A Place. a Band. a Journey. by Richard Cuccaro
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JANUARY 2012 Volume 12 Issue 7 LISTINGS GUIDE and Beyond with Feature Articles Live!IN NEW YORK CIT Y A Place. A Band. A Journey. By Richard Cuccaro Spuy’ten Duy’vil “spite + en dive + el” [Dutch slang] 1. a) in spite of the devil b) spitting devil 2. Creek connecting the Harlem and Hudson Rivers The beginning of the 2010 Falcon Ridge Folk Festival was a disaster. The annual Friday afternoon Emerging Artists Showcase, always eagerly anticipated, ran into rough weather. Torrential downpours almost completely washed the audience off the hill. Later that evening, the Friday night “Most Wanted Song Swap” was canceled due to wind-driven sheets of rain. Not a good start to a “festive” festival weekend. Hosted by assigned participant players, the Acoustic Live Friday afternoon booth showcases slogged through a constant downpour. The author, having gotten drenched twice while dealing with canopy leaks, disgustedly waited it out inside his car, trying to dry off. through a sharp uptempo rhythm with tightly The Roots The next day didn’t look much better. At executed starts and stops. Beth did what she The story, however, begins with husband two o’clock the next afternoon, menacing always does, belting out each stanza with the and wife Mark Miller and Beth Jamie thunderheads still loomed overhead. Spuyten ferocity and abandon of a gospel rave-up. Kaufman, who form the main stem from Duyvil, our first Acoustic Live showcase act of I followed them part way, staying inside, next which the band’s other tendrils sprouted. the day, had been one of those acts in Friday’s to Jim, the harp player, and Sarah, the fiddler, Mark was born in Boston and attended Emerging Artists Showcase. A band known for soaking in their swooping melody lines that Brookline High School. He played trumpet, its boisterous spirit, they’d played before the helped the song fly. Tom, the guitarist, and then baritone horn in the orchestra. After remaining dozen or so diehards standing in the John, the bassist, remained behind me, helping seeing Devo on “Saturday Night Live,” rain. I was fearful that the clouds signaled a to drive the song on its merry way. As the last he picked up the electric bass. He told me, trend, but Spuyten Duyvil had some magic up strains of the blues harp finished the song, “mostly I just carried it around to look cool its sleeve. Six of the seven players took shelter Mark swung back into the canopy to change (hard to do with a baritone horn).” [A brainy, in the front end of the 20-foot space created by his instrument for the next song. The audience talented player is never JUST looking cool.] our two adjoining canopies. The drummer, just joyfully whooped its approval. We’ve After high school, he went to Wesleyan outside, braved the elements. Several bars into uploaded a video of the song to YouTube, that University in Connecticut. He studied the song, “Halfway Free,” it became apparent shows the band playing for Alternate Root TV. ethno-musicology and comparative religions that the skies were benign, under the spell of It includes eighth member, Rik Mercaldi, on but spent most of his time in the electronic a benevolent spirit. A stubborn sun emerged, lap steel. Rik was not at Falcon Ridge in 2010. music studio recording songs with his band, drenching the midway audience in sunshine. This was my first close-up taste of this music for films and music for modern dance. The bandleader, Mark, and the lead singer, phenomenon; an organically formed band He met Beth in his first semester. She saw Beth, cautiously walked out into the sunshine, whose disparate pieces meshed as if grown a “sexy, tortured musician guy who was joining their drummer, Lou, who tastefully together out of the same soil. Many months anything BUT boyfriend material,” but was played a marching band snare with brushes. later, I would sit down to dinner with the drawn to him nevertheless. [Fate… never Mark played a small tenor guitar in a crisply group and learn how they formed and grew argue with it.] Mark invited her to join him strummed attack and sang and led the group together. on backup with his college band for one gig at a packed fraternity house. Beth remembers, “That one time was crazy but so fun!!” That would be the last time they’d play together for many years. Beth, a Brooklyn girl, had grown up listening to straight-up folk music, mostly around photo: Richard Cuccaro the campfire at summer camp where, as she stated, “the counselors were all a bunch of politically charged, guitar-slinging late-era hippies.” She developed an appreciation for “pure acoustic, communal music — music that’s meant to be sung together.” She was singing socialist anthems — Ochs, Seeger, Guthrie, Prine — at age 8. She also got involved in musical theater which led to studying and teaching theater, and later, a career in creative education. A Digital Wizard After graduation, Mark went back to Boston, where his degree did not prove to The band at our booth showcase at the 2010 Falcon be a job magnet. One exchange captures Ridge Folk Festival, with the sun finally triumphant the disconnect between where he was and that all worked with Mark in the video game The Rebirth what the world was offering: “I got one call scene out in San Francisco. Mark’s boss One night in Boston, the trip to Spuyten back from a high school teaching position in insisted, so a band was born. Needless to Duyvil began. At a concert at The House of religion that did not require a master’s. The say it was very short-lived. Nevertheless, it Blues, Mark and Beth saw David Lindley first question in the phone interview was ‘Are was a joy making music with my soon-to-be playing “lap slide reggae on something… it you Catholic?’ I answered the question with husband.” While still living in California, had eight strings.” It sounded amazing and a question... ‘Catholic with a big C or a little Mark and Beth got married, with the they were both mesmerized. c?’ and the line went dead…” [My hero!] ceremony taking place back in Brooklyn. Beth, being very resourceful, managed to find He answered an ad for applicants for radio Their daughter, Dena, now 14, was born in San out what the instrument was (a bouzouki — station sales. Although he says it was a Francisco. Mark needed something steadier leave it to David Lindley), and got Mark one “horrible job,” it gave him access to the very with benefits, so he worked in house first at for his next birthday. When Mark got home first personal computer-based digital audio Sega of America and then at Crystal Dynamics. from work and saw it, he thought, “God that’s editing system. He became a “bit of a local He became chairman of the Interactive Audio wonderful!… Now I have to learn how to expert” in digital audio editing. Special Interest Group and helped in the play this thing.” He picked up a copy of Rise In spite of an obvious talent in the digital development of standards for a whole lot of Up Singing. “It had a lot of songs with three realm, Mark decided to move to San digital stuff that, described in “Markspeak,” chords that I knew. I learned how to play it Francisco to become a chiropractor. When is not easily translatable in this publication. and Beth and I did a lot of singing together.” he got there, he got hired by Digidesign, However, the industry needed no translation Additionally, Mark found that playing the the developer of Protools, to support their and he received the first Lifetime Achievement old traditional music in the book unlocked sales team. As soon as he saw Digidesign’s Award from the Game Audio Guild. something in him and he started to write his 24-track recording studio sitting empty all Back East, a Musical Hiatus own music. He recalled that, “I had written night, he quit his pre-med classes and ended A job offer from Harmonix brought Mark and hundreds of pieces of incidental music and up running their tech support department two or three lame attempts at pop music through the launch of Protools. Beth back to the East Coast and Mark worked for them leading “up to but not including the while I was in college. Some part of playing At that point, as he said, “deep in the development and launch of Guitar Hero.” all that old-timey stuff flipped a switch and purgatory of the transition from the mature Needing out of the game business, he went caused me to start writing stuff that had some and peaceful art of analog tape editing to back for his MBA at Northeastern University. meaning.” Beth was surprised because she the nuclear fallout caused by the insertion of Then, Mark and Beth moved to New York, was the one who had gotten into folk music the first generation of PCs into the recording making their home in a big, rambling house at a young age and never expected Mark to studio, I got a random phone call asking if I in Yonkers. Mark had gotten burned out on get into the folky stuff. As Beth described it, could write music for a video game. Needing music during his time in the digital game “The more inspired he became to play and the change, I said “… sure … I can do that.” business and didn’t go near it for a long time.