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I am not getting any real work done, so I might as well write a post. Here is the second half of my folk festival ramblings!

Saturday & Sunday: Workshops

The awesome thing about the weekends at the Calgary Folk Music Festival is that the daytimes - 10:30 in the morning until 5:30 when the mainstage starts - are all workshops and smaller concerts, and the workshops are where so much of the magic of this festival lies. They throw together two or three groups, who have probably never even seen each other before, let alone played together, and let them go for an hour. The stuff that comes out of these stages … man, you have no idea. Here’s what I took in on Saturday:

Machinations & Palindromes
Andrew Bird, Master Musicians of Jajouka, A Hawk & A Hacksaw

Wicked and Weird
The Weakerthans, Calexico, Handsome Family, Torngat

Shout, Sisters, Shout!
Woodpigeon, Basia Bulat, The Consonant C, Julie Doiron

Sweetly Undone
Calexico, Bill Callahan, A Hawk & A Hacksaw, Andrew Bird

A Brief History of Rhyme
Wendy McNeill, Josh Ritter, Woodpigeon, Trish Klein (Be Good Tanyas)

as well as a concert by the Handsome Family.

Things I learned: Andrew Bird is a great collaborator with anyone, and so are Calexico (that horn section! that lap steel!); John K. Samson (Weakerthans) and Joey Burns (Calexico) should always sing together; Basia Bulat covering “Thirty Days” is one of the best things to happen to workshops, especially with a backing band of about fifteen people; Bill Callahan sings about blood a lot; and the Handsome Family write really sad songs about milk.

The workshops, in short, were awesome.

Sunday

OK, by Sunday I was exhausted. Saturday ends at 11:30 and you are back at the park at something like 8:30 to get a spot, so everyone is a bit sluggish in the morning. However, the workshops got people on their feet pretty quickly. Here’s what I got to see:

Indie 500
Basia Bulat, Great Lake Swimmers, Julie Doiron, Sam Parton (Be Good Tanyas)

3 Altered Chords & The Truth
The Duhks, Joël Fafard, John Wort Hannam, Diana Jones

That Ain’t No A Flat Major!
Maryem Tollar & The Toronto Cairo Collective, A Hawk & A Hacksaw, Düvö

Blue Blue Grass of Home
Tim O’Brien, The Duhks, Sparrow Quartet, Craig Korth (Widow Maker)

as well as concerts by Julie Doiron and Basia Bulat.

I think “That Ain’t No A Flat Major” takes the cake for one of the best workshops I’ve seen at the folk festival. To give you a bit of background, Düvö is from Hungary, and they play Hungarian folk music (complete with fiddles, hammer dulcimer, etc). A Hawk & A Hacksaw, interestingly, is from Alberquerque but based in Hungary - when they said “We’re going to play a Hungarian czardas for you,” all the members of Düvö cheered and roared and joined in. CLASSIC. Maryem Tollar is the one behind the theme song to Little Mosque on the Prairie, for all you Canadians, and she and her band are originally from Egypt. You can imagine how awesome that sounded. It was terrific, and there was this tiny two- or three-year-old girl running around and dancing the whole time, which just made it better.

MAINSTAGE

To be quite honest I don’t want to spend an hour talking about all these acts because it is going to sound repetitive, so here is the short version!

Josh Ritter - I knew his stuff already from The Animal Years, and I was thrilled he played so many songs from that record; he was incredibly joyful AND he stopped a rainstorm (only to have it start again after he left the stage, unfortunately).

The Duhks - Amazing. They fuse Celtic-type stuff with folk and rock and all kinds of things, and out comes a really energetic live show. Their vocalist can really belt it out! Well worth checking out, and definitely one of my favourite festival discoveries.

A Hawk & A Hacksaw - I mentioned them already, of course, but they were great. I think some of the crowd were surprised to see an instrumental band, because there were a few bewildered faces in the audience, but they were really incredible, and once they started playing some blistering fiddle tunes everyone was dancing anyway. Bonus points for the indie kids as Jeremy Barnes used to be the drummer for Neutral Milk Hotel.

James Blood Ulmer - Serious, gritty blues, backed by soul vocalist and bass player Meshell Ndegeocello. He was good and fun and really grooved well, but I guess I just wasn’t totally into his set. He plays his guitar in a pretty interesting way! Great voice though, holy. Very dirty-blues.

The Men They Couldn’t Hang - Hands down one of my favourite acts of the festival. Slightly aging folk-punk musicians from across the pond, rousing everybody with rather Pogues-like tunes, these guys were a total blast. It also didn’t hurt that everything was delivered in heavy Scottish or English accents, only adding to the fun. They sold out of their records in a flash - I didn’t get to pick one up, but if I do find one, I will post something here for your enjoyment!

Blue Rodeo - Can I just say, I love Jim Cuddy. And the rest of Blue Rodeo, too, but I just think Cuddy is like a really cool uncle who would play your favourite songs on his guitar and let you sit on his knee and take you out for ice cream when your parents weren’t around. I like that guy. Anyway, I am so glad we didn’t succumb to the rain and miss Blue Rodeo - they were amazing. Hit after hit! “Til I Am Myself Again,” “Five Days in May,” “C’mon” etc. One of my favourite live acts and one that I would love to see again and again.

Sonny Landreth - Another really great blues player, but one that I was more into. I loved this guy. Serious chops and serious feel. He reminded me a bit of Jack Semple, but I think I liked Landreth’s playing a lot more. He got a bunch of people dancing, always testament to how well you are doing at a festival.

Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet - Featuring Bela Fleck of the Flecktones, who were Festival performers last year. These guys were amazing. Washburn, a beautiful Southern belle, has spent some time living in China, and consequently is fluent in Mandarin. She sang some Mandarin tunes for us and it is so mind-boggling to see this very fair, red-haired, Tennessee lady singing Chinese folk songs. I was thoroughly impressed. Not to mention her and Bela Fleck’s blistering banjo over everything - Fleck performed a tune by himself, as well, and it sounded like there were two or three banjos playing at once. What a guy. Add this to my favourites list.

It was starting to rain again after their set, so we took off and missed Conor Oberst & the Mystic Valley Band and Ani DiFranco, although to tell you the truth I don’t think any of us were too disappointed.

And of course, Festival Mini-Sampler Pt. 2:

Basia Bulat - In the Night
Josh Ritter - Wolves
Blue Rodeo - C’mon
Julie Doiron - Swan Pond

Tags: a hawk and a hacksaw, abigail washburn, andrew bird, basia bulat, bela fleck, bill callahan, blue rodeo, calexico, calgary folk music festival, handsome family, james blood ulmer, josh ritter, julie doiron, master musicians of jajouka, sonny landreth, sparrow quartet, the consonant c, the duhks, the men they couldn't hang, the weakerthans, torngat, woodpigeon

One of the most excellent things about Toronto music festivals is the abundance of in-store performances you can catch, both by local bands and visiting ones, completely for free. I dropped in on a few of them last week - braving the awful snowstorm - and here we are.

The first was at Soundscapes, a little independent record store in Little Italy with a great deal of emphasis on homegrown talent. In between buying the latest and greatest albums to hit the shelves, we witnessed a short but wonderful set by Toronto’s own Laura Barrett, mistress of the kalimba and brand-new signee to Paper Bag Records (staff were playing fellow labelmates The Acorn before her set, but I can’t tell whether that was a coincidence or not).

Since self-releasing her EP Earth Sciences back in 2005, Barrett has seen the recent release of a second EP, Ursula, as well as the reissue of Earth Sciences on Paper Bag late last year, and is at work on a full-length. Her set was, as usual, completely charming and extraordinarily well executed; she’s the newest one-woman band, at one point playing the kazoo, kalimba, and MIDI-controller bass foot pedals at the same time (and, of course, never missing a beat). We were treated to a handful of newer songs from the second EP and the upcoming album, as well as a few old favourites like “Robot Ponies” and “Stop Giving Your Children Standardized Tests”. She’s always sunny and charming, and remarkably good at keeping the audience’s attention, directing lines of the songs at audience members and generally being a great time to watch. It’s always a pleasure to catch one of her sets.

Afterward, I made it to Criminal Records (”legal music and swag”) on Queen West for an East Coast instore showcase. Because of the aforementioned snowstorm, and a late start at Soundscapes, I missed the first band - former Eric’s Trip bassist Julie Doiron’s new outfit Calm Down It’s Monday, formerly Blue Heeler, with Dick Morello - but we did catch her solo set later, which was delectable, featuring some work from her latest album Woke Myself Up (notably “Dark Horse,” which I love). I did, however, arrive in time to see - in the words of the Meligrove Band’s Mike Small - “the cutest band ever”: Halifax duo The Superfantastics. They’ve just come off a mini-tour with Laura Barrett, and they were well matched; self-described as “the Alex P. Keaton of the indie pop scene,” they are absolutely adorable, extremely talented, and make incredibly enjoyable music. Their songwriting is catchy and despite being only two people, their sound is remarkably full and engaging. They are currently touring with Julie Doiron promoting their newest EP Choose Your Destination, a follow-up to their full-length album Pop-Up Book. They’ll be playing in Calgary as part of Junofest at the beginning of April.

Closing band Dog Day, once described by Sloan’s Chris Murphy as “the ABBA of Canada” (referring to the two married couples who make up the band), ended the afternoon with an excellently delivered set of energetic pop-rock, although their stage presence left a little to be desired compared to the bouncy Matt MacDonald of the Superfantastics. Still, their performance was tight, supported by excellent work on the bass by Nancy Urich, and upheld the remarkable reputation that the Halifax-centric East Coast scene has earned for excellent pop and rock bands since the original Pop Explosion. They are touring extensively to support their new full-length, Night Group, which has earned them a great deal of positive press (for good reason; the songs are magnificent).

And all that for free! What’s not to love?

Coming up: reviews of School of Language,  the I Spies, Jason Collett, and the Mountain Goats! Stay tuned!

Tags: calm down it's monday, canadian music week, criminal records, dog day, instores, julie doiron, laura barrett, soundscapes, the superfantastics