For all the clichés comparing being in a band to marriage, making collaborative art with other humans over time is its own kind of balancing act. And in bands, as in marriages, it’s important to mark big anniversaries. To celebrate a decade of making progressive indie-folk music, Cricket Blue have gifted themselves a present.
To mark (and close) their first 10 years together, the duo of Laura Heaberlin and Taylor Smith decided to perform “Corn King,” a 12-minute folk epic from their 2019 album Serotinalia, with a 10-instrument chamber orchestra and film the whole thing at the University of Vermont’s Recital Hall in Burlington.
“We’ve obviously played the song live plenty of times,” Heaberlin told me over Zoom. “But we’ve never been able to perform it with the full chamber orchestra, like it has on the record. It just feels like an appropriate way to move into our next phase — by playing one of the things we feel most proud of from that era of the band.”
For Smith, who wrote “Corn King” more than 10 years ago, it feels a little like waving goodbye to a song, and a period of music, that he no longer identifies with as strongly.
“I’m not really the same person who wrote the song,” he said. “I have a lot of affection for the song and for the person I was, but it feels like putting on a costume when we play it these days.”
To give that first decade of their career a proper send-off, Heaberlin and Smith brought together a crack team of local musicians and expats, including cellist John Dunlop, violinist Sofia Hirsch and violist Laura Markowitz. Harrison Hsiang, a former local and front person for the band Couchsleepers, drove up from Boston to repay the favor to Heaberlin, who provided guest vocals on his latest release.
“Harrison was incredible,” Heaberlin said. “We needed an accordion player for one song, and he learned how to play it at rehearsal that day!”
The video for “Corn King” hits YouTube on Wednesday, June 12. As for the future, the band has “a big batch of new songs” that it plans to record this year and release as the long-awaited follow-up to Serotinalia.
The fourth annual Maple Roots Festival announced its full lineup last week. The fest, billed as “by musicians, for musicians,” was launched by director and guitarist Michael-Louis Smith in 2021 and takes place at Morse Farm Maple Sugarworks in Montpelier.
The free one-day event will feature sets by Vermont stalwarts Steady Betty, Kat Wright, Avi Salloway, Nick Cassarino and Smith’s band, MLS & Friends, as well as the Eames Brothers Band, Brett Hughes, Mikahely, Andriana & the Bananas and others.
It goes down on Saturday, July 27, rain or shine. Visit maplerootsfest.com for more information.
Eye on the Scene
Last week’s live music highlights from photographer Luke Awtry
Edmunds Middle School Jazz Band, City Hall Park, Burlington Discover Jazz Festival, Thursday, June 6: This year’s was not a tame Burlington Discover Jazz Festival. As the event’s official photographer, I got to see its wild side. Big Freedia’s Waterfront Park show was a spicy one, no butts about it. And at the Flynn Space, Hot Butter LGBTQIA+ Disco featuring the Illustrious Blacks got … slippery. But the set that really popped off was in City Hall Park last Thursday afternoon. A large crowd had gathered, and I was picking up elementary school chorus vibes, big time. When Graham Lambert, a self-proclaimed Santana fanatic, led his Edmunds Middle School Jazz Band in “Oye Como Va,” the young crowd went feral. I saw moves I’d never seen before. Think sugar high plus out-of-school experience — and the only conga line of the festival, to my knowledge. Huge shout-out to the Flynn for all the school-related programming and to our local music teachers for keeping kids interested in music and showing them a good time. I’m not sure where I’d be if not for teachers like that.
Listening In
Spotify playlist of Vermont jams
This article appears in Jun 12-18, 2024.
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