By Bradley Towle
SCHOHARIE COUNTY — "There should be an organ part right there." The four members of The Red Wagon are in the studio laying the groundwork for a new six-track album. The songs are in various stages of development, with plenty of room for additional tracks. Saxophonist/vocalist Chris Scanlon suggests an organ part as the band listens to the playback of bassist/vocalist Dave Jenkins' original song "Under a Blood Red Moon." Guitarist Dan McBride is taking stabs at electric guitar parts for the song, which currently has no vocal track recorded, only an acoustic guitar playing the melody for reference. The temporary guitar substitute for vocals has Scanlon laughing, likening it to the "Muzak version," which gets a laugh from everyone. As McBride finishes his third take, everyone agrees it was his best and considers it done.
"Under a Blood Red Moon" is one of six "story songs" that will make up the impending album. Jenkins based the song on the story of the catastrophic South Fork dam failure that led to the 1889 Johnstown Flood and the greedy robber baron whose actions allowed it to happen. John Florussen's "The Mill" has local ties and tells the story of legendary Wright historian and farmer Chester Zimmer witnessing his grandfather's steam-powered mill burn down in the Spring of 1920—an event that occurred only a few miles from the band members' homes.
"The Zimmer song came about because of his interviews, which were screened at the Gallupville House," explains the songwriter, citing one of the many local historical events held in the nearby historic house (while not included in the song, the story has intriguing potential implications, as Zimmer is a founder of the Gallupville Fire Department). "Polly Hollow," another Florussen original, is the tale of an imagined murderer "considering his choices as he is marched off to be banished in Polly Hollow," the area just south of Middleburgh with a history of having been a depository for "Sloughters" and other social undesirables.
A local band of songwriters can mean songs with local inspirations, but the stories on The Red Wagon's album-in-process reach far beyond the borders of Schoharie County. Dan McBride's original tune, "Pescara," follows an Italian protagonist "led by fate to live in exile in Dubrovnik, Croatia," holding onto words of hope from his grandmother. "
‘Pescara' is entirely fictional, but the idea for the plot comes from the title of the piece of music it is based on," explains McBride. The song that inspired McBride is "Talijanska" (Croatian for "The Italian") from the film Time of the Gypsies, a tune that had stayed with him since viewing the film in the late 1980s. "I did a ton of research when I wrote it, and all the named places in the song are real—the churches, the Madonna statue in the harbor at Pescara." The song will include a guest appearance from musician Stavros Skyrianos, who plays several traditional Greek instruments, although exactly which instrument from his arsenal is yet to be determined. McBride jokes the band enlisted Skyrianos for the song to "Balkanize it."
Florussen notes that these songs beg to be recorded due to their heavy lyrical content. "They also happen to all be "story songs" that contain a lot of meaning. So they lend themselves to a proper recorded version so that the narrative can be appreciated," says Florusssen. "Each of these songs has been worked over in our rehearsals often, even to the point of being ready to perform them live. There have even been great versions of them created on stage. But in each case, there has been something keeping them from being truly complete or has kept us from being satisfied with them. Sometimes the vibe is just too elusive."
Despite their appreciation for the songs and presence in the band's live sets, they never quite made it on one of the band's previous albums, 2020's Back to the Valley and 2024's Castle Undersea. "This will be our third album in this lineup, and a couple of these tunes have been kicking around even longer than we have been together." For example, Jenkin's "Blood Red Moon" has gone through a few iterations and dates back to a previous band more than twenty years ago.
While The Red Wagon works on the as-yet-untitled album in their studio, fans of the band or curious newcomers can listen to the group's completed albums on streaming services like Bandcamp and Spotify (Bandcamp pays its artists a better share). The band will be playing live on January 25th at Wayward Lane Brewing in the tin shed from 4:00 pm- 7:00 pm.
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