Northern Roots

Tim Eriksen Solo Acoustic
August 17, 8 & 10:30 pm
Blue Note Jazz Club
NYC
Monday nights are only $10 for a table seat, $5 at the bar!

AMERICAN FOLK FESTIVALS

The Newport Folk Festival aka George Wein’s Folk Festival 50 was a lot of fun- Mavis Staples, Balfa Toujours, Elvis Perkins and a bunch of shape note singers sounds to me like the beginnings of an interesting weekend. If they’d had Esma Redzepova and Motorhead I might have even considered buying a ticket. As it was I was working so I didn’t get to see any music, but it was still great to be there.

A highlight for me was singing from the Sacred Harp with a bunch of friends and former students. Elene Stovall came up from Alabama to sing with us, which was great. She’s a wonderful singer and one of the few remaining Sacred Harpers Bob Jones and George Wein brought up to sing at the festival in 1964. It’s really interesting to hear her talk about the experience, especially in tandem with the perspective of the festival people.

Another great moment was performing an impromptu rave up of the Old Ship of Zion with Elvis Perkins in Dearland. The youtube video doesn’t quite capture the ecstatic rock and roll moment, but it’s fun to see it anyway. Check out a better recording of my set, the Sacred Harp singing, Elvis’ set and, I believe, the entire festival, available as a free download on NPR’s website.

The Champlain Valley Folk Festival was also a lot of fun. My thanks to Pete Sutherland and everyone who came out! I got to hang out with my old friend and musical collaborator Laura Risk, a one time Cordelia’s Dad member and fabulous fiddle player, in case you didn’t know. A very welcome surprise was some exceptionally good Bosnian food from a restaurant in Essex Junction, VT. Go figure.

So Newport was Sunday, the two days before that I was in northern Vermont, the two days before that I moved house, and the night before that I got back from three weeks in Europe. By the time Pete Seeger finished singing Kumbaya or whatever on Sunday I was already asleep in a box of kitchen utensils.

Hiking in Southern Moravia before the Namest festival

FINALLY, THE MOUSE
Rolling back the tape a little further, two weeks ago, while I was still in Namest nad Oslavou, I was defeated by a 12 inch mouse in as much as I was only able to eat about half of it in the hours between when it was given to me and when I had to leave for Prague. Yeah, well, it was a cake in the shape of a mouse, but it was a challenge nonetheless. You see, it all happened like this (insert harp arpeggios and wavy lines to indicate the onset of a flashback):

In 2008 I had the pleasure of playing at the great Folkove Prazdniny festival in Namest nad Oslavou, Czech Republic where they put me up in a totally fine though somewhat funky hotel a longish hike from the festival grounds. My greeting there was “Hello. Mr. Eriksen? I am service man. You like hemenex?!” “Yeah man! I mean, probably. What are you talking about?” I thought. Well, I’ll tell you if you don’t already know that Hemenex is what’s for breakfast in Czechia, and it’s delicious. It’s sort of a combination of chicken eggs and salty pink meat that’s apparently meant to go with a liter of beer. (The morning kind). Anyway, there I was in the hospoda eating my hemenex, which is actually how it’s spelled, while Waterson:Carthy were eating, I don’t know what, probably caviar, up at the pension in the castle. Well, this year, possibly because of the release of my new solo CD “Northern Roots: Live in Namest” I was promoted to staying in a castle suite, which was less funky but really great. It’s really one of the loveliest places I’ve ever been put up- even nicer than the W in Hollywood, though lacking the $18 french fries.

On my first night there I did a set in the castle courtyard which was followed by a little ceremony launching my new solo CD and a book by journalist Jiri Moravcik called something like “16 stories in World Music” that has a chapter about me, as well as chapters on Omou Sangare, Eliza Carthy, Mariza and an interesting array of other folks. I’d love to be able to understand it, as Jiri is a very thoughtful writer from what I’ve seen translated, but in any case the book has a lot of nice color photos. Due to an oversight, I didn’t have a translator that night, so I’m still not exactly sure what all happened, but after my set a bunch of people, some of whom I knew and others I did not, came up on stage and said a bunch of stuff after which they presented me with a copy of the CD and book and promptly poured champagne all over them. Irony aside, I’m very proud to be associated with these folks and really appreciate their work- Dusan Sviba for producing the CD, Jiri for taking my music seriously and asking great questions, and the festival for treating me so well and being a haven of musical sanity.

The next morning I was in the castle restaurant eating my slightly fancier hemenex (chopped hem, more ex, garnish) and noticed a mouse running around the place making some of the patrons a little freaked out. I got up and cornered it, and one of the waitresses and I coaxed it into a bucket. I don’t know what happened to it after that, but a number of people told me “everyone was talking” about how I caught the mouse. It didn’t seem at all unusual to me, but I guess with perceived status (a redundant phrase, probably) comes expected behavior that might not include mouse catching. I’ve been famous a number of times before and have often been surprised by the seemingly random side effects.

Anyway, after three days of Sacred Harp workshops my final event at the festival was a midnight concert at the beautiful Baroque church on the town square, including a singing demonstration by the Sacred Harp class. I was just about to launch into “Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah” when down the aisle came a festival entourage bearing the unbelievably lifelike giant mouse I’ve spent so long building up to for no particular reason. I had a translator this time, but it didn’t help much. I got the general idea and mostly just thought “I like these people.”

Photo by Katerina Mullerova

It took me until after the show to be sure that it was actually a cake and not a sculpture that I would have to sheepishly pawn off on someone. The most surprising part is that it was an unbelievably excellent cake- a real one- walnut flour, layers of not too sweet chocolate cream and raspberry jam, covered in just the right amount of marzipan, sculpted and colored in amazing detail right down to a disgusting little pile of marzipan mouse poop. I think if you could find anything like it in the US it would probably cost a couple hundred dollars. One thing I did understand is that it was the idea of the waitresses at the castle, which didn’t surprise me seeing as how when Dusan asked for something “sharp” to pour on his hemenex they brought him a plate of thumbtacks. What a great country.

I was sadly unable to eat the whole mouse, but I tried hard and did manage to eat a big piece around 3 in the morning, a pound or two for breakfast and another big piece for lunch before bequeathing the rest to the people in the festival office on my way out to the Brno bus station. Sometimes I wish I had the kind of job that ended at some point in the day, but this big mouse was somehow reassuring that I’m in the right line of work.