Talk It Out: ‘Burlington Does Burlington’

In May, Sean Hood of country band Eastern Mountain Time released the mega-compilation Burlington Does Burlington, 20 tracks of local bands covering each other. In the process, he revived a long-defunct tradition of the Queen City music scene. Well, maybe the word “tradition” is a little strong, but the Burlington music scene has certainly covered itself before.

In 1996, Chin Ho! front man Andrew X Smith released the 38-track Burlington Does Burlington, Vol. 1 & 2 via his Good Citizen zine/label. He was as surprised as anyone to see his idea revived this year, he told us. Hood never ran his project by Smith, the former admitted, perhaps thinking it was better to ask forgiveness than permission.

But both musicians said they’re cool, and Smith is tickled the modern scene has picked up his gimmick. Local music fans should be, too. The new version is chock-full of some of the current scene’s best, from Paper Castles to Robber Robber to Hood’s own band.

With almost three decades between the two comps, there’s a lot of history (and a lot of bands) to keep track of. To honor that legacy, Seven Days revived one of its own old standards: “Talk It Out,” in which writers have an open conversation — sometimes agreeing, sometimes not. This week, music editor Chris Farnsworth and former music editor and current culture coeditor Dan Bolles take a time machine back to Burlington’s vibrant 1990s indie-rock scene to compare the original two volumes with the new one.

CHRIS FARNSWORTH: Smith and Hood absolutely stacked these records with some of the best bands to come out of the scene. In the ’90s, it was James Kochalka Superstar, the Pants, the Fags, Belizbeha, Wide Wail, a little ol’ band called Phish — ever heard of them? It’s nuts.

Haters will say I’m showing recency bias, but to me, the new volume is just as loaded. Robber Robber, Cricket Blue, Paper Castles and Wren Kitz are among a murderers’ row of current Queen City bands. And while it’s been said comparison is the thief of joy (Who says that? Probably the haters again.), I don’t think we can pass up this golden opportunity to compare our current scene with those heady “good ol’ days.”

What do you think, Dan? How do the new kids stack up to the ’90s squad? Is this a ’96 Chicago Bulls-versus-2017 Golden State Warriors-level face-off? Should I stop making sports references before everyone stops reading?

DAN BOLLES: If there’s one thing I learned in my time as Seven Days music editor, it’s that readers love it when you invoke sports in the Music section. If only our website still allowed comments, so they could tell us how much they enjoy it and call us nice things.

The Bulls-Warriors analogy is apt — though I might sub in the ’86 Celtics because I’m an insufferable Boston homer. But I’ll throw another old sports cliché at you: It’s impossible to compare different eras.

Blasphemy alert: Talent-wise, the current crop is definitely on par with and maybe even exceeds the ’90s scene. The new BDB comp is loaded, and it doesn’t even include the likes of Greg Freeman or Lily Seabird, whom we might one day look back at as this generation’s Eugene Hütz or Envy, local acts that enjoyed national-level success. Though the ’90s dudes did it after they left Burlington — Hütz with Gogol Bordello; Envy as the Boston-based band the Red Telephone — and Freeman and Seabird are turning heads while they’re still here.

The ’90s scene ruled. But it’s also benefited from an aura of nostalgia — fueled in part by certain misty-eyed local music writers … ahem — that I’m not sure is replicable in the internet age. The current scene is certainly worthy of being remembered in the same way as that ’90s scene, but I wonder if it will be. A comp like this could certainly help.

CF: Yes, nostalgia — that’s been very on my mind as I’ve listened to all three volumes. I sort of girded myself to be let down by some of the stuff on the Good Citizen comps in the same way that the Police Academy movies didn’t hold up after I wasn’t 12. But all it took was a few seconds of Barbacoa tearing into Envy’s “Blood Boy,” and I was pulled through time and space into a raging Club Toast, full of Gen Xers drinking cheap beer. Remember cheap beer, Dan?

It was honestly fascinating to reexperience that time in the Queen City scene. It was just so all over the place, and yet the musicians of Burlington were reacting to the sounds of the ’90s in fabulously weird and innovative ways. Phish tapping late, great Burlington street musician Richard “the Clarinet Man” Haupt to cover one of the heaviest bands of that era — the melodic doom outfit Rocketsled — just feels like something that could only happen in this buzzy and talented little corner of the music world in that time.

That’s not to say all of the old stuff necessarily stands the test of time. Dysfunkshun’s cover of Chin Ho!’s “Hippy Girl” — with a slight name change — was a little too time-stamped to the ’90s for my jaded 21st-century ears. I loved all the Toast and Winooski shout-outs, but the tune had me ready to start up a game of GoldenEye 007 and call my parents for money. And look, I miss doing both of those things, but we all have to move on.

DB: True. Though sometimes nostalgia can be a fertile platform for creativity. For example, I was certain that Liam Neeson in a reboot of The Naked Gun was a terrible idea. I haven’t been that wrong since I wanted Drew Bledsoe to start over Tom Brady in Super Bowl XXXVI. The new Naked Gun is hilarious. (Sports and movies in a music column? Suck on that, haters!)

Back to the point: I was tickled by covers of songs by local bands from generations past on the new comp. Paper Castles — who really straddle a few eras and themselves are covered twice — taking on “Searching for the Sun” by beloved 2000s-era psych rockers the Cush is a trippy delight. Danny & the Parts reviving a Lendway tune was a sweet throwback to the 2010s indie scene. I know the Vacant Lots kinda wore out their welcome in town, but they wrote cool songs, and ouzkxqlzn’s version of “Ashes” is appropriately hallucinogenic. There’s even a direct, fraying flannel thread to the ’90s scene with Lily Sickles’ cover of a Missy Bly tune.

What songs stood out to you?

CF: Somehow, I just knew Liam Neeson would work his way into this piece. He’s really taken with Burlington music. (Sorry, that was almost unforgivable. And untrue, but still — I just like to imagine the big Irish bruiser with headphones on, zoning out to a Tom Pearo ambient track and smoking some of Forbin’s Finest. “I have a specific set of skills, bruh.”)

Robber Robber turning Rough Francis‘ “Haunted,” a punk-rock rager, into a dreamy slice of indie rock really did the trick for me. That’s two of the best bands this city has produced in the past decade as far as I’m concerned, so it’s a treat to hear their rendition. I’d love to see Rough Francis — in whatever form they take when they inevitably reemerge with a new name — return the favor and turn “Sea or War” into a mosh-ready anthem.

The Pyros taking on “So Good (I Could Die),” by the late, great indie-rock outfit J Bengoy, is another high point. The new version has a great, almost psychedelic thrust to it. Plus, it recalls the scene in the 2010s, which produced some of my favorite Queen City rock acts, such as J Bengoy and Bison.

I thought it was intriguing that there’s not even a hint of the jam-band scene on the new volume. It’s not like it was all over the ’90s comps, but it was certainly there. I’d posit that’s a reflection both of a scene that’s largely evolved past being so jam-centric and maybe a bit of Hood’s curation.

DB: Weirdly, if I had one quibble with the comp, it would be that it’s too indie- and folk-centric and doesn’t include much in the way of the jam, jazz or hip-hop scenes. What was so cool about the original was the cross-pollination. You had an acid-jazz hip-hop band in Belizbeha covering alt-rockers the Pants. The Pants in turn covered Phish, who covered Rocketsled. And on and on. It was like a scene-wide musical key party.

I can attest that the OG comp turned me on to bands in the ’90s scene I might not have gotten into otherwise, because they either covered a song I liked or were covered by a band I dug. There’s obviously still meat on the bones of this idea, so perhaps Hood or someone else could keep it going and do more volumes — maybe actually get Smith’s blessing first this time, though?

But I’d love to see Doom Service‘s take on Twiddle, or Nico Suave & the Mothership doing rivan or 99 Neighbors. How about Zach Nugent covering the Dead Shakers? The possibilities are endless.

CF: Zach Nugent’s Deadset Shakers? That’s so wrong that it’s right. I call for Vol. 4 as well — if nothing else, just so you and I can dust off all our aging scenester cred again.

What I really, really love that Hood has done with this latest iteration of the series is make the album available to purchase on Bandcamp only until August 30. After that, it’s gone, and all these killer covers will disappear from the internet unless listeners have downloaded the record. All proceeds from the record go directly to the People’s Kitchen, a nonprofit community mutual aid project that provides free food to Vermonters in need, so it’s not like that’s some sales gimmick.

By setting up this record on which some of our finest Vermont musicians cover each other to become a collector’s item, Hood has injected the whole thing with some necessary fun and intrigue. I can see some rabid Lily Seabird fan in 10 years scouring the net to find Wild Leek River‘s cover of “Grace.”

This article appears in Aug 13-19, 2025.

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