Equal parts sunshine and rain greeted me, and my fellow shoppers/visitors/wanderers, to the Burlington Farmer's Market on Saturday, May 29th, 2010 as I arrived among the cacophony of customers, the din of dogs on leashes, a bevy of babies, and a ton of toddlers, to search for the acoustic folk/pop/indie duo I had intended to write this very article on. I arrived at 10:30am, when I knew they would start their gig, but I didn't see them anywhere; i walked around the perimeter of the green, in the center Where I knew acoustic acts usually perform for the organic veggie-and-local-craft-hungry, Burlington populous. I made my way through the various sections of food tents, vegetable tents, meat tents, honey tents, maple syrup tents (Vermont's finest), wine-tasting tents (would've liked to have stopped here for a few), locally-made jewelry and soap tents and so on, but no Folk By Association; no Karen Krajacic and Jill Cowen of Folk By Association. Suddenly I found them. They had been in the park THE WHOLE TIME I was looking for them; and they said they we're trying to flag me down. This, folks, is a perfect example of how welcoming and friendly folk music can be - it will find you. You may look for it, but sometimes really good folk music will find you.
Karen and Jill came to the Burlington Farmer's Market armed with their usual acoustic guitar and mandolin, but were equipped this day with a few extra-special elements: a banjo, an egg shaker (an unusually amusing, pink-colored, Latin Percussion-brand shaker with a pair of sticker eyes attached to it), and to top it all off, a Fishcer-Price xylophone....yes, just like the one you had as a kid.......just like the one I had as a kid, too.......with the small, red, plastic wheels, and the double-sided, yellow plastic beater. (Insert a chorus of "Memories" here if you know how it goes).
As Karen and Jill played, a sizable crowd took a break from their shopping and taste-testing, and came to the middle of the green to sit and listen - men, women, children (especially children), young and old alike. (This is a perfect example of people looking for folk music and taking advantage of it, and how folk can bring people of all sorts together).
F.B.A's (as I'll abbreviate from now on) usual set-list is a mix of mainly original material with just a few covers, but they certainly don't perform as many covers as my previous subjects Longford Row and Nathan Brady Crain do; F.B.A are two, independent, extremly-talented young women writing their own songs and traveling almost everywhere to perform them; Jill even said that they've performed in Colorado when I mentioned where the Headquarters of our fair Examiner.Com reside. Karen and Jill are both New Jersey natives who travel back and forth regularly between New Jersey and Vermont, and of course all over the country; they must be well versed in knowledge of our fifty states, as well as they seem to be well versed in each other's instruments - Karen and Jill swapped guitar and mandolin once during the time I was there (and they must have done that several times back and forth throughout their gig. I had other things to do that day so I only stayed for an hour).
The only things I didn't enjoy about F.B.A's performance was that you couldn't hear the equal mix of vocals and instruments well enough in the crowd of market-gowers. All-acoustic is certainly a nice change of pace, but I could have done with a little more amplification, especially so we could hear all the intricacies of the mandolin, one of my favorite stringed instruments, second only to the mountain dulcimer. The other thing that I thought Karen and Jill could have done differently is to arrange a more interesting part for the Fischer-Price xylophone on one song. (I couldn't make out the title of it). Jill had the xylophone on her lap, and she played one or two sparse notes throughout the song while Karen was deftly holding her own on guitar. Perhaps they meant to arrange the xylophone part this way; but then again, perhaps Jill could have doubled on xylophone and egg shaker, or she could have played something a little more creative on the xylophone and, oh, I don't know, perhaps I'm just a big geek when it comes to folk, traditional, and acoustic music. I guess I would have liked to see Jill explore the possibilities and limits of the xylophone as a folk instrument, rather than play it like a toddler, who, say, just got it as a Christmas present from his mom, would play it. Am I saying that Jill is a horrible musician? Certainly not! Her vocals are heavenly and her mandolin work is superb; all I'm saying is that maybe Jill could produce chords on the xylophone through the use of two beaters. I'll say it again: I thought that it would have been a more creative and exciting performance if Jill had explored the possibilities and limits of the xylophone a little more. On the same subject, one folk/bluegrass/jazz/fusion group comes to mind who incorporates the adventurous use of the vibraphone (which is a much larger, professional xylophone): it is Pete Wernick and Flexigrass, whose music and info can be found at http://www.flexigrass.com. Folk By Association's music and info, which is the REAL subject of this article, can be found at http://www.folkbyassociation.com, which will take you directly to their MySpace page.
Back to things I DO like about this duo, which GREATLY outweigh the things I think they should change, is that during their Farmer's Market gig they seemed to be all smiles, which made one think that they ACTUALLY ENJYED playing music for the audience. This would seem to go against the smug, meaning-less expressions of most musicians today, who just seem to show up at a venue, play a bunch of chords, have almost no interaction with the crowd, and can't wait to be finished with their gig so they can go party, no doubt with help from recreational beverages and jovial substances. Karen and Jill didn't interact much with their audience verbally, but like I said before, they were all smiles, which brings us back to the topic of folk music finding you. Folk music can invite you in if you let it. A guy (or girl, in this context) with a guitar or mandolin is your friend. He, or she, is a story-teller singing to you about his or her life, or the lives of people her or she admire greatly, and is keeping an age-old tradition alive and well. So to say it again: "you don't find folk music, folk music finds you". Pay attention when you're out on the streets - good music may just be trying to flag you down. Thanks for reading.
Forever yours in folk,
Edward
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