Days Twenty-Seven and Twenty-Eight: Monday, September 1st -Tuesday, September 2nd, 2025 – UNEXPECTED MUSIC II at Maverick Concert Hall (Woodstock, NY); and Station Bar & Curio, with How Strange It Is, Babytooth (also Woodstock)
For this series of articles, our writer Ty Maxwell will be documenting his tour of the Northeast, spanning from August 6th to September 8th. Maxwell will be writing reflections and insights into the process of booking and executing a DIY tour as an independent artist, the relationships that enable the whole enterprise, and the general day-to-day experience: the minutiae, difficulties and triumphs involved in touring as a solo musician.
Any sufficiently long journey will be marked by the breadth of its contrasts. One night, you’re deep in the woods, seated in a dark, large, striking barn-like building, listening with an attentive crowd as world-class musicians dazzle. The next, just a few miles away, you’re struggling to hear yourself over the sound of pool balls and conversations which you’re more or less incidentally soundtracking. The last two days in Woodstock were like that, and each special and rewarding in their own way.
Leaving Brooklyn was an ordeal; I had to navigate my way around a Labor Day parade in Crown Heights, streets blocked off by cops with painted wooden gates seemingly for miles. One disadvantage of doing virtually everything yourself on tour is: I’m only one guy. Oversights are inevitable. By the time I’d been warned about the parade it was too late. This oversight in particular was significant in that I ended up being very late to an all-day event I’d intended to cover in Woodstock, the UNEXPECTED MUSIC II concert at the marvelous Maverick Concert Hall. I caught the final two performances: first, the harp-and-double-bass duo, respectively, of Brandee Younger and Rashaan Carter; and the ensemble Play Time, composed of Will Epstein (the event’s organizer), Ben Vida, and Booker Stardrum. Younger joked at one point that they could have used a drummer during a trickier rhythmic passage, but none of us listening felt that way; she and Carter played off one another beautifully, with obvious panache and authority. By herself, she treated us to a dreamlike rendition of Stevie Wonder’s “If It’s Magic” after giddily sharing that she’d spoken with Wonder on the phone that morning. (Total magic, question answered.) The closing set by Play Time was one long — over 40 minutes — seemingly-improvised instrumental composition, which meandered at times but soared toward the end with a hard-driving, Krautrock-indebted rhythmic rave-up that gradually gave way to slowness and tranquility, the sounds of woodland insects gently humming all around us. (This is likely what David Tudor had in mind when he premiered John Cage’s 4’33” here, way back on August 29th, 1952.)
That marked the end of the purely-solo-travel portion of this tour, ushering in this last leg, where I'll be joined in package-tour style by my friends Jordan / How Strange It Is (of Portland, Oregon) and Isabel / Babytooth (of Minneapolis). The three of us played — along with Jerm Ballen, who joined Babytooth on bass but flew back to Portland today — at the Station Bar & Curio in Woodstock last night. Woodstock is an interesting town, obviously known for its history of music festivals and for attracting Dylan and The Band, among others, during their settling-down-raising-kids stage (check Van Morrison’s “Old Old Woodstock” for a musical representation of the mood), yet we were informed repeatedly that the town has noise ordinances and strong restrictions against outdoor, amplified live music. The town itself lives in the tension between its tourist-y, hippie-courting history and the more recent influx of Covid-exodusing NYC dwellers, who’ve transformed the Hudson Valley with their presence. We played a quiet show to a bar-going crowd that was mostly there to hang out, play pool, and decidedly not listen to us play, but despite all that, some folks seemed to really enjoy it. After the show I had a wonderful chat with a painter, visiting from NYC, and her friend, a poet from nearby, reflecting later that they would have felt right at home at UNEXPECTED MUSIC II.
Because the booking of this next batch of shows was either done in collaboration with, or handled completely, by Jordan and Isabel, I'm already feeling my attention and focus shifting or dwindling. At this point in the trip, it’s useful to spread the responsibilities up with others and I, of course, enjoy the constant companionship and pleasure of my friends’ company – yet it also requires a change in mindset and a looser grip, sometimes less communication, sometimes more, and kinds of thoughtfulness that might not have been necessary prior. I’m looking forward to the challenge for these last few days.
Day Twenty-Nine: Wednesday, September 3rd, 2025 – Autumn Records (Winooski, VT) with Vega, How Strange It Is, Babytooth
We’re lucky, as I often have been for the past 29 days, to experience pretty near-perfect summer weather today, and there’s a distinct renewal of mental clarity that arrives on cue as we cross into Vermont, possibly related to the total absence of billboards and the picturesque white clouds hanging Bob-Ross-style over the highways, where cell service is scant and you don’t mind it a bit. We are also lucky to set up shop tonight at Autumn Records, a great record store founded in 2017, owned and operated by the electronic musician and producer Greg Davis.
Right in downtown Winooski, just northeast of Burlington, Davis’ shop is totally up my alley for so many reasons. For starters, they prize left field artists, labels and records; they're abundantly well-stocked with an excellent collection of new and used experimental, avant-garde, electronic, ambient, jazz and new music, and they prominently display that stuff front and center. Even just casually glancing around, you’re spotting deep records that you don’t find just anywhere. (When we arrived for load-in, Sean, the very friendly and knowledgeable dude running the shop throughout our show, was spinning the great Pat Metheny album Bright Size Life; I spied Jim O’Rourke’s classic Insignificance, from 2001, on the rack and asked if we could spin that next, which he happily obliged, and led to us playing O’Rourke’s Drag City output all night between sets.) I can only attribute the fact that I left with no records to a bit of self-control (and the need to keep my credit card debt in check); it was tempting to throw down serious cash.
Furthermore, this place has surprisingly great acoustics! I don’t know if it’s something about the brick walls, or the shape of the space, or the way thousands of records and racks absorb or reflect sound, but even while singing and playing without amplification there was a natural reverb and dimension to the sound in the room. When the room sounds good, you’re already winning; from there, performing for a small group of attentive listeners, surrounded on all sides by inspiring album artwork, you can’t help but feel your life choices validated, your decision to drive here vindicated. I’d been following the Autumn Records Instagram page, where they frequently post enticing videos of the shows they host after-hours in the shop, so I’d anticipated a warm, inviting atmosphere and tacit encouragement to do whatever we wanted; there’s something extra fun about playing in a space that doesn’t bat an eye at outsider or weirdo music and art. It gives you license to improvise, to try some new things. Reunited with the tote bag I thought I’d lost in Brooklyn after the Sultan Room show – turned out I’d left it where I crashed that night – meant I’d regained the opportunity to utilize my Ebow (a battery-powered device that creates an electro-magnetic field, which can cause a single steel string, such as on a guitar or a banjo, to vibrate infinitely). I put my banjo flat on the floor and wrapped the strings lightly in a heavy strip of paper, then set the Ebow in motion, making a droning and rattling sound which accompanied me as I sang and played acoustic guitar. Nothing terribly inventive, but fun to know this was the ideal space to try that sort of thing, excitedly unsure if it would even work well with my songs. This show was a blast; I sincerely hope I’m lucky enough to play here again.
