Viva la Vinal Festival in Somerville this weekend

And speaking of Audrey Ryan, she sent this out to to her email list the other day.

Free music; you can't beat that.

Here's the body of her email:

So this weekend is Viva la Vinal Festival 2009, lots of FREE music and fun so come bring your blankets or chairs and spend an evening in a beautiful garden setting…

Friday August 28 & Saturday August 29 from 4-10:00 pm
(rain date August 30)

In the garden at…
The Somerville Community Growing Center
22 Vinal Ave., Somerville (near Union Square)
www.thegrowingcenter.org

Please come join us at this annual neighborhood event as we celebrate the Growing Center and our local artists and businesses.

• Live world, folk, bluegrass, Americana, and singer-songwriter music from local artists
• Children’s music by Charlie Hope on Friday August 28 from 4-5 pm.
• Raffle featuring prizes and gift certificates from local businesses such as the Sherman Café, Hub Comics, Grand, Precinct, Block 11, the Independent, Cantina Mexicana, and many other local Union Square businesses.
• Concession stand with affordable snacks and beverages to help benefit artists and the garden.

The festival is free to the public and all ages are welcomed. Donations are
accepted to support the event.

To check on weather cancellations please call 617-320-0538 or visit
www.thegrowingcenter.org and click on ‘calendar’.

Viva la Vinal Schedule 2009

Friday August 28th, 4-10pm

4:00-5:00- Charlie Hope (Children’s music)
5:00-5:45- David Wax Museum (Somerville folk-Americana band)
5:45- 6:30- Abbie Barret (Somerville folk-country artist)
6:30- 7:15- Akshara Percussion Ensemble (traditional Indian music)
7:15- 8:00- Dan Blakeslee (Boston indie folk artist)
8:00- 8:45- The Accident That led Me to the World (Northampton folk)
8:45- 9:30- Jennifer Greer (Somerville indie pop singer-songwriter)

Saturday August 29th, 4-10pm

4:00-4:45- Julie Dougherty (North Shore folk singer)
4:45-5:30- Chuck Muldoon (Portland acoustic instrumental guitarist)
5:45- 6:30- Rakiya (Cambridge world music band)
6:30- 7:15- Audrey Ryan (Somerville indie rock singer-songwriter)
7:15- 8:00- Danielle Miraglia (Somerville folk-blues singer)
8:00- 8:45- Seymour (Portland indie folk band)
8:45- 9:30- The Points North (Boston bluegrass folk act)

Pass the Buddha--Blame Sally

Blame Sally are going to be at Club Passim in Cambridge, Mass. on Wednesday, June 24. Check them out.

Anais Mitchell at Club Passim 4.19.09

Anais Mitchell played her magic tonight at Club Passim. Amazing songwriter when it comes to the opera she wrote about the story of Hades. She told the audience tonight that Ani DiFranco is part of the project. She said it was due out in the fall. When it's released, definitely check it out.

I've seen her three times now, twice at Club Passim. It's a small, intimate place, perfect for someone like Michell who has almost a delicate way of presenting her voice and herself. She has a really unique voice and way of phrasing songs, that can get a bit tedious. But when she throws her talent into a cover, like she did tonight with a Gillian Welch number, the tedium is brushed aside and it's like seeing her again for the first time. (Sorry, one of these days I'm going to start bringing a notebook to concerts; I swore to myself tonight that I'd remember it, but at this late hour it's completely gone from my head.)

Sorry about the poor quality. But it does give a good idea of her voice, which is so unique.

Chasing the Rising Sun: The Journey of an American Song

What is a life? A journey, perhaps? And what if it's the life of a song? What is it then? Is it the same as a person's life, where it touches other people's lives, blessing some, damning others, as it rollicks down its own path, either towards its own fate or random ending?

Ted Anthony makes a pretty fair argument that it's the latter as he traces the song, House of the Rising Sun from its roots in what he calls The Village, a fictional place in what Anthony calls the Golden Triangle, a place in the hills where Kentucky, North Carolina, and Tennessee all come together.

From The Village where a sixteen-year old Georgia Turner was first recorded singing it by Alan Lomax, employed by the Library of Congress in 1937 to collect samplings of folk music, to karaoke bars in Thailand, Anthony follows the life of this song of warning and despair--the reason, he postulates, that gives it such universal appeal.

Known originally as The Rising Sun Blues, the song started out as a story about a young girl and a warning to her younger sister, and it was sung in a major key. Over the years, different performers, some prominent, others just back-country hillbillies in Appalachia and as far away as the Ozarks, put their individual mark on the song, rewriting lyrics, swapping stanzas. Ultimately, we all know the Animals' version, sung in a minor key about a young man's life gone to hell from the decadence in a house of ill-repute in New Orleans. Little tidbits of information are almost on every page. The word "house" was kept out of the title most over pretty much the course of the song's life, because of the subconscious knee-jerk jump we'd have of putting the word, "whore" in front of the word "house".

The two most notable characters in the story, Turner and the Animals' Eric Burden, barely profited, if at all, from the song that played such an important part of their lives. Turner, late in a life that turned to drinking, finally did start to receive small royalty checks for the song that bears her name. Burden, who sang the arrangement that is most popular today, didn't receive a cent.

Anthony, twice nominated for the Pulitzer, is thorough if not a bit clinical. With a reporter's nose, he ferrets out stories and people from all over the globe, following even the smallest lead, but the account is fascinating; the song in all its iterations--from front porch performances in Appalachia to Muzak in elevators--has probably been heard by just about everyone in the modern world, and so you or I could have been fodder for this account. If it all sounds mundane, then think about the first time you ever heard the song, or how you feel right now when you think of the melody, and that's the essence of the book.

Following the song is following a part of American culture that, for some of us, is a deep and longing part of our past. I grew up in that world of country folks, or at least the tail end of it, and even as a youngster I knew it was a world that was rapidly being overtaken by the modern world, like a horse and buggy being overtaken by a Greyhound bus on country road. When the generation comprising my aunts and uncles died out, I knew a way of life would fade from the world. What's funny is to see, through following Anthony's narrative, how that world was melded into today's world. Bastardized, perhaps, but the remnants are there, and that's just the way of the world.

Just to give you a taste of how far afield the song has gone.

Doc Watson and Clarence Ashley:

Open mike at Club Passim...and a great joke...

It's not because I'm cheap or unemployed with pittance trickling into my bank account. If I had a million dollars I'd still like a good deal and music and finding those great, simple places that put it all together.

Tuesday night is open mike at Club Passim in Cambridge. It's five bucks, or free if you're a member like me. Sue takes guitar lessons from Janet Feld at Club Passim's music school that night, so I go into Cambridge with her and hang out in the club. (I take music theory from Ray Chesna there, but that's fodder for a different posting.)

I've always been a big fan of open mikes. Years ago I saw the likes of Jay Leno, Bob Goldthwait, Lenny Clark, Steven Wright, Tony V, and a boatload of other Boston comedians try out there stuff before they made it big at open mikes at places like the Comedy Connection when it was still at the Charles Playhouse. And if memory serves, the cover was about a buck or two. What a great deal.

Like all open mikes, the one at Club Passim is always a crap shoot. The audience is friendly and supportive to all the acts, especially when someone is struggling. They are always appreciative of good work. To a person, everyone there really loves and cares about music and songwriting.

Some nights you get to see a lot of real up-and-coming talent. Other times it's really spotty. There's no guarantee that the people you're watching will be the next Tracy Chapman or Bob Dylan. A lot depends on luck and drive and talent. For every Jay Leno I saw at the Comedy Connection, I watched a lot of (mostly) guys just bomb. But that's not the point of going. It's seeing the works in progress. It's watching the fits and start. The falling down and getting back up again. It's finding that little gem of a moment whether it's new song or strum pattern or maybe just a line in some lyrics.

Last night was a typical night. One woman sang a song about a guy and a girl not getting along very well, with this line in it: I'm a thief and not a liar so I'm going to keep my mouth shut.

There was a bluegrass duo, guitar and fiddle, named The Whiskey Brothers. The two were so young they didn't look old enough to order, much less drink whiskey, but they played one song called, Block Island that was just so nice and sweet. Hard at some points with some deep bass, I imagined the waters off Block Island.

And toward the end there was a guy named Joel (I didn't catch his last name but he's in the picture above) who finger-picked his way through a song about a road, just perfect and mournful.

Along with musicians, there's a comedian who performs regularly, and an actor who recites poetry. One time I was there and he recited nursery rhymes. That night it wasn't my thing, but another night I listened to him recite a litany of poems about ravens. On and on he went, and it takes a few nights but you start to get a real appreciation for what's going on inside that man's head, whatever it is. There's a comedian, I believe his name is Michael Fast--I hope that's his name; I want to get it right--who is constantly trying out new material. I'm kind of critical and sympathetic of comedians having done stand up before. He has kind of a crazy, deadpan, intentionally dumb way of delivering, and last night he told this joke: I read that book about woman being from Venus and men being from Mars, and I think there's something to that. I met this woman, and we got along, and one night we slept together and when I woke up the next day I noticed she had crop circles in her chest hairs. Okay, it's weird, but it's Cambridge, and that's funny.

Cool Folk Fest in Providence on March 15, 2008

Got this from The Low Anthem.

The biggest INDEPENDENT FOLK show to come to Providence in a long while.

The concert features four fantastic artists on the fast rise in the folk scene, including a Grammy winner! Info on each is below. The concert is the first in the "No-Scene Folk" series put on by The Low Anthem. It is gaining traction with coverage from the Projo, Motif, and Phoenix.

What can we say, It's the first show of it's kind, and we really really really really hope to see you.

MARCH 15 at Firehouse 13
Doors open at 7:00 p.m.
www.firehouse13.org

The artists are Anais Mitchell, The Low Anthem, Antje Duvekot, and Jesse Harris.

email: jjonesmusic@gmail.com for advanced tickets ($10) or buy them at the door.
-------------------------------------------------------------

ANAIS MITCHELL
She is Ani DiFranco's newest signee to Righteous Babe record and a beautiful songwriter! From Vermont, this will be her first headlining show in Providence, since her opening spot at Lupo's.




THE LOW ANTHEM
That's us. We're the financiers, promoters, and local flavor for this show. We hope you come see the night we've put together.





ANTJE DUVEKOT
Antje is a singer/songwriter from Germany on Black Wolf Records.

JESSE HARRIS
Jesse has had his songs recorded by Bright Eyes, Cat Power, Emmylou Harris, Norah Jones, Willie Nelson and more. He is a GRAMMY WINNER.


FIREHOUSE 13
located at 41 Central St. Providence, RI Firehouse 13 is an old gutted
firehouse-turned art space. Tickets are general admission.

Songlines

Hillary cries. Obama surges. Huckabee strums, or rather, plucks. Hillary surges. Obama pledges to continue. Oh, and Britney shows her private bits again. Surf your favorite news site and it’s all the same. Year after year after year. The names may change, but humans got a way of just doing the same old same old. Politicians crash and burn. Voters defy all logic and common sense and elect a complete moron. Pop stars continue to disprove Darwinian law, living their weak-kneed lives long after some stronger species should have put them—and us—out of their misery. You can thank liberals and lawyers for that.

I’ve long given up on the traditional heroes. Professional athletes, politicians, movie stars are nothing but groveling toadies jonesing for power and attention, worse than any decrepit needle addict. When I get like this I beat the bushes, I zig when everyone else is zagging, I head out on the fringe, away from the maddening crowd.

I started casting around for new music. Music is such a wonderful diversion for me. It takes me away from wherever I am, and it’s not that I don’t like where I am, I simply love to travel, whether it’s physically or in my mind. And I love my music collection, but I do get bored listening to the same stuff.

It’s probably not news to a lot of the visitors to this site, but I’ve been meaning to pick up a copy of Songlines of a while now. Actually have skimmed one once or twice but tossed it back on the shelf. This time I bought one and found a gold mine of new music, at least for me. A nice distraction from the world of politics and current events.

It’s called world music, but I think that’s a funny name for it. Kind of like people calling anything not from the U.S. “foreign.” Well, it’s only foreign to you, dude. I keep saying country music, good country music, not that sugary crap manufactured in Nashville with all its empty calories, is all about what happens between birth and sleeping in the dirt. And that’s what a lot of this music is about. Hey, when you get down to it, isn’t that really what all good artistic endeavors are about—life between birth and a dirt nap?

The November issue that I bought (well, it is printed in the UK; don’t expect the most up-to-date issues here on “foreign” ground) came with two compilation CDs. I love hearing all kinds of music from all countries sung in all different languages. But obviously I’m a product of my own environment, and right off the bat I was drawn to Linda Thompson and Kate Rusby, both British folk singers.

Thompson sings Katy Cruel, a traditional song dating back to colonial times (American colonial times, that is) in a lilting voice accompanied by a guitar and the beat of the hand on a drum, backed by female vocalists reminding you that Celtic ghosts are what make those lace curtains sway:

When I first came to town,
They called me the roving jewel;
Now they've changed their tune,
They call me Katy Cruel,
Oh, diddle, lully day,
Oh, de little lioday.

High on the Hill, which is on Kate Rusby’s newest album, Awkward Annie, is a beautiful English song in the folk tradition that opens with a plucked banjo (or is it a mandolin?) and Rusby’s sweet voice accompanying. The song picks up with more instrumentation, lilting lyrics (that’s really the only way to describe Irish/British folk music, isn’t it?) and Rusby harmonizes with Chris Thile from Nickel Creek.

oh, darling, let’s go over now, the devil’s here….

I can’t find the album in stores. It’s an import, so Amazon.com ships it in one to three months.

There’s a ton more. More that will keep me preoccupied from the rest of the madness.

Oh, darling, let’s go over now, the devil’s here…