Post-Folkology 101 with Eustace Pendragon III

With regard to the proliferation of sonorous compositions via the live and recorded platforms, this writer would like to create intercourse focused on the concept of “folk” music. What does that entail? Is it a museum piece of Americana that is no longer pertinent to our commercial/psychological landscape? Or is it a progressive element of our cultural current, synthesized every moment as we watch and react to what our celeb’s children wear?

On the right coast, which is all this writer can speak of, save for a small West Virginia town of little note, the folk music entity is a wheezing understudy to the climbing aesthetics of boredom. It seems as though the general goal of do-it-yourself and indie music is to confound itself, to squeeze its own juices out into nothing and wipe them away before hearing, i.e. Califone’s Roots and Crowns. Frightening music. Its implications are staggering. To this writer it seems as though the body of music itself on said record is a convulsion of American music, a sort of cancerous sound derived from blues and old fiddle. Is it folk music? Is it indie rock? Is it American? Is it new? Is it old? Answer: yes.

So what is this monster, this thing exemplified by, but not limited to, Califone? This writer would like to call it something like post-folk. It ain’t not your grandpappy’s rock and roll.

Eustace Pendragon III