National Folk Festival (NFF) 2011

I have thought a fair bit about putting this post up, as it is going to sound rather like a great big fat whinge.  (I hate people remarking on my English birth!)  However I then concluded that if these thoughts lead to change (in the sense of reversion) in the management of the NFF it would have served a good purpose. Thus, here goes (with little real hope that anything will be achieved).

Our first dealings with the NFF (note this is not a reference to the National Farmers Federation) go back to the days when it was a travelling show.  We encountered it in Burra, South Australia and a damn fine event it was.  When it moved to Canberra we went along and had a great time,experiencing such people as Roy Bailey, the late Alistair Hulett, and the Fagan and Carthy families.  I also bought my first CD of African Music there (Baaba Mall and Mansour Seck - I still rate this as one of my top 10 CDs of any genre).

Since that time the NFF has become more professional.   As will be apparent from what follows, I struggle to find a way in which this has been an improvement other than from the view of:

• the horde of folk who now have jobs in the administration thereof; and
• those in charge of tourism in the ACT who have got more notches on their tomahawk.

I'll start off by noticing that there seemed to be a lot more space around this year, both inside the venues and (possibly more significantly) the car park.  The first of these observations could reflect the fact that there are more venues and thus the mob is spread out more.  The second however would seem to indicate that there are less punters (we did pass a few walking down Northbourne Avenue and the bike park was well supported but not enough to make up for the missing cars).  Frances commented that this reflected rising ticket prices (also rising petrol prices for the interstate market).  As a slightly bewildering take on the low crowds the Canberra Times report (I picked up a free copy at the NGA) blamed it on a clash with Easter (the NFF is always at Easter!!)

The car parking experience was reasonable this year, unlike in the past where one had to drive around the entire facility to get to the entrance.  There was a sign mentioning 'performers and disabled entrance' but I ignored that.  On looking at the programme I was a Naughty Boy for doing so.

Once we had trekked through the dog show people we found that one desirable reversion had appeared, in that the waste recycling area that had blocked the main access route had been taken away!  Frances and I then split up as she had a couple of acts she wanted to see and I wished to check out the remaining element of the poets breakfast.  If the opportunity presented itself I was going to recite my poem "When Didak got the ball" (an AFL-oriented rewrite of "Casey at the bat").  However the opportunity didn't present as the event seemed to be a competition in which the main aim was to recite doggerel for less than a minute.  Several folk got punted for exceeding the time limit!

The breakfast was held in the Troubador wine bar.  This has been a good venue in the past. It had been enhanced this year by a wooden fence around it.

This was apparently required as a condition of their liquor license so that there was a defined boundary beyond which Naughty People couldn't take their bottles of wine.  There was also something in the Conditions of entry to the event about about not taking in your own alcohol.  Who needs the wowsers  of the Fred Nile party when the ACT bureaucracy is available to impose stupid rules?

As I walked off to sample some acts I noticed a new addition.  As well as having various bins for recycling, composting and general garbage each set of bins now had buckets in front of them with two attendant volunteers to assist people to work out what is to  go where.

Note that I pixcellated the image to preserve anonymity: the volunteers have not contracted a severe disease as a result of the lack of a "medical waste" category bin!    Presumably this is because people from Gungahlin are permitted to attend and require assistance in such complex matters.  (More likely is that the recyclers have required chemical purity in what they require.  It is a source of wonder to me that folk can make a profit extracting minerals from rock, or cellulose from trees, but a speck of biological contamination makes a truckload of recycled material unacceptable.  I have various conspiracy theories to explain that!)

Some things never change: vide this queue for a coffee stall.  All the coffee stalls seem to have queues like this all the time.  It must be something to do with the Tuggeranong cappuchino fetish.

 I think the first act I saw was a group called the Badja River Quartet.  They were quite good in a low key bush-band way.  Possibly they need to emphasise numeracy in their rehearsals (even though the guy second from the left has an Official Volunteer name-tag and is thus not a member of the band).

At this point I decided to wander and see a few turns.  I began with a lady called Martha Tilson in the main Budawang venue.  She was an English singer in the style which favours very melodic, wistful songs,  What I might term the 'Rapunzel' school of warbling.  This is not to my taste: I am more inclined to the Witch from Into the Woods.  (Putting a Greek classical touch -see next turn - to it I am more into the Sirens than Andromeda!).  Pass - throughout this post I will use this word in the sense of "chucking in my hand", rather than gaining a non-failing grade.

I next went to a smaller venue where one non-classical Greek, George Papavgeris, was playing.  In fact, he was not playing stuff from his country of birth but a very amusing ditty about his Dad taking him to a fun fair in the UK.  That turned out to be his final song: I wish I'd heard more.

He was followed by a Bulgarian group.  I quite like music from Eastern Europe but have decided that the entertainment gene must have skipped Bulgaria.   The male member of trio was playing bagpipes covered with wool (or possibly he was wrestling a small sheep - you had to be there and play close attention to work out which).  I decided he was going to beat the sheep on submissions and left!

Back to the Budawang, primarily to see if I could spot Frances.  I failed in that endeavour but did hear part of the turn which was happening there.  This was the Song Company together with a large indigenous gentleman by the name of William Barton.  The Song Company are generally a 'serious' group and very highly regarded in such circles.  I felt that regardless of what they were singing it turned out sounding like madrigals.  Mr Barton was a highly skilled digeridoo player, but unfortunately felt the need to demonstrate how hip-hop had informed his muse.  Pass.

I then wandered a bit before returning to the Budawang to hear a couple under the name of 'Dark Horses'.  The lady of this couple was warbling at this time and I decided that she was somewhat like the first act I heard in this venue on the day, but not so strong on the melodious element.  Pass.  Frances subsequently pointed out that the bloke involved was Keith Donelly, who -in the past - we had both thought one of the funniest and most quick-witted performers we had heard.  Obviously love - or whatever - has wiped his brain.

My next call was a quartet of American artists.  According to the program they all seemed to be pretty venerable players of various forms of bluegrass.  On walking in there were only two of them on stage giving considerable action to a white spiritual: it then emerged that one of them was Mike Compton  - a magical mandolin player.  This was excellent but unfortunately after one tune I had to leave having sent a SMS to Frances to meet elsewhere at that time.

As a result of technology failing we didn't actually meet for an hour so I hung outside a tent listening to the work of Dave O'Neill (musical director of the NFF) and a mate doing some songs and tunes.  This was a bit variable but overall reinforced Dave's considerable abilities.  Frances and I eventually met up and I got my lunch and took a break.

I next cast my ears at a band called Bluegrass Parkway.  We had heard them before and knew that most of them have "day jobs" with the WA Symphony Orchestra.  They were excellent, but unfortunately the drum sellers had been allocated a booth outside the venue and were running a workshop.  Thus hearing the music in the venue was an issue.  (I have nothing against percussive music: indeed Steve Reich is one of my favourite composers or performers.   However if he was performing and blotting out a performance of Aida I would hate him.  Equally, on thinking about it, if I wanted to listen to Mr R then I would loathe Aida blotting him out.  As with most of my grizzles about the event it is the incompetent arrangement of things by the paid help that is the problem. Shifting the drum workshop to a more appropriate venue - eg the Kariakoo markets in Dar es Salaam- would be a Good Thing.)

My final act of the Festival was a seminar led by Keith McKenry on the legend of the Kellys.  Of course this was about the Kelly Gang and when I arrived featured Keith going through various events at Jerilderie and Glenrowan.  Some of his mates chimed in with appropriate poems and songs.  This was all extremely good - IMHO what the Festival should be about -and I regretted leaving before the end.

One final bit of stupid organisation is the way the organisers have prevented right turns when leaving the road out of the car park.  Presumably some OHAS harrumpher or the ACT Police (equal excrescences on the backside of society) has decided it is too dangerous.  Thus everyone has to do an extra km to a roundabout (and if you want to go to the CBD come back again - we headed up the road and used a separate, longer but faster route).  The thud you just heard was a heavier carbon footprint coming down.

One outcome of all of this was thinking a bit about what is folk music?  In terms of the NFF it seems to be whatever Dave O'Neil thinks it is (and he is probably better qualified than me to make such a decision).  I am not going to say it should all be the Anglo-Celtic stuff and certainly not all bush bands.  However I think having at least 4 major acts playing bluegrass on one day is getting a bit too much on Tamworth's turf.  Perhaps change the name of the event to the National Independent Music Festival?   (If too many garage bands apply to come explain to them - slowly 'cos their brains will be cabbage, and in writing 'cos their hearing will be shot - the importance of the word 'music' in that name.)