We're shining a spotlight on our show — Dustbowl Fairies' gothic murder-mystery The Cloven Pendulum — where we investigate the death of Hazel, our beloved (and taxidermied) ram head, and you can be part of the whodunnit Sept. 24–26 at the School of the Arts Black Box; grab tickets at rochesterfringe.com.

Check out the episode on Just Can't Not wherever you get your podcasts or on Lunchador.org!

https://player.captivate.fm/episode/70b29833-fbb4-4405-8a08-8d18c6c6013c/

I'm Chris, and I got to sit down with Ryder (leader of the band) who walked us through how the show mixes dark-folk music, live theater, and audience participation — think accordion-driven tunes, a cameo from a musical saw, masks, props, and suspects with theme songs. We explain the format: any ticket-holder can play one of five suspects (witch, alchemist, trophy hunter, wolf, and a mystery fifth), perform during their theme song, and the crowd votes on who killed Hazel — ties get decided by Hazel herself (ram justice!). Ryder also talked about the band’s sound — Balkan and Eastern European influences, post-punk energy, Fae mythology stitched to modern-day political and emotional textures — and why live, unpredictable nights are their jam. We touch on the darker themes (animal rights, taxidermy rescue, grim humor) but promise it’s playful and theatrical — a night of magic, music, and a little mischief. If you want to listen first, our new album O Dread is out everywhere and Ryder recommends Bandcamp to directly support the musicians — and seriously, come see the show; we’d love to ram it home with you.

Mentioned in this episode:

Joe Bean Roasters

Visit joebeanroasters.com to get fresh roasted specialty coffee either by the bag or with a Perpetual Joy subscription!

Well, that music means it's time for another episode of Just Can't Not.

I'm your host, Chris Lindstrom.

We're doing previews for the Rochester Fringe Festival, the ESL Rochester Fringe Festival, happening from September 15th to the 26th in scenic downtown Rochester, New York.

Go to rochesterfringe.com to get your tickets for as many events as you can possibly go to.

And you do want to do that.

And I'm here with a guest, two guests, apparently.

And why don't you introduce yourself?

Hi, I'm Ryder the fairy, leader of the dark gothic folk band Dustbowl Fairies.

This is Alberta, a cat friend.

Absolutely.

Have Hazel.

This is Hazel the Ram, our spirit animal for the band.

I've been performing with Hazel for over 10 years, and Hazel's the subject of our Fringe Festival show.

This year we are doing a murder mystery show called the Cloven Pendulum, and we are investigating the death of Hazel, who is in.

In her afterlife as a taxidermy, you know, disembodied taxidermy.

Ram head.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I thought Hazel should come to the interview.

Absolutely.

Now, you.

You put out a lot of different descriptors for this show during that statement.

Right.

So we're talking about.

We're talking about, you know, gothic murder mystery.

We are talking about, you know, dark folk music.

We're talking about Daxter.

We're talking about all sorts of things.

This is a lot of descriptors for a show which.

So for one, the shows are happening on September 24th and 25th at 6pm, Saturday the 26th at 8pm shows are at the Black Box Theater at the School of the Arts, and tickets are [email protected] this is.

This is a fringy show from top to bottom.

Right.

This is a lot of descriptors.

When you're thinking about yourself as a performer, do you describe yourself as a musician first?

Do you describe yourself as, you know, as a personality first?

How do you describe you as a performer.

These days?

I. I describe myself as a performer of music, So a musician, essentially.

So my background is more in visual arts and performance art, but I have sort of gradually over time, shifted into basically doing music pretty much full time along with animal caretaking, thus the cats here.

So, yeah, I'm primarily a musician at this point in my career.

So when you're talking about.

When you're talking about folk music, but a genre of folk music, how would you describe, you know, I think you mentioned dark folk music was kind of the genre.

Yeah.

So basically, dust Bowl Fairies is very unique.

We do original music.

The lead instrument is the accordion.

I also play the musical saw.

And we're bringing our guitarist, John B.

Wooden, who's come to all the fringe shows that we've done.

This is our fourth year, so it's really.

You just can't hear it anywhere else.

It's, I would say, influenced by Balkan music, Eastern European folk music.

It can be a little bit poka punk or post punk sounding.

Some of the songs are rowdy and you can dance.

There's a lot of lyrics that are related to sort of Fae mythology, fairy mythology, and sort of blended with like modern everyday life and politics.

So it is a sort of old world, new world blend of ideas, concepts and sounds.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm going to say this in the best possible way.

It seems like the kind of show you really need to experience to maybe be able to describe it best.

Like as.

As a layperson where there's a lot of different things going on.

It seems like the kind of show you really want to sit and you'll sit and be a part of, I think.

So we're really.

Ultimately, our favorite thing is live music.

We just put out a new recording and it's good to have recordings out there.

But Dust Bowl Fairies is primarily a live performance band.

We're very theatrical.

We like to wear costumes.

We like to interact with the audience.

We really like to make a magical night.

And every night at a Dust Bl.

Fairy show is different.

It's just never the same.

And the energy of the room and who's there really in influences our performances and sometimes it influences the songs that we choose to play.

So.

So yeah, we're really focused on the live experience.

Yeah.

And I think that, you know, the choice of format.

Right.

I've talked a lot about format this year during the previews because it.

It's a choice that affects everything about the experience.

Right.

Like choosing to use, you know, the.

Use the context of a murder mystery to play music.

Right.

I was talking to another musical performer where they were doing more improv and, you know, spinning a wheel to.

Because they don't know what they're going to play that night.

Choice to have those, like to know you might be flexible in what direction you go in and be comfortable with not knowing every moment of what's going to happen in a show.

Is that something that you've become more comfortable with over time or is that something you've always been comfortable with?

Oh, I think both.

I mean, I always like.

I like a little Bit of mystery.

And maybe that's ultimately why we're doing a murder mystery now.

Yeah, but.

But I also like a little bit.

I like to have a plan.

And there is a dog with a toy in the background right now.

I'm so sad.

We were planning on a quiet show, but we're here now, so who are we not to embrace it?

Yeah, this is part of it.

Animals are always part of my life.

So tonight we get the squeak toy.

Yeah, but, yeah, I think that I. Yeah, I just love mystery.

I love the energy of a place, the history of a place, the energy of a room, the energy of other people.

What that brings, what astrologically, what's going on, you know, politically, what's going on now, historically, what's been going on on this day in the past, you know, everything is all sort of cross informing and you can't.

And is.

And I will say that I'm the type of performer where the more I try to have a very tight show where it's like this one thing and it's supposed to go off in this one way and it's supposed to be perfect.

The more I try for that, the more it doesn't go that way.

So I really try to be flexible and.

And you have to, I think, I mean, some.

There are some shows and some performers where it's like clockwork.

It's the same every time.

And that's a certain skill set that I really admire, but I don't have.

Well, and I love that you mentioned that even if it's not part of your plan, that regardless if it's part of your plan or not, that performing certain things is always in conversation with what people are feeling right now.

Right.

And, you know, as somebody who is, you know, using darkness as part of their performance.

Right.

Using Gothic, you know, Gothic imagery and Gothic styling as part of this imagery and, you know, you know, living inside of that, usually it's a, you know, it's embracing those moments, embracing some of those feelings.

But in a time where there's a lot of people who are feeling very justifiably nihilistic and justifiably very down about systemic issues and things that are outside of our control, including things that are, you know, giant, catastrophic things that are impending, the impending doom that is sitting over, especially the younger generation.

Yeah, there is.

You're in.

You're in conversation with that even if you don't intend to be.

Thank you.

Yes, everybody's in conversation with it.

And Dust, Blue Fairies especially is in conversation with it.

And we try to really embrace it, even though, you know, you can't embrace all of the terrible, darkest of dark things, atrocities that are happening and laugh at it like, I can't, I can't do that.

But I.

But we do try to have a good time.

So we're.

There's a lot of dark humor in our shows where we're acknowledging what's happening and then we're just doing our best to be present and be alive.

And I don't know, like, enjoy the moment, the night together, because who knows what tomorrow could bring.

And I know that sounds kind of doomsday, but.

But you, you started it.

But I, I think you're, you know, the core point of that is, you know, it's really embracing those moments we have together.

Right.

It's, you know, how do we help our circle?

Sometimes it's just by being together in a place at a time and, you know, watching some entertainment together and especially live, because there's choices by a person or a group of people that are trying to make an experience for you.

And part of that experience I want to talk about is you mentioned that the instruments you play, these are, these are not, I would say, the vastly most common instruments that are played.

At least one of them is often described as one of the more grading instruments.

I have a great affinity for the accordion, but you're also playing a, you know, more of an esoteric and also like historical kind of music, right from your old timey music and Appalachian music, you know, using, using work implement implements as music, musical tools.

Why.

Why did you pick those two instruments?

Because they are not the common direction to go in.

Yeah.

So I did pick accordion and saw.

Well, actually I think of them as picking me, but I like playing these working class instruments really.

And both of the instruments that I play really are.

And they're a little bit.

Well, the accordion used to.

There was a time where that was a very popular instrument, but it's not anymore.

But it was considered the working person's piano.

If you couldn't afford a piano and, and back in that day and time, you didn't have, you know, necessarily electricity to plug in a keyboard or you didn't have an electric keyboard.

So then you would have an accordion.

It could fit in a small tenement apartment.

And the accordion was really like an instrument where you could bring a room to life all of a sudden under, you know, really kind of not ideal dress circumstances.

You could take it on the road and be like traveling jungler performer.

And this then the similar situation with the musical saw is.

It really is a tool.

The saw that I play has the.

It has the.

The saw blades on it, and it doesn't have the cut blades, but it has one row of blades instead of two.

But I.

You can saw things with it and.

Depends on how ruddy the audience is.

I think of it as our.

Our secret weapon.

You know, don't piss the dust bowl fairies off, because otherwise, in the alley for the loadout after the show, the saw is going to get you.

Yeah, exactly.

That was considered the working person's violin.

So in Appalachian music and in a lot of Eastern European folk music, if you couldn't afford a violin, you just figure out how to make a saw sound really good, which you can.

It's by ear and it takes some time because it's fretless and it's.

You have to figure out how to get the right bend of the tool and pull the bow in the right place.

But once you get the feeling for it, it's.

It's really fun and liberating and multi.

It's a multi purpose instrument that has other uses too.

So I think it's so cool and nice to play these instruments that have these like, historical sort of narratives.

And also my grandmother did play the accordion, so.

Oh, how cool.

Yeah, that's how I kind of got started.

My family when.

When I decided to play, you know, pursue music, my family got me my first accordion, so.

Which I didn't ask for.

And it really felt like my grandmother had spoken from the grave.

You, like, give Ryder an accordion.

And I got it and I was like, oh, okay.

And.

But then I started playing it and I was like, this is a fascinating instrument.

Who came up with this?

Like, it's so crazy, all of the mechanics of it.

Oh, yeah, it's.

It's really a very, very cool woodwind instrument.

Yeah, it's very.

It's complicated too.

Yeah.

It is not the simplest instrument to play.

I mean, you mentioned you know, the, you know, the challenge of having, you know, basically an open, you know, an open platform instrument.

Right.

With the saw.

And then you have something that has as many buttons and actions and everything else.

It is constant motion.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

So they're very the opposite, those two instruments.

And mostly in Dust bowl fairies, it's the.

The accordion.

But the saw gets a couple of little cameos and.

And I always think, like, it's so interesting, these juxtapositions that just happen because I've got the saw and then we have our spirit animal, Hazel the ram.

Who is the disembodied ram's head in the taxidermy form?

And I think of Hazel as regenerate in the afterlife also.

So Hazel's very, like, non binary.

And so I just think, like, it's a saw.

It could cut something, it could dismember a body, you know, and then we've got the.

The.

The dismembered animal head and, I don't know, all these elements.

Just felt like we should do something about Hazel because I'm such an animal lover and I know it's confusing for people sometimes, like, why do they have this taxidermy animal in the band?

And I definitely don't support, you know, killing animals and turning them into taxidermy.

So I basically have a taxidermy rescue at my house because now taxidermy is not very popular.

There's certain, like, niche groups that are new that are like, find roadkill and turn it into taxidermy.

Or a friend who is very much doing that.

Yeah, yeah.

Which I think that's cool.

But, like, the whole, like, you know, trophy hunter thing where you go out and you get the animal with the.

The biggest animal with the most horns or whatever and then hang it on the wall, I think that's less popular these days.

And so people get rid of the taxidermy.

So I've acquired quite a bunch.

And.

And so this show kind of addresses that, but it's also very playful and fun.

So we have.

It's called the Cloven Pendulum.

And we have five murder suspects who are suspects for the murder of Hazel.

And just for anybody on the video, here is Hazel again.

Beautiful.

And so we have a witch, an alchemist, but we have a trophy hunter.

We have a wolf, and I'm missing one of them.

You'll find out if you come to the show what the fifth suspect is.

And so these suspects will be performed by people who come to the show.

Oh, how fun.

Yeah.

Anybody who gets a ticket can play one of the characters.

We have masks and we have weapons.

They all have a weapon and a suspect, suspected motive.

And then they all have a theme song that we play from the Dust Bowl Fairies repertoire, of course, like we were talking about at the beginning of this program, you don't know what's going to happen.

We've done this show a few times and every night is different because, of course, it depends on who comes and who wants to play our murder suspect.

But the suspects get the entire duration of the song to come up and perform.

So we've had people do all Kinds of bizarre things.

And now my only caveat in which I tell them is you can't come onto the stage and mess with the musicians while we're trying to play your song.

I think that's fair.

Of course that has happened.

Of course it has.

But it's really fun to see what people will do and people really get into the character and some people want to prove their innocence and other people want to prove their guilt.

And then at the end, the rest of the.

The rest of the guests at the show vote on who they think is responsible for the death of Hazel.

And if there's a tie, Hazel gets to.

To decide.

Nice.

So.

So yeah, it's a.

It's a fun evening, but it, you know, it's touching on themes of, like, animal rights and why do people kill these animals and hang the heads on the wall?

You know, like, it's.

There is.

There's some, you know, implied violence within the.

The theme.

But.

But we really try to have fun.

Yeah.

So what I want to finish off with is you mentioned that you just had.

Just had an album come out as well.

Something I always like to ask musical artists is where can.

Where can people find.

And where do you want people to listen to it to best.

You know, to one best listen to it and best support.

Best support the group.

Yeah, I.

The best platform for musicians if you're streaming music is Band Camp.

Yeah, Musicians make the.

You know, get a lot of the other platforms.

We don't get any money from them and they're just greedy and taking all of the profits.

So Bandcamp really gives back to the musicians.

But you can hear our new album, which is called O Dread, on all of the streaming places, just because we want people to hear it.

So whatever you listen to music on, you can find it.

And ultimately, if you're on Spotify, that's okay.

We want you to listen to our music and.

And.

And hopefully you will like it.

So you can listen anywhere on Apple Music on all the evil platforms, as I like to call them.

We were.

Most of us are like on one or another.

Yeah.

And that's just what.

What's happened in the world.

So.

But yeah, Band Camp is a great place place to go.

And our Band Camp is under my name, which is.

It's Ryder Cooley Dust Fairies.

You should still be able to find it under Dustel Fairies, but you might have to add the writer Coolie.

And you can also find it through the Dustbill Fairies social media pages and the website.

And the spelling is the Old English spelling F A E R I E S Beautiful.

Well, Roger, thank you so much for coming on and talking about the show.

Make sure you go get your [email protected] for the shows at the School of the Arts Black Box Theater, Dust Bowl Fairies, the Cloven Pendulum, a Gothic Murder Mystery.

The shows are happening the 24th, 25th at 6pm and then the 26th at 8pm thank you so much for joining.

Make sure you check out the other shows on the Lunch Order podcast [email protected] and we'll see you out on the fringe.

This has been a presentation of the Lunchadore Podcast Network, Justice for Hazel.