Here’s a short clip from our interview with Alynda and Yosi of Hurray for the Riff Raff in New Orleans on Day of the Dead 2011. As we comb through all the footage we’ve collected over the past couple years, some of the quotes are really sticking out and it feels like they deserve some isolated attention - so we’ll be posting them here from time to time.
Alynda’s thoughts on making old folk music your own, whether the original music is “for you” or not, echos a theme in the discussion of the folk ethos often hit upon by academics, lovers of the music, Pete Seeger - anyone who believes in the power of passing down song and finding connection to others who came before.
We hung out and filmed a couple songs with Saintseneca in Columbus, Ohio in early August 2012. Here’s “Only the Young Die Good” with Maryn and Zac. Advice: We recommend a crackling fire as accompaniment to this recording, even in the middle of the summer. Feelings.
We filmed Esme, Genny and Sarah from Paper Bird on our last Sunday morning in Denver, right next to the weekly downtown farmer’s market, surrounded by sunflowers, barking dogs and value packs of homemade spinach tortillas that lasted us through our time in the desert.
Here’s the barely touched, incredibly beautiful recording and video from our time with them. If you like this, check out the original version (and their other albums entirely) with horns and strings and all their usual accompaniment, as the band normally has about 6 or 7 people playing in total.
If you missed it, they recently collaborated with the Ballet Nouveau Colorado, recorded and released as their newest album, “Carry On.” We also have some quotes from them on the importance of creative challenges, and working across borders in the Denver arts scene to grow communities in this previous post.
We first met Dan in Allston, where he played amazing sea shanties and enchanted old timey folk at the Allston Hoots during their heyday. At the moment, Dan’s in Chicago, painting and working on an awesome video album.
We’ll have more on our encounter with Dan later but in the meanwhile, he was kind enough to share some of his storied knowledge of the folk music that inspires him, from prison songs to old time Irish folk. Check out this rad Spitzer Space Telescope curated playlist of folk gems from the YouTube vaults.
i’ve been everywhere, man i’ve been everywhere, man crossed the deserts bare, man i’ve breathed the mountain air, man of travel i’ve had my share, man i’ve been everywhere
"I still think of those guys as folk musicians,” says Valentine, who discerns no apparent contradiction between what you might see as avant-garde and what he might see as folk. “Sun Ra could sit down at a piano and play; with La Monte Young it was maybe tamboras. To me I think of folk music as an acoustic-based thing, where you can tell a story with the most basic instrumentation. And I think that’s where we are coming from. You can get the flavor of what is going on pretty quickly."
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Excerpt from the Boston Phoenix’s feature on MV & EE, their new album out on Woodsist (rapidly becoming my most favorite label and collection of artists and ideas) and tour. Psych-folk troubadours keep on truckin’.
As we’ve traveled around, broadened the horizon of what we’re looking into when we say “folk” and the gathered voices of musicians, space owners and DIY organizers, the definition remains (and is continuously getting) even more elusive - but we’ve become more okay with that. Folk music, the music of the people, three chords and the truth… whatever you refer to it as, it’s your definition, and folk means people so it should be up to people to decide. Right now, I dig this description. Later today, it might not seem quite right. But the ethos will still be there. Wherever people come together to express themselves in a very basic, approachable way that encourages involvement and inclusion, that’s folk.
Here are some photos of Newport Folk 2012! It was a great weekend - we got to film a performance and speak to Brown Bird, one of our favorite folk acts at the festival, in the fort ruins. We also finally met a red-overall clad Jonah Tolchin as he busked between Tom Morello and Conor Oberst’s sets and drew in a crowd of about 60 passerbys in a matter of seconds. We’re looking forward to editing those segments soon, but in the meanwhile, enjoy these shots and a couple recordings we snagged during the folkin’!
Last summer, we interviewed some musicians touring through town. In October, we interviewed some musicians in the southeast. In March, we reached out to all you wonderful people and raised some funds via Kickstarter. In July, we threw a show in Allston with some of our favorite bands.
Now, we’re loading our gear into Bertha “the Caravan” Camry and going west to see how folk is doing in DIY communities other than our own.
Here is the first half of our itinerary:
8/1 - Buffalo, NY
8/3 - Columbus, OH
8/5 - Bloomington, IN
8/7 - Chicago, IL
8/10 - Denver, CO
The rest is TBA but we’ll be announcing it shortly.
If you or anyone you know is in any of those areas, please come say hi! We’d love to meet you.
We’d also love to meet anyone who plays folk, organizes DIY shows of any kind, runs a record label, a pirate radio station, a zine distro, a vegan pizzeria, anything! We have our skeletal stops planned out but we more than welcome your input.
For updates, follow @folktofolk on Twitter, as well as @punkalunka, @a_far_land, and @wolf_hour on Instagram.
Our buds Mornin’ Old Sport just dropped a most wonderful album. Check out this preview song, available for free on their bandcamp!
One rainy day last summer, we filmed these guys playing in a Boston alley. Since then, they’ve left us for Oakland where they recorded these swank tunes, and we couldn’t be happier for them. We’ll be even happier when they roll back through Boston for Allston DIY Fest (July 21) and a show at the Whitehaus (July 20).
If you’re in town, we hope to see you there. In the meanwhile, preview some more songs on their soundcloud, and grab a copy of the album on iTunes.
Folk to Folk is an independent documentary project exploring how the inclusive spirit of folk music helps build communities and creates accessible, participatory spaces across America today. Through a combination of words, photography, audio recording, video, and online media, we've set out to explore different scenes across the country.
We want to share what folk means to those who keep it alive, revive and reclaim it to fit their own personal and communal definitions. Genre classifications are always problematic, especially since disparate influences are everywhere. Some perceive similar values we've seen in folk music to be present in hip hop and punk scenes, and who are we to disagree? We’re simply using folk instrumentation as an organizational thread to follow, looking where the spirit has continued to meet the sound throughout history.
Although there is always an element of nostalgia inherit in the terminology folk, there is something new happening here. This is not a revival of the sixties. Contemporary folk communities don’t deify Dylan-esque figures, they encourage a polyphony of voices. Shows are often horizontally organized on the internet, using a network of donation-based all-ages DIY spaces. Vulnerable songwriting and passionate performance strip away the veneer of untouchable hyper-ironic cool that has made a lot of popular music so alienating. Folk music is being used as a tool to connect people with people and empower rather than just entertain.
Take a look at some of the voices, both sung and spoken, that we’ve gathered so far. Please get in touch with thoughts, ideas or recommendations for this project at folktofolk@gmail.com . We value all participation and interaction.
