the station up and running through its first few successful months. “We have been happily surprised by the support we have received and continue to receive throughout the Valley community during the first 6 months of our operation,” says program director Chris Mayone. “We look forward to continued growth and further interaction with an increasingly diverse group of Valley organizations in the months ahead.”

WMRW now faces our next exciting challenge – raising enough money to cover future operating expenses to keep the new station going. All of us have a role to play. If you appreciate the presence of community radio – the various voices in your midst – you can get involved. Make a personal donation to the station, and write it off as a tax deduction. Underwrite station programming, or encourage your neighbor’s local business to do the same. Station staff will work with you to craft a message that is simple, elegant, and FCC-approved. (And, while you are at it, consider hosting your own show. With limited training, you, too, can be a radio DJ!)

WMRW must raise $5000 to purchase a telephone interface unit and keep our station going for the next six months. At a WMRW station programmers’ meeting last week, every single person in the room made a cash contribution to the fund-raising effort, demonstrating 100% collective commitment to and investment in the station. Now, it is up to the rest of the Valley to decide how important a resource WMRW is, and will be, in the future! Please get involved!

To make a donation or find out more about underwriting, visit WMRW’s web site and download the pledge or underwriting forms at www.wmrw.org, or contact John Barkhausen at tel # 496.3935.

Historian, musician, and writer Dr. Rob Williams lives in Waitsfield, and co-hosts “Green Mountain Globa-Local” on WMRW every Monday night from 9:00-11:00 with his Warren neighbor Dan Eckstein.

first published in the Valley Reporter.

Monday, April 5, 2005
For Immediate Release/Contact:

Dr. Rob Williams, ACME
robw@acmecoalition.org / 802.279.3364

Amy Shollenberger, Rural Vermont
amybeth@together.net / 802.793.1114

“Food For Thought” Challenges Big Media’s Monopoly Over “Food” Stories!

FREE Downloadable Study Guide Provides Resources for K-12 Classrooms

Download the guide at www.acmecoalition.org

What does it mean to live in a country where one out of every ten “food” dollars spent by U.S. consumers ends up in the coffers of a tobacco company? Or a society where close to 20% of the country’s population is either obese, or does not have enough to eat? Or a world where three billion people live on the equivalent $2 American dollars a day? How might we design more equitable and sustainable alternatives to a world that is fundamentally out-of-whack, in terms of its relationship to food?

In honor of “National Nutrition Month” and as part of its ongoing monthly “Media Literacy Monday” initiatives, the Action Coalition for Media Education (ACME) is pleased to offer “Food For Thought,” its latest downloadable study guide for communities and classrooms around the world. “We live in a society where so many of our ‘food-related’ stories are told by a handful of giant transnational corporations with a vested interest in preserving a status quo that is ultimately unsustainable,” explains ACME board president Dr. Rob Williams. “If we are to work together to design and support sustainable local alternatives and cook up a more healthy relationship to food, we must begin with the ‘food-related’ stories told in our commercial media culture.”

“Rural Vermont” (www.ruralvermont.org), a Vermont-based policy organization that has worked for years on food and sustainability issues, co-produced the “Food For Thought” study guide with ACME. “Rural Vermont is pleased to be working with ACME to highlight how corporate consolidation affects so many aspects of our lives,” explains Rural Vermont policy director Amy Shollenberger. “The corporate control of media helps to promulgate misinformation about how our food is produced and to keep farmers from receiving a fair price for their products. This study guide will provide teachers with valuable activities they can use in their classrooms to help students understand how corporate control affects their lives.”

Any interested citizen can download the study guide for free at ACME’s web site. ACME is a continental educational coalition of individuals and organizations championing critical media literacy education, independent media production, and grassroots media reform efforts. Find out more at www.acmecoalition.org

For many music lovers, the bluegrass genre is an acquired taste. High-powered and fast-moving string action, that famous “high wide and lonesome” nasal twang, and an emphasis on old-timey spiritual themes all combine to make some listeners wary. Fortunately, Vermont and its environs are home to some of the most talented string musicians in the United States, and every once in a while, the musical stars align to create something magical, a sound that transcends the limits of the genre and beckons to the uninitiated. This was the case in 2001, when First Night Burlington asked master fiddler Gene White, Jr. to assemble a bluegrass collaboration for their annual New Year’s celebration. “I wanted to put on a good show with the best singers and players available,” explained White, “and since we were expecting a one-night-only concert, I reached further than I would have if I thought I was putting a band together.”

Four years later, those seven musicians – among the region’s finest – are still playing together as one of New England’s finest acoustic ensembles: the Bluegrass Gospel Project (BGP). BGP’s roster features a remarkable array of regional musical names: fiddler White is joined by guitarists Paul Miller and Andy Greene; Vermont banjo champ Steve Light (now living in New York); country/bluegrass vocalist and bassist Jim DiSabito (former band mate of Union Station member Dan Tyminski of West Rutland); former “Northern Lights” founder and mandolinist Taylor Armerding (of Ipswitch, MA); and well-known singer/songwriter and frontwoman Patti Casey of Vergennes. And, to this listener anyway, BGP’s merging of musical talents provides more than an earful of good music. “Gospel literally means ‘good news,’” explains Armerding. “And that’s what the BGP delivers; the good news about the human condition.”

Since their First Night performance in 2001, the BGP has been busy, recording no less than three CDs and taking their “good news” on the road. Their first CD, simply called “The Bluegrass Project,” features twelve live tracks taken from their original Burlington performance, including a sweetly melodic version of “Down in the Valley to Pray” (made famous by Alison Krauss and Union Station’s rendition on the “O Brother Where Art Thou” sound track). “On Our Way Home,” BGP’s second effort, assembles thirteen gospel numbers and some tight studio work on well-known classics such as “River of Jordan” and “Angel Band.” And, for 2005, the band has a brand-new CD entitled “Wander On,” with, count ‘em, fourteen songs – including “Cherokee Shuffle,” “Breath of the Devil,” “Wander On, Weary Soul,” and a beautiful Patti Casey-inspired version of Nashville singer/songwriter Tom Kimmel’s much-covered tune “The Blue Train.”

BGP is yet another instance of the musical whole being greater than the sum of its parts. Hearing these seven musicians make music together is a unique and unforgettable aesthetic experience. And they will be performing locally this week-end! If you’ve got a hankering to hear some good ‘grass music played the way it was meant to be played, then head on down to Middlebury College’s Mead Chapel this Saturday night, April 9th, at 8:00 to hear BGP deliver.

Find out more about BGP at www.bluegrassgospelproject.com