Dirty Flowers

On this episode of The Stripdown, tune in to hear about the Durham-based band, Dirty Flowers. Hear about their unique songwriting process, their musical inspirations, and more!

★ Support this podcast ★

Creators & Guests

Host

DJ Ocean Spray

What is The Stripdown?

WKNC's DJ Ocean Spray chats with (mostly) North Carolina musicians.

DJ Ocean Spray 0:00
Hello. You're listening to wknc 88.1 and this is another episode of the stripped down with DJ Ocean Spray on. Today's episode, I am chatting with the members of the Durham based band dirty flowers. So can we start by introducing yourselves with your name and where you're from?

Spencer 0:22
I I'm Spencer. I'm more or less from the triangle area.

Alli 0:29
I'm Allie and same here, yay.

DJ Ocean Spray 0:35
Um, and can you tell me a little bit about how this project began?

Alli 0:42
Yeah, we started this band in do you think it was 2020 or was it 2019

we thought about starting this band in 2019

we thought about starting this band for a while before we actually started, but we were in a couple of different music projects and didn't find the focus to start a new project until covid hit. So I think it would have either been the very end of 2019 or 2020, okay, but yeah, I think it was just something we had talked about doing, just kind of finding a new sound. Our friend Nathan, shout out to Nathan bought this Tascam, 388, and kept it at our house, and we that's a tape machine. And we were saying we would love to start just like a tape project, since it was living at our house, and I think that was sort of the concept behind starting a new a new thing,

DJ Ocean Spray 1:51
um, and so when it comes to, like, your relationship with music, did you grow up musical and like, kind of like, how did you become interested in music and like playing instruments and stuff.

Spencer 2:07
We we've both been playing music since we were little kids, I guess, and then, yeah, played in various college bands. Allie and I used to play in a band called Blois together, and so we had just been in, like, I guess, the indie rock music scene in the triangle for a while.

Alli 2:28
Yeah, I think it did start with childhood for both of us. We both started playing instruments kind of young, but I think we also both, neither of us were like orchestra people or, well, you were in the school band,

Spencer 2:42
I guess, right, yeah, I was in band, but

Alli 2:44
I think we were both more in it for, maybe for songwriting. Or at least I was, Do you feel that way? Yeah, I feel like always I was into it for, just like the act of creation and writing more than, you know, like, I yeah, like, a more musical, like, strict orchestral background, or anything like that. I was never really part of that. So I think we had similar views on what we were sort of drawn to in music and and we were both playing in different bands. What, how would you describe your college band?

Spencer 3:27
I played in like a couple, just kind of like fast, loud, like punk bands, yeah,

Alli 3:35
and I was in a riot girl band, yeah, when we met. But I

Spencer 3:39
think even before that, we were dabbling with, like home recordings, even like as teenagers and stuff like that. And I think true, yeah, dirty flowers is sort of like a continuation of that as well. Yeah, kind of like homegrown and now, yeah, I'm

Alli 3:53
glad you brought that up, because I had sort of forgotten, but I think that's how we got to know each other. Spencer and I, we were in these other bands, and so we knew each other kind of through the music world, but we also both released bedroom music on our own, and I think followed each other's like bedroom projects, which we never really made very public. Yeah. So it was kind of an intimate relationship to have with each other, to, like, know each other's solo, like more private, like exploratory stuff, and it's, yeah, I think it is a huge part of how dirty flowers, like, found its sound. That's still what we do. We still make it at home in in our like home studio. So yeah, hadn't thought about

DJ Ocean Spray 4:50
that before. And how did the name for dirty flowers come about?

Spencer 4:57
We stole it from it's the name of us. Song written by a band that we really like, called lower plenty.

Alli 5:05
It's kind of, I think it's like a nod to them, more than theft. I think it's like we're really inspired by this band from Australia called lower plenty, and we love this song of theirs called Dirty flowers. Yeah,

Spencer 5:19
and they, I mean, we, there's a lot of other bands that inspire this band, but they, they have like, this really nice percussive element to their band. They use these, like, really, like jingle, jangly drums. And we definitely, we love that about their music. And we, we have a lot of percussive instruments at our house, and we wanted to use them a lot, so that was kind of a nice touchstone for us. Yeah,

Alli 5:49
one of the things that we both brought to our studio, we combined all of our sort of the things we had acquired over the years, we combined them together into like our now, like joint home studio, and a lot of it is just little shakers and like shells and bells and things like that that we've both just kind of separately, I guess, acquired over the years. And I remember also when I heard lower plenty I felt really seen, because I had actually written a song called Glass clinking ice. And I had been in my head developing this idea of, like, making a track that was, like, mostly based around the sound of ice in a glass. And I I'm pretty sure one of the sounds they use is ice in a glass that sounds amazing.

DJ Ocean Spray 6:39
Yeah, that's awesome. Um, and so getting into kind of like, um, your songwriting, do both of you guys write for the band, or, and like, kind of, how does that process work? Like, is it like, you know, one person kind of writes one song, or do you kind of, like work together on things?

Spencer 7:02
Um, things on our record, I would say we kind of would individually write songs and then bring them to one another. I wrote most of my songs ended up on the record and and we kind of like, Ali is really like a recording artist and like an engineer and helped kind of shape songs on the record after I'd kind of like written, like a few chords and some lyrics, we would kind of collaborate, going from There, I feel like now we're entering a new phase where the writing process is much more collaborative, which is more fun. But on the record, it was kind of like we would bring, kind of like a half shaped idea, and then we would work on it together. Yeah,

Alli 7:56
yeah. I feel like we've kind of grown in that way. It's when you're somebody who writes alone. Most of the time, it's sort of hard to open up to writing with somebody, but I feel like Spencer and I have kind of found our dynamic in collaborating and writing more, and will be featured more on LP two when that's out, but I think for the first record, and because it was a covid record, and was an idea that, you know, we knew we wanted to start this new project. And we are both songwriters, and so we just sort of brought the material that we had written separately together and sort of like combined it and, you know, toss it all on the same record, and I think it is cohesive on the album. That's kind of how we selected the songs, for what illusions was sort of going through and seeing what worked together, and we ended up cutting a bunch of material, and, yeah, but I think, I think now it's more like, I can bring a small idea to Spencer, and he can say, oh, wouldn't it be cool if we kind of like added this guitar bit to it. And then that opens up an entirely new portal in my brain. And I can, sort of like, take that new idea and, like, run with that. And then he says, Oh, well, wouldn't it be cool if we, like, changed it here, and, you know, like, I love this part, we should do this more. I have a hard time like writing choruses. I'm sort of just a person that writes like a free flowing idea, and Spencer will be like, that part is the best part, and you only do it once, like, we should do that three times.

Spencer 9:41
Yeah, there was a lot that didn't make it onto the record, mostly, well, I guess we both had songs that didn't make it onto the record. But Ali's also a prolific songwriter and has a lot of songs, writes a lot of songs for her solo project, whereas my main focus is writing. Songs for dirty flowers. I try

Alli 10:01
to write, I try to write. I just write a song, and then I see where it fits. You know, I don't, I don't, um, I'm not prioritizing anything over the other but I do think dirty flowers has a specific sound, and so if I'm writing a song, I'll know whether or not it's a dirty flower song.

DJ Ocean Spray 10:24
Um, and so when you are, like, kind of trying to, like, figure out what to write about, is it more kind of abstract ideas or like, kind of based on your own experiences?

Spencer 10:39
Um, for me, I one, one thing I really like about the record that we made is, I think it was the first album I made that really wasn't written necessarily from like, a first person perspective. I think when I was younger, I was writing a lot of songs that started with the word I, you know. And they were either like, based on my life or based on, like, a thinly veiled character that was secretly me or something. And like, and now, like, I listened to the album before the interview because I was trying to, like, kind of get in the headspace. And we almost never say the word I on the record. It's very much. We're very much. Yeah, we're like it is. Many of the songs are written from a more they deal with more, like abstract, I guess, concepts, and aren't necessarily first person accounts, you know. And I think part of that was just the fact that it was written in isolation and like we were in a really peculiar headspace, as I'm sure everyone was during that time. And

Alli 11:51
yeah, an isolated but very collective headspace. Yeah, yeah. I had also made that observation about not using i a lot. It's very it's very open, and I think that all the songs are very open to interpretation as well. But it's really moody. I think the mood is always there. And some of you know some of Spencer's songs he brought. I didn't know necessarily what they were about, but I would try to guess, because I know him and I know his life. But yeah, I think, I think I'm in an in between spot with songwriting. I think usually an idea will spawn, or a feeling will spawn from my personal experience with something, but it can grow and evolve as I'm as I'm like, exploring the song deeper. New Ideas come up, and I've written some songs where the idea or emotion that spawned it is I've, like, moved into a completely new territory by the end of finishing the song, that's not even really there anymore, sort of there's like a whole journey with it, and you wind up with something that I think must be a reflection of ourselves in a way, but is Also maybe more abstract.

DJ Ocean Spray 13:19
And so are there any musicians that you take inspiration from when it comes to creating your own music?

Spencer 13:30
Oh, yeah. I mean, we both love Yola tango. I feel like that's a band that I hear a lot, especially we, our live band, like our live set, is very different from the record, and that it's a full band. Well, I guess the the record is full band, but

Alli 13:51
it's mostly Yeah, mostly Spencer. He plays the drums and the bass and yeah,

Spencer 13:56
the record was, was mostly the two of us and and with the live band, we're just a little bit noisier and, like louder, and we play electric guitars instead of acoustic guitars. Yeah,

Alli 14:08
electric.

Spencer 14:09
Yeah, exactly. And I that's a band that I think has been a huge influence on us, as well as bands like The Silver Jews. And, you know, kind of these, these classic like the clean, the clean, yeah, just great indie rock bands, you know,

DJ Ocean Spray 14:33
yeah, um, and so I know that you mentioned that, um, you recorded, um, your album during covid and stuff. But could you tell me a little bit about, like, the recording process? Um, I know that you worked with sluice and, like, most of the members, a lot of the members of, like, first and stuff too. And I guess, kind. Of like how everything came together.

Alli 15:03
Yeah, well, I think that's kind of our the music community that we were speaking of earlier for me, sluice and fust, they're all like old friends who I also met when I was in the riot girl band. And so I think we've all sort of paid attention to each other's writing and projects over the years, and at this point it's been like, I mean, I've I feel like sluice and fuss are um, evolutions of of older bands that I used to listen to, um, and, you know, similar members and like the same songwriters, Aaron and Justin, and I Think in the same way that Spencer and I have been, like, developing new projects, like dirty flowers, they've also landed with with, you know, sluice and the new version of fuss, which is like a six piece band at this point. So yeah, I think working with them. I don't know. I mean, it just feels like a very like sort of full circle, um, music community sort of thing. Um, yeah, yeah. Although, I don't know if you meant like we, we didn't work together on the dirty flowers record, but we have worked together on like, their records, yeah, yeah. So yeah, and I think, yeah, we're all just kind of part of this like organism, and we're all, I think, hoping to, like, keep like this the spirit alive. Hopefully I don't sound really cliche or something, but that is how I feel about it. Especially with these two bands, I feel like, you know, we're, we're all kind of, like, keeping the dream alive. Yeah,

Spencer 17:20
yeah, they're bands that we really believe in. And, you know, we our very first show. I mean, we haven't played many shows as dirty flowers. I think we've only played three shows, even though,

Alli 17:33
yeah, it's, well, I don't know, we'll have to count,

Spencer 17:37
okay. Well, we've paid we've played very few shows, but the very first one we played was the first album release, yeah, and so it was, like, that was really special part of that, you know,

Alli 17:48
that was a big part of us getting the band together, I feel like was, or getting it ready, at least for, for, like, a live setting. Because, yeah, we made the record alone and and then it's, you want it to translate live. And so we were looking for players. And you know, we have some friends who we called upon to shout out to Hunter and John, who play bass and drums with us. And, yeah, I think yeah, we were both so honored to be asked to play the first album release, and that kind of got us, gave us like a deadline to be ready to play a show. And yeah, I'll always remember that show is really special.

DJ Ocean Spray 18:37
And so how would you, I guess, describe the music that, um, you guys make as dirty flowers or, like, if you would put it in a genre, like, I don't know, how would you classify it yourself

Alli 18:55
live, we call it art rock amongst ourselves, which I think is kind of true when I think about it.

Spencer 19:03
Yeah. I mean, I like that description, just because I almost think of dirty flowers more as like an art project than a band. Sometimes

Alli 19:12
it's very collage, yeah, and stylistic in, I think ways that it does feel like it relates very much to, like a visual esthetic, at least for me, and I think for you too, feels like a

Spencer 19:31
Yeah, yeah. I mean art, like a piece of art, yeah. And like, speaking of which, our friend Olivia, did our album cover. And I just thought it was so perfect, like, such a good kind of visual representation of the sound, which is very much like, I mean, there's songs, you know, there, there's songs that start on the acoustic guitar, but we really tried to make them almost like maximalistic In a way, you know, we use a lot of instruction. Instruments, I think, where people who like to draw with a every crayon in the box, so to speak. And, you know, there's like synthesizers and like horns and recorders and like all kinds of stuff on our record. And so it's, it is, like, steeped in a tradition of kind of like, you know, like indie rock or college rock, you know, these bands that I talked about before. But it is also we try to take it in like, different directions with different instruments and sounds and vibes, you know. And it is collage, like, at times, I think, which is, I think, why we like to call it art rock, you know? Yeah,

Alli 20:42
yeah. One, it's just kind of funny, but yeah. Two, I think, I think I even asked, I have a hard time with genre. And I think I asked somebody once what they thought it was, what like, if you had to, like, what does dirty flower sound like to you? And they were like, it sounds like, sound like, sound exploration. And it is, you know, it's like, it's songs at the heart, it's songs. We start every song with, usually acoustic guitar and like a scratch vocal of some kind. So there's lyrics, but then what sort of comes around that, I mean, in the end, not the acoustic guitar isn't always the main thing. By the end, the main thing could be, like, this weird SEPTA Vox sound that we love, or, like, Yeah, whatever other weird sort of thing. We've come up with a weird, like, in the box sound that we made out of a harmonica that we, like, ran through a granular synthesizer and, like, threw a ton of reverb on or something. And I think in mixing the record, we really spent a lot of time trying to, like, find moments for for sounds to bubble up and then kind of decay away, and then maybe, like, come back later. And so, um, yeah, I don't know, I digress, but I sort of forgot the question. Sorry,

Spencer 22:20
yeah. One of my favorite things on the album is, like, there was one song we were just having trouble with, and I was like, it just, like, needs something, and we, like, threw in the sample of this child. It's like this. It's an interview of like, this child from like, the 19 probably the early 1960s or something, and he had been given LSD as some sort of experiment, and like, he's being interviewed, and this is just on YouTube, and I, I'd remember, I remembered seeing it like a long time ago. And so I just, like, searched for it, and we found it, and we like, took all this audio from it, and, like, manipulated it, and it just kind of delay on it, yeah, and I just liked the way it felt like it was just this weird thing that kind of, like completed the song. Yeah,

Alli 23:04
it filled the space. It's been a fun way. That's a great example that's on the song vessel. And I love what that added. And I feel like it's, it's really been freeing to leave space and think what could happen here. And it doesn't have to necessarily be one of the more classic choices. It could be anything. It could be our cat feeder. I just, I just heard the cat food trickle down, and I'm like, oh, we should put that on the next record. Yeah.

DJ Ocean Spray 23:41
Um, and so do you guys plan on releasing more music as dirty flowers soon?

Alli 23:49
Yeah, yeah. I

Spencer 23:50
don't know how much I can't even say about it. I mean, not like we're you can say yeah, we're gonna be on a compilation. There's gonna be a new song this summer that comes out as a part of a compilation, and then we are working on a new record. We we tend to work pretty slowly, and I'm okay with that, but no, okay, I think it's mostly my fault, if anything. Okay, yeah, so there again, like, I think of it as a long term kind of art project. So I suspect we'll always be working on dirty flowers and in some way, whether that's like, a record or, like, I don't know, focusing on, like, making a cooler live show or something like that. But there will be more music in the future, and

Alli 24:47
we've started it. Yeah, we have started, we've started it, but we do our our processes pretty slow, and it was with the first record too.

Spencer 24:57
Yeah, it took a long time to make that record. Yeah.

Alli 24:59
Yeah, yeah. And I think, I think we're learning the process. Because that was the first record it, we were sort of toying with a lot of different things, and we had to, like, find the place that felt true to the project. And now we sort of have a blueprint from the first record. And so I think with the second record, maybe, I don't know, I feel like, I feel like we have our process dialed in now, so we can move a little bit quicker. I'm sure that will be true with every record, really, especially if we use the same set of tools, because it won't be part of the process to, like, figure out how to use the tape machine and, you know, this stuff,

Spencer 25:46
yeah, we'll probably never be the type of band that releases, like, a great album every year, you know, but I think we'll always be working on music,

Alli 25:55
Yeah, agreed. Because I think we also spend a lot of time in this songwriting process. And and even more so now that we've developed, like, a collaborative method, sort of, I think, yeah, we're pretty considerate about about the songwriting, and that takes time. So yeah, while we've started recording the next record, we're also still writing songs that will be on the next record too. Yeah, yeah.

DJ Ocean Spray 26:28
Um, so, um, the listeners are going to take a quick break to listen to symbol off of dirty flowers. 2022, album. What illusions? I

Alli 27:06
a coyote in the road, a bone buried and alone. Ghosts are there when no one's looking, your heart's twin is something you can't afford not to believe in, something you bought, sight unseen, a spiderweb suspended in a sunbeam. There are times when you feel everything, a crack sidewalk and a seashell. Oh, Shell Oil spills and poison wells, symbol and now thing itself. They mean everything. They mean Nothing. They mean anything. Now,

DJ Ocean Spray 30:00
And so kind of like more into, I guess your like personal like music listening kind of stuff, um, what kind of artists or and genres do you tend to listen to in your free time?

Alli 30:18
I tend to listen to, like, witchy women, like crooning about magical things. I listened to a lot of PJ Harvey and a lot of Kate Bush and Joanna Newsome and those are probably, like, my three pillars of people that I am always listening to and, like, always watching live performances of, and yeah, just like, really staying in touch with their work. And feel, yeah, I feel like very, you know, there's like, a difference between, like, listening to something and then listening to something and being like, I want to do a version of this. And I think with those three, it's sort of, I like, feel like the, you know, yeah, yeah. I just feel the like, all of the powers, like, reaching out to me, and I'm like, I just want to, like,

yeah, you also grew up listening listening to mostly country music. That's true, yeah? And we both really, really love country music. Yeah. That was all I

grew up listening to, um, specifically, like outlaw country from the 70s, I think is baked in for me, and always will be. And I'm glad, I'm glad that more people seem to be like loving it nowadays. I think it's like found a found a place. There was a period of time where people were more resistant to the country music. I think, do you think this is true? Yeah, maybe, maybe just indie. Maybe the indie rock world wasn't as country focused, but it feels pretty at this point. It Like It's wide open. You can, kind of like, take, draw from whatever, I

Spencer 32:22
think, like growing up in the 2000s and stuff, country music was, it was so much of, like, what was played on, like, mainstream country radio. I mean, a lot of it was bad, you know, and some of it was good. And I think people are rediscovering it now, but I think there certainly is, like a resurgence of country, which I think is great, yeah. So

Alli 32:48
yeah, and we were working kind of like right on the brink of that resurgence. We were working at a record store called nice price books. Maybe you know it because it's the street from NC State. I love me too. Yeah, and nice price, yeah, I worked there for like six years, and Spencer worked there for like a year or so too. And, like, a theme there is country music. They're always specifically Enoch over there is, like, always playing country records. And so I think, I think between that and then, just like my family, still only listening to outlaw country to this day, is kind of like got, you know, got that going in me again. And I do hear it too when I'm writing. I can hear when, when I'm influenced by like, I can hear the influence, I guess,

Spencer 33:47
yeah, I think we really appreciate the sound of older records, you know, from like, the 60s and 70s. Like these

Alli 33:54
records sound amazing, yeah, and so like, smooth and warm, and

Spencer 33:59
even some of those, like, like, early Velvet Underground records, which don't even necessarily like, they sound crazy, you know, but we love that stuff too.

Alli 34:08
I would, I would love to make a record that sounds as good as any Velvet Underground record. Yeah, I think, yeah, I could die happy. Yeah, I've achieved that. It's just it feels sometimes I listen to those records and I feel like they're like, the pinnacle of good sound. They're just, so it's kind of hard to explain. Sometimes the mixes are weird and like, un, yeah, they're like, the choices are weird, and you feel like it was almost done quickly. Like, did they just, like, throw up the faders and say, okay, yeah, this is good, but they're so interesting and still so just, I don't know, I don't know how to describe it, other than say warm, which I know that's kind of like a annoying word. I feel though it's maybe overused, but only because, yeah, it's true when something feels. Like, sounds warm. It just like, feels good. Yeah, I think, I think that's part of the dirty flowers. Hope is to keep the like, the tape sound and the like homey sound at the forefront of any of the records that we make under this project. Anyways, yeah,

DJ Ocean Spray 35:22
um, and is there a like, favorite venue that you guys have performed, um as dirty flowers in?

Spencer 35:32
Well, we talked about the first show we ever played, which was with fuss that the pin hook, which obviously we love the pin hook. But also shout out to Nash street tavern, oh, in Hillsboro. Yeah, that was a fun show. Yeah, it's just a little it's just like a little bar in Hillsboro that we really love and has a small stage. And yeah, we played a show there with some friends of ours, and rainbow

Alli 35:57
was running sound, yeah. And then at the end of the night, she handed us, unbeknownst to us, we didn't know this was happening, but she handed us a CD, and she was like, Hey, I just recorded your set. It's really cool. We have like, a CD of of our live show from Nash Street, which is all treasure hat, yeah,

Spencer 36:14
it's a great venue, yeah, but there's a lot in the triangle, yeah. I mean,

Alli 36:19
Ken hook is probably my most frequent venue. I think, um, yeah, and, I guess, oh. And then hopscotch, we played kings. That's true. Really, great, yeah,

Spencer 36:33
we've played some amazing shows like kings, yeah, yeah,

DJ Ocean Spray 36:40
um, and it's funny that you mentioned the album art earlier, because it's like, my favorite question to ask musicians, kind of like the story behind their album art, because I think it's really interesting. So you mentioned that, um, one of your friends created the image for what illusions and kind of, like, did you ask her to do that? Or like, did you see her art and you wanted to, like, use it for it? Or like, kind of like, how did that come about?

Spencer 37:16
I think we both just really liked Olivia's style, and I reached out and asked if I could commission the album art. And she sent us several pieces at

Alli 37:30
the time. We hadn't she hadn't done album art before. I think we had just seen her, um, collage pieces, right?

Spencer 37:39
I think so yeah. And yeah, she sent us several images. And we used, think, we used all of them, like a couple of them we used for, like, singles artwork, and then we picked our favorite for the the album art.

Alli 37:58
It was, it was tough to pick, too, because she sent us three, and I think we've we kind of vacillated on which one should be like the main, the main cover. I still think the one we chose is like the most reflective of the record. But yeah, it was tough to choose, because I was really blown away by how much did you just send her a track, or did you send her the record?

Spencer 38:25
I sent her? I think I sent her two songs. And, yeah, a few months later, she shared a Google Drive with the with the images, and then eventually, like mailed us the physical pieces, which we have at our house, which is really cool. Yeah, we have them

Alli 38:40
hanging framed in the studio. But, yeah, that was, that was one of those moments. I hadn't done that a lot prior, I think in all my other projects, I had made the album cover, or, like my friends and I had made the album cover, it had always been a thing that I had been a part of. And this was the first time I like, let that go as a part of the process, and like, kind of given it to someone else, which was Spencer's idea. And I it like, kind of showed me the beauty of collaboration in art, in that way, to receive that and feel like somebody took in your work and, you know, ran it through their filter and and sort of shows, you like, in a very visual sense, what they hear. Um, it was really, yeah, I was amazed by what she came up with. And I felt like it just hit the nail on the head too, with the sound. Yeah,

DJ Ocean Spray 39:44
that's so cool. Um, and so I also think it's really interesting to ask musicians if they go to concerts very often, um, and so do you guys go to concerts often? And if you do, have you been. Any good ones recently?

Spencer 40:04
Well, one we didn't go to. And I'm kind of sad.

Alli 40:07
We were just talking before the interview. We were like, Oh, we didn't go to this. Yeah,

Spencer 40:12
our friends in this band, Lonnie Walker, who are, you know, they're based in Raleigh, and they had their album released at King's last or no, sorry, Saturday night. Yeah, and we, we should have been there. We weren't.

Alli 40:27
I have had a hard time if I don't put it on my calendar. That's the point I'm at in life. It has to be on my calendar or else it just, you know, something else. I'm doing something else. Yeah, and I try to, i i For a while there I was working live sound. And so one of the fringe benefits was you could go, even on your night off, you could go to whatever show um was happening. And I was working at like, a bunch of different venues at the time, and so I would just go to show every night, like, not even knowing what it was, I would just be like, Oh, I'll go check this out. Why not? But that was back when I had more energy, and that was pre covid, which I think we are all, maybe affected by covid In some ways, where we're we're not going out quite as much, or at least I'm not, but I, but I still do prioritize going to shows.

Spencer 41:19
Another show that we did go to because Allie was playing it, but I guess we would have gone anyway, was the Gibson and two ton album release, yeah, lovers in Durham. Yeah, that

Alli 41:31
was one of my favorite shows I've been to. I loved seeing your stand. Yeah, that was their first full band set. And yeah, I'm so glad we were there to see it. That's awesome. So good. Yeah, that was a good show. Trying to think, what else I've been to lately? I'd have to, you know, what I would have to do is pull up my calendar and then I can tell you,

Spencer 41:54
we, we also went to Eno fest recently, Fourth of July weekend. We, try to always go to that. So yeah, probably don't go to as many shows as we'd like to. But

Alli 42:07
well, next week we're gonna go to Jessica Pratt. Did you know that? Oh, yeah,

Spencer 42:11
yeah. So yeah, we

Alli 42:13
try to call river, but yeah, yeah, like

Spencer 42:21
you looking at your

Alli 42:22
calendar. Yeah, it's just the way that I know.

Spencer 42:28
Just curious. Another one of my favorite shows that we went to, I guess this was a while ago now, but sluice did a Bruce Springsteen cover set, which Ally was a part of that's legendary? Yeah, it was so good,

Alli 42:44
so good it was. It was so much better than it should have been. Even, you know what I mean, like for a one off show, it was, it was, it was, like, very impressive. It

Spencer 42:54
was as if they had been practicing for like, months, yeah, months. It was like an ensemble, like different singer for every song, yep, and it was just fantastic. So

Alli 43:04
good. And just like Justin's true calling, I think in a Bruce

as a Bruce,

sort of, I don't know what you call that when you are being the person. What's that called?

Spencer 43:22
Impersonator? Yeah, yeah, he should, yeah, just focus on that. He

Alli 43:28
could do that for a living, honestly. Also magic tubers and weirs played a set at Penn. We love the pen hook not too long ago, and that was a really great show. And, yeah, the magic tuber set made me cry.

Spencer 43:46
So good. We're really like, yeah, I feel like we're really kind of spoiled here in the triangle. There's yeah, great bands everywhere playing all the time. So

Alli 43:57
it's true, yeah,

DJ Ocean Spray 44:00
um, and where could the listeners find you guys on like, social media, Bandcamp, Spotify. Like, is it all just dirty flowers, or

Spencer 44:14
we're on Instagram as dirty flowers? Dirty underscore, underscore, flowers. We didn't get in line there. And we have a band camp that's it's under. We have our own record label, humble brag, and it's called Halloween on Raspberry Hill. And our band campus, Halloween on Raspberry Hill records.bandcamp.com, and there you'll find the dirty flowers record as well as Ally's record,

Alli 44:46
yeah, my solo record, and hopefully other records someday, yeah, yeah. We're just, we're just getting started with the label, so we kind of practiced putting something out with our own music to see what. How difficult it is and how much time it takes, and, yeah, what's required in that part of the process. And it's super DIY. So there's not a lot of, like, promotion or anything that goes along with that. We just post about it on Instagram, mostly. Yeah, but yeah, so I think, yeah, hopefully we'll put out some stuff from more people in the area, plus our other records that we make. And yeah, we're on Spotify and title and all that stuff. We're even on some weird stuff. I just signed up with distrokid. That's like, how I found to put out stuff with the label, and it it like popped up with a bunch of things. And I was like, Deezer, like, have you heard of that, like, some weird streaming platforms that I'd never heard of before in my life. And it was like, Do you want to, like, upload to all of these. And I think I asked you, I was like, should we upload to, like, all of these weird ones that we don't know? And you're like, Yeah, sure. Why not? D,

Spencer 46:15
E, E, z, E, R,

Alli 46:18
and then, because we do everything ourselves, we also, at least when we were first on title, we were like, popped up under some other guy's profile because the name, I think he had the same name. And so you might find our record under somebody else. They might have fixed it. But, oh, and then I remember spending an afternoon trying to figure this out, but I put us on YouTube music like it uploaded us, but I had to somehow connect it to our Gmail or something.

Spencer 46:50
It's, yeah, it's weird. It's weird these days, yeah. But

Alli 46:54
we also make, every time we put something out, we make a batch of cassette tapes, and we just do, like a limited run of that. So for this record, we we made, it was the first one we had put out. So I think we only made 25 tapes, um, which were sold out of but we might, we might do another batch. Yeah,

DJ Ocean Spray 47:17
okay, thank you so much. Um, this has been a another episode of the strip down with DJ Ocean Spray. Thank you so much for listening. And please check out dirty flowers. And I will send the listeners off with one more song today, and that is mystery wheel. So thank you so much for listening. God

Alli 48:02
is sour at

Tired spider

said, Keep dear Punch.

Surface,

No spice.

Speaker 3 49:31
Eyes, the sound. Oh,

Transcribed by https://otter.ai