Last night I went to the third annual Hudson West Folk Festival. That’s my excuse for not writing yesterday, I’m the head of the merch volunteers, well duh, so I wanted to get there early. Turns out I couldn’t do much merch stuff for the first two hours but helped with set up or perhaps I fooled myself into thinking I helped and the reality is that I managed to not do damage.
The festival is in Jersey City, which is surprisingly easy to get to, I just took the D train to the PATH then walked five minutes. New Yorkers think of anything you have to cross water from Manhattan to get to as far, even Brooklyn. As someone has lived in four of the five boroughs I don’t share that prejudice but crossing the River Styx aka The Hudson, is a hurdle as my monthly MetroCard won’t take me there.
I’m going to now perform a feat of memory and tell you all the performers at the festival in order! I will do no cheating except to double check the spelling of the original name of the final band. The French throws me.
TAARKA
Sophie Buskin
Jean Rohe
Sam Baker
Vance Gilbert
Dinner Break
Susan McKeown
David Olney
Mary Gauthier
Rosier previously Les Poules à Colin
I cheated again just to make sure that TAARKA really is all caps. While this was not scheduled with me in mind the first four, through Sam, are my friends. The second half are artists that I’ve seen, and I’ve spoken to Vance quite a bit, but they don’t know me.
TAARKA was my top discovery at last year’s NERFA. Some bands are built as if they had me in mind. I knew them as a duo, Enion on fiddle and David on mandolin and guitar, but yesterday they were joined by a bass player. As a band designed for me they don’t have a genre, they go by the Duke Ellington credo, “There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind; We don’t play the other kind.” I suspect that very few of My Gentle Readers are familiar with them, which is why I’m going into more detail. Do any of you know them independently of me? My goal is for all of you to give them more than a casual listen so you can learn to love them as much as I do.
The other day Fred said that Sophie Buskin is ubiquitous. She is. I never heard of her, except as mentions from Davis as his daughter, before NERFA 2017 where she stalked me. We ran into each other constantly. I immediately discovered that she was a delightful person, then I discovered that she’s also a delightful musician. Her band is all people I’ve known far longer than I’ve known her, Jagoda on drums, Craig Akin on bass, and Richard Feridun on guitar. Jagoda and Rich used to play in Amy Speace’s band, The Tearjerks. I’ll confess one of my mental glitches. I always want to Call Rich’s last name Ferndun. I had to give his name to someone for the festival and that’s how I spelled it. I suspect writing about it might make me get over making the mistake.
If we started counting from when we met I’ve probably written as much about Jean Rohe as I have anyone. The best way of saying how good I think she is that I’ll admit to other musicians that she’s my favorite knowing that anyone familiar with her will not take that as a slight on themselves. She played with her band, Liam Robinson, as always, on banjo and keyboard, Chris Tordini and bass and a drummer I don’t know. I don’t know how that happens. Best part was watching Sophie enraptured with Jean and then talking to Sophie about her.
I think I’ve only seen Sam Baker in New York only once without some involvement by Kathryn Bloss, who is on the Festival board. He is a great a songwriter and storyteller as you’ll find anywhere. At one point when he was on stage I saw the entire audience in rapt attention, not a cell phone in sight and nobody looking away. The best was watching Jean see Sam for the first time. The way they achieve greatness is totally different, Jean writes intricate music and sings with a mellifluous voice, Sam sings musically simple story songs that he speaks on pitch as much as he sings. Yet both can take the listener out of their heads and into different worlds.
Vance Gilbert is the best-known artist to My Gentle Readers. If you are a regular at festivals in the North East you’ve seen him, and been entertained by him. Most of his songs are serious and he sings in a beautiful jazz voice. Then he stops singing and becomes a great stand-up comic. He put everyone to fashion shame by wearing a white disco suit.
Susan McKeown is in a class of musicians that I wish didn’t exist, people that I love but don’t see often. I discovered her in the early years of my listening to WFUV, when she was a staple. Now you’ll only hear her on the Irish shows. That’s a shame as I think her appeal is broad. I was going to say universal, but nobody has universal appeal. I know people that dislike the three Bs, Beethoven, Beatles, and Bob Dylan. But I have seen her a number of times and spent more time listening to her recordings.
I’ve been a fan of Mary Gauthier (go-SHAY) since her first album, Drag Queens and Limousines. I saw her at Falcon Ridge that year and have seen her many times since. Like Sam she is someone that tells stories through music, sometimes autobiographical, and sometimes not. You hear her sing and think, “Truth.” There is no affect or insincerity to her songs. When she sings about a tree you really feel the tree.
The last act was Rosier (Rose-zhay), it means Rose Bush in French. They were formerly known as Les Poules à Colin . When I saw that they were on the schedule all I remembered was that they were Quebecois, I saw them at NERFA, and loved them. I didn’t even remember that they were young women. I was picturing not as young men. That’s how my brain works. This was what I wrote about them after NERFA 2015 where they had a formal showcase.
Les Poules à Colin* – Formal – They are an amazing Quebecois neo-trad band. Yes that’s my sweet spot. I hope they come down to New York. I need to see more of them. My note for them was one word, “great.”
I never spoke to them or got their CD which is why I don’t remember more. I corrected both of those yesterday. There is one man in the band, he was the string section, guitar, mandolin, banjo, and lap steel, not all at once.
I had a crew on merch, I worked all day with four other people joining me for one shift. One is a Wise Madness recurring character, David. I met him as a WFUV volunteer and since then has joined me as a Christopher Street Coffee House volunteer and a regular at Terre Roche’s Christmas Caroling and Sunset Singing Circles. He is the one person I requested for my team. I made some new friends that I somehow didn’t exchange contact info with so I could friend them on Facebook, Shari, and Amy. Amy and I agreed that she’s going to join me on merch next year. She caught a few of my mistakes, info that I left off our tablet computers, we use as cash registers. It wasn’t even in the course of doing business, she was just checking things out for later. That’s exactly the kind of thing I do. Hey Amy and Shari if you see this on Facebook send me a friend request.
The other volunteer that I recruited is my work-wife from WFUV, Jim. He was also there all day. There were many other friends volunteering or attending the festival. Should I try and remember them? Sure, why not, I’ll live dangerously. I have the out for anyone I forget, I’m an idiot. There was the emcees, John and Richard, photographers, Brian and Jamie, volunteers, Katherine, Kirk, Karen, Don, Fred, no not that Fred, and Fred’s wife whose name I’m whiffing on now, remember I’m an idiot, Perry & Beth, Jeff & Carol, and audience members, Judy, Jim & Marilyn.
I’m sure I missed a bunch but that’s not bad. Jim mentioned that we stopped for ice cream on the way home last year and a great place on the way to the PATH train. I didn’t remember the name but Jim was close, he knew it started with a T and was Italian. I just googled and found it, Torica. I was looking forward to it all day but then as we were leaving Don, who lives in the Bronx offered us a ride into Manhattan. We took it of course but I still missed the ice cream and told Jim he owes me ice cream. I also said that my entire blog would be about that. So count this paragraph as the entire blog.
I spent as much time talking to Katherine as anyone and until this second forgot to list her. That’s especially ironic as when I started writing this I was listening to her band, Bobtown being interviewed by Ron Olesko on WFDU and Folk Music Notebook. I also forgot to mention the people who put on the entire show, the Hudson West Board, Gidge, Angel, Laura, Margo, and Kathryn. Which leads to also including Gidge’s wife Loyse.
You should go next year. If you do you might get a Wise Madness Shout-out! Don’t you want to put that on your resume?
Sorry for posting this so late. Tomorrow I might get personal and explain why. Farewell wherever you may fare until your eyries receive you at your journey’s end.
Errata: I’m an idiot. My fabulous feat of memory forgot a performer, David Olney. I know why, i had it in my head there were 8 performers, got to 8, and stopped thinking. I think I have seen David. He’s a favorite of Kathryn’s and has played her house. I know i was supposed to see him, I might have had to cancel. That must be it as he’s not someone I’d not have a memory of the performance, he’s dynamic. Yes i know i forgot to list him but that’s very different from not remembering him. Thank Brian for telling me about my lapse in memory. I’m using my get out of free card; I’m an idiot.
Wise Madness 