Festivals

A Punter’s Perspective 30 – Overheard at Kangaroo Valley Folk Festival 2011

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Randall Sinnamon and friends, Kangaroo Valley Folk Festival, 2011
Randall Sinnamon and friends, Kangaroo Valley Folk Festival, 2011

A Punter’s Perspective

Random observations on the wide, weird world of folk from the side of the stage

#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.

Wheeze and Suck Band. Tired and shagged out after a long squawk.
Wheeze and Suck Band. Tired and shagged out after a long squawk.

Continue reading →

A Punter’s Perspective 29 — Turn, wave, repeat to fade

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The Turning Wave Festival, Gundagai 2011
The Turning Wave Festival, Gundagai 2011

A Punter’s Perspective

Random observations on the wide, weird world of folk from the side of the stage

#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 →

A Punter’s Perspective 26 — Overheard at the National Folk Festival 2011

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National Folk Festival 2011
National Folk Festival 2011

A Punter’s Perspective

Random observations on the wide, weird world of folk from the side of the stage

#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.

Continue reading →

A Punter’s Perspective 22 — Festival Withdrawal Syndrome

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A Punter’s Perspective

Random observations on the wide, weird world of folk from the side of the stage

#22 Festival Withdrawal Syndrome
First published in Trad and Now magazine, October 2010

Q. What do air and folk have in common?

A. You never notice either that much – unless you’re not getting any.

OK, that’s a twist on an old joke, but this is a family publication.

I still contend that if you’re not getting any of either (or the other), the gasping and longing soon kicks in.

For various reasons, I’ve withdrawn from many folk-related activities for the latter half of this calendar year. And like quitting smoking or taking a month off the grog, I’m gagging for a puff or a dram of my favourite art form.

(Kids, don’t smoke.)

I know it’s around, it’s happening, and people are getting their fair share, but it’s on the back-burner for this little black duck until Illawarra in January 2011.

Abstinence does makes the heart grow fonder, and the pulse beat quicker, though.

I think the hardest part of keeping away is being hooked into social networking sites online with several hundred folkies. Watching your friends and acquaintances counting down to, travelling to, enjoying, and then reminiscing about this or that festival is a tough ask.

Especially when there are so many online albums full of photos that evoke familiar sights and sounds, recall favourite haunts, or illuminate new venues, performers and crowds. Continue reading →

A Punter’s Perspective 21 — Overheard at the National Folk Festival 2010

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Overheard at the National Folk Festival 2010
Overheard at the National Folk Festival 2010

A Punter’s Perspective

Random observations on the wide, weird world of folk from the side of the stage

#21 Overheard at the National Folk Festival 2010
First published in Trad and Now magazine, May 2010

Over the years, I’ve ambitiously set out to encapsulate a festival in 1400 words, but lately the first paragraph will usually include a disclaimer which states that to even attempt such a feat is ambitious at best.

So I’ll leave others to give their impressions of the performances and the event in general.

But as a keen observer and collector of minutiae, off-the-cuff comments and anecdotes, I’ve thrown together an assortment of quirky bits and pieces from the Easter long weekend in Canberra.

***** Continue reading →

A Punter’s Perspective 18 — Tuross Music Festival 2009

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Tuross Music Festival the first
Tuross Music Festival the first

A Punter’s Perspective

Random observations on the wide, weird world of folk from the side of the stage

#18 Tuross Music Festival 2009
First published in Trad and Now magazine, October 2009

While it’s been my pleasure over the years to attend the 20th of this festival, the 30th of that festival and the 40th of the other festival, it’s always nice to be there at the birth of one.

It was in these very pages of Trad and Now a few months ago that I read of a new festival cranking up in my second home, the quite stunning not-so-little hamlet of Tuross Head on the south coast of NSW. The festival had its inaugural outing on the second weekend in August, amid enjoyably warm and settled conditions.

Sandwiched between the jazzy township of Moruya and the blues stronghold of Narooma, it seemed a natural location to turn some new musical sods (er, no offence intended) with no particular labels or genres catered for specifically, save for an intentional focus on youth performances.

Festival director Ian Traynor has been very active in the Tuross Head community for many years, and also bobs up at many NSW folk festivals, most noticeably as a bush poet and MC. Ian laid the tools of his accountancy trade to one side for the weekend, which started as a birthday party on steroids and developed into a festival spread over multiple venues. Continue reading →

A Punter’s Perspective 09 — After the Party (NFF 2008)

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National 2011469A Punter’s Perspective
Random observations on the wide, weird world of folk from the side of the stage

#9 After the Party (National Folk Festival 2008)
First published in Trad and Now magazine, April 2008

By Bill Quinn

After the band has played ‘Waltzing Matilda’
They’ve torn down the streamers
And left you alone
And the carpark’s deserted
And the weeds they’re growing
I’m still here
I still love you
Come on; I’ll take you home.

From ‘After the Party’, from the album “Etched in Blue” (1987).

Reprinted with kind permission of John Schumann

I’ve always thought that some of the truest words are said in jest, or at least with little thought. Some of these utterances unexpectedly reveal the deepest meaning, and illuminate the most clichéd and the most banal of banal sayings.

On topic, and ‘front-brain’ for this punter ever since the 2008 National Folk Festival, is the often repeated claim that musos, organisers, volunteers and punters ‘grieve’ when a festival closes.

‘Are you OK?’
‘Yeah, just in mourning for the [insert name of latest festival].’

Sometimes they really do die a little inside as the tents come down and the sound gear packs up.

It sounds a touch melodramatic, but this proposition has been validated by some light investigation, and by comments solicited from a selection of festival-goers, not just at the National. Continue reading →

A Punter’s Perspective 04 — National Folk Festival 2007

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IMG00924-20100401-1644A Punter’s Perspective
Random observations on the weird world of folk from the side of the stage

#4 National Folk Festival 2007
First published in Trad and Now magazine, June 2007

 

By Bill Quinn

The 2007 National Folk Festival is by now but a handful of dim, fuzzy, yet pleasant memories on the rear horizon. Before the festivals themes of Western Australia, water and the Middle East fade completely away, here are a few observations on some of the talent and goings on in Canberra over April.

Lessons learnt from the Easter weekend at EPIC: the Canberra Contra Club did not receive arms (or any other body parts) from the US Government in the mid-1980s. The Lawnmowers are not available for freelance landscaping jobs. Madviolet did not take their name from an aggressive (and since discontinued) Dulux paint chart. But it is true: the Jinju Wishu Academy were approached for next year’s Tamworth Country Music Festival – until Academy members quietly explained they are in fact ‘lion dancers’.

The Western Australians were in town in greater numbers than usual, and hopefully those present took the time to meet, greet and hear from a bunch of singers, songwriters and musicians that might not ordinarily make it to the east.

Simon Fox (from WA via Vancouver) treated audiences to a stack of his original tunes, including one that nearly got him evicted from his apartment during the creative process. He’d practised the bluegrass licks so many times that his neighbour above was going quite spare.

Simon claimed it was revenge for his having to listen to his country and western neighbour incessantly banging his foot on his floor (Simon’s ceiling) in time to his own brand of music. The audience burst into applause at the end of Simon’s tune: ‘Yeah, you like it, but you didn’t have to listen to it for hours in a row!’ Continue reading →

A Punter’s Perspective 01 — From a punter’s perspective

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The author
The author

A Punter’s Perspective
First published in Trad and Now magazine

#1 From a punter’s perspective
First published in Trad and Now magazine, December 2006

 

Bill Quinn

The world of folk boasts a limitless supply of people whose breadth and depth of knowledge of their craft and art is simply breath-taking. Their technical knowledge is detailed, their repertoires seemingly endless. Some folklorists have researched, collected and interpreted material for decades, their own lives becoming living folk legends of themselves. Traditional and contemporary artists encapsulate decades and centuries of history in a few short verses or stanzas.

But then there be folk like the author: the punters. We’re the people who hang around the back of session bars in dumb-struck awe (“Awww!”). We watch musicians on stage and can’t work out how they tune an instrument and breathe at the same time, much less engage an audience in simultaneous banter. And as for the seamless transition between fiddle, guitar, bodhran and tin whistle – did those people start learning their trade in the womb?!

We don’t know our jigs from our reels or our airs from our graces. We think an autoharp is Dublin’s car club, that a bouzouki is something immediately followed by ‘bless you’, and that lute is something you get paid if you manage to shift a few CDs.

But we attend festivals, buy the music, wear the t-shirts, sniff out the folk clubs, find when acts are playing in the mainstream world, and even surf off into cyberspace to broaden our folky horizons. We occasionally pluck up (pun intended) the courage to blunder up to musicians at an appropriate time and place (i.e. the middle of the campground – Hi, Geraldine!) to tell them their work has moved or touched us in some way or inspired us or had some profound, life-changing effect.

We don’t necessarily know good folk, but we know what we like. Sometimes we even struggle to spell it proper: hey, if it rhymes with ‘joke’… Continue reading →