Changing the Station
Been doing a lot of thinking over the past few weeks. Things happened so quickly with Arlington Station since October of 2007. We all had a great time, but it’s time to move on. For those of you who don’t know, Arlington Station is down to just me. Without getting into details, it’s just really hard to keep a band together. Much harder than it looks like from the outside. So many variables and emotions.
Met with Dave and Lisa for dinner the other night. Lisa is excited about trying to go for it on her own as a front person for her own band. We left dinner that night looking forward to playing music together again. I’m sure it will happen. Ron and I have also talked a bit recently. And while we won’t be doing anything with AST, we have agreed that we’d love the chance to play music together again as our schedules will allow. He’s got quite a few projects in front of him as one would expect someone that talented to have!
Meanwhile, I’m playing and writing. Nothing’s changed there. In the next few weeks and months I hope to do a couple of things. First, I’d like to keep getting gigs. It will be harder now as a solo performer and the crowds will be very small compared to the AST shows, but that’s cool. I spent a year and a half playing to small crowds pre-AST and was happy. I’ll just do it all over again.
Second, on the advice of a few people, including Billy Brandt, I’m going to do what I have to do to get a CD recorded. Even if it’s only 4-6 songs. I’ll need that CD to makes some money and get some gigs. Looking forward to the process.
Third, I have begun to enter a few of my songs in songwriting contests. I have no idea how this will go, but it’s fun to think about. Any recognition will be appreciated and motivating.
Finally, I’d just like to say thanks to Dave, Lisa, Ron and everyone who showed up for the shows or supported Arlington Station in any way. It’s been a great, fun ride. Hope to see you out soon.
John
Some Important News About Arlington Station
Some important news about Arlington Station:
Dave and Lisa are no longer with Arlington Station. Ron and I will be finishing out the shows on our August schedule.
Dave, Lisa and I have been friends for a long time and that won’t change. They will continue playing with Seven Bridges and pursuing other opportunities as well. Speaking of Seven Bridges, you may want to come out to South Lyon’s McHattie park tonight. We will all be playing music together again, with Lisa’s brother Keith as Seven Bridges (I’m filling in for their drummer, Rick). Looking forward to a great night of music.
Finally, Ron and I hope you come out and give us a listen. This bulletin will take the place of the August 1st newsletter, and I hope to be able to send out another update around the first of September to let you know what will become of Arlington Station.
Thanks for your support (past and, hopefully, future!),
John Natiw
Arlington Station
Catching Up on the Blog
Wow, what a busy week. Aside from all the personal things that come up in everyone’s lives, the band has been killing it all week. Dave, Lisa and myself rehearsed with Seven Bridges on Tuesday. I’ll be filling in for their drummer Rick on August 8th. But that wasn’t the only time I got to play with them this week. More about that later.
Thursday was the big day for us. We played live in studio at WHFR.FM at Henry Ford Community College. The tracks we’ve posted on our page are taken from that performance. We were all pretty nervous, but it seemed to go well. Thanks to Karen for flying out to Wonderland Music 15 minutes before we went live to buy me a new capo. Yes, I forgot mine. Very embarrassing. I’ve put the new one in my guitar case for good! Lesson learned.
Friday we got to play at a new open mic show around town. The South Lyon Church of Christ (where Dave and Lisa attend) put on a great show! We got to do two sets of music for the large crowd. We also got to hear a set from Kathy who is a regular at Solid Grounds as well as Barb’s first performance of her first song! It’s called “I Never Got Tired of Kissing That Girl”. Great work Barb. Very touching.
Saturday we dodged the rain and had a ball playing at Megan’s grad party. This would also turn out to be a big day. This would mark the first time that all the members of Arlington Station and Seven Bridges would play on the same stage at the same time. Ryan also joined the band sandwich. We played two songs as a unit and it was a riot. Dave on bass, Lisa sang, Keith on lead guitar, Ryan and I on acoustic and Ron on violin. Thanks for the great time and CONGRATULATIONS MEGAN!
After jamming long into the night it finally was time to pack it all up and go home. I knew if I didn’t get this posted tonight I never would.
I’m off to bed! See you all on Friday at Solid Grounds Coffee Shop in Northville! We’ll be ready to rock again!
John
Random Acts of Music
Every so often on a Tuesday, I head out to Northville to play at or watch the open mic at Solid Grounds Coffee Shop hosted by Steve Kovich. There are a lot of great “regulars” at this gig. Darwin, Bill, Kathy, Steve, Terry and so many more amazing performers. Sort of our very own “Tuesday night music club” I suppose.
Tonight was one of those Tuesday’s.
The difference tonight was that as I’m playing my first song, in walk Dave & Lisa. When I had the chance to play again I coaxed them into coming up for a few tunes. We did What Can I Say, Imagine and I’m With the Band.
Moral of the story? Come on out to the open mic show at Solid Grounds on Tuesday nights. You never know who might show up. ;o)
See you soon,
John
Arlington Station
Nothin’ All Day
Lisa, Dave and I recently decided to increase our practices to twice per week for the time being. We have quite a few shows coming up and are looking forward to trying out some new material.
Tonight was a very good rehearsal. About halfway through the evening, I played a new song idea I came up with last night. I haven’t really written any songs of late and was sitting around trying to think of something (to no avail). Eventually I realized I was trying too hard and started thinking about “thinking about nothing” instead. Nothin’ All Day was born. I got a chorus idea and a couple of verse ideas out of that session last night.
It was a pleasant surprise when we started working on it tonight near the end of the practice again and we began to add lyrics and set the arrangement. By the time we finished, we had completed a few verses and had ideas for the rest.
After Dave and Lisa left for the night, I did some playing with it and finished the lyrics. I’m happy to say that many of the ideas we had as a group made it into the finished version. This constitutes the first time we worked on a song together. Another milestone in the Arlington Station story. Hopefully there will be many more songs in the future for us as a group.
Anyway, here’s the chorus as it sits now. Hopefully we’ll play this new one out soon!
John
I’m gonna think about nothin’ all day
And while away some time
It don’t matter what people say
I know the sun will shine
Tomorrow I’ll see it in a different way
But for now I’m thinkin’ ’bout nothin’ today
“Do You Know What the Speed Limit Is, Sir?”
Tonight was a great show downriver at the East River Folk Society open mic. I’ve performed there a few times as a solo act, but this was the first time with Dave and Lisa as Arlington Station. Made it even more special tonight to have a lot of family there supporting us. Thanks for coming out guys. Means a lot!
After checking our straps (sorry, inside, I know), we started off with Lovin’ Arms by the Dixie Chicks. Perhaps I should back up a bit. Prior to our taking the stage, we all met in a little chapel upstairs to make sure we were in tune and on the same page (“nice to be witcha… hope I’m witcha all night”). Turns out I probably should’ve blown on my harmonica at least once before going on. Yup. Somehow I had grabbed the G harp when I needed the A harp. Oops! So a few bars in on Lovin’ Arms, I realized that I was hit. We managed, aside from a few confused looks from Dave and Lisa.
Second up was Hiding My Heart, a Brandi Carlile tune. No problems with that one! We finished up with I’m With the Band by Little Big Town. We seemed to nail that one.
Rachel Anne and Jenni took the stage after us and did a great job on Jezebel by Iron & Wine and a song called Baby I by Amy Millan.
Ok, so about the post title…
We all decided to order some pizza and meet back at our place. So…. I’m going down Fort St. and BAM. Lights. Yup. Apparently I was going a touch too fast. The reason I was going a touch too fast became apparent when the nice officer asked me if I knew the speed limit. “Um… 40-45?” I replied. “No sir, it’s 35.”
Ouch.
Fortunately, I had caught said officer on a good night and he let me off with “impeding traffic”. No points. Yessssss!
Got home, had a bunch of pizza and called it a night. See you all in Plymouth in a couple weeks. I’ll be sure to leave early so I don’t get tempted to drive too fast!
John
Arlington Station – The Story Behind the Name
Once we realized that we enjoyed playing music together again and we were pretty good at it, we started thinking about possibly packaging this product with a name. John had been keeping a long list of possible names for his solo venture, but was in no hurry to use any of them. John’s oldest daughter is in the US Army, stationed at Ft. Myer, VA, right next to Arlington National Cemetery. As a result of a few visits to that national landmark and the surrounding area, many of the names on his list had the word Arlington in them.
After kicking around a few names at practice in mid-December, John e-mailed Dave and Lisa with part of “the list”. Dave picked out Arlington Station as one he liked best, so they tried it out at the December Baseline show and were introduced for the first time as “Arlington Station”.
After that show, John set out to do some research and found out some interesting things.
1. Many of the fire stations in Arlington, Va are called Arlington Station 1, 2, 3, etc.
2. One of the subway stations in Boston is called Arlington Station. There is a great photo in our photo section of the inside of this station. Notice the Arlington mosaic in the photo.
3. There’s a pizza and deli joint in Poughkeepsie, NY that calls itself Arlington Station (Lisa was particularly interested in this one).
4. This next one seemed to hit home a bit and would make all three band members kind of tilt their collective heads and go “hmm…”
In 1910, the U. S. Navy determined that Arlington’s Fort Myer (coincidentally where John’s daughter is stationed) was the best site for the location of a new high-powered radio station. Initial construction consisted of one 600 and two 450-foot towers. The Station was intended to provide communications from the seat of government to fleet commanders stationed off the U.S. mainland.
While they may seem quaint or even primitive by modern standards, upon their completion in 1913, the Navy’s Radio Station Arlington Towers were considered to represent the height of cutting edge communications technology. In their day, “The Three Sisters” as they were known, were the second largest manmade structure in the world behind only the Eiffel Tower, with the tallest of the three standing a full 45 feet higher than the Washington Monument.
Located at the intersection of Columbia Pike and Courthouse Road, the towers were built to launch the Navy’s effort to establish a worldwide communications network. Using the call letters NAA, the towers functioned to provide the first long distance radio conversation, the first transoceanic radio telephone circuit (fittingly, to a French station broadcasting from the Eiffel Tower), and served to introduce the regular broadcasts of time signals, which was important to ships at sea who relied on accurate time checks for navigational purposes.
In 1915, a breakthrough in long distance communications was achieved in Arlington with a voice transmission from New York to Mare Island, California. Not long after, a radio telephone message was received in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and at the Eiffel Tower in Paris. These were the first instances of successful long distance overseas transmission of this type. The use of the word “radio” to describe the new wireless communication was introduced here, as was transoceanic voice communication.
The towers were taken down in 1941 upon the opening of National Airport as they were considered to be an aviation hazard. Today, the site at Columbia Pike and Courthouse road continues to be occupied by military communications departments, chiefly the Defense Communication Agency. There are photographs like the one in our photo album, showing the Three Sisters and cavalry exercises from Fort Myer, and you can find out more information on the towers using newspapers on microfilm, all in the Virginia Room.
It was this last bit of history that seemed to cement the name choice for the band. We particularly liked the idea of the Arlington Station at Ft. Myer being a big part of the history of broadcast radio. And, as we all know, radio would eventually broadcast… music. We hope that we’ll someday be able to reach many people with our music, just like the “three sisters” at Arlington Station reached most of the world in the early 1900’s
Now you know… the rrrrrrrest of the story.
Thanks for reading,
AST
Arlington Station is On the Air
Hey all,
Turns out this venture with Lisa and Dave is going very well. We’ve not done two shows together and can’t wait to get out and do more. Anyhoo… We’ve created a website for the new group. Dave and Lisa are still with Seven Bridges and I’m still working on solo material, but this looks like it’s going to be taking up most of my music time for the near future, at least. We’re having a blast. Hope to see you out at a show soon!
John
Here’s the bio info for Arlington Station as it’s seen on the band’s myspace:
Lisa, John and Dave have played music together in one form or another since 2002. They have been entertaining audiences (and themselves!) as Arlington Station since October, 2007.
Folk, country and original compositions are what you might hear when you come to an Arlington Station show. But there is more to this band than genres. What really separates the group is vocal style. As one fan recently put it, “when one or two of you are singing, it’s very good… but when all three of you are making harmonies like you do, it’s magic”.
Although a relatively new group, Arlington Station displays advanced musicianship and a very distinct sound. Lisa has a very strong vocal style, whether she is powering through lead vocals or providing tight backing vocals. John gives the band a variety of sound layers including acoustic guitar, harmonica and mandolin, as well as lead and backing vocals. Dave holds down the bottom end on bass and adds some deep emotion to the music as well as providing a lower vocal layer in harmony.
More than any of these observations, though, this is a group of friends having fun playing music. We hope it shows.
Look for Arlington Station at various events around southeast Michigan in the near future. Contact: ArlingtonStation@gmail.com for further details.
