Green Door Magazine Fall 2012: HORIZONS: Fairweather Friends

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Fairweather Friends

Heading to Kingston to fall in with these up and comers of music.

The Oxford Dictionary defines a fair-weather friend as “a person whose friendship cannot be relied upon in times of difficulty.” As a bass player, I’ve learned that bands have no time for a fair-weather friend. A band is like a gang and only the most committed stick around through tough times. Empty Tuesday night gigs and lugging equipment in the wee hours of the morning send most charlatans packing for “real jobs.”

Meet Fairweather Friends: Adir L. Cohen (guitar, lead singer), Jed Kosiner (percussion), Geoff Diamond (bass) and Laurent Blanchette (tuba, trombone). These guys are tight (musically too.) The band is young, passionate and a bit naïve, a dangerous combination that can lead to great things or destruction. I sat down with the quartet at the Rondout Music Lounge in Kingston, NY to find out which way they are heading.

Except for Jed Kosiner, age thirty, the remaining members are recent graduates of SUNY New Paltz. Jed Kosiner studied Jazz Performance at Hofstra University and then toured as a drum roadie for the jazz trio Medeski, Martin and Wood. “I really got to see the inside of an accomplished band,” says Kosiner. Two years ago, he saw Adir L. Cohen play an open mic gig and felt they needed to jam. They clicked instantly.

“I was a music major for like two days,” laughs Adir. As a self-taught guitar player, Adir is not defined by musical technique. He is purely feel, prompted by lyrics and poetic cadence. Growing up in Glen Rock, New Jersey, he was fed a steady diet of “basement concerts” where he saw indie bands like Real Estate and Titus Andronicus. He played bass briefly in a band called The Medics signed by Omad Records. “I fell in love with the fact that you can play guitar and sing a song that you wrote and have people really be moved.”

Adir and Jed starting gigging together and invited different musicians to play with them as needed. The original band name was Adir L. C. and His Fairweather Friends. They brought that same hired-gun concept to their debut album, These Years on the Boat, recorded in Jed’s house in New Paltz and nicknamed “the boat.”

It took roughly a year to record the album traveling through the choppy waters of ornery roommates, schoolwork, romantic breakups and graduation. “It was a tense year,” says Adir. A lyric on the track Fire sums up his collegiate angst: “No reason to move, no reason to stay, don’t want to build nothing but fire.”

Fire is elemental, which is a good word to describe Fairweather Friends. With the folk singer-songwriter roots of Adir Cohen and the more technical pulse of Jed Kosiner, the sound is interesting, meandering and unpredictable. Although Laurent Blanchette played on the album, he did not join the band until recently along with bass player Geoff Diamond. Both have helped expand the sound and give the songs an indie pop appeal, which has broadened the bands audience. “Adir has access to gigs he never had access to before,” says Geoff.

Salvation Recording Company, an indie outfit founded by Samantha Gloffke, now represents the band. Chris Daly, head engineer at Salvation and a musical mentor to several New Paltz bands, mixed the record. Bands like Nelsonvillians, Year of the Mountain, Fight a Scary Dog, Kyle Miller and Fairweather Friends are defining the New Paltz DIY sound.

The quartet spends countless hours experimenting, writing songs and incubating their second album. “That’s part of our growth and development and building the sound,” says Geoff. They seem to have no expectations other than growing together musically. “If your songs are honest and real that’s the key,” says Adir.

The succinct Blanchette adds, “I’d rather be nowhere else on a Saturday night than playing with my friends.” BEWARE: Stay a safe distance from Blanchette when he’s playing or you might get a trombone slide upside the head.

FOR MORE INFO:
fairweatherfriendsband.salvationrecordingco.com

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Published In:
Fall 2012 - Vol 2 No 3

Written By:
Akira Ohiso

Photography:
Kelly Merchant

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