*** THE AUDIO OF THIS INTERVIEW HAS BEEN DELETED FROM SOUNDCLOUD DUE TO SPACE LIMITATIONS ***
*** THE AUDIO OF THIS INTERVIEW HAS BEEN DELETED FROM SOUNDCLOUD DUE TO SPACE LIMITATIONS ***
I suspect that ‘National Folk Festival’ may indeed be Old Norse for ‘’.
I started that sentence over two hours ago and got no further. Maybe it was the late-ish/actually not very late night the night before, or the fact the laptop battery was running down, or trying to construct barely intelligible English while half-listening to a bush poet’s doggerel, but the snappy gag I’d thought of early that morning would not leap back to mind.
Take II.
I suspect that ‘National Folk Festival’ may indeed be Old Norse for ‘permanent, insane grin’.
That’s not the original version, but it will do for now. Blogs, unlike magazine articles, are beautifully editable at a later, more inspired date.
Friday, Friday, Friday – what a wonderful day in the land of the National.
I did mean to mention the unseasonal weather. I’ve been at Nationals where the days have been baking, but as Queensland singer Lonnie Martin observed today, she’d be stood outside the Session Bar at 2am today, listening to a wonderful Irish session and having to remind herself, as she stood there in short sleeves that this was the National and yes, this was Canberra in mid-Autumn.
I never let adverse weather dampen my spirits (boom boom) at festivals, but fine, sunny weather does levitate the general mood and for the organisers, it does bring those half-inclined punters out of their warm Canberra homes at a time where they be more inclined to snuggle up to their Turbo 10s, and crack open the hot cross buns and truckloads of chocolate.
Screw that: kranskys and mulled wine all the way.
And bucket-loads of good music. Continue reading
Being something of an early waker (if not always an early riser), I’m taking the opportunity to put these golden* hours to good use and get a head start on recording my observations of the 2012 National Folk Festival.
* Actually, at roughly 6.30am on Good Friday, golden is something of a misnomer. It’s brilliant pinks and reds as the sun bursts into life. My only regret is that the floor to ceiling glass panoramic view of the old Volunteer’s Kitchen is all looked up – this year it’s a workshop and singing space again, which is lovely for the work-shoppers and singers, but sad to not have it available at dawn. It felt to be a volunteer in the past couple of years when you could start your day like that.
Yesterday was yet another new experience on settling into a festival. The plan had been to set up on site on Wednesday night then contaminate the start of the festival with a day’s work for the country off-site, but plans changed and I ended up racing in at 7am on Holy Thursday, bussing into town and bussing back in the mid-afternoon.
The change to the site in just those seven or so hours was palpable. Un-built or half-built structures were up. Scant green spaces were now a mess of tents and campers. And of course, the social media feeds were a-buzz with more and more arrivals from far-flung places like Brisbane, Melbourne and West Belconnen. Continue reading
#31 Watching the passing parade at Illawarra
First published in Trad and Now magazine, January 2012
There’s an old saying that goes, ‘If you sit in one spot at a festival, eventually the whole festival will pass you by’.
This is especially handy for making unplanned musical discoveries and for finding lost friends if (heaven forbid) you can’t hunt them down by mobile phone.
(I’m still working on a device that turns everyone’s mobile phone off or to silent as soon as they’re within 100m of a festival. Patent pending.)
As I found at my sixth Illawarra Folk Festival (their 27th), sitting in one place is also a great source of inspiration when you want to get material for an article. Continue reading
#30 Overheard at Kangaroo Valley Folk Festival 2011
First published in Trad and Now magazine, November 2011
There’s something deeply satisfying about dragging yourself out of a festival precinct in the early hours of a Monday morning, feeling tired, happy, slightly unsteady on one’s legs, buzzing with a head full of pleasant memories, and with CDs spilling out of the glove-box.
So it was in October, as Kangaroo Valley put the lid back on a very fine vintage. Well, not so much ‘vintage’. It’s not so much a matured taste, but more a cheeky, young and slightly adventurous drop.
At the risk of repeating this column from 12 months ago, KVFF just keeps getting better and better.
#29 Turn, Wave, Repeat to fade
First published in Trad and Now magazine, October 2011
Let’s get one thing clear first, to ensure plenty of web search hits hit and many related links link: The Turning Wave Festival 2011, the festival of Irish and Australian music, dance, song, spoken word and related arts.
Gundagai, New South Wales, Australia. Wednesday 14 to Sunday 18 September 2011.
There. That gets that sorted, and we’ll return to the central theme and subject shortly.
But first it’s time to re-visit a very familiar theme from this column, this pseudo-folkie, and this quill and ink.
That last one is not rhyming slang.
The first (unofficial) festival of the (unofficial) NSW folk season is a much-anticipated and eagerly-awaited thing of beauty and joy to behold. Continue reading
#27 Kids in Folk III – Nissa
First published in Trad and Now magazine, August 2011
As previously mentioned, it cheers this little heart to see and hear the youff of today making music. And all the more so when it’s folk, or folk-related, or in the ballpark or within striking distance of the more popular folk postcodes.
I’ve had some interesting discussions with people who are getting towards the upper end of the age spectrum, and there seems to be a divergence in attitudes to how much and what sort of encouragement the young folk should be afforded.
That sounds a bit weird. Allow me to elaborate. Continue reading
#26 Overheard at the National Folk Festival 2011
First published in Trad and Now magazine, May 2011
From the get-go, I need to make a fairly major disclaimer: I have been deeply in love with the National Folk Festival for six years, and that devotion and affection shows no sign of letting up.
Admittedly, it’s a tricky romance and only six years in, I’m still a novice.
And to be fair, she doesn’t always love me back. Love’s not the only emotion (nor association) that beats you up.
And yet I’m always there since 2005.
I used to say that Exhibition Park in Canberra at Easter is the only time I can reliably say with any sort of certainty where I’ll be from year to year.
#25 “Thanks! You’ve been a wonderful audience. Goodnight!”
First published in Trad and Now magazine, April 2011
Late last year, I witnessed a reasonably unsavoury moment in crowd behaviour at a folk gig. Countrified folk. Folkified country.
No, the genre labelling wasn’t the unsavoury bit. It was the mix of ‘crowd there for music’ vs ‘crowd there for tipping several vats of beer and/or pre-mixed drinks down their throats before collapsing somewhere outside the venue’.
Which got me to thinking about the whole performer/crowd interaction cocktail (no pun intended), and how that affects a performer’s mojo on stage.
Myriad questions sprang to mind, and I planned to pose them to those best-equipped to answer them.
Months later, and with deadline looming, I threw a vague question to the four winds (ok, Facebook) one Sunday night and got a whole heap of responses. So I’ll can the investigative essay for now and just give you some responses, because they’re many, varied and some quite entertaining. Continue reading
Overheard Productions 