"Banjo shredders REJOICE! This IS your grandpa's folk music!"

I stood against a cold brick wall, clutching my Rod Stewart notebook against my chest like an airplane-seat flotation device. My glasses were fogging up like the windows of The Strutt itself, which nearly bursting at its proverbial seams with country-hippies, indie-hippies, aging/ old hippies, and an inordinate amount of lesbians (not that there's anything wrong with that). A snowstorm was raging outside as cops pulled people over on Stadium; their blue rollers looked like Christmas lights from where I stood inside the venue; we were jammed wall-to-wall; half- hectic, half- cozy, completely real and completely beautiful. Isn't that why we go to shows in the first place? What more does anyone want than to listen to music and be close to other people?
Nonetheless..

[Chris Dorman]
     My associate producer might take issue with this clip, as Chris Dorman is NOT a regional act; however, this was a local show and I'm reviewing it, goddamnit.
     Chris Dorman is from Vermont, actually. That's right, the land of Robert Frost (although [nerd sidenote] he was actually born in California); and, incidentally, the epicenter of East Coast neo-hippie culture, complete with a thriving folk-revival scene (and Ben & Jerry's, of course).
     Though technically a solo act, he took the stage alongside a bassist, whose upright bass was topped by a knit stocking cap like an unfortunately-proportioned man. Dorman's Michael Stipe-y vocals alongside beautiful, sad, capoed minor chords made for a somewhat interesting-- if not monolithic-- set; broken only by somewhat awkward performer-to-audience half-banter ("I believe in magical creatures... that they sometimes make us do things...") and even-more-awkward audience "participation" numbers (which he admitted to have played for a class of second graders who "kicked some ass at" this particular song) in which we were asked to rub our hands together to make rain sounds.
    I shit you not.
    Anyway... yeah, Chris Dorman was a little... different. Even for the folk sect. Interesting, intelligent, somewhat charismatic, and, yes, probably a little crazy. Probably not terribly unlike Robert Frost himself. Though I did find myself spacing out and singing "Man On The Moon" in my head quite a bit... and I don't even like REM. He closed with a song called "Family Farm" (available on his Myspace) and I found myself really kind of enjoying it, if not almost in spite of myself; as a mostly-lifelong folk fan I was a little uninspired by Dorman throughout most of his set, but when he let it out on this song-- a folky-sad ballad about mistreating "our land"-- I felt it. Dorman seems a born lyricist: "I was born a farmer's son. My father, he taught me how to sow. Told me that the land could teach me how to grow. If I could keep open my heart, never be apart from the ebb and flow of life, and I still hear the words, the one and only verse he sang before he died: well the land on which we stand is the only thing we have that can withstand the weight of our lives..."
     Maybe poetry is in the water out east. I'm pretty much on the next train to Vermont.

[Andru Bemis] {that's really how he spells it}
     So I'll get this out of the way right now, because I'm an up-front kind of gal: Andru was by far my favorite part of this show.
     To give you a mental image, in my notes from the show tonight I describe Bemis as "Slugworth from Willy Wonka with long hair in a hobo Halloween costume." (I mean that with as much love as possible {I'm trying to be a lot nicer on my blog lately}.)
     So... back to the music: Bemis is a VIRTUOSO on the banjo. YOU READ THAT RIGHT! He took the stage behind one of those five-stringed monstrosities on which I can't play anything but Rolling Stones songs (open G tuning-- music nerds, where you at?!) and rocked. the. shit. out. of. it. Honestly: when I watched him play I literally thought to myself, "what is he doing? is he playing through a loop station? is that a sample?" His hands and fingers and wrists and arms all seemed to move almost independently of each other, creating that sought-after banjo rhythm: effervescent, floaty; graceful but percussive. Truly amazing. In fact, it was Bemis' set that inspired the (strange) title of this very article.
     But enough about technique. Bemis' music is what I can only describe as authentic-- probably the most "authentic" feeling act I have seen in a long time, if not ever. It made me feel like all the other folk music I hear being performed on a regular basis is Taco Bell, and Bemis is my (hypothetical) Oaxacan-born grandmother's special vegetarian fajitas that she makes only for me, with love in every grain of hand-ground corn tortilla. Hypothetically- speaking, of course (but if only I had a Mexican grandmother).
     Anyway. After the glory of the first third or so of his set, he put down the 'jo in favor of a classical 6-string, of which I'm normally a huge fan-- and although Bemis' weird backwoods warble was complemented almost perfectly by the nylonny warmth of classical guitar sound-- but I found myself largely unimpressed by his guitar set (and, by the looks of things, I wasn't the only one; just sayin'). Alas, Bemis ditched the classical for his 5-string, in a glorious tent-revival stomp that brought the room back to life, and ended his set on (ahem) a high note.
     Pun intended.
     But anyway. I hate to admit this but one of my favorite parts of his set was a cover of "Coat of Many Colors," made famous by the lovely Miss Dolly Parton. Truly beautiful and, magically, without a trace of corniness; the kind of cover that makes me wish he had written it.
     Finally, (and please excuse the abounding literary references in this post), indulge me, if you will, in my final praise of Andru Bemis: his ditty "Huck Finn" (you'll understand why I referred to it as a 'ditty' when you hear it). A folk genius AND Mark Twain fan?! My entire being is the intersection of music nerdiness and regular nerdiness and, may I say: Andru Bemis, you have my heart.

[Her Folkiness, Ms. Daisy May]
     Excuse my corniness, and my tenancy for all things utterly cliche, but Daisy May Erlewine is folk royalty in Michigan-- I mentioned before that the Strutt was crowded tonight, and may I suffice it to say that an alternate title for this article was "Boogie Records Revival: Country Clusterfuck."
     Shit was PACKED-- and rightfully so. While Daisy May is further on the country side of folk than I tend to lean-- if you've never heard her, she sounds like Dolly Parton trying to sound like Alison Krauss-- you can't deny she has a decent following in Kalamazoo and throughout most of the state. And when I say following, I mean, a room packed shoulder-to-shoulder with fans-- not just fans who know the words, fans who listen, eyes closed with prayerlike reverence, emanating a near- palpable energy.
     However, honesty is my curse in life so I must say that I was mostly unaffected by Daisy May's set. It was really not until the third song of her set, the absolutely gorgeous ballad "The Shoreline" (up on her Myspace) which she described as "about a trip to Lake Superior in the winter," that I really began to warm up to her set.
     Do you remember in "Hustle and Flow" when DJ is talking to Skinny Black, and he's trying to convince Skinny to come back to Memphis? DJ says that in the future, if one day there is nothing left-- no humans, no buildings, no civilization-- you would still be able to put on Skinny Black's first mixtape and know everything you ever needed to know about life in Memphis. WELL... I feel like Daisy May, specifically, the aforementioned "The Shoreline" captures the essence of life in Michigan without ever really even talking about it. Not today, but speaking out of the context of time. Holed up in a hipster haunt as the snow falls, standing by myself with a Short's Soft Parade, listening to good old-fashioned midwestern folk-revival, it actually felt alright to be from Michigan.
     Even Kalamazoo.
     Sometimes I don't really hate this place that much.
     Anyway. I mentioned before that I really wasn't that into Daisy May's set. I'm kind of a fan of her guitar style: plucky; almost harplike on most of her songs. But other than the aforementioned "The Shoreline," and another standout piece, the gorgeous "Shine On" (which I first heard as a cover by Rachael Davis at the Kraftbrau many summers ago), I couldn't get as into Daisy May as I wanted to. I love what she does and I think she's a really talented songwriter; however, as I said before she is a little country for me. If I go folk, I go all the way-- bathtub moonshine folk or no dice. That's just how I roll. Daisy May even used to be like that, but she's gotten a little Nashvilley as of late. For my taste.
     I certainly enjoyed myself, though, as you have probably been able to glean thus far. The best part of the show, overall, was the hootenanny-style jam sesh that culminated after Daisy May's set. May invited Michael Beauchamp and (the adorable) Graham Parsons (who had both played sets before I got there. rats!) for a rousing rendition (I love that phrase) of Neil Young's "Only Love Can Break Your Heart." A half-in-the-bag hippie syndicate improvised a standing-room for drunken slow-dances and a singalong to rival the "Tiny Dancer" scene in Almost Famous. Honestly.

     Anyway. It's 3 AM (I got all excited and had to write this right after the show).
     Sweet dreams. Let it snow.
     I think I almost fell in love with winter tonight. Not sure how that happened.

Hugs,
-thejunkie