The Fast Flying Vestibule: One Hot Band

 

The FFV in Adelphie, Maryland, in the early 1970s. Jesse Winch, Terence Winch, Doug Pell, Alan Oresky, Joe Stork.

A long time ago, in late 1971, one of the strangest string-bands in American musical history was 

formed, and I was there at the beginning. The Fast Flying Vestibule (named after a train 

celebrated in a song) did a little bit of everything, from Charlie Poole to Carl Perkins to doo-

wop to Kerry polkas. We lived to have a good time. We were not purists like The New Lost

City Ramblers, preserving the sacred traditions of the past, or the Red Clay Ramblers, the

brilliant North Carolina group that stayed pretty close to the approved text. We did

whatever felt good.     

I remember a conversation I had some years ago in McGinty’s pub in downtown Silver Spring, Maryland, near where I live. I told a friend that my old string-band was planning its first reunion in decades. “Oh, I love old-timey music,” she said. “What did you play in the group?” “Tenor banjo and Irish button accordion,” I replied. “There is no button accordion in old-timey music,” she said. “Well, there was in our version of it.” There was no tenor banjo in old-timey either, if the truth be known. But the FFV was sui generis.

At a festival in the early '70s: Terence Winch, Jesse Winch, Alan Oresky, Joe Stork, Pete Adland, Doug Pell

Pete Adland, our 5-string banjo player, left the band after about a year and a half, to become a psychiatrist. Pete never even met Ric Sweeney, our talented guitarist, who is also a terrific songwriter and a singer, with a voice to rival Jimmie Rogers or Hank Williams, IMO. Ric---whose show-stopper was a song of his called “Mr. Rain”---was in the FFV for about the last two years, before we disbanded sometime in 1977. He replaced Doug Pell, our original guitar player and one of the best flat-pickers you’ll ever hear, when Doug moved to New York. I, my brother Jesse (guitar, 5-string banjo), Joe Stork (acoustic bass), and Alan Oresky (fiddle, mandolin), were the unchanging members of the cast. 

(photo: Ric Sweeney)

We played the legendary Red Fox Inn, which was mostly a bluegrass venue, in Bethesda on Tuesday nights for years.  We played Ireland’s Four Provinces in DC for the first year it was open (we could crank out 4 sets of Irish music if the gig called for it). We went to folk and fiddle festivals, played for antiwar rallies and leftwing fundraisers, and in the backyards and front porches of our friends. We won a contest, the prize being three hours of recording time in a good studio, and wound up recording a song of mine called “I’m Glad I’m Prepared for the Recession,” whose objectionable last word kept it off the airwaves (until we recorded an expurgated version for a Paredon Records anthology). We self-produced an album entitled Union Station, after a song of mine (sung by Joe Stork). Vinyl copies are still available (for real).

Joe Stork, our bass player, was the band's big brother. His death in 2024 was a tremendous loss for me and for the multitudes of friends and family who loved him. Alan Oresky has had health issues that have curtailed his musical life. Doug Pell, the baby of the group, still plays and even put out a wonderful recording of teddybear songs he wrote for children. Pete Adland, a now retired psychiatrist, remains an avid banjo player, and Ric Sweeney, to the best of my knowledge, continues to play and sing in Virginia, where he has a devoted following. My brother Jesse is in a class by himself in terms of the pace he maintains. He's in several bands and is typically playing somewhere almost every night of the week.

Finally, and in honor of the nation's Semiquincentennial this month, I'm including a ridiculous song I wrote for the band in 1976 to commemorate the USA's Bicentennial, called "Happy Birthday, USA." This live recording is the only extant version of it. 

And finally, part 2, for all the Doug Lang fans out there, here is a piece he wrote in 1976:

©Terence Winch  
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