The Solid Citizens at Huntington Folk Festival

August 8th, 2011

My good buddy Mark Miller (of the insanely awesome roots band Spuyten Duyvil) pulled me out of my self-imposed sabbatical this weekend to play some classic old-timey tunes in a little side project he’s calling “The Solid Citizens”.

As opposed to the very-rehearsed natures of our usual projects, “The Solid Citizens” is semi-jam-based, semi-rehearsed, and semi-open-format as we invite fellow touring musicians who we know to be skilled players – and who we know are going to be at an event with us – to come up and make music with us, using songs from folks like Elizabeth Cotten, Mississippi John Hurt, etc, as the vehicle.

In this format, anything is possible. It can be magic or a train wreck, and even a little bit of both. The key is to leave the agenda and ego at the door and to just listen and play. The audience is encouraged to sing and play along, and Mark brings a big conference-room-style flip chart with Chord Changes and key lyrics on it.

We did a little rehearsal at Falcon Ridge Folk Festival a couple of weeks back, and we had a debut performance at Huntington Folk Festival last weekend. As you can see from the pictures, it was a blast.

Thanks to Craig Akin, Honor Finnegan, Kath Buckell, Carolann Solebello, Mark Allen Berube, Julia and Ira Levin, Paul Sachs, Bill Wisnowski (and My Dad’s Truck), Elaine Romanelli, and the rest of the folks who joined in spontaneously, for lending your time and talent… You made it just perfect!

Finally, many thanks to Gordon Nash for taking these great pix! There are more pix here, and he has an insanely cool weblog that her writes called “Wise Madness“, here.