‘Little Haiti Rock City’ to explore the legacy of Churchill’s Pub in Miami… if Kickstarter can help
June 25, 2014
It’s not often that I promote a project’s Kickstarter campaign, but there’s no denying my personal connection to the subject of Little Haiti Rock City (here’s a link to the campaign). Though I hardly know the filmmakers, director Franco Parente and producer Angel Eva Markoulis certainly share my sentiments for the bar in the Little Haiti neighborhood of Miami called Churchill’s Hideaway, which was once run by British ex-pat Dave Daniels.
Daniels, a former pal of the famed BBC DJ John Peel, could certainly be considered one of the original Miami hipsters. His anything-goes attitude to the musicians he allowed on stage even allowed me to get on stage to lash at guitars and sing with the preeminent local noise band the Laundry Room Squelchers, who have long had residence on Thursday nights at the bar. The group’s founder, the legendary Frank “Rat Bastard” Fallestra, was always happiest when the din produced made people leave the bar. That Daniels could not only allow that but continue to invite Rat back over, night after night for literally decades, speaks to the kind of man Daniels is.
Daniels (left) with Rat.
Churchill’s has not only incubated the likes of artists like Rat but also musicians like Sam Beam of Iron and Wine (who I first discovered there). Interpol’s drummer, Sam Fogarino, reunited with his old mates in the Holy Terrors a few years ago after an Interpol show (it was the better show that night). Now, after 35 years of ownership, Daniels has sold the bar, and I could hardly avoid the howl of protest from many local musician friends (this show happened, and it was one for the ages). Of course, the local musicians and fans have been only understanding, but they also harbor a bit of dread that the place will just never be the same.
Parente also has that same feeling. He has already spent much time with Daniels since he started shooting footage for his documentary on a bar that he considers Miami’s equivalent to New York’s CBGB. “I’d like to think it’s about the legacy that Dave built or rather allowed to build itself. What most people don’t see is the community of artists, musicians and just regular people that have coexisted within that space in Little Haiti.”
“The story we’re telling of Churchill’s wouldn’t exist were it not for him since it just wouldn’t be the same,” adds Markoulis.
Local musician Steven Toth, a.k.a. Mr. Entertainment, who put together the tribute show “For the Good of Music/A Night for Dave Daniels,” epitomizes the many local artists who would have never found their voice were in not for Daniels’ openness. “Well, Dave has been like the coolest uncle ever, and we aren’t related,” he says. “He gave me and my band a chance when we may not have even been good enough. He encouraged us to play, always told me how much he loved my street performing, and pretty much never said no to any of my crazy ideas. What Dave gave to us was freedom and a home all in one.”
During his interviews with Daniels, Parente found some insight into what motivated Daniels to open his stage to pretty much anyone with an instrument of some kind. “I think it’s been his interest all along to watch people flourish and shed the armor,” he says of Daniels. “I know he’s a businessman and always has been, but he’s a businessman with a heart, and that’s a dying breed.”
The idea of the dying breed is also part of the urgency that motivated Parente to begin work on this documentary before he had all the funds necessary to complete the film. Now, he and Markoulis have taken to Kickstarter to finish their work. “It’s a monumental task to raise this much money with smaller donations, as opposed to large investors bankrolling it,” admits Markoulis. But she also offers a perspective that will make it easily feasible. “If everyone who stumbles upon our project page pledged the cost of going to the movies, we’d have our funding and be able to preserve a piece of music history.”
As of the publication of this post, they are halfway to the $79,000 required to continue their work, but they only have eight days to go. Markoulis says if everything goes as planned, they could have their film completed by next year. They also hope to get the new owners on the record, even though the filmmakers admit some of these owners have chosen not to reveal their identities, which goes to show just how intimidating it is to be seen as a replacement for Daniels. “We are in the process of setting up an interview,” notes Parente, “but it’s a transitional period and direct access to the new owners has not been easy to come by. They’re not sitting at the end of the bar sipping on cider like Dave did for so long.”
“We would really love to include them in the documentary and the future of Churchill’s Pub,” adds Markoulis. “Hopefully they will be willing to sit down for an interview with us.”
Despite the doubts that seem to haunt the new ownership by many, both filmmakers remain optimistic about them. “We stand by them and hope that they make positive changes to the place and that we as a community can have Churchill’s here forever,” Parente states. “The reason we are making this film is not to preserve the building, but what Dave and his way of doing things have allowed to go on and came from that building.”
You can read much more about the film, including more specifics about how the filmmakers plan to use the Kickstarter funds, by jumping though the image below to this article I wrote for Pure Honey, earlier this month:
If you live in South Florida, one of the best ways to experience this venue while supporting this film is by checking out a show this Saturday, June 28 (here’s the Facebook event page to join). There’s a $10 cover and all proceeds go towards the Little Haiti Rock City Kickstarter campaign. Bands slated to appear include:
-The PawnsShop Drunks
-Humbert
-Charlie Pickett
-Shark Dust Sisters (featuring members of Load, The Holy Terrors & Quit. Plus special guests)
-The Tremends
-Fulltime, MotherFucker!
-Rat Bastard
-Mr. Entertainment (playing the sidewalk, like the old days)
Remember, even if you are not in Miami, you can donate. Once again, here’s the link:
www.kickstarter.com/projects/littlehaitirockcity
Local spotlight: Harnessing the monstrous “instru-metal” sound of Holly Hunt on vinyl
December 29, 2012
Whether the couple behind the music of Holly Hunt realizes it or not, they treat their instruments as channels into something beyond simple music. Their instruments are like ray guns. The tool emitting this spectral ray may look impressive or intimidating, but behold that psychedelic beam of light: a thing that exists beyond the object producing it. Guitarist Gavin Perry and drummer Beatriz Monteavaro are the architects behind the wall of texture that defines Year One, a brilliant if heavy vinyl record that will appeal to fans of metal, avant-garde, psychedelic rock and noise. 
Label genres also might include sludge core and stoner metal. You can go down that road, but this album’s possible appeal across several underground music scenes comes from a discreet tension between ambiguity and minimalism. I would take its DNA as far back as the early seventies when Philip Glass experimented with what he called “psychoacoustical” music like Music With Changing Parts.
It’s as pure and unique as that. It’s chaos that depends on discipline. The texture Holly Hunt deals in stands as something more than a random roar of guitars and a clatter of drums. The first note of Year One is an awe-inspiring thing to hear unfold. It’s a sizzle wrapped in a rumble enveloped in a zip coated with a thrum. Most of the album’s great moments come from Perry licking at his guitar slowly and methodically, allowing for the reverb to reveal the density within the tones produced by his playing. Monteavaro pounds along with minimal flair. She strikes skins, cymbals and peddles in halting unison, allowing space for Perry’s guitar to produce a sound of incomparable quality. Though the structure of the instrumental pieces that define Year One are often repetitive and droney, there exists a chaos in the notes, a sort of beautiful abstraction with each release that only slightly differs from one note to the next. Even if the same in tone, each note possesses as unique a quality as each successive ocean wave crashing into rocks along a shoreline.
Perry and Monteavaro allowed for a peek behind the curtain when they agreed to a meeting at Miami’s most uncompromising bar when it comes to bands like Holly Hunt, who also rely on ear-piercing volume for its overall effect: Churchill’s Hideaway. They nestled into the corner of an outside bar, while longtime local musician Henry Rajan strangled an electric guitar indoors—with his teeth. The screeches peppered our conversation. The 6-foot-plus, bushy-bearded Perry loomed over the spindly framed Monteavaro. 
The two have been a couple for 18 years now, though they only recently began playing together as Holly Hunt. Monteavaro says the band’s unique sound came into existence in February of 2011, after some sonic experimenting and jamming that included them playing other instruments with Nick Klein on guitar.
She parsed out the chain of events via a conversation on Facebook:
“We usually consider our first show at pre-INC [International Noise Conference] 2011 (February) to be the beginning on the band. We did have a noise piece called ‘Carrie Fischer’ come out on the previous December on a cassette, and although it was under the name Holly Hunt, we consider it more proto-Holly Hunt.
“I play bass guitar on that recording, Gavin drums, Nick Guitar. It was a jam. It was after I joined but before we moved to our rightful instruments. I started playing with them in October of 2010 … The band had no name, and the jams were not heavy at all.
“After we recorded the piece that would go on that first tape, Nick left town for several months. I can’t remember how long he was gone, but in January he told us we could play a pre-INC show. So we worked on making that noise piece, 
‘Carrie Fischer,’ more structured. That became ‘Cueva,’ and that’s what we played at INC. We played a few more shows with Nick, just playing ‘Cueva,’ or ‘Cueva’ and another version of ‘Carrie Fischer,’ but he lived in West Palm Beach. He was having a lot of trouble making it to practice, so that we could move the band forward. He then decided it would be best if Gavin and I go on without him. No mystery, geographic problems.”
Perry adds, “Nick is a good friend who helped me get up off the ground. He/we were invited to play our first pre-International Noise Conference show at a space called Cueva. We had this piece that was arranged around our current setup with Nick playing bass. The piece got its title from the space as I remember. That really started everything for us.”
There exists a brief testament to the performance at Cueva on video, which captures the layers of sonics distinctive to Holly Hunt before the poor videographer got overwhelmed by the thrashing crowd:
“We met Rat Bastard [aka Frank Fallestra, the brains behind INC],” continues Perry. “He invited us to play the next night at Churchill’s for INC proper. Shit really just kind of took off from there.”
Indeed the sound of Holly Hunt continued to flourish fine and healthy without a third member. Density in sonics like these cannot be restrained. Back at Churchill’s, Perry casually explained his set-up as the duo’s singular guitarist. “I play through two heads right now,” he says, “and that really sets up that dynamic that sort of feels like you could have multiple guitars playing. I have a sort of dedicated bass frequency, low, midrange frequency and a dedicated treble, mid-treb frequency, sort of rig, so I think that sets up a weird stereo kind of feel. You start to really feel like there’s a much broader sound, so it can’t possibly be coming from one instrument. Aside from that, all the oscillations and the buzz sort of develop other things.”
Just as Philip Glass admitted to having been tricked into hearing singing by his own layering of music during a 1969 performance of “Music In Similar Motion,”* 
Perry and Monteavaro both admit people have come up to them with notions of a vocalist on stage. “We get that a lot,” notes Perry. “I think in one of our early shows someone came up and asked, ‘Where’s the singer? Somebody’s got to be singing here. I can hear voices.’”
Monteavaro adds, some of the questions she usually gets include: “Is some of it pre-recorded? Is there a tape going?”
Within that chaos of noise and reverb, lies the open-ended magic of abstractions turned hallucinogenically concrete at an aural level by the duo. Though Holly Hunt writes songs with clear melody, albeit with a droning repetitive quality, there exists dynamism to every refrain, ocean waves providing that perfect metaphor. The members remain modest to their role in the Holly Hunt sound. “I mean, nothing special, I don’t think,” says Perry. “Maybe it’s in our songwriting too, maybe some of the harmonies, discordant notes that we’re playing, the rhythm structures kind of put you into a trance.”
Monteavaro, who has played drums in various hard-edged local bands going on 20 years now, including Beings, Floor and Cavity, notes her style of drumming may assist in shaping the dissonance. “I think maybe also because the tempo is kind of slow,” she says. 
“It gives all the oscillating things room to sort of build … It’s not like playing these kinds of beats is totally alien to me, anyway, from previous bands, but, when starting this band, and figuring what this band was going to do, I really thought, specifically about the really open, abstract drumming like the Goslings or the first EP of Earth, which is very, very minimal drums, but the ones that are there are just like the old-timey drums on Viking ships to get people to stroke.”
“I think it’s super heavy because there’s not all this flourish and fill,” Perry says of Monteavaro’s playing. “I think that just adds to the level of impending doom, crescendo.”
If you’re listening to Holly Hunt’s debut album on vinyl at a low volume, you are missing out on half of the band’s sound. The album is divided into four sides that spin at 45 rpm, which is important to capturing the subtlety in the “subtext,” per se, of the songs. The vinyl is also decidedly clean sounding, allowing for the chaos of reverb to rumble and the high-pitched whizzes to morph and undulate below the din at high volume without distortion. These notes are sort of auras that are never purposely produced but exist in the moment and come into being from loud volume, a manner Holly Hunt is keen to perform in as well as have its record played. The album was recorded by Torche bassist Jonathan Nuñez at his home studio deep in the Miami suburbs of the Village of Pinecrest.
Perry notes that seeing Torche and Harvey Milk play a show at Churchill’s led to an epiphany that became the catalyst to the Holly Hunt sound. “I just had a very visceral experience with their amplifiers,” Perry recalls. “Their tone really just sort of struck. I really just wanted to do that.”
Year One marks Holly Hunt’s debut on vinyl after releasing and selling out two cassettes (now only available in digital form: see Holly Hunt’s bandcamp page to stream all the band’s music from proto-Hunt to Year One). Two independent labels with ties to the Miami alternative music scene joined forces to make it happen: Other Electricities and Roofless Records. Though Other Electricities is based in Portland, Oregon and releases music from bands as far off as Russia and South Africa, the label’s owner, Emile Milgrim recently dropped roots in Miami, where she could not help but notice Holly Hunt. “Having heard so much and having seen them live, I was just mesmerized,” she says. “It spoke to me.”
Plans on a release began at Miami-based Roofless Records, an indie label well-known for working with heavier bands like Holly Hunt. Milgrim says, “I assumed Roofless Records was going to release it, so I approached Matt [Preira, owner of Roofless Records] and asked him, ‘So, when are you going to release that Holly Hunt record?’”
According to Monteavaro, Preira had already designated some funding from a Knight Foundation Grant the label had won the previous year in order to release something by the band. She says the label was considering a pair 7-inches or an EP until Milgrim volunteered her resources. “I think they complimented each other very well,” notes Perry of Preira and Milgrim, “and it’s been a pretty smooth experience.”
As a dual release by Other Electricities and Roofless Records, Milgrim says, Holly Hunt had an object that paid proper respect to its sound. After some waffling on the idea of carrying on the notion to release a single or EP, the decision for a full-length album was an easy decision for all involved. “We went back and forth on whether we were going to do an EP or a full-length,” recalls Milgrim, “and then it finally came to a point where we decided let’s just go for broke. Let’s do a full-length, let’s do a double-LP, let’s make it 45 rpm. Let’s make it as massive as possible because this record’s representative of what they’re doing, and it’s massive.”
As already noted, what pours forth from the speakers at not only a Holly Hunt show, but also this brilliantly produced record, released only earlier this month, is something beyond experiential. At first listen it may seem like power chords and head-banging sans singing. But the beauty lies in the details found on that psychoacoustical level, with discreet unintended textures born of chaos. Side C opens with a quavering sustain that lasts for nearly one minute. Before the aptly titled “Molasses” lulls you into thinking the band has veered into the deep-end of ambient music, Perry strokes his guitar strings and Monteavaro bashes at her cymbals sending the track lumbering away like a score to a Godzilla movie.
To Monteavaro, the idea of Year One and civilization-destroying dinosaurs is an apt comparison (the record even includes a track named after the Godzilla movie Destroy All Monsters). Someday, when humanity passes on the way of the dinosaur, physical testaments should remain. Vinyl records could be one of those, including this thing called Year One. “It’s not like absolutely the world’s going to end anytime soon,” she says, “but there’s something really amazing about vinyl in knowing that you don’t even need electricity to get sound out of it. It’s an actual, physical recording that takes no technology. You need a pin, and it’s all there. That’s just so amazing to me. And it seems like the perfect record in case something catastrophic does happen.”
*Note: According to the liner notes on Music With Changing Parts by Tim Page.
Iron and Wine preview evolving sound at Fillmore, Miami Beach
November 22, 2010
“Biting Your Tail” was just one of several new songs Iron and Wine debuted the other night at the Miami Beach Fillmore. I did not take any pictures, and only ventured among the crowd for the one-song encore that was “Biting Your Tail” to make the above video. My knee had swollen up due to an injury from earlier in life and standing up at too many live shows recently has taken its toll. I decided to sit through this one, right next to the sound board. That meant I could barely see frontman Sam Beam between a pair of heads of one couple when they weren’t snuggling. However, though I could not take videos, someone else captured practically the entire show (you’ll seem them below, plus a detailed set list).
First, some perspective: I’ve seen Iron and Wine live five times now, and each time Sam Beam has offered something distinctly different. Three of those times I saw him were during his unknown phase in Miami, back in 2002. I first heard him at the illustrious Churchill’s Hideaway in the Little Haiti neighborhood of North Miami (during this Fillmore show the chatty Beam compared Churchill’s to the bar in Star Wars [see the beginning of the “Trapeze Swinger” video below]). It was just him on electric guitar and another local and then more famous musician Rene Barge on drums. The sounds they produced fit well in the post-rock vein of Tortoise and the like, and gave nary a hint of the folksy rock Beam would later achieve notoriety for.
I would then see him at a low-key private showcase for what would soon become his record label, Sub Pop Records. He brought his sister Sarah Beam to sing with him while he played acoustic guitar. Under pressure of the CEO’s attendance, which also included Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock, who wanted Sam to open up for his band Ugly Cassanova on an up-coming tour, Beam would flub his songs, as he tried to play his complex lines on his guitar. A few weeks later, after the CD the Creek Drank the Cradle had been pressed by Sub Pop, Beam played a show at a now defunct restaurant in Miami’s then up-and-coming Design District. It was just him and his guitar with mostly some students from the college where he taught film in attendance. But, man, did he play his heart out. His fingers danced on the strings of the guitar, which would spill forth some of the most achingly beautiful lines an acoustic guitar could produce, as he sang his hushed colorful words.*
The first time I saw him as a star on the indie rock scene, was at Revolution Live, in Fort Lauderdale, back in April of 2008. This was during his tour for the Shepherd’s Dog. It was the beginning of Beam’s more band-oriented work. His re-workings of older songs at that performance showcased his growing turn from the folksy man-and-his-acoustic-guitar. See this version of “Upward Over the Mountain” I recorded that night, which breaks off to a full-on jam halfway through:
The show last week, seemed to have captured Beam’s evolution over time in one comprehensive set. He started the show alone and played his first song of the night practically a capella. He would sporadically, almost unnoticeably strum his acoustic as he sang “Flightless Bird, American Mouth.” I never heard the venue more hushed, as the audience paid intense attention to his every word. Though I was barely able to make any videos, someone else did, from right up front. Here is “Flightless Bird, American Mouth” from FnCatalinaWineMixer’s view:
Beam would clearly hit his guitar for the next two numbers, however, but the audience continued in their hushed reverence. Guess what? FnCatalinaWineMixer caught those two, as well:
The final video captures just how chatty Beam was that night. It also shows how supportive the audience was toward Beam– cheering him on despite the “You Suck” curtain** and then acting as hushed as can be during the songs. Clearly the area’s serious Iron and Wine fans had shown up. It was nice compared to having all the yappers heard throughout most of that 2008 video I made, at Revolution.
For the next song, a selection for the Shepherd’s Dog, he of course brought out a few of his band members to accompany him:
He would finally offer a preview of his new repertoire with “Half Moon”:
“Half Moon” offered the most distinguishing turn in the music with some doo-wopping backing vocals. Still, the atmosphere was there from Beam’s colorful lyrics and the rambling of a banjo, underneath Beam’s punctuating guitar strumming. Then it was on to a clear classic, “Naked as We Came,” though it featured the same, if not too similar backing vocals as “Half Moon”:
Another older tune followed, when two drummers were added to the line-up:
The first song missing from the show, and apparently caught by no one on YouTube, was the obscure “Morning.” That was then followed by “Carousel,” another one of the night’s ultra-hushed numbers. The video below starts a little after the song begins (Maybe FnCatalinaWineMixer’s trigger finger had begun to tire with all the videos recorded so far).
OK, I’ll admit, I too am getting tired with recounting the show. It was good, but nothing mind-blowing. Beam is clearly getting more band-oriented. But is to the benefit of his craft or its detriment?
Clearly what made him a breakout artist back in 2002/03 was the atmospheric, acoustic-based bedroom recordings that became the Creek Drank the Cradle. Some of the stuff he debuted last night had this weird augmentation of synths and perky backing vox (see the “Naked as We Came” and “Half Moon” videos above). What does this portend for next year’s upcoming Kiss Each Other Clean, which will get distributed by no less than Warner Bros. Records in the US (4AD will do the honors internationally… yes, the Sub Pop relationship is over)? Well, if the new songs featured in this post is not hint enough, Iron and Wine has offered this teaser video, which captures some dreamy layers of singing and instrumentation unheard of on prior releases:
As for the rest of the show last week, it continued with these videos, in this order– with horns, too! (thanks again to FnCatalinaWineMixer for the videos):
(“Monkeys Uptown” missing)
(“Summer in Savannah” missing)
(“Wolves (Song of the Shepherd’s Dog)” missing)
.. and then was the encore song that tops this post.
*These early 2002 memories have already been well-documented in an earlier post.
**That was how Beam referred to the curtain that was drawn on all the upper level seats and the bottom half of the lower level. Still that was not as weakly attended a show as Wolf Parade, earlier this month.
From the Archives: Iron and Wine + tour and new album news, Part 1 of 2
September 20, 2010
Iron and Wine’s website has only seen a few news bits dropped this past year. Most recently the band announced the title of its new album, Kiss Each Other Clean, slated for release sometime in early 2011. Not only is there finally some news of a follow-up to 2007’s the Shepherd’s Dog, but also a new tour. Mastermind Sam Beam corralled the band and kicked off a small tour in Europe only a few days ago. A longer North American tour will commence for a couple of dates in October and then again in mid November.
As far as how it pertains to the neighborhood from where I am blogging from (the Greater Miami area), the band has scheduled a stop in Miami Beach on Nov. 18 (tickets went on sale just this past Friday). I do plan to be there, video camera in hand.
So that’s the news on Iron and Wine, which makes it all too suiting for another installment of … “From the Archives” where I offer up some of the older stories I had written for press, prior to this blog.
I had the honor of knowing Beam as a local, low-key musician before his sudden rise to fame after signing to Sub Pop Records in 2002. As many Iron and Wine fans know, Beam originally hailed from Miami before he turned over is home-recorded demos to Sub Pop and got national exposure (he has since moved to Austin, Texas). Click on the retro-era mug of Beam for a link to the original story I wrote for the “Broward/Palm Beach New Times”:
Beam's first publicity shot for Sub Pop, click it for a link directly to the story I wrote for "New Times."
But I don’t want to simply dwell on the published piece. I also would like to offer some behind-the-scenes perspective on what lead to the article and some of what occurred during the writing of the piece. This two-part blog posting, will not only reveal some of the work I do to compose an artist profile but also offer some of the unpublished information on Beam before he became the rock star he is today.
I first heard Beam’s guitar playing wafting out of Churchill’s Hideaway in the Miami neighborhood of Little Haiti, sometime in the later part of 2002. This was before he had even signed to Sub Pop. I think that night was supposed to be one of Churchill’s famous noise festivals, but what I heard as I approached the front door of the famous pub was this amazing droning, progressive electric guitar music. The musicality was like nothing I had ever heard during one of those festivals, and it wasn’t just because it was melodious. It also came from the fingertips of a very talented player, and one I had never seen on the local music scene before.
The guitarist had a strange, long bushy beard, unheard of on rock musicians in that early era of the ’00s (it has since become a trend bordering on cliché). His only accompaniment was Rene Barge, a local musician and former singer of underground noise punkers Cavity, on drums. They played meandering instrumentals that sounded like math-rock merged with country. Beam plucked his guitar strings in a manner that could have fooled the audience (if they had been paying attention) into thinking there was more than one guitarist on stage. Even the ringing effects emitting from the lo-fi guitar amp added a depth to the duo’s sound that made it sound more like an quartet than a two-piece, making for a mesmerizing aural experience. I, for one, was blown away.
After the show, Barge would introduce me to the guitarist, Beam.mBeam came across as a very friendly and humble sort, appreciative of meeting a new fan. He informed me that he was about to sign a recording contract with Sub Pop, and I immediately suggested a story in the “New Times,” a publication I often freelanced for back in those days. He would later send me a CD demo of tracks that would mostly become his debut for Sub Pop, the Creek Drank the Cradle (they were essentially the unmastered tracks).
The track list Sam Beam wrote on the insert for the CD demo he sent me as I composed his profile for "New Times."
I had been expecting more of the droning, melodic prog-rock stuff I had heard at Churchill’s– the kind of music a less hyper Robert Fripp might have produced. Instead, I heard this super chill singer-songwriter stuff with a country-fied twinge. I must admit, I was at first disappointed, my expectations being what they were. When I asked Beam about the music he had created with Barge, he told me the CD he gave me is what Sub Pop was planning to release. I proceeded with the story anyhow, though it would not be until the second (and last) solo live show I saw of Beam that he had truly won me over again with this atmospheric, mostly acoustic side.
I describe my first live Beam solo experience a bit in the article above. What I never mentioned in the article, though it would have been a colorful detail, was how terribly Sam was screwing up his songs in front of the small audience. Though intimate, the spectators also featured some big shots like the CEO of Sub Pop Records, Jonathan Poneman, and Isaac Brock of Mouse on Mars, who wanted Iron and Wine to open on a tour for his side project, Ugly Casanova. A smattering of movers and shakers from the local music were also there (some just to meet Brock). There was a barbecue brewing and Sam was there with some of his family. It was all real casual and cool. But when Sam took the stage, with his sister next to him on vocals and tambourine, he would start playing but seemingly trip on the tricky guitar lines of his creation. I could also tell he was shaking a bit with nerves. I thought, man, is this guy really going to get signed? Is this all a joke? But Brock and Poneman were super supportive and positive of Beam’s talent. Beam later admitted to me he was nervous as hell to be playing in front of these guys.
The next time I saw Beam, he took the stage at the One Ninety restaurant and club, in October of 2002. This was the show the article was promoting. The venue was an obscure spot for local music that I had never been to or since for a live show. Besides myself, in attendance were only the patrons of the establishment, some students of Beam (he was teaching a cinematography class at Miami College at the time), my then “Broward/Palm Beach New Times” editor, Jeff Stratton and another local music writer who had also recently written a piece on Iron and Wine, Shawn Bean. On stage, it was just Beam and his guitar, and I finally heard the music as it was meant to be heard. He played the guitar with amazing prowess, letting the delicate, swaying melodies flow, as he sung in that beautiful hushed voice. He was relaxed and jovial, as he students hooted in support.
After the show, I had him sign my just-released Creek Drank the Cradle CD that night (see image at left), on my editor’s suggestion, as he felt Beam was going to go places. The only other local musician I had seen go places up until that point was Brian Warner, a.k.a. Marilyn Manson , and that was way back in 1995. I never felt any inclination to have my CDs and records signed by local musicians. In this case, though, I was glad I did.
Though Beam had later recommended we hang out and finally go over our shared love of cinema (I too had once taught a college film class), I never followed up. The next I knew, Thurston Moore had become an early fan and I heard his music accompanying an M&Ms commercial in a movie theater. I’d never personally hear from Beam again.
So, that’s what I think about when I recall this story. In the second part of this post, I will offer some of the straight-forward Q&A culled from emails between myself and Beam, Barge, and Sub Pop CEO Jonathan Poneman (besides email, there were also telephone and face-to-face meetings that added to the short profile linked above). In the meantime, I leave you with a video I recorded of Iron and Wine performing “Upward Over the Mountain” at Club Revolution in Fort Lauderdale, on April 12, 2008. This is the full song without cuts, sounding pretty damn good:
Read Part 2 of this archival piece.
Independent Ethos 