Vandaveer - Stories from the far-reaching branches

“Just the nature of our kind”

An old pocket watch. A family heirloom passed down from hand to hand, generation to generation: a politician, a gambler, a preacher… and, finally, a singer-songwriter. A single word engraved on its gilded case: Vandaveer.

Mark Charles Heidinger decided to use the aegis of that old name to tell his own stories. “I wanted to give it a lifeline,” he explains. And so, Vandaveer became synonymous with a kind of songwriting rooted deep in tradition, yet able to push its branches right into the heart of the present.

“I'm a Kentucky kid, but with an Ohio pedigree,” Heidinger says of himself. If Ohio is where he was born, it's in the tradition-steeped soil of Kentucky that he came of age. “I was in high school when Nirvana and Pearl Jam put out their first albums. And when you're 13 or 14 and records like that come out, it's kind of like a punch in the gut. I immediately knew I wanted to learn to play guitar.”

Armed with his father's old Gibson, Heidinger began venturing into American music, working his way back from grunge to the songs of Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Tom Waits and Tom Petty. “That guitar had such a natural, woody, time-worn sound that it was impossible not to use it to write folk songs.”

Heidinger soon begins performing at the helm of a band with power-pop leanings, the Apparitions, alongside Robbie Roberts on bass, Robby Cosenza on drums, and Eric Smith and Justin Craig on guitars. "Brothers, roommates, kids trying to make rock 'n' roll," he recalls with a touch of nostalgia. "Those were good times. Good, very loud times." The Apparitions release two albums, "Oxygen Think Tank" in 2003 and "As This Is Futuristic" in 2006. But when Heidinger relocates to Washington, the band breaks up, with Craig and Cosenza going on to join These United States. The bond, however, remains strong, with numerous collaborations over the years. "We're still very much a family," he states firmly.

For Mark, though, the time has come to open a new chapter.

"However many takes it takes"

It's at the end of 2006 that Heidinger begins performing as a solo artist under the name Vandaveer. "I was simply looking for a space for sparser material, song sketches really. I didn't think it would become my main musical project, yet that's exactly what happened."

A new approach, entirely focused on learning "what makes an acoustic guitar the best storytelling machine in the world." A new identity, built on a romantic, intimate songwriting that isn't afraid to draw on the lessons of the classics, openly taking inspiration from "the usual suspects, the fearless ones." Thus is born Vandaveer's debut album, Grace & Speed, released in 2007 on the Washington label Gypsy Eyes.

Vandaveer presents himself with the humility of a troubadour, singing the folk inflections of "However Many Takes It Takes" as if it were an apocryphal, sanded-down Dylan outtake. "For this song I think I stole a few chords, borrowed a mouthful of words and sprinkled on top a melody that's not exactly unknown," he confesses with a smile.

But when the beat of a drum machine marks out the danse macabre of "Marianne, You've Done It Now…," we're immediately transported back to the era of Tunng, with Chris Sullivan's clarinet conjuring an entire iconography of hopes burned out in smoky night spots.

Marianne has chased the lights of a glittering mirage and found only a blade ready to sink into her throat. Harold has surrendered to rage and disillusionment and taken to the streets with a gun in hand. Vandaveer tells their stories with the dry tone of a noir narrator, taking on in "The Street Is Full Of Creeps" the guise of a stripped-down Ed Harcourt grappling with the repertoire of early Tom Waits, before letting go on the notes of "2nd Best" into the lightness of a cabaret for dreaming hearts.

Between the acoustic sketches of "Out Past The Moat" and "Different Cities" and cotton-candy pop ballads like the title track and "Parasites & Ghosts," what wins us over is the light touch with which Vandaveer manages to revisit the traditional songwriter's script. And the sparkling freshness of guitar, drums and backing vocals with which "Roman Candle" seals the record even takes on the green hue of Belle & Sebastian's "The Boy With The Arab Strap."

The songs on Grace & Speed seem to want to break through the surface, to seek out the essence of the fragility of things. "Despite the possessions that we boast, we're all parasites and ghosts/ And our planet's just a temporary host," Vandaveer reflects in "Parasites & Ghost."

There's no point trying to build a shell of false security to hide inside: "Demons, they don't live outside, they burrow deep where they can hide/ Inside a safe, you will still feel vulnerable." Vandaveer's approach to life, entrusted to the statement of intent that is "However Many Takes It Takes," has the same simplicity as his music: “You’ve got to walk a million miles/ Honey, go walk them with a smile/ However many takes it takes”.

After the release of Grace & Speed (followed, at the end of 2007, by the brief Christmas classics EP VNDVR XMSEP), Heidinger has a pivotal encounter: with singer Rose Guerin, whose shared passion for folk music immediately sparks something between the two. From that moment on, Rose becomes Vandaveer's essential female counterpart, an indispensable piece of his music.

Heidinger delves deeper into his roots with a series of covers scattered across various compilations: Bob Dylan's "The Man In Me," Leonard Cohen's "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye," and the "Long Black Veil" made famous by Lefty Frizzell. But it's not until 2009 that his second album arrives, Divide & Conquer.

The soft nuances of the previous record give way to greater tonal uniformity, still under the banner of romantically-tinged songwriting. The bitter, solemn pace of "Fistul Of Swoon" introduces Vandaveer's visions with shadowy grace: "Though your towers are tall and your powers were grand, you could not understand how you fell from great heights."

The delicate acoustic sketches of "Woolgathering" and "Long Lost Cause" bring to mind the intimism of Tom McRae, the ghostly choruses of "The Sound & The Fury" evoke a pop-leaning Matt Elliott. And when the fabric thickens, as in the heavy tones of "A Mighty Leviathan Of Old," it's the mettle of early David Gray that peeks through.

Recorded between Washington and Lexington with producer Duane Lundy, Divide & Conquer is an album steeped in arcane mysticism, where sirens and leviathans materialize alongside the images of angels and serpents depicted in the booklet. In Vandaveer's lyrics, love takes on the guise of a Machiavellian game of chess, a diabolical divide et impera: and the price to pay, naturally, is one's own soul. "When you dance with the devil you don't walk scot-free", warn the chiaroscuro tones brushed by the piano on "Turpentine".

The cry that rises from the waves of existence seems to go unanswered, smothered by strategies and divisions. Until the silence, in "A Mighty Leviathan Of Old", is shattered by the stormy ocean of fate, sweeping away every lie in its path: “God spoke clearly for the very first time in my life/ The sounds he made were glorious and grave/ It was a tidal wave of rhythm”.

Despite a few excesses of straightforwardness, Divide & Conquer manages to confirm Vandaveer's gift for pop craftsmanship. With its light pianistic caress, the farewell of "Beverly Cleary's 115th Dream" seals the album with a tribute aimed as much at Mr. Zimmerman ("Bob Dylan's 115th Dream", A.D. 1965) as at the children's author Beverly Cleary. It's precisely to the heroine of her books, the little troublemaker Ramona Quimby, that Vandaveer's voice turns: "Forever seems such a very long time", it sings sweetly. "That's a very good sign for peace and love and harmony, and all the things that lovers need like hope and health and clarity and time".

"Listen to my story, I'll tell you no lies"

The essence of a song is best grasped in its barest form. After Divide & Conquer, Vandaveer decides to present a handful of songs stripped of ornament, left to their simple acoustic nakedness. Five tracks make up the Ep A Minor Spell, further proof of a dreamy, deeply charming songwriting. Alongside Heidinger's second tribute to Christmas tradition, VNDVR XMSEP2, it serves as the appetizer introducing the third album under the Vandaveer name, Dig Down Deep. A record that digs down to the essence, continuing along the same path as its direct predecessor.

Dig Down Deep announces itself with the vibrant tone of an anthem. An anthem for those who refuse to resign themselves to fighting life's daily battle without purpose. The gentle rhythmic bed of "Concerning Past & Future Conquests" recalls the atmospheres of Grace & Speed, loading them with enveloping strings and emphatic flourishes. The plain-spoken songwriting of Josh Ritter ("AOK") coexists with the chamber-music drama of the Decemberists ("Spite"). The tone is then lightened by the pop moves à la Marc Bolan (filtered through an indie-folk lens) of "The Nature Of Our Kind": "a little number", to use Heidinger's words, "about continuing to go round and round at breakneck speed, whether we're aware of it or not".

Despite a few too many simplifications, it's once again in the chiaroscuro tones that Vandaveer's soul hides: the dreamy piano phrasing drapes "As A Matter Of Fact" in theatrical velvet, while "The Great Gray" sketches a dirge-like march streaked with interference. "I love music that goes into the dark side of things: Nick Cave, that kind of stuff".

The direct approach of these songs picks up where A Minor Spell left off, but on Dig Down Deep producer Duane Lundy's hand enriches the edges with detail: "we turned my house into a studio for a few weeks, using every room to get different sounds. Bathroom, kitchen, living room, closets, under the stairs, we used everything...". Thus, the closing "The Waking Hour" sets aside the acoustic liveliness of the version found on A Minor Spell to stretch out until it's left suspended on nothing but Mark and Rose's voices: "We stood stone still at the base of a mighty case of stairs/ Stared straight up, searched for signs, such a steep affair".

Amid the punctuation of "Beat, Beat, My Heart", the grayness of a domesticated existence is set against the color palette of hope: "I'll wager my fate for a glimpse of Technicolor love/ Oh, enough with all these grays". What is hope, after all, if not the possibility of turning yesterday's hues into something new, the chance to start over again every day? And the chorus becomes a whisper in the closing lines of "Dig Down Deep": "By the grace of God, we can start again".

In 2011, Vandaveer took part in a highly unusual project, "The 78 Project", in which each artist is given the chance to record a traditional folk song directly onto disc, using an original microphone from the 1930s. Mark and Rose chose to perform "The Banks Of The Ohio". From there, it was a short step to plunging into an entire album of murder ballads. So the pair headed into the heart of Kentucky, to a farm steeped in history: "We wanted a space that was as old as the songs we were recording. We traded stories with those walls, bouncing the sound from room to room". With J. Tom Hnatow of These United States and Phillips Saylor of Stripmall Ballads rounding out the band, it took just a week to bring to life the fourth Vandaveer album, Oh, Willie, Please..., released in 2012, once again with trusty Duane Lundy at the console.

From the rustic scents of "The Banks Of The Ohio" onward, the only apparent lightness of the songs on Oh, Willie, Please... counterbalances the darkness of the tales, chasing the southern gothic suggestions of the Handsome Family. The Appalachian banjo of "Pretty Polly" creeps in with no escape, but it's the driving rhythm that marks out the tragedy, as Mark and Rose's voices intertwine in a constant shift in perspective between victim and killer.

When talk turns to murder ballads, thoughts inevitably run to Nick Cave, the quintessential modern balladeer of murder. But Heidinger doesn't shy away from the comparison, and indeed pays an explicit tribute to the Australian songwriter on "Henry Lee". Cave, however, isn't the record's only guiding spirit: amid the chronicles resurfacing from the mists of time, the Tom Waits of "Alice" lends Vandaveer his "Poor Edward", dedicated to the story of Edward Mordake, the man with two faces who chose suicide rather than free himself of his diabolical twin. As in an unsettling Victorian circus, the tone turns more spectral than ever, against a backdrop of shivering violin.

Vandaveer traces back up the family tree linking murder ballads to Irish folklore: stories with shared roots that take on different inflections, between the lyricism of "Down In The Willow Garden" and the pedal steel that caresses the duet with Phillips Saylor on "The Knoxville Girl". Rose Guerin's warm, vibrant tone takes center stage on "The Railroad Boy" and "The Drunkard's Doom", while the waltzing swirls of "The Murder Of The Lawson Family" seem to evoke the Titanic of Dylan's imagination, to tell the story of how Charlie Lawson, on Christmas Day 1929, killed his wife and six children one by one, after having them dress in their holiday clothes.

Lifted straight from the pages of the "Anthology Of American Folk Music", a skeletal "Omie Wise" reveals how the essence of Oh, Willie, Please... goes beyond a simple retelling of past crimes of passion. The icy clarity of the gaze John Lewis turns on his victim carries with it a deeper evil: "Little Omie, I'll tell you my mind/ My mind is to drown you and leave you behind". "From ghost stories to creation myths, from 'C.S.I.' to Shakespeare, from the voyeurism of the news to Edgar Allan Poe, death, murder and all the most horrible things have fascinated and frightened people for centuries", Heidinger reflects. "Despite our collective desire to be good and virtuous, people do very ugly things. And then they turn them into a song". That, ultimately, is what murder ballads are for: we need these stories to survive, so we can look our dark side in the mirror and learn to face it.

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