Colour Me Hip

by Tricia Dower

I feel both hip and retro after having spent approximately twenty-seven hours last weekend in a socially conscious coffee house reminiscent of the ‘60s, soaking up today’s versions of folk music and poetry with a much younger generation. It’s cool now, apparently, to snap your fingers quickly rather than clap when the performer says something ‘righteous’ or ‘real.’ Cool to wear any kind of clothing and hair of any length. This generation seems much more nonconformist in appearance than mine was, but I probably just can’t read the code.

Colin and I saw twenty-one performances over five days. Most of the music (and certainly the poetry) was original. The occasion was the first annual Solstice Festival for the Folk, a hastily put together event in response to Victoria’s cancellation of the international folk fest that had been a Canada Day weekend tradition for years. We went last year. Open air, grandstands and big crowds. The Solstice was intimate, the biggest turnout maybe eighty people on closing night, drawn by our favourite local band, Outlaw Social. There was a little-engine-that-could feel about this event. Some performers had given up other plans to make a showing. Others helped out behind the scenes. When café owner David Cardinal announced that the festival had ended up in the black, the audience cheered.

I enjoyed the music, but was just as impressed with the performance poetry. One man wore a beret and referred to himself as post-hipster. Listening with eyes closed as a base guitar accentuated his words, I traveled back to the time of Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and William S. Burroughs, minus the smoky rooms and sexism.

Hanging out in a coffee shop for twenty-seven hours, you start to blend in. We received a special door prize for loyal attendance. We learned that some of the performers work there, foaming milk for lattes and spreading cream cheese on bagels. We got especially friendly with festival organizer and poet Shayne avec i grec and sound technician and poet/singer RadaR. (No doubt their mothers dubbed them differently at birth.)

Shayne had memorized his pieces and spoke them with dramatic flair, looking at and connecting with the audience, allowing us to feel the energy and rhythm of his words: urban sprawl/draped over landscape/reclining/spread like early morning traffic jam and serial commuting. So much more engaging than the hallowed Reading.

RadaR performed the song poem What is Revolution? It doesn't want to leave my head. You can hear it here. Her s.o. and performance partner strong.cottonwoods (we’re not supposed to know his name is Scott) handled the boom-chick-a-boom-boom beatboxing accompaniment. Their work is more hip-hop than hipster in sound but the message brought back the idealistic, youth movement of the ‘60s.

Many of the performers sang or spoke of social injustice, environmental destruction and war. They are the new generation of idealists and artist activists. It's reassuring to know they're out there.

P.S. You’d think we’d be festival-ed out, but as you read this, Colin and I will be up island at the weekend-long Vancouver Island MusicFest in Comox, following Outlaw Social like groupies. There are 39 other performers, as well, but the only names I know are Joan Armatrading and Don McLean. Colour me way out of touch.

Photos: Shayne avec i grec (top) performing at the Solstice Festival for the Folk; strong.cottonwoods (left) and RadaR (right)