Mountain Show #18 (curated by Decoder)
On April 18th, Decoder (as represented by Liz and I) and several dozen others folks from in and around New York hiked up, down, and alongside Mt. Taurus in Cold Spring, a beautiful and relatively well-to-do seeming little town on the Hudson River. While many of the attendants arrived via the Hudson Line from Grand Central Station in New York City, we took a leisurely drive hoping to take in more of the transition to upstate New York, which until then neither of us had ever experienced. The reason we both knew Mt. Taurus beforehand is Dan Goldberg, aka The Spookfish. Since 2012, he’s organized a regular series of so-called “Mountain Shows” in the area, and even taken them on the road. On one occasion in particular, he brought himself and a pair of other musicians (Brown Bread and Train Trash) to play a show underneath a bridge in Canaan Valley, a couple hours south of our HQ in West Virginia. An essay by Molly Long was adapted recently at Impose Magazine, and for now is the definitive statement about the ethos and experience that characterize the events. Personally though, I’ve known Dan since college. He was working in South Korea while my dad was living there for a job working with special needs children… it was also around the same time my future wife Liz and I met.
Dan left South Korea not too long after we exchanged our first emails, and began organizing Mountain Shows shortly after that. At the time they felt like an outgrowth of the smaller, outdoor performances we’d seen him orchestrate in Soeul, though the experience of urban density in New York and Soeul is barely comparable; in the latter case, I remember seeing beautiful pictures from a handful of rooftop shows. Perhaps conditioned to some extent by the hurdles of navigating and attempting to record and perform in a new country, the practice Dan brings to New York adds its own kind of rigor to the experience of performance. Namely, transporting a crowd that would be well at home in a basement venue, bar, or any number of scenarios in New York, to a mountain. Juxtaposing the gamut of public routines in the live context with hours of hiking, nature, and the performances themselves, which take place in a whole range of picaresque ruins situated around Mt. Taurus. The most incredible part of these shows, is how Dan translates his responsibilities as a “host.” To say he behaves “warmly” in that role, as Long says in her essay, definitely begins to cover it. Each event conflates a huge a range of people and music who, by virtue of the effort undertaken, can presume some substantive common ground.
We committed to help “curate” a NY Mountain Show earlier this year when it became clear that the world would probably survive another winter and though the original opening act we scheduled to have perform — experimental composer / vocal recorder Max Alper – had to cancel, the final bill was representative of both the series and Decoder itself. Dan opened the afternoon with a Spookfish set just a few minutes below the rounded top of the mountain, on a hillside separated from us and the other onlookers by a small stream. Though we initially hoped to force Dan into being on that side of the stream with us, he seems to invariably spend his hike loaded down with a guitar, two microcube amps, and various other smaller pieces of equipment all crammed into just a couple packs.
After having lunch at the summit, and sampling the traditional Mountain Show hot peppers (news to us), we wound our way down to the first stop in a trio of ruins: an abandoned “farmhouse.” Simple, low concrete blocks essentially, made pleasant by age and the forks of an even bigger stream nearby. It was incredibly cooling after a hot, sunny hike. You can see in the pictures below, Drew Gibson did his transcendental noise set as Katrina Stonehart in one of its few intact compartments, squeezing a not much diminished crowd around him while a few watched from outside through a small window overlooking the room.
Following the stream farther down the mountain, most of the group managed to squeeze onto the lip of an aging well. I know from Dan and pictures of other Mountain Shows that they call this the “frog well.” Though we only spotted one fully grown frog at the time, huge clots of little eggs made it clear the name was appropriate. Fossil — the duo of Cam Curran and Phil Tortoroli (aka James Place) of New York imprint Styles Upon Styles — played the show’s third set, adding a meditative electronic dimension to a line-up otherwise dominated by guitars.
The show closed with a set from North Carolina guitarist and folk recorder Sarah Henson, who records as Sarah Louise. We were introduced to her work this February by her wonderful Field Guide cassette for Scissor Tail Editions, which is sadly sold out (but hopefully not forevermore). She played one of the show’s longer sets in one of its more spectacular venues: the “Cornish Mansion,” the remains of a burned out estate with three chimneys still towering above it. For her set, Sarah drew on old and new works, including several pieces from Field Guide as well as renditions of traditional Appalachian hymns. Other hikers streamed down from the trail to hear her play while the sun began to set. In fact, many of the folks we hiked off the mountain with weren’t there at the outset. Watching strangers react to several dozen young folks from you-know-where was certainly a highlight, but primarily because most seemed to love the surprise.
Thanks to Dan for organizing these and giving us the unparalleled opportunity to share in the experience. Follow Dan’s Mountain Shows on Facebook and Tumblr, and look for us to replicate this whole rigmarole with more Mountain Shows in both NY and WV.
[Photo by Ryan Verissimo]
[Photo by Liz Pavlovic]
[Photo by Gregory Paul]
[Photo by Dwight Pavlovic]
[Photo by Gregory Paul]
[Photo by Liz Pavlovic]
[Photo by Ryan Verissimo]
[Photo by Matt Gajewski]
[Photo by Dwight Pavlovic]
[Photo by Ryan Verissimo]
[Photo by Ryan Verissimo]
