Foghorn Stringband:
The Places Old-Time Music Takes Us
Old-time music has taken the Foghorn String Band to
many new places physically, musically, and personally.
Hailing from different parts of the country and
different musical traditions, the five musicians
harmonically converged as a band three years ago. They
have infused Portland, Oregon's old-time scene with
vigor, and their music has taken them around the
United States, to Ireland, and recently Malaysia.
They've made many discoveries along the way, and there
are more exciting adventures down the road.
Mandolin player and singer Caleb Klauder grew up on
Orcas Island in Washington State. Driving over a
bridge in 1992, he was struck by a bird's eye view of
Portland. "I was hit with this feeling and told my
friend, 'I'm moving to Portland. There's something in
this town; I'm gonna find out what it is.'" In
Portland, Klauder studied music at Marylhurst
University, where he took up fiddle. "It totally rung
a bell. When I was 12 my stepmother used to play the
fiddle in a folk band." In 1996, Klauder was moved to
take up mandolin, the instrument he plays with
Foghorn. "I got really turned on to the music by
hearing Greg Clarke play. . . . I was 25 years old at
the time. There was really a bluegrass scene in
Portland and not an old-time scene at all. Hearing
Greg Clark was an amazing moment for me. He's an
incredible musician: mando, fiddle banjo, guitar, he
plays them all in his shows."
Klauder played mandolin and guitar for his touring
band Calobo. Then, he met the future Foghorn guys. "I
thought, 'Wow. There's other people my age that are
doing this? I had no idea.' I started going to jam
sessions. I started playing with [old-time band Pig
Iron] more and more. It was fun. My learning curve at
that point was going sky high. Playing fiddle and
writing songs, listening to recordings I'd never
heard."
Foghorn's upright bass player Brian Bagdonas played in
underground rock and punk bands with his brother in
their hometown, Dayton, Ohio. "We were inspired by the
grassroots DIY aspect of punk music, putting on shows
in warehouses and basements. It was empowering to
realize you could create your own culture, do a show
for your friends, make this little community happen."
Bagdonas got into old-time music while living in
Tucson at the same time as his uncle Jerry Ray
Weinart, who was the bass player with the Red Hots.
"It made sense to me. There seemed to be no
pretension. It really clicked at that point, 'wow! If
I could still play music and follow my other love,
which is printing, and make music this moving . . .
and not [have to haul] amplifiers around . . . I
started eating it up. The Red Hots were a huge gateway
for me to old-time."
Bagdonas played old-time music while with Kil Kare, a
punk band that toured twice nationally. Then he joined
old-time Portland band, Pig Iron, and in 1997, the
Dickel Brothers, who toured nationally several times.
He says the Dickel Brothers, whom he joined in 1997,
played "a more commercial style of old-time music,"
that was a "great way to dive into learning how to
play more involved bass runs."
Foghorn's banjo player, Taylor "P. T." Grover, Jr.
joined Pig Iron while Klauder played mandolin for
them. Born in Smyrna, Georgia, Grover also had lived
in Florida and North Carolina. While visiting friends
he realized he liked Portland more than North Carolina
for its cooler climate and relaxed political vibe. He
moved there in 1995.
Grover grew up listening to English and California
punk rock. He played electric guitar during high
school but, "I think my mother got tired of hearing me
beating on power chords on an overdriven amplifier.
She goes, 'Wow, you're doing so well! I'd like to buy
you an acoustic guitar for Christmas.' I think it was
a way for her to get the electric guitar away from me.
I decided [on a banjo] at the last minute on a whim .
. . I was 18."
Grover, like most people, didn't initially know the
difference between old-time and bluegrass music. While
studying philosophy in Athens, Georgia, he found all
the people who knew about banjos were into old-time
music. "The cool thing about Athens was there wasn't
much of a distinction made between old-time and
bluegrass music, which is the way it was in the early
days . . . it was just 'mountain music'. It
cross-pollinated really nicely. I learned to play
clawhammer banjo. . . . That's what I mostly played
for the first 15 years."
Ronnie Poe, who played banjo with one of Foghorn's
biggest influences - John Ashby and the Free State
Ramblers - was an inspiration. "Ronnie Poe was an
awesome player who played old-time fiddle tunes and
used three fingers to play the banjo, but didn't sound
like anyone else. He is such a distinctive player to
me. Part of the Foghorn sound is the three-finger
banjo. I like the way that the rhythm works because
it's a syncopated groove. Clawhammer reinforces the
rhythms that are already in it. To do something that
cuts across the rhythms in a different way was part of
the attraction to me of playing the three-finger
style."
Foghorn's fiddler, Stephen "Sammy" Lind, from
Bloomington, Minnesota, moved to Portland in 1996 to
study liberal arts at Lewis and Clark College. Through
junior high and high school, Lind played in a rock
band, Pocket Lumber. He began listening to Doc Watson
and other musicians his dad liked. His older brother
Eric introduced him to the music of Minnesota's Spider
John Koerner. "What influenced me the most from that
was the spirit of the music. There's so much emotion,
and so much soul in the way he played." Tim Foss,
another Minnesotan is also a big influence on Lind.
Lind took up banjo in 1997, at the same time as his
brother, who introduced him to recordings of the Camp
Creek Boys and a record from Rounder called High
Atmosphere. "That [one] I pretty much wore out." Lind
played banjo "like 20 hours a day. The next thing you
know I got a fiddle and couldn't put it down since.
That was seven years ago. I went to Augusta Workshops
and learned from Jimmy Triplett all week. He was a
huge influence on my playing. I came back to college
and met Greg Clarke in Portland. I went to Germany for
a year with a whole mess of tapes, played nonstop by
myself. I visited my girlfriend in Ireland and hooked
up with the Rough Deal String Band, a great band from
Dublin. I came back and started meeting a bunch of
people. At that time you could see the Dickel
Brothers, Pig Iron, Jack Straw . . . play three times
a week! There was a weekly jam, so I was in heaven,
and have been ever since!"
Lind often picks up solo fiddle tunes and puts them in
a band setting. He loves the fiddle because, "There's
nothing it can't do. It's the complete expression of
whatever you're feeling at the time. That goes for
every instrument but it seems especially broadcast in
the fiddle."
Lind remembers that Greg Clarke was the first person
in Portland to take him under his wings, "He's a great
player, a multi-instrumentalist. Another influence on
me was Bill Martin. He encouraged me to play guitar
for dances. All of a sudden I was playing for square
dances. I was just starting to play fiddle. Bill
showed me the function of the music."
Lind, Grover, and other Pig Iron guys started going to
shows, and playing together a lot. They went to the
Weiser, Idaho, festival every year. "The first time
we [Foghorn] hung out and played . . . one jam we had
[lasted] all night long. That was 2000, when we
started kicking around the idea of being a band."
The last member to join was guitarist Kevin Sandri.
Born in Wyckoff, New Jersey, Sandri had played bass
since he was a teen, first blues and then bluegrass.
"It's kind of funny to have been playing bluegrass
music and not really know old-time music even existed.
A dance band that needed a bass player let me rehearse
with them and [I] had so much fun getting into the
groove of just playing a tune. I went to Weiser a
couple of months later and that was it. I was into
old-time music."
Sandri met his future Foghorn band mates during his
seven years in Seattle. Their bands were "always
ending up playing old-time tunes together." When
Sandri played at Weiser the first time, in a group of
20 to 25 people, he experienced the throb. "You could
hear it . . . all over the campground. That first year
was incredible. I was so occupied with learning how
the music workedÑI thought it was such a puzzle. It
was great. I was really curious, and never quite
satisfied. There was always some other crooked ass
tune to learn."
Sandri came to Portland "in a round about way." He
moved from Seattle to San Francisco seeking a more
vibrant old-time scene. Ironically, right before he
left, he met great players such as Molly Tenenbaum,
the Canote Brothers, and Kerry and Sheila Blech.
During his five months in San Francisco, Sandri played
with the Crooked Jades. He moved to Asheville, North
Carolina for one winter, learning guitar and cooking
in a Cajun restaurant. He moved back to Portland in
2002 to play with Foghorn. "My home was in the
Northwest. The opportunity to play with these friends
of mine was the icing on the cake, incentive to go
back home."
With Sandri, Foghorn was complete. They locked in and
grew tighter musically. They toured frequently and
play several festivals around the world. They made two
full-length recordings, Rattlesnake Tidal Wave in 2002
and Reap What You Sow, last year. The recent limited
edition Boom Box Square Dance features outtakes from
Reap What You Sow, and the soon-to-be released Weiser
Sunrise.
Sandri says that Bill Martin, in Portland since the
70s, made the square dance revival happen there.
Foghorn plays square dances first Thursdays of the
month, often for over 150 people. Klauder comments "I
think that keeps us all rooted and aware that that's
what music is all about in the first place. Music is a
spiritual thing and a functional thing."
Foghorn also plays Sunday nights at the Moon and
Sixpence pub. For over three years, it's been "our
stomping ground," Lind said. Klauder said, "We play
there but we also hang out there. It's just a
gathering place like that. It's a really nurturing
place for traditional music especially."
Playing in Foghorn has changed each member's life and
musical views significantly. A chef by trade, Sandri
quit when he moved to Portland, as the hours of
restaurant work and music don't mix. Grover, a
construction worker, recently became a certified
electrician, allowing him more flexibility to play.
Lind worked at a pizza restaurant. When that business
closed, he decided to play more music, and teaches a
couple lessons each week and a group class at Liberty
Hall on Wednesdays.
Klauder is drawn toward the old crafts of woodworking
and carving. He's worked in timberframe construction,
and he was inspired to carve his mandolin tuners from
ivory. After searching for four years, he met an old
woman on the East Coast who sold him a few scraps from
whale teeth given to her to carve by descendents of
19th century sailors, who used the teeth for scrimshaw
when whaling was legal. Klauder worked meticulously on
carving the eight tuners, better fitting the beautiful
craftwork of his mandolin by John Sullivan.
Klauder loved doing a lot of open ocean sailing
himself, and with his uncle, a boatbuilder. In 1990,
they sailed from Bermuda to Nova Scotia. While he
misses sailing, he says, ". . . there's something
about Portland thatÕs really exceptional and really
feels good. It's a city but it's a small town at the
same time and has a lot to offer. There are a lot of
people here who have really positive attitudes about
life and making things happen."
Bagdonas commented on Portland being a model of urban
development and community adding that people who come
to Portland not only have these ideas but they're
enthusiastic and energetic about pushing them and
building community in that way. "I think that old-time
music kind of encompasses a lot of the same ideals."
The Bagdonas brothers began Stumptown Printers with an
antique press initially to print for friends. A large
part of their business is printing promotional
materials and CD packaging such as Foghorn's. It's
burgeoned into a bigger than fulltime business since
the late '90s.
Sandri enjoys the cohesion Foghorn has, a sentiment
echoed by all members. "It's rare to find a band that
gels, everyone listening, finding things to do to
blend with what others are doing. Everyone's playing
naturally. The communication in the band is visual. We
start playing and figuring out what sounds good. When
we play sometimes the hair sticks up on the back of my
head. It's so powerful and tight and together."
Klauder appreciates the spontaneity and mobility of
old-time music, being able to make music anytime,
anywhere - in a hotel, on the street, in the car.
Singing is healing to Klauder. "When I can really open
up and get into it, it keeps me healthy. I connect
with the resonance of it." Klauder quotes the Balfa
Brothers saying if you don't let that noise out, it's
unhealthy for you, because that's just what you're
feeling at the moment. "I'm always yelling when
singing to the music, but it's good yelling, a 'yeah',
or a 'whoo!' You focus on the sound and let the
outside world go away. It's definitely a spiritual
moment, just letting it out."
He and Lind frequently play mandolin and fiddle
together as a duo such as at McMenamins Edgefield on
Tuesdays. Klauder said "I think about the mandolin and
fiddle becoming one. The fiddle gets bigger when the
mandolin helps it by pushing behind it." Sometimes
during fiddle instrumentals, Klauder senses he can
hear words. "There are intricacies. Sometimes when
we're playing it sounds like the fiddle is singing to
me."
Bagdonas enjoys playing his bass (a 1940s American
Standard made in Ohio) with Foghorn because, "it's
nice to be in a band that's all about the music,
playing in as honest a way as we can." He notes
old-time bass is more percussive than punk, "It's more
about really listening, figuring out how to provide
the most basic beat. There are only a couple notes you
can really play because you're supporting the fiddle.
The music I played before, the tunes were based on the
bass lines and the bass made up the melody."
Banjo player Grover acclimated to the challenges of
learning new and crooked tunes from Lind. Grover said
"I never really dealt with super-crooked tunes before.
'Joke on the Puppy' was the strangest tune I'd ever
heard. I played for 10 years before I met Sammy and
never played those kinds of tunes. I'll go, 'Man, I
really do not want to play that tune. I'm going to go
smoke a cigarette while you play it.' A lot of those
tunes overwhelm me. The first time I heard ["Chadwell
Station"] it made me angry. Now it totally makes sense
to me! You play it enough, you finally get it. I love
that."
Grover's mixed feelings about the South gave Foghorn
its name. He said, "I feel a great deal of what's
great about American culture . . . and certainly a
great deal of what's not great, originated in the
South." Whenever he'd see or hear an offensive
southern stereotype, Grover took up yelling "Foghorn
Leghorn!" from a radio announcer who did the same.
When the future Foghorn members first played together
outside of a party, they clicked. Grover's partner
Barb, who'd endured his shouting out "Foghorn
Leghorn!" for some time, wrote the cartoon rooster's
name on a sign and held it up to them while they were
playing. "You can hear when it happened on a recording
because you can hear us all laughing." Later they
contacted Warner Brothers, and a company
representative said that though they wouldn't sell
permission to use the name, they couldn't stop the
band from using it. If, however, Warner ever got wind
of it in the future, the band would have to change the
name and pull everything off the market. So, to be on
the safe side, they simply dropped "Leghorn."
Grover enjoys traveling, especially in the Midwest and
Ireland. He said, "Everywhere we go, we meet fantastic
people and you realize there's a whole 'nother level
of life out there, good people around. Playing music
is a terrific thing because . . . it's a way to
connect with communities in a way that you never could
if you were a tourist, gives you the opportunity to
see the inside of a place you'd never be able to see
just passing through."
Klauder added, "Ireland, Alaska . . . even when we
play here at home, our band quote is, 'the places
music will take you.' Some of the most remote far off
places connect you to people somehow by music. We end
up having these experiences with people especially in
Ireland. They take you into their home; they actually
force you into their home. (Laughs). They won't let
you say 'no.' I was fond of saying, Irish hospitality
is going to kill you."
"Irish people are so enthusiastic," Klauder continued.
"They want to go back out and play music all night. At
the same time, there's this other guy at the bar who's
insisting that you get up at 8:00 AM for breakfast at
their house tomorrow. It's a full on spread and you
can't really say, 'no thanks, I don't really want any
food,' you know. But you can't stay up all night and
get up at 8:00 every day! (laughs) And that's what
kept happening to us. It really is amazing to go to
other places and meet people and share music."
Klauder added, "There's a spirit to the band that's
really special. You start playing and it takes you
away, like a vehicle sometimes, it's transporting you
and the ride is really fun. You want to keep that
going and sustain that energy. Traditional music has
been going on and you can get on the train and do it
if you want. It's going to keep going anyway."
