By THERESA TAYLOR
Contributing Writer
Published September 20, 2011
In celebration of Larkfest’s thirtieth anniversary, the crowds poured in to the heart of the city for music, merriment, and food. Among the artists taking to the Washington Avenue Stage were Cody Beebe and The Crooks, Jason Spooner, and Diego Garcia. At the WEXT 97.7 tent, Katie Gorham was experiencing her first Larkfest as she went back and forth between manning the tent and making stage announcements.
Held on Saturday, Sept 17, WEXT sponsored the event and got all of the bands, both local and national acts, together. Also in the WEXT tent was radio personality Laura Glazer, who hosts Hello Pretty City, Sunday nights from 8-10.
The band also opened for Michael Franti in Sandpoint, Idaho, zig zagging across the country as the band spent this year focused on festivals. There has been exciting stuff happening for them, despite the almost constant zig zagging. Their most recent record, Sea Monster, is getting radio support over the past year. They play in Pittsfield and the Berkshires, and well as Barrington. Spooner called Albany a “great town’ that he’d like to come back to. A real crowd pleaser is Spooner’s cover of the 80’s Terrance Trent Darby hit, Wishing Well. Spooner stripped the song down to its roots when he went to record it in the studio, focusing on guitar, bass, drums, keys and horns, and taking away the trademark heavy production of the 80’s.
After Spooner, new father Diego Garcia came on stage for his first show in Albany, and he hopes to be coming back again, “many, many, many more times.” In fact, he and his significant
other, who live in the NYC with their newborn daughter, are looking to purchase a home in Albany. He felt that his set was a nice, warm homecoming as he promotes his new CD, Laura, a romance record about growing up. The former lead singer of the indie band Elefant has now embarked on a solo career, with successful airplay on NPR.
Backstage, Cody Beebe talked about his band making their first trip to “All-bunny,” not “AL-bunny,” as the local gas station corrected them. Stating it still was a blast, Beebe was excited to
be playing their first Larkfest. Their first album of blues and country infused rock and roll, Friends of the Old Mill, came out last year. The band has done two national tours in support of it. They are proud of having recorded it in Seattle’s London Bridge Studios, where it was mastered by Eddy Schreyer. Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Candlebox and Blind Melon are some of the bands who have recorded albums at London Bridge and are also bands that people associate Seattle with. WEXT has been playing the new Cody Beebe and the Crooks single, Waiting on You, for the past month.
The band is thankful for the opportunity to reach the masses through WEXT and Larkfest, as indie bands don’t have the backing of big dollar labels, and this is a great opportunity for hard working bands to have their music heard. They recorded half their album on analog tape, but mostly it was live in order to have an, “organic, real CD,” said Beebe. “It’s got a really vintage feel; it sounds like it’s from the seventies.” They wanted to release something with a lot of feeling and emotion, some of which was felt on Saturday when Beebe saw an old friend in the crowd from his Selah, Washington youth. He hadn’t seen this friend in years. This friend, who now lives north of Saratoga, taught him how to play a lot of his first songs.
“It’s been our busiest summer to date,” said artist Jason Spooner. “Starting in June when we opened for Mr. B.B. King down in North Carolina,” a career highlight for Spooner and the band. They have been playing lots of festivals all over the country, including the 10th anniversary Floyd Fest in Virginia, the Targhee Fest in Jackson Hole, and the River City Roots festival in Missoula, Montana. Spooner called the River City Roots festival one of the most beautiful festival settings he had ever seen.
