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Since the last SSR newsletter, Scarecrow went on a big adventure around Scandinavia. I imagine Jeff and Usman will also write about the tour, so hopefully I don’t overlap with what they say too much. I wish I had a full tour diary I could share with you, but there would just be too much to say. The tour wasn’t that long—only about 2 weeks—but it was so packed with adventure that I’d have to write a novel to cover it all. There are also a million people who deserve a thank you for booking shows, hanging out, showing us hospitality, saying hi at a gig, making us food, playing in a ripping band, and many other kindnesses big and small that so many people showed us. I won’t get into all those either lest I miss someone, so instead I will silently send my appreciation into the universe and instead tell you about Scarecrow’s tourmates in Vidro.
Scarecrow and Vidro have become very close after doing two tours together. Our friendship started kind of randomly when our bands played together in Hamburg in 2022. We’d never met and our tours happened to cross paths, but I was aware of Vidro. I believe Lucas had emailed me some tracks a few months before that, asking if we’d be interested in putting a Vidro record out on Sorry State. While I liked what I heard, we had so much going on at the time that I felt I couldn’t take it on. Then I saw them play in Hamburg and I immediately regretted that decision. Vidro is so fucking good live. Their songs are great, earworm riffs bouncing across a foundation of bruising, medium-fast hardcore, and the band is a ball of energy live, bouncing constantly and making it impossible to sit still when you’re watching them. Crowds love them too, and having seen them a few dozen times I am still in awe of their ability to turn any room into a joyous hardcore punk dance party.
While seeing Vidro for the first time was great, it was an otherwise strange night in Hamburg when we met them, and I wonder how much of our friendship was forged in this crucible of conflict and awkwardness. Long story short, the venue we were playing made Scarecrow feel unwelcome even before we arrived in the city, and at the end of the night it felt like they were trying to rip us off financially as well. I purposely avoid being too involved in Scarecrow’s finances (I have enough of this kind of stress in my life with Sorry State) so I wasn’t there when things came to a head, but I know it was a tense situation. It was cool meeting Vidro that night and seeing them play, but in my mind the weirdness of the gig overshadowed my memory of meeting and hanging out with them.
Fast forward to summer 2023 and Vidro asks if Scarecrow wants to join them on a tour of the US east coast and Midwest. It sounded like a great idea to me, but there’s always some risk involved in being in close quarters with a bunch of semi-strangers. After an initial warming-up period, friendships blossomed quickly as we discovered how much we have in common and how much we have to learn from one another. There are demographic similarities between the two bands—both bands are a mix of races and genders, with most members being around the same age and a couple of outliers who are older and younger—as well as odd coincidences like both bands having one member who has diabetes and both bands having one member with a PhD. Also, everyone in both bands is really invested in the punk scene, following new bands and maintaining connections across the worldwide DIY network. Mostly, though, we just vibe as people. Both bands feel like friends first and a band second, and we’re all attuned to one another’s needs and eager to help one another fulfill them. When both bands are all together, it doesn’t feel like anyone has somewhere they’d rather be, and that’s a rare feeling to have with such a big group. Even I—an introvert and something of a loner—feel accepted and part of the gang.
I’ve written about Vidro’s records in previous newsletters (though I still need to write about their latest EP, Upp Till Dans, which is excellent), so instead of going back over that, I thought I’d share a few of my impressions and recollections of Vidro’s members, each of whom I’ve come to know and love over our time together.
Lucas is Vidro’s guitarist. He’s Brazilian, but has been living in Sweden for years, and the fact that he is the only member of the Vidro / Scarecrow crew with a child earns him the nickname “Mr. Babymaker” on the first tour, one of the many jokes that carries over to the second tour. Lucas is exuberant and full of energy, and while many of the similarly energetic people I’ve met in my life have been scatterbrained, Lucas is meticulously organized and seems to take the lead on a lot of band business like booking shows and tours, printing merch, etc. Lucas is so friendly and extroverted that it’s easy to see how he’s made so many friends and connections across three continents… it’s just non-stop fun to be around him. He’s also a monster musician. One day I’m taking a nap at the place we’re staying while Lucas is changing his guitar strings, and once the new strings are on, he plays his guitar unplugged for a while to break them in. The sound is breathtaking. I hear familiar Vidro riffs, but un-amplified and unaccompanied, his playing is lush and beautiful in a way I hadn’t appreciated before.
Melody, Vidro’s bass player, is American, and like Lucas, she’s been living in Sweden for a long time and her parents are Swedish immigrants (to America), so she’s more of an American / Swedish hybrid than a Budweiser-guzzling monster truck fan. She’s intelligent and well-educated, with a devastating wit and superhuman comedic timing... I remember one moment on the first tour, at the Little Rose Tavern in Cleveland after our early gig, when she made me weep with laugher. I wish I could relate the anecdote that bowled me over so thoroughly, but my recollection is clouded because I was tripping on mushrooms, which should not, however, reflect negatively on Melody’s aforementioned wit and comic timing. When you first meet her, Melody is intimidatingly cool, particularly if your first impression of her is on stage, where she bangs out Vidro’s devastating low-end grooves with effortless style. But when she lets you in on her true goofball nature, it feels like you’ve joined an exclusive club.
Staffan, Vidro’s drummer, is a punk legend. He’s been into punk since the early 80s (maybe even the late 70s?), having played in bands like Kurt I Kuvos and Huvudtvätt and started the influential hardcore label Really Fast Records. The first thing many 80s punk nerds say about Vidro is that “their drummer was in Headcleaners!,” which I gather isn’t entirely accurate, but it’s still a pretty amazing claim to fame that both Staffan and the band wear with grace. Several people over the course of both tours tell me they’ve punished Staffan about his involvement in the early Swedish punk scene, but talking about punk clearly is not punishment to him. Staffan has been a music fanatic since he was a kid, and his opinions about virtually any type or era of music that comes up in conversation are informed and insightful. Besides playing music, he’s also been an avid photographer for decades, and at the end of both tours he shared with us an album of photos that render our entire crew with a level of style and creativity on par with punk’s greatest photographers. Staffan is also fiercely funny. Usman loves to say outrageous things and see how people react, and Staffan is his perfect foil, returning his volleys like an improv pro. Staffan’s drumming also suits Vidro perfectly, both in his massive, industrial-tinged playing, and in his penchant for style and theatricality,
Vendela, Vidro’s singer, comes off as the most earnest member of Vidro. She is a writer and she’s active in radical politics, and I feel like I’ve committed a major faux pas early in the first tour when she asks where we get our news and I tell her I read The New York Times every day. Despite the apparent mismatch in our levels of political radical-ness, Vendela and I often end up in one-on-one conversations about politics, philosophy, and other big ideas, in which I really hope I’m not annoying or boring her. One night, at an after-show party in Richmond, she tells me about the years she spent living in Manchester, England, and we bond over being young Anglophiles and big fans of the Fall. Vendela’s passion and directness are evident in her musicianship, too. Her songs often center on short, repeated phrases that are ambiguous and evocative, and she barks them out with such force and passion that she regularly blows out her voice. And like everyone else in Vidro, she loves fun, and I can see her frustration when taking care of her voice prevents her from participating in a conversation or partaking in an in-joke.
So yeah, those are my friends in Vidro, or at least small sliver how how they look through my eyes. I hope I’ve conveyed to some degree the love and admiration I have for these folks, what a joy they are to be around, and how much I love their band and their music. Stay tuned for the next Scarecrow / Vidro tour diary, wherein we ask, “how many times can two bands tour together before it’s just weird?”