Hanging Out With Weasledust at Big Heavy

Words by Justin Landau Wednesday, September 15 the trio of Tom, Joel and Rich who make up Weaseldust played a few live songs on The Radiator. Weaseldust formed nine months ago and reside in the outskirts of Burlington, with their first live gig being performed at the Vermont Roots Rock Revival on August 26th. The group consists of a guitar, a bass, and drums with no vocal accompaniment.

Weaseldust originally formed when Joel and Tom met at the Monkey House and were randomly paired together with other musicians in order to help local artists find band mates. They had a certain amount of time to compose three original songs and one cover song, which they chose as "Maneater." After the event, Joel and Tom began playing together, and later added Rich on the drums.

The band’s music is almost entirely improvisation, along with some Rush and Frank Zappa covers. Though it is all essentially improv, the talent and ability the three have to feed off each other is very impressive and fluid. Weaseldust decided to “abandon traditional vocal songs after a terrible studio experience.” Further, they now look at their music as “feeling out the limits of playing without vocals in our songs.”

Though the band is relatively new, and has only a few songs recorded, they are very talented, and are definitely a band to keep an eye on. They hope to use the Vermont Roots Rock Revival show as a springboard to becoming a local Burlington band; you should expect to begin hearing rumblings in Burlington about this trio in the near future.