Find more artists like Vividly Dim© at Myspace Music
As I jump over a slushy puddle, I cross boroughs–from Bushwick, Brooklyn to Ridgewood, Queens. I am headed to Cypress Avenue where Chasidy, John and Donie rehearse on Friday nights. Listening to their freshly pressed EP on my iPod, I’m thrilled as I imagine how they will sound live.
Vividly Dim and are true locals. Chasidy, the band leader and princess, explains enthusiastically that she was born and raised in Bushwick,near Knickerbocker, and talks about how much things have changed. She vividly describes the sweet smell coming from a candy factory next door and how she used to get free candy at Christmas. Her grandma still lives in the same apartment–but the candy factory building has been subdivided into lofts.
I’m tagging along on a Wednesday afternoon while the gang is headed to Evergreen Park. It feels so nice, being part of the crew for an afternoon. The walk is hazardous: the snow occasionally drops from the rooftops, and the puddles are filled with thin pieces of ice. It feels like digging my spoon into a crème brulee when my step cracks the crust that has formed on the piles of snow overnight. John and Donie are exemplary gentlemen, helping Chas and me. Chas and John have been in love for a long time now, and Donie, a tall guy in a Matrix-like black coat is their dear, remarkable friend and bandmate.
Evergreen Park is the Vividly Dim’s beloved spot. This is where they love to hang out when the weather is nice, and where they wrote most of their songs–while daydreaming, listening to Nirvana, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Sade or even Michael Jackson.
The band finished the long-overdue EP during the snowstorm, but noted that the extra time they spent taught them so much about music and about each other. Now seems like the right time for the new music to drop, because things are starting to happen for them. DJs and radio stations have been reaching out; they’ve doubled the number of Facebook fans; and they’re playing a show on Friday; and their EP release party is this Friday, at Good Bye Blue Monday.
We leave the park and head to Ridgewood Eats, the band’s favorite eatery. Over sweet-potato fries, the guys start laughing as they tell me that they can’t describe the genre of their music. Independent? Rock? Even gothic was in play. Vividly Dim has become popular among Goths and Vamps–something the band appreciates, but doesn’t quite understand. I feel a touch of eclectic and world music in their sound. But skip the labels and check out the music, and then check out this friendly bunch of locals Friday, when they perform their new music live, in Bushwick.
Find more artists like Vividly Dim© at Myspace Music
1087 Broadway, Bushwick, Brooklyn
(take J to Kosciusko)
Friday February 4, 2011 at 8pm
