Mid-Week Intermission Good Vibes Edition: Sweet Spirit
POSTED ON MARCH 8, 2021 BY LONG
Sweet Spirit is our special guest on tonight’s episode of Good Vibes Only — and we’re pretty sure this is a performance for the books! Check in with each band member’s comings and goings during the pandemic in this Mid-Week intermission feature, narrated by Sabrina Ellis, and enjoy the ride.
If Sweet Spirit is known at all, we are known for being a LIVE band. We’ve had as weird a time as anyone, keeping it low-key during the pandemic, respecting lockdown protocols, and doing our part to keep our community safe. All six of us are on wait-lists or volunteering to be vaccinated, and you’d better believe — once the air is safe — we will be coming back to the live stage in the wildest way.
It was our privilege to play Good Vibes Only on the Rollins Theatre stage. We hadn’t gone all-out since our final pre-pandemic show, a sold-out event at 3TEN, January of 2020. That show, like every show, we played as though it was our last.
In May of 2020, we released our third studio album, Trinidad, under Merge Records. The album received no reviews or reaction. I’m not sure any of us even listened to it. It was a busy time of painting signs, marching, and dodging tear gas at protests to defend Black lives and Black trans lives. It was a time of protecting our loved ones, protecting our elderly, protecting our mental health, and standing up for social justice, informing ourselves to vote in local elections, and standing up for our public health ethics.
Our Good Vibes Only taping is the only complete live performance of the new album Trinidad. Lacking our tour stamina, we gave it our all, and then some, and some of that “all” ends up on the floor. (I vomited ’cause I was a little out-of-shape.)
Bass player Jon has been hard at work on a solo record, which often takes a backseat to divergent interests such as frisbee golf, carpetnry, and perhaps most concerning, a terrible fantasy sports gambling problem!
Josh, our blonde guitar player, has found a new outlet in sculpture/upholstery. He says: “In the beginning of lockdown, everyone was ordering everything through Amazon or grocery boxes and I had two roommates so after a couple months there was a giant pile of cardboard in my garage and I decided to make a giant 7 foot tall yeti out of it. After that, I had some fur leftover and made a buffalo and it sold on my Instagram in 20 minutes. So I’ve been making buffalo and other animals to keep busy and selling them on my Instagram ever since.” @neonhuckleberry
Keyboard player Jake is a cat dad. Here is a photo of Little Nuni keeping warm during February’s Arctic Blast.
Drummer Danny has been instructing young musicians at School of Rock. We hear he’s stern!
As for me and fearless collaborator Andrew, we’ve been working on A Giant Dog‘s 5th album. It’s a concept album, so we aren’t just writing songs, people! We’re creating an alternate reality. We rehearse with the band each Wednesday (yes, we will be tuning in to Luck.Stream right after practice), and we spend Sunday through Tuesday writing the “Story.” It’s a lot like Tenacious D around here, lately.
Check Out What Sweet Spirit’s in to Right Now
Bassist Jon Fichter’s band Hong Kong Wigs released an album in 2020, and we all adore this single, “Little Oceans.” It’s our collective jam.
We released our third album, Trinidad, in May 2020 under Merge Records. You can buy the LP, CD, or digital download through our Bandcamp.
We also listened to a sh*t ton of music to get us through. Here’s a playlist of our favorite songs released in 2020.
Tune in tonight to catch Sabrina and the gang back at it again with a full live set of their newest album, Trinidad, on Good Vibes Only. Catch you next time on Mid-Week Intermission!
