Frank Turner kicked off his ambitious 50 States in 50 Days Full U.S. tour on Monday, June 13th with a matinee in Portsmouth, NH and an evening show in Portland, ME. Chris was excited to see Frank and give him the limited edition green vinyl variant of Frank's "Beverly" 7-inch. This 7-inch features a recording Chris made via DV cam in 2009, when he played an impromptu intimate performance in the backyard of Matt Pike (Some Kind of Hate, 33 & West), who lived in Beverly, MA at the time. Many people don't know that, while he is primarily known for his folk-rock sound, Frank started out in a hardcore band called Million Dead and is still a huge hardcore/punk fan to this day. In fact, his favorite hardcore bands are Black Flag and Converge, who three members of which coincidentally joined us at Pike's house for this private show. Frank wrote of the evening in his tour blog:
"Some nights things come together in such a way as to make me pinch myself. My all-time, hands down favourite hardcore band ever is Converge. I have everything they’ve done, seen em a bunch of times (hell, I fell in love with a French girl whilst watching them at the Electric Ballroom a few years ago), and am generally utterly, hopelessly into them. So imagine my total, piss-stained shock when, in Matt’s garden, I find three members of Converge (Jake, Nate and Kurt) waiting for my impromptu show. This was serious fan-boy territory for me, but after pulling myself together, I found them to be really very nice. Evan was laughing his arse off at me constantly as I bit my lip and asked for a photo (mainly to send to Ben from Million Dead, so he’ll hate me, which totally worked). The show was improvised and entertaining – Matt’s two kids are big fans, so as well as hardcore heros, I had a bunch of two-year-olds dancing for me while I played Photosynthesis, their favourite song. Like I say, a surreal evening to say the least, and I went to bed feeling happy."
You can see a bit of the performance featured on Frank's tour vlog of that day, including Pike's kids (who are grown now!), and me behind them with my DV cam, by clicking here.
Left: Photo of Frank by Matt Pike in Matt’s backyard the night after the show. Right: Back of the Frank Turner ‘Beverly’ 7-inch record.
Fast forward 11 years to 2020 when Bridge Nine Records were notified that we were getting the boot from our HQ and we needed to figure out how to transition to a new space. As I packed up the Bridge Nine vault for the move and looked at old, archived recordings, I found this one and contacted Frank to see if we could press the songs on a 7" as part of our "Raid The Archive" 5-record set, and he graciously agreed. Making the record even more special, I commissioned a painting of Matt Pike's house from my dad, artist Roy Wrenn, for the record cover. It was serendipitous that the new home we found for Bridge Nine was right back in Beverly. As a huge Frank Turner fan myself, I am deeply grateful to Frank and Xtra Mile Recordings for allowing this record to become a reality.
Frank will be selling very limited amounts of the green vinyl variant of the "Beverly" 7-inch at each show throughout his tour. If you miss out, it's still available as one of the special records featured in the "Raid The Archive" mystery set (pro tip: there's a blue variant in HERE). Click here for all of Frank's tour dates and say hi if you're going to the Boston show!