Author: Matt Moore

On Sunday, Oct. 11, runners of all skill levels can run for fun and a good cause at this year’s Run Fest: one day featuring two runs at the historic Oberod Mansion in Centreville. A former du Pont estate, the mansion was originally built by Harry Lunger and his wife, Jane du Pont Lunger, in the late 1930s. Located at 400 Burnt Mill Rd., it is celebrated as a historic monument.

Many experts consider the Oberod 5K Trail course to be one of the most challenging on the East Coast. Spanning five kilometers of off-road ascents, the trail features 400-foot elevation climbs, rolling ranges and a finish through the back yard of the mansion.

Runners will also encounter two foot bridges, an alleyway of pine trees and a fast-finish half mile. The entry fee is $30 and includes a bib with a timing chip and a tee shirt.

In memory of local humanitarian Art Connolly, the Oberod 5K trail is intended to evoke the same passion and love for community that Connolly is remembered for.

Following the 9 a.m. Oberod 5K Trail is the Splatter Dash, New Castle County’s first colorful run. Starting out, runners begin as blank canvases, then run through seven color stations along the route where they will be splattered with non-toxic colored power, reaching the finish line as a work of art. Participants are encouraged to wear sunglasses and bandanas and to have fun. This is a non-competitive, short run that can also be walked, hopped or skipped through. Registration is $30.

All proceeds from both runs will benefit the Children and Families First Initiative, a non-profit social services agency that builds the foundation for strong communities with an emphasis on child-centered and family-focused programs. Children and Families First works to help children who face adversity.

While both events are open to all ages, strollers and dogs are not allowed.

Here’s what’s pouring

Wilmington Does Beer Nov. 7-14

Now in its fifth year, Wilmington Beer Week features the premier craft beer venues of New Castle County. In addition to focusing on Delaware’s respected homegrown breweries—Dogfish Head, 16 Mile, Twin Lakes and Fordham & Dominion—the Nov. 7-14 event also highlights other prominent craft breweries in the region, including Yards, Victory, Tröegs, Brooklyn and Heavy Seas. Special Beer Lover and Beer Geek passes will give craft beer enthusiasts the opportunity to enjoy discounts throughout the week and gain access to special tastings. For more information, go to wilmingtonbeerweek.com/venues.

Heavy Seas Announces New Brew

For the past 18 months, Heavy Seas Brewmaster Christopher Leonard has met with a group of local brewers in the Baltimore area, discussing trends and technical issues. Calling themselves “The Legion of Foam,” the group features brewers from DuClaw Brewing and Red Brick Station, among others. Together they have collaborated to create “Stoop Sitter”—a new brew set to be released only on draft during this year’s Baltimore Beer Week (Friday-Sunday, Oct. 9-18). For every sixth barrel sold, Heavy Seas will donate $3 to the Ocean Research Project, and for every 50L keg sold, the brewer will donate $5.

Wine & Beer Lovefest Set for Dover

On Saturday, Oct. 17, from noon-5 p.m., libation lovers can head to the Delaware Agricultural Museum and Village in Dover for the Delaware Wine and Beer Festival. General admission is $35 and includes unlimited samples. VIP Admission is $50 and includes 10 sampling tickets, allowing you to taste and vote for your favorite, in addition to a souvenir beer glass, unlimited samples and a swag bag. Those looking to extend the weekend can take advantage of the Libations Fan Weekend Experience: For $299 you receive two unlimited sampling admission tickets to the festival, overnight accommodations at select local hotels along with complimentary continental breakfast, as well as two tickets to attend a brunch at Harvest Ridge Winery on Oct. 18.

Two Events Benefit Meals on Wheels

In October and November, two events will benefit Meals on Wheels of Delaware. The first and by far the bigger of the two is the Ultimate Tailgate, scheduled for Thursday, Oct. 22, from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Sheraton Hotel in Wilmington. (See story, pg. 39) It will feature area restaurants serving unique interpretations of tailgate food, wine, spirits, as well as a thriving beer garden, curated by Two Stones Pub. Tickets are $55.
Giving on Tap is scheduled for Friday, Nov. 13, at Two Stones Pub Brewing Company’s headquarters in Aston, Pa. This event features a night of food and beer from a regional favorite, and one of the latest additions to the craft beer community. It starts at 6:30 p.m.

Brats and Brews Fest is Oct. 10

Set for Saturday, Oct. 10, at noon at the Nemacolin Woodlands Resort in Farmington, Pa., the Brats and Brews Festival features craft brews, German food and activities for the whole family. In addition to craft beer tastings from Dogfish Head Brewery and live music, there will be face painting and root beer races for the kids. Admission is free; brew-tasting kits are $20 a person.

A few tailgating figures worth noting

50 million – The estimated number of people who will pack up the grill this year and tailgate.

59 – The percent of tailgaters who use a combination of grills, smokers and stoves.

5 – The number of hours before the game begins that tailgaters start the festivities.

35 – The percent of tailgaters so devoted to the pre-game ritual that they never actually enter the stadium.

500 – The average amount of money, in dollars, tailgaters spend on food and supplies.

84 – The percentage of tailgaters who prefer eating hamburgers on game day.

Delaware Art Museum hosts festival Sept. 18

Major cultural events like the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War had a profound impact on America in the 1960s and ‘70s. During that time, many area poets and writers started meeting in living rooms and cafés to discuss these events and share their work.

Writers Lew Bennett and John Hickey soon collaborated to curate a single zine featuring many of these pieces, eventually bringing it to a newspaper printer in southern New Jersey.

By 1977, they published Dreamstreets #1, a collection of poetry, prose and visual art. Derived from Hickey’s experience as a cab driver in Philadelphia, the name describes the dream-like aesthetic of the streets early in the morning. The two diligently distributed the zine, and spread the word about the budding counterculture in Wilmington.

Since then, Dream Streets has grown remarkably, holding public poetry readings and publishing hundreds of works from area artists. The same cultural foundations put in place by the Dream Streets community continue to support the visual and performing arts within the city today. Organizations such as the Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts, the Delaware Humanities Forum and the Delaware Theatre Company were founded during this period, as well as commercial galleries and city-supported arts initiatives.

In June, the Delaware Art Museum began featuring a new exhibit entitled “Dream Streets: Art in Wilmington 1970-1990.” Running until Sunday, Sept. 27, the exhibit showcases craft and design, drawing, painting, performance art, photography and sculpture. The exhibit is paired with the release of Dreamstreets #51, a new issue bringing together former and recent contributors’ works.

On Friday, Sept. 18, the final days of the exhibit will be celebrated with an outdoor festival at the museum starting at 6 p.m. There will be hip-hop and breakdancing performances by Wilmington artists and musicians, as well as an eclectic set from DJ Scarfo and live painting demonstrations by artist Terrance Vann. Food will be provided by local food trucks, complemented by delicious libations. General admission is $5, but free for members.

Come on out and dance, socialize and celebrate a local legacy and thriving arts community.

The Newark band has gone from the high of touring England to the low of seeing their label dissolve. Now they’re looking to the future.

Headphones on, his brow furrowed, Andrew Fusca sits on the edge of his chair, hunched over his guitar, strumming into a microphone. To his right, Jeff Marvel watches while sitting on an amplifier, a guitar in his left hand and a beer in his right. For several minutes, they silently nod in unison to the click of the metronome in Fusca’s headphones and the sound of the guitar strings competing with a low hum from a window air conditioner in the next room.

Then Fusca stops strumming and quickly pulls off the headphones, ending the session. He turns around to his computer, taps on the keyboard, and a driving, ambient pop instrumental begins to play from the monitors on his desk. The sound slowly seeps into the dimly lit room in his apartment, a room littered with empty beer bottles and music equipment, its walls decorated with Christmas lights and a poster depicting a flying saucer with the words “I Want To Believe.”

Fusca and Marvel sit back and listen, critiquing almost every aspect of the song until finally clarifying that it has nothing to do with their forthcoming album, set to be released in the fall. In fact, it’s something that might not even be used at all.

“This is just what we do,” says Fusca with a laugh.

For almost 10 years, Fusca, Marvel and bassist Tyler Yoder have been writing, playing and recording music together in various groups, performing everywhere from beer-soaked basements in Newark and dive bars in Philadelphia to packed halls in England, venues in Brooklyn and the Firefly Music Festival in Dover.

In 2009, the three graduated from Middletown High School, moved into a farmhouse in Newark and soon started a band with a few other friends. In a matter of three years, they cultivated a fan base, hosting house shows featuring other local artists and DJs. But by 2012, there was a growing disconnect in each member’s vision for the band. While some members felt they should perform live more frequently, others wanted to concentrate on the recording and writing process. This dichotomy of focus brought an end to the group, evoking feelings of frustration, detachment, and a need to reevaluate.

For Yoder, who had just finished his sophomore year at the University of Delaware, this meant taking a break from music and taking to the road for the summer.

“I was ready to just get away from it. I wanted to distance myself from it, not only with different musicians, but literally geographically,” he says while sitting on the porch of his home in Newark, sipping slowly from a Mason jar of ice water.

While Yoder packed for his road trip, Fusca and Marvel began working on new songs to be used for another project. The two would spend hours in the farmhouse fleshing out songs, heading in a different direction from the mostly rock-based tracks they had written before. It was during this time that they wrote a track titled “Era.”

On one of his last nights in town, Yoder heard “Era” in Fusca’s bedroom and was floored.

“It certainly made me question my decisions a lot,” he says now.

But then he left, driving almost 1,950 miles to Paonia, Colo., in a beat-up Kia Spectra. For two months he participated in a program called the World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, commonly referred to as WWOOF. In Paonia, a small town surrounded by the Rocky Mountains, Yoder camped, farmed and got some clarity.

While he was gone, Fusca and Marvel continued to write, eventually finishing a record that they intended to release—until Fusca’s computer crashed and erased everything. While all seemed lost, one song miraculously survived: “Era,” which Fusca unintentionally backed up to the Cloud. Yet the two found themselves at a standstill. After spending months working on new recordings with only one song to show for it, they needed to begin again.

It was around this time that Yoder returned to Newark with a clearer understanding of himself and a desire to play music again. He soon began working with Fusca and Marvel for the duration of the summer, and the three started fiancé—a name they settled on because of its simple sound, yet committed nature.

For the rest of 2012, they spent hours writing and recording, eventually releasing two singles that received moderate attention from several independent music blogs. Then they recruited drummer Brian “Octie” Bruce, a close friend and staple of the Newark and Wilmington music scenes, and began playing shows.

With Fusca providing vocals and guitar, Marvel on guitar, Yoder on bass and Bruce on drums, the band took off locally. They played almost every area bar and basement, developing their sound and generating buzz.

In 2013, they released their first single as a four-piece band: “Era”—a more refined version of the song that started everything. From there, they gained more blog attention, eventually receiving a write-up in the popular British music magazine NME. Zane Smythe, of the California-based music label SQE Music, happened to pick up the issue, read the story, and promptly signed fiancé.

As “Era” continued to garner attention, Fusca, Marvel, Yoder and Bruce set up in the farmhouse and spent the rest of the year writing a new set of songs and recording them to quarter-inch tape on a Tascam 388 reel-to-reel tape machine. After hours spent self-producing the record with the help of their close friend, Ryan Williams, the band released EP 1—a collection of five songs featuring an analogue-based, filmy, fuzzed-out aesthetic on SQE Music in September 2014. In a matter of months, it was pressed on vinyl, sold in stores and online, featured on even more music blogs and played on local and national radio programs.

That October, they embarked on their first tour, performing at venues throughout England to some of the biggest crowds they had ever played to. At one performance in London, Fusca described a scene in which the four of them were positioned behind a curtain and told to begin playing. As they kicked into their first song, the curtain slowly rose, and they saw a hall packed to capacity, the crowd cheering and singing along word-for-word. Fusca describes the moment as both exciting and overwhelming.

“I’ve never felt anything like that playing a show before. It was absolutely bizarre,” he says.
High off a successful record release and tour, fiancé hardly remained complacent. In order to fully translate the sounds they created in the studio to live performances and expand their writing capabilities, they added another member to their roster, multi-instrumentalist and major player in the Delaware music scene Sam Nobles.

With a solidified lineup, they spent the winter and spring in the farmhouse, recording a new set of songs to be featured on their forthcoming self-titled full-length album. But in the midst of their growing popularity, there were significant changes in each member’s personal life. Fusca credits these changes as the force that shifted their songs into a new direction, both musically and thematically.

While the band’s first release allowed vocals, lyrics and instrumentation to exist as one in order to demonstrate the fluidity of emotion and convey an ambiguous feeling, these new songs are more direct. For Fusca, there was no other option, listing his mental health and his recent move-in with his girlfriend as two prominent influences.

“When living with someone, you watch when you get in manic modes, you pay attention to it,” he says. “You hurt, and that other person hurts—it makes you analyze yourself so much. I wanted to go that route because that’s something that’s always been super hard for me. At this point, it’s still weird and difficult, but I wouldn’t feel happy—I wouldn’t feel like I had done the right thing with what I’m working on if I weren’t being honest.”

This growing desire to stray from the obscure and embrace the anxiety that one often chooses to avoid is something that unexpectedly applied to other members of the band as well.

“I think the whole realization of feeling like you want to settle on something changes with the age you’re at and what you’re doing with your life,” Yoder says, mentioning that he also recently moved in with his girlfriend.

“Being in your early 20s, there is this sense of, ‘What am I supposed to be doing? I need something—I need some sort of answer.’”

As the writing and recording process continued, the band kept the number of shows they played to a minimum, save for a few performances in Brooklyn and Philadelphia, and local sets at the Arden Gild Hall, Homegrown Café in Newark and the occasional basement show. That gave them an opportunity to tighten their sound for the recording sessions and see how people responded to the new material.

Around this time, the band received a letter explaining their label, SQE Music, was no longer financially sustainable, which led to its subsequent dissolution. In yet another setback, an entire inventory of vinyl—close to 1,000 pressings of EP 1—was destroyed.

While most artists may consider their label folding a reason to quit, fiancé pushed on. They soon found a storage unit, rented it, and transformed it into a soundproof practice space. There they continued to build and fashion their repertoire. To Marvel, the collapse of their label only strengthened the new material.

“The album as a whole is more cohesive—it’s more thought out,” he says. “It’s a bit more felt.”

Perhaps one of the most identifiable characteristics of fiancé as a band is its close relationship with the Delaware community. At every performance, regardless of the crowd size, there is always a core of friends, family and admirers.

This support was evident as they took the stage in June at Firefly, where they played before a crowd of 90,000. As Bruce sat down behind the drum kit, someone yelled, “Octie, lend me a smoke,” while his mom cheered and screamed his name. Yoder tuned his bass, flashing a smile to a group of childhood friends in the crowd. Marvel gripped the fret board of his guitar and locked eyes with his girlfriend standing in the front row. Nobles fiddled with the knobs on his keyboard, acknowledging the crowd with a slight nod, mouthing the words, “Thank you.” Fusca walked to the microphone, adjusting his hat and holding his guitar.

“We’re fiancé, and we’re from around here,” he said, as the band ripped into the first song on the set list—“Era.”

In something as fragile as the music industry, a band inevitably becomes affected by every rise and fall. In a year, they have gone from writing in a bedroom to spinning their album on a turntable, touring England and seeing their label dissolve. Yet for fiancé, the main objective is still to create something authentic and meaningful in the midst of all the uncertainty. It is this mantra that has compelled them to independently release their first full-length album this fall—a collection of sobering, direct and anxious compositions, focusing on the crippling weight of emotional challenges and the importance of being authentic in every aspect of life.

“It’s hard to know that you’re doing the right thing,” says Yoder. He sets down the Mason jar down, leans forward and grins. “It’s been a test, but I’m grateful for it—I’m grateful for all the opportunities that we’ve had so far. And if those do end up being the biggest opportunities that we’ve had, then so be it.”