Last weekend was the Calgary Folk Music Festival. I went last year on the advice of Ashley and Turner and just as they hinted it was best weekend in town. This year was great as well, even if the weather wasn’t quite as balmy as last time. Sure we had sun, but there was also rain, hail and the closest I’ve ever been to a lightening strike.
Before
After
Much like last year the real joy of the festival was catching bands and sounds I had never heard before. As well as individual concerts people collaborate on the workshop stages. These put 3 or 4 bands together on stage and they play their own songs and maybe jam a bit together. Some are a lot more collaborative than others but the very final one I saw was just stupendous. It teamed a band from Belgium called Jaune Toujours who I’m calling ‘gypsy-punk’ (all accordians and clarinets, trumpets etc) with a traditional Hungarian group called Duvo (fiddlers, bass player and a dude hammering away on the dulcimer). The final part of the musical melange was the extraordinary hip-hop stylings of Socalled: straight outta Montreal mashing up rap, klezmer and traditional jewish rhythms (look for him on the iTunes iMix Hip to be Heeb)
I turned up just after the show got under way but things were already in full swing. The Calgary folk festival is very much a sitting down kind of a festival but here most folks were on their feet and jumping around madly. It was hard to know whose song was playing. The Belgians would start a rhythm, the Hungarian fiddlers would pick it up and then Socalled would come in rapping over the top! It was absolutely amazing and reached a peak at the final number. Socalled introduced a song of his called “These are the good old days” and soon everybody was dancing and singing along. When the time was up (they were hard on the timings here) he waved to the crowd and walked off. However the singer/accordianist from Jaune Toujours didn’t want to stop. He took over the singing and the fiddlers kept fiddling, the crowd kept dancing and after a minute or so Socalled came back on stage. Picking up the clock off the floor that showed when they had to get off he gave an embarrassed shrug and the poor stage manager reluctantly indicated they could have 3 minutes more and so the party continued. It was one of those moments that I really didn’t want to stop.
Other highlights included rock and rollers, Los Straightjackets in their suits and Mexican wrestling masks
I also loved the old timey sounds of the Carolina Chocolate Drops (love any band with a bloke blowing into a jug). Most of their music was traditional Appalachian material but they also did a wicked cover of Hit ‘em Up Style by Blu Cantrell!
Probably the best thing I saw however was a guitarist from Saskatchewan called Joel Fafard. He played acoustic guitar unaccompanied but it sounded like there were 2 or 3 folks playing with him. That was some fancy picking!
I have to say I was so inspired that I got home on Saturday night and went straight onto eBay. I’d tried to learn the guitar as a teenager with very little success. Trouble was I found it absolute agony to make the chords so I gave up wondering how anyone did it. A few years later I realised that I cannot turn my left arm palm upwards which explained the agony. I suppose I could have learned to play left handed but the spirit never moved me. However in the last couple of years as I’ve got more into folk and country I’ve dreamed of learning the pedal style or least the lap guitar. And now I’m going to! When I got back from the folk fest and onto eBay I found a dude in Maryland selling a lap steel guitar plus instructional booklet! I’m now eagerly awaiting it’s delivery.
So if anyone at home plays the fiddle, the spoons or knows how to blow into a jug, get your people onto my people.
