I wrote my first song about gun violence in 2012.

On December 14, 2012 I was spending the day at the Flynn Theater watching my girls, who were then 7 and 4, rehearse for the annual Nutcracker Performance. It was dress rehearsal and it was loud, chaotic, and joyful, and every once in a while I had to step away and cry because the news of the day was too awful to comprehend. The contrast between so many young kids in sparkly outfits dancing on Burlington’s biggest stage, and so many young kids dead in Connecticut was so sickening and disorienting. It was one of those moments where I can’t believe anyone is able to do anything, myself included. How is it possible to be rehearsing for a ballet when it feels like the world has changed so indelibly?

I thought that surely now was the time for a meaningful discussion about our unfettered access to guns in America, but I was deeply disappointed. The suggestions that we add more armed guards to schools or give all the teachers firearms were put forth instead. We didn’t reduce access to guns. We didn’t increase the amount of money spent on mental health services. We just make our kids practice active shooter drills.

I wrote a song called “Babies to War.”

We don’t sent our babies to war, by letting them walk out the door,
And some things make no sense no more…

…So tell me now if it’s true that you still believe
That the cure for sickness you see is more of this disease…

Babies to War, Milton Busker 2016

As is my modus operandi, I think I softened the language a bit too much; so much so that when it was reviewed in Seven Days back in 2016, the writer described it as “…a cautionary tale of growing up too fast and facing the cruel world before you’re ready…”. It’s not about that. It’s about kids being slaughtered in their classrooms, and I failed to make it explicit.

I tried not to make the same mistake after the Stoneman Douglas High School Shooting. As sad and hopeless as Sandy Hook made me feel, Stoneman Douglas made me angry. So many kids’ lives lost because the people who could do something about it are beholden to companies that make ridiculous amounts of money convincing people that their freedom to own as many guns as they can is more important than the social contract to keep citizens safe – the social contract to keep OUR KIDS safe!

“Good Guys with Guns” is my response to the massive numbers of people who don’t see the disconnect between saying they follow the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, and using deadly force to protect their personal belongings. Who think that any barrier, minor or not, to owning a gun is tantamount to tyranny. Who believe that if they were in an active shooter situation, they would have the presence of mind to go full John McClane and kill all the bad guys without any collateral damage.

The words came pretty quickly. The music was originally much angrier – I imagined a lot of distorted guitars and a bit more shouting than what we ended up with. Thankfully The Grim Work heard the early versions and decided that it needed to be more from the Bill Withers school of social commentary than the Rage Against the Machine school of social commentary (which honestly I could never pull off). The anger is still there, but it goes down a little easier. We were even able to add some bongos to the recording (from the always game Dave Simpson, who doesn’t play bongos, but we made him do it anyway). It also includes the funkiest mandolin solo ever courtesy of Jom Hammack. Yes, you heard that right. The FUNKIEST MANDOLIN SOLO EVER! I will accept no argument otherwise.

As I said, this isn’t the first song I’ve written that talks about gun violence. But I do keep hoping it will be the last. I woke up this morning to news of a mass shooting in Colorado Springs, at a nightclub for LGBTQ+ patrons. Reports this afternoon indicate over 20 people injured and 5 dead. I’m so heartsick for these people. And I’m so sick of it still happening. Was this the worst shooting this year? Fuck no, that would probably be the Uvalde massacre. Was it the worst shooting this month? Maybe, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t. How messed up is that?

Good guys with guns indeed…

In 2017 I was spending a good deal of time at the McLure Miller Respite House in Colchester, VT, trying to fit in as many moments as I could with my Dad before the cancer took him. He slept a lot and I scrolled a lot. I’m not seeing them as much nowadays, but at the time Facebook and Instagram were lousy with motivational memes that encouraged you to live for today, seize the moment, get off your ass, and make your life better.

From a logical perspective, I don’t have anything against those types of memes or the folks who share them, but when you’re going through some shit, those messages can quickly shift from an aspirational goal to an attack. The positivity can be downright oppressive. What if I don’t want to hope for the best right now? What if I don’t feel like gettin’ up and gettin’ at ’em?

Or worse, what if I’m not feeling much of anything at all? That’s where I was living at that time. I’ve always been a little bit sad (see Blue, Bucket of) but I’ve thankfully never had that deep kind of sadness that keeps you in bed all day. I’ve always been able to get up and do what I have to do. And I was doing just that, but I was also finding that I wasn’t really feeling anything about it. Everything was just kind of happening at me.

That’s when I saw Carl Sagan’s famous declaration that we are star stuff. I’m sure you’ve all seen it/heard it at one point in your life, but to paraphrase, all of the atoms/matter/particles/etc that are in the Universe right now, were once part of the singularity from whence The Big Bang came from, which means that the same ‘stuff’ that created stars and galaxies and planets is also the same ‘stuff’ that created you. At various points in my life I’ve found that both profound and moving, but right then I was just angry. If life is so fucking great, why is my Dad dying? Why did my father-in-law die years before then? Why was Donald-mother-fucking-Trump president? If everything is so goddamn magical, why can’t we harness any of that magic and make things better?

If we’re made of stars, why aren’t we surrounded
by a fiery glow, burning out our eyes?

That was the start of this album, although I didn’t know it at the time. All I knew was that I was desperately sad, and that writing songs is it’s own magic that I lean on when there’s nothing else I want to do.

My father died. We mourned. Time passed. Some things got better. Some things didn’t.

In 2018 Milton Busker & The Grim Work released our first album. I think it holds up. You should go listen to it.

In late 2019 we started thinking about recording our next album and talked with Ryan Cohen of Robot Dog Studio about recording there again. I think we may have even scheduled a time and put down a deposit. The pandemic halted those plans, and then Robot Dog Studio lost their space so Ryan graciously suggested we record elsewhere while he worked through what he needed to work through (can’t wait to visit his new studio space in Upstate NY). He put forth a couple of studios he trusted, but I already sort of knew who I wanted to work with. My cousin, Jeremy Mendicino.

Jeremy is a well-known fixture of the Burlington music scene and a singular musical talent whom I have had the joy and jealousy of knowing his whole life (he’s a few years younger than me and is my late aunt’s grandson). He works at Lane Gibson Studios in Charlotte and I’d always kind of wondered what his kind of genius could add to my songs, and now I don’t need to wonder. The end result is both miles away from, and exactly what I wanted it to be. His unfailing ear understood what we were trying to capture and helped us get there. He challenged and cheered and cajoled some amazing performances from everyone in the band.

Oh, the band.

This band.

Imagine having access to a machine that will unfailingly make whatever you put into it better, and that is what it’s like being supported by The Grim Work. Throw some flour into the machine and they’ll give you back some perfectly baked ciabatta. Try to fuck them up by dumping in a bunch of sand, and get presented with a stained-glass window worthy of Europe’s greatest churches. Toss in an apple and get a chocolate cake, and then you say, “What the hell is this, I was expecting an apple pie.” and they’ll say, “Maybe, but what you needed is a chocolate cake,” and you get a bit sulky but you eventually try the chocolate cake and you’re like, “Holy shit! This is exactly what I wanted to make with that apple!” … you get the picture.

John Treybal is one of my favorite bass players to listen to, straddling the line between purely melodic and purely rhythmic to create something that is uniquely his, even when I write a bass line for him to play. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard him say, “I don’t know what to play here,” and then hear him play the perfect line for that part.

Someone once said about Dave Ball, “He never plays what I think he should, but it’s always right.” That someone was not me, but I can’t disagree. I am so often downright giddy at the shit he comes up with, and the joy he exudes when he’s playing is contagious. A joy to listen to. A joy to watch. A joy to play music with.

Jom Hammack is our secret sauce, of course. Without him we would probably sound like every other sad-singer-songwriter-folk-rock-band, and not just because he doesn’t play a guitar. I have often found myself thinking a song is done, hearing him add a few lines, and then coming to the realization that it wasn’t done at all, but this guy just finished it.

And what can I say about Dave Simpson? He has been in almost every band I’ve played with or put together in the past (nearly) 30 years, either as a guitarist, bassist, or drummer, and in each role he has been the rock that I can stand on and shout into the night. If we get another 30 years on this earth, I hope we’re still shouting into the night together.

So five years after seeing an Instagram meme in a hospital room in Colchester, VT here it is, “Made of Stars”. Thank you for listening.

The second single from our next album is out today!

Find it on iTunes.

Find it on Apple Music.

We made a music video.

Directed by Brandon St. Cyr, filmed by Michael Fisher. Featuring Agatha Daley and Isaac Schroeder. 

I hope you enjoy watching it as much as we enjoyed creating it.

-Milton