Folk Fest Takeaways: Mick Flannery mini-interview, Wendy McNeill photos, and Grace Petrie's next Vancouver concert!

Maori on the main stage: Māmā Mihirangi & the Māreikura by Dave Bowes 

I wake up to a text message from a friend: "What did you think of Jeremy Dutcher?"

Dutcher clearly is someone to be reckoned with. I heard a couple of his songs during the trance-inducing workshop I mentioned in my previous post, the one where people thought I was sleeping, until they saw me singing along; the centerpiece of his performance was built around a recording of a song sung by a 110 year old elder named Jim (if memory serves) which was played twice before Dutcher's composition began, the first with Dutcher's explanation and commentary orienting us, and then the second as a way into the performance, which drew on it for an underpinning structure. Finally, the elder's vocal was drawn back into the mix as the song drew to a close. It was gorgeous, moving, and, in the best possible sense, educational -- a challenge to take in a perspective beyond what most of us usually encounter, in a direct, experiential, potentially life-changing way... 

Krut with Etran De L’Aïr, by Dave Bowes

But here I must confess, dear readers: I have failed this challenge! I did not do justice to this aspect of the 2024 folk festival at all -- the emphasis on Indigenous and non-western cultures, that is. There was some very ambitious stuff on the program, educationally-speaking, from Dutcher (a two-spirited Indigenous person) to the mostly-female-led Maori rave (Māmā Mihirangi & the Māreikura) to a rockin' Palestinian dance band to a band taking inspiration from 70s Afrobeat to Korean/ Irish fusion to...  When the Milk Carton Kids had to drop out at the last minute (I assume due to either health or border problems, because their merch made it over -- they clearly had intended to play), the festival organizers subbed in a Mexican reggae band called Antidoping, so even their plan B's were ambitious. 

My participation in this aspect of the festival mostly involved chatting with one of the Maori in the merch area about tuatara. No, not the band, the reptile. It's not actually a lizard, you know? It's the single surviving rhynchocephalian in the world, an order that co-existed with dinosaurs, and now only occurs in New Zealand, where they are an endangered, protected species, with eggs eaten by the rodents and other invasive species that western settlers brought with them, some (like rats) by accident, and some (like the opossum) deliberately released into the wilds, to make New Zealand more like England and "establish a fur trade." Gah! 

I had volunteered to this young Maori woman, by way of an ice breaker, that I had travelled to New Zealand to see tuatara once (and a girl, but the tuatara was a big part of the draw), whereupon she told me she had actually held one, for a TV show, informing me that you have to be very gentle with tuatara, because they're nocturnal and not used to being taken out in the daylight. This may help explain why the tuatara I'd seen were a bit of anticlimax, since they just sat motionless in their terrarium; the only movement I could see was their breathing (they were babies, too: sleepy babies). In terms of, uh, "entertainment value," turns out they had nothing on the territorial kea who dive-bombed my female friend and I at the same park. I didn't even know kea, a variety of parrot, existed before I went to New Zealand. I believe they are technically more closely related to dinosaurs than tuatara, but no one told that to my dinosaur-obsessed childhood self, who had wanted to see tuatara since he read about them in elementary school. Actually, the kea remind me of the bird that humped Mark Carwardine's head, also from New Zealand; I should be glad the kea only flew at my head -- they didn't try to fuck it.

Anyhow, the Maori woman was so pleasant and the group's traditional garb (which they wore to the signing) was so cool that I felt a bit guilty I'd skipped said rave. Someone who did see them was a Facebook friend who I see at rock shows who said (I paraphrase) that, as with me, raves normally weren't his thing, either, but he had been on mushrooms, so it had turned out great... I felt he had done a better job as a festival-goer than I did (advice for 2025: leave the notebook at home, but bring the 'shrooms). 

Actually, said friend also loved New Zealander Mel Parsons -- he had a bit of a New Zealand theme going, maybe? I liked Mel, too -- even recognized her (very catchy, powerful) song "Far Away" -- but I self-protectively hid my wallet from her records. I hope she sold a bunch --  she voiced concern on the Sunday that she'd have to be shipping them home. 

L-to-R: "The Storytellers," Barney Bentall, Mel Parsons, Ben Moss and Grace Petrie, and Mick Flannery. Photo by Allan MacInnis, as are subsequent ones... 

In any event... even my talkin' tuatara with a traditionally-garbed Maori woman was by accident: I was waiting for Wendy McNeill to sign some CDs and LPs, killing time at the merch tent, where I'd arrived early, whereas Wendy got there late, sprinting down the trails towards us in her black-and-white sneakers, the same ones she'd shown us securely attached to her feet when relaying the tale of doing a high kick at a performance at an Accordion Noir event and having a shoe fly off and hit an audience member (I wonder if Rowan Lipkovits was there? I mentioned to Wendy that we had a mutual friend...). 

Wendy -- whose albums are filled with birds and wolves and other animals, who sang a song with a verse from the point of view of the albatross in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (whom she gendered as female, which I don't believe Coleridge did), who got into an apparent conversation with some of the birds with her canned wood-warbler sound effects, and who said hello to the crows that cawed during her set, calling them her friends -- would appreciate the tuatara angle, you feel; in fact, we had a pleasant chat about non-human creatures when she got there, me reporting in response to her apologies for being late that it was all right, because I'd had the cool experience of having a dragonfly come over to check me out while I was waiting over at the pond, doing that thing dragonflies sometimes do of zipping over and hovering in front of you for a few seconds, where you get the distinct, slightly unsettling impression that they are LOOKING AT YOU before they zip off about their business, leaving you contemplating that you have been included in their cognition, trying to imagine how you looked, both literally and figuratively, through their eyes. McNeill responded that she has some songs about dragonflies, in fact -- they're important to her! -- including one that was inspired by her experiences scattering the ashes of her mother. I forget how dragonflies came into that, but it has yet to be recorded. She included mention of dragonflies in her inscription on the record I'd bought. Maybe we'll get to talk more about them someday? 

But merch, in fact, was part of the problem, part of the reason I didn't cast my net as wide as I could have. I simply cannot afford new enthusiasms! I can hardly afford the ones that I already have. I mostly focused my purchases on stuff that I could get signed (never did get that James Vincent McMorrow record signed, though; he continues his tour and is in Kelowna tomorrow). But having also bought records by Grace Petrie, Mick Flannery and Fränder, to say nothing of the used Leon Rosselson and Kinky Friedman CDs I scooped out of the Neptoon used bins, my budget was already exhausted and my horizons expanded to the bursting point. Dutcher had two records in the merch area, including his Polaris-winning Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa, but I bought neither. Had I stayed for his main stage set Sunday, and fallen in love with him, too, it might have cost me, what, $80? I was positively relieved that Chris Smither didn't have a CD with "Make Room for Me" on it, my favourite of the songs he performed. I looked twice at each title and ultimately used that as an excuse to return home Smitherless. I'd see him again, though!

...Though truth is, having gone home before Jeremy Dutcher's main stage performance on Sunday was more about physical exhaustion than financial. I'd come on Sunday to see Grace Petrie's final performances at the fest (and see at least a couple of Barney Bentall songs; I liked "The Preacher" a great deal). I also caught quick snippets of performances by Dawn Pemberton, Big Lazy, Wendy McNeill and Mick Flannery, and then fled, not even seeing Chris Pierce, though I had thought I would. I was spent! 

I had also spent a fair bit of time just walking around the festival grounds, chatting with people. No, my Grizzly shirt was not for the movie Cocaine Bear, it was for a much older, cooler movie actually called Grizzly, I explained to a couple of volunteers. Having dribbled some gobs of Grounds for Coffee cinnamon bun on said shirt on the way into the fest, I spent some time at the African textile merch booth hoping they could find a shirt that fit me, and when that didn't work, I tried on some Indian cotton at a different tent that, while allegedly 3xl, did not fit me either. I asked at the information booth about the mystery mammal I saw in the beaver pond (A baby beaver, maybe?). I only saw its small head poking from the water, where it was blowing bubbles enthusiastically for several minutes until I stood up, whereupon it ducked under; I can only say that it was neither bird nor fish. The information booth volunteer knew no more of this this mystery mammal -- I will heretofore think of it as the Loch Ness Beaver -- than I did, but at least seemed amused by the question. Does he know who I could ask? "Hmm, there's an environment committee, but they're more about picking up garbage..." 

And besides socializing and walking in the park -- feeling a few drops of rain on Sunday, and wondering if the clouds would open up -- I greatly enjoyed taking photos of Wendy McNeill, who was by far the most camera-friendly performer I shot. I didn't get to see her full set, but I kinda fell in love with her as a performer and will surely go see her again at the nearest opportunity, though she lives in Spain, so that may be a ways off. I wonder if she's encountered fellow Canada-to-Europe transplant Selina Martin over there? She reminded me of Selina a bit, at times, mostly as she twiddled with electronics to augment her voice... 

The portion of the day I did stick around for was abundantly pro-social and moving, but also -- what's that Captain Beefheart line, "too much for my mirror?" By the time I got back to Burnaby, around 6pm, my feet were throbbing, my wallet empty, my battery dead, and my list of things to write about too long.  

In the end, my main takeaways from Sunday were:

1. Grace Petrie is coming back in November, by which time she will have married her girlfriend and toured Australia and New Zealand. She proved on Sunday once again that she's the master of getting audiences to sing along (our line this time was "I know it will be hard," in "Fixer Upper"). She also did "This House," an extraordinarily moving song inspired by her meeting an older man who lived in a space he had shared with his departed  male friend, whom he clearly loved, but whose expression of love was inexpressible in his time, buried under generational homophobia; I paraphrase, but it was very touching, and made me think of a man I once cared about (but still a live one, as far as I know! Our friendship crashed some years ago but we did live together for awhile...). 

Like Parsons, Petrie made a comment about not wanting to have to pack merch home ("so make me an offer," she told the gathered audience) and I considered going to her second signing to buy up any remaining CDs she was selling, which I thought I might gift to friends, only to discover, on arriving at the merch area, she had sold every last one. Which was fine -- my friends can buy their own CDs in November; I've got mine! But since I was there anyhow, I hung around for a minute. I had already interviewed her, and was considering bugging her with a follow-up question about her experiences of being raised Catholic (unlike me, they got her to confess; I can see the value of that practice, in some ways, but also find it horrifying, depending on what you are being asked to confess, like you are expected to apologize for your very nature). But she was surrounded by female fans, some in tears (but of the best kind), and it seemed more important to let them have their time with her than pester her further. She obviously meant a lot to some of the people who saw her, and got lots of people who did talk to her were doing so to thank her. One festival volunteer proudly displayed a shirt Petrie had signed, while other people -- including parents of queer kids and a soccer-mom type who felt self-conscious that her name was Karen, which had a bit of pathos to it -- expressed their great appreciation for what she's doing.  Everyone was delighted that she'll be returning. 

Ben Moss and Grace Petrie (this one is by Dave Bowes, but I've cropped it a bit!)

Incidentally, apparently shirt signings were a thing among festival volunteers. I've never yet asked for a shirt to be signed; not sure I fully understand the practice, since you surely can't wash a shirt that's been signed and surely can't wear a shirt that's not been washed, but... maybe it's some sort of indelible ink? Here are members of Fränder signing a different volunteer's shirt (they'll be in Mission on Friday, so it's Fränder vs. Art Bergmann. Hmm). 

Incidentally, I'm a bit proud I held myself back from asking Fränder what they thought of Midsommar. I'm sure they've gotten the question before; probably it's tiresome that that's the strongest North American association with Swedish folk culture is a horror movie (we gather Slovakians are none too fond of Hostel). Maybe if I see them in Mission, I'll brave it. BTW it looks like the Fränder member in the gorgeous green dress in my previous post is named Alva (I had previously thought she was named Gabriella, which I assumed was correct when she answered to it. Maybe she thought it was some English expression she didn't know?).  

(This image is from Saturday, you can tell by the absence of clouds)

2. In terms of emotional reactions to things at the festival, however, moving as found some of Petrie's lyrics, the song that really choked me up was done by Mick Flannery, as part of that Storytellers set. I enjoyed both songs he did there, also including "The Small Fire," which he explains in this video, getting some of the same laughs, in fact. I also caught a few of his West Stage songs a bit later, as the photos below attest, where his dry wit was very much present, as when he introduced a song as being about a man's relationship with himself, then quipped something like, "But not the way you're thinking, you sick fucks," much to the crowd's delight. But the song that had me crying, the most powerful emotional experience in the whole festival, really, was called "Kilkerry" (or "Kilkerry, Ireland" depending on the version), which got me thinking about the deaths of my parents and my own odd isolation here in Vancouver from either city where my ancestors (from Scotland and what was then known as "the" Ukraine) had settled. I simply had to know a bit more about the song, so I booked one of the shortest interviews I've ever done to find out about it and about Flannery's relationship with it; I'm glad I did, because it turned out I thought he'd announced it as "Kilkenny" and Googling it would have been counterproductive! 

That conversation in full was 2:48 long and I'm going to give a verbatim transcription in a moment. If you don't know Mick Flannery's speaking voice, just imagine his parts as being read by Colin Farrell. I am perhaps over-transcribing what follows, but it's maybe the shortest interview I've ever done, and I enjoyed the rhythms of it, so... 

Allan: I want to know the history of the song, where you encountered it, who wrote it... anything you can tell me.

Mick: I'm gonna let you down now, here. I've forgotten the name of the man that wrote it. [Reaches for cellphone]. Ah shit, my phone is dead. [To guitarist Alan Comerford, pictured above]: Will you look up who wrote "Kilkelly?" [To me]: That song, I heard it first on an album called Bringing It All Back Home, which was done by a guy called Philip King, I believe, who was the producer [there is an Irish producer named Philip King, but the album appears to actually have been produced by Bruce Talbot and Donal Lunny, if Discogs is accurate]. It was lots of songs that kind of shared things between Ireland and America, and that song was on it -- it was like a whole collection of songs in that vein. Another song would have been, like, "Sonny Don't Go Away," [AKA "Sonny" or "Sonny's Dream"] -- do you know that song? 

Allan: I don't. 

Mick: It's written by a Canadian man named Ron Hynes, but it's about someone who is working as a sailor... anyways, that song, the "Kilkelly" song is on that album. I can't remember who sang it, but it's the version that I like. There's a few different versions of it online. [Apparently this is the original recording of it, but I agree that the comp cover of it is superior].

Alan Comerford [looking up from his phone, conclusively]: A man called Peter Jones wrote it, from the letters in his attic. 

Allan: How did you keep your emotions in check up there? Like, you didn't look like you were bursting into tears up there, but I could never perform a song that powerful and keep it inside -- it's a very powerful song! Do you ever have emotional reactions while you're performing it...?

Mick: Yes, I do! It's very sad. I do, yeah... my brother's said that it's some type of emotional abuse, that I sing it to my son to put him to sleep. They say that the darkness is going into his soul... but I don't know. But so I've sang it a lot, so I can kind of detach myself from it a bit, and try to do it as best I can. Because it is quite sad, and if you get wrapped up in it, you might start tripping off over it. 

Allan: Thank you for sharing it with us. Have you recorded it?

Mick: No. The way I sing it is very close to the way I heard it. I'm not changing anything. 

(End interview! He then offered his hand and we shook. Note that Mick Flannery is in Chicago tomorrow night, and that his newest album can be heard here.) 

3. The final takeaway for me doesn't involve any of the bands that played, but the fact that the ones I enjoyed the most were all by people I'd never heard of before this fest: not Grace Petrie, not Wendy McNeill, not Mick Flannery, not James Vincent McMorrow, not Fränder... all of them had zero name-recognition, were people I first read about in the festival program. Even though I was not at my most adventurous this festival, did not travel too far afield into the more daring Worldscapes on view, and am going to have to do justice to Jeremy Dutcher at the time of some future paycheque, I still learned a valuable lesson, that just because I don't recognize the names in the festival program doesn't mean that I'm not going to be moved by the music.  My compliments to Fiona Black: she dug deep and gave me a whole bunch of new music to love. 

Of course, I did catch a few sets by people I actually knew, including, of course, Steve Dawson and the Highway 61 Re-Imagined performers, already written about below and on the Straight site. If Dave's right, Bentall *did* do the entire "Desolation Row" (I was actually wandering around, enjoying the sounds of the songs in the background, rather than trying to force my way into tarpsville, so I didn't actually catch it this time, but I'm sure it was splendid). 

I would also like apologize to Paul Pigat that I have not written a single word about him in my folk fest coverage until this very paragraph. He should know that I did catch a few songs by Big Lazy, a few songs in the Guitar Mayhem workshop, and -- did Paul materialize at Songs That Slay with a similarly non-credited Barney Bentall to do a Gram Parsons song, or was that some other stage? ...It doesn't seem to be on the schedule, but I do remember going from the West Stage to the East Stage at one point and wondering how Paul, who had also been West, had gotten there ahead of me!

You should know, Paul, that while I have under-sold you on my blog, I did have an exchange along the following lines at the merch tent, where someone proclaimed to us that Kevin Breit was "the best guitarist in the festival," whereupon I remarked skeptically, "Better than Paul Pigat?" 

I enjoyed Kevin and Cyro, too, but "better than Paul Pigat" is a hard sell. By the way, all you readers who are NOT Paul Pigat, September 13th, Cousin Harley (Paul's band) will be headlining a tribute to Ray Condo at the Rickshaw. It's some sort of album release show??? More to come, but be there!