Week 3: Folk Music-- Porchfest in Ithaca, NY

Adventures at Porchfest

         As a fan of music and cool things in general, learning that the town of Ithaca has an annual folk music festival called "Porchfest," left me ecstatic and quite bewildered; I'm not used to living near a town with any cultural significance, let alone an entire folk music festival. I'm far more accustomed to Amish buggys and the smell of manure, than banjos and the sound of acoustic guitars. Needless to say, Porchfest had me brimming with anticipation and expectations that couldn't be higher.

Porchfest turned out to simultaneously be everything I did and didn't expect it to be. As far as my expectations are concerned, the location and aesthetics were exactly as I envisioned. On the north end of town, dozens of brightly colored houses scattered over several blocks contained a diverse mix of bands playing anything from "The Clash"-esque rock, to a genre of alternative that sounded like it belonged in a shampoo commercial and not on the porch of some stranger's house.

The Geronimo Line

The first porch that we wandered upon was home to a band called The Geronimo Line-- and the experience here set the tone for what was going to be an awesome day unlike any I'd had in a long time.

We arrived right as they were finishing a song-- they had a unique sound that caught our attention from across the street. Their sound resembled the Clash many ways, but had some key textural differences which immediately set them apart from the 80's punk rock band.

The instrumentation (and therefore texture) of The Geronimo Line consisted of drums, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, and some sort of string plucking instrument which I am unfamiliar with. Despite the fact that the instrument was somewhat exotic, it gave off a fairly familiar sound,  like that of an electric acoustic guitar. Thus, the texture is mainly that of 3 different sounding guitars strumming in some sort of repetitive pattern, while the drummer keeps a fairly basic pulse underneath. The song itself seems dark in tone-- there is certainly an abundance of minor chords there. The tune bounces back and forth between open and closed chords, until finishing on a closed chord.

The audience around me was small in comparison to some of the more mainstream sounding groups down the road. Regardless, the small but enthusiastic audience seemed to really dig the abstract sound, some people almost seemed hypnotized by the guitar riffs.

After they were done playing, the band was kind enough to give away their self-titled album to me for free, along with a sticker.

After leaving The Geronimo Line, we walked down the street and came upon another band, whose name I unfortunately forgot to write down. They were playing a harder brand of rock, catering to a larger audience than the previous group that we had just heard.

They had an interesting sound-- upbeat tempos with a more positive sound, yet they still maintained a similar texture as The Geronimo Line, albeit with a sound that is easier for the average listener to swallow. This was most likely due to the chord progression being more in tune with what most people would expect from a rock band.




I will be uploading more photos later today.

E