Zan Strumfeld – An Xperience Interview

Zan Strumfeld – An Xperience Interview – by Rob Smittix.

RRX: This is exciting. I got the press release and it says “Local musicians play murder ballads about the region’s creepy past.” I am all about that!

ZS: Love the spooky.

RRX: 100%. I mean, I’ve been infatuated with the ghost over at the Cohoes Music Hall for a while now.

ZS: Eva (Tanguay), yeah.

RRX: Yup. And now we’re actually just a couple doors down from the Music Hall and – I don’t know if I mentioned this to you before – but it’s very haunted here as well.

ZS: I mean, Cohoes probably just in general.

RRX: I think so. Obviously, for these murder ballads October 18 is perfect timing for the Halloween season. I see this is not the first time that you’ve done this.

ZS: No. This is actually inspired by an Albany Public Library show that happened … I think it was in 2016. I can’t recall the time, but they did this show as part of a library series that they asked me to do. I did that and loved it! Essentially what they did – which is what we’re doing now – is they found all these spooky things; crimes, murders, suicides, and horrific things that have happened in the Capital Region. Found articles and then basically asked musicians to write an original song based off of this, in whatever way they can. There’s a line of respect that comes with that too, that you sort of have to figure out.

It pushed me so much as a songwriter, and I often write from personal experience and this really put me in a totally different element. I was terrified to do this. I loved the song that I wrote. It was about a man who lured his wife into their bedroom and he kills her by stabbing her to death with a kitchen fork! It was so wild. I wrote my story through the perspective of him, which kind of messed me up for a little bit too because I was trying to be in that perspective. I just enjoyed it so much. And then a few years later I was talking with Michael Gregg who’s my friend and band member. He had gone to that show and he was like, “We should do this again.” I got Albany’s permission to do it. In 2019, we did a Troy version at Little Pecks and it was a sold-out show. It was so wonderful. We had 11 musicians do it and it was the same kind of thing, just everybody really being out of their element and pushing themselves to write in this way. It was so successful, and not just because it was sold out, but everybody just wrote such incredible songs.

My favorite aspect of it was seeing what perspective people would take. Was it from the crime doer, was it from the victim, or … ? You know? Basically, I didn’t give them any requirements. The only requirement is they have to choose a story and write something based off of it. No other requirement. The goal was to keep doing shows like this, and then a few months later COVID hit. We’ve been talking about this for a while; it’s been five years, which is absurd, but we’re doing it again.

RRX: This is cool and honestly, when you were telling me about the song that you wrote with the guy who stabbed his wife with a fork, I was getting the creeps just hearing about that. Also, as someone who writes songs myself, I could see how challenging that would be. I don’t know about you, but when it comes to songwriting, I hate assignments, you know? You kind of just wanna do whatever comes naturally. You’ve got a lot of the area’s great musicians involved in this one as well.

ZS: Yeah, I just reached out to Capital Region musicians who I know would wanna try this if they haven’t already. Girl Blue and Jimi; they did do the first one but everyone else is new. But I’m with you, it’s really hard. It’s like, man, don’t give me an assignment. But it really pushes you to think outside of your element and the challenge is worth it. I know there’s a couple of musicians from the last time – I think Blue Ranger who did the last one – they ended up recording their song and putting it out and it’s just so cool. I didn’t know that was gonna happen.

RRX: Absolutely. So, every song that’s involved in this is based on real events that happened in the dark past of the area.

ZS: Correct. Michael works at the Troy Public Library. He spent the last couple of months sorting through the archives and finding our articles. So essentially we gave these musicians a bunch of articles to choose from, and have them sort through and pick a couple. It was sort of first come, first serve. They’re just doing one song and they’ll have about 10 minutes on stage. They’ll talk about their song, maybe about their songwriting process, and maybe a little about the article, then play the song.

Not everybody, but a good amount of them, are gonna have accompaniment. We’re not gonna have a full drum set.

Brule County Bad Boys will have like their light version. I think Josh will be singing, there’s gonna be fiddle and maybe lap steel with that.

And then Dylan Perrillo is gonna be doing upright bass and we’ll have guitar … we’re gonna try to have one to three musicians on stage for each song. It’s gonna be an eclectic sound which is also what I’m looking for and not just have a person with guitar over and over, you know?

It’s gonna be different, it’s gonna sound as varied as possible.

RRX: I definitely wanna go to this and I think it might be wise to bring Eva extra gifts this time.

ZS: Yeah, we will. We’re gonna have the Cohoes Historical Society come in and talk about Eva, honor her, and give information. That’s gonna be a small portion of this as well. I’m a little scared myself. I get spooked out by ghosts. I totally believe in them. I’m gonna do this in the most respectful way possible. I think that’s what’s interesting about this too. How do you write this song from the perspective of the victim in a respectful way of honoring the dead? Halloween is so kitschy, spooky, and fun but this is an eerie way to look at the local history while trying to make it respectful. Somehow it works. It has worked.

RRX: I’m pretty intrigued by this.

ZS: My overall goal – obviously with the musicians, I want them to be challenged – but I want the audience to walk away and be like, “Oh my God that was so cool,” then go home and listen to these musicians, buy their music, and go see them perform live. And I want that for all of them. That’s sort of the goal.

RRX: I 100% agree with that. And … also they’ll go home that night, and maybe leave the nightlight on!

Another Ooky Spooky Musical Showcase at The Cohoes Music Hall

Friday, October 18, 2024 7:30 PM

Put together by Zan Strumfeld and Michael Gregg of Zan & The Winter Folk, this event will feature artists including Girl Blue & Jimi W, Belle-Skinner, Brule County Bad Boys, Drank the Gold, Dylan Perrillo, and Eric-Jon Tasker.

More from Rob Smittix…