Bio The Orphan Trains Music From The New Folk Frontier

It was midnight in the deep cedar woods of Oregon and The Orphan Trains were lost.

“We had only been in Oregon a few days,” The Masked Fantastic said. “Dakota had quit her corporate job a month before. We had both just sold our cars on ebay and decided to make a life of songwriting. The plan was to write meaningful music for the radio-weary ears of the world. We had wind in our blood and wings in our lungs. Then we went hiking.”

The trail was completely black, but The Orphan Trains kept walking.

“On our way into the park, five hours earlier,” Dakota Rose said, “I saw a sign that showed a huge picture of a bear. It said: BEWARE OF BEARS. Beside the bear sign was a picture of a Cougar. That one said: BEWARE OF LARGE CATS. The Masked Fantastic just laughed.”

Eventually, The Orphan Trains came to a gravel road which ran between two steep and shadowy embankments. A sliver of moon haunted the sky.

“I just started singing,” Dakota Rose said. “My thought was that if we sang, the bears would leave us alone. I had just written a song that morning about a foster child named Jenell who was sort of lost in her life. Well, I sang that song.”

The Masked Fantastic didn’t think singing Jenell was a great idea.

“The song is too beautiful,” he said. “I was sure it would draw the bears right over to us. Not only that, it has a very feline-friendly line, a line about how the little girl is really a big fan of jungle cats.”

The line is When the circus came to town, you rode on an elephant, but in your secret heart, you loved the lion best…

“I suppose the line is a bit feline-friendly, but The Masked Fantastic didn’t have a better solution. When I finished singing Jenell, he started singing On The Night You Were Born, which, I must admit, is my favorite of his songs. HOWEVER, he howls in that song. He howls like a big ol’ Georgia dog. And we all know that in the dark woods there are creatures that communicate with howls.”

“I don’t remember seeing one sign that said: BEWARE OF WOLVES,” The Masked Fantastic said. “Not one.”

So, The Orphan Trains compromised and sang their namesake song, a song about two orphans, Alfred and Emma, who are taken from the streets of New York City and sent west on a train, two children lost in the woods of homelessness, poverty and starvation, who, through ferocious perseverance, eventually find their way home.

“We brought an album out of those woods,” Dakota Rose said. “And we made it home without encountering a single cougar or bear.”

“They were out there,” The Masked Fantastic said, “resting in their pine needle beds and letting our songs wash into their ears. There was no way they could eat us. They were too busy listening. ”

In additon to more traditional venues, The Orphan Trains have performed at art gallery openings, house concerts & in a nursing home. They have played live on WJBW radio in Stuart, FL and WTTB radio in Vero Beach. Their last performance was as the Headliner at a Psychotherapy & Hypnotherapy Training Conference sponsored by the Institute for Survivors of Incest & Sexual Violence (ISISV) at the Chinsegut Hill Retreat Center in Brooksville, FL. They played to a large audience of Psychologists and Psychiatrists.

DAKOTA ROSE

In the middle of working on a doctorate in psychology, halfway through an Adult Psychopathology class, Dakota Rose looked down at her notebook. Instead of listening to the lecture, she had completely filled the margins with songs.

“When I saw those songs crowded into the margins like little orphans shoved into a hallway and forgotten, I stood up and walked out of class. I stopped by my dorm room and grabbed my guitar. I abandoned everything else.”

Then Dakota drove. She made it all the way to Canada where she wrote songs and worked on organic farms in exchange for a cot and all the vegetables she could eat.

“It was a mystical time for me,” Dakota says. “I was moving the earth with my hands all day and writing songs by candle-light. I actually started writing about people I might have helped as a psychologist: a little girl lost in the Child Welfare System; a young bride who chooses her wedding day to run away from her life; an old woman coping with the death of her last living friend. It was a miracle of a time."

Dakota has recorded two solo studio albums and a live CD under the name Amanda Birdsall. She was a finalist in the Minnesota Folk Festival’s New Folk Songwriting Showcase, has interviewed and performed live on NPR, and has shared the stage with Sloan Wainwright, Edie Carey, and Kate McDonnell.

When his Grandfather in Georgia died, The Masked Fantastic arrived late to the wake. Relatives from as far away as Texas had already laid claim to most of his Grandfather’s estate, including his horses, rifles and saddles. Even his hats. The Masked Fantastic didn’t want any inheritance. He was only seventeen. But, his Great Aunt Charlotte begged him to take his Grandfather’s dog.

“Her name’s Hobo,” Aunt Charlotte said. “But Grandpa called her ‘Bo’ and she likes to sit and listen to a little bit of guitar.”

“But I don’t play the guitar. I don’t even have a guitar.”

“Well, the guitar comes with her.”

“You mean if I take the dog, I also get Grandpa’s guitar?”

“Yes.”

He loaded the old guitar into his car and Bo rode shotgun. A few weeks later, The Masked Fantastic learned that Bo could sing. Her ‘high-howling,’ as he calls it, inspired some of his own. And by the time Bo died, The Masked Fantastic could play a little bit of guitar.

Under the alias Wolff, The Masked Fantastic was named ARTEXPO ARTIST OF THE MILLENNIUM in Miami for his mixed-media paintings. His signature paintings are created using mineral pigments and high-gloss, preservative acrylic. Wolff has sold hundreds of paintings to collectors, worldwide and is represented in galleries from Miami to Oregon. His famous collectors include baseball legend Andre Dawson, poet Billy Collins and Angela’s Ashes author Frank McCourt. His poetry has appeared in 27 Literary Magazines, including West Wind Review, The Madison Review and Folio. His poetry collections ORPHANAGE OF IMAGINATION (2002) and HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION OF THE NIGHT (2008) were published by Redwood River Press.