The Village Fete & the Edinburgh Folk Scene
I’m not normally the type to plug specific events this obviously, but it gives me the opportunity to shed light on one of Edinburgh’s most thriving music scenes – in many ways Edinburgh’s only seriously thriving music scene. Now, this isn’t to say that there aren’t plenty of really good indie-pop groups knocking around Scotland’s capital, but the audience for anything other than a particular kind of alternative folk music is pretty sparse for the most part, and this is a bloody shame.
That said, there is a sort of delicate, introverted folk music or, alternatively, a discordant, sightly arhythmic style of alt-folk or folktronica or whatever you’d want to call it that seems to suit the locals for some reason. It’s not all that weird, just slightly skewed somehow, and I like it but I couldn’t tell you why it’s so much more popular over here than other stuff which I would consider more, umm, what, populist, perhaps?
It’s almost as if this city takes pride in the amateur nature of a lot of its native artistic enterprises, and I’m not sure where this comes from. It may be from the aristocratic nature of the place, or perhaps a reaction to the rock ‘n’ roll dominance of Glasgow or perhaps even a reaction to the considerable wealth of Edinburgh’s huge financial community. Without doing proper research – in fact, maybe even if I did proper research – I just couldn’t tell you.
Anyway, the upshoot is that there is a really solid group of people making what I guess you would describe as ‘difficult’ folk music, some of which, once you get used to it, is terrific. I’m not making claims on behalf of any of these bands beause I don’t know any of them that well, but they are all playing this Saturday at the Village Fete, which appears to be some sort of student art thingummy. It’s at Old Saint Paul’s Church Hall on Jeffrey Street and starts at about noon, so if you’re a resident of these parts get yourselves down there to see Withered Hand, Randan Discotheque and Wounded Knee.
If you’re not, then listen to this stuff and wonder, as I do, why this kind of music in particular seems to take hold around here when plenty of other, equally deserving styles seem to get the cold shoulder. They’re a strange breed, the Edinburgh music fans, and even after almost three years here I am still struggling to really understand them properly.
Withered Hand – Hard On
Randan Discotheque – Heather the Weather A serenade to an iconic local weather lass.
Wounded Knee – Canary
And here’s a couple of others, just for shits and giggles, by Eagleowl and My Kappa Roots.
My Kappa Roots – Summer You Dancer
Eagleowl – This is Not Your Lucky Day These chaps are Bart’s band, one of the regular commenters here, and are supporting The Twilight Sad at The Liquid Rooms on the 20th March, so I’ll have a proper reaction to them after that gig. This is gorgeous though.
long live the edinburgh nu-folk scene. its a real community. and there aren’t many of those left.
by the way, excellent blog.
u seem to have given us some kind of bizarre withered hand medley! but im no’ complaining!
Did I? Fuck, that’s me bollocksing up the MySpace rips again. I’m such a lazy tosser. Had I been organised and legal I’d have emailed all the groups last week asking for an mp3 and written permission to use them. But that would be a bit much like hard work, and I’m guessing they won’t object. Until I fuck up their music, that is!
I would have been there, but instead I’ll be in the pub following that other traditional Celtic folk festival known as the Six Nations!
The what?
Many years ago, I lived on Jeffrey Street…if I was still around, I’d pop along the road to see what was going on.
Thanks for the tracks, and my recent discovery of your podcast – some excellent tracks there as well
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.
You’re a true prince.
Well I’d have written more about Eagleowl by now Bart, but I’m waiting until the live performance, although that seems to be further away than I’d realised. Anyway, proper write up approaching then.
Graeme – cheers, thanks very much. I don’t know about these podcasts – some people seem to love them, but the numbers are actually dropping as the number of compliments increases. It’s odd, but I’m sticking with it.
eagle who???!! they sound highly influenced by american acts if you ask me. and anyone who uses a nickname as his real name – well I ask you….. what’s the world come to…..
…..I LOVE EAGLEOWL!!!! cannot wait to see them live again and have warmed to Withered Hand having seen him a couple of times recently. Never really liked him the first time I saw him but adding a number of other musicians and instruments to his sound has, in my opinon, made him a fantastic performer and really brought the songs to life. He’s also got some top banter on stage which is always good – I envy those who can be funny infront of a crowded room.
three people who never get any press from this scene yet deserve it just as much are:
the wee rogue, dene road and will cookson. and i agree with you euan..my appreciation of withered hand increases with every gig/new member. plus, there aren’t half as many eagleowl gigs these days, petition for malcolm to be brought back north!
oh, and the great bear: like will oldham relocated to edinburgh, met viking moses and wrote a staunch ‘no more than one gig a year’ manifesto…jeez i forget how many great people there are around the city
this is why i want to get a kind of festival going – can’t run it by myself and need loads of people involved – also can’t explain it all just now but if anyone is interested please visit the kays lavelle myspace page and read the blog which will explain more. I do plan to outline my ideas soon – may use songbytoad as the place to do that.
anyways, back to the point – edinburgh music scene is brilliant if you’re willing to take the time and find the gems. it’s time to unite all these gems and create one giant ball of geminess. i think anyway.
…puts hand in the centre of the huddle “mighty ducks style”..i’m with you euan…
Yes, I think this needs to happen. There’s no reason we can’t do a Fence-style event with lots of different venues and promoters taking part. Hell, I bet Fence would love to join in – they’re been on of the real pioneers of this kind of thing for ages now. And there are some sterling indie-pop things going on at the moment. This calls for some diabolical plotting…
all the promoters, venues and people who care about edinburgh’s music scene need to unite under one banner and push forth all the magic musicians that this city has to offer. like matthew says, would be magic to have lots of gigs going on throughout the city at different venues over a weekend – maybe friday, saturday and sunday – just to be different! The name “Edinburgh Festival” was my initial thought but think this needs some refining….but it needs lots of people on board to help organise, run and promote this kind of thing.
i feel an A-Team type planning coming together.
b.a. rt?
Edinburgh has got the potential to have something as good as Glasgow and distinctive in its own right…it just needs to be done, dammit! Good to see Wounded Knee on here, his album last year was great. Funnily enough he used to be one of my bosses in a record shop at Edinburgh, though the last I heard he was in Berlin…
First we take Manhattan…
nice post, toad.
also – fife:kills are super. super, i say!
Yes indeed they are. You’re a bit of a closet Scot, aren’t you Shane. Did you know I had a Broken Records session due up on the blog in about a fortnight? Very, very exciting.
I aint getting on no plane.
Fool.
that is exciting, toad. actually, i met one of the guys who runs fife: kills in berlin a good while back. and also, i have to say that the moulettes are ace. i’ll be writing about them soon i think.
Would that be the Wounded Knee gentleman by any chance? I’ll let you know as soon as the session goes up.
hey, thanks so much for featuring my fete! hope you can make it along. also in answer to your question i AM the tracer trails artwork person and those shirts (and others) will be on sale. cheers, lizzy.
[...] stumbled across an interesting blog post about Edinburgh’s folk scene that I thought I’d share. Two of my very favorite people [...]