sound check - notes from the Northwest music scene
FOGHORN STRINGBAND'S HONEST APPEAL -- These days in Portland, for every emo or alt rocker divining the atmosphere for the next big angst thing, some thoughtful traditional picker is combing the dusty archives for an old-time string-band tune to pull out at the next dance.
Caleb Klauder, himself once a potent force with Portland's Calobo, is now in that latter class of neo-traditionalists, finding more joy in pulling a mandolin out of its case and uncorking a fiddle tune like "Black Mountain Rag" with his mates in Foghorn Stringband than he ever did playing in a rock band.
Foghorn is set to release its second recording, "Reap What You Sow," Friday at the White Eagle. It's a potent little jug of moonshine sure to kick-start tired feet and plant a grin on weary faces.
Klauder can't explain the rising popularity of old-time music. His own fire ignited after he took an elective class in the fiddle at Marylhurst University. "It all kind of clicked," he says. "My stepmother played fiddle. I'd always had it in the back of my mind to play fiddle, and here it was in this class."
The 33-year-old guitarist then heard mandolinist Greg Clarke and Portland fiddler Stu Dodge play, and that sealed the deal. While he enjoyed his Calobo days, he connected with the immediacy of old-time music.
"With Calobo, there were so many things I was unhappy about. Then I heard Stu and Greg just get up and play, you know, take their instruments out of their cases and just play and be at home musically. It was a big step."
Klauder took to visiting the National Old-Time Fiddlers' Contest and Festival, held annually in Weiser, Idaho. "Foghorn clicked there," he says. The band includes Stephen "Sammy" Lind on fiddle and vocals, the Rev. P.T. Grover Jr. on banjo, Kevin Sandri on guitar and vocals and Brian Bagdonas on string bass. "We were just playing on a different level there, and we took that back home."
The band picked up momentum with its first release, "Rattlesnake Tidal Wave," which earned national notice in the Old Time Herald, as well as with Dirk Powell, one of the driving musical forces behind the film "Cold Mountain."
"Reap What You Sow" was recorded in four days at Billy Oskay's Big Red Studio in Corbett under the able hands of audio whiz Alan Garren of Waltzing Bear Audio. The troupe used a single Neumann microphone. The recording is faithful to tradition, being more about proximity than fancy signal-processing footwork.
Klauder has a hard time reasoning the draw of old-time music in the Rose City. "I'm meeting a lot of do-it-yourself people, and old-time music has that sort of approach. It's all kind of hit in the last three years, with bands like Jackstraw, Pig Iron and the Dickel Brothers, and with Bill Martin calling square dances. That's got a whole network of things going on."
That, and there's an honesty to this music. No hype, so spin, no covering a lack of heart and soul with electronic wizardry. It's pure and simple, ingredients that often go missing in this day and age. It just makes you want to get up and dance.
