Poetic Memory: Big Tree (List)

Regarding Brooklyn’s Big Tree, the live MP3 site Daytrotter.com says it best:

[They] harbor tree houses and nests in their heads, places that they shy away to when they need to feel things in their lives getting easier, even just for a second, for a half hour.

Kaila McIntyre-Bader leads this escapist ensemble, singing songs to help us envision our lives outside of urbania. In case that’s not enough for you, the band has taken the next step and actually recommended five places that will make Owl and Bear readers “Feel Really Good.”

The band is also on tour — with stops in San Diego on July 14 and 15 — so even if you can’t get to Redwood Forest in the near future, you’ll be able to travel with Big Tree from the comfort of your own fair city.

Big Tree’s Top 5 Places to Feel Really Good

1. Fairchild Wildflower Garden, Connecticut: This little gem of a forest in the “back country” of Connecticut has a truly magical character to it. A boardwalk twists through a swamp full of cattails, and the woods are full of hidden secrets such as a hundred-year-old port-o-potty and intricate stonewalls. We like Fairchild so much that we filmed a music video for our song “The Concurrence of All Things” there!

2. Jedidiah Smith Redwood Forest, California: Last year, between gigs in Portland and the Bay Area, we camped out on the Smith River. We felt like gnomes among the giants. Kaila and Colin swam in the river, which felt as if it had just run off a glacier. We woke up to the smell of Colin stoking the fire, and not too soon after, the smell of some nice thick-cut bacon.

3. Big Sur State Park, California: What can we say? We like trees.

4. Storm King Sculpture Garden: Storm King is a place we retreat to whenever we can. This is an epic sculpture garden in upstate New York, the perfect mixture of man-made art and acres upon acres of nature’s beauty. In the spring and fall, the leaves are all sorts of colors, and there are many places to hide among the metal shapes placed in the woods. In this magical place, we’ve had picnics during lightning storms, walks along ponds, and naps in the grass.

5. Taos, New Mexico: Taos is one of the craziest places we’ve been to in the U.S. of A. The Mesa (as they call it) is 7000 feet up and either side drains into the Rio Grande river gorge, in which there are ridiculously awesome hot springs (remember Easy Rider?).

Big Tree in San Diego
07/14 – The Che Cafe – San Diego, CA
07/15 – The Andrews Gallery – San Diego, CA

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