UF 15

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Urban Folk

FEATURING: John Houx, Mike Baglivi, Paleface, Fredo Flintstone unveiled, the Winter AntiFolk Festival and much more!

February/March 2008

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Urban Folk: 15 issues young

L

IKE THE INNARDS OF A STOMACH

,

HEREIN ARE THE GUTS OF THIS ISSUE

COVER 1

TABLEOF CONTENT REALLY? WEHAVETOGOTHROUGHTHISAGAIN? 2

FINDING JOHN HOUX BRIAN SPEAKERSPEAKSTO HOUX. WHO? YOUGETTHEIDEA… 4

SUBWAY STORIES JOE CROW RYANONTHETRIALSANDTRIBULATIONSOFTHE CHRISTMASSEASON. 7

MIKE BAGLIVI BEN GODWINON MIKE BAGLIVI. GENIUS, MADMANORBOTH? FINDOUT… 8

EXEGESIS J.J. HAYESON BAGLIVI'S "FRANK SINATRA & NUCLEAR WAR." GENIUS, MADMANORBOTH...? 10

JUST ABOUTTO BURN BUTCH ROSSTALKSTO PALEFACEAND MOONTHEROADFROMOBSCURITY. 13

GETINTHE MINIVAN BROOK PRIDEMORELIKESBANDS. WHY? THEANSWER'SONTHEPAGE... 16

AFF! THE WINTER ANTIFOLK FESTIVAL 2008 SCHEDULE, BROUGHTTOYOUBYHARDYBEARS. 18

SOPHIST FOLK J.J. HAYESTALKSABOUTSOMETHINGOROTHER. FROGS… SCORPIONS? WHATEVER… 24

SOCIAL NETWORKING JESSI ROBERTSONTELLSUSHOWTOGETITDONE. 26

FREDO'S RANT FREDO FLINTSTONÉUNMASKS. THEUNVEILINGOFTHEHALF-CENTURY! 28

DEREK JAMES B.J. BARRATTWRITESABOUT DEREK JAMES, HISALBUM, HISLABELANDHISVIDEO. 30

RECORD REVIEWS YOU'DTHINKTHISWOULDBESELF-EXPLANATORY, WOULDN'TYOU? 32 Pretty much every issue starts the same: This is a great issue; “the best one yet... yada yada... we need your help... yada yada... we’re only able to continue with contributions from the community... yada yada yada...” Well, it’s the same story for a different day. Urban Folk will only continue publishing if we can afford to. We need content about the acoustic community, and, just as important, we need operation expenses. Without either material or funding, Urban Folk will get shut-down, and all the little Urban Folk orphans will be back on the streets, and then they’ll be robbing/filching your guitars, sleeping in your cars, and dancing with your stars. I can assure you, nobody wants that. So I entreat you, please: buy an ad, make a donation, write an article. Help a zine out...

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Who Are You?

by Brian Speaker

photos by Magali Charron

Finding John Houx

Urban Folk: There was a song you opened your set with when I ran sound for your first show that I haven’t heard you play since. You sang it a cappella and you stomped your foot to hold the rhythm.

John Houx: Yeah, that song doesn’t really have a name, it was the first one I sang at the AntiHoot. My guitar was really out of tune that night, so I decided to play it without the guitar and stomp it.

Through very personal lyrics and colorful imagery, John Houx tells you exactly who he is through his music. He “was born in 1984” though he’ll deny it to the end. He’s a “hole digger’s son”, who hasn’t seen his family in close to a year, and his “...home is nowhere (he’s) ever been”. His friend, avid music fan, and supporter, Bernard King describes John as “one of the best new songwriters on the scene.”

Dan Costello offers, “John Houx blows my mind. He’s honest, earnest and barefoot.”

John Houx (pronounced oo like noon) was born in North-ern California, information he presents in “1984,” one of his many fine autobiographical songs. Spending some time on the west coast, he wound up in Portland, Or-egon working in copper plate printing. He hesitates for a moment, “I’m really unsure what for. Though I learned something from it. It took me deep into William Blake. His poetry and imagery.”

UF: What made you leave Portland?

John Houx: There was no reason for me to stay. I was hardly ever playing music and that was something I had always wanted to do. It was in my head, like some-body was telling me to get up, pack a suitcase and hit

the road. The worst that could happen would be like... I died. At least I died trying.

UF: Trying...?

JH: To live day-to-day and not have obligations to any-one. Do it on my own, not have to rely or owe. I guess you can never really do that fully...

UF: What led you to New York City?

JH: I took a train straight to Chicago. I knew I wanted to come to New York but got off the train in Chicago and asked people what part of town to check out and play in. I made some haphazard connections playing in a cafe where I would meet someone who would take me to another place to play, where I would meet some girls who would let me stay for free. I also went to Nashville, North Carolina and Virginia.

UF: How did people respond to you?

JH: Not always so positive. Pretty interesting being on the outskirts of Nashville and getting snubbed by people while asking for directions. Though, also in Nashville, I asked a couple of girls for a cigarette and ended up staying in their dorm room for 2 weeks.

(He breaks out into a wry smile. John has a very charm-ing sensibility. He’s both genuine and sincere and I can only imagine young ladies, smitten with his unas-suming swagger, wanting to reach out and help him.)

JH: Setting out was completely liberating. I learned to reach out to people. Fly or fall; sink or swim. Either you learn how to do it or you get left on the highway. Chicago, Nashville, all those places were a warm-up to coming to NYC.

My very first night of training as a sound guy at the Sidewalk Café was John Houx’s first show. Neither of us knew that the other was new to something that would prove to be so important. All I knew was that the last act of the evening was a barefoot and rosy-cheeked artist stepping onto the stage with a buzzy primitive guitar held strapless, high up to his chest. God knows what he thought of me. I placed a mic up to his guitar and we exchanged a few pleasantries. He admitted to being a bit nervous at his first full performance at the illustrious East Village club. I knew how he felt. I walked back to the soundboard, watched him mutter a few quick “check, checks” into the mic and stroke his noisy guitar a few times. I gave him a thumbs up, and John put down his guitar standing at the mic, poised and unprotected. I sat tight at the board, waiting for him to pick up the guitar and begin, but Houx needed no instrument to start the show. His first number at his first show was done with one instrument: his voice. It was a stunner of a song, and he’s never done it again.

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Urban Folk XV ~ page 5 UF: Was NYC hard on you when you got here?

JH: People were more friendly here than anywhere else. I found it surprisingly easy to get around and felt at home here pretty quick. But a lot of that has to do with circumstance. The lady who gave me a ride to NY let me stay with her daughter, who told me about the Side-walk Café. While looking for it, I found the Bowery Po-etry Club. There, people offered me a place to stay and info on cheap hotels.

UF: Who did you meet over at the Bowery Poetry Club? JH: Moonshine, the bartender “Mr. Lower East Side 2007.” He and everyone who worked there gave me free drinks or a place to stay. I played there only once at the open mic and that one performance resulted in being able to stay where I’ve crashed ever since. I’ve got my typewriter, my guitar and a few books.

UF: Do you have a job?

JH: No Job! I’ll die before I work steady again. I’d much rather live on the streets than be employed. I was of-fered a position as a personal assistant for $250 a day and turned it down.

UF: How do you get by?

JH: I do pick up odd jobs at a gallery in Chelsea. It pays for small things, like typewriter ribbon or if a shirt wears out.

UF: Where do you get your drinking money?

JH: Mostly from shows and the occasional odd job. I also get taken care of, but I live frugal. Plus, I consider drinking a business expense.

UF: With a two-drink minimum, I think most artists have to consider drinking a business expense. Tell me about your writing.

JH: When I left Portland, I scrapped my entire reper-toire. In the last eight months I’ve written 40 or 50 songs. Some of them I’ve only played once.

UF: Tell me about “Hole Digger.” I really like that song. JH: I wrote “Hole Digger” the same night I played it at a show. Little did I know, there was a reviewer from the BBC in the audience who said it was ‘Dreadful.’ Some-thing about, it goes on for eight minutes about being a hole digger’s son. When he heard it the first time it was unrefined. Since then I’ve worked on it. Later the same guy said he had liked what I had done with it.

UF: Where do you get your inspiration for your songwriting?

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JH: That’s a theological question, isn’t it? When it’s inspired, you don’t really know where it comes from. When you’re inspired, YOU don’t really have anything to do with it.

UF: Do you find certain activities or times of the day that are better for your creative process?

JH: First thing in the morning; the time of day when I’m never awake. Sunrise to 9am, I’m hardly ever up. Ev-erything seems to be fresh and possible. As far as ac-tivities: sweeping, normal human work, cleaning or build-ing thbuild-ings. Those times when you are dobuild-ing somethbuild-ing removed from a conscious artistic expression. UF: Hey John, why do you perform barefoot?

JH: It feels natural. I feel like I need to. Part of it is, I feel like I can’t go up there with shoes on. It feels disre-spectful. The other part is that it gets hot up there and its a good way to keep cool. I never like to wear shoes anyway. When on stage I feel like you don’t have to wear shoes. So I like to take full advantage of that. UF: Influences?

JH: Music from old movies, or like... the Muppets. UF: Like “The Rainbow Connection”?

JH: Of course! William Blake, Marx Brothers, Harpo... UF: Bob Dylan?

JH: I don’t listen to him a lot. I didn’t really know any-thing about him till I was traveling with a guy from Chi-cago to Nashville who had a box set. And I thought it was pretty cool. Someone burned me his Gaslight stuff when he was still playing in the Village and I read his book last week. I liked it. It was very well written. UF: You know, you and Bob Dylan have similar stories. JH: That’s another big reason I like him. When I left Portland and wanted to come to NYC, it had more to

do with Jeff Buckley. When I arrived, a few people had suggested I was doing “the Madonna thing”. Apparently Madonna de-cided to come to Manhattan and not work, without a place to stay or knowing any-one. You know, stay up late in coffee shops and crash in people’s basements.

UF: Plans for the New Year?

JH: Write better songs. Record songs. I’d really love it if by some stroke of extreme luck, I’d discover some place to live. But pretty much the only way that’s gonna happen is if I find a boarded-up building and squat.

UF: Is there a John Houx album planned for the near future?

JH: No. The idea of self recording, releasing and selling an album... I don’t really have any use for that. I like the idea of just playing, though I do wanna record this stuff soon just to document it. Thank God for Bernard (King) and his tape recorder. He’s been at almost every show and taped every one. Even those songs I only played once.

UF: Would you do an album for a label?

JH: Sure. I don’t wanna have to do anything but play in front of a mic.

There’s a lot to learn about John Houx. In a way he’s a conundrum. Sonically and storytelling-wise, he is so reminiscent of a young Bob Dylan, yet claims not to consider him a musical influence. Even on Houx’ MySpace page, Dylan is nowhere to be found (and we all know, if it’s not on your MySpace page...).

John is open and sincere yet quiet and understated. Nowhere is he as big a presence as he is behind a microphone with a guitar in his hand.

I recently had the pleasure of recording with John. He was very relaxed and focused and his performance was pure and easy. I could hear him speaking to his past through his songs, revising his future and gifting his fate to that of a floating feather. John Houx landed in NYC on an eastward breeze, and his presence – his very lifestyle – smacks of the transient. Who knows how long we’ll have the pleasure of his company, be-fore another wind – or worse, a job – takes him away? So make it a plan to catch one of his upcoming shows and the entire next day you’ll be singing... “Good afternoo... Houx... Houx... Houx, Houx... Houx... ooon. Good Afternoon, I hope to see you soon.”

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Urban Folk XV ~ page 7

Subway Stories

by Joe Crow Ryan

photo by Herb Scher

the day before the day before christmas (2004)

The day before the day before Christmas

With a Martin guitar and Hungry-Hungry Hippos

in the Subway at DeKalb in Brooklyn

Waiting for the R-Train home, having come

from 14th Street by the Q-train –

Where the slim man from Tobago gave me

$5.00 (US) and

Told me I saved his day from despair by my

music –

Waiting for the R-Train and seeing so many

people,

I decided to whip it out: the 12-string Martin

guitar.

I whistled an improv melody

Over the chords of the World’s

maybe-favorite song

And I had just started singing, ‘Somewhere

over (et cetera)…,”

(Relishing the old switcheroo effect on my

listeners)

When Officer C. told me I had to stop

playing.

Imagine my chagrin!

I am standing here playing the Martin

12-string

Entrusted to me by Ray Virta

And some officer – young enough, by the

way, to date my daughter –

Is making me stop mid-phrase, mid-song,

Mid-near virtuotistic chordal

accompani-ment;

He ends my livelihood-earning performance

and

Expression of Free Speech – held both Legal

and

Sacrosanct.

You see, this Christmas Eve-Eve

I was both Legal and Sacrosanct.

Of course I was maced, cuffed, restrained,

in-carcerated and verbally abused.

Hungry-Hungry Hippos was searched.

Hungry-Hungry Hippos was searche

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Mike Baglivi

by Ben Godwin

photos by Herb Scher

“Music is where I want to be.”

“I guess there’s certain pictures that don’t suffer for their paint – but sometimes you gotta draw, sometimes you gotta draw a little blood.”

- ‘Life Inside A Frame’

Rewind to the summer AntiFolk Festival of 2006, with the scene written up in the New York Times and a few names stood out, held up as key AntiFolkers or some-thing resembling the Sidewalk Café version of the Next Big Thing. Alongside time-served old hands like Joie Dead Blonde Girlfriend and the inevitable and ubiqui-tous Lach was Mike Baglivi. Mike had been hitting the stage hard for a solid year, and his shows had evolved from being a one-man war on heaven into a strange, lumbering multi-media beast – with the media in ques-tion including paper planes, Play-Doh, arcane diagrams and off-duty hipsters in sports coats. Anchoring the whole thing was an acoustic guitar played so hard that it rattled the walls, and a lucid, original voice that sailed over the whole thing, implanting melodic hooks deep in our brains and telling us stories of transcendence, neu-rosis, regret and hope.

That was Mike Baglivi – New Jersey’s Lone Wolf, star of the scene and a gnat’s hair away from busting through the walls of the Sidewalk.

And then he disappeared.

“Waking up can be hard for me, when i start to feel the potential of all things / the birds, the bees, and every tiny seed growing into trees underneath my wooden feet. / So I’m lying here patiently, waiting quietly for an op-portunity / The right moment would have to be met perfectly with the right timing, cause there’s so much for me to do.”

- ‘The Greatness Of Apes’ Talk to Mike, or even read the mailshots he sends out for his shows, and you realize you’re in the presence of a unique mind that races a hundred yards ahead of the conversation and is weaving together ten thousand individual and pertinent threads of thought and jamming them together into some sort of lunatic, prophetic tap-estry – a wild magic carpet ride. It’s the same as the unfolding intricate images in his songs. It’s compelling and fascinating, and he’s completely stuck with it.

There’s no downtime and no escaping the runaway train. He just has to keep riding it until the whole thing over-loads and then go somewhere quiet and faraway, screw down the lid and make it slow down far enough that he can be around the rest of the world again. But when you listen to the music it’s clear that all of this is some-thing to be celebrated.

What’s compelling about Mike is that when you hear him play he’s just bursting with his music. It’s clear that there is nothing in the world that could possibly be more important to him than making sure that he nails it, and that you get it. Like him and his guitar and his songs are the last line of defense against an impend-ing Eschaton, and only by simpend-ingimpend-ing his heart out can he possibly avert it. Says Lach: “Mike is completely com-mitted to every molecule of his songs and performance. He isn’t kidding around up there, he’s giving you the last morse code from the other side of the apocalypse.”

“You gotta get out while you’re young, while you don’t even know you’re dumb – you gotta get out while you’re young, while you don’t even know you own it.”

-’Kerosene Park’ Mike had the standard musical education- “A couple of white trash kids around the corner from my house played me Motley Crue’s Girls Girls Girls and Poison’s Look

What The Cat Dragged In and it’s all been downhill

from there.” Ah, the eighties – back before irony was invented and rock and roll (along with Jon Berger) still had hair. Even before he could play, music was a se-cret compulsion. “My sister had a guitar and I always secretly had the itch to play, so for a couple of years I would pick up the guitar and pound on it. I did that until I broke every string. Then I stopped picking it up.” How, I wonder, does a musician go from Motley Crue and Poison to making twelve-minute antifolkoperas? “My stuff used to be more verse-chorus-verse and then I started hearing things a little differently – which I think was reinforced by getting into classical music and more accomplished songwriters like Paul Simon; people whose songs have that unpredictable quality but their songs are as balanced as any Ramones song. I just take it note by note and I don’t think it has to be a chorus or a bridge or anything... it just has to sound good. I can define it later, but it has to justify itself. I’ll

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Urban Folk XV ~ page 9 have an idea of the lyrics and an idea of the mood...

epic, quiet, whatever... and I just try and find a hook and leave my ears wide open. The more I write... I actu-ally start crying just thinking about the possibilities sometimes. It can go anywhere. I’ve always had this insane urge to write a great song. I love music and I want to make great music myself.”

“We’ll be making art, while there’s still a god in the black box.”

- ’NY Afterparty’

Apart from his ab-sence, mostly what I want to know about Mike is how come he isn’t playing with an eleventy-three piece band. The sweep and the scope of the songs seem to demand it, and listening back to his tunes on my own internal jukebox while writing this article, I can definitely hear the orchestra. But Mike doesn’t want to wait for those stars to align – “I’m all I got right now. I would have been at the Sidewalk a year before I was if I hadn’t been trying to find a band, doing the dirty casting couch on Craigslist and interviewing one asshole drummer after another. It was really my fault, because I

was really avoiding doing something with what I had, and after a year with nothing happening I said ‘I just have to get out and play.’”

That hammering acoustic may be all that Mike has to play with on stage, but it gets him out of the house. But he does have ambitions to make music on a larger scale. “I have songs I won’t play until I can get an or-chestra... I have stuff on my four-track that has strings, bells, percussion, woodwinds... I think things could be so much grander. My ultimate goal is to have a gigan-tic band and make it sound bigger than anything you heard in your life, like a cathedral.”

Intrigued, I ask him if I can listen to those four-tracks, but Mike insists “they’re not really fit to leave the house.

It’s like a sketchpad. I have a 4-track of ‘Greatness of Apes’ – my family went away for the weekend and I set up all my stuff in the living room and spent about 40 hours straight working on it. I think I slept there. Al-though it was the best recording experience I’ve ever had people would still think I’m an asshole if I put it up on Myspace.”

The stage show – playdoh, flashcards, backup spoken word artists and all – evolved accidentally and haphaz-ardly. “I guess when you write a big song you want to do something big with it. It was completely un-stable and crazy but it was really exciting. It’s all about Man’s eternal battle against laziness and fear. One thing leads to another, and next thing you know you have a trunk full of fuckin’ props and your friends onstage in cheap suit jackets swallowing lit matches.”

“Hollywood’s Egyptian tombs – Hollywood and its temples – one day they’ll discover us and learn about America.”

- ’Frank Sinatra and Nuclear War’ I notice that we’ve been talking for an hour and Mike has avoided refer-ring to his missing year. I ask him directly – what was up? He doesn’t re-ally want to talk about the specifics. “ A lot of personal shit hit the fan, and I had to stop for a while. My brain was working the whole time thinking about being back, but I just couldn’t. I missed playing and I missed people. The Sidewalk is more about people for me than music. Music screws up so many human relationships, even just in conver-sation – people get so cynical about it and they take from it and channel it into their lives, which is just ex-actly backwards.”

At least part of it was connected to near-crippling stage fright. “I was just paralyzed with fear and self-conscious-ness and then afterwards I’d beat the living shit out of myself for not being able to overcome that.” But some-thing shifted in the year Mike was away. “Nowadays

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I’ve really got into the idea of being a showman. I have no idea if I’m pulling it off but now I know what I should be doing. It might take a few years but it will get done. I desperately want it to be more than just another guy playing songs. It’s the scariest thing in the world to look the crowd in the eye and be who you are, while that music’s running through you.”

We can expect a lot more from Mike in the future, with baby-step collaborations taking place with bands like the Telethons, his own shows, and shows like the

re-cent Neutral Milk Hotel night, where he joined Erin Regan’s all-antistar crew to deliver the whole of In The

Aeroplane Over The Sea to a rapt, packed house. Above

all, Mike values the scene and the people in it over the music. “It’s really valuable for me to be around great people. And they just happen to make great music. It feels really, really good: playing, trying to live up to myself. Music’s where I want to be and I’m not going to stop any time soon.”

myspace.com/mikebaglivi

Exegesis: “Frank Sinatra and Nuclear War”

interpreted by J.J. Hayes

We need to get medieval on your posterior analytics,

as it were. Seriously, medieval. Seriously medieval. When it comes to exegesis, what better place to start than with the medieval couplet which lists the four lev-els of biblical exegesis, which work fine for poetry and song. Especially for a song like Mike Baglivi’s “Frank Sinatra and Nuclear War.” The couplet goes:

The Letter speaks of deeds; Allegory to Faith / The Moral how to act; Anagogy to our destiny.

There you have it – the literal sense, the allegorical sense, the moral sense and the anagogical sense. This last is especially relevant to “Frank Sinatra and Nuclear War,” since it is the sense of the passage which refers

to our destiny eternal or otherwise, often applied to in-terpretations of the Book of Revelations (AKA the Apoca-lypse of John).

The Literal Sense

Listen to the song. Such listening will describe the song to you far better than my words can. In fact put down this whole thing until you catch Baglivi live, unless he gets a version available for download. Of course you could read selected lyrics right here as well.

I find the title interesting, not just because of its con-tent, but in its relationship to the song, which offers explicit mention of neither Frank Sinatra nor nuclear

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Urban Folk XV ~ page 11 war. This song would work very well and in a much

more mysterious fashion without the title. And imagine hearing it for the first time. Hearing the title first, the song becomes a sort of abstract impressionist paint-ing of some real object, of which the title informs. Hear-ing the song first and then learnHear-ing the title sets one up with previously mentioned mystery which then snaps into place – in this listener’s mind anyway. Well, you all know the title anyhow; there’s no use playing coy. Frank Sinatra and Nuclear War. Both, and especially in combination, bring forth one image. The Nevada Desert, wherein both the Rat Pack and nuclear weap-ons testing had their heyday in the 50s and early 60s. Man, that was what Vegas was about; this was living high in a land under the threat of nuclear annihilation. The desert wherein we tested our own weapons, where we turned the sands to glass, was what surrounded Sinatra singing at the Sands. Nuclear war hung in the air. This is the literal historical context of the title.

The world it seems to be slowing down, is it ever gonna stop? / ... from all the pressure that’s underground from everything on top.

One wonders if this first line literally refers to the earth spinning on its axis, slowing down at an almost imper-ceptible rate. But it points to the main question - the main anagogical question, as it were: is the world go-ing to stop?

The second line plays on the dual meaning of “under-ground.” In the song’s context, it leaves you wondering whether we are talking about the pressure of the under-ground nuclear testing. But the pressure is “from ev-erything on top.” That seems to be the weight of what we’ve built: civilization. That points to a second mean-ing of underground, significant in time and place given the “underground” movements in poetry, music and poli-tics that were pressing upward against the civilization represented to some by a) Frank Sinatra and b) the threat of nuclear war.

Now everytime there’s a sunny day someone tells me we’re melting away

A clear reference to global warming and climate change and people’s reaction to it – bringing the slow world-ending situation of today in tandem with the threat of nuclear Armageddon under which the Sinatra of that period sang.

Outside a war is beginning, while the orchestra plays a new song...

Is this war an image of the nuclear war that might have begun, a sort of imaginary revisionist history of what it would have been like as Sinatra sang while the mis-siles actually began to fly, his song being the “last song?” Is it possibly a reference to the Vietnam War

which was just beginning? Or the cultural war about to explode across the globe, leaving the style and values (or lack thereof) of the society represented in people’s minds by Sinatra behind? Is the “new song” the music that eventually replaced his – is it a reference to Sinatra making an attempt at the latest rock and roll hits or even singing Dylan?

The more immediate and powerful historical reference in this case is, I think, the Cuban Missile Crisis. People who lived through it tell me it felt like the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. might finally attempt to annihilate each other, and us. Imagine Sinatra singing during these anxious hours a number that might be his last song. It was a time we can imagine people were not bothering to watch ball games, and painters could easily have not signed their work knowing that no one would be there to see it. This was a time when Dylan was quoted as having thrown together “Hard Rain” out of a random selection of lines he’d collected, since he thought there would not be time to develop them into separate songs.

Hollywood’s Egyptian Tombs / Hollywood and its Temples

Interesting phrase because it gives the impression of referring to the sets constructed for those great epics being filmed in the age of Sinatra and nuclear war. This slides quickly into America being discovered sometime in the future. This raises the interesting point: will the future learn about America and view its monuments as we do historic temples and tombs, or will they uncover the fake temples and tombs and learn something else about us? From a literal perspective, America was on the edge of being left only for future generations to dig up – Hollywood’s version of Egypt.

The Allegorical Sense

Since it is only by virtue of the title that we assume that the singer in this song is Sinatra, it becomes clear that Sinatra represents any artist, any singer, at any time when the fear of doom pervades the air. More spe-cifically, just do away with any thought of Sinatra and substitute any artist at such a time.

Likewise, nuclear war may represent any particular re-sult of civilization which threatens to extinguish the very species that spawned it.

The underground represents the forces that are pushed down by that civilization, be they nature or human be-ings which, as they push back, begin a sequence of events that is hard to comprehend:

And your head is spinning all around and its never gonna stop / Because the pressure that’s underground is al-most to the top.

But even this line makes one revert to the initial image of underground nuclear testing. This raises the

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ques-tion does the writer equate the responses to pressure as possibly being as destructive as the nuclear weapon? Is it all about constant leashing and unleash-ing of movements beyond our control? And what hap-pens when it all breaks through the surface?

The Moral Sense

Listening to this song in full, one can see that it ad-dresses the proper response of the individual to im-pending disaster. The moral is pre-anagogic as it were. Baglivi describes the state of the individual wrestling with a chaotic and accelerating world:

Sometimes you feel we’d have half a chance if you / only could just catch your breath

This temptation to believe that somehow we could solve it, if we calmed down, if we didn’t have to race from one crisis to another, from one appointment to another, meets with the realization that none of this is really within one’s control. All that can be controlled is the moral question of the moment:

but then you know that it’s out of your hands – it’s the moment, and its gotta last

This question of the moment, which may be the final moment, is the key to the entire song. It is a fearful time and, truth be told, we do get scared but “just scared enough to be happy its not up to you.”

And so the moral question, the question of what to do with this particular moment in our control, comes down to something else. It comes down to a line reminis-cent, I suppose, of Camus or Sartre or some other ex-istentialist writing in the same times that Sinatra was doing his work:

And now you know it’s all in your hands: YOU’RE THE MOMENT...and you’ve got to last.

But the underpinning of this idea, what supports it, what makes it convincing in this song, is not some existen-tial conclusion of an individual thrown into an

absurd world, it is rather found in the anagogic. It is in the face of the future that doesn’t yet exist, that might not exist, or as Lach once put it, simply doesn’t exist at all, that the moral question is fully grounded.

The Anagogical Sense

Baglivi describes a number of natural re-sponses people have to thoughts of immi-nent worldwide doom. He does not judge them. In fact, the singer himself participates in some of them. But the chorus in some strange way puts the ground beneath the singer’s realization of the proper reaction.

but there’s only one note that survives the whole / there’ll be only one note moving on.

In a certain tradition of thought which reached an apo-gee in the very same medieval age when we began this piece, it was your last moment, your final earthly state, that determined your future state wherever that might be. Indeed, some writers would advise “Keep always before you the moment of your death.” These thoughts occur in an obvious apocalyptic scenario, as in the Book of Revelations, where we will actually be judged, but we don’t know when that judgment may be.

In this song we approach it from the other side. Here we have a sense of what is worthy and good, a mo-ment, when one can sing along, and know life, is not reduced to finishing up with the most toys. The song leaves a real sense of this moment, the moment which in fact is each of us (for what are we but what we are at this moment, and who else is in control of that mo-ment?) singing a possible final note. It is this that will take us into eternity, be that through archaeological memory, the history books or something deeper and more eternal in the world. Sinatra singing as he did, and everyone joining in that particular song, would have at the moment of nuclear Armageddon left only the last note. So it is with us.

The world didn’t actually end back then. That’s when you realize that all these last notes that survive, all these individual last notes we may be singing, are what make up the present. The present, this moment, is the last note, about to go forth into a world that does not yet exist, may never exist, or simply isn’t.

So the singer insists that we are each this moment, and we’ve got to stay this moment, for in a literal, alle-gorical and moral sense, this present is the end time; it is the final note of the whole song, and it is up to us to keep singing, to keep this moment going, to keep us going, because it always is the last note even if many more happen to follow.

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Urban Folk XV ~ page 13 The first sign that Paleface is a pretty down to earth

guy only comes after you’ve realized that a surprising number of the people he’s crossed paths with are ei-ther cult legends or capital-F Famous. He toured with the Breeders, had Beck as a roommate, he recorded with Kramer and was introduced to songwriting by Daniel Johnston.

Were he to tell you all this, PF (as he prefers to be called) would sound like some name-dropping L.E.S. poseur, the kind who live in Staten Island while claim-ing a Williamsburg residence (someone who says, “I’m not a waitress, I’m an actress” without a trace of irony). But PF doesn’t drop names, he’s never read his own press, he is neither a wannabe nor an also-ran. His entire career reads like a “behind the music” fed through a Brownian Improbability Drive; he was there at the be-ginning and is one of the few people that can lay claim to shaping the sound that is AntiFolk (if indeed there is a sound). Daniel Johnston was his mentor, Kramer his producer, and Beck… well, as Ramblin’ Jack Elliot was to young Bob Dylan, so PF was to Beck.

PF’s career has ridden the rise and fall and rise again of the NYAF scene, and he is part of gravity that shapes its tides. When I was introduced to the AF scene in the late 90’s, you were deemed AntiFolk in part by how much you sounded like Paleface

(If you want to hear what this sounded like, Burn and Rob and

Get Off are still available

at palefaceonline.com).

PF received an unlikely introduc-tion to performing via Daniel Johnston. The volatile genius was in town to record an album with the band Sonic Youth, a CD that was being produced by Shimmy Disc owner and legendary indie producer Kramer. PF recounts that Daniel was “troubled” and had claimed to see “the Devil in Steve Shelley.” Shelley, who had been hosting Johnston, needed to find him a new place to stay. PF knew Shelley through mutual

Just About to Burn

by Butch Ross

photos by Crackerfarm

The unexpected rise, inevitable fall and unlikely

return of Paleface

friends and was in a position to put Johnston up for a few weeks. When Johnston wanted to hit some open mics in the area, PF – who had been ‘diddling’ on a few chords – tagged along, and before long was writing and performing himself. That same infectious spirit was later caught by a certain Beck Hansen while living up with PF. To this day, Beck’s acoustic material bears an eerie resemblance to that of his former housemate.

The Lower East Side scene had not yet congealed and it was at a fledgling AntiHoot that PF met former Stooges and Doors manager Danny Fields. By 1991, Fields got PF signed to Polydor records, “I thought it was cool cause it was James Brown’s label.” PF recalls. He did a couple of shitty tours opening for the Judybats and the Crash Test Dummies, before successfully begin-ning to build an audience opebegin-ning for Billy Bragg. PF began to record a second record for Polydor but by then he was ”too drunk.” The label shelved it.

From here, PF gets an offer to record on Shimmy Disk with legendary producer Kramer. There is a legend that “with a touch of a button” Kramer erased all the mas-ters of a record that would have been called Generic

America. If this is true, PF makes no mention of it. He

only says of his experience with Kramer, “his whole empire was crumbling around him. He had Ween, King Missile, and Bongwater, and his whole world was falling apart.” PF was also not in the best of places, but he still had a long way to fall.

In 1993 manager Fields, who was tight with Sire president Seymour Stein, got PF a deal there. Sire was then the flag-ship of the burgeoning so-called “alternative” music scene with bands the Throwing Muses, Sebadoh and Dinosaur Jr. PF’s time on Sire would be short. “Seymour Stein quit like five days after Get Off! was re-leased,” he recounts. Un-daunted, he set out to tour be-hind the record. “I wasn’t sure if

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I was on the label at that point, but I had some friends at Sire who sent Danny a bunch of stuff.”

He went on tour with the Breeders and Lutefisk. All were pretty fed up with the music business, which they compensated for with overin-dulgence. “Everyone on that tour was a wreck,” PF recalls. Towards the end of that tour PF hit the bottom, “I crashed, and my liver like almost gave out.” Paleface checked into a hospital, dropped out of the scene and got clean but it was a long, long recovery, “My im-mune system was just gone and so if I’d get like a cold or something I’d get an infection and I’d just be a mess, then get well for like six weeks and it would start all over again.” It wasn’t until around the turn of the millennium that PF was finally able to perform, back at the same open mics that had earlier launched him. As it

was in the early nineties, he was in the right place at the right time. “I came back in 2000, and the open mic was just full of (folks like) Nellie Mackay, Joie DBG, the Moldy Peaches, Langhorne Slim.” Seeing neither an also-ran nor a has-been looking to make a comeback, these people adored PF and reintroduced him to their audiences. About this time PF also met North Carolina band The Avett Brothers. “Meeting the Avett brothers was a big deal, cause they were doing it all themselves and having success at it. I began to see that you don’t need to have a label to do it.”

PF’s latest incarnation, and its namesake album, has grown organically. Though PF had been working on a new Paleface sound “with loops and these kinds of things,” He also began working a little side project with banjo and dobro player Breadfoot that they were call-ing Just About to Burn. “I wrote a lot of tunes,” He says, “and me and this guy were doing this country folk thing on the side. We did a couple of gigs and decided we needed a drummer. Mo (Monica Samalot) was kicking around so we asked her. Basically, we decided to make this record: I called a friend who had a studio and we just did it.”

As a trio, the group was well received in the city, Audi-ences, according to PF, “were really just digging it. It resonated with a lot of people.” Yet like so much of PF’s career, the project almost fizzled just as it was about to burn. “The banjo player quit, so I was like, ‘now what?’” PF chose to carry on, “I was digging writ-ing these kinds of songs and I didn’t want to stop dowrit-ing it,” he says. “I just decided to get some really good musicians.”

“Someone had suggested Lenny (Molotov). We added a bass player and before we knew it I had a bunch of tunes.” All this time PF was still trying to get his beats and Beck thing together, even though his heart was clearly in the folk camp. ”The two different projects were getting to be too much so I merged them together and called the record Paleface and Just About to Burn. Now I’m back to writing just as Paleface.”

The songs on JATB are as good as any from the PF cannon, still full of the punky energy and acoustic thrash they also are tempered by wisdom (and temperance). The anger of Get Off has been replaced with outrage, but also addresses more mature emotions like remorse, love and surprisingly, fun.

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Urban Folk XV ~ page 15 Since recording the record

PF has trimmed the band down to just him and Mo, and hit the road hard. When I interviewed him, he was on the phone at a Wendy’s outside of Chattanooga, TN. According to PF, the manager of the Avett Broth-ers told him, “Dude, you gotta get out of town, you can’t be in a city and tour.” They took their marching orders seriously.

“We just got out and ended up in a parking lot in Ten-nessee.”

This is not to say that they’ve fled the Big Apple for greener southern pastures. Mo is quick to point out, “I convinced him to pack up and hit the road... but we never said ‘we’re moving, this is our last show’.” The band will be back in NYC to play some gigs in May ’08, before continuing to tour full-time. So while they touch down alternately in Concord, North Carolina and New York, more often than not where they live is the van: playing the South, selling CDs out of the back, and sleeping in rest stops.

Given that AntiFolk is overwhelm-ingly, defiantly DIY, (except for you fucks who think it’s a back door to pop stardom) It seems ironic that PF should come so late to the DIY party. PF agrees. “It’s a fucking miracle that I got on two major labels in the nine-ties and those records got re-leased.” Thus he joins a growing number of people in his genera-tion, staring down forty but unre-pentant and unremorseful in their decision to pursue the art life. The dream of being a punk rock legend is tempered by realism (and more than one brush with stardoom); but the be-lief that this is their calling is no less potent. In speak-ing of the upcomspeak-ing plans Paleface is shortsighted and focused, while remaining optimistic and flexible about the future. “We’re gonna continue to tour on this record, keep writing songs and getting better. Maybe in the next 6 months we’ll record again, so we’ll see what happens. We’re feeling good, we’re feeling like this is what we need to be doing.”

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Get in the Minivan

The Ballad of Throat Culture

by Brook Pridemore

photo by Lauren Terilli

When nine people show up anywhere, popping out of a conversion van like clowns out of a Volkswagen Beetle, it's a spectacle. Every single time. That's the first thing I learned while on tour with Endless Mike and the Beagle Club, an excellent band and a great group of people from Johnstown, PA. The second thing I learned was, good luck getting to take charge of the stereo. The third thing is that traveling with a gang of eight like-minded people around you, while cumbersome and of-ten overwhelming, has its advantages.

I heard recently that Bob Dylan once said something like, "Most guys want to start bands so they can walk down the street together, like they're a gang. Fuck that, I wanna walk down the street by myself." And I can't help but feel like that, most of the time. Being a folksinger has a lot of unsung advantages.

1. Totalitarian decision-making: I've heard stories and read rock biographies about bands making de-cisions based on vote. The most nightmarish case I've heard of is the Ramones, who went through extreme infighting throughout their career over what

songs they would release as singles, where to tour, etc. Every little bit of minutiae put up to a four-member democracy. Being a folksinger cuts out a lot of the little details-only one guy (or girl) has to get time off work to travel, and only one person stands to gain (or lose) from any decision made. 2. Cost-Effeciency: I can tour in a car – or a bus. I have had almost no problem getting through cus-toms going in and out of foreign countries (even doing it without an ID the last time). Try doing any of that with a drumkit, amps and a bunch of cramped, sweaty dudes.

But I wish that I was in a band. Touring (or at least performing) alone has its shares of pitfalls as well. The first is often mind-numbing loneliness: when the show's a bust, or there's some stupid van drama, there's no-body there to bitch to. Even when things are going great, there's little to no point in celebrating with the same two guys you've been celebrating/bitching with night after night.

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Urban Folk XV ~ page 17 The second disadvantage is proving your value as a

performer. Equally fervent in the punk house and sports bar environs, there exists an instant and nearly crip-pling stigma against the solo acoustic songwriter – that a kid who can't get his shit together to start a band isn't worth listening to. I've often gotten around general apa-thy by hollering louder than people care to ignore, but even I'm starting to notice changes in my voice from years of hollering. I used to be a Boy Soprano. Out with the Beagle Club, there existed the immediate advantage of having an enthusiastic audience of eight at every show. A bag of tambourines and shakers sup-plied simple and inobtrusive accompaniment to my of-ten completely non-electric shows. And, at the show in Marion, NC, having an enthusiastic gang around me helped stir a room full of would-be detractors into a warm and hospitable crowd.

It’s a Friday, at the ass-end of October 2007. The great thing about touring the last week of October is that you get to play a whole week straight of Halloween shows. Every night, a different local band does all of their Mis-fits tunes, kids are out in full costume. It's like regular Halloween, to the seventh degree.

Marion is no different (in fact, the first night of the pre-Halloween sweeps week). A hollowed-out basement that looked like it used to be a Sunday School, houses, and about fifty skeletons, pirates and Napoleons Dy-namite. Nobody wants to be the opening act, so fuck it, Beagle Club goes first, generating a big dance party with their punk/pop/rock/greatness. Two more bands played, one doing a full set of Misfits covers in full

makeup (righteous!) and one doing indecipherable noise (headache!), and then me. Lots of yelling on my part, Beagle Club around me, shaking shakers and singing along. Kids starting to sing and dance along too, drum-mer for next band starts tapping with the beat. Instantly, one sad guy with a guitar becomes eight like-minded co-conspirators, crazy but benevolent out-of-towners spreading a joyful noise.

Next band, loud pop-punk. Had forgotten how boring MXPX is. Singer points at bassist, says, "My Girlfriend's pregnant. Now you guys know I've had sex." Up ‘til that point, I honestly thought she drank too much. We laugh at noise band from Asheville who chastises the audi-ence for not dancing, then bleeds violent noise through concrete walls, driving everyone into street with hands over ears. Touring bands make not nearly enough money, laugh together, big hugs all around. Nine be-nevolent loonies crawl back into the clown car to do it all over again.

B-man, who is never sarcastic, even when he sounds it, plays auxiliary everything in the Beagle Club. He tells us later that, while I was playing, the drummer for one of the other bands mimed blowing his brains out in disgust. B-man claims to have then told him, "I laugh at your small brain and then forget all about you." What would have been a pretty tame night by myself turned into a great time had with a bunch of friends.

So I went home and started a band. We're called the Valley Cubs, and it's me and my roommates. I don't know if it'll end up being as fun as being out with the Beagle Club, but we're certainly gonna try.

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N

A

F

Y

The Fortified Winter AntiFolk Fest 2008

Tuesday, February 19

7:30-Kenny Cambre, 8-Andrew Duncan, 8:30-Ben Krieger, 9-Kelsey Bennett, 9:30-Dan Costello, 10-Art Sorority For Girls, 11-Carl Creighton.

Wednesday, February 20

7:30-M.Lamar, 8-Peter Dizozza, 8:30-Frank Hoier, 9-Dibs, 9:30-Elizabeth Devlin, 10-Casey Holford, 11- AntiFolk Reads Bernard King.

Thursday, February 21

7:30-The Elastic No-No Band, 8-Joe Crow Ryan, 8:30-Brendan Kerwin, 9-John Houx, 9:30-Ben Godwin, 10-Soft Black, 11-Phoebe Kreutz, 12-Level II.

Friday, February 22

7:30-Herb Scher and The Key-Lime Pie Revue, 8-Preston Spurlock, 8:30-Bendik, 9-Erin Regan, 10-Mike Baglivi, 11-Creaky Boards, 12-The Telethons.

Saturday, February 23

7:30-Scary Mansion, 8-Charles Latham (Philly AntiFolk), 8:30-The Fools, 9-Brook Pridemore and The Valley Cubs, 10-Lach, 11-Don McCloskey, 12-The Humans.

Sunday, February 24

7:30-Masheengun Kelly, 8-Eric Lippe, 8:30-Liv Carrow, 9-Nan Turner, 9:30-Yoko Kikuchi, 10-Major Matt Mason USA, 11-Ivan Sandomire.

Monday, February 25

7:30-The Antihoot with Lach. Sign-up 7:30.

7:30-Scott Alexander, 8-Pablo Das, 8:30-Bryan McPherson (Boston AntiFolk), 9-Matt Singer, 10-Goodtimes Goodtimes (London AntiFolk), 11-Michael Wagner.

7:30-Brian Speaker, 8-Brownbird Rudy Relic, 8:30-Isto, 9-Poez, 9:30-Debe Dalton, 10-Eric Wolfson and The War Cabinet, 11-Jason Trachtenburg and The National Distractions.

7:30-Emily Price, 8-Peter Nevins, 8:30-Somer, 9-Josh Fox, 9:30-Alisha Westerman, 10-Darwin Deez, 11-The Sprinkle Genies, 12-A Brief View of The Hudson.

7:30-Nate Awesome, 8-Jeffrey Marsh and Rick Sorkin, 8:30-Pearl and The Beard, 9-Dan Fishback, 10-Daniel Bernstein and The Happy Zealots, 11-Ching Chong Song.

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Kenny Cambre ~ If AntiFolk is Americana, then Cambre is AntiFolk. He washed ashore from New Or-leans with songs that can make you want to cry, or drink moonshine by moonlight.

Andrew Duncan ~ He left home after high school with only a guitar, and arrived at Sidewalk to write songs in the basement and sing “Cecelia” like it’s his own. Ap-parently, there are fiery times ahead.

Ben Krieger ~ Operatic pop at its finest, like Queen meets XTC. He may jump on stage to do Guns ‘N Roses covers with Mike Baglivi.

Kelsey Bennett ~ Well-crafted songs. Granddaughter of Tony Bennett, she comes down from Cambridge to play. She lists the Marquis de Sade as her number one influence, which we find disturbing. Seek out the pretty photo of her with the snake and apple.

Dan Costello ~ He had a dream last night he was a tape recorder and was making a mix tape for you. He’s the barrelhouse piano player you shouldn’t shoot, and has new songs after spending January tour-ing the country to get his head out of New York.

Art Sorority for Girls ~ Daoud Tyler-Ameen’s band no longer

con-sists of sorority girls, but lots of girls still come to the show. There’s rock-and-roll hidden in his layered pop. Carl Creighton ~ He recently formed a band that gives him a whole new dimension, something like Elton John meets The Eagles. We know him for his beautiful pi-ano ballad to his sister, “Minnesota.”

M. Lamar ~ A classically-trained counter-tenor, he cre-ates a soundscape that reaches into the street. Jezabel Music calls him “an operatic loon trapped in a piano.” He explains, “What so many right-wing Christians don’t seem to understand is to be more Christ-like is to be like a nigga hanging from a tree.”

Peter Dizozza ~ Author of many musicals over the years, sometimes performed by AntiFolkers. He may be best known for Pro-Choice on Mental Health. You will get piano, you will get dinner theater, you will get his philosophy, all for the loan of an ear.

Frank Hoier ~ Known for “Jesus Don’t Give Tax Breaks to the Rich” and “The Death of Jerry Falwell.” A second album is due out in the Spring. He performs weekly at the old-time, folk and blues Roots ‘n Ruckus show in Red Hook.

Dibs ~ Dibson T. Hoffweiler’s

charm-ing songs include one about Brooklyn’s ill-fated Domino sugar factory. Known for his innovative guitar work with Huggabroomstik and Urban Barnyard, he records with too many bands to mention.

Elizabeth Devlin ~ She plays the autoharp and may be the best-dressed woman on the scene. Abelard and Heloise and Egon Schiele appear in her songs. Soft Black writes, “Intense and abstract folk enchantress; psychedelic as fuck but I’ve heard she’s never tripped.” Casey Holford ~ He writes the kind of pop songs that get stuck in your head after the show, with a seasoned guitar style. If he’s with the band you’ll hear some wicked great arrangements.

AntiFolk Reads Bernard King ~ Though his poetry isn’t meant for public reading, Bernard King can’t stop others from doing it. Retired from performing, he lives with squirrels out on Staten Island.

Elastic No-No Band ~ Justin Remer likes to perform in his bathrobe, flanked by Herb Scher and Preston Spurlock, at whom he may yell. The album My 3

Addic-tions explores his love for food, women, and films. It’s

hard to think of anything more entertaining.

Joe Crow Ryan ~ A one-man free-jazz, spoken word, folkatonic experience, he used to wear a string of bells around his neck. On uke and piano he weaves weird tales of America’s byways and down-and-out subway busking.

Brendan Kerwin ~ Down-home tunes from a soulful, thoughtful heart.

John Houx ~ After rambling across the country, he’s finally bought new shoes, but is more comfortable per-forming barefoot. Steeped in Ameri-can folk and followed by comparisons to Dylan and Guthrie, Houx is what Dylan would be today if he’d retained his youth.

The Winter AntiFolk Fest 2008 is upon us, brought to you at the Sidewalk Café (conveniently situated at 94 Avenue A) by Fortified. You can find most of the performers on the artist pages at antifolk.net, or on MySpace Music, and many of their albums will be on sale at the soundboard during the shows.

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Herb Scher and the Key-Lime Pie Review ~ A photo exhibit of Scher’s AntiFolk portraits hung at Sidewalk last year, capturing some of the artists at their best. His music has been described as Jim Henson filtered through Harvey Pekar.

Preston Spurlock ~ With synthesized raw energy, he sings profoundly of alligators and frogs, brings you to weird psychological landscapes, and may veer into death metal. He’s been known to kick instruments around, and completely reinvents “Hotel California.” Bendik ~ A punk-rock stalwart, Joe sometimes per-forms with daughter Izzy. He’s electric, sweaty, and he’s been known to jump on tables. He may sing “Malltown” and other attacks on

what’s wrong with society. Buy him a red wine.

Erin Regan ~ A doyenne of the scene who, after something of a hia-tus, is again devoting all of her time to writing. You’ll think you’re listen-ing to stories about your own life, and she hits some Joni Mitchell notes. Ben Godwin ~ You don’t expect the

sound of Tom Waits to come from this bespectacled Englishman, but he pulls it off.

Soft Black ~ Prone to mystic e x p e r i e n c e s , Vincent Cacchione hasn’t been the same since a girl put a spell on him. What Springsteen and Dylan did in the 70s, Vin does well today. He’ll be hawking some of his new music on

vinyl, and his violinist Clancy is not to be missed. Phoebe Kreutz ~ We’ve heard the term “joke folk” applied to her, but she’s not all fun and games. She can make you cry if she wants, and when performing with Urban Barnyard, she can sing astonishingly like Grace Slick. Really.

Level II ~ There’s a little Randy Newman snarl in The Carpenter, AKA Ben Folstein, but it’s a laid-back good time. You should hoist some beers during the show.

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Sunday, February 24

Masheengun Kelly ~ The charming alter ego of Neil Kelly of Huggabroomstik. We may not see him in a fur cape or playing leads behind his back at this show, but there’s no telling what else might happen.

Eric Lippe ~ The roving photographer who for many years captured Regina Spektor and others on the scene in moody black and white. Most recently he performed in the Rachel Trachtenburg Morning Show and demon-strated how to peel a banana. His discs are rare and he doesn’t perform his quiet songs often.

Liv Carrow ~ Originally with Griffin and the True Be-lievers, she trucked her belongings from Philadelphia to Brooklyn to record an album of songs about fortune-tellers, hermits, and putting eggs in a single basket. Nan Turner ~ When she sings, she may also drum, and watch out if she’s been drinking Sparks. She re-cently appeared as Mary in “An AntiFolk Christmas,” a short film by Dan Fishback.

Yoko Kikuchi ~ She’s one half of the band Dream Bitches, wields a guitar like a weapon, and sings nos-talgic songs with keen edges.

Mike Baglivi ~ He gives big stage performances on little stages and can get any audience to sing on the chorus. His music runs like an existential epic to-wards the end of the world, and he covers a song from

Charlotte’s Web, too.

Creaky Boards ~ Andrew Hoepfner is a cross be-tween Freddie Mercury and Brian Wilson who sweats like Rod Stewart, all climbing under and over each other on stage, or falling off of it. Recommended for a profound pop experience.

The Telethons ~ Two guys from New Jersey, a drum-mer and a singer on guitar and piano. A punk They Might Be Giants, they have some of the most inter-esting writing around.

Saturday, February 23

Scary Mansion ~ Leah Hayes, with Michael Leviton and others. We remember her sad songs accompa-nied by thunder stick, but Scary Mansion’s been out about town for a while and we’re anxious to hear what they’ve been up to.

Charles Latham ~ King of Chapel Hill AntiFolk trans-planted to Philly. Allegedly, he’s the heir to the K-Y jelly fortune who blew his inheritance on an under-ground bunker full of instruments, recording equipment, and liquor. The latest in a long line of artists who have come to the scene after a fall from grace.

The Fools ~ Two women, guitar and bass, songs that are like the calm after the storm, and somehow they make sense of things.

Brook Pridemore and the Valley Cubs ~ He tours the country six months out of the year like it’s his lifeblood, and his most recent album is Sings Greatest AntiFolk Hits! He doesn’t drink, but sounds great when you do.

Lach ~ The Godfather of the scene. Who knows where you’d be if it weren’t for him? J.J. Hayes writes, “Lach’s music has the same sensibility that allowed the Clash to rescue punk rock from its own narcissism.” You can pre-order his new album, and “Former President Bush” and “The Hillary Clinton Song” are also available. Don McCloskey ~ An unholy cross between Kid Rock, the Kinks, and Robin Williams. People will drink and have a good time, and it will be loud.

The Humans ~ Twin brothers who create a big strange wall of sound. For a while they shortened their name to The Hum, but they’re fully human again. AntiFolk alumni, they hail from Staten Island where, on every street cor-ner, their stickers can be found.

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Major Matt Mason USA ~ A long-time presence on the scene, he runs Olive Juice Music and produces the albums of Toby Goodshank and many others. His plate is always full and his new album is called Senile Pie

Strive Pip Melancholy.

Ivan Sandomire ~ His band is Ivan and the Terribles, and he fills the room with memories we can almost share. He’s been described as Radiohead meets good music. imdb.com/name/nm1465871/

Scott Alexander ~ It’s rare to cite John Cale’s solo work as an influence. We hear he’s like Jonathan Richman with ADHD, or Tom Lehrer by way of Allan Sherman with some prog chords thrown in, just to throw you off.

Pablo Das ~ Formerly of the bittersweet Testosterone Kills, he writes some of the most sweetest, bitterest, sincerest, rockingest tunes on the scene.

Bryan McPherson ~ The king of Boston AntiFolk has been called “hard-driving and punk as fuck,” and Filter

Magazine says “Bryan sings like we’re lucky that he

doesn’t own a gun.”

Matt Singer ~ The kind of stuff that makes ‘smart-rock’ actually work. He’ll be part of the Elliot Smith tribute at Bar 4 later this month. Do you know the story that he’s telling? It’s outrageous...

Good Times Good Times ~ London AntiFolk. Over the pond, they do things a little differently. How differ-ently? Come out and see!

Brownbird Rudy Relic ~ He sings

what he calls the “holler blues,” has greased-up hair and Buddy Holly glasses, and writes songs of despair and heartbreak. Sylvia Plath is one of his heroes, and he sings like demons are on his tail. Or trail. Whatever. Isto ~ Like Zappa as a Smothers Brother. Frank Sinatra and SUN RA are top friends on his music page, and there’s a song where he sings “Banana, banana, ba-nana” to the Pope. His performance has been called mind-twisting. He is loud.

Poez ~ Brilliant... iconoclastic... savvy... stark… an-gry. One of NYC’s finest spoken word artists – ever. Debe Dalton ~ She’s been called the godmother of AntiFolk, a banjo-player that eschews the folk Estab-lishment even though she’s more folk than they are. Songs don’t get any realer than her originals, or inter-pretations like “Oh, Susannah.” She can often be found by the side of the stage drinking Guinness.

Eric Wolfson and the War Cabinet ~ Fist-pumping songs, North Country ballads, some

Elvis Costello mixed with Rolling Thunder Revue. Band members have cabinet minister posts, and you know he believes it when he sings “Sleep-ing is a Sucker’s Game.”

Jason Trachtenburg and the National Distractions ~ Of Trachtenburg Family Slideshow

Players fame. He makes psychedelic pop, and with the band behind him it’s an onslaught. His stage ban-ter is not to be missed – or understood.

Michael Wagner ~ Plays the ukulele like Thurston Moore plays guitar: frequently.

Wednesday, February 27 Brian Speaker ~ Beauti-fully crafted songs and blues, and he just finished his first West Coast tour. After working sound, you might find him relaxing with Debe Dalton and Darcie at the bar.

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Emily Price ~ Brand new to the scene, a jazz-pop vocalist with cello who describes herself as a tall cock-tail of Ella Fitzgerald and Zoe Keating, among others. She may be accompanied by a hand-made record player, which we’d like to see.

Peter Nevins and the Standard Library of Mystery ~ Resident bouzouki-player, Nevins

manages to sound like the Incred-ible String Band without having been influenced by them. If you took a 1930s collegian and raised him in the post-Viet Nam era, Peter would be the result. A graphic artist, he designs album art for musicians such as Gillian Welch (as well as this cover).

Somer ~ A rock-and-roller with an acoustic guitar who can really belt it out, and the dim light of the soundboard shows off her raven-haired beauty well.

Josh Fox ~ A haiku: Ev’ryone is best / when following their nature / that’s all he tries for. myspace.com/ joshuacharlesfox

Alisha Westerman ~ Alisha Westerman has written songs for 11 years. The first was about an anchor; the most recent was about Siddartha.

Darwin Deez ~ He looks innocent with the curls hanging from under his cap, but that’s before you see him on stage. He likens his sound to

cats banging on trash cans with wooden kitchen utensils.

Nate Awesome ~ Plus a couple of other guys named Awesome. They might make a kind of punk bluegrass, or a cross between the Eels and the Marshall Tucker Band. They’re big in Lilliput.

Jeffrey Marsh & Rick Sorkin ~ This is Sonny & Cher meets Kurt Weill in a late night uncensored format, blending cabaret, musical theater selections, pop mu-sic deconstruction, and comedy.

Pearl and the Beard ~ A soaring, stomping celebra-tion of sound that warms both heart and toes. Born on the frothy shores of Brooklyn, this nascent lovechild of Kismet and Devotion pours every ounce of their being into each tenderly crafted hymn.

Dan Fishback ~ Gay or not gay? A solo artist who has two bands, Cheese on Bread and the Faggots, he writes surreal, comedic political theater pieces that sometimes feature AntiFolk performers. He’s happy that his par-ents will be at this show.

Daniel Bernstein and the Happy Zealots ~ Described as having a voice like Ethel Merman on downers, Dan sings pure poetry and writes songs from the grave, backed up by a great ensemble.

Ching Chong Song ~ Since the recent release of their long-awaited album, they’ve performed at the Ukrainian Center and touched something in the Slavic soul. Their songs are as much staged vignettes as music. She plays the saw, he plays the piano, there is laughter, tears, and sex. You could be in 20s Berlin.

The Sprinkle Genies ~ A real rock band that can jam and follow a disco-influenced song with some Led Zeppelin. They will not disappoint. A Brief View of the Hudson ~ NYPress called them the best Folk Duo of 2005, the same year they released their Art Star Sounds

Compilation, forever

changing the way we look at… well, every-thing.

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Sophist Folk

by J.J. Hayes

the frog and the scorpion

“Ah, hah!” cried the Frog, “here your argument fails. For yes, my cousin chose to give your cousin a ride across the water, but the choice to kill my cousin (and drown as well), was no choice of my cousin’s. Save me your existentialism. So your cousin died crying it was his nature to kill my cousin. Your denial of an es-sential nature to a being brands your own cousin igno-rant or a liar, while you falsely shift responsibility. Un-less, of course you are saying it was your cousin’s nature to kill my cousin, and my cousin should have been aware of it, in which case, yes, some responsibil-ity floats in that direction. Thus responsibilresponsibil-ity only at-taches if there is a nature to a creature. An essence if you will.”

The Scorpion sighed. This was going to be a tougher negotiation than he imagined. He had been on tour for months and these northern wet climes were getting to him. He needed desert living, but this damn river stood in his way. He figured if he could hop a ride on this amphibian he could move on.

“Look,” said the Scorpion, “I’m not my cousin. I’m me. I play this little scorpion guitar and I sing. I should be afraid of you. Have you not heard the Sewing Circle’s ‘Great American Bullfrog vs. The Pacific Northwest Newt?’”

“I have indeed heard it. It is quite an amazing work of songcraft. Having heard it, I will not be eating Pacific Northwest Newts. I am not culturally ignorant.” “Now is my turn for an aha,” exclaimed the Scorpion, “for clearly you believed Preston Spurlock’s song, for

any number of reasons but also for the clear implica-tion that the story was inspired by fact, and that it would lack much of its entertainment value if it were purely fiction. You trust the singer...”

“Oh, so I trust one singer on one matter, I’m supposed to trust you?”

“Not at all, I merely point out that the basis for your dietary judgment is a reasoned response to a particu-lar poetic report. On the other hand, what reasons do you have to base your belief in this obvious fable? Look, when I mentioned your going a-courtin’, it was just a reference to an old song, but I have no reason to be-lieve that song. Your fear of me is about as valid as if I were to accuse you of performing acts of interspecies mating.”

The Frog’s deep voice turned a sexy shade of sultry. “And what makes you think I don’t?”

The Scorpion’s metabolism spiked and the Frog turned away.

Just then the Scorpion heard that he was on double deck. He was sick of being called a killer and undependable by nature. That stupid Frog was getting him angry. That last remark made him angrier. Tease, he thought.

The Scorpion grabbed his guitar and began a rather long journey upstairs. He dodged numerous feet but scurried fast enough to make it to a relatively dark cor-ner near the stage.

Said the Frog to the Scorpion “I’ll give you no ride

Your cousin and my cousin Done sunk down and died.”

Said the arch stinger, “My cousin I’m not Nor Nature nor nurture

comprises my what, by which I mean my essential being, my whatness as it were, if you see. For I am an existential scorpion, a believer in free will. I am determined by nothing, I am responsible for it all, I choose to partake of necessities, I choose the temp jobs, I choose the suit and tie if I so choose. All your necessities, dear Froggie, dear Froggie, from your a-going courtin’ to that sword and pistol by your side, uh-huh, you choose them, for you could certainly choose otherwise. Your cousin was under no compulsion...”