Epic album ‘Olympia: A True Story’ is a COVID lockdown-induced valentine to writer’s home

UPDATE and CORRECTION from earlier version: Tom Dyer has COVID and the show has been postponed to Dec. 9. Keyboard player Joe Cason and bassist Gene Tveden graduated from Olympia High School.

During the height of the pandemic, while his fellow Olympians were binge-watching TV shows and baking sourdough bread, Tom Dyer was setting down a history of Olympia.

The twist: He was writing not a book but an album, a three-CD, 40-song collection called “Olympia: A True Story,” released in October on his own Green Monkey Records and recorded with his band, the True Olympians.

The album’s songs, all written by Dyer, cover a plethora of subjects past and present, including The Evergreen State College (“A Bucketful of Weird”), the punk scene, parades, significant historical events and well-known people, Olympia oysters, beer and even mud.

“It’s Mud,” hard-rocking and full of fuzz, begins: “Everybody say that it’s the water/Flowin’ pure and sweet/A perpetual flood/Twice a day something else will happen/Tide is going out now/Oh, baby, it’s mud.”

“As a kid who spent a ton of time at my grandparents’ house on Mud Bay, I am well familiar with the gluey brown muck that will suck the shoes right off your feet,” Dyer wrote in the liner notes for the track.

Mud Bay gets lots of positive attention on the album, too, including “Clammin’ ” which Dyer describes as a meditation. “That’s my love song to Mud Bay,” he said.

And then there’s “Grandma Caught the Shark,” about the day in 1957 when Dyer’s grandparents, Freddie and Faith Kroll, caught a shark in the bay. Their deed was the stuff of family legend and at least fleeting fame: The couple’s photo appeared on the front page of The Olympian.

“It was a slow news day,” Dyer said.

Dyer didn’t set out to make the album his magnum opus. It just turned out that way, mostly because of COVID-19.

“You can always write songs when you can’t get other stuff done,” he said. “If it hadn’t been for COVID, the album wouldn’t have been anywhere near this big. The songs got a lot more obscure as time went on.”

The album’s local flavor is not due only to its songs. It also includes jingles from local radio stations KAOS, KXXO and KGY, plus two eight-minute tracks recorded in Dyer’s yard — one of birds and the other of frogs and rain.

Rain also gets a song of its own, natch. Sample lyric: “Gray is in our soul.”

Packed with the three discs is an 80-page book with lyrics, background information, photos and even lists of source material, including two articles by this writer.

That’s far from the only link to The Olympian. “A Deadly Wind,” about the 1962 Columbus Day storm, is based on and named for the book by longtime reporter and columnist John Dodge. And “Let It Rain” reveals that Dyer delivered the paper back when it published in the afternoons.

Then there’s Dyer’s band of True Olympians, which released its first single, “Christmas in Olympia” in 2017.

The band — keyboard player Joe Cason, singer Lisa Ceazan, drummer Michael Stein and bassist Gene Tveden — all live in Olympia, and Cason and Tveden also are alums from Dyer’s alma mater, Olympia High, to which he pays tribute with “I’m an Oly Bear.” (Stein graduated from Capital High School.)

That’s not all: More than 100 Olympians make guest appearances, including Arrington de Dionyso, the Oly Mountain Boys, the Artesian Rumble Arkestra, and more than 50 members of the 2021-22 Olympia High School Choir, who sang the word “Olympia” on the land acknowledgment that opens the album.

“There were 108 guest musicians,” Dyer said. “I was shocked when I counted them up at the end. I didn’t really have any idea there were that many.”

Despite the title, “Olympia” includes songs about Lacey and Tumwater. But the first song Dyer wrote for the album, “Olympia My Home,” says it all.

“I moved back to Olympia six years ago,” he said, “and I am very appreciative to be here. This album would not exist if I had not. Being away has given me a lens, an appreciation, that I don’t think I would have had if I’d always lived here. Coming down State Street just past Central, the vista is magnificent — the Capitol building and the Black Hills.”

‘Olympia: A True Story’ Record Release Party

• What: Tom Dyer and the True Olympians celebrate the release of their 40-song boxed set with a benefit concert for the Olympia Arts and Heritage Alliance.
• When: Originally scheduled for Nov. 4, the party has been postponed to Friday, Dec. 9. Doors open at 7 p.m., and the show begins at 8 p.m.
• Where: Olympia Ballroom, 116 Legion Ave. SE, Olympia
• Tickets: $15 in advance at http://olytruestory.eventbrite.com, $20 at the door
• More information: http://greenmonkeyrecords.com

Library talk and concert

• What: Dyer and crew will talk about “Olympia: A True Story” and play some tunes at this free program.
• When: 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 15
• Where: Olympia Timberland Library, 313 Eighth Ave. SE, Olympia

This story was originally published November 3, 2022 at 5:00 AM.