The Beacon-Based Wynotte Sisters Release A Christmas Album (With Fiddles). Here Are Their Post-COVID Musical Survival Stories
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Artisan Wine Shop was one of the first to announce the drop of the Wynotte Sisters Christmas Album, ”Christmas Spirits” a band here in Beacon made of up 3 women who are each in additional bands and have wide-ranging careers in music. They travel the country and world, teach classes, serve as bartenders, and work in wine shops. You most likely have seen their faces, but you might not know anything about them behind-the-scenes.
One of the sisters, Sara Milonovich, is a a well-known part-time worker in Artisan Wine (she’s now gone full-time mid-pandemic). The Wynotte Sisters play at Dogwood and other venues from time to time (Dogwood is closed for the winter to say safe during pandemic). After Artisan promoted the album (download it here!), A Little Beacon Blog reached out to the sisters to check in and see how they were doing mid-pandemic. With event venues closing, and singing together to record a song a little risky, what are their lives like right now?
These are fascinating reads, and are unedited so that you can experience them in full. Give each a minute. The world as they knew it stopped for them on different days in March, 2020.
Follow the Wynotte Sisters at: wynottesisters.bandcamp.com and at facebook.com/wynottesisters. Buy their album on Bandcam.com and you’ll get direct access to stream it, and download it to your computer.
Sara Milonovich (@daisycutter)
Sara Milonovich when she was 12. This is her very first recording on a cassette of her on the fiddle. She remastered it for digital download during the pandemic. Please also note her rockin’ turtie-neck.
Photo Credit: Sara Milonovich
I've been a full time professional musician for the past 20 years, as a fiddler/violinist/singer/songwriter in a variety of scenes/genres: with my own alt-country band, Daisycutter; as a freelance accompanist for artists like Richard Shindell; as a recording artist for hire; teaching fiddle and songwriting at camps and in private lessons; and subbing the violin chair for the Broadway musical, "Come From Away." (As well as with the Wynotte Sisters!) I'd also been working part time, two days a week, at Artisan Wine Shop, for the past 5 years.
I played my last show on Broadway on March 10: on March 12, Broadway went dark, and by that weekend every other gig I had through the summer had been cancelled (cancellations would continue to roll in throughout the coming weeks as well.)
“Even finishing those songs during the pandemic was a unique challenge: when we needed to record one final song, we created an outdoor “recording booth” out of packing blankets so we could all sing together - but without having to be in the same room with more closely-spaced microphones like we would have done before! ”
I went in to work at Artisan Wine Shop the following Monday, and with the lockdown going into full effect, wine sales increased so dramatically that I began working full time (actually overtime those first couple of weeks), and have remained full time ever since. That, combined with some recording projects I've been able to do from my home studio, have "kept the lights on" during the pandemic. It still feels incredibly surreal, and not a little ironic to me, even after so many months.
As far as my life as a musician though, it's been devastating. Financially, of course, but also mentally and emotionally. The sense of isolation and loneliness is overwhelming at times. And of course it's professionally devastating as well, not just personally, but our whole industry is in jeopardy now. (How do you even try to rebook tours into venues that don't know whether they'll be able to survive long enough to reopen?)
I've played some live stream shows this year- although the technology is a good additional resource to connect with people, there's absolutely no substitute for the energy and magic that happens at a live performance, and I think when things do get better, we'll all be so thrilled to embrace that sort of real, live, human connection again.
I have a new record with my band Daisycutter that will be released next year- hopefully at that point we'll be able to see some progress towards whatever the "new normal" ends up being.
With the Wynotte Sisters, the holiday season is our busiest time of year, and we look forward to those shows all year long. Without the chance to perform live, we decided this year would be the time to gather the songs we had been recording over the last few years and put them together in a full length album.
Even finishing those songs during the pandemic was a unique challenge: when we needed to record one final song, we created an outdoor "recording booth" out of packing blankets so we could all sing together - but without having to be in the same room with more closely-spaced microphones like we would have done before! Luckily the weather held out for the day we had planned to record!
We like to joke that we're not really a "garage band" so much as a "dining room table band", so we wanted to offer some holiday cheer for people to listen to as they enjoyed smaller holiday celebrations at home this year, hence the title of the album, "Christmas Spirits", and all the images that conjures up.
The best thing people can do in the meantime, is support independent artists the same way they should support small businesses (that's what we are, after all) - shop local, and buy albums, merch, or downloads directly from the artists, rather than using a streaming service such as Spotify.
Follow Sara Milonovich & Daisycutter is at saramilonovich.com and @daisycutter.
Daria Grace (@deegee99)
Daria Grace, in a Christmas picture from last year.
Photo Credit: Daria Grace
I have been a musician (I'm a bass/ukulele/guitar player and singer) and part time bartender/server for the last 25 years, and for the last 7 years I've also been teaching at Beacon Music Factory - individual lessons as well as group classes and adult rock camps. Besides the Wynotte Sisters, I also play with my own band the Pre-War Ponies, Daisycutter, Stephen Clair, Hank & the Skinny Three, and the Jack Grace Band to name a few. Needless to say I was pretty busy before March 14th.
I played my last gig in NYC on March 12th, my monthly residency with the Pre-War Ponies at Barbes, a small bar and venue in Park Slope, Brooklyn. I was supposed to play at SXSW in Austin with Stephen Clair in March, fly to Atlanta to start working with Edan Everly (son of Don Everly) in April, and play a festival with Sara and Daisycutter in Montana in July. All cancelled. I was smack in the middle of a Neil Young rock bootcamp, which abruptly came to a halt and has yet to resume. The restaurant I work at in Newburgh shut down for 3 months, and most of my individual lessons stopped too.
The first thing I did after realizing I had almost no work and barely any income was to go and buy gardening supplies - seeds, starter trays, a little plastic greenhouse for my porch etc. I figured I could grow at least some of my food, and it gave me something to do that I wouldn't have had time for normally. Then I applied for food stamps, and eventually, unemployment.
“The first thing I did after realizing I had almost no work and barely any income was to go and buy gardening supplies - seeds, starter trays, a little plastic greenhouse for my porch etc. I figured I could grow at least some of my food, and it gave me something to do that I wouldn’t have had time for normally. Then I applied for food stamps, and eventually, unemployment. ”
I've been very lucky, actually. The restaurant reopened in mid-June, and I also started working one or two days a week with my friend's ecological landscaping business around the same time. Musically I've been fortunate as well, as I have had multiple opportunities to play live outside in safely distanced situations through the summer, and even a few live Facebook shows with no audience. Yesterday (12/6/2020), Sara, Greg, Vibeke and I made a little video (outdoors!) for an upcoming virtual holiday show sponsored by the Colony in Woodstock. It was a balmy 39 degrees, and I think all our fingers were frozen solid by the time we got it right, but it felt so good to sing and play that none of us cared.
“So many of my musician friends are struggling right now - financially and emotionally, and I even know a couple people who died of COVID. It’s also tragic that so many long running music venues will be closing forever, and criminal that a lot of this suffering could have been avoided with better leadership on a National level.”
So many of my musician friends are struggling right now - financially and emotionally, and I even know a couple people who died of COVID. It's also tragic that so many long running music venues will be closing forever, and criminal that a lot of this suffering could have been avoided with better leadership on a National level. The whole country will be struggling to heal from the effects of this pandemic for years to come, and we've been changed forever. I just hope we can learn from our mistakes and continue to help each other through this dark time.
Follow Daria at @deegee99
Vibeke Saugestad (@the_punguin)
Vibeke Saugestad, a translator of fiction from English to Norwegian, with her new Penguin, after mastering ventriloquism.
Photo Credit: Vibeke Saugestad
I work as a translator of fiction, from English to Norwegian. Right now I am translating Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half. I also read audio books in a small home-made basement studio. Both my translation work and my audio book work is freelance, for Norwegian publishers.
I have been very fortunate, as my day job didn’t change much with Covid. I guess the book industry is really the one part of the cultural sector that hasn't suffered substatially. If anything, people have found more time to read, and have turned to literature for comfort and entertainment.
As far as The Wynotte Sisters goes, that all stopped, of course, and I have sure missed my sisters, our regular rehearsals around the dining room table, the odd gig throughout the year and of course, our Christmas tour. We had big plans for Christmas 2020, but we are happy to be able to get some holiday cheer out to people with a digital release, and hopefully some time in 2021, we’ll be able to pick up where we left. One fun thing that came out of lockdown, was that I started doing ventriloquism. A way to be creative without having to socialize with others, I guess. I’ve had lots of fun with my Punguin, and I hope, have put a smile on some people’s faces.
Follow Vibeke at @the_punguin
Follow the Wynotte Sisters at: wynottesisters.bandcamp.com and at facebook.com/wynottesisters
