Day 3 - Saturday, July 8
I drove up Saturday with a co-worker who is heading back to the US in a couple of weeks, but since this was his first time, I knew we wouldn't end up staying late. We were supposed to meet another co-worker at noon at Shady Grove, so we headed there for our first show, Rubinchik's Yiddish Ensemble. There were only two of them in the group, since one of them didn't make it. Imagine a real authentic Texan, accent and all, who happens to be a Jewish klezmer musician.
Mark Rubin was really funny with his stories. He played an acoustic bass while his partner played clarinet. Later they were joined by a pianist from another band who volunteered to stay up the night before, learning their tunes, just to help them out. Some of the music they played was actually from a book that was smuggled out of the former Soviet Union. Back in the days of Stalin, there were guys who would round up the folk musicians, get them to play into a wax recording, get someone else at HQ to transcribe the music into notes and write it all down in books. The books were then burned on purpose, to help destroy the state's unregulated, freedom loving, musical culture.
We made our way over to the Tear in My Beer workshop featuring Neko Case, some members of the Sadies, Vic Chestnutt, Jay Farrar (of Son Volt) and Winnipegger Righteous Ike. Unless you sat close enough to see the stage, you couldn't really tell who was singing at any given moment, save for when Neko sang. We mostly chatted ("talk amongst yourselves — I'm getting a little verklempt") until two of us decided now was an opportune time to get some lunch. I went for Thai food, which, despite the large lineups, was just all right and certainly nothing to write home about.
We caught the Mothers and Sisters workshop, which featured former members of Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention band, the Grande Mothers, and the Sisters Euclid, an all-guy band featuring the brilliant blues-rock guitar virtuoso Kevin Breit. I loved this show, but my co-worker was quite unprepared for it. He figured that since this was a folk festival, the music would be all, well, folky and acoustic. This show was about jamming with jazzy and funky moments. The Grande Mothers had a CD for sale at the big music store tent but I passed on it due to its $35 price tag. I did buy a couple of Sisters Euclid CDs, including the latest one which is a tribute to Neil Young.
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