The Oberlin Review
<< Front page Arts May 5, 2006

Folk Fever Sweeps Tappan
Students and Pros to Play to Folksy Hearts’ Content

Head outside to Tappan Square this weekend to soak up the music of the eighth annual Folk Fest, organized by the Oberlin Folk Music Club. Two days long this year, the festival features numerous student acts in addition to four headlining bands. Admission is free, and the square is open to the public, so pack your sunscreen, a picnic lunch and a warm blanket for the nighttime shows and bask in the community of fellow folk-lovers.

Several student acts will precede the visiting bands both Friday from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. and Saturday from noon to 5 p.m. The students performing will be a mixture of Con and College students, solo performers and bands, all chosen through an application process. All who wished to apply were required to submit a demo or play at the Folk Fest preview show at the Cat in the Cream.

The schedule includes four acts from outside Oberlin as well.

Friday night at 8:30, a singer/songwriter duo from the band We’re About 9 will take the stage. Their songs are lyrically complex and harmony-based, at times introspective and at times just plain silly. The Maryland Gazette calls them “wildly entertaining,” and the Philadelphia City Paper has described their performances: “One moment they’re covering Springsteen’s ‘4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy),’ the next they’re singing from the point of view of a reincarnated parking meter.”

Saturday night will treat viewers to three different headliners, beginning with Beyond the Pale at 6 p.m. Coming south from Toronto, this six-person group is largely instrumental, a Klezmer and East European folk music band with influences from a diverse range of multicultural roots. Known for their intense energy and instrumental virtuosity, the group plays both original compositions and new arrangements of traditional folk tunes.

Massachusetts band Rani Arbo and Daisy Mayhem will follow an hour later. Described by the Boston Globe as “neo old-timey with cosmopolitan splashes of contemporary pop and jazz,” this self-proclaimed “young, hip crackerjack string band” is known for its diversion from the trendy confessional style of many folk-pop stars today. The group plays in the vibrant and different style of swing jazz, an acoustic fusion of familiar sounds.

Singer/songwriter Richard Shindell will close the festival; he begins at 8 p.m. on Saturday. Although originally from New York, this experienced artist now lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Entertainment Weekly hails Shindell’s music as “disturbing, beautifully drawn portraits of frantic losers...A quiet grabber.” Shindell plays the guitar to his own carefully crafted lyrics: The singer/songwriter has won many awards in past years.

Folk Fest was organized this year by sophomores Becca Derry and Mog Youngberg and senior Ona Lindauer, all members of the Oberlin Folk Music Club. The current version of Folk Fest is a revival of a similar festival Obies held in the ’60s, a weekend-long bonanza of events including student bands from other schools, such as Antioch.

Current Folk Club members hope to bring Folk Fest back to the strength and attendance it had in the ’60s. Their success shows: The festival has developed into a two-day production this year.

On the sidelines, local foods will be holding a sample day, bringing tastes of their products. Folk Fest T-shirts will be available for ten dollars to commemorate the event.

In case of rain, events will be moved to the Cat in the Cream on Friday and Finney Chapel on Saturday.
 
 

   

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