Stroll around Southwest Harbor with Ryan Blotnick, an award winning film composer and check out Sips, the towns best music venue.
Announcer:
You're road tripping to America's best music venues with Kyle Lamont on this episode, we head to the quiet side of Mount Desert Island for a stroll around Southwest Harbor with jazz musician and film composer Ryan Blotnick. This is Concert Cast, the podcast and 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:
From Bar Harbor Follow Main Street onto Route 3.You'll cut through Eagle Lake Road and momentarily lose all cell service. Take a left and you'll be an M.D.I.’s oldest settlement called Somesville. It was founded in 1781 and is home to one of the most photographed structures in the state. A small white footbridge crossing a little pond. Yes, the description is poor, but based on all the photographers that gather for a certain shot, the image is not.
It's a good thing because cell service comes back just in time for you to grab the shot and post a picture of it.
Echo Lake is the next big attraction you'll pass on your way into Southwest Harbor. Today it's mirror like reflecting the heavenly fall season that's upon us. Passing this lake means you're almost in the heart of Southwest Harbor, where I'm scheduled to meet up with Ryan Blotnick. But before I do, I make my way to Thurston's the best place in Maine for a lobster roll. In my opinion, at least. If you'd listened to my PHISH episode, I told you so.
Thurston's is situated on a working waterfront. So dare I say the place is basically a lobster trap to table succulent lobster meat buried in a toasted and buttered hotdog roll. This is Maine and a bite.
Once I'm adequately stuffed, I'm ready for a walk. Luckily, that's exactly what Ryan and I are gonna be doing. Strolling SW Harbor with his adorable dog too. I meet up with him in the center of town near Silent City Coffee Shop. I'm Kyle Lamont and I'm firing up my recorder, untangling my cords. At first, I'm embarrassingly aware that this is a rare sight around these parts. But then I really don't mind because podcasting is life right After a few tangles. We hit our stride.
Cords galore. It's glorious. Just another day in SW walking just with our microphones. Right. How would you say that? Southwest Harbor is different from Bar Harbor?
Ryan:
Well, one thing is we don't have cruise ships and we're not as popular. We're not we're not the cool kids as much because it wasn't really on the map like 20 years ago. But now it's getting pretty busy. As you can see, all these restaurants are full in September, even though the kids went back to school. But yeah, they call it the quiet side. And when I moved here five years ago was a lot quieter. And it's still pretty mellow.
Kyle:
We turned the corner on Wesley Street, a street neither one of us have been down before.
Ryan:
You know, I still try to find new places in the park that I've never been. I'll just take like a random path and be like, wait, what is this? And you find an old path that someone made like a hundred years ago and it takes you to some river and then you can bushwhack up the stream or something like that. So for me, it's like constant inspiration. Just being here.
Kyle:
Ryan is from Kennebunkport, Maine, and recently returned back to the state after living in New York City. What made you moved to the island?
Ryan:
Well, a number of things. One of them was just like getting burned out on certain kind of lifestyle in the city. And, you know, one of my biggest sources of inspiration, I think, is nature and connection with just. You know, being in beautiful places and I was kind of missing that in New York. And I just didn’t at some point I was just sort of like felt like I had lost touch with why I had moved to New York in the first place.
Kyle:
So I like sort of the comparison between nature and jazz. How did you gravitate towards jazz?
Ryan:
My dad played some guitar and he would play guitar was going to sleep. And that was when I started really getting back into music. I said, hey, you got to show me how to play guitar. And sort of the purpose of it was to recreate that feeling of being connected to nature. Like in the environment. So yeah, for me it's like very connected.
Kyle:
Have you ever experienced transcendentalism? But while playing music, you know, where you're channeling something different or you're experiencing, you know, a power greater.
Ryan:
Yeah. Well, when you play with really good musicians, sometimes you forget about yourself and what you're doing. And it's almost like they're breathing through you or something or there's like a collective mind that takes over.
Kyle:
We backtrack from Wesley Street and turn right under Clark Point Road. We walk past a venue and restaurant called Sip. It's located in an old house that was once a Masonic hall and later a grocery store called Trendies. When I asked the Historical Society if there were any well-known stories from this time period, they told me with great enthusiasm that one day out of the blue a deer jumped through the window. The deer was okay, but a little boy in the grocery store was very shook up. After trendies, it was an antique store, and today it's a year round restaurant with live music.
Ryan:
I played here a few nights ago and I had a really fun solo gig. It's kind of funny, like you never know and you're gonna have your great musical moments like the owner Jan said, oh, do you want to play? But like, just, you know, like it's background music for dinner. And I said, oh, that's fine. I like playing in the background, too.
And then I had to have a certain kind of audience where like most people are talking, but also appreciating the music. And then there's some people that are like just listening to the music that are sort of holding it down. But the background noise, like actually becomes like my rhythm section. And it's kind of chaotic, but it's it's also natural. Like it's human beings talking and enjoying themselves.
Kyle:
Sip is so popular they opened a lunchbox spot down the street. Perfect for picnics on the go. Up next, we had Don Clark Point Road and talk about Knock Down on the House, a documentary he scored for Netflix.
Announcer:
A forger finds a family secret in the forest floor from producer Kyle Lamont and director Jim Picarello comes the Mushroom Huntress, a modern day fairy tale made in Maine. I'm not Desert Island. GoodtogoStudios.com to watch the trailer and more.
Kyle:
I think one of the biggest accolades, really, and I'd love to just like talk a little bit is composing a soundtrack for a huge Netflix documentary. Can you just sort of talk about the backstory and how it all evolved and sort of just now that it's all done like a reflection on it?
Ryan:
Sure. Well, the backstory is before I was even had any musical training, we had a piano in my house growing up and it was like an old player piano. I would wake up in the morning and go down and play piano like first thing in the morning. I was like an early riser and my brother was a really good storyteller. And so we have these tapes from when we were kids and my brother's like telling stories. And I'm musically narrating the story behind him. And, you know, it's just like what you would imagine it's like. And then Wolf came up and hit the rabbit on the head. And I'm just like, doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo. And so, yeah, that was a big part of my play as a kid was like I was like one fun things that I could do with my brother. And then he became a documentary filmmaker and I became a musician.
Kyle:
His brother and sister in law named Rachel Lears documented the grassroots campaign of three major female Democrats. Ryan was brought on to score the documentary.
Ryan:
This time it was kind of like a dream because we mocked the whole thing up on the computer with all the middIe samples. And then I printed out sheet music for all these great string players and, you know, piano and keyboards and myself recording the guitar stuff and some bass. And and then we got to bring it alive. You know, it felt like like resurrecting the dead, like says something about computer music always feels a little bit, you know, boxy or square or something. And then you got real string players to play something that's super simple. It was really my first time, like really writing string parts except for college and it was amazingly forgiving. Like you write unisons and it just sounds like the most beautiful thing you've ever heard. You know,
Kyle:
it was a special time for Ryan.
Ryan:
I also found out the day before the recording session that I was about to become a father.
Kyle:
And despite technical difficulties…
Ryan:
We were supposed to watch the movie while recording and we had it all rigged up with a monitoring system and everything. But the program that we were recording with didn't accept the format the video files were in.
Kyle:
He kept the faith and his score.
Ryan:
I had already like mocked up the score in the computer program. So I knew that everything, as long as it was played in time with the metronome, the right metronome setting and everything, then it would match up with the film perfectly. But I mean, I think in a way it might have been good not to have that security blanket and just be able to focus on the music
Kyle:
So you’re playing the music sight unseen in regards to the movie.
Ryan:
Right. But, you know, I always thought about what I was reading, like John Cage's book. And so I think it was just someone was telling me about how John Cage and Merce Cunningham worked together. And they had this sort of theory that, like music and dance should coexist and that they should be like part of the same creative process, but not necessarily like, like, like one person does a certain dance move and then the music reflects that. Like they can exist in the same realm, but without interacting, really, it's more just about having the right rhythmic feeling like the tempo is super important. There are pieces where I would like write a piece of music, send it to Robin and Rachel and they would come back and be like, this is amazing. But I took it in the computer program and slowed it down to 66 percent and then it works really well.So then I would rewrite it. Two thirds of the tempo and then we'd have it or I don't know. It's just like there was other things where the key made a big difference. Which in a way that I I'm still kind of baffled by because I don't have perfect pitch and I hear things like pretty relatively. But sometimes the difference between something being and like B-flat and being in B was like major and I could just feel like a different scene. And that was really interesting to me.
Kyle:
What was your reaction to everything, especially all the hype and, you know, the political storm? Just that you know it like I said, it was just right. Good timing when that came out, which is, you know, half the battle with any film.
Ryan:
Right, well..
Kyle:
were you expecting as much publicity or attention?
Ryan:
And, you know, I kind of got an inkling of it, like while I was working on the score. Because while I was working on the score, things were unfolding really quickly. And AOC was becoming a huge celebrity. And by the time we got into Sundance, then were like, okay. Like, not only are we in Sundance, but this is gonna be one of the biggest films of Sundance because AOC was front page news all the time. So it went from zero to 60 like really fast. I mean, even when I first got started on the project, we already knew that it was like a really important story that they had captured.
Kyle:
Now that the storm is settled, Ryan is back home playing local gigs with friends.
Ryan:
Like there's a lot of people that, you know, especially like musicians around here that I play with that are like really supportive and really excited to play with me and. I think because just because there's so many musicians, I mean, OK, here's another advantage.I tried it. I'm an optimist, so I like to look on the bright side. But another advantage of living here is you just get forced into doing a much wider variety of things and you're playing with musicians that are younger than you, that are older than you. Like You don't have the choice to just, like, completely pigeonhole yourself into one little territory of the world. And I think that can be really good for you, especially for like keeping your mind open and making you realize like there's more to the world than just whatever.
Kyle:
As we walked by one of his friends house. He's excited to tell me about their future plan.
Ryan:
This is my friend Bou’s house we play in like three or four different bands together. And he's got an amazing music studio in the back. And we're working on making it into like I think the plan is to build a bunch of little practice teaching kind of rooms and then making it into sort of a little community music school for private lessons and stuff, but maybe also for somewhere where people can give a recital and have a little bit more of a community.
Kyle:
Like, what is it about jazz that talks to your heart?
Ryan:
I think mostly it's like a way of connecting with people in a nonverbal way. I think when I was a kid, I had a really intense imaginary world in my head and when the idea of like converting all of that into language never really made too much sense to me, and when I discovered music, I realized like, oh, there's like other there's ways of expressing, like other kinds of thoughts that aren't expressible and words and I always had it like a really mathematical mind and I was into like patterns and jazz just like this really interesting way of like synthesizing that with the other part of the brain and, you know, you listen to good jazz and they're telling a story, but they're telling it through these shapes and patterns and, you know, all these musical words and phrases and stuff. And it's really I mean, it's just an amazing art form. And the fact that you can go anywhere in the world and play with people that you've never met and make something happen. People you can't even speak to, you don’t even have a common language with and you can play music with them. That's really amazing.
Kyle:
Even Down easters,
Ryan:
Even Down Easters.
Kyle:
Our John around town has come to an end. We're back at his 93 Civic where his guitar and amp are tightly tucked away in the back.
Ryan:
I bought it for 500 bucks like 10 years ago and it's barely needed any maintenance and it's gotten me to hundreds of gigs and it's always still like fun to drive.
Kyle:
It looks zippy.
Ryan:
Yeah, it's got some pep. And the best part is when you drive it in the city, someone will always rolled down their window next to you and say, Hey, how much for the car, man?
Kyle:
We say our goodbyes and I jump back in my ride and take this opportunity to check out Acadia National Park with Ryan's music as my soundtrack. These winding roads that weave around rocky cliffs and underneath stone bridges, pasturing pond and Bubble Mountain bring me into an enchanting world that is spellbinding, even though I'm concentrating on driving. I'm in a daze, in trance with all the beauty around me. Autumn in Maine never ceases to amaze the rhythm of his song matches with the leaves blowing around the road. I feel as if I'm in the music.
Before I know it, I'm back in Bar Harbor. I park at the waterfront and walk along the dock. The sun is setting on Frenchman's Bay and Bean island is ablaze. If I squint hard enough, like really hard, I see the porch lights on at our home in Sullivan.
Announcer:
Next episode, Lamont catches up with Craig Grossi, military veteran who's inspiring memoir about rescuing a stray dog from the streets of Afghanistan, was finished while staying at the Lucky Stone retreat in Sullivan.
Craig:
Every event, just about every event that I have, every speaking event, I talk about Sullivan and I talk about, you know, how how I ended up there. So we're all we'll always be just eternally grateful to that community.
Announcer:
There are so many places to stay in Southwest Harbor at Acadia Yurts, you'll be comfortably close to nature, but not too far from town. And if time permits see the island by water with Sail Acadia, Astra, Captain Karl and tell them Kyle sent you. This has been a Good To Go Studios production created by Kyle Lamont. Our resident mastermind is Mark Tekushan. And special thanks to Ryan Blotnick for the songs Knock Down the House and Beat the Machine and Tony Reif of Songlines recordings for the song Kush from the album Kush. Thank you to Pepper Little, Abbey Rock Jessiman, Corey Chandler, Amy Charley, Jesse Couto and thank you for listening.