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 | | From: | The Martins | | Subject: | Portland square dance in the news | | Date: | Sun, 16 Jan 2005 09:51:45 -0800 |
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 | This morning's Oregonian newspaper in Portland, Oregon, published an
article
about our local old-time music scene and the square dances. The
reporter did a
fair job of describing the dance he attended. The web version is at:
http://www.oregonlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/entertainment/11057942219420.xml?oregonian?alms
To get all the poop on the 6th Annual Portland Old-Time Music
Gathering, head
over to http://www.bubbaguitar.com/festival/ It all starts this
Wednesday night.
Bill
_______________________________
STRINGS TO THE PAST
The old-time sounds of fiddles, mandolins and banjos funk up
a too-glossy music scene and resonate in a modern world Sunday,
January 16, 2005
DON CAMPBELL In a world gone crazy for excess, Portland often runs the
other
way. We like it simple, closer to the bone, somehow more meaningful.
Advertisement
On a dreary Thursday in January, the cold gym at the McMenamins
Kennedy School
begins to warm with bustle and anticipation. Musicians straggle in and
seat
themselves around a single microphone. Fiddle, mandolin, guitar,
banjo, doghouse
bass.
Bill Martin, a legend in local square-dance circles, grabs attention:
"Let's get
started."
He calls the children -- who up until that moment have been running,
cartwheeling, hopping and chattering in the echoey hall -- to the
center of the
floor; their parent-partners join them. "It's kind of a silly dance,"
he says,
then guides them through it, circling them left and right, dancing in
and out,
pretending they're animals of one sort or another.
The Foghorn Stringband accompanies them in a simple old-time two-beat
tune, led
by fiddler Stephen "Sammy" Lind. They are young and diligent, many of
them
expatriates of the rock music scene. What they are not are posers. The
music
rings with authenticity, because what they are doing is authentic.
The kids' dance is followed by a Virginia reel and then a square
dance. Martin
is the shepherd. "We'll push you around and get you in shape," he
says, as he
cajoles a larger and larger crowd to the floor. First 10, then 30
people take
the floor. No one is self-conscious. By 7:30 p.m., there are 150
people stuffing
the gym. Many know the steps, others want to learn.
"If you need a partner," he says, "anybody will do. You only have to
be able to
count to four." There is a serious lack of self-consciousness.
There are full families here, with toddler and teens. There's a woman
with
dreadlocks, a high-school-age African American boy with a luxurious
Afro, young
people in tattoos and piercings, the Birkenstock crowd, and seniors
with huge
smiles.
The room feels safe, communal, familial, like a potluck supper at the
turn of
the last century. The music thrums along in a kind of shared
heartbeat. It's
happy and ebullient, despite the weather outside, the divisive state
of U.S.
politics, and the misfortunes of the greater world. Foist up even a
little
resolute and persistent will, especially where a good time is the
goal, and
great things can happen. There seems to be salvation in old-time
music.
More and more people are being drawn to the communal joy old-time
music fosters:
Nationally the scene is exploding, and the spotlight is on Portland as
local
musicians like the Foghorn Stringband earn a reputation in the small
but
tight-knit world of old-time music with their prowess. Many see the
city as a
major emerging player in roots-musicianship. It's about dancing, and
community
Old-time music, bassist Brian Bagdonas explains, at the monthly
Kennedy School
square dance, is different than bluegrass, another favorite Oregon
genre.
Bluegrass is all about prowess and ability to tear off a blazing solo.
Old-time
music is all about dancing.
"It's more community-based," he says, "and achieving one sound. It's
not about
the soloing, like bluegrass. Old-time is more powerful. You can have
10 fiddlers
playing the same thing, and that can add to a big pulse."
Bagdonas knows a thing or two about power. A native Ohioan, he came
out of the
punk-rock scene but was exposed to old-time thanks to an uncle and a
cousin who
were into the "geeky, redneck thing they do," he says. He didn't
appreciate it
until much later. As punk fell prey to big business in the early '90s,
Bagdonas
found less pleasure. "It became less about the grass roots and more
about the
marketing. Now I play music with friends, and don't play that game."
Bagdonas and the rest of the Dickel Brothers started Portland on an
old-time
music trajectory with a series of legendary happy hour sets at
Berbati's Pan,
best-known for alternative rock. They, along with bands Pig Iron and
the Flat
Mountain Girls, began to form a solid core of players who now populate
the
scene.
Bill Martin, on his Web site, says this about old-time music: "Today
'old-time'
refers to the rural traditional music and song from the South and
Midwest. It's
played primarily on acoustic instruments, such as the fiddle, the
banjo, guitar.
A modern old-time band often looks and sounds like a really redneck
bluegrass
band. Old-time, however, is often played solo, or the songs are sung
by a single
unaccompanied voice. The repertoire is a grab bag of folk songs,
popular tunes,
gospel songs, ballads from the British Isles and square-dance tunes.
"Those who are sick in love with the music," he continues, "define it
more
broadly: African-American and Native-American folk music; acoustic
country blues
and related guitar, fiddle and banjo blues; jug bands; much of the
more
traditional elements of Mexican and Canadian folk music; Cajun music;
the old
New England contra dance fiddle tunes and styles; cowboy songs; early
bluegrass,
etc., played on a wide variety of instruments."
It's not such a stretch from punk to old-time. Players like Bagdonas
were seeing
a dire need to scuff up a shiny music world that was getting too
gussied for its
own good. Times seem to call for a stronger sense of community, more
self-reliance, more of a do-it-yourself ethos.
Michael Ismerio, mandolinist for the Government Issue Orchestra and
former
Dickel Brother, promotes that theory about why this music is popular
in Portland
now. Ismerio owns and operates Q is for Choir, a record-store
collective on
Southeast Belmont Street, and helps run Liberty Hall in North
Portland, "a
do-it-yourself community hall and collective of people, events and
classes," he
calls it, that stages a monthly square dance. He is also the
co-founder of the
Portland Old-Time Music Gathering, set to begin this week.
The gathering, which will be held at three venues around Portland, got
its start
six years ago as a simple concert of several acts at the Snake and
Weasel, "and
then a party at my house," Ismerio says. His musical background "was a
lot of
weird punk, jazz, noise bands." The Dickels, he says, were formed in
1996 after
meeting in Wieser, Idaho, home of a nationally famous fiddle festival.
"Wieser
left a profound impression," he says. "We said, 'Why only do this once
a year?'
" He's drawn almost wholly by the social aspect of old-time music.
"It's made to
bring people together," he says. "There's a group dynamic, with
everyone playing
together."
These younger Portland musicians were coming out of a popular music
scene and
had a sense of how to promote themselves, he explains. The Dickels
were fond of
a vaudeville-esque stage show replete with period attire. They were
joined in
the mid- to late- 1990s with the ferocious play of Pig Iron and the
more
bluegrass-oriented, but no less accepted, Jackstraw. "All these little
seeds,"
says Ismerio, "sort of germinated."
Musicians such as Caleb Klauder, of famed Portland folk-rock
superstars Calobo,
were finding their way to this simpler, more heartfelt music. In an
interview
earlier this year, Klauder said, "With Calobo, there were so many
things I was
unhappy about." Then, he said, he heard fiddler Stu Dodge and
mandolinist Greg
Clarke "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." It's
gut-level
music
As the scene burgeoned, December Jean Carson caught wind. She had been
doing
public relations for Calobo, who in the mid-'90s were poised to break
nationally
as a folk-rock act. For a variety of reasons, the band broke up near
the end of
that decade. Bluegrass and old-time were catching on, she says, and
she got her
early introductions to the scene courtesy of David Pugh, founder of
Pig Iron and
later Jackstraw. She was enamored and dove more deeply into music
management,
booking and public relations to help these bands out. Her Siren Music
company
now handles 15 old-time and other roots acts, including Foghorn, which
recently
inked a deal with Nettwerk, the record label that's home to Sarah
McLachlan,
Avril Lavigne and Guster.
Young people were flocking to the shows she was booking. The club
scene,
including the White Eagle and other McMenamins properties, the Moon &
Sixpence,
the Mock Crest Tavern and others were seeing the impact of the music
and were
increasingly eager to have the bands play in their intimate pub
settings, with
much less fuss than electrified rock bands.
"Old-time is really honest," she says. "It doesn't pull any punches.
It can be
really dark or really upbeat. The music is gut level. It speaks to
laborers, the
common man."
Zale Schoenborn echoes Carson's sentiments. Schoenborn is the founder
and
backbone of the annual KBOO Pickathon, a fund-raising concert that has
swelled
from 100 attendees to nearly a thousand last summer.
Schoenborn stretches his boundaries to include other rootsy, Americana
music,
but holds fast to the DIY, honest and transparent ethic of the
old-time music
scene. Schoenborn, a musician himself who got his start promoting
festivals for
public radio in Colorado, says there are distinct factions to the
music in
Portland but that there is huge crossover.
"Portland is in a unique situation," Schoenborn says, "with so many
healthy
music scenes contributing quite a bit at the regional and national
levels. The
Foghorn Stringband is a smash. There's a huge generation of kids going
to square
dances. That doesn't happen in many other communities. I think it's
built it up
for a number of factors. We've got guys like Kevin Burke and Johnny B.
Connolly,
who have a lot of influence. Same is true with the blues community.
Bluegrass is
the same way. A big portion of what's going on is in local clubs, but
one of the
reasons we're succeeding and that it's a powerful event is that
Portland is a
major power center for developing a roots-musician community."
Promoters of the old-time music events say the scene is not about
profit but
about honesty and building a sense of belonging. The events are
nonprofit and
volunteer-run. It's a fellowship more than a scene, an
intergenerational
phenomenon fostering what may be the closest thing yet to the perfect
community,
especially one based on music.
Grab a partner, and forget your worries. It's time to dance.
Don Campbell is a freelance writer; 1320 S.W. Broadway, Portland, OR
97201.
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| | From: | Noemi Ybarra | | Subject: | Re: Portland square dance in the news | | Date: | Fri, 21 Jan 2005 10:51:32 -0500 |
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| Cool beans, Bill! Sounds like you have a healthy, growing community
there. I'm especially glad to hear of all the young people involved in
your dance scene.
Noemi
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