From the column "Drunk by Noon" in Seattle's The Stranger March 18 - 25, 2004
If justice were served instead of serviced, more of the under-the-radar musicians who labor in the margins of what is already marginal music would get the acclaim and the money they deserve. I know, I know, money can't buy happiness -- but it certainly can make misery more comfortable. Not that the musicians I'm thinking about probably care about the money or the misery more than the next song.
Portland's Foghorn Stringband will perform at the Tractor Tavern on March 19, with fellow musical travelers Jackstraw and Little Joe. If you had an opportunity to catch San Francisco's Crooked Jades last winter and enjoyed their show, or were ever a fan of the Holy Modal Rounders, then you are in for an equally startling revelation with the Foghorns. They play old-timey music driven by mandolin, fiddle, banjo, bass, and guitar, with keening, lovely vocals. It's traditional mountain fiddle tunes and Appalachian dance music, and before you picture seniors square-dancing to "Turkey in the Straw," let me just say if mountain life was hard, the dance music that provided a way to blow off steam was fervishly joyous and played with the precision of a safecracker. This quintet picks up where that impulse left off.
They are touring with Dirk Powell and Riley Baugus, both of whom lent their considerable gifts to T-Bone Burnett's soundtrack for Cold Mountain (which, as evidenced by the Oscar-nominated performance from a guitar-stroking Sting and somnambulantly-limp Allison Krauss in $2 million diamond-encrusted Lucite slippers, could have been greatly served by the inclusion of a band like the Foghorns and a singer like Jolie Holland). Their 2002 album, Rattlesnake Tidal Wave, recorded live around one microphone, comprises 20 traditional fiddle tunes that have been handed down and reinterpreted over time until they stand outside time.
