This is an invitation to something special and musical, and it begins with a story…
On an Autumn morning, about 35 years ago, at the tender budding age of 13 or so,
I dutifully showed up like always at my CFS bus stop on Club Blvd, at the North end of Iredell St.
But to my total surprise that brisk fateful morning,
standing there at our bus stop was an entirely new character,
the likes of whom I had never seen before,
nor even ever really imagined before…
In my memory, he is definitely wearing a black T-shirt which reads ‘Das Damen’ in jagged red lettering.
He is probably wearing jeans, and maybe some black chucks, and most likely smoking a cigarette.
He is most definitely scowling.
Some horn-rimmed glasses (hand painted a flat white), sit atop his Sicilian father’s handsome nose,
which perches perfectly set above his Brazilian mother’s luxuriant lips.
And combined with a full head of wild and wiry black hair
they all add up to make
what would otherwise be a handsome face
look a little bit burdened and top heavy.
In one hand he clutches an electric guitar, and there is an amp crouching protectively close to his feet.
Did I mention that this kid is smoking a cigarette and scowling?
Little by little, I learned that he lived just a block down Iredell;
that he was a new (and it seemed somewhat begrudging) arrival at CFS
from Brogden Middle School (a foreign world to this CFS lifer);
that he had somehow been enlisted to play in our school’s rock band;
that he idolized Jimi Hendrix,
and that his name was Vito DiBona.
Oh yeah, and that the cassette tape which he casually (and yet ominously) handed to me,
(which when I got home discovered kicked off with a long dreary silence, but no;
a drizzling rain, church bells, and then
the darkest, most blistering Calvinist gospel music that I had ever subjected my ears and psyche to),
was Black Sabbath,
and that they are frigging awesome.
By the following Spring, we were cranking out Crosstown Traffic and Iron Man in his mom’s sweltering wooden garage,
and I was developing a taste for beloved Claudia’s Brazilian black beans and rice.
By Summer we had moved operations to my ever-patient parents’ even more sweltering attic
directly across NCSS’s campus, on Pennsylvania Ave.
Fast-forward 10 years or so, and we had performed together in several different notable bands
(including at Under The Street, if that rings any bells?!..),
in Durham and then ‘Chapelboro’, which included some memorable busking sessions on Franklin St.
Fast forward 15 more years; we have been traveling along separate but closely parallel musical paths.
Over the years, I have watched Vito form and blossom and reform musically, over and over,
but always with that same singular essence that is uniquely Vito.
And I remain stunned and awed by his dedication, work ethic and devotion
to distilling his personal musical and philosophical visions
(Somehow, incredibly I find, in addition to his devotion to his family)
But more importantly Vito has grown and matured over the years to become
one of my very most steadfast, trusted and reliable friends,
and I try my best to reciprocate in kind.
Vito is also one of a precious few people who can consistently crack me up.
Now if you know Vito much, you might know that Vito is the undisputed heavy weight champion
of concocting earnest, quirky and creative schemes which seem most likely to reach fruition
in some parallel ‘Vitoverse’.
I’ll sit on his porch steps, and patiently, maybe occassionally half-vacently
nod ‘mhm, mhm, mhmmmm, hmmm…’
But when Vito, on a recent short road trip confided in me his dire mortal yearning
to do justice to his (very real and ample) musical gifts
in this universe,
in this lifetime,
-to not let these other-wordly blossoms wither on this earthly vine
I listened very closely.
And when he teamed up with our buddy Josh Zaslow up the block
(another steadfast, talented and enduring musical collaborator and friend)
to form a new band called Living Earth, I gladly agreed to video their concert at Moon Dog Meadery.
And when, this past Fall, they found themselves scheduled to perform
at Farmer Josh’s beautiful musical community garden of Bullhorn Music Festival
(situated improbably in a storage unit complex)
with an empty drummer’s seat,
I hopped behind that kit.
And a couple months, and a handful of practices and soul-searching conversations later,
brings us to….
Tomorrow Night!!!
(Saturday, Januarty 18th, 2025)
…when we will perform at Moondog Meadery, with Vito’s frigging awesome new band Living Earth,
and several other frigging awesome and highly notable acts- notably:
The King Teen, Wigg Report, and Ken Moshesh & Friends
who, as chance would have it mostly live within a walk away from our destination this day…
Now, one irony that was actually lost on both of us until it dawned on me about a week ago,
is that this concert venue will be just a single block’s walk from that very spot where,
some 35 years ago, I first met that skulking but inescapably captivating kid in the Das Damen t-shirt,
waiting with his amp and guitar at my bus stop, ready to climb board, to a brave new world.
And it will also be a literal good arm’s stone throw away from that very garage
where the first stirrings of ‘This Band Life’ first sprouted for Vito and I.
So we invite you to come on over, to find some kind of communion with us, and in one another.
Come tell a 3-minute personal story between sets! (I see my hook emerging from the wings! 😉
And maybe, just maybe, your life will be made Much, Much richer, as has been mine…
And at the very least, let’s have us what I like to call ‘a real good Durham time’.
Love, Travis
Line Up: The King Teen, Wigg Report, Ken Moshesh & Friends, Living Earth
Show starts at 7, runs until 10 pm, Moon Dog Meadery, Broad St.
(under Joe Van Gogh’s coffee shop)