For every breakout band that captures some moment of zeitgeist and goes on to become a cultural institution, there’s often a much more obscure, cooler underground band that inspired them. Just ask Nine Inch Nails about Skinny Puppy, or talk to the Strokes about Jonathan Fire*Eater.
It’s hard to find a better example of a highly influential yet overlooked band than Some Velvet Sidewalk. Formed in the late 1980s by guitarist and vocalist Al Larsen and the late Robert Christie on drums, and featuring eventual members of Bikini Kill, the Olympia, Wash., band’s sound encompassed the anarchic noise of post-punk with minimalist melodies and Larsen’s poetically obtuse lyrics.
The project lasted for the better part of a decade and counted Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain among its biggest fans. Some Velvet Sidewalk initially called it quits in 1997 after releasing The Lowdown EP on their longtime label, K Records.
Larsen didn’t stop making music, playing in the Polar Bears and Melting Igloo and releasing solo albums such as 2005’s The Hardline According to Danny & the Dinosaur. He relocated to Burlington in 2011 and became the director of the Creative Media BFA program at Champlain College, thinking he’d left music behind for the life of a conceptual artist.
“It seemed like that thing, those people, that time, were over,” Larsen said by phone from his office at Champlain. But one day he was reminiscing about Some Velvet Sidewalk and realized it would be fun to get the band back together.
So Larsen called up drummer Don Blair, who played on the majority of the Some Velvet Sidewalk releases, and the project was reborn. “It was a pretty simple kind of decision,” he said.
They recorded a new album titled Critters Encore, which drops on Friday, June 26 — the same day Larsen debuts a solo art exhibition at the Champlain College Art Gallery titled “This Is Not a Dinosaur.”
“The art show is quasi-retrospective,” Larsen said. “There is ephemera and art I did in the ’90s, but there’s more recent pieces as well, inspired by Critters Encore.”
The two projects inform and converse with each other, according to Larsen. “What is a song? Well, it’s words put to music, but those words can become their own art, their own symbols,” he said of the correlation between his music and conceptual art.
The album will be played at the art opening, making it a release show of sorts.
The differences between putting an album out into the world in 2026 versus 1997 took Larsen by surprise, he admitted.
“We never worried about making videos or social media or anything like that,” he said after a rueful laugh. “Maybe we were just slackers back then, I don’t know … but all we really cared about was making the record, putting it out, going on tour. There’s just a lot of busy work surrounding it all now.”
Some Velvet Sidewalk’s relative obscurity gave Larsen a sense of freedom when it came to releasing new music. “We took all our music off streaming years ago, and we were never really well known to begin with,” he said. “So I felt like, if we write some new songs, for all you know it was on our fourth record.”
Larsen isn’t sure what the future holds for the band after almost 30 years of being inactive. But he said some shows are in the works, both in Vermont and elsewhere.
“I like to tell people we were a mythical band,” Larsen said of the band’s legacy. “That’s not the same as saying you were legendary! Mythical? What’s that mean? Well, you probably missed us. Mythical. That sounds good.”
Burlington singer-songwriter Lily Seabird announced a new LP titled Lightspheres on Their Way, due out September 4 on Lame-O Records. To celebrate the imminent new arrival, Seabird dropped an advance single, “Election Day,” with an accompanying music video. It’s one of the heavier, more alt-rock-influenced tracks she’s recorded, fitting the overall political bent of the tune.
“I wrote this song on Election Day, which works as a great metaphor for this in our current political climate, but this song is not about voting,” Seabird told music blog BrooklynVegan.
“Election Day” is streaming on major services now. Watch the video on YouTube.
Safety Pin Shows and the folks over at Burlington Odd Fellows are back with another Odd Fest. The one-day indie rock and punk festival goes down this Saturday, June 27, at the Odd Fellows’ Queen City Lodge on North Avenue, with the first of 10 bands kicking off around noon.
Seattle’s Sister Wife Sex Strike and Montana’s Dusty the Kid co-headline. A choice selection of local acts rounds out the bill, including Dogface, Brunch, Paper Castles, the Eyetraps, Doom Service and more.
The all-ages and substance-free event doubles as a benefit for the North End Food Pantry. For more information and to get tickets, visit burlingtonoddfellows.com.
Finally, the Vermont scene is mourning the loss of singer and guitarist Dennis Willmott, who died on June 14 at the age of 80. Willmott was best known for forming the band Left Eye Jump with guitarist Dan Whalen in 1997. The group was a fixture at Red Square in Burlington for years and featured a rotating cast of some of the area’s best blues musicians, including Jeff Salisbury, Bill Mullins, Dwight Ritcher and Kenny Bleckley.
Willmott also cofounded the Vermont Blues Society in 2018 with his wife, Marian, along with Sandy Combs and Blues for Breakfast’s Charlie Frazier. Announcing Willmott’s death on social media, the group remarked on how he “dedicated his life to the music he loved.”
“There is an irreplaceable hole left in the heart of the Vermont Blues scene and we will all miss him,” the post concluded.
Friends and bandmates gathered at Red Square last Saturday to pay tribute to Willmott and Left Eye Jump. A memorial service is planned for later in the summer.
Rest in peace, Dennis.
This article appears in June 24 • 2026.
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