Newsgroups: bit.listserv.allmusic
Date:         Wed, 22 Jul 1992 09:06:37 MDT
From:         "Welcome to heaven... here's your bodhran..."
              <watson@HG.ULETH.CA>
Subject:      4 of the best folkin' days of my life

I've been getting nagged beyond belief to post my adventures at the Winnipeg
Folk Festival a week ago, so here it is.... with all the likely unnecessary
gory details.  I'll warn you all first that, though there is little sexual
content in this message, it is longer than usual.  Those listmembers over the
age of 30 may want to grab a strong cup of coffee or some speed before
continuing on...  :*)

                      CAROL DOES
     THE 19th ANNUAL WINNIPEG FOLK FESTIVAL (July 9-12, 1992)
     --------------------------------------------------------

THE SITE:

The festival site is located 25 km (15 miles) from downtown Winnipeg in a
provincial park, Birds Hill Park.  The park has quite a few groves of trees and
the ground cover was tall straw-like grass which had been combined down to a
livable length.  There were 7 stages altogether scattered throughout the site.

The main stage was high and decked out with lots of lights and looked like a
Star Wars set. It was located in the large open area as it had to accommodate
the 30,000 people who attended the evening performances.  By the time we
arrived daily, the main stage audience area was covered hundreds of tarps and
"tarp markers". These tarp markers are basically unique items hanging from a
thin pole so that you could find your tarp later on in the quilt-like maze.
Some of the markers were really cool in their sheer tackiness.  My favorite was
a pink flamingo sporting a black afro, a beenie, sunglasses, a jean jacket and
love beads.  Some markers had little battery operated lighting devices so the
tarp could be located in the dark.  The park had scant lighting so when it got
dark, it got VERY dark!  The people who camped got all the good seats, so we
sat a ways back with binoculars in hand (though we made sure we were fairly
close to the iffy biffys).  :)  The evening performances on the Main Stage went
from 7pm to 2am with approx. 8 artists per evening over 4 evenings.

The workshop stages were smaller and consisted of tents with awnings over the
performers and the inside of the tent served as the backstage area.  Stage 2
and the family/kids stage were huge tents that provided shelter to most of the
audience as well.  Stage 4 was renamed Swamp 4 and Shady Grove became Mosquito
Grove. :) The workshops are where you got to get up close and intimate
with the performers and were my favorite part of the whole weekend. The
workshops ran from 11:30 am to 6:30 pm Friday, Saturday and Sunday on all six
stages simultaneously.

Also scattered throughout the site were tons of garbage bins, blue boxes and
compost bins filled with those little red wiggly worms who loved the food waste.


THE FOOD:  yum yum  :)
----------------------

Usually at events like this, the food is marginal at best.  But this festival
had some really good food booths.  All the booths were staffed with tons of
friendly people and you were served quickly and efficiently.  I was rather
impressed with that fact since the site booths fed 30,000 people daily and when
I'm hungry, I don't like to stand in line for too long before I start nibbling
on the person in front of me.  :)

The booths had food from all over the world.  You had your Italian fare (pasta
and sauces, pizza and spicy hot sausage), your Bombay fare (chick pea,
vegetable, chicken or beef curries, flaky samosas and sweet lassi), your Asian
fare (Thai and Cantonese stir fry, Vietnamese rice noodles, Indian vegetables
and curry on rice, tofu stir fry, Chinese tea and Nicaraguan Coffee), your Euro
fare (bratwurst and sauerkraut, perogies), your Chilian fare (meat, chicken,
deep fried cheese, ham or seafood empanadas, your Indonesian fare (shrimp or
chicken sate, lumpia, gangsit, atjar, krupuk) and tons of other goodies such as
burgers, dogs, nachos, salads, sandwiches, frozen yogurt, ice cream,
cheesecakes, and pies. My favorite food hangouts were the Indonesian booth
called Two Women With Food (they were very environmentally conscious and your
food was served on large round banana tree leaves), the Fruitshake booth and
for dessert, the Whales Tales booth (they sold flattened deep-fried bread
smothered in butter and sugar and cinnamon -- also known as Elephant Ears).  :)
One booth I missed (from Newport) was the Del's Frozen Lemonade Booth...  :)


THE SHOPPING:
-------------

A large corner of the site was occupied by Handmade Village, a collection of 50
booths selling all kinds of exotic and groovy craft-type items.  The standard
items were there: hand dyed clothing, t-shirts, moccasins, glass and bead
jewellry, wood carvings, paintings, prints, pottery (my favorite booth was
titled The Three Bearded Potters and they spun their pots right before your
eyes -- they all had wonderful hands *grin*), leather accessories, papermaking
equipment, sketches and a way cool place called Timeless Instruments that sold
lyres, ceramic drums, celtic harps, bouzoukis, fifes, psalterys, hrudy gurdies,
panpipes and bodhrans (I amost came home with one of these).  I had fun playing
around.  :)

And last but not least, is the dreaded HomeMade Music tent.  This is where I
spent alot of free time hanging out.  It was filled with cassettes and CD's of
all the performers as well as other folk, jazz and blues artists.  They also
had a rather large selection of performer's t-shirts (I snaffled Oyster Band
and Three Mustapha's Three t-shirts) and a big book section filled with music
books, craft books, and folk music publications and biographies.  The popular
music that was being snapped up at an alarming rate and was sold out the first
day included The Drover's latest release, the latest from Mother Tongue and the
EP by the Barenaked Ladies.  I spent well over $200 in this tent... and I
bought a raffle ticket for a draw of a collection of CD's from every performer
at the fest (over 160 platters), but some little 10 year old weasel won it... :(

THURSDAY:
---------

I arrived in Winnipeg on schedule after a smooth flight in...  After arriving
at the International Hotel, I lined up to check in and the lobby was filled
with performers and instruments.  I was grinning already.  Arranging for rooms
in front of me was Michael Faubert and right behind me was the tall bass player
from The Drovers, purple hair and all....  :)  I spoke a few minutes with the
purple-locked Dave Callahan as he explained the intricasies of trying to get
across the border into Canada (they are from Chicago).  Evidently they were
literally acosted at the border, had their van searched and torn apart.  They
were two hours late in arriving...  Later on, the same type of thing occurred
with a band called Country Gazette, a bluegrass troupe from the U.S. and forced
them to postpone their mainstage performance.  The dough-heads at the border
probably figured bluegrass was a strain of marijuana...

Thursday comprised of an evening performance only, so we arrived on site at
6:30 and laid down our tarp.  The weather was cloudy but not wet with the sun
peeking through occasionally.  It had rained in Southern Manitoba for two weeks
steady prior to the festival.

First up were Freyda and the Atta Boys who played a nice blend of folk, jazz
and blues with a touch of classical.  I enjoyed the cittern player and the
stand-up bass player (Robbie Link) seemed quite talented.  It was fun stuff,
but nothing truly amazing.  They were followed by a rather energetic dance
troupe called The Fiddle Puppets.  These young people seemed to be having a
hellova lot of fun with their innovative clogging, step dancing, hamboning and
they even did an African boot-dance in gum-boots.  They were accompanied by a
fiddle, accordian and alot of whooping and hollering.  I got tired just
watching them.  The footwork was imaginative as was the choreography.

The best performance of the night (IMHO) followed.  They were The Drovers from
Chicago -- a celtic rock group.  It's hard to expain their style because it's
so diverse.  Just take the members of Iron Maiden, Jethro Tull and the Pogues
and form a supergroup and throw in a female Irish step dancer for good measure.
This bunch was fabulous and had the teens and other interested dancers running
for the dance area (a reserved area to the left of the mainstage) where they
cheered and flailed around happily to the hard-edged reels and high energy
melodic rock.  Kathleen Kean was wonderful on the flute, tin whistles, button
accordian and vocals.  And she got alot of cheers when she set her accordian
down and skirted across the front of the stage in a traditional step dance
decked out in spandex tights.  As well, I was taken aback by their bohdran
player (Jackie Moran).  The percussion was nothing short of fucking awesome.
Consequently, I was scrambling into the HomeMade Music tent to pick their
release _World of Monsters_ the next morning.  I was disappointed that it
wasn't available on cassette, but picked it up on CD figuring I can get it
dubbed onto tape and then give the CD to someone else who expresses an
interest (I don't have a CD player and I keep telling everyone that I'm waiting
for the next technology).  :)

Then came Mark Reeves and the Groove, a Winnipeg-based uptempo R&B pop group
who did a set of blues and rock tunes.  They weren't too bad, just a little too
generic for me.  I happened to notice that Mark Reeves is a nice looking fellow
too...  :)  Some more blues followed with the trio of Ken Whiteley, Jackie
Washington and Mose Scarlett.  I was a bit disappointed that Ken Whiteley toned
down his performance with these other two and their set was plagued with sound
problems.  I did notice that Scarlett had an incredible baritone voice though I
could barely make out any of the words.

Up next was Mother Tongue.  These Toronto musicians combined Ethiopian pop,
reggae, alternative groove and West African music with four-part harmonies,
percussion and a MIDI wind synthesizer to get an irresistably funky world beat
sound.  Their music was infectious and the lyrics expressed insightful
messages. Very enjoyable music and a must listen for any reggae or world beat
enthusiasts (David Malbuff and Jeff Beer, I thought of you guys when groovin to
this stuff. MHB, of course, would hate it).  :*)

Closing off Thursday night were The Sundogs -- and a great choice it was!!  I
can certainly see why this California bunch are considered one of the hottest
American roots bands around today.  They are a fun blend of Cajun, blues and
rock -- that they refer to as Swamp Beat Boogie.  These guys gave 'er shit and
had everyone rockin and wailing until 2 am.  The electric violin player was
awesome and I also loved the rub board and accordian player.  These guys would
be a blast at one of our canookie bush parties.  *grin*

And hell... there's three more full days of workshops and night concerts yet!

Look for the second segment soon (I've decided to break this up into segments
so Michael can keep ahold of his record for the longest post), or maybe not so
soon... I'm leaving town for a week to ten days tomorrow.

- Carol, the hippychick wanna-be
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