Showing posts with label Festival Coverfolk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Festival Coverfolk. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Festival Coverfolk: ICONS Irish Music and Arts
Canton, MA, Sept. 12-14



My memories of an early nineties family outing to the Irish Connections festival is a bit hazed by Harp and hot sun, but a quick check with my mother confirms it: though I do remember a few snatches of some relatively decent irish pub music at a small outdoor stage near the beer garden, it's clear that, back then, the music was clearly not the centerpiece of what was otherwise a decent cultural festival on a small college campus.

But good festivals evolve, and even a cursory glance at their festival lineup and schedule will tell you that the Irish festival now called ICONS Irish Music and Arts Festival, which takes place this weekend at the Irish Cultural Center in Canton, MA, has undergone a true transformation. In the decade since I first attended ICONS, it has found its own site, and grown from a small-scale series of exhibitions and craftsmerchant boothbuildings to a several day undertaking of immense proportions. In the process, what was once a crafts and culture festival with a few casual workshop-scale performances of traditional irish music and dance throughout the day has become a full-bore multi-stage music and arts festival of increasingly impressive scope and scale.

In an era where other folk festivals often seem to be recycling the same cadre of artists year after year, ICONS is a breath of fresh air. The breadth of talent at this year's ICONS fest is impressive, ranging from irish-influenced bluegrass banjoists and solo acoustic singer-songwriters of Irish descent to a seemingly infinite collection of traditional reelplayers, country jigbands, and contemporary Celtic Folk favorites that, like the rest of the arts and cultural activities, "reflect the new cultural directions of Ireland and its Diaspora". And you just gotta love a festival that features an entire stage devoted to harp orchestras, demos, and dance, and names it Harpapalooza.

Most of the biggest-name acts this year will play ICONS both Saturday and Sunday, so you shouldn't have to miss a trick, and you'll have plenty of time to roam the grounds, see dance, sports, and other cultural forms in performance, and browse the numerous static exhibitry and merchants. Old timey neograss folkfavorites Crooked Still will be there, and I suspect I won't be able to resist seeing them for a twentieth time. I'm excited for old-school folksman Liam Clancy of The Clancy Brothers, young scenesters Lunasa and Beoga, and Irish siren Cara Dillon, too, though I'm determined to save Dillon's haunted pianofolk cover of The Beatles classic Wait for an upcoming return to the songs of the Beatles here at Cover Lay Down. To tempt you even further, here's a few solid covers from a few more great artists I'm eager to see for the first time this weekend at ICONS.


Early in his career, to distinguish himself from his famous brother Christy Moore, Irish folkie Kevin Moore renamed himself Luka Bloom after a popular Suzanne Vega song and the hero of a James Joyce novel. Twenty years and over fourteen albums later, the name remains an apt reflection of Bloom's signature sound, which combines American-style folk songwriting with an Irish approach to performance. The result is sometimes rocking, sometimes mellow, occasionally ragged, but always effective.

Luka's distinctive, jangly guitarplay and a typically plaintive, leggato approach to lyrics provide a solid platform for some excellent singer-songwriter folk. His originals trend towards reverence and celebration, as befits his style; in cover song, as in his excellent covers album Keeper of the Flame, his approach tends to sweeten the tone of the works of others, providing a surprising depth to such melancholy rarities as Joni Mitchell's Urge for Going, Radiohead's No Surprises, and -- a repost -- Bloom's cover of LL Cool J's I Need Love. Bloom's newest, Eleven Songs, hits stores any minute now, but you can preorder now.



Solas is one of the premiere contemporary celtic folk bands around today, and -- as befits a band whose name translates to "light" in Gaelic -- they've been at the forefront of an American celtic revival since they first burst onto the scene over here just twelve years ago. As Muruch noted in her recent review of For Love and Laughter, their newest album, they've gone through some lead-singer lineup changes over the years, but since the power of Solas as a performing group is predominantly in their arrangements and full celtic sound, as led by award-winning multi-instrumentalist Seamus Egan, there's more consistency here than change, and that's a wonderful thing.

We've previously featured ex-lead singer Karan Casey here at Cover Lay Down, and I've dropped a few fave Solas covers here and there since we got things started late last year, but good music bears repeating: here's linkbacks to their version of tradsong Rain and Snow and a cover of Sarah McLachlan ballad I Will Remember You; here's a few more of my favorite folksingers' coversongs from Solas. And here's hoping that they'll let their new lead singer Mairead Phelan shine on some new ones at ICONS, too.



The Tannahill Weavers come from the old school of traditional Scottish folk music; they made their name bringing a slightly folkrock sensibility to the traditional celtfolk of their native land, and they've been around longer than most of us. Their natural, heartfelt work on this old Stan Rogers tune may be an anomaly among the ballads, reels and caeli, but it's also a seamless resetting of a timeless tune, one which which shows just how closely related the traditional music of Halifax is to those older, ancestral folkforms from across the great pond. Meanwhile, despite its origins, in the hands of the Weavers, an original reel wrapped around a Gordon Lightfoot tune becomes a driving folk rock event verging on Celtic Punk. Classic stuff, all of it.



Banjo virtuoso and jazzgrass composer Alison Brown may be better known in the industry as the founder of Compass Records, but over the years, she's also released a number of wonderful albums which explore the intersections of bluegrass and jazz and folk music. Each is a clean mix of crisp-yet-flowing banjo-driven ensemble instrumentals not unlike the more acoustic work of Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, and, with the help of a series of stellar guest vocalists and session players, more typical bluegrass and folk settings of originals and covers both.

We've previously posted Alison's work with the Indigo Girls on Simon & Garfunkel classic Homeward Bound and with Beth Nielsen Chapman on a sweet cover of Hendrix' Angel; here's a few more newgrassy takes on a pair of familiar radio hits with male vocalists you might recognize from the bluegrass world.



Cover Lay Down posts original writing about covered content and folkculture every Sunday and Wednesday.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

The State of Folk: A Post-Fest Preamble
Plus EXCLUSIVE live Beatles covers from Falcon Ridge 08!



Gee, but it's great to be back home. And bearing gifts, including an exclusive live Beatles tribute concert, recorded this past Friday in a sunny field in Hillsdale, NY, which you'll find just down below.

But first, the weather report:

Regular readers may remember that I'd hoped to have a Utah Phillips tribute set to share today. Unfortunately, a freak hurricane-force thunder-and-hailstorm and torrential downpour mid-afternoon on Sunday brought several major event-sized tents down, flooding roads and washing away tentsites, soaking sound equipment, and generally turning the encampment into something just shy of a post-apocalyptic landscape, bringing an early end to the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival just a few hours before that eagerly awaited set could take place.

Here's a video taken from the storm (by Coriform). If you look to the left as the camera pans, you'll see a golf cart parked in front of a white lump -- that lump is actually the flattened remains of the site crew/ice/information tent, which collapsed on me and a couple of dozen others in high wind and heavy lightning, driving us out into the hailstorm. Scary. You can also read first-hand accounts from multiple festgoers at this livejournal thread.



It is, genuinely, a miracle that no one was seriously hurt, and a tribute to all the site organizers and volunteers that we managed to get everyone out safely, and with their sense of humor fully intact. And it says what it needs to, I think, that I'm already looking forward to next year's fest.




And now, the news: something big is happening to folk music. Despite the rocky ending, spending time at both a major bluegrass festival and a major folk festival in rapid succession over the past two weeks provided no small insight into the ways in which the musical landscape is changing, and why. I saw and heard plenty which helped me understand why many folk bloggers have recently started "going bluegrass", for example...and plenty, too, which shed light on the funny relationship between americana and alt-country and indie music and other folk forms, something which we have spent no small amount of time describing over our few months here at Cover Lay Down.

More broadly, a look at label-run merch tables, and at other festival and coffeehouse line-ups via fest-posted programs and tour schedules, provided a decent sense of the full circuit -- since who's recording, who's touring, and who's headlining, is a pretty good indicator of what people are going to perceive as the core of currency in folk when the festival season dries up in late Autumn. I've fallen in love with the work of multiple newcomers, garnered new respect for a few more familiar faces I had previously underestimated, and decided that I still do like the narrative-laden one voice, one guitar singer-songwriter folk music which has, for the last few decades, been at the core of American folk, even if it is no longer so central as to be definitive.

In trying to identify this shift, I am especially indebted to fellow 'casters and fans, promoters and musicians, who took the time to help me groupthink the modern folkworld, most especially Kristin Andreassen (of Uncle Earl and Sometymes Why), Lindsay Mac, and Joe Crookston, all of whom made time to chat with me about the state of music and the music business from the performer and songwriter's perspective. You'll hear those names come up again as, over the next few weeks, we use our continued journey together here at Cover Lay Down as a platform for exploring the current state of folk music, and how covers can help us both understand and anticipate the near future of folk.

Right now, thought, I'm still a bit shaken from the storm and its aftermath. So while I try to organize my thoughts a bit, here's the majority of the Beatles tribute workshop, taped by yours truly on a little iPod with Belkin voice-recorder attachment from the foot of the Falcon Ridge workshop stage late Friday afternoon. I haven't trimmed the tracks yet, so intros may be a bit long...but if you want to get a sense of what it was like to be there in the moment, this is about as good as it gets.

I've starred my favorites, for those who just want a sample: Anthony da Costa's gorgeous, torn rendition of I'm Looking Through You; Joe Crookston's mystical banjo-led take on Norwegian Wood; Randall Williams' powerful, soaring version of Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds. I'd have starred Lindsay Mac's incredible rendition of Blackbird, too, if the bass notes of her cello had not fuzzed out my admittedly low-tech recording; I've included her live take here anyway, as a teaser, but keep an eye open for Lindsay's upcoming sophomore album (release date Sept. '08) for what promises to be a beautiful, pristine version of the song.

Beatles Tribute Workshop
Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, July 2008




Thanks to all my guest posters, who shared such powerful words, perspectives, and song in my absence; it's a truly wonderful thing to come home and find the place in better shape than you left it. We'll be back Sunday with the first of several subgenre- and artist-focused posts from this year's festbest and brightest.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Festival Coverfolk: Falcon Ridge Folk Fest, July 24-27
(The Nields, Patty Larkin, Martin Sexton, David Massengill)



Gas isn't getting any cheaper, so now that you're back from the confusingly-named fields and stages of Bonnaroo, where Ben Folds retired his lush, hushed cover of Bitches Ain't Shit (see Fong Songs for a great live-from-Bonnaroo recording), it's time to start looking at a few festivals closer to home. For us, this means our own stomping grounds, here in the American Northeast. And for my money, there's no better festival around than the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, a four-day, four-stage extravaganza of music, dancing, and live music that takes place in Hillsdale, NY, on the last weekend in July.

Falcon Ridge tickets won't sell out for a while, but if you're like me, you're going to need some time to air out the camper and clear the calendar. Without further ado, then, here's a short feature on the festival itself, followed by some sweet covers from a few artists not to be missed.




Falcon Ridge Folk Festival isn't the biggest Northeast music festival, not by a long shot. The Falcon Ridge camping population hovers far under ten thousand; on a good year, total festival attendance doesn't rise much past fifteen thou. To me, this is a bonus. Where the bigger New England folk festivals such as Philly and Newport are often too crowded for me, Falcon Ridge is intimate, as festivals go, with a community feel that's rare for a major festival.

This intimacy is as much a product of design and business model as it is a function of size. The place is entirely volunteer run, which means about a tenth of the people there have more than just a visitor's stake in the place; the mood that results is relaxed and full of cheerfully shared ownership. There's a Family stage and a Dance tent, in addition to Mainstage and Workshop stages, plus the usual and plentiful booths and services that make any good festival a full-body experience; these spaces interact effectively, with room to move, and no sound spill from one stage to the next. The camping areas nestle right up against the grassy mainstage amphitheater; after hours, small-label and indie artist performances continue in privately owned tents up on the hill until dawn, where you can see mainstage artists in a makeshift coffeehouse setting.

Falcon Ridge is perfect for cover lovers, too. The best set at the festival is the annual two-hour tribute show, where as many as ten different artists and groups cram onto the workshop stage to perform the songs of a single artist in an in-the-round format; in years past, I've seen Beatles tributes, Dylan songs, and Guthrie tunes here, but no matter the tribute subject, the performers always have a great and infectious time. In fact, though the mainstage is plenty impressive, I spend the lion's share of my music-watching time at this small second stage, which features intimate performances from mainstage-caliber artists throughout the daylight hours -- most often in small groupings, which providing a rare opportunity to see two or three of your favorite folk artists play for, and with, each other.

Falcon Ridge celebrates their 20th anniversary this year, and to make it special, they've come up with a full set of festival favorites that span a broad definition of folk, from old-school folkies Janis Ian and Jack Hardy to up-and-comers Joe Crookston (heard recently on Songs:Illinois) and singer-songwriter-cellist Lindsay Mac (who does an amazing version of Bill Withers tune Use Me). Other crowdpleasers include a plethora of contradance bands, and the ever-popular folkrock bands Eddie from Ohio, Railroad Earth, The Strangelings, Lowen and Navarro, and Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams.

The core of the festival performance is singer-songwriter folk, of course, and this year's roster is impressive. Regular visitors to Cover Lay Down will find it familiar, too; we've previously featured a great many performers from this year's Falcon Ridge 20th anniversary extravaganza, including John Gorka, Eliza Gilkyson, Lori McKenna, Chris Smither, Dar Williams, and folk trio Red Molly, who first came together on-site. (Note: In order to tempt you into joining me on-site this year, archives for all these performers will remain open until the festival has passed us by.)

But such artists are only the tip of the proverbial iceberg; the Falcon Ridge roster is rich with talent. Later this week, in honor of their new album's June 24th official release date, I'll have two *exclusive* label-approved tracks from appalachian folkgrass quintet Crooked Still, who will appear at Falcon Ridge on Thursday this year. Today, we feature the coversongs of a few other great and often undersung performers who will grace the stage at this year's Falcon Ridge Folk Fest.


Though the songwriting talents of both male and female folksingers are increasingly touted with equal merit, for some reason, as a default mode of analysis, the folkworld tends to celebrate male musicians for their stringwork, while female singer-songwriters are known for their voice. Boston-based folk artist Patty Larkin has spent her career trying to challenge that curious bias, both as a solo artist and as a member of the short-lived quartet Four Bitchin' Babes, and she's got the chops to prove it: Larkin trained in Jazz guitar at the Berkeley College of Music, and her fretwork and picking style has been praised by many throughout her quarter-century of performance.

But Larkin's no one trick pony, either. Her songwriting is witty and wise, and she's got a perfect note of longing in her voice that can melt the coldest heart. Though she's drifted a bit label-wise, most recently landing at Vanguard, in the right production environment, her talents shine like a beacon. These two covers provide the perfect setting for this rare folk trifecta.



My father took me to see appalachian dulcimer player and storyteller David Massengill way back in the eighties, at Club Passim in Cambridge, MA; it was one of my earliest experiences with folk, and it was, truly, a revelation. Massengill is best known in the folkworld for his role in starting the Greenwich Village cooperative which spawned the Fast Folk scene that revived folk music in the seventies and eighties; he hasn't been terribly prolific over his long career, but he is an amazing performer and songwriter in his own right, a culture vulture with a wry critical eye and a warm voice, full of humor and poignancy about everything from gritty urban immigrant life to vivid, fanciful dreamscapes in which tourists visit the New York sewers, Jesus escapes from a mental hospital, and history's greatest villains gather for a dinner party.

David Massengill will be performing at Falcon Ridge as part of a duo with fellow Fast Folk granddaddy Jack Hardy; here's two covers from him, plus Cover Lay Down fave Lucy Kaplansky doing a great rendition of one of his best.



I recently discovered that Martin Sexton lives right around the corner from my sister-in-law, which makes sense only if you assume that such miraculous bluesfolk and that perfect mellow weight-of-years voice are best honed in the middle of absolute nowhere, Massachusetts. Sexton started off in the early nineties as a Bostonian busker, where he sold 20,000 copies of his demo out of his guitar case, but despite being named artist of the year by the National Academy of Songwriters way back in 1994, and, more recently, having one of his songs featured on Scrubs, this incredible songwriter and guitarist with the multi-octave jazz-infused vocal style remains just under the radar.

Though my favorite tunes from him are light and airy as a Leo Kottke tune, despite his rural residence, Sexton can play it up funky and fast, too, with a catchy urban sensibility that's off the charts. And he's just incredible live. While we wait for his next album to go platinum, here's both sides of Martin: a delicate live version of Amazing Grace worthy of Jeff Buckley's dreamiest, and a bass-heavy high-production take on Billy Preston's infamous Will It Go Round In Circles. Plus a great Christmas tune, just for the hell of it.



It took me a while to get into the nasal, warbly, oddly Nordic vocal harmonies of local authors, folk teachers, and singer-songwriter duo Nerissa and Katryna Nields. But most people who like their unique sound really like their sound, and I can see why: the sisters, who first began playing Falcon Ridge years ago as part of folk rock group The Nields, write surprisingly poignant, deeply intelligent tunes about the weirdest subjects, and perform them with bouncy spunk and aplomb and a surprising tenderness. Plus, there's something about any sibling pair singing harmony that just melds perfectly. Here's a cover of and a cover by the Nields, the better to showcase both their songwriting and their performance. PS: Don't miss their kid's stage set.



Want in? Tickets for Falcon Ridge are available through the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival website; if you're camping, act soon, because four day camping passes invariably sell out a few weeks before the gates open. If you'd like to attend totally free, come volunteer* -- we're always looking for a few more folks willing to help out! A few hours of generally enjoyable teamwork each day gets you free music, free food throughout the festival, access to great camping spots, and that feeling that comes from being a part of something wonderful. Contact Volunteer Coordinator Barbara Jesse for more.

*Full Disclosure: I'm Teen Crew Chief at Falcon Ridge, in charge of our "officer's candidate school for future volunteers." If you see a guy with a walkie-talkie leading a bunch of kids in matching shirts around the festival grounds, come on over and say hi -- I'd love to meet you!


Today's bonus coversongs are a bit ragged, but I couldn't resist: they were recorded in 2005 at the annual Sunday morning Falcon Ridge Gospel Wake-up Call -- another of my favorite Falcon Ridge traditions -- and everyone who is singing here will be at this year's festival, as well. Add a warm and sunny summer morning, a great spot on the hill, and that feeling of community that can only come from having woken up in a field full of cool people you love, and you're practically there.