It’s hardly news in Burlington that the Vacant Lots are blowin’ up. The garage-psych duo have had quite a run of late, touring the country with the likes of Spectrum, dropping by showcases such as SXSW and the Austin Psych Festival, and signing to hip indie label Indian Summer. For TVL, it has been a very good year indeed.

But it seems in the midst of his wandering, TVL founder and front man Jared Artaud may be souring on the scene in which his band cut its teeth. In a recent interview with music website Rock Edition, Artaud offers some provocative words on the Queen City and its music scene. Here’s an excerpt:

Rock Edition: What’s the music scene like in Burlington, VT?

Jared Artaud: It’s a small city with a big scene: a lot going on, but not a lot happening. In the 4 years I have been in Burlington, I have always tried to get the most out of this city, but I am continually disappointed. There is a lot of activity locally, but not a whole lot that is drawing me out to experience it. There is a lot of mediocrity in Burlington. I think there is a great amount of comfortability and conformity here that I don’t correspond with. Honestly, I feel pretty detached with the scene here. [There are] not a lot of people making music that I like seeing live either. I spent my first year here going to everything, every show, every night. It took me a year to find a drummer to play with!

It’s equally difficult to invite other bands to come and play here, with a low attendance rate and excitement surrounding live shows. I think the greater disappointment with the Burlington music scene is this unspoken notion of, “Well, they’re playing this Friday night, but I’ll catch them next time they play.” How does a local musician make a living with that kind of attitude? That really doesn’t work for me. There are also only a few cool venues to play. Consequently, the scene gets old pretty quick, if you know what I mean. It’s a city that has great potential but continually disappoints, because there is so little really happening here, [and so few] bands that are really saying something. Do you know what I mean? That’s the kinda sad truth of the small city.

We play so few shows here, mostly just incorporating the shows into our future tours and not doing a lot of one-offs. Maybe one to two shows a year, tops. The funny thing, too, is people are always asking, “When are you playing here next?” You tell them you are playing next week and they don’t show up! So why bother at all? I’d [prefer to] just concentrate on writing, recording and developing my ideas, rather than worry too much about when or if we should play here soon. There is also a continual trend with bands leaving Burlington for bigger cities. We’ll see what happens.

Curious sentiment from a guy who said this in a 2009 interview with Seven Days:

“There’s just something about Burlington,” he says. “I really believe that a revolution is necessary and that we need to redefine our values and explore new roads. I believe that art can pave that road. And I really believe that is happening here.”

Artaud points to the wealth of artists and musicians, new and old, currently combating what he calls “the decay around us.” When asked to be more specific, his eyes light up. “There are some really great bands doing things here that weren’t happening a year, two years ago,” he says. “There’s a revitalization of spirit. Rough Francis, Blowtorch, Nose Bleed Island . . . these are all people who are expressing in this new light for our generation.”

In his RE interview, Artaud didn’t air any grievances we haven’t heard before. Disillusioned local musicians have been grumbling about the perceived limitations of the Burlington scene for decades — often blaming fans, as if a packed house is a birthright in BTV. We’re not Brooklyn or Austin or Portland. And, for better or worse, we probably never will be. Still, Artaud’s apparent change of heart is interesting. Maybe the scene really has diminished in the last two years — at the least, it is always in flux, and ebbs and flows constantly. Maybe for Artaud, Burlington has simply lost its lustre. It happens. Or maybe tasting the riches of higher profile scenes has just made ours seem provincial and plain by comparison. Or maybe Artaud is dead on and Burlington needs a kick its artistic ass. Still, one can’t help but wonder how TVL would have fared without the support from bands such as Rough Francis and Blowtorch, and the Burlington scene at large that embraced them in their early days and helped put them on the map. Whether he’s right or wrong, as TVL continues its ascent, here’s hoping Artaud remembers that.

 

Dan Bolles is a culture coeditor at Seven Days. He joined the paper in 2007 as its music editor, covering Vermont's robust music, comedy and nightlife scenes for a decade before deciding he was too old to be going to the Monkey House on weeknights to see rock shows for a living. He became assistant arts editor in 2017 and culture coeditor in 2021. Bolles has received numerous local and national awards for his writing on Vermont arts, sports and the occasional celebrity canine murder mystery. He loves...

29 replies on “Tell Us How You Really Feel”

  1. Did this really warrant an article in the print edition? you posted someone else’s content, then wrote an article about the comments that were made on a blog? Way to make your own news. Surprised by the absence of Furthur jokes in your column.

  2. I just don’t understand what he’s complaining about. TVL have always seemed to be doing just fine with decent crowds. I haven’t bothered to see them in a while because the last couple of shows I saw were mainly Jared bitching out the sound guy, which is something I realized audiences don’t like to listen to when I was 15.I hope this doesn’t turn into a ‘Shun-The-Lots’ type situation, though. I dig them.

  3. i agree with what matt hagen said. there are a lot of talented & beautiful people here in burlington, and i have always found them supportive of all kinds of music. hip hop, jam bands, bluegrass, jazz, etc etc etc. but if you’re looking to make it ‘big’, this aint the place to do it.when i play shows, i first of all play for myself, to exorcise whatever demons i have. secondly, i play for my friends who come & support me nearly every time. after that, if someone new to the music comes by & likes it, or gets inspired, or hates it, or really feels ANY kind of reaction what-so-ever i consider myself lucky. lets all be happy with what we have in our little slice of heaven

  4. There is an extraordinary musical bubble here in Burlington that’s not necessarily looking to spoon feed people. You could arguably say we’re spoiled with the amount of talent here. Within a 4 block span at that! People who know, know. It’s too bad when given a chance to actually give credit to that, the voice ends up being a fart. Why cut something down that you can’t even see the top of?

  5. Aside from VT, I most frequently play in Ontario. Audiences there are noticeably more engaged. I can count on one or more people who I’ve never met before coming up after the show and saying something that indicates they were actually listening to the music. That hardly ever happens here. Bands from such warm and cuddly places as Boston and Houston have, unbidden, commented to me about the standoffishness of VT audiences. I think its a real thing.I don’t agree with Mr. Artaud’s statement that there aren’t any good bands around here. If anything there are too many. Its the audience/scene issue that I think is valid.Meanwhile, if we’re going to write off any musician who uses an assumed name, its going to scratch a lot of good (and, yes, bad) music off our playlists. Its a particularly odd charge coming from someone who is posting under multiple assumed names himself.

  6. “there is so little really happening here, [and so few] bands that are really saying something. Do you know what I mean?”No, not really. If by “really saying something” you mean creating an incredibly derivative Spacemen 3 wannabe two piece with banal lyrics and weak guitar riffs, then I guess you’re right: you are the only band in town doing that. Or maybe you mean being a grown man who still has a Lou Reed complex and changes his last name to that of a famous French poet? Well, I guess Verlaine was already appropriated 20+ years ago and Rimbaud would have been a little too obvious, so Artaud is just pretentious enough. All of this would have been precious is you 17, when you should be naively running your mouth in an attempt to be “edgy” and emulating your heroes in dress, attitude and musical style…but you’re a grown man now Jared; you should be subsisting on more than just imitations. Unfortunately, beneath all your faux-rock star trappings and regurgitated philosophies is a pretty non-existent human being with nothing original to say, so maybe it’s for the best.

  7. Too bad. Good band, but Artaud (if that is your real name)’s live performances and attitude off stage reeked so badly of pretention that it made him flat out unlikeable. I wonder if he felt this way when he messaged all of his Facebook friends, through Kickstart.com or some shit, asking for donations to get his album done. One of the rewards for a decent donation was “a hand written letter from the band”. No thanks, dick. It’s true that BTV concert crowds can be painfully lame at times, but this dude takes the cake.

  9. @ raph “get as far away from the stage as possible, talk as loudly as possible through the entire show, don’t make eye contact with or acknowledge the musicians, and definitely don’t talk to them after they play”dude this happens everywhere in the world (and even more in the USA), i don’t know where you’ve been playing….its not just a burlington thing.

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