Edmonton Folk Fest Friday: Mars and Venus night with Allison Russell, Stephen Wilson Jr. summons Springsteen

National Post

3 days ago

From the female disco incantations of Allison Russell to the muscular King of the Hill twang of Stephen Wilson Jr., the great, diverse hydra of the Edmonton Folk Music Festival began to fully emerge from its misty cave.
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If folk fest has a hump day, it's Friday — a kind of liminal space between just getting going and that free-range, kaleidoscopic fractal wonderland of 13 hours a day of proper weekend programming.
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Hopefully you didn't burn out yet!
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Walking around the fully-open grounds, you start to get into that random vibe of knowing around every pack of plastic-plate noshers and volunteer blue monster T-shirts something wonderful is happening for someone on any of six active session clamshells, striped green and white for peace, prosperity and unity.
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But as local singer-songwriter Everett LaRoi noted early Friday night wandering about with no goals or expectations, it's like a radio dial where you can just stop wherever it pleases.
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Being a bit of a D&D dork wizard-lured me to Acoustic Alchemy jam on Stage 2 at 6 p.m., plus Shaela Miller gave off a good impression using the folk fest rare words 'Depeche Mode' and 'New Order' in her bio.
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Hosted by Manitoba's deep folk roots Dry Bones — banjo-picker and emcee Leonard Podoluk's late dad co-founded EFMF's elder sister in Winnipeg — handsome Aussie barefooter Kim Churchill was back from last year with a slight trim, mesmerizing guitar duo Ryley Walker and Bill MacKay filling up the stage.
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Those two pulled me closest, an acoustic double windstorm of delightfully avant-garde jazz somewhere along the echo border of Django Reinhardt and John Fahey, though if anything of all things their finger-plucking interplay reminded me of the way The Stanley Brothers' voices wove around each other into a single vibration.
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Dry Bones did a nice Bill Bourne tribute — good to see he's being kept alive in song — while Churchill told a cute story about how his high school career counsellor advised him not to live in a camper van and play music for a living. Whoops!
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As for gothy tattooed mother-of-two Miller of Lethbridge, her country songs has a nice grit, and her banter was ceaselessly funny in a kind of a 'what the hell am I doing here?' way, talking about losing her phone in the bar the night before, as well as important fashion tips.
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'If my skirts aren't short and sexy enough, I just stuff them up my belt!' she explained.
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Calvin Vollrath had a cosy little fiddle and step-dancing session over at Stage 7 at the same time, but after being disappointed headline-riffer Jesse Welles only had small T-shirts left in the grass-floored merch tent, I popped over to another buffet session over at Stage 6, where Aysanabee, AHI, Julianna Riolino and Jennifer Castle dug into their various inspirations, Aysanabee pulling Lala Noel up to help him sing instead of letting her have supper, haha!