Marissa M. Conner 
With an ever-changing language – with new jargons, expressions and meanings – the way we communicate with each other has surely changed since the dawn of the 21st century.
You don’t have to find someone on the street or give them a call to get a message across. There are text messages, emails, posts, comments, live streams or even TikToking. Older folks might have to google this one to find out what I mean.
As a reflection on all of this, the indie rock trio from Newport Fave released their debut album Now on June 20. The relatively new band consists of Dave Flamand on piano and vocals, Bill Bartholomew on drums and Mason Dubois on bass.
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Fave started simply as a new outlet for Flamand. He had the availability to work on new materials and, while mostly familiar with the guitar, decided to try the piano as a new instrument.
“The band started as my idea,” Flamand said. “I have another band called Analog where I mainly play electric guitar, but the drummer lives in Block Island, so we played enough but I also had time for another project.
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“I started playing the piano a lot over the last few years and wrote a few songs during that time. It kind of solidified into something worth doing a project on, and then it went away turned into a band. It was originally just a cluster of songs to play around with, and then it turned into a Fave.
Today’s music has a similar vibe to 1970s piano rock that evokes the sounds of acts like Steely Dan, Billy Joel, Tom Waits, and even Randy Newman. Flamand sees the album as a product of the times while conveying his current feelings both on a personal level and in the third person.
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“It was recorded in Lincoln at the Big Nice Studio with Bradford Krieger,” Flamand said. “He’s a really nice guy and a great engineer to work with. I saw the studio when Bill and the other band he’s in, Silverteeth, were working on their album. Bradford and I had a great connection and it was March of last year before Fave was even an idea.
“About six months later we decided to do Today up there. I guess the vision behind this album is the way I wrote the songs and the way I came up with the title for them is kind of a ‘timestamp.’
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“It’s a cross section of how I view modern interactions between people,” Flamand added. “A lot of my personal relationships influenced what I wrote the songs about, and there’s also an observational aspect to how people interact with each other now.”
Flamand said he hopes listeners avoid skipping tracks on the album. He also hopes people will reflect on themselves after listening to him and, perhaps, reflect on how they live their lives and how they interact with their community.
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“I really hope people listen to it through and through, that’s how it was kind of designed after we rehearsed it a lot,” he said. declared. “It’s an effort to reintroduce that experience, just to sit down and take it all in. Every song has its own kind of theme and I think people can relate to that.
“I just hope they maybe reflect on how they live their lives in a modern way. Maybe take a step back and take a look at some of the things that I lyrically point out in the album.”
To consult Nowadays, search for it on Spotify and immerse yourself in a disc that will make you think.
