Those of us who flock to the National Folk Festival are famously hairy, dishevelled, eccentrically dressed (lots of unkempt beards and rainbow clothes). And so the members of the Alaska String Band, performing in the Budawang Pavilion on Friday, clashed with those of us there to hear them.
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‘‘Clean-cut’’ does not come close to describing the family band from Juneau, Alaska. They looked (with the women of the band all identically and smartly and femininely dressed) like the immaculate cabin crew of an Alaska Airlines flight.
But the suspicion they might be just a cabin crew was dispelled within moments once they began to play and talk.
Their first number, a rejoicing gospel song about the certainty of eternal life (‘‘Ain’t no grave gonna keep this body down!’’ they yodelled) galvanised us all. It was such fun this reporter forgot he is an atheist.
They’re a family band, made up of Paul Zahasky (guitarist and song writer) and his wife Melissa (a classically trained violin-player), daughters Laura (violin/fiddle, guitar, mandolin and vocals), Abigail (violin-fiddle, mandolin, guitar, banjo, pickin’ stick, piano, drums) and son Quinn (slap bass player). Together they made a shimmeringly joyous and pulse-quickening sound. Paul Zahasky promised us ‘‘Some wonderful American roots music’’ and that’s what his band delivered.
Paul Zahasky, who during the song about resurrection used a suitcase as a drum and even did a little juggle with it, is as clean-shaven as a man in a TV aftershave ad.
He’s very endearing.
‘‘There are lots of similarities between Australian people and Alaskan people,’’ he thinks.
‘‘You’re a very independent lot. You live in a very remote part of the world. Juneau in Alaska where were from is the state capital, much as Canberra is. The only access to Juneau is either by boat or plane. Our seat of government is in such a remote location, and there’s not a better place in the world to keep a bunch of politicians!’’
The massed Budawangers loved that.
One of the joys of the National Folk Festival is that one hears so much original music about such unusual things instead of only the tired old songs of hot lust that dominate pop music. So for example Zahasky introduced one boisterous instrumental number that described the moment when he came across two-year-old Abigail sitting in and eating from a pool of chocolate syrup she’d pumped from a bulk-size jug of chocolate syrup from Costco.
‘‘As a parent how do you get mad at something like that? She was doing what any woman would, sitting in a pool of chocolate. So we immortalised the moment in music.’’
And, speaking of original music on unusual subjects, one poignant highlight of Friday’s concert of The Mae Trio (three young women from Castlemaine, just announced as winners of this year’s National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA) National Folk Recording Award with their debut CD Housewarming) was a song one of them has composed about her grandmother’s courage in the face of Alzheimer’s disease.
The Marquee is a big, big tent, but it was crammed (literally not a seat to spare) by an audience quite spellbound by the music of the Trio, Maggie Rigby on vocals and banjo, her sister Elsie Rigby on vocals, ukulele and fiddle, and Anita Hillman on vocals and cello. This reporter felt proud of the audience discerning enough (perhaps Australia is not so dumbed-down after all!) to be riveted by original music of such tender quirkiness.
