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Folk Music For the Masses – OCFF

The Ontario Council of Folk Festivals, or OCFF, is an organization that represents music presenters with a particular interest in roots, folk, and blues music – the kind you’re most likely to see at a folk festival. Don’t think of Dylan wannabes croaking out protest music or workshops on how to use exotic tunings to make your guitar sound like a sitar – think Amy Millan, Bruce Cockburn, The Sadies, Sarah Harmer, and much more.

What’s happening in “folk” music these days is a remarkably diverse scene that encompasses artists working in conventional  folk music idioms (Michael Jerome Browne, for example) as well as artists who are using loops and technology you might associate with techno (New Zealand’s Mihirangi, who wowed the Ottawa Folk Festival this year), to rockers like Joel Plaskett.

Anyway, I digress. So the OCFF conference is a three-day opportunity for musicians – who want gigs – to meet up with festival artistic directors, house concert presenters, and other industry folk – who book musicians. The goal is to make contacts and impress someone so much that you end up with a load of work for the next year.

It’s also an opportunity to learn about the music business, with conference sessions on everything. For insiders, it’s also one of the most remarkable parties I’ve ever seen, with two floors of the Crowne Plaza hotel full of “guerilla showcase” rooms, where musicians play short sets to anyone in the room and offer anything from beer to chili to CDs as incentives.

But that’s for the insiders. The cognoscenti. The people who paid to attend. But… if you’re looking for the best value in town, you go to the Crowne Plaza, you pay $10 for a showcase wristband, and you get to
see tons of great acts.

My picks:

• Rose Cousins – PEI singer-songwriter whose serious songs are balanced by her quirky sense of humour
• Emma-Lee – Toronto singer with songs that echo great jazz and bossanova rhythms and a voice that expands and expands until it fills the room – and your heart
• The Undesirables – Toronto-based duo that meld songs and story together with powerful voices and flawless harmony singing. Folk to the power of rock.
• Sultans of String – roots-music supergroup that masters everything from folk to Gypsy jazz to flamenco
• The United Steel Workers of Montreal – a six-piece group that calls itself alt-country with an urban edge
• Kate Reid – how can you not love someone who writes songs like “The only dyke at the open mic”?

The OCFF is a wrap for another year, and was a great success. Be sure to put it on your calendar for next year  – for $10 for 20 or so acts – how can you go wrong?

Info: www.ocff.ca

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