David Wimbish: Life, Death, Fundraising, & Festivals

At the 2012 Wild Goose, for an afternoon set at a tent tucked away on the backwoods of the festival site, a young North Carolina band blew minds and won fans. More than just a band, more like a multicolored movement of sonic jubilee, David Wimbish and the Collection carry the celebratory consciousness, lyrical significance, and live energy that have made bands like Mumford & Sons or Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros the darlings of the current folk-pop moment.

In August 2013, the Collection will open this year’s festival on the main stage with a Thursday night-set sure to thrill us. Then, they will support Phil Madeira’s Friday night set. In the meantime, the Collection are furiously raising funds on Kickstarter for their next album, a surprisingly hopeful take on death called Ares Moriendi. I recently caught up with David Wimbish and convinced him to take a break from writing, recording, fundraising, and preparing for Wild Goose to answer a few questions.

Q. What is special about playing a festival? What makes WGF special among special?

A. Festivals are places people are willing to get dirty, stinky, messy, and crazy together to a degree they normally wouldn’t otherwise—just for the sake of connection, whether it be a connection through music, spirituality, art, or just fun. Everyone is out of their element at the same time, which makes everyone in the same element—the element of each other. So playing festivals lets people focus solely on connecting with each other; we get to talk and hang and laugh and have fun with people in a way, without the normal distractions a city or jobs or phones have. Wild Goose Festival especially is a ton of fun because there are people searching and listening, a very diverse culture and very diverse belief systems. Last year’s Wild Goose was one of the best musical and relational experiences we’ve ever had as a band, and it’s really a gift to get to be here again this year.

Q. Why do we need to get there early for the opening set of WGF 2013?

A. We’ve got some fun surprises for this year. No spoilers yet, but the fest is about community, about connecting, about new and old ideas coming together, about seeking and experiencing, and we want to kick of the festival doing just that. Our band always has at least a few people rotating in and out; I think every show there’s at least one new person playing with us, and it gives us a new energy to see the dynamics change in this. This year will be some new faces, some new instruments, and new energy.

Q. What will be the mix in the set from your first album, your second album, your forthcoming album?

A. We’re at that awkward stage where we know it’ll still be a bit till the new album is out, yet, we want to share the songs. I’m sure there’ll be a couple of new ones, whichever ones we’re feeling the most, but we’ll be playing a lot of our favorites from previous releases. We’ve been pumped to be playing “Lazarus” a lot lately, so I’m sure you’ll at least hear that. We like to play things loosely until close to a show, so that we can feel the vibe from the folks there and do a set that feels right for the environment and band family. The way sets usually come together is a bit like a puzzle. I go to the closet, we look and pull them out together beforehand and say “I want to do this one, I like this picture”. We spread out all the pieces on the table, and we get little sections of it together, we start to see what it’ll look like, and then, after awhile of moving things around, we put it completely together for others to see as a picture. So we have elements together, songs and special things we definitely we definitely have planned for wild goose, now it’s a matter of finding the in between pieces and making it look like a picture. That being said, sometimes the pieces you think go in a certain spot were wrong, and you switch them out for others. So, don’t want to give away too many spoilers, but we’ll play some new, and some old, and have some good celebration shoes. Bring your dancin’ shoes!

Q. Everyone has a Kickstarter anymore—why should we support yours?

A. Kickstarter, unfortunately, has seen quite a bit of abuse in the last year, from super rich actors using it to raise money for a film, to someone’s younger brother trying to raise 10000 for new socks. When I FIRST heard of Kickstarter, I was excited, because it basically runs the way our band runs. Instead of charging set rates for albums and concerts, we like to let folks experience the music and then decide if they want to give or not, and how much they want or can give. Kickstarter, in some ways, does this in a little backwards way: it allows people to say “Hey, I support this, and I’ll be a part of it happening. I’ll be a part of this startup, or album, or project, whatever.”

Specifically with ours, we have our good friend Luke creating a documentary of the album process. Luke is an incredible filmmaker, and seeing that documentary happen just to see Luke’s work I think would be worth it. On top of that, with the money, we want to get big string and brass ensembles, a big group of extra musicians with crazy instruments, record in incredible sounding locations across the south, and get the thing professionally mastered and publicized, all to hopefully get to people the best musical and visual experience possible. Without reaching our Kickstarter goal, most of those things won’t be able to happen with the new album. We also have tons of gifts for donations that are a lot of fun, including a lot of original artwork and things for ya!

Q. Explain the concepts behind the new album. What’s with the facepaint? Are you in part by the Mexican Day of the Dead tradition? Is that the vibe you are going for? Why?

A. I’ve been writing some of these songs for a few years, and started seeing themes of death in them; death to myself, death of beliefs or habits, and actual physical death. My good friend killed himself a few months ago: it was so random and crazy, and several people in the band knew him. I realized, when it happened, I’ve never worked through or questioned death that much. It’s felt far away, and this time it slammed me in the face.

So what happens afterwards? I hope it’s resurrection, in the physical and spiritual sense. At least in life, when I die to myself or things that have previously been myself, I resurrect into something new. But the crazy thing is, it’s a mystery. Every religion thinks it knows; everyone has experiences they think makes them sure, but none of us know what happens. We live with it hanging over our heads, this great mystery. Mystery is so beautiful though! But really, I needed a place to work through my friends suicide, and my grandpa dying of a brain tumor, and these songs starting coming.

And I realized, though all cultures have a time of mourning, the American culture seems to be one of the biggest ones that stops at mourning. So I was finding out more about the Mexican holiday, the Day of the Dead. There’s something beautiful about celebrating the deceased’s life instead of just mourning. They paint these Skulls, and it’s awesome, it takes something that we normally think of as morbid and sad, and it makes it beautiful again.

I need that to happen with my grandpa. I need that to happen with my friend. I need that to happen for myself! So, that’s what’s with the Sugar Skull facepaint, and what you’ll see with the art and themes that will be coming up in the new album, trying to take dead things and figure out what it means for them to be alive again. Hopefully, we can connect through death, and bring each other to life!

The paint is inspired by the Day of the Dead tradition. It is similar to the paint that is on the sugar skulls for the tradition and really represents both a recognition of death and a celebration of life and redemption at the same time. We want to communicate both those things simultaneously instead of separately as our culture normally does.

Interview by Andrew William Smith, Editor
Check out: http://thecollection.bandcamp.com/
&
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/852687167/ars-moriendi-the-collections-new-album-and-documen

 

Bonnaroo: Adventure in Our Own Backyard

Click here to hear the playlist: http://snack.to/atisr3ij

It’s past time to plan and almost time to roll from the annual axis of anxiety and anticipation, past preparation and into celebration. It’s the sensational and sweaty secular summer holiday of the midsouth. It’s the perennial June jubilee known as the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Manchester, Tennessee.

Featuring a tantalizing top bill of Tom Petty, Mumford & Sons, and Paul McCartney, Bonnaroo doesn’t stop with big gigs, as those with the most name-recognition are matched by the mass diversity of talent down the poster from there. Each spring, curious and determined fans can study the schedule and its array of stages to discover nuggets they didn’t expect and new acts that could change their listening experiences for the better and forever.

The linked playlist contains all my favorites from the upcoming festival, from people I have been excited about seeing since the lineup dropped, from artists who are rock-solid pop pillars to those recently-discovered rising thrillers. The songs coincide with the chronology of the weekend, synced to a hypothetical itinerary, granted that no fan could see this many shows easily and that some must-see sets are inevitably booked against other must-see sets. After a brief intro from me, tap the buttons to play and kick back with two hours about an upcoming adventure in our own backyard. –Andrew William Smith, Editor

[Photo of Jim James from the Nashville show at the Cannery Ballroom. Post originally shared at teacherontheradio.blogspot.com]

Click here to hear the playlist: http://snack.to/atisr3ij

Temporary City of Fun: First Rooflection of 2011

The steamy summer heat hits central Tennessee early each year. As the temperature rises to a regional hot-flash, people pack their bags. Some head even further south; others shuttle East; the smart ones trek north. But the best vacation for the rock n roll fan requires a little jaunt across a couple county lines.

The media buzz for the tenth annual Bonnaroo’s been building for months, but this year, the fanboy’s Christmas in June just kind of snuck up on me.

Even though this will be my sixth consecutive year volunteering creativity and time in exchange for my wristband, it requires a certain confidence in a higher power to conjure the carefree courage to suffer the punishing sunlight and celebrate the musical delight. Working at the Academy in Planet Roo anchors my Bonnaroo experience by providing a focus and a sense of service, with our diverse offering of gardening and arts classes. But during the hours when I’m not staffing the tent or supporting our staff, if I am not sleeping or eating, I am off exploring the festival grounds and catching as many concerts as I can manage.

The temporary city as cultural carnival—constructed in tents and motorhomes and countless other improvisations of functional art as life—defies logic and requires logistics of a heroic level. Back in 06 and 07, I needed the medical tent more than I want to admit, and in sheer amazement and need, I witnessed a team and facilities of stunning compassion, resources, and efficiency. All the Woodstock slurs and hippy stereotypes and permitted debaucheries asides, running this festival is a serious business, and the ‘roo producers possess a deep ethical and humanitarian ethos to provide such an excellent backend of support.

Planning and packing are a project in themselves, but the annual joyful anticipation comes from really studying the schedule and imagining what shows I might get to see. Making a playlist that progresses through the schedule helps plot my weekend and hones my longing, knowing of course that I will inevitably miss a show I wanted to see or stumble across something new that takes my breath away.

This year, I waited until a few days before to really ponder the offerings and the order in which they’re scheduled to unfold.  Along with looking at the extended weather forecast, learning the schedule is a fan’s perfect pre-Roo pastime. Entire online discussion communities exist just to talk about this festival. My first few years, I lived on these boards for weeks, trying to grasp what awaited me.

Just to remind myself that I am a new and better person than the one who started coming to this festival in 2006, an added aspect of my more recent Bonnaroo experience comes from the clean and sober community that hosts a table and meets as a fellowship for sharing in meetings twice each day, always gathering near the yellow balloons near the Sonic Café where we might see stickers such as “One Show At A Time.”

Landing onsite on June 8^th for the last pre-day before the 2011 festival kicks off today,  I was amazed and grateful for how well-organized the intake and setup proceedings have become, stretching our human potential to construct a harmonious four-day music and arts society from the chaos that remains part of the larger reality inside and outside our warm, dusty, temporary zone of fandom and fun. –Andrew William Smith, Editor

 

Coachella 2011 Lineup: Commence Your Snarking

During the frigid, moribund Winter months – when the concert touring season is tightly shuttered, amplifiers and confetti machines tucked snugly in their warehouses – the average live music fan has little to cling to for emotional support.
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