Don't Quit Your Day Job

Story and Photography by Tom Huntington

You’ve seen them up on stage at the local clubs, illuminated under the lights, expressing themselves through microphones, guitars, amplifiers and drum kits. But when the lights aren’t shining, many of our beloved local musicians (as well as many other young folks, in general) can be found at various locations around tow making lattes, ringing up CD’s, serving food and drinks, or doing just about anything else in order to survive in a city that’s economy is almost entirely service related - and still have some freedom to pursue their musical aspirations as well. 

Just take a walk down Church Street on any given day, stop into some of the shops and you are sure to find some; sometimes, you may even find as many as three in one place. “If all the musicians in town just disappeared, there would be no service industry in Burlington'' quipped Tom Baggot, who, besides being a grad student at UVM, can most often be found working at Java Blues, a “blues coffee house” on College Street, or playing percussion and harmonica with the Channel Two Dub Band, among other things. 

We were not at Java Blues, however, but at yet another coffee shop where I had come to talk to Wide Wail-ers Davis Rosenstein and Kieran Donaghey, who have been serving u[ the fresh roast at Uncommon Grounds on upper Church Street since graduating UVM last summer. Asked if it was hard to balance work and the band, both agreed that they had it pretty good due to the kindness of the owners, who also happen to be parents of an aspiring musician, “They understand,” said Dave, “and they’re very supportive,” allowing them to take days off together in order to rehearse or when they play out. 

Also stopping by the roundtable was Melanie Ninnick of Envy, who just happened to be hanging out there, as were several other local musicians (it's quite the local hang). A ‘jane-of-all-trades,’ Melanie not only works at Crabtree & Evelyn in Winooski part-time but also does a variety of other things as well, such as cleaning houses, working a jewelry cart on Church Street, doing errands for some older women friends and even painting houses. 

“I do everything, whatever comes along, I can do whatever you want,” she said with a laugh. “I basically don’t really have one job and none of them are very frim. They’re always temporary positions.”

Like many of the other musicians I talked to, Melanie admitted that it was sometimes difficult to make ends meet and still be able to focus on music. “With or without music, that’s always an issue,” she said, but quickly added that music provides her with a sense of salvation that makes it easier to deal with some of the hardships, a sentiment that was shared with many of the people that I talked to. “Having the aspect of music in my life makes it so much easier to have these idiot jobs and feel like I’m not a total moron, ‘cause I have something besides that,” she explained. 

“Frustrating,” is how drummer Brad Searles described trying to balance music and work, although his job at Tones Records on Lower Church Street - where he works about 30 hours a week - is somewhat of a dream come true for him. Brad, who also writes for the Burlington Free Press (where he was recently employed in the customer service department) and does some other freelance writing, is also running two record labels - Split Records and Club Fub - and is currently in two bands - eef and hover. 

“I mean, there’s no way to make a living at it,” he continued, “so you have to just do these things to sustain yourself, and that eats up all the creative time to do the other stuff, Its self-defeating and you end up being tired and trying to make room , and the other things in your life suffer when you’re trying to squeeze in all that stuff.”

Record stores are an obvious place to expect to find some musicians, and around the corner at Pure Pop Records, you can usually find three of the most rockin’ guitar players in Burlington in the form of Matt Hutton of Envy, Paul “Pistol” Jaffe of The Pants, and Weugene Nicolaev of The Fags.

Since graduating from UVM last may (Phi Beta Kappa. No less), Matt has worked at the Burlington Bagel Bakery (at the time, there were about five other musicians working there as well, including hover vocalist Jan Tofferi, who now works next door at the Burlington Flower Market) and on-and-off at Macro International (doing phone surveys - another hot bed of local musicians, including Marc Daniels and Richard Baily of Dysfunkshun) before starting at Pure Pop a few months ago, which is obviously his favorite of the three for several reasons. 

“Here, you get to listen to music and stuff,” he explained. “You get to see first hand what the business is - which is selling music - and to plus your own stuff. Also, “it forces us to hang out together,” he added, “so it sort of helps out the scene.”

Pistol, who grew up in Burlington and graduated from UVM in’91, has been working there since returning from San Francisco a year and a half ago, where he was making about three times as much money, so he wasn’t quite enthusiastic, “I guess it's as enjoyable as a job can be, Of course, I don’t have enough money [so] I can’t go anywhere.” Still, he said that he was glad to be back in the Burlington music scene. “It's just a much better atmosphere” here, he said.

For Eugene, who has been working there since last August, Pure Pop is the “first consistent job” he’s had in the last three years. Arriving in Burlington from the Ukraine about four and a half years ago with his family, he has been “unemployed for the majority of the last three years,” he said. “I was living off my record collection…the majority of the Reggae stuff.”

Although most of the people I talked to had day jobs, thereby allowing them to play out at night or go check out the music scene, there are a few musicians who can be found working nights at some of the local restaurants. One of the more well-known such people is Rina Bijou guitarist Max Owre, a bartender at Five Spice Cafe (Church Street bottom block), who started as a waiter there two and a half years ago.

“Waiting tables is a night job, so it's hard to do the music and wait tables,” said Max, who grew up in St. Johnsbury and went to UVM, “but bartending, I’m able to cut down on the number of shifts I do,” thereby free hum up to “work on my own stuff,” which includes writing material for Rina Bijou and also for a novel that he’s working on. “Being a bartender is a great way to spread the word,” added Max. “It's a public contact job. You get a lot of free time and the hours are very flexible.”

And if you venture to Peking Duck House in Winooski, you may just find cartoonist and local Superstar James Kochalka, who has been known to grace the musical stage now and again (“I’m the least hard-working’ musicians in town,” he joked) James, who hails from Springfield, Vermont and graduated from UVM on ‘89, has been a waiter there for two years now and says that “being a waiter is really hard work,” bit added that “it's a good job because the money’s pretty good and I don’t have to work full-time” and because Peking Duck House closes pretty early, so he can still go out and see music.

In general, most of the people I talked to felt that as long as they had some flexibility in their schedule to pursue their music, working’ for “the man'” wasn't so bad. One of the most common things I hear? “Of course, if I had a choice, I’d rather not work at all.” Ahhh… maybe in a perfect world. 

Tom Hintington is the editor of the Vermont Collegian, a bi-weekly statewide college newspaper.