New Artists and That Old Lonesome Sound:
Indiefolk Goes Traditional, and Everybody Wins
Since we started Cover Lay Down a few months ago, I’ve struggled a bit with the regular inclusion of indiefolk in the mix. After all, if nothing else, the cultural disconnect between audiences is stark: with a few exceptions on the fringe of everything — see, for example, The Abigail Washburn Quartet, who I have seen at Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival, but others more hardy than myself have seen at Bonnaroo — you’ll not find Sam Amidon or Fleet Foxes at a true-blue “folk” festival anymore than you’re likely to catch John Gorka or Chris Pureka at one of those hipster festivals that, frankly, I’m just too old to attend without hurting myself.
But though the audiences may remain relatively disparate, the sonic commonality between oldfolk and the newest generation of folk music cannot be denied. One of the things I love about local music festivals such as the Boston Celtic Music Festival, for example, is the sudden realization that the musicians I’m watching are really doing something very much like what the Avett Brothers are doing, except the Avett Brothers are on all the cool blogs, and here I am surrounded by old people listening to young people.
Which is to say: I’m not the only folkblogger, and I’m certainly not the most popular or savvy one. But I believe I am the only one to have featured both Emma Beaton and Mersault in one entry. And maybe it’s time to say something about that.
If my excitement at “discovering” young, genre-pushing neotrad folk musicians like Amidon, Beaton, Crooked Still, Kristin Andreassen, and others has sometimes gone off the deep end, in fact, it is because there is no denying that if you like, say, The Avetts, or Deer Tick, or Fleet Foxes, or Wye Oak, or Andrew Bird, you really should be listening to folk music, especially these other folks in our own local New England scene — and you really should be thinking of yourself as folk, and helping collapse what is ultimately a false distance between the two “kinds” of folk music. (And yes, old folk-festival fans, the reverse holds true, too — if you have no idea who all those bands are that I just named, then you really should be off browsing MySpace pages right now. Go ahead; I’ll wait.)
The whole thing is worth celebrating, of course, even in potential. The treatment of any form of folk as cool and underground and hip is a relatively new phenomenon, driven, among many other factors, by both bloggers’ and musicians’ desire to find the authentic in a world of digital distance. There was no buzz around Sam Amidon when we started this blog, and Song, By Toad was just another pubwatcher, not a trendsetter like today; since then, though surely it was not so sudden after all, it feels like the world has gotten that much smaller and more intimate, and something very much like traditional folk has suddenly become a part of the normative spectrum for young kids.
But don’t just take my word for it. A number of new and noteworthy projects and products demonstrate the way this trend towards full collapse of indie into folk is accelerating. You’ll see it in full bloom at SXSW this year, for example, though that festival has always been a hotbed of folk/indie hybridism. But whether you’re an old hand at the indie scene or just an old folkie who’s been wondering if your rapidly aging festival coordinators are still in touch with the ways that folk is evolving, here’s some work to watch.
First and foremost, and as far as I can tell not yet otherwise on the blogosphere radar, tomorrow marks the drop date for The Old Lonesome Sound, a totally free compilation of traditional folk songs done by the newest crop of indiefolk artists and blog darlings. Songs include old standards from House Carpenter to Moonshiner to I Ain’t Got No Home, plus many other trad tunes less well known to all but the oldest folkies. (In fact, given the abovementioned disconnect between old folks and new, it’s tempting to say that half of my readers will recognize the songs, while the other half will recognize the artists.) But if the two songs released as teasers are any indication, we’re looking at some raw and delicate turns on familiar folksong which honors the source while managing to reinforce the particularly echo-y, lo-fi intimacy which characterizes the indiefolk subgenre.
This just might be the moment that indiefolk claims its rightful place in the folk pantheon, thereby justifying our attention to the movement over the past year in and among the tradfolk and contemporary folkpop. Kudos to Splice Today, an increasingly cutting-edge upstart who is putting the tradfolk compilation forward, and who gets major bonus points for having the balls to frame the project as a “first annual”. Whether it makes it another year or not, with names like These United States, Deer Tick, and Vandaveer onboard, this one’s going to be all over the blogs by next week. Listen below, and say you heard it here first.
- Dave Heumann: Two Soldiers (trad.)
- Headlights: Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies (trad.)
(from The Old Lonesome Sound, Feb 18th, 2009)
Second, on a slightly smaller but no less anecdotally relevant scale: recent blogmention of several individual songs and projects have brought me a growing set of one-shot tradfolk covers from indiefolk that deserve to be pushed across the traditional dividing line between old folk and indie, in the hopes that the line will be scuffed up beyond recognition along the way. Again, note the ringing, almost hollow sound of these covers, with their echo-chamber vocals and half-buried loosely-tuned string arrangement; though the production, and the raw emotion behind them, have come to define a subgenre, they also make this music both folk, and perfectly akin to what might get performed at a late-night folk festival set, though the crowds and booking agents have yet to figure out how to truly unite the audiences involved.
There’s a lot of possibles here, so I’ve picked but a few examples; a quick perusal of our own backposts will show that I’ve been sneaking this stuff in for a while now, so in one way, this is nothing but an excuse to post a few great indiefolk songs I’ve had kicking around waiting for a mandate or framing device to justify them. But if nothing else, make sure you start with the first cover before you go: whether you recognized the name of new chart-climbers Fleet Foxes or not when I mentioned them above, you’ll surely love this take on an ancient britfolk ballad from lead singer Robin Pecknold’s side project, White Antelope, found via Pitchfork, that self-professed bleeding-edge leader of all things indie.
- White Antelope: False Knight on the Road (trad.)
(via MySpace) - Arborea: Wake Up Little Sparrow (arr. Ella Jenkins)
(from Wayfaring Summer) - Matt Bauer: Sea Lion Woman (trad.)
(from a Hinah Session) - Blitzen Trapper: Shady Grove (trad.)
(live; more Blitzen Trapper) - The Avett Brothers: I’ll Fly Away (trad.)
(live; more Avett Brothers)
As always here on Cover Lay Down, the purpose of our promotion is perpetuation: if you like what you hear, follow links above to artist- and label-sponsored links for purchase and free download. And, given today’s discussion, if you or someone you know has the power to bring old and new audiences together, whether that’s though booking artists, filling stages at festivals, or getting new music into older ears through radioplay and Starbucks cover compilations, step up, speak up, and change the world. It’s the folk way, no matter what kind of folk you are.
Cover Lay Down posts new coverfolk features Wednesdays, Sundays, and the occasional otherday. Coming soon: covers of, covers from, and yet another installment in our ever-popular Single Song Sunday series. Plus: coffeehouse singer-songwriter Susan Werner goes chamberfolk on her newest release, and we love every cello-laden minute of it.
Category: New Artists Old Songs, Tradfolk
February 18th, 2009 at 7:18 am
Thanks for this articulate analysis. It never occurred to me before but you’re right. My fellow boomers know Utah Phillips and Tom Rush, but not the newbies, while my son’s friends know Blitzen Trapper and Fleet Foxes, but not the oldsters. I only know both ’cause I’m an avid enough fan to follow blogs, subscribed to No Depression, etc. I end up at the Iron Horse alone to hear artists that no one I know have ever heard of because of that disconnect. Anyhow, well done!
Berni
February 18th, 2009 at 10:13 am
Venues like the Iron Horse (surely there’s one in every hip town, eh?) are actually a big part of why I have both hope and frustration for this disconnect between audiences. After all, here’s a venue which — like SXSW — supports both sides of the folk scene overall, putting the full spectrum of artists on their stage in a given year.
Clearly, someone out there thinks these both belong in the same space, at least, and given the relatively clear cache and niche that the Iron Horse represents to the community, I think this can be used as a signal to the world that, at least to some venues, the world of folk now includes the indiefolk world.
And notably, this is a relatively new development for the Iron Horse — three years ago, they were still doing almost exclusively coffeehouse folk, with the occasional roots/americana band or folkrock group.
But the fact that the venue itself isn’t challenging their audiences by mixing up the performers says what it needs to about the ways in which that would be perceived as a risk. And the fact that different audiences show on alternate nights says that the risk assessment is accurate.
Either we still have a gap to close here, or — and it is certainly possible — to other ears, the two forms of folk really are two different things.
Which is to say: I’d like to assume it’s about exposure and expanding comfort zones, but I’m prepared to accept that there may be something intangible which I’m not yet hearing which makes each “sort” of folk right for each “sort” of folk, and — with a few exceptions like us — never the twain shall meet. Still, the fact that you hear it and I hear it is at least anecdotal evidence for my original thesis, eh?
February 18th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
GREAT post. That’s all you need to know.
February 20th, 2009 at 8:15 am
Love the Iron Horse, but true enough, the audiences are generally compartmentalized. To see Junior Brown, I took my father; the Gourds, my son. When I can get a friend to come along, I usually have to explain who it is, burn them a CD to listen to and so forth. (”Kim Richey, never heard of her. What does she play?”) And the audience, of course, is key. I saw BR459 with the Avetts opening at Moheghan Sun (for free, no less!) and the audience was totally blase. It was so frustrating, they were amazing and folks sat like bored zombies - I wanted to yell “are you people kidding? These guys are the bomb! Wake up!”
In a similar vein on a CBC Radio 3 Podcast (2008-10-31 - Episode 180). Joel Stewart, a CMT Canada executive was asked about commercial-indie cross over. He said that there’s sort of 2 worlds, commercial country radio and then there are [artists like Luke Doucet]. “…Commercial country stations’ job is not to challenge and educate their audience. They are essentially a soundtrack to washing dishes and vacuuming” Asked why not slip in some indie artists, he said that no one dares be the one to do it but that “If people hear it, they would dig it. They would know that it’s not Kenny Chesney, but … they would find something that they really love”
So here we are, eh?
February 21st, 2009 at 9:52 am
thanks for the tip on the splice LP… looks great!
February 21st, 2009 at 11:20 pm
Hi, I’ve never commented before but I wanted to say that this is such a wonderful post. I’m in the younger generation but I got into folk music way before indie music (grew up on Joan Baez and The Band, started going to Sunday night folk sings as a teenager.) Despite that folk and indie were still pretty separate in my mind. This makes me want to check out the local scene some more and see what hidden gems there might be in my backyard.
February 21st, 2009 at 11:46 pm
Glad to hear it, Pirate, and good luck searching — I think you’ll find that although the term indie is bloated beyond meaning, there’s plenty hiding in its shadow which really is a form of folk, though not yet connected to the larger folkworld.
PS: your trackback info says you’re posting from Marlboro College — my alma mater! Say hi to Kate Ratliff for me if you get a chance, will you?
May 23rd, 2009 at 10:35 pm
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