Darlingside

It’s only March, but this is already a contender for biggest coincidence of the year.

On February 28, I was in Newburyport, Massachusetts for work. Whenever I go there, I try to visit Dyno Records, a small record shop on a side street off the main drag. This time, I stopped in on my lunch break.

This is the first time I’ve been there since I got a record player, which opened up a huge part of the shop to me. As I flipped through the crates of records, the shop stereo was playing something I’d never heard before, and it was fantastic. Four male voices harmonizing, bluegrass instruments, occasional electronic blips, interesting lyrics… I asked the owner what it was. “That’s the new Darlingside,” he told me. “Isn’t it nice?”

I bought the CD, called Extralife, (and Kishi Bashi’s Lighght on vinyl, which would later barely fit in my carry-on for the flight home!), then picked up lunch and headed back to the office.

That evening, back at my hotel, I listened to album all the way through twice. I googled the band and watched some YouTube videos of them. I followed them on Twitter. I replied to their tweet announcing Extralife with my story of buying it based on hearing it in a record store. They replied, “that’s awesome. thank goodness for good ole record stores!” Which was cool but made me feel a little old. I still think of record stores as a big deal, which they clearly aren’t any more!

Basically, I instantly became a huge fan.

The week went on, and a storm was brewing in the Northeast. I was scheduled to fly back Friday at 1pm, but coworkers were warning me that I might not make it out that late in the day because of the storm they were expecting. On their advice, I called and changed my flight to one that left at 7:25am. This meant I would leave the hotel Friday morning around 4am.

Friday morning (can you call 4am “morning?”) worked out – I drove to Boston, returned the rental car, took the shuttle to the airport, waited in an absurdly long security line, and made it to my gate. I sat down, began to listen to Darlingside on my phone, and tried to work a crossword puzzle.

As I sat, I noticed a group of guys walk by with instrument cases - guitars and a couple of smaller things - covered in stickers. “Some band trying to get off the ground,” I thought (airport pun!) and returned to my crossword. Two minutes later, I noticed they were back, sitting about 4 rows away from me, and they looked familiar. It… was Darlingside!

I recognized them from their YouTube videos. Without thinking much about what to say, I went over to them. “Are you Darlingside?” Yes. “I just got your new album! It’s amazing!” It was a short conversation, but they were very nice, particularly since they had also presumably gotten up at 4am to be there.

I sat back down, unable to believe this had happened. Then, I realized that no one else would believe it either, unless I could get a picture. I thought about trying to take one surreptitiously from where I was sitting, but finally I decided to go back over and ask if they’d mind taking a picture with me. A lady sitting by them kindly took this one for me:

If we look sleepy, well, you know why.

That was it. We were on the same flight, but they got off at St. Louis, and the flight continued to Austin. But it was a neat experience, and I’m glad I changed that flight!

When I told this story to my friend Caleb, he surprised me by already knowing who Darlingside was. He had been somewhere (a doctor’s office?), heard a song playing on their radio, and immediately looked it up and bought it. It was a song from their first album. When you hear them, you just have to know “Who is this?”

Here are a couple of my favorite songs from Extralife:

Singularity:

Eschaton: