Cover Lay Down

An interesting challenge faces us this evening: my annual bout of virulent bronchitis has left me partially deaf, and the world is muffled, as if I was now living my life completely underwater. As if that wasn’t bad enough, one of the side effects of the added sinus pressure has been a significant increase in volume in what was already a relatively permanent ringing in my right ear, which I can now identify as a piercingly high-pitched C#.

Listening to music in this state is abhorrent. Midranges turn to mud; high tones struggle to out themselves, grating against the tinnitus ring. My own breathing echoes in my skull like crowd noise; my swallows pop like a scratch in the record. And without the ability to trust my own ear, I cannot in good conscience stand before you to recommend anything new, or even trust my ability to accurately describe the experience of a particular song or songwriter.

A topic mix, then, with little fanfare: a broad set of folk and folk-tinged coversongs on the subject of silence, and the struggle to hear and be heard, which I have collected over the years. I trust these songs because I have banked them away against just such an inevitability, choosing these over a plethora of other topical possibilities, but other than the fact that they are good and relevant coverfolk, I’ll be damned if I can tell you why each one made the original playlist. I guess the best I can say here is that I believe my older, listening self to be a reasonable judge of musicianship and interpretation. As such, I pass along these songs with his blessing.

• Pat MacDonald: Enjoy The Silence (orig. Depeche Mode)
  (from Strange Love: PM does DM, 2003)
• Crooked Still: Can’t You Hear Me Callin’ (orig. Bill Monroe)
  (from Shaken by a Low Sound, 2006)
• John Denver: What’s That I Hear? (orig. Phil Ochs)
  (from John Denver Sings, 1964)
• Karen Savoca: No More Songs (orig. Phil Ochs)
  (from What’s That I Hear: The Songs of Phil Ochs, 1998)
• Emiliana Torrini: Sound of Silence (orig. Simon and Garfunkel)
  (from Icelandic covers compilation Stone Free, 1996)
  [Link removed due to hotlinking -- please don't abuse bandwidth!]
• Lisa Ekdahl: It’s Oh So Quiet (pop. Bjork; orig. Betty Hutton)
  (from Heaven, Earth and Beyond, 2002)
• Shelby Lynne: I Don’t Want To Hear It Anymore (orig. Dusty Springfield)
  (from Just a Little Lovin’, 2007)
• Odetta: Listening to Old Voices (orig. John Hiatt)
  (from Rollin’ Into Memphis: The Songs of John Hiatt, 2000)
• Pete Seeger: Beans in my Ears (orig. Len Chandler)
  (from Dangerous Songs!?, 1966)
• Elizabeth Mitchell: If You Listen (orig. Francoise Hardy)
  (from You Are My Little Bird, 2006)

Cover Lay Down posts new coverfolk features Wednesdays, Sundays, and the occasional otherday. Y’all come back now, hear?

Throwing a multi-venue music festival in the dead of a finally frigid New England winter may seem a bit anomalous, especially so soon after the streets have been swept clean of the detritus of First Night celebrations. But music has always been a way to drive away the chill. And with the weather slowing touring schedules for many local musicians, winter can also bring a high concentration of well-rested musicians back home to roost, just waiting for a catalyst to celebrate.

At its best, then, heading out to see local live music this time of year becomes a kind of liminal activity, creating community space in opposition to the isolating cold. Instead of just watching, we gather together to radiate and reinforce our own heat, joining our own hometown musicians in their celebration of life and local community.

Such is the premise behind Boston’s Celtic Music Festival, a musician-run event which takes place January 9th and 10th in and around the city. And if this year’s schedule is any indication, BCMFest 2009 is poised to take the Boston winter scene by storm.


Now in its sixth year, BCMFest has grown from a small grassroots collective to a two-day, four stage undertaking, comprising over 30 acts pulled primarily from the thriving local scene, many of whom tour nationally during the warmer months. In addition to traditional reels, jigs, pub music and ceilidh soundtracks from Irish, Scottish, Cape Breton and other Celtic traditions, in an attempt to widen the net beyond the typical sound most of us associate with the term “Celtic”, this year’s festival will also feature several “fringe events“, from celtic cover sets to open-ended music and dance sessions, featuring performers and performances which incorporate a Celtic influence into a larger framework of traditional and fusionfolk.

Several sets are also presented as collaborative sessions, and any festival run by musicians who genuinely love playing with each other is inevitably going to have plenty of crossover. So expect performers to cover a great range themselves, playing true Irish or Scottish tradfolk in one session, and turning to a more modern setting the next.

Overall, the BCMFest promises to be an incredible time, somewhere between a traveling barn dance, an Irish festival, and a big old two-day party. The fun begins Friday night with a choice of a long set of Urban Ceilidh sessions in Medford and a series of more intimate staged performances at longstanding Harvard Square folkstage Club Passim; Saturday, performances will continue at Passim, and three spaces will be set up at the nearby First Parish Church for sessions ranging from small sing-alongs and workshops to dance sessions and performances to something billed as the BCMFest Olympics, hosted by Crooked Still bass player Corey DiMarino and award-winning fiddler and songwriter Hanneke Cassel. If you’ve got any energy left, the event culminates in a huge dance session on Saturday night featuring a huge host of special guests.


I was lucky enough to catch an intimate BCMFest preview session at the ICONS Irish festival this fall, and I was blown away by the sheer diversity and talent of the singer-songwriters and instrumentalists who associate themselves with the community. As evidence, here’s a few of my favorite new voices, just a few among many slated to warm the crowds and hearts at this year’s BCMFest, each fully capable of playing both traditional and more modern tradfolk, and making it their own.

I’m especially loving the rollicking, high-energy alt-tradpunk party that is the loose musical collective Session Americana, who we most recently heard as collaborators on Rose Polenzani‘s new album. There’s also some great and surprisingly tender folk covers from Celtic fusion fiddlefolk group Annalivia, who blew the crowd away at ICONS this summer in full-blown Irish dance mode, and the new eclectic stringfolk quartet Blue Moose and the Unbuttoned Zippers, who made a big splash in this year’s Falcon Ridge Folk Festival showcase, and will start BCMFest off on Friday evening at Club Passim.

Want more? I’ve topped today’s set off with a short set of bonus covers by and from from three lovely young Boston-based singer-songwriters who will be showing their Celtic side at the festival: BCMFest co-organizer and folkfiddler Laura Cortese, previously-featured rising star Kristin Andreassen, and fellow folk femme fiddler Lissa Schneckenburger. Enjoy the taste, and I’ll see you in Boston on January 9th and 10th.

• Session Americana: Leather-Winged Bat (trad.)
• Session Americana: Cigareets and Whiskey (trad.)

• Annalivia: Walking on a Wire (orig. Richard Thompson)
• Annalivia: Lazy John (trad.)

• Blue Moose and the Unbuttoned Zippers: Kisses Sweeter than Wine (orig. The Weavers)
• Blue Moose and the Unbuttoned Zippers: Saucy Sailor (trad./pop. Steeleye Span)

• Laura Cortese: Winter Wonderland (Bernard/Smith)
• Laura Cortese: Just Like Heaven (orig. The Cure)

• Laura Cortese: Even the Lost Creek (orig. Kristin Andreassen)
• Lissa Schneckenburger: Like The Snow (orig. Kristin Andreassen)

Planning on being within range of Boston next weekend? Head over to the BCMFest website to learn more, or to the Club Passim website to reserve your BCMFest 2009 tickets now!


PS: No matter where you live, of course, supporting local music is a worthy pursuit in its own right — it’s good for community, and good for your ears. The links above will send you off to a treasure-trove of heartwarming music and musicians; even if you can’t make it this weekend, I encourage you to pick up the best works of all these artists featured here. If traditional Celtic folk is your thing, you can also pick up a CD of some of the best traditional performances from the very first BCMFest over at CDBaby.