2012 Newport Folk Festival Recap: Part 2

Words by Andre and Kevin

Saturday may have brought the rain - and oh boy did it rain - but it also brought stellar performances from artists old and new alike.

Sunday proved to be no different, with acts ranging from the raucous rock of Rhode Island's own Joe Fletcher & The Wrong Decisions to the scorching guitar blues of Gary Clark, Jr.. There was pop-folk aplenty with bands like  Trampled By Turtles and The Head And The Heart taking over the main stage, and if you were willing to go off the beaten path a little bit you could catch acts like Of Monsters And Men, traditional sets from The Kossoy Sisters, Spider John Koerner, or a blistering performance by ex-Rage Against The Machiner Tom Morello. It was, as everyday at the Newport Folk Festival is, a celebration of music writ large.

The festival ended, of course, with lingering rain clouds as Jackson Browne brought his friends Dawes, Sara Watkins, Jonathan Wilson and Tom Morello (whose set Browne hat sat in on to sing "This Land Is Your Land") out to end an already hit heavy set by Browne. Launching into an explosive cover of Warren Zevon's "Lawyers, Guns and Money", the musicians abandoned any sense of "folk" that may have been lingering at Fort Adams, steering directly into the land of rawk, complete with traded guitar solos, Hendrixian guitar moves by Morello and a fist pumping, slightly waterlogged crowd that refused to let the moment die. 

And then it was over.

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INTERVIEW: Merrill Garbus aka tUnE-yArDs

On Sunday, June 3^rd, tUnE-yArDs played DC’s 9:30 Club.  ChunkyGlasses was lucky enough to spend some time with Merrill Garbus, the creative force behind tUnEy-ArDs’ energetic and experimental music.  In 2009, tUnEy-ArDs released its debut album, BiRd-BrAiNs, which was self-produced and recorded by Garbus on a handheld voice recorder.  The band includes Garbus on vocals, percussion, ukulele, and drums, Nate Brenner on electric bass, and occasional guests on the saxophone.  The band is currently on tour in support of their 2011 album, w h o k i l l. 

CG: Your music is very different, and as you’ve said, you really “push “instruments such as your voice or the ukulele to the extreme in ways that others haven’t tried or been willing to try.  It takes a lot of self-confidence and courage to push boundaries of music.  Where do you get that self-confidence from, and do you ever have trouble finding it?

MG: It’s interesting, I’ve been thinking about that because people have been reminding me about the times in my life that I’ve done this independent-minded kind of thing.  Even though from my perspective, I come from a place of being a quiet, shy person who isn’t like, “I just do whatever I want to do!” and has that face in the world.  And yet, I remember for instance, when studying theater at Smith College having an attitude of “this is all very old and I want to change things.”  I think I’ve always had that point of view.  I think it’s not so much courage, but the sense that things need to change and that I want to be part of that movement.  And I think that applies to everything—for example, society and politics, and culture and music included in that.  I feel like it’s less courage and more that this is so obvious that this needs to happen and that I need to be a part of something progressive, whether that’s in my politics or in my social activism and charity work or if that’s embedded in the creative part of what I do—it applies across the board. 

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Best of 2011: Kevin's picks

I've heard a metric f@#@-ton of music this year. More bands than I can even remember have gone in one earhole and out the other. I'm sure in the process of checking out absolutely everything I could get my hands on a few bands might have slipped through the cracks, and to them I can only hope to catch up with them again at a later date. These next 10 bands are the ones that didn't slip through the cracks though. They're the groups/individuals who managed to make their magnificent noise rise up above the rest, and in the process make 2011 a quite exceptional year for music.

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#10 Caveman - Coco Beware

The simple act of discovery can color one's opinion of a band, and it certainly has in Caveman's case...for everyone that's ever heard them apparently. I "discovered" Caveman opening up for The War on Drugs at The Red Palace here in DC earlier this year, and from that instant I was hooked. This record is drenched in moody, dreamscape inspired Radiohead-esque harmonies and sounds, and yet plays like something only Caveman could create. I know, I know, that sounds circular, but when a band this early in their existence can so well define who and what they are as a band, borrowing liberally from everything around them and somehow managing to put forth those collective influences as something better is the sign of a great artist. They've already got the attention of the music-nerd set (including NPR) and in 2012 they're the band to keep an eye on, because with a debut this good, sooner or later everyone is going to catch on to Caveman's fire. (Yes, I just wrote that)

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