Over 400 songs. At least sixteen albums, not counting dozens more from side projects. Hundreds of local shows. Hudson Valley live music icons Pitchfork Militia celebrate their 30 year anniversary at the Rosendale Street Festival this weekend. There’s no question that the crowd will be emphatically dancing, singing, and making animal noises.
What has kept the band going for so long?
“I guess that it’s still fun, you know?,” said Head.
“It’s fun, it’s fast, it’s loud. A lot of people say it’s punk rock, some people say rockabilly or country, but if you boil it down, we’re really just a three-piece rock band.”
Peter Head is the wellspring from which the band Pitchfork Militia pours forth its seemingly unending flow of genre-bending music. Like a modern-day Rip Van Winkle, he resides on an undisclosed mountain in the Catskills, handcrafting guitars repurposed from eclectic found objects, living an often solitary life of prolific creativity and minimal modern technology.
“I like people, but I kind of like them in limited dosages,” he said.
Like many artists, Head is more of an introvert in normal life.
“When I was a little kid, the first time I got to stay home alone with nobody in the house, I can remember just going, ‘Oh, this is so cool. When I get to be an adult, I’m gonna have a house and be the only person there.’”
But when he straps on his signature Fender Telecaster (and occasionally dons a handcrafted devil puppet hat), a manic transformation takes place.
“There’s something about holding that guitar that makes my introverted stuff go away,” he said. “I tell people I’m shy. They don’t believe it, ‘cause they’ve seen Peter Head on stage.”
Head always cuts a commanding presence when performing — veins and eyes bulging, drenched in sweat, working the fretboard furiously with a passion that rivals any guitar god. He manages all this while singing songs on a wide range of topics including bleeding out after a farm accident, hating the state of Pennsylvania, succumbing to natural disasters, smoking crack and urinating on smartphone users, to name a few.
“When we first started, I was drinking, and the whole Peter Head persona was kind of like the drunken religious zealot farmer. It was songs about farms and dying. Once I got sober in 2000, I started to morph without my even trying to — it morphed into the country gentleman, you know, always saying, ‘Yes ma’am’ and ‘Yes sir’ and shit.”
“The early songs were all humorous. After about three tapes, I didn’t have much more funny things to say, so I had to turn a little more introspective… I was really afraid I wouldn’t be funny anymore.” He laughs. “Turns out I wasn’t that funny anyway.”
The band formed in 1995 after Head had previously teamed up with bassist Karl Krause (famous for his longtime family business in Saugerties, Krause’s Chocolates) in an abrasive punk band called Heinous.
“I had a lot of blues in my head and then just, like, shortened it, made it fast and put funny lyrics to it,” Head said of the early catalog.
“I think my biggest influences were Jimi [Hendrix] and guys like Frank Zappa, with the humor thing. Zappa took it to another extreme. And then I was just really into electric guitar, anybody that played electric guitar.”
Local drummer Adam Hyer left the group just six months after it formed, and Joe Morgan — drummer for prog-funk-metal mavericks Oblivion Grin — stepped in and has provided the band’s impressive percussive backbone throughout its entire history.
Initially, Head was laser-focused on the satisfaction of songwriting and recording, but soon found himself playing all over the Hudson Valley.
“My biggest thing was recording it all. I remember back when we started, the band would say, ‘get shows.’ I’d be like, ‘Nah, I just wanna work on songs.’ They wanted to play shows. So I had to kind of balance it by getting some shows and that would keep everybody practicing towards recording. I was into recording and making records.”
The band quickly established a reputation as intense, energetic performers with great songs, something that a fan of any type of band could get into simply because they’d never seen or heard anything like it. This unique quality of the Hudson Valley Music scene to largely ignore boundaries between genres and enthusiastically support live music made it a fertile ground for Pitchfork Militia to grow over the years.
“The scene has always been fun,” said Head. “Even if there’s not a lot of people there at your show, everybody’s still really into it. We played for four people the other night, but they were into it. So you play to four people.”
This dogged mentality and focus on the fun of writing and recording above all else means Pitchfork never really pursued fame, fortune or even touring. Head was never concerned with building a career or a fan base, he just enjoyed the process of creating music. Perhaps this was key to the band’s longevity.
“I’ve seen a lot of dudes get really disappointed when they didn’t have that attitude,” he said.
After Krause bowed out of the band in 2020 over creative differences, longtime local Matt Goldpaugh — known for his rockabilly upright bass skills in numerous acts — made the perfect fit as a replacement.
Over the years, the band has become the unofficial headliners of the Rosendale Street Festival, traditionally drawing a large crowd featuring every age and walk of life. It wasn’t always that way.
“I don’t know how many years it’s been at Rosendale,” Head said. “Once they started up, I think I sent ’em a demo. Perhaps my tape wasn’t very good quality, or, you know, maybe it was a little too raucous for them, but they didn’t select us. And then a whole bunch of people were like, ‘Are you kidding? That’s the Pitchfork Militia! The very next year they got us on and we’ve been there ever since. It’s our favorite gig of the year.”
With no end in sight for one of the area’s most beloved eclectic rock bands, how long will Head keep at it?
“I haven’t really thought about it, man,” he said. “I think just as long as it stays fun. So far it’s been fun. The day it’s not fun I’ll stop. I mean, the equipment gets heavier and heavier every year. It’s so much work, but as long as it’s fun, I’ll be doing it.”
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