inflatable ferret - special issue: newport 2010

IF Special Issue: 2010Newport Folk Festival

Inside: Interviews with featured artists Dawes, O’Death, and Tao SeegerPlus, “A Newport Narrative” andFestival Ferret Photos

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Editor-in-ChiefJames Passarelli

LayoutKathryn FreundJames Passarelli

Interviews & Ferret PhotosJames Passarelli

A Newport NarrativePat Wedlock

PhotographsNoah Dodson (p. 13)La Mason (p. 6 & 7)Chris Wallis of Folk Alley (p. 9)Newport Folk Festival (p. 11)

Copy EditingNorah Leahy

© Copyright 2010 Inflatable Ferret

01 Inflatable Ferret

NEWPORT2010

02 A Newport NarrativeIF’s Pat Wedlock does his best Jack Kerouac and tells the story of his hitchhiking Newport journey

06 Tao Seeger InterviewTao Seeger talks Mammals and corporate greed

CONTENTS

10 O’Death InterviewWords with the NY freak follksters

14 Dawes InterviewIF catches up with Dawes’ lead sing-er and guitarist Taylor Goldsmith

17 Festival Ferret PhotosSome closing shots from Newport

<06 ^14

Part I

CLIMBING DOWN FROM the Providence-to-Newport bus was like fleeing the circus. For 2 hours prior, in start-stop traffic, James and I sat center stage to witness and take part in some of the most bizarre acts of tomfoolery our eyes had ever chanced upon.

Act one was a young couple, hardly 30 yrs old, adorned in worn Earnhardt Jr. caps, jean shorts, and matching t-shirts, passing back and forth a Build-a-Bear creation sporting a Patri-ots jersey. The influence of the Pats on New Englanders was put on full display as the man and woman took turns singing praises of love directly into the fuzzy thing’s face, as if it were a child.

As the bus made its millionth stop, two ambitiously dressed and extremely spritely older women made their dramatic en-trance. With good-hearted yell-ing typical of an Italian dinner party, these ladies proceeded to acknowledge to everyone around them that “we don’t bite!” Their raucous behavior caused up-roar; as the bus driver started howling in laughter, the riders in the back shouted friendly in-sults to those in front; those in front slapped their knees and shot insults right back, and James became the target of er-ratic questioning by one of the ruckus-starters herself. “I don’t bite, do I?! Nah, I didn’t think so! So you tell me why these folks think I bite! Look at him! HE ain’t afraid of me!” And so on and so forth, while I did my best to look

away and pray that she didn’t ask if I thought she bit. Because honestly, I wasn’t too sure.

It didn’t end there. In the seat to my right, fully contented on his Nintendo DS, lounged the World’s Smelliest Man, with a fetid body odor that pushed me further against the wall than the Biting Hyenas had managed to do. Across the way sat the Queens of Drama, two young girls, one of whom, with water-ing eyes and incessant bicker-ing, bemoaned the painful swell-ing surrounding her recently acquired tongue-ring. And on and on the insanity went, purg-ing us of all things crazy and inane before the flaps of the big tent receded and we raced out in search of Fort Adams State Park, and the peaceful sounds of folk.

A NEWPORT NARRATIVE


A Newport NarrativeWords: Pat Wedlock

Part II

AS THE SUN floated shakily on the bay, waiting to be ripped under like a fishing bobber on a just-bitten line, John Prine’s “Paradise” kept the audience afloat. But as the guitar twangs faded, and the crowd shuffled home, our minds snapped out of their folksy lull and we realized our snag. We were stuck. The bus line had ended its run and we had no car to take us the 15 miles home. So, without any de-liberation, James and I saddled up, trotted to the end of the parking lot, and in the spirit of all things folk, all things necessary, and free, we availed ourselves of the car-riddled streets and set off walking, thumbs erect in the lazy breeze.

We weren’t upset at our situation. We weren’t even mar-ginally distressed. This was our

chance to test the beatnik folk-lore of freedom, our chance to be bums. We had no curfew, no luggage, and no hesitations. And with such prerequisites, we had confidence.

Confidence was the key to our success…that and a long line of standstill cars, with no place to hide their shame at al-lowing us poor souls to suffer the walk home.

It wasn’t too long into the walk that somebody laid on the brake and called us to jump in. Avishay Artsy was a young man of many talents, a writer and radio show host living in New Hampshire, accompanied in the passenger seat by a young woman named Jessilyn. As James and Avishay broke the ice, talking about mu-sic and his previous stint as a Nebraska resident, Jessilyn and I seesawed between dozing off and working out the kinks of the

GPS system. We pulled into the house about an hour later, after a pleasant ride with some pleas-ant people.

It was nothing like the liber-ating, Kerouac-style escapade that would open our eyes to living freely and deliberately, as happens in the movies and books. For all anyone knew, we could’ve just as well been get-ting a ride home with a couple of friends, rather than two com-plete strangers. We were ut-terly thankful of course, for we would’ve been up shit’s creek without anything had they not been so kind. But it was without question that we needed more…We had rolled up our pant legs and dipped our toes in the sea of bum-hood; but our urge to cannonball through the turbid surface and see what lived be-neath was still present.

A NEWPORT NARRATIVE

Inflatable Ferret

continued

03

Avishay and Jessilyn

Part III

HERE WAS OUR CHANCE. It was Sunday morning, the final day of the Newport Folk Festi-val, and Rhode Island’s public transportation decided Sunday was not good for its schedule – the buses weren’t run-ning at all. My grand-mother was kind enough to take us over the Jamestown Bridge, but had she taken us over the 2-mile New-port Bridge as well, we would have run into stand-still traffic. So we got out near the bridge, in hopes of taking a ferry to Fort Adams or a taxi just over the bridge into d o w n t o w n Newport. It was 11:20. James had an interview at 12:15. The ferry didn’t leave until 12:25 and the taxi wouldn’t show up until 12:00. And even then it would’ve cost us too much. We started walking towards the bridge.

My annoyance was apparent as we first set off, but my indig-nation quickly faded as the pros-pect of castin’ out our thumbs and reelin’ in another ride wid-

ened my eyes and quickened my step. Our only hang-up this time around was that we were on a deadline. Nonetheless, we moved down the shoulder with a slighter sense of urgency, and no sooner had we started off than the driver of a big four-door pick-up leaned across the

truck bench and threw open the passenger side door, beckoning us to hurry in. After declining a small payment for offering to take us over the bridge and out of his way, our second savior Matthew told us his story:

He was a redeemed man. He was a killer of trees turned arborist; a full-fledged preser-vationist who spent a lot of his time visiting possible excava-tion sites and lobbying for their protection. He was a very nice

man who had even offered to es-cort us straight to Fort Adams State Park in his motorboat if it wasn’t on land. He showed us his biography Treehugger, which details his reformation from insane alcoholic to lover of trees, and he talked to us about the folk festival as it was when

he was young, back when Bob Dylan went electric. He even told us with a sense of pride that the spot where he picked us up along the road was the same spot he met Dylan himself some decades ago.

The trip went smoothly and we listened to his stories with genuine interest. He dropped us off at the exit to downtown New-port and sped off on his way. We started walking, knowing full well what was later to be done.

A NEWPORT NARRATIVE


continued

Bostonian Chris Lane

Part IV

AS THE GLEAMING sailboats swayed with the waves in rhythm with the crowd, playing an ocean audience to Levon Helm’s grand seaside finale, my mind wan-dered to our impending mission. And with such great folk music to continually liven our spirits, well, we didn’t see our luck fad-ing any time soon.

We again set foot for the edge of the parking lot, quite a distance from the seaside stage. So, taking our time, we unknowingly decided to try a different hitchhiking maneuver, something along the lines of fly fishing. Instead of holding our thumb out until our arms ached, we would cast our thumbs out in the direction of cars we thought would bite, quickly reeling them back if our toss should fail. And as a good-looking yellow Jeep convertible came upon us, with only a young driver in its cab, we impetuously threw out our thumbs and hoped for the best.

Chris started to pass us, and as we started to lower our thumbs in defeat he stopped the car and asked us if we needed a ride. While I jumped right up in the passenger seat, using the door provided me,

James was left to clamber in through the foam-protected bars of the back seat. Chris was a young business student from just outside of Boston, living in Newport for the summer with a couple of friends, and working for a catering company hired for the Folk Festival. It was a gorgeous ride over the Newport Bridge, no barrier between us and the beautiful Rhode Island sky or the brisk breeze that cooled us down after such a warm day. He could only take us so far, as the traffic had held him up long enough and he had made plans for the night. He let us out right over the bridge. We thanked him and moved on our way, this time walking down the shoulder of the highway.

It was our final stretch, our last lap. The sun had set and the sky had darkened to the deep blue color of the bay. All we had to do was catch one more ride, and we’d be over the James-town Bridge and back home to a delicious meal (I was starv-ing) and some good sleep. As James walked forward, I walked backwards trying to keep an eye out for any enforcers of the law, wondering if there even was a law against our actions. We walked and walked, sometimes glancing at the map but all the

while seeing cars fly by uninhib-itedly; I held very little hope.

But again the gods of va-grancy proved us wrong. As I turned to face forward, my eyes grew wide. Fifty yards down the road sat the outline of a dark green truck, with hazards like runway lights guiding us in for safe landing. When we got to the car, there sat a small Latino man urging us in. We sped off over the bridge, not knowing the man’s name or anything about him, save that he had been visit-ing his daughter and had been stuck in our position just the day before when his car broke down, deeply upset that no one had bothered to stop and help him out. He pulled up to our exit, his car hovering on the striped wedge separating the highway from the off-ramp. For the fourth time in two days we jumped out of the car and out of the driver’s life, thanking him as we slung our packs over our backs.

That was that. That is our story. Not much in the way of outlandish tales or fanatical encounters. Rather, it seemed, that everything and everyone was simple, as if the folk music itself had streaked out from the festival, out across Rhode Is-land, landing softly on the hearts and minds of its entire people. We had done what we had to do, and with no hassle at all. As we wandered home, three cops cars passed on our right, and I smiled as John Prine’s words came sweetly out of my mouth,

“Father forgive us for what we must do,

You forgive us, we’ll forgive you,We’ll forgive each other ‘til we

both turn blue,Then we’ll whistle and go fishin’

in a Heaven.”

A NEWPORT NARRATIVE


continued


TAO SEEGER INTERVIEW

Interview with Tao Seeger

Photo by La Mason

LIKE HIS GRAND-FATHER PETE, Tao Rodriguez Seeger has strong politi-cal opinions, which he’s not afraid to voice in songs or in-terviews. But he is not his grandfather. I know that not be-cause he told me. You might expect someone with a leg-end for a grandfather to be quick to point out differences, but Seeger seems to let his music speak for itself. After releas-ing music throughout the aughts as a co-leader of the quirky folk group The Mam-mals, Seeger formed The Tao Seeger Band. Their first release, this year’s Rise and Bloom, takes what Pete started in a com-pletely new direction.


TAO SEEGER INTERVIEW continued

Inflatable Ferret: Sorry, I just got here, so I missed the show. But how did it go?

Tao Rodriguez Seeger: It went re-ally good. The first show of the day, you know, it’s always a little rocky, but it went good.

IF: Awesome. The sound was good?

TRS: The sound was fantastic.

IF: I feel like it’s been great the whole festival.

TRS: There’s a different sound company out front on the Ford Stage. The two smaller stages have the same sound company. And these [smaller stages] are always the better sounding stages, but for the first time the Ford Stage is giving them a run for their money.

IF: So, you released the album recently.

TRS: Yeah, we put out the record Rise and Bloom in April, and we’ve

been touring on that. We did a CD release tour in April and May and then took some time off. Now we’re just on the tail end of our July tour – 7,000 miles in three weeks. Winnipeg, Portland, Se-attle, Vancouver, back to Portland, Berkeley, Tahoe, Santa Cruz, San Diego, L.A., Tucson, Phoenix, Santa Fe, Denver, flew to Boston yester-day, partied with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band last night, and now we’re here. And now we have a week off, then another dozen shows in August.

IF: Obviously it’s kind of different from The Mammals.

TRS: Well, it’s not really that differ-ent. I guess it’s what The Mam-mals would have been if The Mam-mals was just my band. You know, The Mammals are very deliberately a democratic chaos experiment to see what would happen if we really had no leader. And so, in a sense, any experiment of that nature has a limited lifespan, because I think at a certain point all musicians will grow to the point where they need to be in charge – they have a

vision. And so, that’s kind of what this is. This is my vision of how I want to do it. But The Mammals will keep doing it. Mike and Ruth and I are still very very close.

IF: Have you thought about a new album yet?

TRS: We haven’t really tried to schedule it because it’s too stress-ful. It was really stressing us out “this is the day that we will come back as The Mammals, blah blah blah.” And it was getting in the way of our friendship. And at the end of the day, that’s why we play music with each other – because we’re friends, and we love each other. So, anything that got in the way of that, I think we tried really hard to remove that from the equation. And they’re doing great things as a duo too. They just put out a new record, and it’s very gentle and mellow, whereas my thing is in-sanely loud. But again, that goes to the vision of the creative director, I guess you could call it. Bandleader, or whatever. So, that’s what I’ll do for a while and see where it goes.

IF: Obviously your grandpa’s played here.

TRS: Well, last year.

IF: Is that the only time he played?

TRS: I think that was the first time he’d been to the Newport Folk Fes-tival since the 60’s.

IF: Okay. And obviously a festival needs supporters and everything, but I feel like Newport is so much less commercial than most of the other ones.Photo by La Mason



TRS: Corporate, I think is what you’re saying. There are some corporate sponsors, but for the most part they manage to keep them quiet.

IF: Yeah, and I feel like that’s per-fect for you.

TRS: I fucking hate corporations, man. It’s not that they’re inher-ently evil. It’s that it’s very easy for them to be evil. Why don’t I kill you here right now? That’s a legiti-mate question. Because we’re two people hang-ing out, talking. That’s why we don’t do violence unto each other. A corporation has no such moral impera-tive. You can’t kill a corporation; therefore a cor-poration fears no death. There are all these reasons why corpo-rations have no moral imperative to do good or right, unless you have a very thoughtful and mind-ful CEO. And even then, that CEO is beholden to stockholders, and all those stockholders care about is profit margin. So, there’s this real tendency for the corporate mindset to lead you into situations like the recent disaster in the Gulf of Mexico or the meltdown of the economic system, which, by the way, hasn’t really affected those of us who don’t make a lot of money. The only people who are fucked are bankers, lawyers, investors, and other corporate executives. And I say, “fuck ‘em.” Because they cre-

ated the problem in the first place. My feeling is that if we could get away from a corporate lifestyle and move towards – and it’s not about communism or socialism or capi-talism – it’s about humans inter-acting in a meaningful, mindful way. Little towns like Ithaca, New York have figured out ways to make local currency actually work – you know, Ithaca Bucks. Only works in Ithaca. You can only spend them in Ithaca. But it’s a local economy, and it keeps a local sense of

business going. And they’re not communists. They’re spending money. They’re essentially using the same capitalist principles as a corporation, but without the MAS-SIVE infrastructure and without stockholders, which I think create problems. So, I’m very happy to see any festival that manages to shift toward the less corporate structure. Depending on corpora-tions for money means that the corporation, which is the mot soul-less entity among us, gets to really dictate how you program your festival. Because every festival has to give back to the community in some way, and how they do that is dictated by the leaders. If those

leaders are corporations, it’s very difficult to trust them. So, that’s where I stand. (laughing) Fuck cor-porations.

IF: One thing that I was interested in that has nothing to do with the festival is your experience in Nica-ragua with your dad.

TRS: Well, it was tough. Nicara-gua in the 80’s was a war-torn country, and the United States was the enemy. The United States

was invading Nicaragua. I was a little kid – I was seven when I moved there and sixteen when I moved away. A lot of my friends died, and it gave me a unique perspective of the America flag. There

is no such thing as “my country”, good or bad. I feel like we have to have a very suspicious, cynical view of our government in order to keep our government accountable for its actions. The United States govern-ment has rarely been held account-able for its actions throughout the centuries now. We tend to run militarily rampant on people when we don’t like their economic system or we decide that this year we want their oil. People forget that Al-Qaeda was created by the CIA. We trained them, and now they’re our biggest bugaboo. But no one wants to talk about that. No one wants to talk about the fact that Osama Bin Laden was a

“I fucking hate corporations, man...You can’t kill a corporation;

therefore, a corporation fears no death.”



de facto CIA agent fighting against the Soviet Union. The Mujahideen were created by the United States government to destabilize then So-viet Russia. That kind of hypocrisy eventually will topple governments unless the United States, if the people of this country are willing to wake up and put their lives and bodies on the line for what’s right. And what is right for our country? If we’re really going to be the great upholders of morality and what is were created by the United States government to destabilize then So-viet Russia. That kind of hypocrisy eventually will topple governments unless the United States, if the people of this country are willing to wake up and put their lives and bodies on the line for what’s right. And what is right for our country? If we’re really going to be the great upholders of morality and what is right in this world, then I think at a certain point Americans have to step outside themselves, step out-side this country. Maybe go visit some other countries, see what it’s like out there. Because not every country has a McDonalds. Not ev-ery country has a strip mall where you can get your legs tanned and your ass waxed. These are luxu-ries that we have because we’re sucking resources from all these other places and there are finite amounts of these resources that we can suck. But we don’t realize that because that’s not taught in school. We’re obsessed with how wonderful this country is, but we never stop to think about the con-sequences of our lifestyle. There you have it. That’s what I learned in Nicaragua – that we never stop to think about the consequences of our lifestyle.

IF: You just got married a few weeks ago.

TRS: I did. Four weeks ago.

IF: And La [Seeger’s tour manager] is your wife?

TRS: La is my wife, yep. And it’s awesome – I highly recommend it. She’s a chef, and that’s why we’re moving to New Orleans. She’s a very talented chef. She does this because I need a tour manager, but in her real life she’s a chef.

Photo by Chris Wallis


O’DEATH INTERVIEW

Folk bands don’t get much more raucous than O’Death. Check out their “Take Away Show” on Blogoteque, and you’ll have a good idea of what they’re all about. The New York band punishes their assortment of instruments, breaking fiddle strings by the hand-ful and banging on anything in sight. They’re the perfect backdrop for Greg Jamie’s sharp, nasal voice. The name comes from the famous mournful Ralph Stanley song “O Death”, and the fivesome contorts that old time folk sound for a rootsy folk melee. An-ger and frustration were often the driving forces in the recording of the band’s first two label releases, but for their next effort they plan to take things in a new direction, and IF is excited to hear just what that direction is. We sat down with Jamie and drummer David Rogers-Berry (not pictures) a few days before the festival to talk about their new and old albums and how they’ve handled life’s most challenging obstacles.

An interview with Greg and David

O’Deathof


O’DEATH INTERVIEW continued

Inflatable Ferret: You guys said you met at SUNY Purchase. That was all five of you?

David Rogers-Berry: Yeah, we all went to school there.

IF: One of the first interviews we did was with Langhorne Slim. And I think he had said he went to SUNY Purchase too?

Greg Jamie: Yeah, he went to school with all of us. We saw him play a lot.

IF: So, he was a couple years older than you?

GJ: Yeah, I guess two or three.

IF: Your first album came out in 2005?

GJ: Our first album was just done while we were at college on CDRs. And there aren’t too many copies of it. That was in 2004. And then in 2006 we had another kind of fuzzy release that we re-released in 2007.

IF: So, the second release of Head Home was in 2007. And that was your label debut?

GJ: Yeah.

IF: How’d you get in touch with your label? Was that through Lang-horne at all?

GJ: Oh, Kemado?

IF: Yeah.

GJ: Um, not really. We toured with him before we ended up with

Kemado, so I think they might have known who we were through Lang-horne.

DRB: Especially since they were taking part in his management, and I think helping out with his booking and stuff. So, the people on our end had to deal with the people on their end.

IF: But it wasn’t like he got you in.

DRB: No, although, you know, Langhorne’s thrown us a couple bones here and there. Like, we got that Bermuda show because of him. Which is just one gig, but it’s Bermuda, and most rock bands don’t get to tour in Bermuda. So, that was cool.

IF: Yeah, it sounds like he travels a lot, like Europe and what not.

GJ: Yeah, he’s been to Europe a lot.

IF: So, you guys had to go on hiatus last year because you [Rogers-Berry] were diagnosed with can-cer. Obviously that’s a bit of a life change. I don’t know if you guys have written anything since then, but did it affect the way you played?

DRB: Well, kind of. I mean, there were certain things that were changing about our sound already. But it’s hard to comment on that, because none of that music has been released or recorded yet. So, it’s hard to say exactly what that change is. For me, it changed my perspective in terms of…on our last record I was really angry, and there was a lot of pain in my life. And I was really angry through chemotherapy too, but now I don’t feel so angry. I feel more like mak-ing some nice music, so I don’t

Photo courtesy of Newport Folk Festival

feel so angry. I feel more like mak-ing some nice music, so I don’t know how much that has to do with all that stuff. Some of that is just artistic growth too. Yeah, I’ve had to stare death in the face a couple times, and each time I sort of come away with something different.

IF: And the last record was dedi-cated to your fiancée, right?

DRB: Yeah, that record was done within three months of her passing away. Obviously it was traumatic for me, and I think it affected the band because we were on tour when it happened, and it was sort of a monkey wrench in our whole thing. And they kind of had to deal with what I was going through. And I know in the studio, especially mixing the album, I was kind of like, “Greg, we’re going to make this ballsy. We’re going to make this rock.” And I was filled with piss and vinegar, and then we made that kind of album. I definitely pushed

for it to go in that direction, to be really abrasive. I don’t know, we’ll see what happens the next time around – it’s not going to be that vibe, that’s for sure. It will probably still be rough around the edges, but I don’t think so angry. One of the things about going through chemo is that I sort of realized why I was making music, why it was im-portant, and why I wasn’t prepared

not to do it. I realized it wasn’t just about being crazy and making people be like, “Wow, look at all their energy. Look at how wild they are.”

IF: You guys haven’t played that many shows then since coming back.

DRB: I just wrapped up treat-ment in May, so I’m still in physical therapy, and I’ve got these scars. We’re still getting into it – hell, we only starting rehearsing a couple weeks ago. But it went a lot more

smoothly than we expected, which is why we’ve picked up more gigs.

IF: When I saw you were on the Newport bill, I thought you guys sort of stick out. But it’s also a really good fit, because as different as your music is from the other acts at the festival, it’s still really rootsy.

DRB: Yeah, this isn’t the first time we’ve played a folk fes-tival. And when we get on those bills it’s not unusual that we’re the most aggressive band on the bill. And at first we sort of shied away from it, but after having done it a couple times we’ve realized that for the people coming out to these festivals, it’s not like rock music is some foreign thing to them. They’re not really that taken aback – they’re totally willing to embrace it actually, so it ends up being a really good scene for us. I think we totally end up sticking out in people’s minds because of how



O’Death’s first two albums, Head Home and Broken Hymns, Limbs, and Skin

different we are.

IF: Are you guys excited about see-ing anyone in particular at New-port?

GJ: I’ve wanted to see Calexico for years, and usually tickets are expensive for their shows. They’re playing right after us, I think. Are you going?

IF: Yeah. And there are a lot of good bands, big and small.

GJ: It’s a nice village.

IF: Cool. And for your next album, how many songs do you have writ-ten?

DRB: We’ve got about an album’s worth of material that’s in…

GJ: Various stages. A lot of melo-

dies and structures. We haven’t really played all of the together yet. But it’s not really going to be a live-sounding record. It’s definitely go-ing to be a different approach. The songs on the last couple albums sort of had that kind of energy, be-cause we knew how they sounded live. For this one we’re going to intentionally not do it that way, just to see if the songs bring out a dif-ferent kind of nuance.

DRB: It’s a whole different kind of challenge for us from a writing perspective. We’ve always been so dirt poor that making records has been something that’s had to happen quick. We’d write, tour, get it together, and everything was stage-tested, tried and true in a live situation. And then we’d go and record it that way. This time we’re going to record it in a totally differ-ent way.

IF: It’s a little more polished then?

DRB: I don’t know if I’d say “pol-ished”, but it’s definitely refined in a different kind of way. We’ve always been structuralist, and to a differ-ent degree, formalists. But we’re definitely looking at a broader instrumentation and getting away from the limitations that come with the stage. We don’t have roadies or anything – hell, we usually don’t even have a sound tech, so bring-ing a bunch of instruments on tour becomes a real distant nightmare that we don’t partake in. But that’s something that we love, so the next record’s going to have really broad instrumentation. And we’re using the recording process as the writing process, which is really fun, man. We’ve never done it that way, and I’m really into it. It’s very cool.



Photo by Noah Dodson


DAWES INTERVIEW

Interview with Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes

“Those guys have no business writing those kind of songs,” ATO Records’ Marty Nolan once remarked. None of the four members of Dawes is twenty-five yet, but you couldn’t tell from their first and only album North Hills. Most young bands are heralded for their spunk and energy. Dawes, meanwhile, earns credit for their freak-ishly mature songwriting abilities. As moving as songs like “Peace in the Valley” and “When My Time Comes” are on record, hearing them live will give you chills. This particular Newport performance ended in an encore sing-a-long during which frontman Taylor Goldsmith called his father (whom I learned after the interview was a member of Oakland funk group Tower of Power) on stage for a little vocal help. I caught up with Goldsmith the next day to get his thoughts on Dawes’ Newport debut and more.

DAWES INTERVIEW continued

Inflatable Ferret: So, this is your first Newport Folk Festival.

Taylor Goldsmith: Yeah, it’s our first every festival that we’ve played this summer.

IF: Oh, yeah? So, how was it?

TG: It’s been a really exciting sum-mer for us, and Newport was what we were particularly looking for-ward to because of the mythology that comes along with it. So, we’ve been very excited for this show. And you know, we know it’s a small stage, but just to be the last band of the night and have every-body there, and by the end, standing up – it felt really good.

IF: Yeah, the crowd was getting really into it at the end. Have you guys played that encore song before?

TG: You mean the sing-along thing? Not that often. I mean, at headlin-ing shows sometimes when people really want to hear one more we’ll do it. But that song doesn’t get played that much just because you really need a crowd to be into it in order for it to work. So, last night we were lucky that we got to do that, because I feel like that’s always indicative of a connected show.

IF: And who was Scott?

TG: Scott was our tour manager’s uncle. He’s played with some amazing people. I can’t remember any offhand right now, but he’s a really epic sax player. Yeah, he made us sound so good.

IF: How does songwriting work? Do you write most of the songs?

TG: I write all the songs and the words and everything. I just write it on acoustic guitar and sing it and write the harmonies out. And then

otherwise, they kind of figure out what they need to do.

IF: I think it would be really hard to write songs that are really heartfelt but that don’t come across corny or anything, but I think you guys kind of bridge that gap well.

TG: It’s funny, because that’s some-thing I’ve been terrified of. I hate when songwriters seem like they’re just announcing their troubles, sort of like, “I’m so sad. Look at me.” And I never want to be seen as that. And, you know, maybe I’m

already doing that. Who knows? But that’s something that I really try to stay conscious of, because I feel like it’s only worth it if you’re actually making a suggestion and not merely an announcement. And it’s like, “Okay, I’ve dealt with this loneliness or sorrow, or whatever. And this is my perspective on it now.” And that sounds a little silly, but I think that’s why music is necessary. I don’t listen to song-writers to feel bad for them, but, in terms of lyric writing, to gain a little perspective and learn a little bit. And also just to appreciate some-

thing beautiful…or funny.

IF: How did your deal with ATO come about? Were you just playing a show and got noticed?

TG: Yeah, we were just on tour with Delta Spirit, and we were the first of the three bands. And the

main support was Other Lives [another ATO band]. And it’s been a really exciting time for us.

IF: You’ve played a few new songs at your shows recently. And I’ve heard you almost have a full al-bum’s worth.

TG: Yeah, I think we’re going to record it in September.

IF: So, you pretty much have every-thing written?

“I hate when songwriters announce their troubles. It’s only worth it if you’re

actually making a suggestion and not

merely an announcement.”


DAWES INTERVIEW continued

TG: Yeah, we have like, twelve or thirteen tunes done. So, I think we’ll get home and start arranging and really getting on top of that. And I think we’ll be able to have a record done by the end of Septem-ber. And then we’ll hit the road again still pushing North Hills, and then eventually, in 2011, get that next one out. IF: Are you going to have any decent-sized breaks, or just tour, tour, tour?

IF: Are you going to have any decent-sized breaks, or just tour, tour, tour?

TG: You know, it would be nice to just get a rest, but at the same time, we’re not tired – this is fun. I mean, we’re tired physically, but what we’re doing – we don’t want

it to ever end. So, the only way we can ensure that that’s the case is to not stop working. And we don’t want to stop. You know, every time you hear about artists that stuck around, they were always the workhorses. All the people that we know that had issues with tour-ing too often are the people that aren’t around anymore. Like, if we had a tour that went 365 days in a year, we would accept it willingly.

IF: And how old are you guys?

TG: I’m the oldest. I’m 24, the bass player and the piano player are 22, and Griffin’s 19.

IF: Having four older brothers, I think that would be awesome to tour with one of them.

TG: Yeah.

IF: I don’t know if there is any…

TG: No. It couldn’t be better. It’s cool because there’s a mutual respect and understanding of who’s good at what. He’s got such a good voice, and I think he’s an incredible drummer. We lean on each other, and we look to each other when we need what the other one’s good at.

IF: Cool. Has anyone ever told you you look like Popeye when you shred?

TG: Oh really? That’s awesome. People have said a lot worse things than that.


The Ice Cream Man

Pokey Lafarge

Alex Ebert (a.k.a. Edward Sharpe)

Legendary Rhythym Guitarist Richie Havens

Newport Ferret Photos

To wrap things up, we present ferret photos with a few of IF’s favorite Newport artisits (and, of course, The Ice Cream Man).


inflatable ferret - special issue: newport 2010

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