The Foghorn Stringband found itself utterly stumped when someone shouted out a request for "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida".
There's a scene in the '80s vampire flick Near Dark where Bill Paxton's white-trash bloodsucker, after entering a divey roadhouse and spying all the rednecks ripe for chomping, proclaims: "Shitkicker heaven!" Those are the same words that come to mind upon hearing the first track from Portland bluegrass quintet Foghorn Stringband's new CD, Weiser Sunrise. The fiddle-driven stomper "Mississippi Sawyer" evokes a Deep South square-dance set in a backwoods barn where the caller's named Cletus and the chaingang escapees from Brother, Where Art Thou? have crashed the joint. It's open bar at this particular wing-ding, and the only booze on tap is 100-proof, rotgut whiskey. White Lightnin'. Hooch. Texas tea. No, hold on, that's oil.
What I'm trying to say is, these guys know how to get a party started, and we're talkin' old school. Very old. On Weiser Sunrise they inject new life into Americana standards like "Stagger Lee", "Sleepy Eyed Joe", and "Shortening Bread". You'll be amazed at how incredibly rockin' they can get on banjo,ΚΚ fiddle, mandolin, acoustic guitar, and standup bass. Still, it took Foghorn bassist Brian Bagdonas a little while to gain his own appreciation for old-fashioned string-band music. As the Dayton, Ohio native reports from a Bay Area traffic jam-where his group's enroute to the San Francisco Bluegrass and Old-Time Festival-10 years ago he was more into acts like the Breeders, Guided by Voices, and Brainiac. "I had some family members that played traditional music," he relates, "but at the time it was more about the rock 'n' roll. And then when I moved away from my hometown I realized that it was a really powerful, important music. The idea was it would be cool to be able to play acoustic music on the street."
Bagdonas eventually hooked up with like-minded instrumentalists from Minnesota, New Jersey, Georgia, and Washington to form the Foghorn Stringband, which first came together at the National Fiddle Championships in Weiser, Idaho. But the group's fiddler, Stephen "Sammy" Lind, wasn't aiming for a national title at the time. "There's a big camping scene that happens outside of the actual contest," explains Bagdonas, "where people just go and play music all night, learning songs and trading songs."
After two indie discs, the Foghorn Stringband got signed by the hugely successful Nettwerk Records, making one wonder if the wily Vancouver label expects old-time music to become the next big thing. Check the group out at St. James Hall on Saturday (February 18), and see for yourself if the young'ns are catching on. "When we go to Ireland we play for a really diverse audience," notes Bagdonas, "whereas here, at this point, it's a bit of a novelty. But what I'm hoping is that more people will become aware of the tradition, and it'll be more than just a couple of hillbilly bands out there."
