From: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org (shindell-list-digest) To: shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Subject: shindell-list-digest V7 #181 Reply-To: shindell-list@smoe.org Sender: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk shindell-list-digest Friday, August 5 2005 Volume 07 : Number 181 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [RS] Newport Folk Fest [] RE: [RS] Ellis and Shindell mp3 ["kzundel@westol.com" Subject: [RS] Newport Folk Fest This weekend is the Newport Folk Fest Festival, a festival that I have seen Richard at a few times over the years. This is an article about the changes of the festival over the years. There is no Richard content in the article but I found it interesting and it's about a festival he has been part of and is about the genre of music he is labeled in. I have been a few times (not going this year), and I have mixed feelings how they run the fest. Some things I like, other I highly dislike but in certain years it has been a good time. Struggling Newport Gets Less Folky By Geoff Edgers Boston Globe On a stage where folk music sounded its most unforgettable notes --where a long-haired teenager named Joan Baez launched her career, where Bob Dylan's anthem, ''Blowin' In the Wind," galvanized the growing Vietnam War protest movement, and where Dylan returned to perform a famous, electrified performance -- tomorrow the punk rock band the Pixies will play for the very first time. They've been added to the bill of the legendary Newport Folk Festival, which is scheduling performers who aren't products of the crunchy-granola folk scene as it struggles to remain financially viable in an ever-tightening concert market. ''The name of the game is to survive," says George Wein, 79, who founded the festival. ''If you can't survive, what is the point? You just go home and play your records. I don't think I'm ready to go home and play my records." Wein has never heard the Pixies. But his staff has told him the band -- playing what's being advertised as its first-ever acoustic set -- will sell tickets. That's crucial for Newport, which helped launch the careers of Baez, Dylan, and countless others, but has found itself reaching outside the folk world in hopes of drawing a younger crowd -- and earning enough to cover its roughly $1 million budget. Known as much for his business acumen as his music programming, Wein isn't ashamed to admit that he's also driven by a desire to impress the festival's new sponsor, Dunkin' Donuts. First timers at Newport this year include the Pixies, new wave icon Elvis Costello, and indie rock darlings Bright Eyes. Ray Lamontagne and M. Ward, singer-songwriters more likely to play rock clubs than coffeehouses, are also on the bill. Folk stalwarts Peter Yarrow and Odetta are being pushed to side stages or to lower-profile times of the day. To break even, the Newport Folk Festival, the bulk of which takes place tomorrow and Sunday by the water at Fort Adams State Park, must draw about 12,500 people over the weekend. That's been a struggle in recent years, and even now, with the Pixies, Wein is still nervous. As of earlier this week, he said the festival has sold 8,000 tickets. Newport is not alone in its struggle. The Philadelphia Folk Festival, founded in 1962, has faced shrinking revenues in recent years. In the '90s, the festival, which takes place the last weekend of August, consistently finished with profits as high as $300,000. That money went to pay for school programs run by the festival's nonprofit parent organization. In the last five years, the festival has just broken even. That's sparked talk of bringing in sponsors, once considered heresy in the anti-corporate folk world. David Baskin, chairman of the Philadelphia Folk Festival, understands the pressures facing Wein. He has also heard folkies criticizing the festival. ''The question now is, is it a folk festival or is it just a group of concerts?" Baskin says,Wein, in fact, said that festival organizers have talked, in recent years, about dropping ''folk" from its title. For now, they've decided to hold off, knowing the festival once defined the spirit of the genre during its first incarnation, from 1959 to 1970. But by 1971, Wein canceled the festival and moved his company to New York City. He continued producing shows, including the still-popular New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. When Wein relaunched the folk festival, in 1986, he put a greater emphasis on getting big-name headliners. The Indigo Girls and James Taylor helped attract as many as 9,000 people a day. Wein also shifted the concert schedule. In the '60s, shows took place at night. The modern festival would run from late morning until early evening. That left no time for the informal, intimate workshops that defined the culture of the festival in the '60s and angered some fans. Mark Moss, the editor of the folk magazine Sing Out!, has never liked the new routine. ''A folk festival shouldn't be a string of concert performances by artists helicoptered in behind a stage and then helicoptered out," Moss said last week. ''If that's all there is, let me go see them at [Harvard University's] Sanders Theatre, where it's a much more comfortable experience. I don't have a pressing need or desire to either sit out in hundred-degree sun or torrential downpours." Wein's recruitment of a corporate sponsor -- starting with Ben & Jerry's in 1988 -- also rankled some Newport followers. ''It's disturbing we live in a culture that has to change the name of the event to justify the means of sponsorship," says Arlo Guthrie, who debuted his most famous song, ''Alice's Restaurant Massacree," at the festival in 1969. ''I would love to see it just called the Newport Folk Festival, and you wouldn't have to change the name every few years." But Guthrie, who appears in a special concert today at the festival's Newport Casino show, also defends Wein, and says in general the changes were inevitable. ''He's not only a good guy, he's a good businessman." Guthrie says. What's astounding about Newport, observers say, is that Wein has managed to keep a major, commercial folk festival alive. Folk music as a genre is so marginalized that Billboard magazine, which charts, among other categories, rap, country, Latin, comedy, and electronic albums, doesn't keep track of folk sales. But Billboard is considering creating a new ''Americana" chart, which speaks to Newport's drive to broaden its own lineup, says Geoff Mayfield, the magazine's director of charts. ''Lyle Lovett is Americana," he said. ''Some Mary Chapin Carpenter albums. Steve Earle. It's roots music that doesn't have a home somewhere else. And I would think folk music would be in there." The Pixies certainly wouldn't. But Nalini Jones, who programs Newport, believes the band can draw new ticket buyers. At 34, she remembers listening to a copy of the 1987 Pixies album, ''Come On Pilgrim," while a student at Amherst College. Earlier this year, one of her colleagues heard from a promoter that the band, which re-formed last year after breaking up in 1992, was interested in doing an acoustic set at Newport. Signed only a few weeks ago, the Pixies will play tomorrow. Response to the news, Jones says, has been mixed, particularly during her promotional visits to folk radio stations. Pat Monteith, general manager of folk radio station WUMB-FM (91.9), was one of the folkies caught off guard. ''There was definitely an eyebrow raised," says Monteith, who described the Pixies as too much of a stretch to include in next month's Boston Folk Festival, which she programs. Elvis Costello is less of a gamble, she says. Costello has headlined Wein's New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, another event that has broadened its artist base over the years. On his current tour, Costello has been playing a mix of originals and songs by country artists such as the Stanley Brothers, George Jones, and Gram Parsons. He believes in the crossing over of rock and folk. ''Seems to me, that the worlds are moving closer together rather than one invading the other," Costello wrote in an e-mail. ''I believe that music is connected by human passions and curiosities rather than by marketing strategies." Then, Costello alluded to the questions of acoustic versus electric performance: ''We are thinking of adopting solar power for our Newport appearance." It's a joking reference, of course, to the famous Newport moment, in 1965, when then-folkie Dylan went electric. As legend has it, Dylan's set so enraged folk singer Pete Seeger, that Seeger tried to cut the power with an ax. Seeger, in fact, has always loved Dylan. He just thought the sound mix was too muddy, he said last week in a phone interview. ''You couldn't understand a word, and he was singing a very good song, 'Maggie's Farm,' " says Seeger, 86. ''I was so angry, I said, 'Damn, if I had an ax, I'd cut the cable.' The sound man thought I didn't like electric music and passed it on to others." Seeger has never heard the Pixies. But he's fine with their playing the festival. ''Frankly, I'm in favor of mixing things up," he says. Geoff Edgers can be reached at gedgers@globe.com. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2005 12:18:19 -0400 From: "kzundel@westol.com" Subject: RE: [RS] Ellis and Shindell mp3 Peter and all, Here's another link! I just tried it and it worked for me! http://s18.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=15IAC4A99CIOP0Q9SV7C75IGDT KarenZ Original Message: - ----------------- From: Peter Booth petermbooth@yahoo.com Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2005 12:15:37 -0700 To: shindell-list@smoe.org Subject: [RS] Ellis and Shindell mp3 If anyone is able to download and save this mp3, I would love to get a copy of it. I can't seem to access the page it's on. Peter - -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . ------------------------------ End of shindell-list-digest V7 #181 ***********************************