An Easter feast of diversity
By Jane Salmon
CANBERRA — The National Folk Festival at Easter was a feast of diversity that you don't have to be feral to enjoy. Traditional peasant dances and medieval reenactments competed with bagpipes and zydeco, concertina and fiddle recitals, fusion and folk rock. You could leave a tent shimmering with soaring a cappella sopranos, wander past ululating goat dancers or undulating belly dancers and child buskers to a hall where bush balladeers thumped away at John Manifold classics.
Try these names: Martin Pearson, Edwina Blush, Trouble in the Kitchen, Kavisha Mazzella, the Shiny Bums (who sang songs of the public service), Dick Warwick (songs about herding chickens out on the free range), the Fagans, the Toothfaeries, Martin Wyndham Read, Bruce Watson, Lindsey Pollack, Bobby McLeod, Colin Offord, the Waifs, Sirocco, Dalraida, various bush poets or balladeers and Irish duos ... And there were about 100 others I had never heard of before.
Fancy leaving a throng of 2000 singing the Internationale, the Billy Bragg version, led by Western Australian CFMEU's Bernard Carney, only to drift into a group singing hymns, sharing a song sheet with Greens candidate Jenny Ryde.
"Nothing I own is state of the art" has to be my favourite song by Mick Conway's National Junk Band. Anyone who has had a second-hand computer crash or a second hand car go wrong simply has to identify.
The revamped visual gags and musical magic tricks are better than Conway's legendary Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band. Imagine the bridge of a violin with a gramophone cornet attached, a whistling teapot violin, the musical saw which threatened to provide a front row view of Australia's first onstage vasectomy, a huge dancing sousaphone accompanied by the slight strummings of two ukuleles.
Just picture a double-bowl sink being "played" with two scrubbing brushes by a balding man in a smoking hat, loud shirt, bright yellow frilly apron and rubber gloves. How about newspapers being ripped in time to the music and then — magically — remaining intact, or watching rubber chickens and light boxes being tossed in the air to the tune "Juggling Time".
A CD does this show little justice. This band deserves its own series on the ABC and a widely marketed video!
I envy the talent of songwriters who can produce a strong and amusing political statement to music. Peter Hicks is underrated. I was proud to sing along with "Hold that Line". Hicks sang about the commercialisation of Christmas, the excessive emphasis on sports achievements as a source of "national pride", the GST (the song will be 10% longer next year, Hicks quipped), East Timor and sticking with the union. Make no mistake, this music is a national treasure.
The Wrigley Sisters are twins from the Orkneys. The "younger" twin (by five minutes) tossed her head coltishly and rolled her eyes as she fiddled a medley of traditional Scottish island tunes spiced up with ironic licks reminiscent of Stephan Grappelli. The less fortunate "older" sister kept up with the key changes on guitar and violin. The effect was to make traditional music accessible to even young players.
Clear Canberra skies, open fires and crisp autumn air had me hooked. Why haven't I made it to this festival before? I'm booking for next year now.
To learn more, contact the National Folk Festival at PO Box 156, Civic Square, ACT 2601 or phone 02 6249 7755, e-mail <natfolk@spirit.com.au> or visit .