Folk, yeah!

November 10th 2006 by E..

There’s someone playing the piano, and in a distant room, folk DJ’s from the Northeastern United States are showing off up-and-comers to each other…And they said folk music was dead…

Only a few hours into my first visit to the conference of the NorthEast Regional Folk Alliance (NERFA), I have seen several familiar faces, mostly musicians, but there are a few otehrs that I know…watching the artists perform makes me think a lot about music and what it means to me, as well as what it means to them…

In a sense, folk music will never really die, but that’s not necessarily a good thing…not because the music has grown outdated and just won’t go away, but the events and actions that lead to the writing of a protest song or ballad keep on happening…I just met a fella named James Durst, a singer-songwriter who is part of the project Work O’ The Weavers, who sang a song about the countries of the world running together and forming new countries…in the beginning, it was just a bunch of silly-sounding mash-ups of names of cities and countries (Califor-egon), until it became a commentary about how in a world where everyone got along, they wouldn’t need songs like this one…and it’s true…as long as there is inequality, war, injustice and evil, there will be folk music speaking out against it…

With all that aside, there are still plenty of musicians who decide to take the high road and sing about historical events or simply tell pretty stories in their songs, rather than go for the topical…these can be very creative and interesting, but for the most part, the songs follow a pretty bland formula: Take light fingerpicking and add a man with a thick (possibly Irish or Canadian) accent and have him sing about someone who’s lost and gone away…maybe throw in a child or lover with silver jewelry (more likely than not, either the kid or the girl will be named Molly)…now, I’m not saying that folk music all sounds the same, but that after a while, I get slightly jaded by all of the imagery that has been used time after time…it’s that sort of discerning ear that keeps me from liking every artist or song that I hear, something that many people I know lack the ability to do (not necessarily in regards to folk music, just to music in general)…if something’s been done a bazillion times, I’m usually not impressed with the person who does it for the bazillion and first time, even if the artist is genuinely talented…What I’m saying is, try your best to come up with something new, and if you can’t, then try harder…

I’m really looking forward to this weekend, since there will not only be a lot of talented people, but many different kinds of herring, apparently…I’ll talk about how weird this place is after I can gather a few more specific examples…just give me time; you won’t be disappointed…

G.U

Lyric of the Time:
And I’ve seen you in the corners, and the cafés it seems
Red hair and black leather, my favourite colour schemes
And he pulled around behind and off to Box Hill they did ride

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