PICKATHON PICK: FOGHORN STRINGBAND -- You know something's going right in the world when a band like neo-traditionalist Foghorn Stringband is signed to a label with the clout of Nettwerk, whose roster includes Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlan and Barenaked Ladies.
Foghorn is a young quintet of Portland string players who play old-time music the way it was meant to be played, straight-up and without amplification. Which is not to say there isn't electricity when they fire up songs like "Stagger Lee," "Kickin' Up the Devil on a Holiday," or "Short Life of Trouble," all from their debut Nettwerk CD, "Weiser Sunrise."
Although the official record release won't be until November in order to accommodate the band's heavy touring schedule, fans can catch Foghorn live at the KBOO Pickathon on Friday and Saturday at the new Pudding River site, and at Music Millennium Northwest on Wednesday.
The CD was recorded in much the same manner as Foghorn's previous projects. In traditional fashion, the five gather around a single microphone and ramble their way into your heart. This is not bluegrass, where the emphasis is on the speed and dexterity of individual soloists; traditional music is more fluid and ensemble-oriented. While each instrument has its place, the power comes from the cohesion and focus on a single melody.
Foghorn delivers in spades. "Weiser Sunrise," a nod to the small Idaho town and its annual fiddle festival where the members of Foghorn met, is a 15-song outing recorded at Mike Coykendall's Blue Room Studios in Portland, with no multitracking or overdubbing. "It was the exact feeling as when we sit around and practice or play live," says fiddler Stephen "Sammy" Lind.
"We're really happy with the new record," he adds, from the tour van somewhere between Cleveland and Chicago, bound for a night off in Madison, Wis., before weekend dates in Seattle. "The main thing was to do it as natural as possible. No one argued over song titles. It was pretty clear what we needed to do, and we're all pretty happy with it."
The group -- Lind, Caleb Klauder on mandolin and vocals, the Rev. P.T. Grover Jr. on banjo, guitarist Kevin Sandri and upright-bassist Brian Bagdonas -- couldn't be tighter or more egoless. The songs are deceptively simple folk melodies but the group's playing is watertight and the tempos are organic.
It's community music for the common cause, dating back from before there were raging debates about family values. Anyone who has experienced a Bill Martin-led square dance at the Kennedy School knows the allure of Foghorn's music. They shift nimbly from reels to waltzes, alternating between rollicking instrumentals and vocal tunes. Every song on their new CD is a traditional American tune, part of the pantheon of public-domain music. The band plays it with reverence for the form.
With Nettwerk, new doors may open, and for all the right reasons. "They all seem like nice folks," Lind says in humble fashion. "Basically, they're really into what we're doing just naturally, just how we've been doing it all along. There's no pressure to change what we've done. It's great to get more distribution for our records, and to travel more."
It'll be hard to top the roadwork Foghorn has done this summer, when the band played festival dates in California, Indiana, West Virginia, New York and Washington, D.C., including tour toppers in Malaysia for an international traditional music festival, and at the famed Newport Folk Festival.
