You’re road tripping to America's best music venues with Kyle Lamont. On this episode, Lamont ventures to Aroostook County in Northern Maine to hang out with Ben Cosgrove, a traveling composer and pianist, before his show at Eureka Hall, Maine’s most remote music venue. The snowy audio journey includes deep talks about music, landscapes, and heartbreak. Lamont & Cosgrove even drive through a micro-blizzard to reach Fort Kent, marking the start of Route One—a monumental moment for two passionate road warriors. Tune in for a podcast filled with music, adventure, and the sense of Eureka that comes with reaching your destination.
Announcer:
You’re road tripping to America's best music venues with Kyle Lamont. On this episode, Lamont ventures to Aroostook County in Northern Maine to hang out with Ben Cosgrove, a traveling composer and multi instrumentalist, before a show at Eureka Hall concert cast the podcast is an audio atlas filled with music, maps, conversations and discoveries to help you navigate America's soundscape and tune into every state's live music scene. Concert culture is travel centric, and every venue has a voice. So let us go and listen. Created and hosted by Kyle Lamont.
Kyle:
Things are definitely different in these parts. Northern Maine, that is. The landscape, the sounds, my perception. Hi, I'm Kyle Lamont. And my day began around 10 a.m. when I left the Lucky Stone Retreat in Sullivan before. So I texted Ben Cosgrove, who are meeting up with later to see if the weird weather had derailed his travels when he said no and that he was about an hour shy of Eureka Hall in Stockholm. I finished packing, jumped in my forerunner and maneuvered my way up the muddy driveway, took a right on Route one north and settled in for a five hour road trip to a part of Maine. I've never been to before. Despite the weather being gray, dismal and gloomy with patches of snow, new sights, even if they are in your home state, always have a shine to them.
The more I drive, the more things change, I left behind fishing towns. And now before me, fields and fields of potato fields covered in a blanket of snow. And you know your way up north.When some of the radio stations are in French,
[French Radio]
Kyle:
Potatoes are what Aroostook County is known for that and University of Maine at Presque Isle. And as of late, for Jessica Meir, the first woman from Maine to travel to space who hails from a town here called Caribou. Basically, this part of Maine is not a top destination simply because it is so damn far away. But that's also what makes it alluring. I’ve been holding out on this road trip because while it's the last frontier of mine in Maine. So, like anything, it's hard to let something go. But with Ben Cosgrove hitting the stage tonight and knowing that Eureka is one of the only venues in Maine that I've never been to, the stars are aligned and I am all in and savoring every mile. Luckily, there's a lot of them. My usual road trip practices are fully engaged in between snacking on turkey sandwiches, salt and vinegar chips and sour patch kids. I’ll blare my music. Then I'm known to drive in silence without music. Just listening to the purr of the engine and my thoughts. I make phone calls, take random pit stops to stretch my legs. It's a joy to drive solo, mainly because I win all my hypothetical arguments. After stopping at a huge truck stop in Houlton for a piece of pie and to fill up on petrol, I drive through Presque Isle and then begin my final descent into the town of New Sweden. I was expecting cell service to get sketchy when I turned off Route one on to 161. But it was stronger than ever, probably because we're so close to New Brunswick, Canada. I felt a bit uneasy leaving Route one.
It's a comfort blanket of mine, especially because the clouds are getting dark and the temperatures are dropping to single digits and there was absolutely nothing around. I start thinking bad things, like if I were to go off the road, I would have to rely on a small blanket in the backseat and a sandwich crust to get me through the night. But just when my thoughts were getting as dark as the clouds, I see a lone figure walking the cold winter road and I know immediately who it is. I roll my window down and in jest make a joke about how I'm looking for a traveling composer. He's at first taken aback, like he hasn't seen a human in a while. And then with a radiating smile, says that I found him.
It's Ben Cosgrove and he is killing time before his gig by walking around the venue. And in this case, he's not exploring cityscapes or coffee shops or boutiques, but rather exploring rolling hills and frozen creeks. I pull into the parking lot and the name of the venue. Eureka! Could not be more apropos. There is a true sense of discovery and jubilation of seeing a random yet warm and inviting building in the middle of nowhere. Next episode will dive more into the insane history of this music venue. But for now, we're hanging out with Ben before his performance here. He regroups with me in the parking lot and I decide while we still have the light to saunter with him through the snow.
Ben:
I try not to slip. There's a lot of snow. If we slightly stick up for our waist, that's it.
Kyle:
So on one side of the marquee here, it says, welcome sledders. And then the other side, it says, welcome Ben and Max.
Ben:
Yeah, that's that's us. We’re on a first name basis with Aroostook County.
Kyle:
Max Garcia Conover is a singer and songwriter from Portland who's also on the bill with Ben tonight. This feels so nice to walk in nature.
Ben:
Yeah, you're getting a a representative experience of my touring is usually like it's sort of like a if I get there early ramble around. Actually, I did this gig three years ago and when I took the day in between the two nights to walk up and down one of the roads here as far as I could, and I slipped and broke my ankle.
Kyle:
You broke your ankle here?
Ben:
Yep. Yep. Got to go to the Caribou emergency room.
Kyle:
Wow. So, you know this place inside and out?
Ben:
Yeah. I can tell you all about where not to step. Actually, it's clear that I did not learn any of the important lessons.
Kyle:
No, you're still fearless when it comes to exploring.
Ben:
Yeah, that's the word I was gonna use.
Kyle:
Our nature walk quickly turns philosophical. But you're very cognizant of sounds in nature.
Ben:
I try to be. I mean, how would you interpret the sound of a footstep? Is that like you sort of intruding on the sound of of what should be there? Or is it. Are you kind of adding to it?
So. But with. How does he think this town is out to get your act?
Ben:
Oh, we're definitely walking like four feet above the ground.
Kyle:
So, OK. The whole premise or theme of your piano music. What is the genre you like to call it?
Ben:
I just see instrumental, usually instrumental. Yeah, it's, um. Yeah, so it's hard to describe. It's not classical music and it's not New Age music or it's on jazz music, it's just sort of I was just sort of think I'm like a Singer-Songwriter who doesn't sing. But I write about landscape and place and geography. These are things I'm really kind of nerdy about and obsessed with. And it's. It's been. Fun and really gratifying to kind of use my music as a way to think about those things publicly. And it kind of doubles as a nice way to like use the music as an excuse to go places. Like, I can kind of like I wouldn't be able to come to northern Maine as like a couple times a year if I didn't have the excuse of playing music about it.
Kyle:
I do like how you said that you're a singer songwriter because while listening to some of your tunes on the way up, it definitely feels like a song with in itself, like minus lyrics that there's little chapters within, say, Salt or Pine.
Ben:
Yeah, no thanks. I'm glad I came through that some. That's how they they're intended.I mean, just like a lot of the music I listen to is folk music and I kind of treat it that way, like when I perform most of time. I like talk to the audience throughout and kind of like I think of them as songs that kind of like shift and change over time and kind of adapt to a room. I'm about to have some other cool sounds of nature.
Kyle:
Here we go. We got some snowmobilers. Super rad, super.
Ben:
I don't know how somebody was talking to somebody about this, not like this is true of a lot of like really rural places where you expect them to be really quiet. But in fact, like the definitive soundscape of places like Northern Maine or Northern Minnesota is usually like that. There's lots of engines.
Kyle:
Let's go deeper into the geography.
Ben:
OK.
Kyle:
Like, when did you acknowledge that that was the inspiration for music?
Ben:
I've been writing instrumental music since I was a little kid when I was a music major in college. But it was also while I was in college, I realized I also had this very kind of I kind of developed a big interest in, So I like the built environment and landscape and interpreting like topography. And I feel like because I don't write lyrics, it's very important for me to feel like I'm writing music about something like tying it to something bigger than itself. And place and landscape are things I love thinking about. And it makes the act of writing music feel more gratifying and important. And oh, that sounds pretentious or pretentious, but important to me. Like I'm doing the work of processing the world for myself by writing songs about how places make me feel.
Kyle:
So to you, is the sound of a tree like an “A chord?” Like does is translate that literally?
Ben:
No, no, no, never. It’s very like the opposite of literal. And it didn't used to be I used to be a much more interested in the literal soundscapes of places. I kind of spent a whole year researching noise pollution, national parks, and like talking to people at the extent to which the literal sounds of a place inform its identity, dealing with places more kind of metaphorically.
[Music Plays]
Ben:
My songs are usually about like ways we like, ways in which this view reminds me of feeling, you know, disoriented or like ways in which a fault line reminds me of heartbreak or like it's kind of like finding geographical metaphors for different emotional states and writing music that connects the two things.
Kyle:
There it is. Nice.
Ben:
Thanks.
Kyle:
Like you said, it's interpretive without lyrics, but yet you managed to find emotion within the song.
Ben:
And it's sort of a way to forcing myself to think, like, hard about what you like to be present where I am and be paying close attention to how I am reacting to some place like what it what it is reminding me of and what connections I might like meaningfully draw.
Kyle:
Yes!
Ben:
I apologize for all the sniffling by the way.
Kyle:
No, you must be freezing right now. Now we're going to get into the car and our happy place, is a car, in a lot of ways, we’ll crank up the heat and head to, what, the top of the state?
Ben:
Yeah. We'll see how much time we have. Well, we can do we can go for it.
Kyle:
What time do you have to be back?
Ben:
I don’t know.
Kyle:
Are they strict here? Seems like a very strict place.
Ben:
Yes.
Kyle:
We get in to my forerunner. Crank the heat and head towards Fort Kent, Maine's most Northern town, and also the beginning of Route one.
Announcer:
Two middle aged dads just want to spend a quiet day with their daughters at the park. But when an obnoxious group of teens drive by too fast and too loud, it spurs the aging disgruntled dads into a self-righteous act of passive aggression from producer Kyle Lamont and writer and Director Jim Picariello. Watch the award winning dark comedy, Passive Aggressive Dads at goodtogostudios.com
Kyle:
And we're rolling.
Ben:
Sweet
Kyle:
This is definitely a first interviewing while driving.
Ben:
Oh, no. Oh, man, I feel like I'm your perfect interviewee for this milestone.
Kyle:
And why is that?
Ben:
Because I’m always driving.
Kyle:
As am I! This is our happy place.
Ben:
No, totally.
Kyle:
I picked the conversation back up so I can better understand his songwriting process.
Kyle:
You're definitely the first musician I've ever talked to that plays this genre of music. So I'm also trying to decipher and articulate how I feel when I listen to music without words. You know, I love electronic music. right. It’s the same idea. But you lean into the classical approach more or less.
Ben:
I don't know. I would push back on that though, I think I'm still writing folk songs. They're just not. They don't have words in them and they mean that they're about the same kinds of things, they're about discrete experiences and discrete things, and they're all like three or four minutes long. They're about these very specific things that are kind of like. Connect the keys for broader experiences, and that's why I feel like there like songs, like a song can be like about a very particular specific thing on paper and then but but then kind of secretly be about this broader part of the human experience.And that's why people love it. Like they they know that like this song about a chipmunk or whatever is really about, you know, loss.
Kyle:
As we continue our drive past rolling hills, we move into the heart of his album, Salt.
[Music Plays]
Ben:
I went through this like a horrific breakup several years ago, and I was trying to figure out a way to make sense of it. That could be about landscape in some way. So I ended up writing about places where the ground is like undependable or it comes and goes because I know the way I was feeling was that, like sort of the it and pulled out from under me. And I couldn't reliably depend on, like, where I could find my feet or where anything was like that kind of thing.
So I wrote about places where that is literally true. It's like there's some sort of like dependability or reliability or predictability to how they're shifting all the time. And they can kind of like one of the last songs to sing what the Kennebec, which is like. It moves backwards half the time. But you can also kind of depend on it being there and you know that like there's this river there. Sometimes it goes one way or sometimes it goes the other way. But like, we can build a house beside it either way.
[Music Plays]
Kyle:
So when it comes to love, are you now more guarded or do you feel more prepared to be in love?
Ben:
Geez. This is a hell of a podcast. I think I probably am more guarded and I would like not to be so.
Kyle:
Well, I think heartbreak or trauma or anything like that, like, you know, the only way out of it is through it.
Ben:
Mm hmm.
Kyle:
Right?
Ben:
Yeah. Everyone says that when you're going through it. But like, how do you like. It's hard to know when you're in the moment. Like what. Which way is through.
Kyle:
And it sounds like you, writing music was through it.
Ben:
Yeah. I knew I was going to have to do it at some point. And it took me like a year. Just to kind of find the floor.
Kyle:
But it's funny because, I mean, just the titles of the songs. I don't think you ever would have guessed that it was about heartbreak.
Ben:
They're all quite like entirely reasonably about the landscapes that they indicate as well. Like there. They kind of. Like the first song, Champlain is about a lake that is frozen that you can't like. You can walk across what feels like a field. But, you know, the entire time that that surface, you're on is impermanent and can disappear at any moment. And the earth sort of it feels very broad and open and beautiful. But also like you're aware of a particular, like, fragility.
[Music Plays]
Ben:
The greatest hope is that it reminds people of experiences they've had or things they felt that they may not have had language for or. Context for them, but like that might resonate with them anyway. And then if I can help people to feel more comfortable in themselves and their experience and where they are and think more critically about where they are.
Kyle:
I like knowing these things. And now it's like a blizzard.
Ben:
Yeah, that did happen pretty fast.
Kyle:
Power like white squall.
Ben:
Anyone listening to this from the county, you were on 161 just shy of Fort Kent. And we came up that hill where sudden everything's open and now it's like a white out.
Kyle:
And so it's very safe to be podcasting and driving.
Ben:
Totally highly recommended.
Kyle:
Okay. So did your girlfriend listen to the album or ex-girlfriend?
Ben:
I don't know, man. I, I we are not we are not in touch even while I was making it. I don't think I cared about whether or not she would ever hear it is more about kind of trying to put something of an objective eye on my own experience of like processing this stuff.
Kyle:
We drive through Fort Kent, a logging town that sort of feels like a ghost town, and then take a right into a parking lot that has a huge granite sign that officially marks this area as the start of Route one. We get out and I relish in this huge moment of mine. Wow.
I am living a road tripper’s dream here. America's First Mile. I've made it. Now, if only I could detangle from all these goddamn cords.
Ben:
No this is very cool. It is neat to think about it. Like it seems sort of arbitrary that the thing right here and the thing in Key West is all route one it’s just like this river of this river of asphalt.This kind of goes from here to Florida, but also the Arizona River of asphalt I mean right? Like there's just like an unbroken chain of road that goes kind of wherever you want.
Kyle:
This is exciting, Ben. Thank you for being part of it. It’s official. We take obligatory photos and then head back to New Sweden. Someone has a show to play.
Ben:
All right. Want me to navigate you out of town here? And then I need to play a show.
Kyle:
Ben has a signature sound style and look. Picture crazy hair and a bright red keyboard.
Ben:
I bought it in Danvers, Massachusetts, in 2010.
Kyle:
And did you test run, test drive other Korgs?
Ben:
No, I was I was preparing to buy. I'd been courting this other keyboard call, which is like the keyboard everybody has just like the Nord stage thing. So like whenever you see keyboardist on stage, especially in a band, they're playing a Nord. And it's like the other red keyboard. And it's way better than mine. For certain. Like the organ is way better. There's like an infinite sound bank that you can do. But like, had gone back to this store again and again by testing on that keyboard to make sure I went to spend all this money on it. Then in the very last time I went to get it, I saw this other one and immediately fell madly in love with it. I was like, like the piano sounds so much better and I feel the keyboard so much better. And it's the best decision I've ever been in my life. It's a it's a Korg s.v one for anyone who cares.
Kyle:
But don't let the keyboard fool you. He also knows how to play a piano. Do you feel when you're playing a grand piano, there's a different sense of. Performance like you can't really play the songs you do on your org as you like, can you play the same songs?
Ben:
Yeah, but they sound like it's like it's literally playing them on a different instrument. So you like kind of. Calibrate your every instinct's differently, and if you can't do anything on autopilot, you have to think the whole time about how every move you make is influencing the sound that's coming in.
Kyle:
I didn't know that it was that extreme.
Ben:
Yeah, it also I like every piano is different. It's like this big, like, crazy box full of like. Elaborate. Mechanisms you know? There's so much room for the like variance between piano and like put like to say nothing of like the rooms they're in, like, like bass notes are really loud in this space or not like like. That's the thing I like about my instrument, actually, is that it's that it does change so much based on where you are. And you can never stop thinking about it. You have to kind of be active the whole time.
Kyle:
Would you ever want to play at Carnegie Hall?
Ben:
Yeah. Yeah. Did you know who books it?
Kyle:
Why would you want to play there?
Ben:
I don’t know, I think you would feel a sense of accomplishment.
Kyle:
That's what that place is for—
Ben:
Yeah. I don't know
Kyle:
—anyone is like any musician, really. It just is a pinnacle, really performance. Right? Because of why to you?
Ben:
I don’t know, I think it's more like mythologized. I've never been there. I've never, ever been inside. I don't know. I'm sure it's an awesome place to play and to listen to music, obviously, but I don't know. I wouldn't say no if I were offered a spot at Carnegie Hall.
Kyle:
When it comes to venues, Ben prefers to play in more obscure places. Just to like backup a little bit like your genre of music, though, you know, in a sense, in a stereotypical sense, you would think to be performed more in a in a hall, something that's just a little bit more high brow or something, right? But you've said that you've played in gas stations, dive bars. Like, what is that process of, you know, going into a space that is built to be rowdy, if you will, and sort of tempering that mood, but meeting people halfway?
Ben:
So I had to learn in that kind of rowdier spaces how to tailor my performance to the space. And like in the first couple of songs, make people feel like they should shut up and listen to me. And there is no more valuable skill than I've had, I've devolved. And now that I play in more places that are kind of more appropriate for the type of music I do, I think my shows are better for having learned how to sell a song. I like my thinking for a long time, was like, if you can play a song in a dive bar and in a listening room and in a concert hall and in a library, like if all of those people like it, then it's a good song. But if any of them doesn't, then it's like got something that isn't quite there. Playing in any venue or like non venue. That would have me for years and years, made me learn kind of how to make my songs as as bullet proof as I could. And it made me better at writing and way better at performing and and kind of like hardened me against, I don’t know. I never worry about it, like my feelings getting hurt.
Kyle:
Ben has a great gift for translating feelings into music and he also knows how to read people really well.
Ben:
Like, every show is very dynamic and weird and like anything can go in any direction at any time. And the bad shows are always the ones where you're just sort of like blasting down a set list and not making adjustments based on what you're observing. Like, I think to do a good show, you have to be kind of a living person in the room and watching how people are taking everything. That doesn't mean just like kind of giving them what they like and seem to want. It's it's just kind of calibrating your set and the way you play everything and the way you talk, calibrating that to what the experience is feeling like.
Kyle:
Have you ever rolled into a venue and, you know, been super let down or worried that your music isn't going to translate well and then just surprised at the reaction?
Ben:
Yeah, a lot.
Kyle:
Is that like the majority then? It's about how you. It is just sort of wowing people. You start off like really slow and people feel a little worried maybe.
Ben:
Yeah. I now kind of open with the same song at every set, which is which I like. I tend to open with a song of mine called Montreal Song.
[Music Plays]
Ben:
And it just because it's kind of like broad and like a lot of notes happen and it's usually enough to make people kind of pause for a second. And I all like there's a guy playing the piano. And then after you've kind of cleared some space, then you can draw back and play some slower songs and see if people hang on. And it's not like fishing. It's you like dragging through the water. And if nobody bites at it, then you, like, kind of like recast that if if you don't. It's hard to explain. I've never actually tried to explain this to anybody using real words, but. Yeah, it's always a very kind of dynamic and complicated experience for me. I'm sure it's less so for people who are really good at it, but I know for me it always feels like work and I that's what I like about it.
Kyle:
We pull into the parking lot and there are way more snowmobiles parked here now than when we left. The snowmobiles took my spot. You if you were to get in between that blue car with New York plates, it looks like I think you're right. Let's just pull right up to the marquee, shall we? Yes. All right. I'll see you in there. Thank you again. Good luck.
Announcer:
Next episode, we learn all about Eureka and the town from George the owner, Ezra the bartender and Tim a Eureka Hall regular and local historian.
Tim:
In 1925, this was a mere capital of the world. This was an enormous. This was a huge town. It was a mean nothing like it was. These are. This is one of the few buildings, this Andersen store across the street. One of the few original buildings that are still here. But this was like a city back then.
Announcer:
For places to stay in Stockholm. Your best bet is an air BnB. So many awesome lake houses in the area. Or stay at the Northeastland Hotel in downtown Presque Isle, about 30 minutes from the venue. This town is also where you'll find more restaurants and bars. Subscribe rate and review Concert Cast on your podcast app of choice. Type in ConcertCast.live for a music centric itinerary and to learn how you can be part of the show and find us on Spotify to listen to our Maine music playlist. This has been a good to go studios production made in Ellsworth, Maine. Our resident mastermind is Mark Tekushan. Our editor and engineer is Pete Mccgill, Special thanks to Ben Cosgrove for his time and for all his wicked awesome songs. And to Pepper Little, Amy Charley, Abbey Rock Jessiman, Corey Chandler, Emma Thieme, Eddie Contento, Jesse Couto. And thank you for listening.