It's coming on 2012, and all around us, bloggers tout their 2011 taste, jostling to be the best and first match for your own preferences, inviting debate over position in the ranks. And so, as we do every year as the calendar comes to a close, we struggle with the conceit of The Year In Review, surveying a year's worth of posts, writing a never-ending series of half-hearted drafts, flinching every time we approach the task, yet feeling guilt every time we put it down. My reluctance to pass judgement isn't a cop-out. [...]
I was a media specialist the morning the towers began to fall: sole captain of a prep school video collection, and proprietor of the largest viewing space on campus. And so it was that the students came to me, one by one and together, by class and by cluster, as the word spread from teacher to teacher; so it was, indeed, that I ended up presiding over a grand experiment in media literacy, as the hour passed, and the cycle of not-news - that long hour of uncertain newscaster conjectures that accompanied the static, repetitive footage on every channel [...]
Two years ago, my annual visit to the folkfields produced a manifesto of sorts, anticipating and acknowledging the blur between old time, bluegrass, folk, and other american roots forms being performed by a rising crop of very young artists. Much of this came from the dual nature of my summer revelry: moving from Grey Fox Bluegrass to Falcon Ridge Folk allowed for a surprisingly consistent journey, and that which I saw in one site, I confirmed in the other. This year, though work and other obligations left me unable to attend Grey Fox, I [...]
Regular readers know: Falcon Ridge Folk Festival is my home away from home, my happy place. An oasis amidst lush green farmland, nestled in the beautiful rolling hills of Hillsdale, NY, its four stages, dance tents, camping areas and vast vendor zones rise from the mist each summer to take over the alfalfa fields of Dodd's Farm, where they serve as much as 15,000 visitors with a cornucopia of music, food, fun and friendship. This will be our fourteenth year volunteering at Falcon Ridge. In that time, my wife and I, [...]
I've been a passive listener of Billy Joel's original work since middle school, I guess. But way back in my emergent years, I was a true blue fan, sifting through his early work as a high tenor, singing along with his songs at summer camp campfires, performing Just The Way You Are for talent shows, tagging along with a friend to see the master perform in the midst of the We Didn't Start The Fire era, struggling to come to terms with his mid-career rock and roll, and the drum-driven pop path which he [...]
Two weeks since the storm, and by most accounts, we're making real progress in our tiny town. Houses once broken disappear overnight, leaving empty spaces; others, chimney-less and battered, cover their gaping roofholes with tarps, until the valley below the town hall begins to look like a patchwork quilt: patches of peaked sky blue, newly exposed summer lawns, lumber, the stone grey of bare foundations. People go to work, and school. The local news moves on to other topics; there are long moments when I forget that the place where I live and love [...]
One of the biggest challenges of coming of age in the late eighties is that some of the best pop performers of the post-punk/new wave era were already past their musical prime when I discovered them, invariably through radio hits that echoed their earlier work while somehow managing to sound derivative and old-school amidst the rising tide of majestic yet ultimately ephemeral heartland rock, bouncy pop, early grunge and smooth R&B which characterized the era. Case in point: I went through a brief Elvis Costello phase when I was in high school, [...]
We pay tribute today to Charlie Louvin , long-time Grand Old Opry member and elder statesman of Country music, who passed this week after complications from pancreatic cancer. Charlie Louvin's work with his elder brother Ira in the fifties found familiar placement on the Country charts - indeed, until the brothers split up two years before Ira's death in '65, the close harmonies of the brothers Louvin, with their mandolin-guitar accompaniment, were arguably among the most heavenly sounds on the radio. And though he was ever-dismissive about his own contribution to the songs for which he [...]
The days grow short enough to burn at both ends; it's dark when I wake, still dark when I leave for work, and dusk when I return. In today's rain, it was darker still: hard to find the school building in the thick, clouded air; dismal on the return trip, wind whipping wet leaves across my path as I crested the hill into the mist towards home. I'm hardly home, of course. Play rehearsals in the looming darkness of the local town hall take their toll, as do late [...]
Each year as schooldays fade into memory and the summer festival season grows close, my thoughts turn to Dave Carter . An up-and-coming singer-songwriter, already well respected by critics and peers, Carter was on the road with his partner Tracy Grammer in the summer of 2002 when he was stricken down with a heart attack during an early morning run in the New England heat. Their scheduled set at that day's Green River Festival was taken over by Signature Sounds labelmate Mark Erelli with little fanfare. [...]
The July 13 Red Horse project comes to us from three major voices in contemporary American acoustic songwriting: Eliza Gilkyson, John Gorka and Lucy Kaplansky, artists who record for the noted folk and roots label Red House and who have worked together in the past (both Gilkyson and Kaplansky made guest appearances on Gorka's 2009 album So Dark You See ). During plans for a tour together earlier this year they saw an opportunity to expand their creative synergy in the studio as well and Red Horse was born. "If I had to use only one word [...]
Running a music festival in this economy is a real challenge, but after a weekend with friends and co-coordinators of the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival , I'm proud to announce that once again we're rarin' to go for yet another wild weekend of singer-songwriter, folk rock, world music, and folk-pop. Add in the proverbial mix of friends, vendors, kid-friendly fare, hilltop up-and-comers in the label and coffeehouse-sponsored tents all night long, and dancing 'til the wee hours, and as always, Falcon Ridge 2010 is shaping up to be the best time I'm planning on having all [...]
Two years ago today I paid tribute to my youngest after a whirlwind week of cake and circuses. Now here it is her birthday again, and watching her hold her own with her little friends in the midst of a Princess and the Frog-themed swim party on Sunday afternoon, it's clear that the pre-kindergarten independence I anticipated at three has come to full-blown fruition at five. The wee one's grown a lot since we last featured her here , on the cusp of her first big girl bed. Her [...]
According to Wikipedia, 80% of the world's major earthquakes take place in the Ring of Fire , a volatile region of the Pacific that spans a 40,000 kilometer horseshoe of coastland and island nations from New Zealand and Japan to Alaska, Mexico, and a huge swath of the American continents. Last night, for example, an 8.8 earthquake hit Chile , killing hundreds, and leaving as many as half a million people homeless. The resultant tsunami activity - earthquakes move water like a kid rising out of a bathtub - is bearing down on the [...]
It's always tempting to treat the first post of a new year as more significant than it really needs to be. The turning of the calendar, the fireworks at the moment of truth: all that ritual creates a mandate, a weight of liminality that demands deliberation. I've got some strong candidates for upcoming features - there's a wealth of new coverfolk coming down the pike, and a new sense of appreciation rising for some singer-songwriters we've yet to cover here in our virtual pages. But I'd be a fool to [...]
Lucy Kaplansky: Ten Year Night [ purchase ] I knew my father loved Lucy Kaplansky - at least, I had heard her name, and his recommendation. But the first time I remember seeing her, I was solo, at the Clearwater Folk Festival. And she was so sweet, and so real, so authentically what I needed at that moment, that I bought two albums, and slipped one into the CD player without looking the moment I slid into the long, slow crawl that [...]
One reviewer of this show wrote "If you've never heard Lucy Kaplansky perform before, you're in for a treat. Her songs can be dark and brooding, uplifting and joyous, personal and revealing; always satisfying. The recording quality here gives you the sense that you're sitting in the first few rows of the hall. Download this show, put on a good pair of headphones, and re-live an extraordinary evening with a superb singer-songwriter". As audience recordings go this is better than some soundboard copies of shows I have [...]
Once again, our fledgling house concert series is honored to present one of our favorite artists. But where previous shows have featured young, up-and-coming musicians, this time around, through a serendipitous cancellation elsewhere, we are proud to be hosting a long-standing staple of the folkscene, one whose career I have been following since my father took me to see him at Cambridge folk club Passim as a young lad of fourteen. Today, we present some coversongs of and from the seminal songwriter, along with an invitation for you to join us as [...]
It's been a long week, and I'm up against deadline on several fronts, trying to balance a professional review, impending midterms, and the creation of a virtual school tour with the usual package of parenting, teaching, school committee policymaking and the occasional nap. There's plenty of coverfolk in the hopper, and I'm aiming for a compendium this weekend to clear the decks a bit. But to tide us over, here's a repost from our very first month on the web, featuring Lucy Kaplansky , a singer-songwriter whose longing vocals and way with confessional [...]
Cover Lay Down
Direct Current
A Town Full of Losers
Star Maker Machine
Beehive Candy
![Niki & The Dove - The Fox [OFFICIAL VIDEO]](http://cdn.elbo.ws/youtube/l2f6UbMnlq4_130.jpg)
Skrillex Uses Satanic and Homosexual Influence to Win Grammys
Bad Vintage Postcards Between 1950 And 1975
Warm Brew – Creep (TLC Remix)
[Listen] The Decemberists - "One Engine"
