Tour Diary: Waxahatchee and Modern Hut in Burlington, VT, 2/2/13

On Saturday afternoon we drove around Vermont surrounded by mountains covered in snowy trees, thinking about coffee. We accidentally listened to no music, but that's not really a problem when you're stuck in a car with Katie Crutchfield and Joe Steinhardt. Last year sister spoke at this series in New York called “Five Minute Punk Stories” where musicians and writers share quick, funny reflections on shows and bands and songs. That’s what hours spent in a car on tour with Waxahatchee and Modern Hut seem like so far. A 5-minute punk story for every city or band or song.

 
As explained in my tour preview in this week’s Phoenix, on Saturday morning I met up with Katie (a/k/a Waxahatchee) and Joe (a/k/a Modern Hut, a/k/a co-runs Don Giovanni Recs) to follow them around for a week. I took a 6:30am bus to Burlington, where I’d never been before.



We spent the day wandering around Burlington’s brick streets and shops (100% official report scribbled above), went to a diner for lunch and then a Goodwill to buy tapes. Later we were about to find a coffeeshop when the guy who runs Burlington Records said we were welcome to grab coffees and hang out on the second floor of his record store, we so we did that. When he overheard us talking about "being on tour", without question he asked, "Oh are you playing in town tonight? Are you Waxahatchee?" because small towns with only one show happening per night are cool.

Burlington Records sells used/old vinyl as well as new music by local bands only. Shane, who works at the shop, made this list of local music recommendations:



The show in Vermont was at a house called Wristwren’s, which I was told is “definitely not a UVM house” even though most people there seemed college-age. The bands set up in their blue living room, in front of tapestries and green plants. The crowd spilled into their kitchen, which was bright yellow with a big Bob Dylan poster on one wall and drying herbs hanging from the ceiling. It felt a lot like my house in Allston. There were several 12-packs of Longtrail floating around because this was Vermont.





One of the other bands also billed on this show was Hello Shark, who are from Vermont and played on my radio show once at WTBU, about five years ago. In the crowded kitchen between bands one member of that band recalled this time they were supposed to play in Birmingham with Katie's old band PS Eliot but the show fell through.

Modern Hut played before Waxahatchee. He played this one song that isn’t new, but was new to me, called “History”, which really stood out to me as one of his best. It goes: "They were writing their own history / nothing was left to mystery / everything was planned / it all felt like a scam."


Modern Hut


Katie playing in Burlington. Shout out to Graeme's Dad in the back of this pic.

Katie's set included songs from American Weekend and her new record, Cerulean Salt, out in March on Don Giovanni. Here's a video of Katie playing "Blue Pt. II" which is from the new album:



After the set, someone asked Katie to sign their copy of American Weekend. She wrote, "Fuck Work Music Rocks". The show ended pretty early, before midnight, and a lot of people were going to this karaoke bar called JP's. They asked us to join but we were all really tired. Katie's publicist Graeme is from Vermont so we stayed with his parents. Thanks so much to Graeme's parents for hosting us.

Next up >>> stories from the shows in Newmarket, NH and Boston.