This is a familiar story by now. Students arrive in Champaign Urbana, form a band, do great things on a small stage to a few appreciative onlookers, and then go their separate ways as the higher objects and obligations of life call.
This Saturday marks the final show for World’s First Flying Machine, a band whose absence will be felt longer than its members probably realize. As a local musician, I know I will be sad to see them go, but according to what is said below, transience is the way of things, and is to be accepted, even if it is occasionally railed against by an outsider with a guitar.
I spoke at length with Flying Machine’s ringleader Ben Campbell about the past and possible future, the process of songwriting, and the ups and downs of life in our town.
In the tradition of Visions of Cody and the transcription of rambling conversations probably only interesting to those involved, what follows is obscenely long and involves significant navel-gazing, which I won’t apologize for as it’s a necessary corollary of being in an overly dramatic, obscure band with grandiose pretensions. But it’s a nice little document of one day in the life of CU music, a conversation between two bands about universal themes and fleeting lives. Here we go…
B: What has Common Loon been up to?
R: (shuffling, half-coherent response) We did a lot of touring last year.
B: How was it?
R: It was fun, it was interesting. I like getting out and seeing the country.
B: Yeah, I think that’s the ultimate goal. To be able to travel across the country and play. We didn’t do a whole lot of touring, just a couple little things, but I think I was happier than I’ve ever been. That’s not even hyperbole. I was happier than I’ve ever been. It felt like it shouldn’t even be allowed. We just broke even, barely broke even.
R: That’s good if you didn’t lose money.
B: I’m driving across the country, playing songs, meeting people, and it’s all for free. I felt like I should be paying for it, like it was a vacation. This should cost money. And I guess it did, because we’re still in huge debt from making the cd, but in terms of the actual travel…
R: It says a lot about the state of music that you feel you should have to pay to do that. Kind of sad, but I know what you mean.
…
R: So it’s your last show as World’s First Flying Machine? What precipitated that.
B: It’s two things. The first is just the practical aspect. Our drummer graduated. He’s moving to Chicago. Our guitarist graduated. He’s moving to Chicago. Brian, our multi-instrumentalist, he’s been in Chicago. It just didn’t make sense. And we’re all years apart.
R: In age?
B: Yeah, we’re over four years apart.
R: And that’s a big spread when you’re talking about being in college.
B: Yeah. And so I’ve been sticking around and getting sick of it while other people are moving on. And it just wasn’t really in the cards. Also, the fact that everyone was a college student – they were here for a purpose. Chris graduated with an engineering degree. Kurt is going on to a PhD program at Stanford. They’ve got bigger and better things to do so…
R: What did you study in school?
B: Psychology and philosophy (mutual laughter), so not a lot of aspirations.
R: Yeah, I understand, I was Asian Studies and Religion. It’s not immediately marketable.
B: And I could see myself possibly going on to be in counseling or therapy, going on to grad school at some point. But I kind of haven’t given up on the dream of being a rock star yet.
R: And what would that mean? What would being a rock star be for you?
B: I’d be perfectly happy just touring and breaking even. I think “rock star,” for me, would be if we had a tour bus. That would be the ultimate for me. Even if we didn’t make any money. That’s the top of the mountain.
R: Who is “we”? Some yet to be identified band?
B: Yeah, it’d be whoever I was with.
R: Do you always see yourself playing in a band?
B: I think so. Which is funny because I’m about to release a solo…it’s 8 songs so it’s sort of between an EP and album, I guess it’d be an album. I’m gonna give that away at our last show? That I just recorded on a whim. I feel like playing with people is more interesting. Some people can get away with just being an acoustic guitar and them, like Nick Drake, I wouldn’t want to see him play with a full band. Some songs I’ve written have been a “guy and a guitar” song, but I think the best songs are when I arrange with other people. I’m not even sure what that arrangement would be. If it would be a big World’s First Flying Machine seven-people type thing. I find I’m not talented enough a musician to just get by on my own. And that’s what I think the success from World’s First Flying machine has been, is that everyone is extremely talented, both in terms of technical prowess — they know what music is and they understand it — and also creatively. I just take the role of, “yeah, it sounds good, keep it.” or “no it doesn’t sound good, do something else.” And then we just keep coming up with ideas. I don’t do a lot of the other arrangements. I’m really just the wall to bounce things off of.
R: You usually bring the skeleton of the song to the group?
B: Yeah. We haven’t written any songs as a band. We’ve tried a few times, and we have a few things, but nothing we play live. Everything starts on an acoustic guitar and we add to it.
R: I think it’s hard to write with other people…
B: I think I get a little embarrassed. I don’t know how to explain it. It never feels natural…I feel like when I’m alone, I tap more into the core of myself. I get myself across more. It feels more like a stage show when I’m writing songs with other people.
R: Maybe it’s because I have an uncertain relationship with songwriting itself, but I don’t even understand what the process would be…Matt and I, we might contribute 50/50 ultimately to what a song is, it could be 90/10 or 50/50, but it’s a lot of each of us taking turns throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks.
B: That’s something I’d like to get better at, doing things more collaboratively. As a songwriter, I feel like the well is running drier. I’m finding myself less inspired. Songs are coming slower and slower for me. I think if I’m going to continue to produce music, I’ll have to try something new…The early 20s are like this magical time of angst and depression (laughing), and now that I’m getting a little older, I find that…not that things are getting any easier, but…
R: You start to accept it.
B: Yeah. It’s just, this is sorta how it is.
R: I had this semiotics professor in college and he talked about 26 as the magic number you had to get past, which is funny because of (all the rock stars that) killed themselves at 27, but the idea being that if you can get to that age, it’s just easier to let go of all that angst you’re carrying around. It’s just easier to let it go, or sell out, or whatever…It was kind of a magic time, though…I find myself listening to music less and less the older I get.
B: I’m exactly the same way.
R: I’m turned on by less and less and I keep going back to old standbys.
B: And that’s what scares me more than the fact that I’m writing less. I feel like it’s also partly the state that music is in today.
R: Is it? I can never tell. Is it music or is it me?
B: I go back and forth, but I remember the early and mid-2000s as a very passionate, angsty, no one knew what the fuck was going on and everybody was freaking out about it kind of time. You had bands like Xiu Xiu and Arcade Fire and Wolf Parade, and all these bands were just really emotive. I feel like that doesn’t happen much anymore. Now there’s a whole lot more pop music and everything’s about having fun and when you do have bands that are serious, it comes off as contrived. And maybe (it’s just a matter of the knee-jerk comparison to emotive bands like Arcade Fire), and it’s not their fault. Or maybe it’s just me and now I hear emotional music, and I think, oh shut up, quit whining. It’s probably a little bit of both.
R: I look at true pop, radio music, the kind of stuff that gets pumped over PA speakers in some public place, and I always hear these extremes. I hear one song and I think why can’t anybody say anything honest or meaningful? Then the next one comes on, and it’s easy earnestness is just killing me – I’d prefer it to be gibberish. I’d rather listen to nonsense or complete irony than listen to that shit.
B: I find myself listening to a lot more non-vocal, instrumental, electronic. I’ve been really into ambient music. And I’ve been trying to force myself to not listen to that so much because I feel like there’s a direct correlation between how much I’m listening to music and how much I’m making music. At least for me, songwriting has always been this process, and maybe it’s this way for a lot of people, but I’ve always tried to rip things off. I’ll hear something and think I want to write my version of that song. And it’s obvious with our earlier songs, but even with our later stuff – I get inspired by specific songs and I want to try my hand at that. What would it be like if Ben Campbell tried to write this song…So, I have less material to rip-off now (laughing).
R: I think we’ve done that on occasion too, and that’s one area where not being an accomplished musician benefits me, because you can’t tell, it doesn’t even really come close, and hopefully that turns out to being a good thing, where it’s less of it falling short, and more taking a different path entirely.
B: I’ve always liked that way of writing songs, or at least it’s worked for me. I’ve been working an a few collaborative things this year, but I kept getting hung up because the people I’d be working with wanted to write things that were very original and from a very personal place, and I feel like every time I do that, I end up writing the same song. And the songs that I’ve written recently, it’s like the Ben Campbell type of song, and I don’t like that. I like looking outside myself for influence, because I write something that actually sounds a lot more original.
R: What does that mean, the Ben Campbell type of song?
B: I guess it changes, but lately it’s the same type of strum pattern and adds, maybe there’s a chorus, but it’s generally verse-focused.
R: So you’re speaking very structurally?
B: Yeah. I’m not speaking about lyrics. I mean I probably put the most effort into my lyrics, but I think about the tune of the song and the rhythm a lot more than I think about the lyrics after they’re done. I never think about how the way I’ve written songs has changed lyrically, though it has changed. That just never comes to my mind. Maybe because I’m not as worried about that. I guess that’s something I feel more confident with.
R: Do you write your lyrics first and shoehorn them back in, or…
B: It often comes out at the same time. I’ll hear a tune and I’ll hear syllables that go along with that tune and that will turn into a lyric. I won’t ever think of a line, like, oh that’s a really clever line, I’ll insert that in. Maybe that’s happened at some point, but not that I can remember. At the same time it’s rare that I think of a tune that I just tack on lyrics too. They’re very much connected. I remember Bon Iver talked about how he wrote his songs, and you can really hear it that you can’t understand what he’s saying, and his lyrics, when you read them, don’t make any sense. He said his songwriting process was he would mumble sounds to himself and try to figure out what the song was calling for. And everyone sort of made a big deal of that, and I was like, I thought that was a common thing, because that’s what I’ve been doing.
R: Yeah. That’s definitely the way that I work too. The first thing that I think about…or, I’m not thinking about it – that’s the point – but the first consideration to me is strictly syllabic. Do I want long vowel sounds? and where do I want my harsh consonants to land? So, it’s the rhythm and tonal, syllabic sound. And sometimes I let it stay nonsense, and sometimes I’ll tweak it.
B: I think songwriters don’t like to admit that, because it takes away from the meaning of the song. Because you want to say that these lyrics are about this and this, but really I’m trying to fill space and I’m trying to make it sound pretty. Not all the time…but when you’re talking about individual lines, that’s often the case. I used to sing colors a lot. Yellow. Red and white. Purely because I thought those words sounded pretty and it’s an easy vehicle to attach metaphors to. In the song, That’s What Friends are For, the chorus is, “and now my eyes are turning black and yellow.” If I think about it after the fact, I can attach meaning to it, but black and yellow just sounded right. It’s by no means a clean process.
R: I always look at those songwriters, and they’re few and far between, who can pull that off – being syllablically, tonally pleasing, and fashion a narrative story out of it, poetically written. That’s impressive.
B: Yeah, I guess that’s probably the ultimate goal. Because you can tell when you’ve turned a poem into a song. They’re completely different.
R: I don’t like that. I’d rather hear nonsense than have someone force something back into the music.
B: Yeah. Why did you even put a tune to that? It was fine as a poem. I think what makes a good song is that you can’t separate the music from the words. You look at the words written down, and if someone were to read it out loud, it would just be garbage. It doesn’t make sense and it’s shallow. And that’s what I think is awesome about songwriting, that you can take just a few words and make so much, you get a lot more bang for your buck. I’ve always been really impressed by Sufjan Stevens. Sometimes he’ll think of really clever, really pretty ways to say things, but a lot of times, it’s very plain. And in a 7 minute song, there will only be a few lines of lyrics, but they have so much weight. And it’s not just what he’s saying, it’s everything.
R: Sometimes I think context and delivery is everything. And I often think that when I hear a cover of what you would immediately dismiss as some trashy pop song and someone grabs it and redoes it, and just because of they voice they’re singing in, and the arrangement that they present it in, I have to stop and reassess.
——————–
R: Did you set out with a goal of playing with a large group of people?
B: I set off not wanting to put any limits on the band, and not wanting to say no to any instrument. I don’t like the idea that every band needs to have guitar, bass, and drums. And after being in a band for a while, I realize the practicality of that, but when we first started, I was like, we don’t even need bass! and we didn’t have a bass for the first few months, but then I realize you do need it. I didn’t have a goal of having all these instruments, I just kept meeting people I felt could add something to the band. And as our sound started changing a bit and we started being a little more experimental and a little more folk-influenced, that let us spread out even more. I’ve always been interested in atypical instruments. It wasn’t that I sought them out, I was happy to try anything. From here, I’m trying to figure out where I’m going to go. If I’d want to do Flying Machine again. My initial inclination is no. Even though it’s familiar, I think it would feel disingenuous. It would feel like I had torn a house down and then erected a new one just like it.
R: What is something you would envision?
B: I’d like to branch out and experiment with different kinds of bands. I could see myself doing something really happy and fun, or really serious. It really depends on the kind of people I meet. I could be influenced in a lot of directions and I could probably mold my sound to fit different things. I’m more of an idea person. I don’t have the tools to set ideas into motion. That’s why I need other people. With Flying Machine, I had really big ideas, not complex arrangements, but heavy arrangements, and that’s what I needed the other band members for. Because I couldn’t have thought of nearly any of it on my own. I’m not one of those people that can sit in the room and write all the various arrangements. I think it would come out stale. And that’s what I’ve liked about World’s First Flying Machine. Even though we might lose ourselves because there’s so many of us. That’s a comment I’ve heard that sometimes the songs lose focus with all the stuff that’s going on, but at least we’ve always been organic. I think rarely does anything come off contrived or forced. And I’m fine with it being disorganized, kind of a hodge-podge. And never knowing what you’re gonna get from a live show, in terms of the sound and what’s gonna be feeding back and what’s gonna be out of tune.
R: What blew your mind to the point that it was like, “This is what I want to do. I want to pursue music. I want to be a musician.”?
B: It was a slow realization. As we were recording the album, and as I was getting closer to graduation…
R: But even before that, what drove you to…
B: My girlfriend breaking up with me. (laughing) The same with everyone, or at least most people. I had just graduated high school, and I had been playing guitar for a while, but I started listening to Bright Eyes, and my girlfriend broke up with me and I was really really sad, and I stopped playing electric guitar and started playing acoustic guitar and that’s the truth. But to go more in depth…I’ve never really been able to settle, to look at the world and accept it for what it is. I’ve always been this sort of desperate optimist. Like the world can’t be this way. The world has to be better than this. And it’s been me trying to find something better. If you listen to the solo album, 7 out of 8 songs, if every song, sings about home. It’s something I really started thinking about my senior year of college, as I was taking this more seriously. This idea of a home. What is your home?
R: Do you feel homeless?
B: Yes, definitely (unhesitating)
R: Where are you from originally?
B: I’m from the western suburbs. I grew up with divorced parents. But it’s that and other things. I don’t know. It’s just this kind of all-pervading theme. The way the people you meet – you meet them and you just move on. And nothing ever stays.
R: Modern society is transient. And that’s part of the bargain. It’s tough, I’ve lived all over the country and you make friends and they leave, and you get up and leave…
B: And that’s what life is kind of about is not holding onto things, but understanding that you’re going to move from place to place. At the same time, it’s really hard to accept. There is something romantic about this idea of happily ever after…
R: Just the idea of a community. I totally have the traveling bug, but the idea that you’re born into a community, you grow up in that community, you understand the place and people, and the land itself, as opposed to being completely rootless and never having any understand of what your effects are over the short and long term.
B: I think a lot about…this is probably going to sound egotistical, which I don’t mean it to, but I’ve thought about why do I write songs. What makes a songwriter different from a non-songwriter? Not better by any means – if anything, I kind of admire people who don’t need to do this. I guess it’s the psychologist in me. It’s a big question but I think it goes to that idea of transience. I’ve just always felt out of place…
R: Earlier, you kind of destroyed the idea that the songs are about anything, but that’s strictly from an engineering sense, building the songs from scratch. And I understand what you mean. I feel very similar about how I build songs, and I don’t feel like they’re about nothing. You said you definitely had a theme of home. But what do you think your songs are about generally?
B: I guess I’ll speak about our more recent songs and the songs on my solo album. People have always said that the music I write is so lonely. Especially our newer songs. Songs like Inefficient Machines and Ferris Wheel, those aren’t really lonely songs, but Rolling River and Long Winter are pretty lonely. I think they’re about coming to terms with things, looking at the world and asking what else you can get. What else have you got for me?
R: Would you say that you’re an advocate? Are you advocating for something?
B: I’m definitely not an advocate. I’ve never been trying to preach something outward. I think my songs are more introspective. You know that feeling when you hear a song and you feel like it’s about you, even though the lyrics may be about being a construction worker…it’s just the feeling you get from the song. You feel like you’ve heard it before. That’s what I’m trying to go for with music. This feeling of familiarity. Hopefully when someone listens to the songs, they feel like, not that they know me, but that we connect. I’ve gotten that from some people, and I think that’s like the greatest compliment. Even though we’re complete strangers we’ve shared something intimate. Shared something about yourself that you can’t even articulate because it’s not words, it’s not the problems you’re going through, it’s just this feeling, “oh you feel it to.” Advocates need to have something concrete. I’m not really singing about things that are concrete. It’s always been about emotions and just trying to convey emotions. Sometimes it’s desperation or desperate hopefulness, like in the song Plane Crash, I say at the end, “and now you’re coming home.” Believing in something that you know isn’t true. And other times it’s coming to grips with that. Sometimes I’ll say, “you’re never coming home.” It’s usually in the second person though. I never say, “I’m coming home,” or “I want to come home.” It’s always out. Very rarely I’ll sing in the third person. It’s almost always in the second person.
R: Why is that?
B: I think it’s stronger. And it feels less like storytelling. Singing “you” is much more emotional because I’m not singing to the audience, I’m singing to that person. Or even if it’s not a real person, it’s a figurative person, the idea of a person. I find that I get a lot more into the songs. Even though it is people watching someone on stage, I don’t like that idea…
R: How do you feel about performing?
B: I love performing.
R: What do you think is the nature of the relationship between performer and audience?
B: That’s a good question…It depends. It depends on the kind of show. My favorite setting to perform in is a house show because it doesn’t feel like a performance. Or sitting at the edge of the stage at Channing Murray and there’s twenty people sitting around you. It’s more like sharing. I like being able to give and receive.
R: Do you dislike the idea of performing?
B: It’s not that I dislike performing, I just prefer sharing.
R: Do you feel like you have a persona? Are you yourself when you’re on stage, or do you feel like, even if you’re not dressed up in Lady Gaga facade, do you feel like you have to adopt a persona, or do you feel comfortable as yourself?
B: I don’t think I’d call it a persona. I would say idiosyncrasies. My band could probably answer this better than I could because I’m very unaware of who I am when I’m on stage. And they’ll always make fun of me and joke about the faces I make or the things I do. I get a little bit embarrassed or nervous because even though I like sharing these songs, and some people like hearing them, I still always feel like I’m imposing a little bit. I really believe the things I have to say, but they’re no more important that what anyone else has to say.
R: Why do you think that?
B: People don’t listen to music to hear what I have to say or what anyone has to say. They don’t listen to songwriters because they’re like, “let’s see what Bob Dylan has to say on this issue.” They listen because…
R: But does it have to be a particular issue? Haven’t you ever fallen in love with a songwriter, and…
B: Yeah, but you listen to people because you connect with them. It’s not so much, yeah I want to listen to what he has to say, but yeah, he’s saying it how I feel. And maybe that’s the job of songwriters, not to say what no one else is thinking or be really clever, but to say the things that we’re all thinking, but weren’t able to really articulate ourselves.
R: I guess I always struggle with the idea of…I feel like, in a way, I am an advocate…
B: Really?
R: I do.
B: I think I can hear that in your lyrics.
R: And it’s not necessarily a particular issue, and sometimes I feel like I’m chronicling… like I could just be a journalist, and I’m not necessarily saying go out and vote or save the whales. If anything sometimes I feel like I’m chronicling the disintegration I see, either socially or personally (and the interaction between those two realms), but that assumes this underlying standard. And when you talk about the world and say it’s not the way I want it to be, that presumes some kind of standard of what ought to be and what should be…and there’s no question in here…it’s just struggling with the idea of whether you have something to say or whether you should be listened to….
…
R: Do you think you’re going to leave town?
B: Yeah. After this year, after my lease expires. I’ll probably ship off and move to a big city.
R: Where do you think?
B: Portland, I think. Somewhere with a big city and a lot of trees.
R: What do you think have been the positives and negatives about Champaign?
B: Should I start with the good or the bad?
R: Well it might be just two sides of the same coin…
B: It’s a great town. I love the scene here. There’s a lot of bands. A lot of different bands too. There isn’t a Champaign-Urbana sound. The venues are good. They treat you really well. Everyone is friends with each other. It’s just a great community. I don’t like the transience of it though. You have this rotating cast of graduates and undergraduates. People are here and then they’re gone, and if you’re not playing every week you kind of get forgotten about it feels like. I also don’t like the difference…it seems like there’s a campus scene and a town scene. I’m not sure exactly why that is. Maybe it’s because Canopy is the only thing on campus, but it feels like there’s townie bands and then there’s student bands. And we’ve always been a student band, and I feel like we don’t get a lot of Champaign Urbana cred because we’re a student band. And I don’t know who I’d blame for that. It’s not like there’s anyone I’d point the finger at. But at times it can be a little fickle. I love Smile Politely. The articles are great, but it seems like 90% of the people only listen to WPGU and read The Buzz and that’s it, so you have bands that are favored by them, and we’re not one of them, so I feel like no one really knows who we are because those two outlets don’t really talk about us. I get a little jealous, but it’s not a big deal because then I remember that no one in the world knows who any of us are.
R: It’s all relative. I understand that you guys are a student band because you’re comprised of students, literally, but in this town, I don’t think of a “college band” as being as ambitious and off-of-center as you guys. I think of what is essentially a bar band that brings in a crowd and plays to a lower common denominator.
B: Yeah, and I guess that is what I feel about this town, that there isn’t a lot of forward thinking. And we’re guilty of this too, certainly our earlier stuff people would always say, “Oh, you sound like Neutral Milk Hotel…” And it’s like, yeah I guess so, but hopefully we’ve redeemed ourselves with some of our later, more ambitious stuff. It feels like not a lot of bands want to do that. It’s more like what are the big bands doing, like Wilco and Spoon and Walkmen? What are all these bands doing, and let’s do that. Which counters what I was saying before about yeah, let’s just rip-off other bands. But I think music should sort of do something different. It’s not that there aren’t bands doing things differently, because there are, but people just don’t care to listen to those bands as much. They want to hear bar bands or bands that play for a frat, or that you can drink to, and they don’t want to hear something more ambitious.
R: I think you guys kind of fell in the cracks a bit. But from the first time I heard you guys, you’ve been one of my favorite bands in town. I don’t see why you couldn’t have fit into some larger Champaign Urbana scene.
B: And I think, honestly, it falls on us. We’re not as ambitious. We haven’t been hounding people to write articles about us or interview us. It’s hard for me to speak about our sound, because it’s so subjective. It’s hard to really know what people think about you, what people are saying about you. Because all I’ve ever really heard is what people will say to my face, which is complimentary, and I guess I’ve heard some criticism, but I’ve never heard anyone say, “oh, they suck,” and then explain why we suck. And I’m sure that conversation has happened a few times. My sources are biased.
R: People often talk about Champaign Urbana’s and its size being a problem. And there’s two sides to that. It’s small so you can network and you can be a big fish in a small pond pretty easily. On the other hand, everybody feels like they have to move to the big city if they’re gonna make it.
B: There’s no stepping stone from here to the big time. You have bands like Headlights that made it. And Hum…
R: Even those bands, I don’t know…did they make it?
B: It depends on your context. I guess that they got signed to a label is kind of making it, but yeah, it really is hard. It seems like there is a corn ceiling.
R: One thing about Champaign and the size factor, is that it’s too small for everybody to be honest. If you’re in Chicago or Seattle, Portland, you can talk shit about other bands and you can say negative things in the press. And here everybody’s…
B: Scratching each other’s backs
R: Everybody knows everybody.
B: And what is The Buzz gonna say about our album, that it kinda sucks? Because I know people and I can walk there and throw a fit. That’s one thing I like about Smile Politely, in our album review it said, “yeah, a couple of these tracks weren’t so good,” and I was like thank you. Let’s be honest with each other.
R: It’s just a shame that there’s not some kind of separation…
B: And there is honesty, it’s just not in public.
R: Yeah, it ends up being between friends. Everybody talks about it in whispers but no one wants to say it out loud, which is too bad. And I understand because you don’t want to trample on someone’s art or their work and a lot of people are super nice so you don’t want to hurt people’s feelings because you don’t like the quality of their work. That’s just one of my biggest complaints about the town (in relation to the music scene).
B: I always appreciate constructive criticism, knowing what I could do better. I’m not gonna be offended if you guys didn’t like the song Butterflies because I didn’t like the song Butterflies either, and in the end I’m just being validated.
But in the end, I still feel like this couldn’t have been a better town. I wouldn’t have wanted to do this in any other town. Because it is a kind of cushion, and there’s all these smart people that play all these instruments. I don’t even know if I could start World’s First Flying Machine somewhere else. I just really like how smart the people in my band are and I think it’d be hard to get that out of the campus setting.
World’s First Flying Machine’s farewell show is Saturday, February 12 at Canopy Club. The show starts at 6:30. Common Loon, Good Night and Good Morning, & Black Swans provide support.