FireDean & The Brooklyn Garden Club

Ancient History: Big Black Nun

Val, Eric, FireDean & Riley
(Ancient History: anecdotes from pre-GrooveLily days, in no particular chronological order.)

In the early ’90s, I was living in the Washington, DC area, and I played with an up-and-coming band called Big Black Nun. It was my first experience in an original rock band; I had played music all my life, but mostly in classical orchestras, string quartets, choirs, a cappella singing groups, and one top-40 cover band which I will affectionately mock later. I had always been a musician, but I had never been even moderately cool.

I believe our images of ourselves are formed really early on; in high school, I was a knee-sock-wearing/violin-toting/hopelessly unstylish/eager-to-please/grade-skipping/chubby/sedentary girl whose mom sent the police to the beer-soaked parties I attended, thus guaranteeing that I’d never be invited back. I try to fight the fact that I still think of myself this way, 25 years later.


Val & Fire
Joining Big Black Nun (whose memorable moniker can still be found on at least three “Weirdest Band Names” sites) gave me a sudden social cachet that I had never had before. For the first time, freaky girls with black lipstick and sullen hot boyfriends who frequented warehouse raves would talk to me. I had never been to a rave, or to a warehouse of any kind other than Hechinger’s lumber store to shop for plywood with my dad.

In my memory, BBN was a quartet: on lead vocals, and lead ego, was FIRE. (I never knew his actual legal name.) Often compared to Bono, he was riveting on stage and very compelling to watch, in that extremely-sexy-while-still-being-objectively-kind-of-unattractive way that Mick Jagger has.)

On guitars, production and general levelheadedness, was RILEY. An effective foil to Fire’s volatile personality, he gently propelled the band toward practical goals, strumming his guitar from behind the long hair that perpetually hung in his face. On stand-up bass and reliable good mood was ERIC. With his model-gorgeous looks and excellent musicianship, he was often my best buddy in the band.


The Drummer
Oddly, I have no recollection of a drummer, though there is a drum set in the pictures, and one shot of an actual guy playing it. The fallibility of my own mind is staggering.

There are some aspects of my tenure with Big Black Nun that are blazingly clear in my memory, though.

The coolness factor that was so appealing to me when it was unattainable quickly waned into boredom and then into actual danger – first when I realized that my conversations with the freaky Goth girls and their cute boyfriends were mostly devoid of substance, and then when I got mugged at gunpoint after one of our rehearsals in a hip but scary neighborhood in DC.

Val with her alienated haircut
I initially thought that any criticisms my bandmates, especially Fire, launched at me were warranted. (This is another character flaw of mine – sometimes generously misinterpreted as a brave, strong openness to criticism, instead of what it really is – simple insecurity and craven desire for approval.) Fire didn’t like my voice – so I stopped singing backups. He told me I was also “not alienated enough” to be a real artist – so I tried to become more misunderstood by going to the local Tysons Corner mall and getting a weird haircut: one side significantly longer than the other, half black and half blonde. This actually looked pretty good, resulting in many compliments and a feeling of much LESS alienation than before.

By early 1993, I was getting ready to leave BBN, feeling that I had learned what I needed to, and that what I really wanted to do was write my own songs and start my own band with people who actually liked the way I sang…but Fire beat me to the punch. I found out that I was no longer in the band by reading an article in the Washington Times: “Big Black Nun’s sound used to be propelled by the acoustic melodies of violinist Valerie Vagoda [sic], but she has since left the group amicably.” And so I had.
As I write this, I’m having a great time searching the net to see what my former bandmates are up to. Fire is still at it, under the name Fire-Dean. He is still an electric presence, still fascinating to watch, and still someone I don’t particularly want to work with ever again. Riley McMahon has moved to our own borough of Brooklyn, and is a busy and successful producer/musician, with an impressive discography, pro studio and instrument collection. It looks like Eric Leifert is doing well also, still a stand-up guy playing stand-up bass with multiple DC-area bands.

As for the phantom drummer? He quit music long ago.


Val, Fire & Riley

Val at China Club

Riley

Fire
Black and white photos by Erika Langley
I don’t remember who took the color photos at China Club. Let me know if it was you.

This entry was written by Valerie, posted on September 14, 2008 at 2:21 pm, filed under Uncategorized and ta - Groove Lilly

Ancient History: Big Black Nun

Val, Eric, FireDean & Riley
(Ancient History: anecdotes from pre-GrooveLily days, in no particular chronological order.)

In the early ’90s, I was living in the Washington, DC area, and I played with an up-and-coming band called Big Black Nun. It was my first experience in an original rock band; I had played music all my life, but mostly in classical orchestras, string quartets, choirs, a cappella singing groups, and one top-40 cover band which I will affectionately mock later. I had always been a musician, but I had never been even moderately cool.

I believe our images of ourselves are formed really early on; in high school, I was a knee-sock-wearing/violin-toting/hopelessly unstylish/eager-to-please/grade-skipping/chubby/sedentary girl whose mom sent the police to the beer-soaked parties I attended, thus guaranteeing that I’d never be invited back. I try to fight the fact that I still think of myself this way, 25 years later.


Val & Fire
Joining Big Black Nun (whose memorable moniker can still be found on at least three “Weirdest Band Names” sites) gave me a sudden social cachet that I had never had before. For the first time, freaky girls with black lipstick and sullen hot boyfriends who frequented warehouse raves would talk to me. I had never been to a rave, or to a warehouse of any kind other than Hechinger’s lumber store to shop for plywood with my dad.

In my memory, BBN was a quartet: on lead vocals, and lead ego, was FIRE. (I never knew his actual legal name.) Often compared to Bono, he was riveting on stage and very compelling to watch, in that extremely-sexy-while-still-being-objectively-kind-of-unattractive way that Mick Jagger has.)

On guitars, production and general levelheadedness, was RILEY. An effective foil to Fire’s volatile personality, he gently propelled the band toward practical goals, strumming his guitar from behind the long hair that perpetually hung in his face. On stand-up bass and reliable good mood was ERIC. With his model-gorgeous looks and excellent musicianship, he was often my best buddy in the band.


The Drummer
Oddly, I have no recollection of a drummer, though there is a drum set in the pictures, and one shot of an actual guy playing it. The fallibility of my own mind is staggering.

There are some aspects of my tenure with Big Black Nun that are blazingly clear in my memory, though.

The coolness factor that was so appealing to me when it was unattainable quickly waned into boredom and then into actual danger – first when I realized that my conversations with the freaky Goth girls and their cute boyfriends were mostly devoid of substance, and then when I got mugged at gunpoint after one of our rehearsals in a hip but scary neighborhood in DC.

Val with her alienated haircut
I initially thought that any criticisms my bandmates, especially Fire, launched at me were warranted. (This is another character flaw of mine – sometimes generously misinterpreted as a brave, strong openness to criticism, instead of what it really is – simple insecurity and craven desire for approval.) Fire didn’t like my voice – so I stopped singing backups. He told me I was also “not alienated enough” to be a real artist – so I tried to become more misunderstood by going to the local Tysons Corner mall and getting a weird haircut: one side significantly longer than the other, half black and half blonde. This actually looked pretty good, resulting in many compliments and a feeling of much LESS alienation than before.

By early 1993, I was getting ready to leave BBN, feeling that I had learned what I needed to, and that what I really wanted to do was write my own songs and start my own band with people who actually liked the way I sang…but Fire beat me to the punch. I found out that I was no longer in the band by reading an article in the Washington Times: “Big Black Nun’s sound used to be propelled by the acoustic melodies of violinist Valerie Vagoda [sic], but she has since left the group amicably.” And so I had.
As I write this, I’m having a great time searching the net to see what my former bandmates are up to. Fire is still at it, under the name Fire-Dean. He is still an electric presence, still fascinating to watch, and still someone I don’t particularly want to work with ever again. Riley McMahon has moved to our own borough of Brooklyn, and is a busy and successful producer/musician, with an impressive discography, pro studio and instrument collection. It looks like Eric Leifert is doing well also, still a stand-up guy playing stand-up bass with multiple DC-area bands.

As for the phantom drummer? He quit music long ago.


Val, Fire & Riley

Val at China Club

Riley

Fire
Black and white photos by Erika Langley
I don’t remember who took the color photos at China Club. Let me know if it was you.

This entry was written by Valerie, posted on September 14, 2008 at 2:21 pm, filed under Uncategorized and ta - Groove Lilly

TVD First Date with | Fire Dean
BY JON | APRIL 8, 2009
For a while there I had a front row seat for Fire’s unique brand of transcendence. Or perhaps I should say ‘back seat,’ behind the drum kit for a number of months with Fire as he prepped new material at the Donkey Palace years back.

From that vantage point alone I can tell you–Fire Dean is one hell of a songwriter, performer, and story teller, and as TVD was growing I kept saying to him, “We gotta’ do a feature…we gotta’ do a feature…” …until I think I caught him at the right time recently when boom…in-box: full of stuff.

Make certain you check that vid too.

“Elton John…Madman Across The Water. Jimmy Arlis, the coolest kid on my dead end street had played it for me. I was 10 or 11 yrs old. The back cover was the ass end of a pair of blue jeans with the song titles embroidered over….’Rotten Peaches’ …. ‘Levon’ … ‘Indian Sunset’… Clearly this guy Elton was the Grizzly Adams sort I could hang around with. He’d come down from the Black Mountains after his tribe had been slaughtered and sat down at the piano, just really pissed off “…I heard from passing Renegades…” Holy Shit! My sister understood. She gave me a pair of jeans for Xmas with the embroidery done just like the cover. But my older brother was a problem. He saw me lying in front of the turntable mesmerized with Elton Madman John, and sneered. I was distressed. What did he mean by this? What did he know that I didn’t? He’d been listening to Renaissance, Ashes Are Burning ALOT..I liked the girl’s voice from the pic of her on the inside sleeve, she was nearly hot as Farah Fawcett only she seemed accessible. My bro told me live he’d almost seen her breasts at a concert in Red Bank, NJ. Woah, I was right. Access unlimited. Still, I knew in order to do this correctly I needed to make a bold, independent decision. Annie Haslam was out and Bowie had his chance. ‘Diamond Dogs’ was a shot in the dark based on some magnificent pre-Photoshop imagery, I had never heard the music, any of it. I bought it at Jacks’ Records, also in Red Bank. At home I pretended I knew all about this record I’d just bought and after I’d listened once invited my brother to check it out. This time his sneer became more like a muted smirk. He hurriedly explained his condescension.
“David Bowie has a better record…you got the wrong one,” he said.
“Really?” I said and needled up ‘Rebel Rebel.’
“Better than this?”
“Oh yeah.” He tried again.
But I could tell he was lying.“

Fire Dean – Up at Ericas/Motorcycle Sled-Pull (Mp3)
Wrote this last month. Title is a reference to a game I played as a kid. Gravity wasn’t enough apparently. We tied our sleds to dirt bikes and then raced around a horse field out in the woods. The idea was to pull next to the other guy and knock him off, a la Ben Hur.

Fire Dean – Irrational Exhuberance1 (Mp3)
Also new. Inspired by an imposing old Hungarian from Queens. He had dream, my job was to build it. A half million dollars and anything I needed.

Fire Dean – In A Way (Mp3)
One beat fits all. My friend Roger wrote this beat to a guitar riff I came up with 5 years ago. Its since been repackaged into 3 songs. This is the latest.

Fire Dean/Big Black Nun – Burnin’ Lucy…(followed by ‘Honeymoon In Niagra’) (Mp3)
A two-fer. Recorded to 45 vinyl in ’94 as a single released by my old band, Big Black Nun. First up is ‘Burnin’ Lucy’ with Riley McMahon on big slide gtar. That’s me of course contemplating the pros and cons of honor killing. Of course ‘Honeymoon…’ is the sentimental flip to my metallic slaying.
- The Vinyl District.com

TVD First Date with | Fire Dean
BY JON | APRIL 8, 2009
For a while there I had a front row seat for Fire’s unique brand of transcendence. Or perhaps I should say ‘back seat,’ behind the drum kit for a number of months with Fire as he prepped new material at the Donkey Palace years back.

From that vantage point alone I can tell you–Fire Dean is one hell of a songwriter, performer, and story teller, and as TVD was growing I kept saying to him, “We gotta’ do a feature…we gotta’ do a feature…” …until I think I caught him at the right time recently when boom…in-box: full of stuff.

Make certain you check that vid too.

“Elton John…Madman Across The Water. Jimmy Arlis, the coolest kid on my dead end street had played it for me. I was 10 or 11 yrs old. The back cover was the ass end of a pair of blue jeans with the song titles embroidered over….’Rotten Peaches’ …. ‘Levon’ … ‘Indian Sunset’… Clearly this guy Elton was the Grizzly Adams sort I could hang around with. He’d come down from the Black Mountains after his tribe had been slaughtered and sat down at the piano, just really pissed off “…I heard from passing Renegades…” Holy Shit! My sister understood. She gave me a pair of jeans for Xmas with the embroidery done just like the cover. But my older brother was a problem. He saw me lying in front of the turntable mesmerized with Elton Madman John, and sneered. I was distressed. What did he mean by this? What did he know that I didn’t? He’d been listening to Renaissance, Ashes Are Burning ALOT..I liked the girl’s voice from the pic of her on the inside sleeve, she was nearly hot as Farah Fawcett only she seemed accessible. My bro told me live he’d almost seen her breasts at a concert in Red Bank, NJ. Woah, I was right. Access unlimited. Still, I knew in order to do this correctly I needed to make a bold, independent decision. Annie Haslam was out and Bowie had his chance. ‘Diamond Dogs’ was a shot in the dark based on some magnificent pre-Photoshop imagery, I had never heard the music, any of it. I bought it at Jacks’ Records, also in Red Bank. At home I pretended I knew all about this record I’d just bought and after I’d listened once invited my brother to check it out. This time his sneer became more like a muted smirk. He hurriedly explained his condescension.
“David Bowie has a better record…you got the wrong one,” he said.
“Really?” I said and needled up ‘Rebel Rebel.’
“Better than this?”
“Oh yeah.” He tried again.
But I could tell he was lying.“

Fire Dean – Up at Ericas/Motorcycle Sled-Pull (Mp3)
Wrote this last month. Title is a reference to a game I played as a kid. Gravity wasn’t enough apparently. We tied our sleds to dirt bikes and then raced around a horse field out in the woods. The idea was to pull next to the other guy and knock him off, a la Ben Hur.

Fire Dean – Irrational Exhuberance1 (Mp3)
Also new. Inspired by an imposing old Hungarian from Queens. He had dream, my job was to build it. A half million dollars and anything I needed.

Fire Dean – In A Way (Mp3)
One beat fits all. My friend Roger wrote this beat to a guitar riff I came up with 5 years ago. Its since been repackaged into 3 songs. This is the latest.

Fire Dean/Big Black Nun – Burnin’ Lucy…(followed by ‘Honeymoon In Niagra’) (Mp3)
A two-fer. Recorded to 45 vinyl in ’94 as a single released by my old band, Big Black Nun. First up is ‘Burnin’ Lucy’ with Riley McMahon on big slide gtar. That’s me of course contemplating the pros and cons of honor killing. Of course ‘Honeymoon…’ is the sentimental flip to my metallic slaying.
- The Vinyl District.com

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One Man's Solo Act; Job? House? If You're Fire Dean, All That Matters Is the Musical Muse.
[FINAL Edition]
The Washington Post - Washington, D.C.
Author: Rowan Philp
Date: Sep 2, 2000
Start Page: C.01
Section: STYLE
Text Word Count: 2266
You may have noticed him working in your garden, singing opera at your plants.

Or maybe in your kitchen, catering your party.

More likely, you might have seen Fire Dean at a D.C. Metro station, busking with his guitar--the scruffy, smallish guy with the peroxided hair who looks a bit like Sean Penn.

Well, he's an artist--maybe a flake, maybe a genius--and he says he's the luckiest man in Washington.

Fire, a folk songwriter and performer, is successfully unsuccessful, a struggling artist who is entirely at home with both struggle and art.

Of course, you may have heard him perform for real in bars around town over the past 15 years, early on as the front man of the now- defunct band Big Black Nun or, more recently, as a soloist. Or you may even own his self-produced CD, "Paper Airplane Pilot," but you'd be rare.

It takes a special kind of stubbornness to perform in the same city for that many years, have a name as memorable as Fire Dean, possess real talent, and still be a member of the unheard-of herd.

It's his choice in life. Once a juvenile car thief, once a middle- class techie, he decided long ago to follow a peculiar muse, one that doesn't lead to riches: He writes nothing but a hyper-obscure brand of music called "punk folk opera."

It's hard to tell whether Fire, 38, could have made it big in any kind of mainstream--he says he needs his raw, earthy surroundings to be inspired.

"The room in which 'Paper Airplane Pilot' was written I kept the walls deliberately bare," says Fire. "There was no TV, magazines, knickknacks. The only book in the room was about not drinking booze. When everything was gone, the only thing to look at was my guitar and myself."

Every city has its Fire Deans. They're part of the background fabric. Urban "characters." The shiny stones between the cracks in the sidewalk, largely ignored by the professional residents, but nevertheless cited by them as a reason their city is such an exciting place to live.

The D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities sees the flame of originality in Fire--it just awarded him a grant for $1,000. "Here is a truly unique artist," said grant officer Mary Liniger Hickman, "someone very interested in the creative process, and not at all in fame."

He plays what he wants and he plays where he's wanted, and money be damned.

"What? Are you crazy, man?" says Fire, indignant. "I'd love to have money--if someone asked me to write, like, Whitney Houston's next hit song, I'd do it in a heartbeat."

So he'd move out of his decayed neighborhood if he had money? "No, but . . ."

Well, what would he change with a cool million?

"I'd, you know, well, I guess I'd keep playing the Metro and doing the gardening thing, but, um . . . oh yeah, I'd stop the catering job that I hate . . ."

Maybe a flake, maybe a genius . . .

At Galaxy Hut, a small, folksy bar in Arlington, Fire hammers out a punk track about "the foolishness of the American work ethic" for an audience of about two dozen. He distorts his guitar to sound like static on AM radio and his voice to sound like, well--think Ice-T's attitude cutting through Goofy's voice box.

Then he detaches his acoustic guitar from an amplifier, takes a stool in front and announces he's going to do "Caramel," a ballad that took him six months to write in 1998 while moonlighting as a security guard in Georgetown.

It's a genuine hair-prickler that laments pretentiousness in society, illustrated by the rarity and power of the humble art of a poor African American woman he once knew.

In an almost delicate high tenor, he sings: "Caramel was born in the heart of the abortion belt, where they grow black girls like cornrows, somewhere in Iowa, and I met her at a party for the Pentecostal youth. She wasn't very popular, so we were introduced: Carame-e-el!--she drew really good flowers, for me."

The high notes spear your spine; the low ones somehow sound like tears.

Earlier in the evening, there'd been lighthearted heckling and ear- covering when Fire launched into one of his trademark super-loud, opera-style high notes. So in the next song, he wanders through the audience, out the door and onto the sidewalk, where, through the plate-glass window, - The Washington Post

Pound for pound, the most fearless singer/writer working.....
Listen loud from your vehicle and watch the streets move...this album is connected. - Bellwether Music

Pound for pound, the most fearless singer/writer working.....
Listen loud from your vehicle and watch the streets move...this album is connected. - Bellwether Music