Entry:02 Kick it into Cruise Control

Continuing on the theme of discovering Concert Cast the Podcast, I’d love to take you through another collection of episodes visiting the four vistas of concert culture: the creative process, venue history, live music and roadtripping.  Concert Cast was produced as a linear experience, but episodes can also be listened to in any order. Perhaps by topics that resonate most. If concerts are your compass and venues are the destination, consider this your field guide to uncovering Concert Cast episode by episode; experience by experience.
Now, let’s continue our adventure together...

If you love Discovering New Music - then listen to:
Episode 2 & 3: Jon Fishman talks about memorable performances and being a radio DJ
 
The red On Air Sign was glowing when I walked into the radio booth at WBFY 100.9 Community Radio Station in Belfast, Maine. Jon Fishman was sitting on a wing backed leather office chair which was tearing at the seams, talking about a Stevie Wonder Song he played and then riffing on it… The show is called The Errant Path, and it relates to his DJ style of meandering around the music and finding interesting connections between songs or musicians. He has been a music aficionado since high school, was even a DJ at Goddard College in Vermont, he just loves following connections and careers of musicians. This episode will make you listen to music in a new way and inspire you to invest more time in knowing the people behind the instruments.

If you love The Creative Process the listen to: 
Episode 15: The Ghost of Paul Revere

Getting to hang out in the green room with The Ghost of Paul Revere before they took the stage sounds glamorous, until you hear that the green room is actually the daycare of the ski school! Everything was pint size! But it made do for the purpose a green room serves, to chill out and get into headspace before performing. I was able to get a cross section of points of views from their manager, sound engineer and from all band mates, but I was so curious about Griffin's song writing process. Considering Maine is a state that you have to drive everywhere to get somewhere, I wanted to know if he came up with songs while driving?
Griffin: My voice memos on my iPhone is like just full of half-baked ideas or like things like like how to just get down. And like Tom Waits spoke on that very well. As as Tom Waits speaks on most things very well, he was talking about how if a song pops in your head and you'd like, it's your duty to pull over immediately and capture that moment because it's fleeting and it'll it'll disappear and it might be the greatest thing you've ever thought of and I very much agree. Like it comes in waves for sure.”
Being at a live show, belting out their songs in unison is a wonderful experience, to know that they were written on the side of a road in the middle of Maine is even better. Listen to this episode for more thoughts from Griffin on music venues and touring.

If You love Venues & History - then listen to:
​Episode 7: Ellsworth Feat. Fogtown 

Stepping into Fogtown Brewing Company in Downtown Ellsworth for a beer and some music, you can sense that this was “once something else.” The building is huge, cavern-like, so big it once was a parking garage for Greyhound Buses, a paper mill for all the lumber that moved through town and  a storage facility for the Grand Theatre. The best is when Jon, Fogtown’s co-owner, tells me this story: 
Previous owners have come by. One in particular, Matt Strong who used to own this building when there was like a telephone parts manufacturing something going on in here. He's come in sat at the bar. Looked up at the ceiling. And just said huh. And I was like What. What are you talking about. What's what are you looking at. So well see those patches of new spruce and pine that have patched up the old like hundred year old hemlock. I put that in because a truck came [00:41:00.0] in the loading dock and like busted through the floor on the on the floor above us and the tires were hanging down through the ceiling and they had to winch it out somehow and then put a new wood to patch the holes up so but he was fascinating. 
Once you’ve experienced Fogtown, you can’t undo it. Listen to this episode to learn more about Ellsworth’s live music scene and take in a show from Beach Trash, a punk band fronted by a lobsterman by day and drag queen by night.

If Covid has you Craving A Roadtrip then listen to:
Episode 11 - A Road Trip Downeast to visit Maven & Pickled Wrinkle

When Driving Downeast to visit my friend Emma Thieme at her studio in Cherryfield I always take the scenic route. Known as Blackswoods, Route 182 is like entering a fairytale book. Winding roads and gorgeous lakes. Little pull offs and mountain views. The drive is short lived but so damn pretty, which is ironic because it is also the site of Maine’s most notorious ghost stories.... This road eventually brings you through Cherryfield where Maven Studio is located. Maven is handmade leather bags and motorcycle seats by Emma Thieme who also happens to star in a music video I directed called, "Love at Last Light". I capture her riding her motorcycle on Blackswoods en route to meet with her lover at a lighthouse. She is so inspiring and this area inspires her work :
“ I want to think of it as gritty and raw and like yeah not refined and I have found over the years that my designs change based on where I live. I'm realizing that like the hardware makes a really big difference  and I'm looking at what's around me because this is just such a rough hard working area..”
After checking out her studio, we head to Pickled Wrinkle in Prospect Harbor. This road trip takes you around Schoodic Peninsula, though awesome fishing towns and all the way to Schoodic Point;  Maine's best kept secret (till now). At Pickled Wrinkle... a place where
“You'll have a clam diggers sitting next to a millionaire and they're hanging out and buying each other drinks."
This restaurant and music venue is the best in the area and the building has an awesome history as well! Road tripping around Downeast Maine is exciting because it is so rural with so many back roads to explore, sure there are some Dollar Stores and eye sores but this part of Maine is a place of no distraction, it sings a different tune, it is gorgeous and it is waiting for you.