The first ever Lady on the Mountain Folk Festival in Magdalena, New Mexico, went on last weekend. It started with a concert by Bayou Seco on Friday night, and ran all day Saturday with workshops and performances and a dance. We don't get many events like this in our little corner of the world, so it would have been a treat even if was only halfway okay, but it turned out great! There were performances by The Adobe Brothers (bluegrass type music), Crisol Luz (Medieval Spanish music, incredible stuff), the Vinegaroons (I didn't get to hear them, but I saw some of their instruments, including a weird stringed instrument made out of wood from a pallet and a denatured alcohol can), Joe Dietrich (alias Uncle Frank McGill, who told weird funny rambling stories punctuated with fiddle, banjo and guitar tunes), and The Village Idioms, who were my absolute favorites. I wrote down their names, but I've lost the paper, all I can remember is they were Beth on fiddle, Randy on guitar, and Jack on English concertina, and they're from Albuquerque.
I tried googling The Village Idioms, but came up with nothing, so I think they don't do much self-promoting, but, WOW, they were good.
They played music from Eastern Europe, music from the Middle East,
music from Ireland, American old-timey music, and they played one piece, which they said was Artisan music from Italy, which literally made the hair stand up on the back of my neck - I think the woman sitting next to me forgot to breathe until it was over. Has anyone else here heard of this group?

I only made it to two workshops - Back-up guitar with Dennis Dailey,
and Cowboy Songs with Joe Dietrich - but I got a lot out of both. The only workshop that I heard didn't go over so well was the Mariachi and Conjunto styles - apparently the guy that was running it is a great musician and a hell of a nice guy, but has a really dry wit that people don't always get.

The jam sessions were great - I wasn't able to contribute much, and had to keep repositioning myself so I could watch other people's hands, but I would have been happy to do it for seventy-two hours straight, it was that much fun. It maybe doesn't need to be said, but musicians are wonderful people! Friendly, generous, tolerant...

One thing the organizers did really well was to keep the kids occupied - doing tie-dye, making percussion instruments and kazoos out of reeds, kids jams, puppets, story-telling, you name it, they did it, all day long, for free. (Interestingly, the only kids that were a pain in the ass all day long were members of the Baptist Kid's Choir.)

Bayou Seco, now, what to say about them? Without them, it would have been a completely different festival. They gave concerts, ran workshops, did the sound, sat in on the jams, played for the dance,
and taught a bunch of dances, you name it, they did it, all day and night long with apparently tireless energy. Amazing people, and I love their music - what can I say, I was in hog heaven.

The only thing you could have wished for was more people - so next year, y'all come!