Alex Sturbaum & Brian Lyndsay play 'Free Little Bird' by Willi Carlisle on the Nisqually River

Описание: Alex Sturbaum & Brian Lyndsay play 'Free Little Bird' by Willi Carlisle on the Nisqually River with tinyboatsession

I know Alex and Brian from a funeral for a rowboat. It sounds a bit silly and it's certainly strange. This boat had taken me and some friends across the Atlantic ocean twice. Once it got a Guinness record and won a race. The other time it capsized after 72 days and was briefly lost and found again.

It was special for those reasons, and special because it was named for my biological father who died of asthma. His name was James Robert Hanssen, and so we called the boat. After it was recovered it spent almost ten years at a museum. Eventually they could not keep it. I couldn't keep it either and so we decided it needed one last adventure and funeral fit for its history. We rowed two kegs of beer 70 miles to a party celebrating a human powered race up the Puget Sound. A few days later we rowed her a last mile to a boat yard where over 150 people met her and we took her apart. Alex and Brain, with their band Countercurrent played sad Irish Music. (There's a lot more to this story, so far a book and hopefully a documentary soon.)

Alex and Brian’s music gave that day a soundtrack of celebration and grief. For a lot of reasons that boat wasn't just a boat that final day. In the moment of its destruction it appeared to become a vessel capable of holding whatever grief anyone brought to it. My dad’s ashes are scattered in Ireland, and to hear the Irish music that day meant the world to me.

After it was done I asked them if they would be interested in doing a tinyboatsession sometime and they said yes.

Two years later we planned to meet at the wreck of a concrete ship on the Nisqually Delta. However, the north wind whipped that day and I recommended a location change after watching a boat full of ducks and their hunters almost capsize.

We headed up the Nisqually River to some fast running water under a bridge. It was a bit swift to row the boat, but I tied the boat to the shore and waded in while these two jammed away. They have been playing for years and communicate with eyes and gestures more than words. Briant told me Alex has at least a thousand songs memorized. Alex was modest about it, I was just amazed.


https://www.alexsturbaum.com/?fbclid=...
  / alexsturbaum  

https://brianlindsaymusic.com/?utm_so...
  / brianlindsaymusic  

https://countercurrentmusic.com/?utm_...
  / countercurrentmusic  


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