Some of you may be aware that I've begun playing music again with a couple of old friends, Lisa and Dave Chambers. We were in Seven Bridges together from about 2002 until early 2006. We had some great times during those years, learning more about our respective crafts and how to play live in most any situation. Since that time, I've been busy learning how to play the guitar and writing songs. A couple months ago we started playing around with some stuff to do at a local folk society open mic. Things went very well that first night. Since then, much has been happening. The most important thing, though, is that we're having fun! Here's the bio on our new Arlington Station Myspace Page:
Arlington Station is: Lisa Chambers, John Natiw and Dave Chambers.
Lisa, John and Dave have played music together in one form or another since 2002. They have been entertaining audiences (and themselves!) as Arlington Station since October, 2007.
Folk, country and original compositions are what you might hear when you come to an Arlington Station show. But there is more to this band than genres. What really separates the group is vocal style. As one fan recently put it, "when one or two of you are singing, it's very good... but when all three of you are making harmonies like you do, it's magic".
Although a relatively new group, Arlington Station displays advanced musicianship and a very distinct sound. Lisa has a very strong vocal style, whether she is powering through lead vocals or providing tight backing vocals. John gives the band a variety of sound layers including acoustic guitar, harmonica and mandolin, as well as lead and backing vocals. Dave holds down the bottom end on bass and adds some deep emotion to the music as well as providing a lower vocal layer in harmony.
More than any of these observations, though, this is a group of friends having fun playing music. We hope it shows.
Look for Arlington Station at various events around southeast Michigan in the near future. Contact: ArlingtonStation@gmail.com for further details.
Also, I wrote up an article about how we came to be called Arlington Station:
12/22/07 - The Story Behind the Name
Once we realized that we enjoyed playing music together again and we were pretty good at it, we started thinking about possibly packaging this product with a name. John had been keeping a long list of possible names for his solo venture, but was in no hurry to use any of them. John's oldest daughter is in the US Army, stationed at Ft. Myer, VA, right next to Arlington National Cemetery. As a result of a few visits to that national landmark and the surrounding area, many of the names on his list had the word Arlington in them.
After kicking around a few names at practice in mid-December, John e-mailed Dave and Lisa with part of "the list". Dave picked out Arlington Station as one he liked best, so they tried it out at the December Baseline show and were introduced for the first time as "Arlington Station".
After that show, John set out to do some research and found out some interesting things.
1. Many of the fire stations in Arlington, Va are called Arlington Station 1, 2, 3, etc.
2. One of the subway stations in Boston is called Arlington Station. There is a great photo in our photo section of the inside of this station. Notice the Arlington mosaic in the photo.
3. There's a pizza and deli joint in Poughkeepsie, NY that calls itself Arlington Station (Lisa was particularly interested in this one).
4. This next one seemed to hit home a bit and would make all three band members kind of tilt their collective heads and go "hmm..."In 1910, the U. S. Navy determined that Arlington's Fort Myer (coincidentally where John's daughter is stationed) was the best site for the location of a new high-powered radio station. Initial construction consisted of one 600 and two 450-foot towers. The Station was intended to provide communications from the seat of government to fleet commanders stationed off the U.S. mainland.
While they may seem quaint or even primitive by modern standards, upon their completion in 1913, the Navy's Radio Station Arlington Towers were considered to represent the height of cutting edge communications technology. In their day, "The Three Sisters" as they were known, were the second largest manmade structure in the world behind only the Eiffel Tower, with the tallest of the three standing a full 45 feet higher than the Washington Monument.
Located at the intersection of Columbia Pike and Courthouse Road, the towers were built to launch the Navy's effort to establish a worldwide communications network. Using the call letters NAA, the towers functioned to provide the first long distance radio conversation, the first transoceanic radio telephone circuit (fittingly, to a French station broadcasting from the Eiffel Tower), and served to introduce the regular broadcasts of time signals, which was important to ships at sea who relied on accurate time checks for navigational purposes.
In 1915, a breakthrough in long distance communications was achieved in Arlington with a voice transmission from New York to Mare Island, California. Not long after, a radio telephone message was received in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and at the Eiffel Tower in Paris. These were the first instances of successful long distance overseas transmission of this type. The use of the word "radio" to describe the new wireless communication was introduced here, as was transoceanic voice communication.
The towers were taken down in 1941 upon the opening of National Airport as they were considered to be an aviation hazard. Today, the site at Columbia Pike and Courthouse road continues to be occupied by military communications departments, chiefly the Defense Communication Agency. There are photographs like the one in our photo album, showing the Three Sisters and cavalry exercises from Fort Myer, and you can find out more information on the towers using newspapers on microfilm, all in the Virginia Room.
It was this last bit of history that seemed to cement the name choice for the band. We particularly liked the idea of the Arlington Station at Ft. Myer being a big part of the history of broadcast radio. And, as we all know, radio would eventually broadcast... music. We hope that we'll someday be able to reach many people with our music, just like the "three sisters" at Arlington Station reached most of the world in the early 1900's
Now you know... the rrrrrrrest of the story.
Thanks for reading,
AST
We're planning on continuing this journey to see where it will go. We've talked a bit, privately, about the possiblities, but we'll just have to wait and see. We hope to get the chance to play more shows in 2008.
Happy holidays,
John
