Maya & Rory of The Champlain Shoregasm & Lily's Pad

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Becca Hammond: What’s New 802? I’m Becca Hammond and you’re listening to Vermont Talks. Vermont Talks may include graphic or explicit content. Listener discretion is advised. Welcome to Vermont Talks. It is the 23rd of January and I’m here today with Maya and Rory of the Champlain Shorgasm at Lilly’s Pad. Thank you so much for having me here today. Maya and Rory run Lilly’s Pad, the DIY listening and sharing space in the new North End of Burlington, Vermont.

That’s correct. I love the sharing space and I love the fact that it’s not all just musicians. There’s a lot of poetry. There’s a lot of interesting people. Let’s talk about Lilly’s Pad and your dream and how you’ve been bringing this all together because it’s already been a year. Yeah, it has.

Maya: We just celebrated our one year anniversary, which you were at and recorded some recordings, which is awesome.

Becca Hammond: Yes. And today we’re going to have I’m going to have sprinkled in sound bites from December 4th of last year at the year anniversary show. So heads up if I haven’t already played some of them. At this point in the show, you’re going to be hearing some sound bites.

David Shine: Okay, I’m David Shine. I am a Burlingtonian who grew up here and left for many years. And I’m a writer and I write songs and I do theater. And the Lilly Pad here, Rory and Maya’s little club in their basement is for me, the kind of place where I have been so many times in so many places and cities in my life where people just show their work, they show their art, and there’s no pressure.

You can mess up, you’re safe. People listen. They’re not talking, they’re not drinking, especially for songwriters lately. Burlington has become a really good place.

Maya and Rory here and the Venetian Soda Lounge open mics, a lot of us here met there. And that’s the most, for me, the essential place where art begins. It can be like little sixth graders showing, telling a story to their folks or showing off. And eventually stuff that starts in places like this, and I’ve seen this all my life in Berkeley and Chicago and New York and even in Africa where I worked with street kids, that’s where art starts. And it can go to Hollywood.

It can go really far or it can stay in the neighborhood. And what Maya and Rory have in Lillipad in their little basement club have created an incubator for that. So these places are valuable.

They’re probably happening everywhere in the world. Some little village, somebody’s saying, like, show your stuff, show your paintings, show something. So this is an essential community resource here in the New North End. But there are people doing this all over the world and this is where art starts.

Montreal Paul: Well, I got involved with Lillipad through the Champlain Shore Gasm. That’s Rory and Maya. And I met them at Venetian Soda Lounge last year. And I don’t remember all the discussions that led up to this.

But anyway, I remember coming down to help them test out the equipment the day before the first actual gathering. And it’s amazing that it’s been a year already because it’s just been, I’ve just enjoyed it so much. Getting to share songs here in this kind of informal atmosphere with other people. And also sometimes, not every time, but sometimes doing these wicked jams at the end. Maybe you’ll get to hear one this time.

Jay: I mean, the general vibes of just everyone here, the nonjudgmental kind of air that they have here is really amazing. And I hope that someday, soon, I get the proverbial balls, rather than the little literal ones, it’s gonna take a while, to actually play here and learn that performing music and playing music isn’t necessarily about what people think but having fun. And this is exactly the place to do that.

Fisher: When I was younger, I used to play music live a lot. And it became a second nature in a way where I stopped thinking about it. But when I got older, I had to put it away. And for about eight years, I didn’t perform, I didn’t really practice out. I still played music privately, but I didn’t play out, I didn’t go to open mics or anything like that for about eight years. And then once COVID hit, that made things a little bit worse.

And I really couldn’t do anything at all, really. So once 2023 December came around, it started to become a little bit easier to go out and do things. I went out and I met Maya and Rory at another open mic. And they were very kind enough to invite me to Lillipad personally. And so I showed up at the very next one, not really sure what to expect.

But it was a perfect thing. It was exactly what I needed to start to overcome my fear of my like regained stage fright. And that was really important to me because now, over this last year, I’ve played, you know, approximately two shows a month since I met them. It was really the boost I needed. And I’m really thankful to them for that.

And I’m really thankful for the space and the people who show up to these things and take the time to listen. And it’s really important because it’s how our culture is formed. It’s how our culture stays alive.

It’s how the cookie crumbles. So yeah, well, thanks so much, Rory and Maya. Thanks to Lillipad and keep on rocking in the free world. So a whole year of Lillipad.

Maya: Yeah, it’s kind of amazing. I mean, it’s, I don’t have to say like Rory always says that, you know, I use kind of my brain child and stuff like that. But like, I have to say like, when we were setting it up, because when we set it up in three weeks, is that we didn’t like that that first year, like I was really kind of doubting that we would get it done and that it would last.

I’m just that type of person I doubt myself. But like, I was so amazed like when we hit that year mark and I was in Florida, unfortunately, for the year anniversary, but I got to watch it because Rory set up a camera and it was like just amazing to me to see that we’re still here after a year and people still love it. And you know, it’s, it’s definitely like, I can feel the community that we’ve built. I can feel the friends we’ve made and friends they’ve made from coming to Lillipad. It’s pretty awesome.

Becca Hammond: It’s a special community. Like the vibe is very inclusive and wholesome feeling. It’s very sweet.

Rory: Well, as an example of how much of a community has developed when I was shorthanded with Maya away, putting on the evening. As people walked in some of the regulars, they just started setting things up and hooking up the PA system and helping out. You know, it wasn’t like they came in, sat down and chatted and just forgot. I mean, they were here to be, to make this thing take off for the evening.

Becca Hammond: Right. It’s a joint effort. It wasn’t just, we’re here to watch you do something. Yeah.

Maya: And I think you mentioned, you know, that the whole thing about being a community safe space, that’s always been really important to us. You know, for a couple of reasons. I mean, one, you know, I love the open mics we have around town. So we have some at Venetian, at Despositos.

There’s a great one at, I forget the name of the place in Essex, the Nest, at the Nest in Essex. But what, you know, what I was kind of seeing too is like, well, what about people who aren’t even there yet? And they’re just really nervous about going up on a stage in general or doing it in front of people, you know, a large kind of room where they don’t know people. So, you know, not only did I want Lily’s pad to be welcomed for like LGBT folks and, you know, all kind of, you know, people from different kind of lifestyles and backgrounds. But I also wanted to be for people who maybe want to pry their hand at doing art and music, spoken, you know, spoken word music, any kind of, you know, I call it audio art, like sonic art. Like, but for those people who just weren’t there yet, maybe they would feel more comfortable just sitting on a couch singing something. You know, so Lily’s pad, you know, we really want people to come in and really don’t feel pressured to do anything.

If you just have a snippet of something, do that. Like, but there’s no pressure to perform when you come here. Even if you put your name on the list, you could just erase it if you don’t feel like it, you know, and it’s been, it’s such a supportive community, you know, and it’s, yeah, it’s just great. I’m like glad that people feel comfortable enough to come in and kind of share their new stuff.

Rory: And you kind of brought the idea from your experiences in Jim’s basement, did you know?

Maya: Not so much, well, Jim’s basement, yeah. I mean, if any of you know Jim’s basement, it was a punk club in town, literally run out of the sky, Jim’s basement.

Really cool joint. But the idea for Lily’s pad actually came, I had been participating in a gathering called the Tune In Gathering, which was a women’s music collective. Their purpose was to try and make clubs not only more inclusive for female performers, but also get them to hire us more, make sure they were safe spaces. And as part of that, one of the things they would do is a basement show every now and again.

So we would just go there and we would all play a couple of songs, you know, a lesson open, more like a performance sort of thing. But I really loved it. We just sat down in the basement, listened to music, drank tea, hung out on the couches with blankets, and like, to me, I’m like, that’s great. It’s intimate, it’s connected. And so when Rory bought this house in the North End, when I went down to the basement, I know exactly what we need to do down here.

So it really comes from that. And then also, I’m a child of the 80s, a lot of DIY music, a lot of garage bands, a lot of house shows and things like that we did back then. So for me, it’s a little bit nostalgic, but it also reminds me of how I grew up in Northern Jersey.

There was really nothing there, right? So our little band of punk rockers and alternative because we were really kind of close knit. And those spaces always felt like safe spaces, even though I was like an awkward kid, like, you know, it’s like, I still understood that nobody there was really judging me, you know, and that’s what I want to people to understand with the Lillies Pad. You can come and do nothing at Lillies Pad, but watch, come for the food.

Becca Hammond: We have- I’ve done it twice now. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Maya: But that’s okay. That’s okay, right? Like, it’s a community thing. We want the space. Yes, it’s about sharing sonic art. But part of that is people just coming to appreciate, right? Part of that is maybe somebody’s feeling a little lonely in the wintertime or a little down in the winter, they just need some community, come out to Lillies Pad and just hang out, have some food, listen to the music, maybe meet some new people. You know, there’s no need, especially right now, I think we all need community, you know, and that’s what the main- really the main focus of Lillies Pad is that interconnectedness and that community building.

Rory: And part of what the reason that in my mind is built around music is there is a phrase that I came across a few years ago where words fail, music speaks. And so it’s not just about coming in and sharing our woes, it’s celebrating through making music. And for me, that’s- It passes my mouth, it comes from my heart, out through into my instrument. I know that sounds kind of- but I feel that, I believe that, I really believe that. And I think we’ve had a few special moments here where the whole group has gotten into that frame of mind. And those are special, that makes it all worthwhile.

Maya: Yeah, we have this really great, if you go to the Lillies Pad website, which is lilliespadvt.com, we’ve got one video in there. I’m very lazy with the website, I’ll admit it, because our focus on the website is usually Champlain Chargazm. But if you go to the Lillies Pad website, we actually have a video up there, we did a jam once. And some girl came from Hardwick, right? Hardwick, right? And she brought a digi-ry-do. And I mean- Yeah, I

Maya: think I watched, but that was really cool. Yeah, it’s wild. And you know, so the digi-ry-do, if you don’t know, it’s an Australian instrument, an aborigine instrument. It’s just got wild, wild sound.

So she started playing this, and we just all started jamming. And I’m what’s called a collective consciousness freak. So I really believe in the interconnectedness of all beings, more specifically to me, because I am a human being, interconnected with human beings. And that moment, the thing with interconnectedness of consciousness, you can be in a room and having a conversation like we’re having now.

And if you’re flowing enough and you’re sinking enough, what happens is you create like an entity in the middle of the room that’s more than the people having the conversation, right? And that’s me, that’s my jam. I want to do that.

And I want people to feel that when they leave, right? To feel that thing in the middle of the room. That night with the digi-ry-do is one of those moments. I mean, she was playing that thing, we all just started joining in. A lot of us had our eyes closed, and we were just doing whatever. And if you watch that video, that to me, that video, the reason I wanted it up there, it’s like the only video is because for me, that really, that video accurately expresses what I want to do with Lily’s Pat, all I want to do.

I don’t care if we’re playing music, playing games, watching a movie, whatever we do down there. I want it to be about making that community that collective consciousness sort of thing. That’s really, really cool. I’m right there with you with the collective consciousness what Rory said about that feeling. It transcends anything you can say. There’s something you can’t say, but you can still express it with music, right? I love this conversation. I feel like I’ve talked about the vibe at concerts. That’s a thing that people like…

Maya: It’s so hard to put into words, but that feeling of the crowd as an entity. Everybody’s experiencing that moment at the same time. While we might all color the moment, we all experience it differently, we’re all there together.

Especially now, one of the… I feel the dangers of social media, and we didn’t have social media when I was a kid, but I am a very technologically forward person. I’m for technology, but the thing is we’re not connected anymore. We don’t know how to do it anymore. Even when we were going to open mics, it’s all like the performer goes on stage, they perform for an audience, you come off stage, people go home. Right?

Maya: Right, that separation. Yeah, there’s a separation. We’ve had this no separation. Can you use people’s names on here?

Becca Hammond: Yeah, I think so as long as the people are okay with it.

Maya: I think he would be. David Shine is one of the locals that comes all the time. I think it’s his… The songs he did, he collects them together. I think it’s called Tales of Burlington or something like that.

Becca Hammond: David was at the anniversary. David, when he comes here, he comes to Lily’s pad, he doesn’t go on stage. He whips out his ukulele and he plays right in the middle of the crowd. You don’t get that at open mics. We need that. Music is primal. It’s our way of really deeply connecting with each other as human beings on a base level. Lily’s pad is small to the point that you just stick in that circle, sit on the couches on the floors, and we just play music. Right? You can go on stage if you want to, but you don’t need to. But that interconnectedness, we need that so bad right now, especially in western culture.

We’ve really lost our way when it comes to connecting to each other. If Lily’s pad can kind of help a little bit with that, that makes me so happy. Yeah, that’s a beautiful dream. I agree with you. We were talking a little bit before about social media and the downfalls of it. But the odd thing about it is that we all go to social media for connection. We go to it in search of human connection, and then we’re fed something, some narrative, something that’s not your friend’s post, the things

Maya: that you actually want to see. Something like an algorithm is serving you up because they think that the algorithm at computer think that’s what you want. It’s not connection. Now, I get it. I mean, there are people that for social media, it’s really important to them, people that don’t have the ability to go outside, or maybe they have a social anxiety, and there’s no other way for them to connect to other human beings than to use a chat room or social media or whatever.

I get that. It can be a very useful tool for that. But as a whole for society, I don’t feel that it’s really done much good for us. I’m not talking about the sharing of news on the internet. I think that global society, we now know what’s going on over in China, or Australia, or Asia, or whatever. We now have access to information. It’s a very good thing. But social media as a whole, it just has not, for me, it doesn’t really connect us, I feel.

Becca Hammond: Right. Well, that’s it. It’s not the intention. I feel it’s starting.

Maya: It’s there to sell you things, social media. It’s there to sell you because I was, I think I was probably 10 when I made my first MySpace account, which is kind of cringey to think about that I was 10-year-old on MySpace.

Becca Hammond: But it was all my friends. That’s all it was. It was just my friends.

Maya: People you actually knew. Brands. There was no brands on MySpace. I didn’t know any. You didn’t get this influx of info that was just crap that you didn’t need, and you didn’t care about. It was just my friends, my friends from my high school, my middle school, whatever it was. It was just people I actually knew. And that’s the intention. We all go there like, yeah, I want to see my friends stuff. And then it turns into this nightmare. Right.

Maya: Yeah. And you know, it’s like, so Lily’s pad is like, it’s like MySpace. It’s like, come here, we don’t have any ads. We’re not going to YouTube you in 30 seconds into somebody’s song. We’re going to go like, and now they’re seeing all like, and it’s just, MySpace is a great example because one of the things that I loved about MySpace, and I actually programmed websites for profiles, but one of the things I really loved about MySpace is that it was very music oriented. You got to post your own music that you like.

You got to share what you’re like. And I know you can do that now, but it was more, it wasn’t long lines of like, check this out. Let’s get some let’s get some view. Let’s get some follows. Let’s get some streams. It’s not what it’s about. It’s me, me. MySpace.

Maya: It’s MySpace. Right. And that’s like, I want to, you know, when people come to Lee’s pad, I want it to be like that, like you’re going to share a song. Maybe it’s your song.

Maybe it’s not. I don’t care if it’s cover or not. And sometimes, you know, they have that rule in other open mics where you can’t do covers. You got to be original. I don’t care. I want to hear what makes you, your heart sing. You know, it’s like, even if you like come up and read poetry, I don’t care if you want to sing along, I don’t care. If you just want to share a couple of words, I don’t care. Like, it’s about you sharing yourself.

Becca Hammond: Right. With people right around you.

Maya: Right. That small community that’s not judging you. And, you know, we’re also, you know, safe space in that we’re substance free. We’re all ages. You know, it’s like, you know, I want people coming in here and feeling like, okay, maybe you’re recovering from, you’re recovering alcoholic or you’re, you know, you’re struggling with drug addiction. You come to Loli’s pod, you don’t have to look at any of that stuff. Right. You know, and relax and be, and be connected and share what makes you you.

Becca Hammond: Yeah. I’ve always found it a little sad the way we have associated music, because music is like all cultures have music. Music is so important. In America, I can kind of shoved musicians into bars. And that seems so hard that it’s almost a rarity for young kids to have any sort of concept except for music in the park. And that’s not, that’s one tiny subject, which is great. I’m not talking like, that’s not a bad thing. That’s a wonderful thing.

But it’s this tiny subject. They only get to hear like, big band music and they love it. The kids love it, but it’s not, they can’t hear it on the radio. It’s not cool. Like, and that’s that barrier. It’s like, you just can’t get children in front of musicians easily. And then the events they throw, they’re like 60 bucks a ticket. Yeah.

Like I was very upset with Tumbledown, because that kind of been so beautiful. But they were dumping kids juice boxes. Really? Oh, yeah.

Like it’s a two year old. They’re going to be here. How long and there’s a hundred inside, a hundred person line for the water. But you can go pay 10 bucks for a drink somewhere. Like it just, the consumer capitalism stomped all over it to the point where it’s not accessible to 90% of kids.

Maya: Safe spaces.

Maya: The thing is, the thing is too, we don’t need to do it like that to do music, right? Like we don’t need that. Like, you know, we have a potluck here at Lisbeth. You bring stuff to eat and drink. Like we’ve had teenagers here. We had a little infant, like a newborn come here. And it’s like, you know, it’s like, we can’t control what an artist is going to say. That’s why I tell everybody, we can bring your kids.

I’m not going to tell somebody not to swear. It’s about expressing yourself through art. And sometimes art gets a little bumpy, right? Like, but the thing is, kids are welcome here as long as the parents are okay with that.

You know, and it’s like, and for the most part, it’s pretty clean. I mean, it’s like, you know, you know, I think we have, you know, we have a spoken word arts that comes here and her stuff can be a little bit, you know, I don’t even say harsh, it’s intense is what it is. But this is her experience, right? You know, and this is what she needs to share. And like, you know, I think kids need to see that too. You know, you know, especially I think it’s really important to you for young girls to see strong women doing art, you know, and speaking about things that are intense, that happen to women, you know, like, you know, yeah, we just, you know, everybody’s welcome really, you know, right?

Becca Hammond: Even just spoken word, like, that’s such a beautiful thing when I was younger back when I was in high school. And we all had these beautiful images of like, I think of the poets in the 60s and the 50s, we had these like iconic images of what poetry was. And nowhere in Vermont did anything. It was like the Champlain College Young Writers thing. They had a, I forgot what it’s called exactly, I think they call it a conference, which was fantastic. But it was like this tiny subset of the year three days out of the year. And also very weird environment. It wasn’t like a natural environment for teenagers. There’s just nowhere, there was nowhere to go to experience it, to learn what it was about.

Maya: I really like that you guys are doing the spoken word. I mean, you know, spoken words, it’s not, it’s not a favorite of mine spoken word, but I realized that it’s a very powerful medium, you know, and that’s a shame that they didn’t really have that here, you know, because

Becca Hammond: like, say, we just, we were so such a small community where if you can’t make money off it, the venue can’t stay open. And no one’s paying money.

Maya: Which is hysterical too, because the whole thing is like paying, like they don’t pay musicians either. Right.

Becca Hammond: Exactly. Well, they use them to

Maya: bring in to bring in to put alcohol. To put to the bar. Yeah. Like, and it’s, you know, it’s like, so, you know, we charge $10 a ticket for four bands.

That’s, to me, that’s ridiculous. I mean, I was a frequenter of Maxwell’s in Hoboken in New Jersey when I was in high school. And like, Maxwell’s charged $15, you’re talking 1989 to see three bands. And now it’s gone down. Right. Right. Like it’s so.

Becca Hammond: When the dollar is worth how much that’s like the infusion.

Maya: Yeah. But it’s kind of like the whole thing. It’s like, you know, we’re going to perform for free. Let’s do it in community. Right. Let’s do it in Lily’s pad. Let’s share with each other.

We’re going to make no money doing it. Might as well. Right. Like, and yeah, the whole thing of like, you know, it’s like about chasing streams and, you know, chasing likes and like, fuck that noise. Fuck that. I mean, my pledge with my pledge for the Champlain Chargazin this year, like, and we’re going to talk about Lily’s pad, but also Lily’s pad too is like, if you know it, you know it, but I’m not going to sit there and play the social media game and the algorithm game because it’s not worth it to me. You know, it’s time out of what I could be building community while I’m doing that. Right.

Becca Hammond: Right. And it’s stacked against you. We don’t live in the same world where Bo-Yo got famous because the world is stacked against you.

Maya: Right. You know, I think for an artist to have to sit there and post five, six times a day, minimum, just to have the algorithm put them on a front page that can be seen for a second, is just not, to me, not worth it. And it’s kind of, it’s destroying art.

Maya: Oh, yeah. Yeah. It’s making art about being, beating the algorithm and not about, you know, doing what you want to do and connecting to community and like, I’m sorry, like Spotify. I’m just like, yeah. No.

Becca Hammond: Well, that’s the thing is they’re like, their entire business is a middleman between the musician and the listener. Like you guys shouldn’t exist.

Maya: Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. They’re another ticket master is what they are. Exactly.

Becca Hammond: That’s exactly what they are. Oh man. Ah, ticket master. That’s the worst flavor in my mouth when I say that.

Phil and Tristan: Hey, I had a great time at Lily’s Pad tonight. It’s my first time coming. Got to say, I’ll definitely be back. I don’t have as good of like a radio voice as Phil does, but I also had a fantastic time playing with everyone tonight. Tristan said that this. I don’t know.

Becca Hammond: It’s my first time coming too. And this is like the coolest DIY venue ever. Great vibes. Such good vibes. Charlie, would you like to say anything about Lily’s Pad? Sure.

Charlene: It’s been great up here. It’s fun. It’s been a way to express ourselves and lots of different talents. What’s, you know, what can go wrong with that? So we appreciate that we have a place to play and it’s great. So thank you.

Becca Hammond: Thank you, Charlene. This is my first time here, but I think it’s really nice. It’s really homey and it’s really accepting and it feels like anybody could come here and find a place.

Vito: Yeah. So I’ve been in Burlington for almost seven years now. And I’ve been swept away by so many amazing things that happen here, but I’ve always struggled with some social anxiety and meeting new people.

It was hard for me to feel like I can find a spot in the community that I felt like I had a place in. And I never thought that open mic nights would be something like that for me. And Lily’s Pad is a uniquely amazing one, I think, because it’s in a little old house in the New North End. And the New North End in particular is like, that’s a great aspect about it because I never come out here. I have my own open mic at Despacito in the Old North End and that gets some traffic and has other things that people go there for. And so there’s a recurring group of people I see here and there.

But over here, other people from the New North End neighborhood come here and whereas they don’t go to those other places and so it’s like such an amazing opportunity to connect with the greater neighborhood. And I’ve been thinking a lot, especially this past month, with all the questions we’re asking, like how do we move forward? Like what do we do if everything is going downhill? And one of the things in the solution to fixing that is getting to know your neighbors really well.

And the Lily’s Pad is like doing that so well. And I really hope that we have some more events like this in the community show up. Because I think it’ll be really powerful to come together.

Poverty Princess: I would essentially say the same thing. Lily’s Pad was the first spot that my bandmate James and I landed in in Burlington. And through that, we met Vito and explored other open mics, such as the one at Despacito and have really found a network of community through the web of just being here. And it’s been super lovely and super rewarding to have found such like an intimate and caring and understanding and patient community who is interested in the same beliefs and life and art that you are in too. So very grateful.

Mike: My name is Mike. I am a recent transplant to Vermont from down south. And two things I wanted to do when I moved here is find a drum ensemble because I like to play drums and find an open mic so I can continue to develop my guitar playing. Through the open mics I’ve done, I’ve met Montreal Paul, I met the Champlain Shorgasm and got to know those guys.

And then when they opened this place up, I thought, well, I’ve got to give this a shot too. I can’t make it as frequently as I like, but it’s nice. There’s a whole spectrum of open mics you can do in this state. And this is one of them and it’s a wonderful part.

Jonie: Well, I just want to say I’ve been coming to the Lily Pad for a good year now. And I just love, I love that it’s in a basement and in a backyard and that we’re all welcomed here and that there’s a professional stage set up and people really listen to each other and people try out new stuff. And so it feels really like a safe place to make a mistake and just keep going on.

And people really have your back here as either professional musician or an amateur or just doing a first song that you’ve written, whatever it is. So I’m grateful. Yeah, thank you. And I’m going to check out.

Becca Hammond: We should talk about the Champlain Shorgasm a bit. Okay. Because I don’t think I’ve actually got to see you both play together. Bummer. The more I think about it, I thought I might have seen you play together, but I don’t think so. I think I’ve seen you at shows, but not your show.

Maya: Well, yeah, that’s our band. Right now we’re a two piece band. Roy plays 12 string. She plays leads in such and I play rhythm and sing. She sings two now a lot more. We’re a folk punk band, slash pop punk, I guess, slash shoegaze. I grew up in the 80s and 90s with all the alternative music. So like, and that’s what I like.

So that’s what we play. And then she’s a folk performer. So performance is, well, you are a folk performer now, but like she grew up with folk music. So we’re kind of trying to blend that together. But the Shorgasm also comes from that same place of, we’re both very much into that interconnectivity using music and like that’s really important.

Rory: And I think it’s also important to point out that at least our collaboration started with busking. And that’s an entirely different experience than doing the gig. I’m not saying, I mean, you may open your case and announce that a tip would be nice, but there’s no pressure. Nobody paid to walk by. Some people linger and some people don’t even look your way.

And you do it for the love of doing it sometimes because we like, we’ve migrated away from Church Street pretty quick because it was during pandemic and it got very crowded up there when the restaurants spread out their tables outside on the cobbles. And so I wonder about down at the waterfront and there was no one, absolutely no one down there.

Maya: Playing music. There were lots of people, but nobody played music. Yeah. And where the boardwalk bumps out and people gather for the sunset, which we have one of the best sunsets in the country, that’s where we would set up back off the boardwalk so we could project out to that crowd. And so, you know, we may play for three hours staring into the setting sun and it gets hot and you get sunburned and you forget to drink and, but

Rory: you do it for the love of doing it. And if you have one meaningful connection, which was unusual not to have, some evenings, there’s more than that. And, you know, I don’t know these people’s names, but I sure remember that connection. And there’s a part of me that enjoys that more than hunting down a venue that wants us to gig.

And then going through this whole commercialization, well, how many people can you draw to make it worth my while to sponsor you? And it’s, it kind of, for me, takes a little bit of the, the meaning of what I’m doing out of it. You know, I’m, I’m a gun for hire rather than I’m just a random duet that you walked by while you were enjoying the fresh air and the view across the lake and the sunset. And you happen to notice that, wow, you guys are playing some neat tunes. And so you sit down on a bench and you linger for a while. And yeah, more often than not, you come over and you give us a thank you, a tip, sometimes tears, because some of the music has moved. And to me, that’s what connection is on a bigger scale than downstairs here. You know, this is a very intimate space.

It’s my basement. If we can’t handle a lot of people, we’ve never had to turn anybody away, but and it’s nice because we have a few regulars, but we also always seem to have some new people and people ebb and flow. They might not come for a month and they come back. And it’s like little reunions and, but everybody just, that’s getting back to Lily’s bed.

But the short guys, I’m started out as a busking band, at least when I joined it. And I, it’s, I hope we don’t, and I don’t think we plan to give that up when we find time to do it. It’s, it’s, it makes for a great, a great experience for me.

Maya: Yeah, I mean, I started, I mean, the one of the reasons, well, the reason I started busking was I had a job working in an engineering firm down in Richmond, I’m not going to mention because if they hear this, they’ll know who they are.

Becca Hammond: But I was going to ask because I think I know who

Maya: you’re talking about, but you probably do.

Maya: You probably do. But, you know, but I, I like the people there hated the job. And I used to have a, you know, my desk was by a window and I was, it’s

Becca Hammond: funny how I just want to interject and say the most evil company you still love the people you work with.

Maya: I do. They were great. They’re great. They were great people. They weren’t the problem. Yeah. And they were all bunch of engineers too. And they were still great people, you know, which is saying something. I’m not saying anything about engineers. I’m just saying, like me, engineers can tend to be socially awkward, but we actually had a lot of fun.

That’s all I meant. They’re engineers. You’re not bad people.

Don’t come and hunt me down. But, you know, I remember, you know, I went through some health issues and, no matter course, I started playing the ukulele. So one of my favorite things was just to sit outside and play ukulele. But when I worked that job, I was, you know, not only go through my health stuff, but I was just dealing with depression and all I would do is like just want to sit outside and play ukulele in the sun.

That’s all I want to do, you know? So flash forward a couple of years and I had to go on disability. But at one point, I’d seen a movie called Once. It was written by Glenn Hansard and, oh God, Marquette Ergolova, I think has her name. They were partners at one point. Remek Department, they wrote this music.

Now they’re very good friends. But that’s about a busker. And if you don’t know what busking is, it’s just going out and performing on the street, whether that’s music or you do like a tightrope act or juggling or whatever, that’s all busking. So I saw this and it’s about a busker, Glenn Hansard, who meets this girl and they make an album and that’s it. It’s about their friendship, you know, as musical partners.

Rory: And- One on an Academy Award.

Maya: One on an Academy Award. If you have not seen the movie, go see it. The music in is amazing. I highly recommend it. But when I saw this, when I saw him performing on the street, I think it was in Ireland is where it’s set. I was like, I’m getting chills now thinking about it because that’s all I wanted was to play music in the sun. I practiced and then went down to get my first license down on Church Street Marketplace. I went out there with my ukulele and just banged out whatever songs I could memorize because I wasn’t very good yet.

That was it. For me, the first moment when I was able to just sit down on a bench after playing for an hour and I just went like this and the sun hit me. I’m playing music in the sun and it wasn’t making much money but I didn’t care. The shortgasm is kind of an ex, that’s what it’s about. It’s about like, yeah, I like playing shows. I really do.

I have to admit it. I like being the lead singer and I like having people cheer and applaud when I’m singing. I think there’s a little bit of a narcissist in all musicians, I think. It’s hard to do what we do without that because I’m not an introvert but for some reason I want to be on stage.

Becca Hammond: It doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

Maya: All sound is meant to be heard.

Maya: You got to share it. I do enjoy doing shows and, God, the friends we’ve made and the bands we’ve played with, I feel really honored and happy to have those friends but there’s nothing going down on the waterfront for three hours and sweating our ass off and making these little connections. One thing that actually has happened several times was we’ll just be down there playing in a wedding party.

We’ll walk by and start taking pictures on the bump out and we’re their music. The first time that happened, I think it was before I was playing with you. I think it was. I was just down there with my ukulele and this wedding party walked by and it was like this bunch of bros. It was all the groomsmen and then the bride and the groom were taking pictures. I’m like, let me play the only romantic thing I knew how to play.

I started playing Wise Men’s Say. That’s not the name of the song. Oh, yeah. Elvis Song. Falling in Love.

Falling in Love, right, with you. I just started playing it and then I finished and I didn’t know what else to play because one of the groomsmen came up through 20 in my case. Just keep playing that. I was their music for that moment.

That’s nice. And that busking, oh God. I’ve had so many moments like that, both on Church Street initially and down at the waterfront where it’s just like, no, it’s not live music. It’s not like I’m a guaranteed in audience because they’ve paid to come and see me. But man, when you get those moments, they’re just amazing.

Rory: We’ve witnessed proposals. Proposals, yeah.

Becca Hammond: That’s pretty special too. Like I said, we’ve had people touch so dramatically by the music that they’ve come over and shared through tears just how much they appreciated us being there.

Maya: That they’ve needed it. Yes. You know, that they needed it. We were performing Creep once. That’s one of the songs that we actually perform regularly is Radiohead’s Creep. But we have our very own distinct version that we do of it. And there was a girl sitting on a bed. This was before, this was up at Church Street. But I was playing at the top of the block and she was just sitting on a bench listening to the music and I played Creep. And when I finished, she came up to me and she was crying and said, I needed that so bad. I needed to cry today.

I just couldn’t get there. And she’s like, thank you so much. I feel so much better. Did she tip me? I don’t remember probably, but I didn’t make a lot of money off that. I didn’t need it.

Maya: Right. It didn’t really matter. Because that was it. That was it. I made somebody go to a place they needed to be with what I was doing. And for me, that’s kind of the, that’s what the short guys I’m all about. So yeah.

Becca Hammond: I’m very touched. I love music. You know when you get goosebumps when you hear someone playing and you just have that moment because, and I keep repeating this on the podcast. I’m sorry listeners, but there’s this beautiful quote about how music decorates time, art decorates space, but music decorates time. And like you said, the moment

Maya: that you’re sharing with other people is so powerful.

Maya: And that girl might hear Creep played by Radiohead and she’ll go right back to that moment. Oh, I remember when I was on church, and I really needed to like, that’s what music does, right? It transports us. It gets stuck in our memory. Like, like all factory senses, right? You smell a certain thing and it takes you right back to childhood music.

It’s the same way. It’s not tangible, but it’s there. It just transports you, you know, like to be part of those moments for people is like just a really great honor. It’s incredible to feel that.

Rory: And this, this support through connection can be reciprocated in the Boston experience. I’ll just briefly reference one experience we had. We had been out for an hour. We were struggling. We didn’t get really get getting into our vibe.

Maybe we were bummed that there weren’t any tips or whatever. And a woman she had walked by, I noticed she had walked by. And then she came back again and she stopped after we finished the song. And she said, I like your music. I wonder if I could play your, your guitar, Rory. And I said, yeah, I guess so. Well, I should have known she already had a thumb pick on her hand.

Maya: She’s ready to go.

Rory: And she sat down. Play Jolene, I think. And played Jolene with Maya on the yoke. And I just went out into the bump out and sat down on the deck and just listened. And I mean, she was very good. She was very good. And then at some point she swapped instruments and partners. I played with her and she played the yoke or something like that. And we got to talking with her. I guess she had a professional career at one time. And she had expatted to Norway or Sweden, but was still in it.

Maya: And she was leaving that night. So we were like this last minute thing that she experienced when she was here again.

Rory: I mean, who carries a thumb pick around? Yeah, it’s great.

Maya: And she comes out and she’s literally got the thumb pick on like she had it in her pocket. And I laugh now because I have picks in my pockets all the time.

Just had to absolutely put them in my pocket. So it’s really funny. But I don’t know, it’s just kind of like, I don’t consider myself the best musician in the world. We’re not very good at writing songs.

We have a handful of people seem to really like. But the thing is, it doesn’t really matter. It’s like if we can, like Roy was saying, maybe we were down because we weren’t getting tips. It’s not really for me about whether I get a tip or not. For me, it’s about like, am I connecting with somebody?

And kids, I’m talking to you now, get off your phones. You’re missing out. It’s like we had, like it was last year, last season, rough season. It was for some reason that the energy had shifted on the boardwalk and nobody’s really paying attention to anybody. Everybody’s on their phones and just going about their business.

I don’t know what it was about that season. And we were doing the same thing we always do that people, every now and again, we get somebody to stop. But for the most part, everybody’s just doing their thing. And it’s about like, if I’m not getting that interconnectedness that’s more my money that I make. Not that I don’t want to get paid by club owners. You guys can go f-yourself and pay me.

Mike: But the thing is, when I’m performing, I really look for those connections. So what Roy and I have actually started doing in our other shows, and this was inspired by the band Epes of the State, that band is like a folk punk band.

And their last song that they do, the last couple of songs, they’ll actually just walk out to the audience with their instruments, with acoustics and play acoustic. That’s great. That’s who we are. We’re buskers. So we started doing that.

Rory: The crowd just closes in. Just closes in around you, sings with you. And that’s the busking experience. You can’t replicate that on a stage. You just can’t. It’s visceral. There’s no barrier between you and the crowd. We’ve had people walk up and compliment us. We’ve had people walk up and insult us. I’ve nearly been assaulted. But that’s part of it. Right? Right. That’s part of the experience of busking. And it’s not anything I would trade.

Becca Hammond: That’s really interesting. I think you’re the first people I’ve actually talked to who’ve done it.

Poverty Princess: Everyone has this like, yeah, a lot. I know so many musicians. I’m at the very tail end of the millennials. The 30-year-old-ish elder millennial. Yeah, I’m in a weird… Because I’m almost Gen Z, but I’m not quite. And the kids five, like the late 20-year-olds, I’m like, whoa.

Maya: You guys are like way different than I am. I’m gonna be the cusp of X.

Becca Hammond: Oh, no. I’m on the other end of that one. But I’m also in a weird… Because a lot of the millennials are 45 now. And I’m early 30s.

Maya: But I’m still considered in their generation. So I’m in a really weird… I’m in a weird spot. But all of the people just slightly younger than me. I’m like, whoa, we are very different people.

Maya: They’re all more like Xers. Yeah, we’re all more like Xers. They grew up with tablets. And I didn’t grow up. But that was when I was in college.

Charlene: Suddenly tablets became a thing. There’s this big different thing. How was I going with this? Oh, none of us have bussed to that. None of the people my age have bussed. I knew one guy, but he was six years older than me. And he’d done it. But that was like it. He’s the only person.

Maya: So I’m really happy to hear it. It’s funny too because I’ve done it so long ago. Really, everybody busks. And I’m thinking like, no, because you’re in that. You see a lot of people doing it. But the average person won’t see a lot of people doing it. But here’s the thing.

So one of the appeals of busking, one of the things that I saw with Glenn Hanser in once, is that character he portrayed. His name’s Boy, her name’s Girl. That’s they don’t have real names.

It’s just Boy and Girl. But Boy is just that he’s flawed. He’s not a perfect musician.

And arguably, Glenn Hanser is a perfect musician, but he’s playing musician. That’s a little rough. But I looked at that and said, why can’t do that?

And that’s the kind of what I want people to see. I’m so glad we’ve met bands and made friends that play on stage and they screw up and they laugh about it. I don’t ever want any band to be something where we must do it this way. And if we don’t, we’re going to get all glowery and pissed off.

I want people to see us play and this comes across great, especially when busking. And we screw up, laugh it off, just either start again or keep going. Y’all can play music. Y’all can form bands. Y’all can busk. Everybody’s capable of it.

And that’s what I want people to understand when they see us. That’s what I understood when I saw Glenn Hanser in once is I can do that. I can make music like that. I’ll just take my ukulele.

Rory: I might take that even internally and say we all have, I believe, the feeling of emotion in our hearts that wants to be expressed in some way or another. And music is a great alternative to other things. And it’s more than anything that what I learned in starting with Maya was that it’s just being willing to be vulnerable and make the first step to share what you’re feeling inside. And wow, by surprise, there are a lot of other people out there.

Maya: They will respond to that.

Rory: They will respond to that. And there’s the connection. There’s the connection. And yeah, it’s not about the money. It’s about the connection. And I could tell you so many. I’ve actually, I like to write. So I’ve got a lot of stories about a lot of experiences.

But the only other one I wanted to share because it touched me was that we had played after the sunset into the into the night and the overhead lights had come on there. And there, you know, I would say more or less lovers strolling, hopefully they would. And a pair of skaters, rollerblades, rollerblades, what do you call those? Rollerblades, skates.

Rollerblades, yeah. Yeah, came by and their helmets had blinking lights on the back, you know, for safety. And they started dancing on their skates out in the bump out to our music. And they looked like two fireflies.

Maya: Yeah, it was like the streaks from their helmets. It was just like this really amazing moment.

Rory: Yeah. And we thank them and they thanked us. And, you know, it was, wow, I just, it’s memorable.

Becca Hammond: Yeah, yeah, that sounds pretty special. That’s cool. Because that’s one of those things that the light, like everything had to be so perfect for the moment.

Maya: To be so magical. Right. Right. That’s cool. And then we were there, background music, you know, for that moment. And like, that’s great. Like, that’s just perfect.

Rory: And now this, you know, past year 2024, we stepped off the boardwalk solely and started, well, we’ve been doing open mics for a couple of years a lot. And we decided to try and go on the gig circuit. And we did.

David Shine: And we did. And it’s a whole different experience, like, you know, but again, it afforded us another great opportunity. And that was to meet other musicians, not just the public, you know.

Rory: And you learn a lot from each other. We did a DIY show in June last year. And we had three other bands from out of town, one from New Jersey, one from Boston, one from King, New Hampshire. We booked them to join us in a DIY. And they all stayed overnight here at the house. Yeah.

That’s fun, though. And, you know, after doing the show until midnight, and then packing up, and then everybody came back here. And we just sat around exactly where we are right now in the living room here. And had cake. And had cake. And just chatted until 3 a.m. And then I don’t sleep well in the morning. So I was up at 8 and I made everybody waffles with all the toppings.

Becca Hammond: Oh, yeah. What a sweet gig.

Maya: And what I love about this story too is like, you know, we’re punk rockers, right? And like, people are like, oh, punk rockers are so bad. I said, but you like, go out and show they got a drink. And they’re like, no, we came back. We got an upper job as high cake.

Woke up the next morning at a waffle bar. Okay. And those bands too, check them out. La Bottomobile. Oh, yeah.

Marry in Toilet in the Runs and Your Best Nightmare. Check those bands out. Everybody, they’re amazing. But yeah, it’s kind of like, people could say that a moment like that. You know, it’s like, you know, it’s crazy.

Rory: 10 people in this little mini cape here. You know, it’s not a lot of space.

Maya: And they were three of them clowns, literally clowns.

Maya: And everybody, you know, pulled up a bed or a piece of the floor and I gave them, you know, every bedding and, you know, we, it worked beautifully.

Maya: Nobody complained. We talked horror movies like Endless Lake because they’re all into horror movies.

Rory: And we have now since performed with some of them again and planned to. And maybe go to their house, you know, after the DIY. And that’s, I guess, that’s the one thing I learned with the gigging is we did a lot of farmers markets.

Cool. I don’t know as you call that gigging, but we sometimes found ourselves a long way from Burlington. Didn’t want to drive back. Didn’t really want to rent a motel. Didn’t have a van yet that we could sleep in. We do now. And just put it out there at the farmers market. Anybody got a place?

Maya: Or we were just offered places.

Rory: Yeah. And we met some beautiful people just, you know, never knew them before. And they just invited us into their house. And then we talked music until 3am. And it was, yeah.

Maya: You know, it is too. It’s like, there’s a, I forget what book, it is, but there’s a book I had read long ago. It’s about saying yes to things, right? Just say yes. You know, and I think that like one of the things with the Champlain Chargassum, especially last year that I decided to do, we were going to say yes to things, right? And we definitely overbooked ourselves last year. We were exhausted, but we didn’t know any better, right? But we just kept, you know, we kept saying yes to things. And like we had some pretty cool adventures. You know, some were frustrating. Some were like, why are we even here? You know, like a lot of the farmers market, we were rough because the flood had happened. So like Lindenville, we were scheduled three times in Lindenville. I think we only did one.

That was devastated there. But you know, in that moment that we, the one that we went to, we were so important to them because we were giving them some sort of levity in that moment. You know, so it wasn’t always fun, but because we said yes to a lot of things, we had met some great people, had a lot of great experiences. You know, so for anybody that’s, you know, trying to toss about in the idea of maybe doing music, like, can you just, yes, you can do it. And yes, it’s worth it. You know, you may not got paid a lot, but you know, it’s like, yeah, you can do it.

You know, I don’t know. It’s just like we’ve made so many friends, you know, I just, I’m a person who didn’t have a lot, like it was hard for me to make friends growing up to hard for me to make friends now. But like music for me has made it easy. Lily’s pad, you know, it made it selfishly. One of the things I do Lily’s pad it brings people to me.

Right. I don’t have to go out and meet people because it’s really hard for me. But if they’re here for a common reason, it’s easy for me. Like, you know, and music is the same way. You know, if I, if I’m in a show with another band, it’s easier for me to talk to them because we’re all there. I already have an in for conversation. You know, and it’s been so worth it doing that.

Becca Hammond: Yeah, they’re such a wonderful, I mean, not just in Vermont, but just that music community in general has that camaraderie that’s, yeah, for sure.

Maya: That’s really wonderful that we all suffer in the same way. Exactly. Exactly. It’s, yeah, I love your attitude. I love your attitude so much.

Rory: We’re headed to Europe this year. Yeah, right.

Becca Hammond: Hey, there’s someone who always downloads every episode of this podcast in like Düsseldorf, Germany. Oh, really? So maybe in Düsseldorf.

Maya: We actually, I won’t, I won’t mention his name because I want to respect his privacy. We actually are talking to a musician and he’s helping us with our band that, it was a musician from a band that I fangirled hard back in the 80s and the 90s. So I’m like kind of blown away and that person is overseas and we might go over there, hopefully. But so I’m pretty excited about that. But I mean, that’s just because we, we decided to say yes. Right. Like, and said, this is what we’re going to do. And how would people, like, you know, and it’s, it’s, I don’t know, I feel like sometimes I drag a worry around kicking and screaming, but I think she always has fun.

I hope she always has fun. But yeah, it’s just really cool. And I don’t know what to say about the Champlain Chorgasm. Check us out. We’re booking stuff for 2025 now. You can check out, I’m going to be shifting away from Facebook. So check out our calendar on the ChamplainChorgasm.com. That’s where I’ll be posting a majority of our stuff from now on. Cool. Yeah. Yeah.

Becca Hammond: Did you say you’re getting on Blue Sky too?

Maya: Yeah, we’re going to, I’m going to start shifting away from Facebook. I’ll be political for a second and say anybody that gives a million dollars to a fascist campaign, gives money to a fascist campaign and also donates to their, their inauguration can go below as far as I’m concerned. So we’re, I’m going to switch over to Blue Sky. I’ve already got kind of things set up there. I just have to start posting and it’s hard because I have family on Facebook and I need to communicate with them. But as far as the band stuff goes, I’m a little, I just can’t support Instagram and Facebook and the whole meta universe anymore.

Becca Hammond: Yeah. No, I don’t disagree with you. An X for sure, not X. Do you have an email newsletter on?

Maya: A newsletter? No, but that’s something I do want to work on this year. So we’ll probably hopefully get that up and running. Rory’s going to do some blogging this year, hopefully.

Maya: And, and yeah, and I think between the both of us that we can scrape together a newsletter every month. So yes, that is something we want to do, but do check out our website.

That’s going to be our primary location. It’s got music on there. It’s got photos, got all kinds of good stuff. Same thing for Lilly’s pad. Lilly’spadvt.com is the website. So check that out. Perfect.

Becca Hammond: I wanted to ask, I’ve seen some stuff recorded, but do you have an actual album out? We do. Yeah.

Maya: What’s it called? Thank you for helping me promote our music since I forget to.

Maya: We do have a band camp site up. Our big EP that we have out, Tim Lewis from Sounds of Burlington, invited us to go on his show. So we went to Robot Dog Studio, we recorded an EP.

I call it Live from Robot Dog Studio because I’m very creative with the names. But it’s got five songs on there, including our cover of Creep. In my opinion, very good music.

Do you check it out? It’s on Spotify. It’s on band camp. It’s on Apple Music.

It’s out there on the streaming services. Deezer. It’s on the Deezer. I forgot about Deezer.

That’s a thing. I would ask if you really, you know, if you really like the music, please go to band camp and purchase it. It’s something all artists need fans to do. Streaming is impossible to make money off of. It’s really a game. It’s a zero sum game. We use it for, it’s like an advertising.

Becca Hammond: That’s it. If you used to sell individual, you know, I used to buy singles.

Maya: And now that doesn’t happen. Yeah, yeah. We’re going to be selling hopefully other shows this year CD with a download code for band camp. So look for that if you come to one of our shows.

Do come to one of our shows. But you know, like it’s on the streaming services. I think somebody had figured out, I don’t know if you sent me this or somebody sent me this, but like literally an artist needs to get 370,000 streams to make $1,000. Right. So there’s, it’s ridiculous.

Becca Hammond: Yeah, you basically are required to have some sort of label pushing their stuff.

Maya: And with the way the algorithms work and with the over, you know, with the saturation, you know, a lot of people are making music right now because it’s very accessible and that’s great.

And I will not put that down. I’m glad the tools are there for people to make music because everybody should do it if they can. But one of the consequences of that is there’s so many bands out there.

So when you go on Spotify, it’s very hard to be heard. Oh, yeah, of course. And there are bands that do it and that’s often the willing to put the work on and they deserve that success that they get.

But for me personally, I’m not willing to play that game and I couldn’t win it anyway. But you know, and there are a lot of bands out there that are very, very good. And you know, and so please, if you listen to those bands, go onto their band campsite or wherever they sell their music and buy some music from them by merchandise when you go to their shows.

Merchandise is a great way to support artists. The money goes to us, you know. We have our costs for things like that. But if you’re like us, we do DIY t-shirts, right? So we go to like use like Recycle North and we buy t-shirts that are two, three dollars a piece. Because those things are just going to wind up in a dump because there’s way too many of them to sell anyway. We have our logos that we put on them and we sell them. We can sell them for five dollars, ten dollars a t-shirt. It doesn’t, you know, so a fan gets something and we also get pretty much half, you know, double our money back and that helps support us with strings, traveling, all that.

Becca Hammond: Yes, and you’re keeping something out of the landfill and you’re not supporting a sweatshop. There’s a lot of reasons that that makes a lot of sense.

Maya: Come see the live music. It is great that you can stream music nowadays. It’s great you have access to that. But we got to support our bands in better ways.

Rory: Yeah. Yeah. Also have a YouTube channel.

Maya: Yeah, we have a YouTube channel. So if you want to see a visual. Yeah, yeah, we do. Yeah, there’s visuals. Well, I think we have videos on our website too. We also did a video for Creep, which I just want to kind of like, kind of like tout about because it’s like, I think it’s pretty good. And we actually, I call this Creep in a can.

This is a really great, this is one of our funniest stories. So I don’t know if anybody that’s local to Burlington knows this, but in one main street there used to be something called a bathysphere in their library. And a bathysphere is this big iron sphere that they used to, this is what they used to have as submarines

Maya: way back in like 1800s, 1900s, right? Like so pretty much they pumped air down it to people when it could barely fit in the thing and they plunged it deep into the oceans, big iron sphere, right? Like, I think I’ve seen it. Yeah, you might have seen it.

You might have seen it. And now it’s, if you go to Main Street Landing, it’s in the basement of Main Street Landing, the first floor. So Rory and I, when we first started playing together, we used to go there all the time in practice, right? And they kind of knew us like…

Rory: Not in the can, but in the lobby.

Maya: Because if one, they let you do it. And two, if you’re a musician, you want to go hear yourself really well, the acoustics in that building are friggin amazing. Cool. So I knew that the bathsphere was had been moved there. So we went, I think, I forget what when it was, but we went there and I didn’t tell Rory we were doing, I had an idea that I wanted to do it and like, just grab your instrument and what you need to play. We’re going to do something. It’s like, what?

So we went and I chucked us in this bathsphere that’s barely enough to contain like two people. So she had her 12 string. I had my, I think I had my ukulele or my guitar. You had honey. I had honey.

Yeah. And we did a version of creep that sounds freaking amazing and weird and spacey because it’s done in this bathsphere. So I took this and I had I knew I wanted to do video about it. So I did the video and the video is really cool. It’s got clips from the bathsphere and everybody needs to check it out.

Rory: Two cell phones, one lighting up the space and the other recording the audio.

Maya: And if you can spot champ in the video, let me know in the comments because he makes an appearance. It’s tough to see, but you’ll see him if you look close enough. And that is the one song that we play Ruralty Zone. So if you’re going to buy one song off our bank and please buy that one.

Becca Hammond: So Oh man. Why you keep it all legal? Yeah. Yeah.

Maya: It’s the first song we played Ruralty Zone because it’s one we’re known for. Yeah.

Becca Hammond: No, someone told me about this. I feel a little bad. I haven’t listened to it yet. Someone mentioned it to me.

Maya: So the first, the first kind of uncomfortable moment I had where I realized I was being recognized. I was still busking, you know, I was still doing my thing on church street before Rory was doing with me. And I’ve been playing creeps since I’ve been playing busking on church street. Since I started. It was one of the first songs I learned because I loved it.

It’s great song. And I do it in my own particular way, which is the way we still do it now. And I was actually, would go down after playing because I would play all day. And then, then after the sun went down and play a little bit more, and then I’d go to city market in the summer, which is open till like 11 o’clock and I’d have some dinner.

So 10 o’clock at night, I’m just sitting there and I’m eating food and like I’m just hanging out and I’m playing my music. And I didn’t have my case open. Like I wasn’t looking for tips, but it just happened. I had opened it and some guy walked by, heard me playing and put a banana in my case, which I think is hysterical. I’m like, thank you.

I love bananas. He’s like, yeah, just figure if you’re hungry, you could eat. So I start, I played creep. And there was a guy standing next to me listening the entire time. And when I stop, he’s like, I got to tell you, he’s like, I love Radiohead. And that’s probably the best version of that song I’ve ever heard. He’s like, but I got to ask you to leave.

Maya: He’s like, we can’t let you play music, right?

Maya: And he’s like, and I’ve seen you on church. I know you’re really good. It’s just the policy. We can’t let you hang out here. I’m like, oh, I’m not hanging out. I’m just eating. He’s like, that’s fine.

Like, you know, but it was the first time somebody said, oh, I saw you on church street. Right. Right.

And like, really? And I think you had a moment like that last year, right? We were in the pizza place. Mr. Mike’s Pizza, I think it was, putting up a flyer and somebody recognized her like, how did it feel?

Maya: And she’s, she’s been complimented more than once that her version of creep is the best that they had heard. And I mean, we’re talking Radiohead.

Maya: Yeah, I’m not saying I’m as good as Radiohead. I don’t know where near them, but like, I’m proud of the version. And it’s, you know, for me, the thing I like about music, right? It’s I don’t know how long you want just clapping at this point. But the thing is like, okay, so one of the things I like about music is that we all interpret a song differently, right? Rory can interpret something different, the same song differently, the same phrase in that song, like Lyra can be interpreted differently. Like, like when I first heard creep, I had, I was, I was ostracized by the ostracized kids in high school.

Let’s just put it that way. I didn’t have really any friends, you know, until I’d say junior, senior year. And then I started hanging around punk rockers because I was, I got desperate, but turned

Maya: out I love, I love punk rock and I love my, I love my friends after that.

Maya: But I’ll admit, I’ll admit that I was in a place in my life where if I didn’t find somebody didn’t hang out with, I may not be here right now.

So, you know, so that’s my experience. So when I first heard creep, that’s what it, how it spoke to me. You know, Tom York said he wrote that because he was stalking some girl in college.

Maya: And he hated that story. Yeah, he hated, he hated the way it made him feel. He hated that he did it. Right. So creep was kind of his way of exercising those demons and, you know, became popular and, and, you know, he eventually got to the point where he hated playing it because it was so popular and people always want to hear it.

Mike: So they did stop playing it for a while. So that’s what it was about. But for me, when I heard that,

Maya: all I could feel was my high school experience of just being called, you know, a loser or a geek or creep or like, you know, so when I first started playing that song, it was colored by that. And it became this slow sort of like, you know, I don’t say emo, but like kind of like, so I play it like that. Like, like, you know, I’m feeling isolation, I’m feeling, you know, and then at, you know, at the end, it’s more about like, and now I want to connect with you, right?

And like, you know, that, the, that’s the way I do it. And I think that, you know, one of, one of the things about certain songs like creep is they can be interpreted in so many ways to people. And I’ve watched people get drawn to tears listening to that, that version, the way I do it.

And I’ve watched people smile. I’ve watched people sometimes dance to it, which is kind of weird. But like, but the thing is like, you know, I’m very interested, like, like that song, I’m always very interested to hear what people are thinking.

Yeah. You know, and actually, Rory asked me once I was playing it, and I’d stopped, she’s like, what were you thinking? Like, what do you think about when you play that song? And I think at the moment, I told you, thinking about what I want for dinner, like, you know, because like, you know, I do have those emotions connected to it. But when you’re, you know, you play music, sometimes you just got to think about other things that you’re doing. Yeah.

Right. But like, I would encourage people to listen to that because I’m like, said, I’m very proud of, I always have been. It was the first time as a musician where I did music, and I realized that it was actually not a bad musician, you know, which is good to

Maya: feel, you know, like it’s really good to feel.

Rory: Now we’ve got an EP with that and four other originals on it. We have more originals that will be on the next one.

Maya: We do. We have more originals that will be on the next one. Apparently. No, we do. Actually, we’ve been working. This is nothing official yet, but we will be appearing with a drummer. We’re going to be doing a charity event on the 15th of February up in St. Albans. I think it’s called Unity for Community. Yeah.

Becca Hammond: I think I saw something false in a couple other bands. I think it’s a sordid fruit. I forget exactly. I’m sorry for those bands. I’m forgetting. We’re friends with Valerie Falls, so it’s easy for me to remember their name. But so we’re going to be doing that and we’re going to have a drummer with us, which is new for us. So we’re pretty excited about that. And hopefully if this person works out, we will be adding a drummer to our song.

Maya: That’s awesome. Yeah. A little more punk. Yeah. A little more punk. I think it’s… I’ve certain songs I wrote and I’ve heard drums in them the entire time. I hear songs in my head complete.

Not complete, complete. I’m not Mozart where I write a whole song. But I do hear, okay, I wanted this song with drums or I want… With Creep, I really want to get a violin in there because I’ve always heard it that way. We had a couple of open mics that we did where a drummer sat in with us and it was just mind blowing for me. It was so nice hearing our songs, quote unquote, complete. So pretty excited about having the drummer and I hope that our fans will appreciate it too.

Becca Hammond: It’s always interesting because I love acoustic singer-songwriter. I really love folk punk in general.

Mike: That entire genre always makes me really happy. It’s so interesting though how much you can change a song with just a drummer. And then it becomes two different things because it can still be the folk song that

Maya: someone sings by themselves or it can be a group event, a community event.

Maya: And when we busk, sure, we might have a drummer on board now, but when we busk, probably won’t bring a drum kit with us. If the drummer even wants to do busking with us because that’s more of a personal thing with Rory and I. They’re welcome to, like farmers markets, grummer, but the thing is we can always do acoustic versions of those songs as well. So there’ll be two versions of those songs. I think that’s really cool that you can perform those two different ways and maybe they’ll have different meanings depending, you know, different energies and meanings depending on how we’re performing them. Right.

Becca Hammond: Yeah. Well, that’s that you bring a whole other person in and she changes the whole vibe. This has been awesome. I’ve been really enjoying this. We are at an hour and six minutes, one hour and six minutes.

Oh, wow. Should we talk about upcoming shows? The next Lily, Lily’s Pad event. Yes. Anything else? If you want to rattle off links again, this is probably a good time to do that.

Maya: Yeah. Okay. So what is our next Lily’s Pad? Is it the fourth? Fifth of February. The fifth of February. I know folks that have been coming, we’ve been a little bit inconsistent with our dates. That’s only because I’ve been to Florida and then we had some personal stuff going on, but we’re going to try and get back to every other Wednesday, every first and third Wednesday.

Okay. So the next one will be the fifth. And another thing we’re going to start doing for Lily’s Pad this year is we’re going to do movies nights.

So once a month, we’re going to select a movie that’s based that that centers somehow on music. We did do this once before and then just kind of wasn’t the right time with once. But yeah, yeah, we had a couple of people show up.

It was fun. But we’ll be doing as across the universe, which if you love Beatles music is there’s a director out there. I forget what her name is, but she kind of tells the tale of these two lovers using the music of the Beatles.

It’s an incredible film. And I highly recommend we have a screen and everything. It’s going to be done down in the lounge just like we do the open mic. So we’ll do that the end of next month, whatever it is. The last Wednesday, I think it is, is when I just Thursday, let’s Thursday, because we don’t want to interfere with the open mic in ethics. Jen Ellis is open mic.

Do go to that one if you get the chance. So that’s new for Lily’s Pad. What else? You know, for Champlain Chargasm, we’ve got the show coming up on the 15th that we’re going to be doing. We are looking to write more songs.

Hopefully that will happen. We’ve got a drummer on board. We haven’t started booking shows yet because I was in Florida.

So we’re going to start doing that soon. But we’re looking to hopefully get a show together again with Lobotomobile, Marry in Toilet in the Runs and Your Best Nightmare, either up here or more than like down in Boston. So yeah, Boston or I think Sashin in New Hampshire, we were also talking about that’s not that’s in the works now. And then hopefully we’ll get to play with a lot of our pals up in Burlington again at Despozitos and hopefully the seller. We really like the seller. But like I said, check online sellers is beneath drink.

Becca Hammond: It’s a really cool place. I was going to ask where it is. Like wait, I think I know.

Maya: We’ve got a friend out in California. We might be in Gigwick. That’s still in the works. So I don’t want to say anything about that. And then whatever else happens, I would love to get to Canada this year and maybe do some stuff in Canada and Montreal and maybe overseas. Who knows?

Becca Hammond: Yeah, that’d be cool. I’m sure Montreal would love to have you. There’s some cool venues up there.

Maya: I think I would like to do some videos too. Like we have a song called Hey, Gepetto that we write to my trans experience. That’s what Flowers of Lourdes is about trans.

So is Trans Aliens. And then Hey, Gepetto is another one about kind of becoming yourself or more probably becoming yourself but not being able to forget where you came from. But I really would like to make a video for that. And our drummer really loves that one. So he’s really looking to kind of do that one next time we get together. So I’m excited about that.

So it should be good some good stuff coming up. What else? Nothing? I don’t have anything.

Okay. So the websites again, that’s liliespadvt.com for liliespad, theshamplainchorgasm.com for the Champlain Chorgasm. For Champlain Chorgasm, you can check us out on Bandcamp. We’re there and Spotify or wherever. You stream fine music.

Becca Hammond: Yeah, that’s it. Awesome. And there’s contact forms on the website, right?

Maya: Yeah, you can contact us via the website or just give us a call. The number is the same 802. Can I give it? Is that okay? 802? 771. 4233. Yeah. That’s the contact for the Champlain Chorgasm and liliespad. So if you want to book Champlain Chorgasm, you can reach us there or from online or email us at theshamplainchorgasm.com. And then liliespad, I think we’ve got a contact form on liliespad or you can call. Awesome. Awesome. One thing about liliespad that I know a lot of people say, well, it’s kind of buried and you guys should make sure you mention it. So I’ll mention it on the podcast. Unfortunately, because of the layout of the house, it’s not accessible by people with mobility devices. We apologize for that.

However, in the summer, we moved liliespad outside to the backyard and that is accessible. So let me look for that. We also were broadcasting for a while. We stopped doing that because we decided that the privacy of people down there is important. And we do have a lot of people that are in the LGBT community and sometimes those people don’t want it known.

Rory: But we always ask. We did it.

Maya: It was. Yeah, we always ask. We never did it without the permission, but we decided in general not to broadcast a name or because of that. The birthday show, we did broadcast to me personally, so we didn’t record that or anything. So anyway, just be aware of those things. If you do come during the summer, you’ll be able to access it, but otherwise not. So.

Rory: But to experience liliespad over a video is nothing like the video in liliespad.

Becca Hammond: No, no, definitely not. Thank you.

Maya: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Rory. Thanks for doing this. This is great. Yes. Thank you. And thank you for listening. And I want to say if you have missed all of these links that we’ve just rattled off, VermontTalks.com forward slash 52. And I’ll have links to all of these sites by its liliespadvt.com and the ChamplainTourGasm.com. So feel free to go straight there.

Maya: Don’t forget the SH on Shorgasm. Otherwise, you’re going to be looking at something totally different.

Becca Hammond: Spelling is important. It’s on these things. But thank you all so much for listening. And this was a really wonderful conversation. And I personally am building up my courage to get on stage again and actually play. It’s been like 15 years.

Rory: We’ll give you a break. Oh, you’ve got a brick. You’ve got a brick, right?

Maya: A brick. Oh, yeah. Come sign. Yeah.

Becca Hammond: If you’re having a little time, listen to the break. Oh, yes, I did. I signed it for the podcast. I did sign it. You’re right. But I need to actually play. I’m slowly building up the courage. So this is a wonderful spot.

Maya: We used to say you had to perform there to sign the brick, but they were like, I just signed the brick.

Becca Hammond: If it’s your first time. I took a bunch of sound bites. I was contributing.

Maya: If you all don’t know what the brick is, what we mean by sign the brick, well, you just got to need to come to liliespad to find out.

Becca Hammond: It’s a secret. It took me a second and I’ve done it. All right. Thank you so much, everybody. VermontTalks.com forward slash 52. Have a great day. Goodbye. Thanks so much for listening to the end of the show. Subscribe to VermontTalks on your favorite podcasting platform. You can find me on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, all over the web. Contact Becca at VermontTalks.com if you’d like to be interviewed or if you know someone who should be. Thanks so much to Jason Baker for creating the show music. The views and opinions expressed by the guests are those of the individuals and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of VermontTalks. Any content or statements provided by our guest are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, anyone or anything. And that’s what was new in the 802. Have a great day.