At last February's Folk Alliance Conference in Sand Diego, California, folkie songwriters, booking agents, and arts presenters found themselves in the middle of a veritable fiddle convention, as a dozen young stringbands rocked the showcases and hotel suites and even paraded through the grounds every afternoon at 4:20, Among the youthful bands were the Stairwell Sisters, San Francisco's collectors of vintage tunes and clothes; Uncle Earl, featuring soon-to-be-legendary fiddler Rayna Gellert and the new/old songs of KC Groves and Abby Washburn; Aoife O'Donovan and Crooked Still, who back O'Donovan's ethereal vocal renditions of trad classics with the progressive instrumental chops of cellist Rushad Eggleston and banjoist Greg Liszt; Nashville's Adrienne Young and her mighty fine bluegrass/old-time band Little Sadie; and Michigan's raggy hipsters Steppin' In It. Leading the charge, however, were three unique string bands who share a deep grounding in traditional music; an intense, infectious dance-ready energy; and a determination to play their own music any way they please.
The Mammals have become known as much for the astonishingly broad and diverse repertoire they bring to the string band sound (ranging from torchy ballads to square dance standards to insightful and humorous political pop) as as for their folk-star bloodlines (fiddler Ruth Ungar is the daughter of fiddler Jay Ungar, perhaps best known for composing "Ashokan Farewell," and guitarist/banjoist Tao Rodriguez is the grandson of Pete Seeger). But fans of the Mammals' live shows may know them more for their energetic punk-trad performing style. The Duhks (pronouned "Ducks"), a Winnipeg, Ontario, band whose eclectic repertoire floats upon a groove driven by Celtic fiddle and guitar, old-time clawhammer banjo, and Afro-Cuban percussion, have recently signed with American indie roots labe Sugar Hill and have begun tearing up the US festival and club scene after making a mark north of the border. Proudly flying the trad curmudgeon banner, right next to their Most Ferocious Groove award, is Portland, Oregon's Foghorn Stringband, whose love for simply playing tunes without set lists or the usual performance trapping has made them the fave band of traditional old-time music patrons as well as punk square dancers and back-to-the-roots ravers.
The Mammals first crossed paths with the Foghorn Stringband at a square dance in Portland, Oregon. "We went to the dance because we didn't have a show that night," Ungar says, "and I kept pinching myself, thinking 'Am I really here?' Because here was this college scene of young people - square dancing! They weren't contra dancing, they were square dancing and didn't care of they made mistakes. It was so, um...what is the opposite of uptight?"
Foghorn Stringband
The Foghorn Stringband grew out of an old-time music scene that has become one of the most vibrant in the country. Portland, Oregon is now host to a number of hot traditional bands, regular square dances, an annual wintertime Old-Time Gathering, and bar scenes where old-time music has become the latest dance craze. "We've had some bar gigs where everybody's out there thinking it's rave music," says Foghorn guitarist Kevin Sandri. "It is in a way; it's very trance-inducing in that kind of setting. There's a pretty broad spectrum of people who are coming out and hearing it. In Portland, we've got the gutter-punk contingent, these train-hoppin' punk kids, who are all into old-time music."
Which may seem especially odd, since Foghorn seems to be as traditional as they come, playing old-time fiddle tunes and songs with a power that recalls such inluential Southern string bands as the Camp Creek Boys and Roan Mountain Hilltoppers. And their bare-bones stage show, in which the five members encircle a lone mic and ignore such performance conventions as set lists and stage banter, creates an intensity that seduces the audience. "They really seem to be playing for each other, and then everybody ends up really enjoying it," says Ungar. Or as Sandri says, "Our show is a non-show, straight out of the living room. There really isn't much difference between when we get ontstage and when e're just sitting around playing. If we played in G last night, and we have a show tonight, we'll start in a different key. There's no set list, no starting with the same tune every night, nothing like that. It makes it fun."
The band grew out of another Portland old-time band, Pig Iron, and had its genesis at the Weiser, Idaho, fiddle contest, where Pig Iron's mandolinist Caleb Klauder, banjoist Taylor Grover, and bassist Brian Bagdonas jammed with Portland fiddler Sammy Lind and Sandri. "One late night at Weiser, it all just clicked," says Klauder, "and we thought, 'Wow, this could be a fun band.' But it didn't even start as a band. It was sort of like, 'Hey, when we get back to Portland, we should play some tunes together, and we did."
Sandri had been living in North Carolina, but it didn't take much to lure him to Portland. "It's exactly the kind of old-time music I wanted to make, but I didn't think it was really possible," he says. "It's hard in a band that's gigging a lot to preserve the things that you originally like about the music. What I really like about old-time music is playing dances and going to Weiser and jamming all day long at festivals - that kind of rush you get when you sit down with some musicians and you make really good music completely off the cuff. After playing with a couple different bands, I realized I wasn't into playing professionally if it meant putting on a suit and writing out a set list. But these guys wanted to preserve that thing that made me get into old-time music in the first place - that you just pull your instrument out of the case and you make it."
The bands dynamic performances and CDs - Rattlesnake Tidal Wave and the recently released Reap What You Sow (www.foghornmusic.com) - have spread the word to an old-time scene that almost seems starved for such a tight traditional virtuosic and hard-driving band. Multi-instrumentalist Dirk Powell, one of the most highly regarded old-time musicians in the acoustic scene, sat in with the band after a gig in Portland and has been using them as his backup band for a number of tours and festival gigs.
And small wonder. Not only is the Foghorn groove infectious and tight, but there's a unique quality in the way their instruments interlock. Unlike the usual clawhammer banjo style found in most old-time bands these days, Grover plays in a three-finger style that seems to owe more to bluegrass mountain master Ralph Stanley's playing than to old-time banjo. "There's a fiddle player from Virginia named John Ashby whose banjo player plays these real cool syncopated rhythms, three-finger style but not bluegrass," says Klauder. "We all grabbed onto that and thought, 'Wow, this is cool'. And Taylor tried to go off that." Klauder either doubles the fiddle melody on the mandolin or plays a chunky rhythm that avoids the typical bluegrass-style offbeat chop.
The combination of the banjo and chop-less mandolin allows Sandri to lean on the offbeat, creating a loud, crystal-clear "chang" that really cuts through the sound and gives it almost a bluegrass-like forward motion. "When Kevin came along, he just started pushing it, and we all felt the same energy - this raging sound," says Klauder. The band has played at the same pub every Sunday night for three years. "It really nutured the quality we have - just being in the corner and playing loud," Klauder explains. "I have this mando that's barking loud, and Sammy's a pretty loud fiddle player, and Brian's bass playing is big and full. We'd joke about the arms race we have. We just all liked it when it was loud and hot."
What They Play
Kevin Sandri of the Foghorn Stringband plays a late-'50's all-mahogany Harmony with a poplar neck and a one-piece back. "The guys at Dusty Strings in Seattle said it had a late-'50's Gibson stamp in it," says Sandri, "so they thought it was made by Gibson for Harmony in the late '50's sometime. I get a lot of comments about it from people who either say, 'I had one of those when I was first learning,' or 'That guitar is a piece of crap, but it really sounds good.' This guitar is like a small dog - you don't think it's going to have anything, but it's got the loudest freakin' short bark in the world. The sound of old-time music to go for for guitar is that tubby bass sound and a really narrow midrange with really short sustain. When I listen to old records, that's what I hear. That guitar is a really great old-time guitar. It's ladder-braced so it's geared to be loud. I found another one for $75 so I bought it as a backup." He strings his guitars with light-medium Martin SPs and uses Dunlop .96 flatpicks. Caleb Klauer, mandolinist with Foghorn, plays an F-style mandolin built by Portland Luthier John Sullivan, (www.sullivanluthiery.com). Onstage the band clusters around an Audio Technica 4033 mic.
