When the coronavirus grounded concerts and festivals, rising jam band Goose wasn’t grounded long. The four skilled musicians from woodsy Wilton, Connecticut, kept on playing and live-streaming performances, virtual meet-and-greets, and generally staying in touch with their growing flock of loyal fans drawn to the band’s improvisational rock that can stretch into 20-minute jams.
This month, the band will nest in a barn in Fairfield County, Connecticut, to livestream their “Summer 2020 Virtual Bingo Tour” between June 19 – 28. Setlists created from bingo balls drawn on stage at the “Goose Community Rec Center.”
Leading up to the event, Goose will host online events, share videos, offer tips “on everything from cooking and gardening to yoga and fitness,” one reporter wrote later. “It’s basically giving them a week of Goose, instead of whatever else is going on in this world. It’s almost like a little vacation,” Peter Anspach, the band’s keyboardist, guitarist, and vocalist, told the reporter.
A Late Addition: Goose’s Bingo bash cashed in. As a reporter noted in early July, their event drew $15 to $60 from about 1,500 fans looking to break through the bane of the quarantine. Each was sent a $10 printable bingo card for a chance to win merch, a ball from the roller, even a meet-and-greet with the band. The event generated serious buzz – and noteworthy gross receipts topping $100,000, the band’s management firm 11e1even Group told the Hartford Courant.
That’s the equivalent to 20 days on the road. In a shut-down, that’s impressive.
Who is Goose? Beyond Anspach on guitar, keys, and vocals, there’s Rick Mitarotonda on vocals and guitar and Trevor Bass on bass, both of whom co-founded the band in 2014; Ben Atkind on drums; the latest member; and Jeff Arevalo on percussion. Though years apart in age, all knew each other from the Wilton music scene.
The band’s 2016 debut LP, moon cabin, mastered by Grammy Award winner, Emily Lazar, earned fan praise and awareness on the jam band scene. From that to their follow-up recordings, Goose’s music is influenced by – and has audible markers – from Dave Matthews Band, Phish, the Grateful Dead, Medeski, Martin & Wood and John Scofield, and Fleet Foxes / Bon Iver.
For his part, at the time he spoke with RoadtripMojo, Anspach’s Apple Music lately has been streaming Paul McCartney’s debut solo album, Khruangbin, and King gizzard and the lizard wizard.
One Band’s Back Story
Bands and bandmates have back stories, and Anspach’s is impressive. He was touring with his own act when a call came to audition for his friends’ band. Anspach was on the road with his own band Great Blue when the call came. Goose needed a guitarist; as an aside, they’d also lost their “monster” keyboardist. They were in need.
A 30-minute jam opened the audition. Anspach felt he nailed the audition on guitar, but Mitarotonda wanted more.
“Rick asked me if I could play some keyboards, and I was like, ‘Yeah, sure, I’ll give it a shot,’” Anspach recalled.
He had taken a few piano lessons and played a semester in college. But keys in a touring band?
“I knew how to play major chords, minor chords, nothing dearly beyond that. I didn’t have any finger dexterity on the keys at all,” he said. “It was pretty much going in cold.”
Whatever his worries at the time, Anspach got the job. That was November. He bought a Nord keyboard to polish his playing – and learn the band’s library on keyboard, guitar, and vocals in time for a January 13 gig opening for fellow jam band Spafford.
He “just kinda started from the ground up,” said Anspach, a Connecticut native who attended Belmont University in Nashville for a year before transferring to New York University’s music business program. “It was kind of like being thrown into the wolves that there a little bit, but it definitely got me up to the level that I needed to be.”
High Praise for Performances and Postings
That was two years ago. Last year, they earned spots on the festival circuit, including a 90-minute set at Peach Festival 2019. Video of that set, meticulously captured in hi-def with a half-dozen cameras and edited for fan pleasure, has been viewed more than 227,000 times. They’ve been praised for their adoption of video and social media, sharing widely their performances, and building legions of fans along the way.
For his part, some credit Anspach for bringing a smiling face and playful attitude to group of precisely matter-of-fact performers.
Those fans have filled venues like NYC’s Bowery Ballroom and Williamsburg’s Music Hall, often selling out in minutes. Eager to feed fans’ needs, when it was grounded hard in mid-March, Goose pivoted along with fellow 11e1even acts Twiddle, Pigeons Playing Ping Pong, and Aqueous as part of the Live From Out There virtual music festival.
While the band has made the most of the grounding, Anspach has always been “a woodsly kind of guy” who enjoys camping when he’s able. He did sleepaway camp as a kid and would take weekend trips throughout the Northeast and into Canada.
His first festival camping experience came with Phish’s Super Ball Nine at Watkins Glen in 1996. Three years working retail for REI rekindled his passion for the outdoors. He “met so many amazing people who got me so much more inspired in the outdoors,” he said. An avid snowboarder, he boards when he can. He got into rock climbing, and back in fall of 2017 just before joining Goose, Anspach spent 22 days on a solo hike of 200 miles of California’s John Muir Trail.
“I went from Yosemite down to Mount Whitney. You’re going over like 12,000, 13,000 foot peaks,” he recalled. “I met some incredible people. It definitely changed my life being out in the wilderness just by myself with everything I needed on my back. It was rigorous and it was challenging, but a super rewarding experience. It was probably the most impactful experience that I’ve ever had.”
With bands, concerts, and festivals grounded for the foreseeable future, watch five musicians from Connecticut as they migrate to continued success.