Confluence

A story of unlikely coincidence (with bonus material)

fluke¹ noun: fluke; plural noun: flukes

1. an unlikely chance occurrence, especially a surprising piece of luck.

2. a flatfish, especially a flounder.

---

If you’ve followed my Substack, you’re probably already aware that a number of my early posts comprise a winding story about connectivity. I like to reflect on the things in life that cross over and connect us together in ways we could never have expected, as it happens a lot (at least to me), and it’s sometimes easy to forget these little treasures, or at least forget how significant they felt at the time they occurred. My most recent tale of serendipity is actually directly connected with the Burlington music scene story, and in fact is just a continuation of that. There are some interesting layers to this one, so listen closely because it gets a little complicated.

Back in January, you may recall, my arborist buddy Mac from Burlington hipped me to some really good music that started a chain reaction of discovery that’s actually still ongoing to this day. It started with Lily Seabird, then Greg Freeman, Robber Robber, Merce Lemon, Squirrel Flower, Lutalo, Hemlock, Sister., Daribay, Benny Yurco, Vega/Sheepskin, Prewn, e…. t…. c… So many incredibly talented musicians and bands, all tangentially connected to one degree or another. This story starts in the middle of that chain, at the point where I discovered Benny Yurco’s most recent album, You Are My Dreams. As has been the case with so many of these artists, the music resonated with me immediately. Each time I discover a new artist, I typically try to find them on Bandcamp, where I can support them by purchasing digital and/or physical albums and merch, if available (I would encourage the reader to go drop a few bucks on some music/merch by your favorite artists if you haven’t already). Anyway, Benny’s album was available on vinyl, but I got distracted and didn’t complete the purchase at the time. A couple days later I went back to the site to finally buy it, and I had missed my chance. Out of stock. Out of print. Not available.

---

---

Fast forward several months, and we’ll also pivot to another storyline here. Through social media and the whole Vermont scene, I had ‘met’ the Burlington punk icon Peg Tassey of the current feminist punk rock band The Loud Flowers and several other lineups dating back to the early years of the movement.

---

---

Side story: Peg Tassey posted online about an album release and live performance by another Vermont legend, Tom Banjo, who has been entertaining folks around the state and beyond for over a half century. As a longtime fan of the Grateful Dead, I couldn’t help notice his name, which appears in the lyrics to their 1969 spacey-electric-acoustic dirge Mountains of the Moon.

At first I assumed that the name “Tom Banjo” was a traditional moniker or nickname, maybe for an old timey folk singer or something, but I had to find out what the deal was. After a little research on the goggle machine, I discovered that HE is HIM. He’s THE Tom Banjo from the song. Robert Hunter had attended the University of Connecticut at around the same time that Tom Banjo was playing gigs and parties around the college (he was already somewhat legendary, apparently), and he wrote him into the song lyrics. WHAT.

---

Peg had recently posted online about the extremely sad and untimely death of Jon Williams, formerly of The Volcano Suns and Fort Apache Studios in Boston/Vermont. He had been living in Albany, Vermont, and operating a small but dynamic recording studio out of his house, called Vortex Studios. Coincidentally, the band I played with at the time, Squeaky Fromme, had recorded a six-song (unreleased) EP with Jon at Vortex back in 1993. Peg and I already had a dialogue going through Instagram messaging, talking about music, gardening, trees, and the general plight of humanity, so when she posted about Jon I immediately messaged her both with condolences and to ask about her relationship with Jon and how she knew him. It turns out that she and Jon were good friends, and Jon had recorded a good deal of music for Peg over the years. Damn, what a small world.

---

Peg Tassey (The Loud Flowers) and Jon Williams (Volcano Suns, Fort Apache, Vortex Studios)

---

Pivot again: I recently got to see a few of Lily Seabird’s shows in Boston, Burlington and Brattleboro, and spent a fair amount of time talking with Lily’s partner Rick, who plays guitar in several bands about town in Burlington, including The Wormdogs. At one point we got to talking about Benny Yurco, and I recounted my misfortune of barely missing out on getting a copy of Benny’s album. As luck would have it, Rick had been record shopping recently at Autumn Records in Winooski, where he was pretty certain he’d seen a copy of You Are My Dreams. I wasted no time in reaching out to them, and the owner Greg was happy to tell me that they did indeed have a copy, and boom, just like that I had found my coveted copy. Throughout the process, I got a little dialogue going with Greg, which we’ll return to in a bit.

Back on Instagram, and probably about a month out from the initial post about Jon’s passing, Peg posted another story, this one a bit more fortuitous, about how Jon’s partner Ellie had found and delivered all of the Vortex Studios archives to none other than Greg Davis, owner of Autumn Records. He had managed to find all of Peg’s recordings that Jon had saved, and (since they apparently know each other) returned them to her. How cool is that? Having an open dialogue already going with Greg, I messaged him to tell him that we had also recorded with Jon, and to tell him how cool it was that he was able to get Peg her old reels (he had also distributed many more to the original artists, including Cul de Sac, Antietam, Möl Triffid, among others). When I mentioned that we had recorded with Jon back in the day, and what a funny coincidence this all was, he asked, “What was the name of your band?” Well, wouldn’t you know it, Greg also had the Squeaky Fromme DAT recordings from our sessions so many years ago, which he has since generously digitized for me, as well as sending me the originals by mail.

Vortex archives: Peg Tassey reels and Squeaky Fromme DAT mixes, inexorably back in the hands of the artists after over three decades

---

So, to recap: Mac brought me to Lily, who brought me to Peg and Rick, who connect in multiple ways with Greg from Autumn Records, who connects between Jon and Peg and Rick and me, and if it wasn’t for those first couple links, I’d never have come into possession of our original recordings from 30 plus years ago. You really can’t make this stuff up.

---

BONUS MATERIAL - MORE STORIES OF SEEMINGLY ALTOGETHER IMPOSSIBLE HAPPENSTANCE:

---

Vague Bullseye - Pin the tail on the donkey, Quantum Physics version

A very old friend of mine, Alex Weinstein, whom I have written about previously in an earlier ‘Stack (Transporté sans bouget), recounted the following truly incredible story of serendipity that is almost too strange to be real:

Several years ago in Los Angeles, through a trade for one of his fine art paintings, Alex had come into possession of a collection of vintage 1950’s Emeco Navy Chairs that he was looking to find more details about for the purposes of authentication. These chairs are highly collectible and there are numerous counterfeit versions out there that sometimes make proper ID more difficult due to multiple factors including changes to the original manufacturer’s processes and identifying marks. His chairs appeared to be authentic, bearing some of the telltale clues, but he wanted to be 100% sure so he began looking into the matter, ultimately finding contact info for a representative of the company itself.

The correspondence started as an email exchange with some general information shared back and forth to lay the groundwork for authentication. At that time, the Emeco representative was in the US, but she was traveling to Europe over the course of the dialogue, which protracted the process given the time difference and her actual travel through time zones from New York to Stockholm. Eventually the two made contact by telephone, where it was determined that the chairs were indeed authentic Emeco Navy chairs. The representative had gotten Alex’s information as part of the inquiry, and while they were talking asked him if he was “Alex Weinstein the painter.” He said that he was indeed a painter and visual artist from LA, to which she replied by telling him that she was in a rented condominium in Stockholm, looking at one of his paintings, literally as they were speaking. It just so happened that the owners of the condominium she was renting are Alex’s parents, and they have some of his work hanging on the walls.

What are the odds that this woman that Alex had exhaustively sought out online to help identify a set of chairs he had traded for a painting would ultimately, at the time of their phone call, be sitting in his parents’ condominium halfway around the world, looking at one of his paintings? 🤯

---

Spot Marks the X

My brother John was in a band back in high school, and he and one of his bandmates went to a local venue to see the 70’s classic rock band Blood, Sweat & Tears on a warm summer night in Rhode Island. The opener was a solo act; a local folk artist that played acoustic guitar with a singing dog. Yes, you read that right. How he got the gig opening for Blood, Sweat & Tears is still a mystery, but suffice to say it happened. My brother’s bandmate Dave made a point of mentioning the oddity, and I think they got a laugh out of it.

Several years later, John moved out to Michigan, where he formed another band with a guy named Jason. John and Jason played for several years around in various clubs with moderate success, but eventually Jason moved away to California and the band took on a different look. Out in California, Jason eventually met and married Exene Cervenka of the iconic Los Angeles punk band X. File under strange coincidences, brushes with fame, interesting anecdotes, whatever.

John eventually moves back to Providence where he rents an apartment from a guy (we’ll call R) who turns out to be that opening act from the Blood, Sweat & Tears show all those years before. Small world, right? As John and R develop a relationship over time, John eventually tells him the story of Michigan and Jason moving to California and marrying Exene, and R tells his own story of living in California in the 70’s, and actually being the person who introduced Billy Zoom and John Doe (R was Billy’s roommate). In other words, X would not have existed if it wasn’t for the weird folk dude with the singing dog. And somehow my brother wound up being one degree of separation from multiple members of X, through two different people in his life.