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SEPTEMBER 2014 | BOROMAG.COM | 43 It’s Tuesday Open Mic at Astoria’s Olde Prague Tavern. The Dirty Wings enter to see it brimming with activity. Performers and supporters alike sit at picnic tables among a scattering of instrument cases and beer mugs. Standing behind the mic now is a short, bespectacled man chastising himself for screwing up the last song. “Here’s one that I know for sure,” he says, then begins to perfectly pluck an upbeat tune on his acoustic about love, loss and alcohol as though he’s been playing it for thirty years. Sam Rasiotis, frontman of the Dirty Wings, puts his name at the bottom of a long list of acts that will take their turn at the mic before he goes solo for a set. “I’ve never seen it this packed,” he says with a smile. Later, after getting one of his two comp’d “performer’s beers,” he’ll add, “These open mics are what keeps the scene going.” He should know. After all, it was at open mic nights at the Quays on the corner of 45th Street and 30th Avenue where he met two of the other three members of his band, along with dozens more who would begin to build the Astoria music scene into something substantial, and something proud. “There was us, Bliminal…and Little Creatures, and…” says Sam, sitting alongside the rest of the Dirty Wings in their Long Island City rehearsal space. He looks to bassist Sean Wiggins for help, but Sean can’t remember any other active Astoria bands from the mid ’00s either, nor can they collectively recall many places to play, besides the Quays. “That was it,” Sean says. After arriving in Astoria from Rochester in 1998, Sam and drummer John Coakley performed together throughout New York City in various bands, before finally settling on the Dirty Wings moniker in 2007. Sam’s initial vision for the act was that it would be a two-piece acoustic punk rock band with a revolving door of guest performers. But after befriending Sam at the Quays, Sean joined in 2008—splitting time then between Dirty Wings and Little Creatures— helping to solidify their signature Springsteen-meets- Pixies sound. “The band was definitely born of late-night drinking,” Sean says. It was around the same time that Astoria native Justin Finley, then a member of Bliminal, also met Sam and company. “I remember one open mic,” Sam says, “where Justin said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if bands had places to play in Astoria and didn’t have to go to Manhattan or Brooklyn for a gig?’” Finley would soon establish the summer Astoria Music Now! festival, and organize shows all over their “dirty little town”— as one Dirty Wings lyric goes. The Dirty Wings concept of having guest performers never dissolved, and when they recorded their first album in 2010, 30th Avenue Heartache, it was littered with folks from around the now - burgeoning scene, most of whom they met at open mic nights and wound up sharing a stage with. One guest guitarist, Joe Pepe—member of Astoria’s Illimanjaro and a Quays open mic regular—joined Dirty Wings for good later that same year. Since then, the local music community has remained healthy, with more cooperating venues and new open mic nights. According to Finley— whose sixth festival takes place Sept. 6—there’s also an influx of younger acts popping up, “kind of a second wave of Astoria musicians.” Dirty Wings have recorded a new album this year, and are now doing shows with saxophonist/keyboardist Ben Dobay. It’s unclear if he’ll become the fifth Dirty Wing, but they’re sure to figure that out, probably after beers at an open mic. For Dirty Wings songs and info go to dirtywings. bandcamp.com and facebook. com/dirtywingsnyc. Catch Sam as part of “Dirty Creatures” on stage at the Astoria Music Now! festival in Astoria Park with former Little Creatures member, Jimmy Artache.


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