from Freak to Firefighter
Training for the volunteer firefighting squad in a tiny upstate New York town. Also, some live performances to announce.
Hi, I’m Arone. You might know me from projects like Buke & Gase1 and Radiolab being nice to us. Or from Dronechoir2 or Mistresses, or me singing with The National that time,3 or Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson that other time.4
I’ve been meaning to start a mailing list for a minute now, and I hear people kind of actually like this newsletter situation so I figured I’d try it. But rather than a boring old here’s what I’m doing & why you should click a link to listen to me on some app you dislike, I thought it might be great to start with a new journey I’m on.
I’m currently in the process of becoming a Volunteer Firefighter in the Town of Greenport, NY!
WTF am I learning? Why on earth would I do that? AKA can this Liberal Artist get along with Not-So-Liberal Volunteer Firefighters? No, I’m not pitching this as a reality show. Yet.
Anyway scroll down to to start my transformative journey.
From from this wacko…to this other wacko.
Upcoming Live Performances
Before I get into that, I am still a musician so let me tell you about a pair of shows coming up
May 2-4: Buke & Gase @ Long Play Festival
Where: Brooklyn, New York at venue tbd • tickets & details • What is it? A multi-day, multi-venue festival put on by the awesome Bang on a Can organization. Our date and venue has not been confirmed yet but festival passes include the chance to see us and a 90th birthday tribute to Terry Riley with Pete Townshend (yes, The Who guy) and folks like Max Richter and Kim Gordon (from Sonic Youth & Body / Head) and lots of other great musicians.
June 28: Dronechoir @ Roulette
Where: 509 Atlantic Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11217 • tickets & details • What is it? An awesome, long-standing experimental music venue commissioned a new and improved version of my Dronechoir, made possible with funds provided by the New York State Council on the Arts. Roulette is only awarded a maximum of one of these grants each year, and it feels cool to be the Chosen One.
How A Freak Becomes A Firefighter?
What am I DOING?! I suppose, to be fair, I don’t take my hobbies lightly, and this will be no exception. I’ve been regularly attending my public Town Board meetings for a little over three years, trying to learn the ins and outs of how the town is run, who makes what decisions and why, and imagining what my role could be.
I have a strong desire to be involved in my community, to know and champion my neighbors, and to contribute to the collective good, so this seemed like a good starting place. I’m not-at-all interested in being a member of the Board or a Supervisor of anything, so it’s been a long process of trying to figure out where I can fit. Especially as an artist, tripping backwards into a mid-life-crisis with outstretched middle fingers aimed at my youth. Ha ha! You knew nothing, Arone Snow! I will totally find purpose now that I’m older and didn’t have kids, I swear.
So I find myself seated on a squishy-yet-uncomfortable vinyl chair in the section of the room reserved for the public, becoming familiar and friendly with the other characters who show up to these meetings on the regular.
I rarely see anyone there who looks like they’re in my generation, or class (#LivingThatArtistLife).
Mostly they’re older, scruffier, angrier. Like one guy who often raises tough, assertive questions like “Why don’t we ever hear from the Police Department during these public meetings like every other department?!” Or the older couple who regularly attend who told me, frankly, that this was an entertaining and informative way to spend the first Wednesday of every month. “It’s fun to hear the gossip, too!”
One time, and I’m SO GLAD I didn’t miss it, there was an older woman who raised a complaint about her neighbor who was “…growing weed in pots! That’s like setting a six-pack on your curb!” The whole room had a laugh about this. I couldn’t help but feel that the more silly moments like these were exactly what builds community across class and generation.
Unfortunately, it’s mostly an older generation, fraught with many who are stuck in particular mindsets. Lastly, notoriously (at least to everyone at the meetings), there’s the guy with the neighbor whose bushes block his driveway view of oncoming cars which is understandably “very dangerous” and he desperately wants someone to take responsibility for them to be cut down or trimmed. He is incredibly organized, and even more incredibly frustrated with the process of getting those gosh-darned bushes trimmed. Apparently he’s been working on it since 2021!
(Update: As of January 8th, the Board has unanimously decided that it was no longer something they could help him with and he needs to give it the fuck up. My words.)
I learn something new, every time, about how the town manages to not completely shut down, and I deeply wish I could convince my artist community to join me there.
The following could sound boring to you, but as with any romance novel, the more familiar you become with the characters, the more invested you become in their stories…
Stay with me.
Within the public audience I’ve cozied up to, representatives of the various town-run departments plant themselves, like sneaky information geysers. (Why wouldn’t they be sitting in the front row, or their own section? This feels subversive…)
The tall, sturdy older man who supervises the Highway Department has a deliciously monotonous, deeply New York accented and slow-paced delivery of mundane monthly occurrences, anything from which trucks needed what repairs and how many arms and legs it cost the town, to what disaster struck and needed emergency attention. Like a very dry martini, but with a twist of “seen it all” and an immediate hangover of disillusionment that there’s no way the town could possibly pay for everything in dire need of updating.
Likewise, it seems the Supervisor of the Department of Water and Sewer has a tragedy to report each month involving one or another failed pump or graffitied water tower, AND he’s the Supervisor of the Department of Public Works, which includes town property management and…the hot dog stand at the public park? What?! This guy does it all!
And then there are…the firefighters.
The Fire Department always feels more official because the Chief proudly stands at the doorway and addresses the whole room, as opposed to what the others do, remaining seated within the constituents, facing the Board. I noted that the number of 911 calls the department responds to each month averages somewhere around 25, and since I sometimes find myself seated next to him, I ask questions.
I learn that the department is entirely made up of volunteers, including the Chief. This BLEW MY MIND: 🤯
He doesn’t get paid?! The people who come to help you on the worst day of your life aren’t getting paid?! They do it out of the goodness of their hearts? What kind of people do that?!
So, after not thinking about it at all, I decided this would be my new contribution to the town.
Ready Shoot AIM! (Sh*t that’s in the wrong order. Already maybe I’m not doing this right.)
If you want to keep hearing anecdotes from my experience, or any other random things I throw in here in the process (which might be any cocktail of music/art/landscaping/life-related things), then please follow and interact with me!
Learn a little more about where I live: Town of Greenport
Here’s an audio preview of what’s to come, I’ll explain it in a future post:
Fuck Old School Social Media. The lie that those platforms would make me more creative sits like a rock in my stomach.
Disclaimer: All names have been changed other than those who reluctantly agree that I can use their legal name. All of the officials are easy enough to research, if you’re antsy. At any rate, I’m not planning on making super rude or inappropriate comments here, just hashing out my perspective. I think highly of everyone I’ve interacted with thus far and I aim to follow the Golden Rule!
We even made a movie about it!
Everyone always asks me what Dronechoir is and if I’m feeling generous I share this clip from an early version performed in Berlin in 2016, and most people seem to like it. And get it.
Yeah I’m up there in the baggy pants.
Yeah that happened. On the Lower East Side on Valentine’s Day a decade ago.
Aaah I love this. I live in a mid-state Hudson Valleyish NY town and started to attend meetings a few years ago and friend: it is AMAZING. It's a lot, it's wild, it's overwhelming, it's the best and the worst of the community, and I also wish everyone would come see. Ps, I'm now on the community board of our town ambulance corp. your post RESONATED. .
welcome to another weird digital space someone convinced you to join! (and thanks for using it to remind us all of the real world.)