Well, as the saying goes, ask and you shall receive…click on the link below to see the amazing wall of boxes donated by a wonderful person in our festival community – all full of yarn just ready and waiting to decorate our Labyrinth!

The Great Wall of Yarn

Performance is at the core of the Festival. Whether singer, dancer, musician, MC , storytelling stallholder or the volunteer who entertains as he or she goes about her work – the heart and soul of the Festival is performance. The Festival experience is not about simply being a consumer or spectator at the concerts – we hope it’s much more about making your own personal contribution to this fabulous event.

Here at the NFF, we figure that it’s never too late to learn to play an instrument given the opportunity and the commitment. To prove the point, we have approached Canberra ABC’s Marcus Kelson and his wife Virginia Cook to see if they would be game enough to take up the challenge. Amazingly both agreed without hesitation. Marcus is now learning mandolin and Virginia has taken up the fiddle. The challenge is to pull together a playable set for the Festival – a big ask but we are confident they will manage it. Both are pretty much starting from scratch (although Virginia did have a stint as a singer in a Brisbane punk band).

Both Marcus and Viriginia have agreed to blog about their experiences – warts and all. Learning an instrument can be a pretty rocky ride at times. We hope that people will enjoy reading about their journey and perhaps feel encouraged to take up an instrument themselves.

Follow Marcus and Virginia’s progress on the Pilgrims Progress blog.

Hello there. My name is Marcus Kelson.

I am a journalist (I work as the morning Radio News producer for the ABC in Canberra) and long-time music lover, critic, writer, and radio reviewer of a broad range of musical styles, mostly not of the folk variety.

For more than 20 years my dear wife, Virginia Cook, has been telling me what a joy to behold the National Folk Festival is and I should really come along, I would love it.

My oft repeated response usually went something like, ‘bunch of smelly hippies who never knew ‘The Clash” (world’s greatest ever band by the way), why would I even be interested?’ But her persistence and a nagging curiosity got the better of me.

So now, after maybe five years of going to the Festival, interviewing organisers, participants and even the odd headliner, I am about to cross the Rubicon.

I have, for the first time, and at the tender age of 51, picked up a musical instrument. It is a mandolin and it is beautiful, and after two lessons of turning my fingers into some godawful configuration not meant for mankind, I am now full of doubt, anxiety, and the gathering storm of personal failure – but enough about me.

The idea, floated by Zena Armstrong and others, was to prove that people of a certain age can and will learn a musical instrument to a point where they are capable of playing a tune or not making a total fool of themselves, and that as part of the National Folk Festival’s commitment to teaching (in this case adult learning for a big sook) show to others that picking up and enjoying a musical instrument is not only not impossible, but is fairly within the realms of enjoyment.

I suspect I will test this commitment, but I have made my first step– in fact, I have also made my second step.

Last weekend the pair of us were invited to the Numarella Folk Festival just outside of Cooma. It was very laid back, the people were fabulous with their time and energy, and yes, patience–and if that was anything to go by the next two and a bit months (before we take to a very small stage at the back of the folk festival at six am when nobody is around – just joking) could be an absolute load of fun.

And just between you and me I never really found the smelly hippies…

“I don’t know anything about music, in my line you don’t have to.” – Elvis Presley

An amazing and unexpected journey has begun for me.

I took up Italian in my 20′s, tennis in my 30s and chess in my 40s. I had assumed after that the brain was closed for any further tricky business.

I always believed that only the very young could learn a musical instrument. I had also heard many times that if you are good at maths, you’ll do well at music. I sucked at maths.

Music has always been in my life one way or another.  Early guidance came courtesy of my parents’ vinyl collection of Harry Belafonte, The Seekers, Johnny Cash, African Safari, Tijuana Brass, the soundtracks to Salad Days, Fiddler on the Roof and my favourite — the music from the French movie A Man and a Woman.

I inhaled the music of my best friends’ older siblings: James Taylor, Donovan, Carole King, Carly Simon, Melanie and The Rolling Stones.

In my first year at university in Brisbane my then boyfriend introduced me to The Sex Pistols. Hungry for more of this edgy, raw music I joined a swag of uni students, largely from the medical faculty, in trawling music venues to explore the local punk scene. I was lucky enough to experience Cloudland and to this day I swear Nick Cave jumped on my table at the Queen’s hotel and ripped my blouse. (I can only hope). The Brisbane punk rock scene between 1975 and 1984 is generally regarded as producing “some of the most anarchistic bands of the Australian punk rock era”. (according to the Encyclopaedia of Australian Rock and Pop, p. 237).

Perhaps it was the way the skinny boys “pogo” danced falling over each other in stovepipe pants and thin black ties, or the promise of love letters quoting The Clash — I wanted in on the act.

Of course I couldn’t sing but that didn’t stop me standing in front of the microphone of a student punk band. I was super skinny, wore op-shop clothes picked up in the then seedy Valley, had my grandmother’s pointy patent leather pumps, lit my face up with the reddest lipstick and had more confidence than was legally possible.  Luckily it was the time of screaming, where not being able to sing was a minor impediment to greatness.

The band had the foresight not to actually have a name. Given its short life span it was a wise move. We played at several uni parties. The tunes were great. My lyrics were, in retrospect, a bit naive, except perhaps for my song about a girl working in the ‘pineapple’ factory. To this day when I go home my old school friends, after a few wines, make the inevitable request for me to perform ‘Cannery Girl’.

The final performance of our nameless band was in broad daylight (clearly our downfall) at the 21st party of a friend. Sitting in front of us were not our peers, but a number of elderly relatives who looked on in genuine shock. In the stark reality of sunshine I realised that despite the musical dexterity of the boys, I couldn’t actually sing.

Luckily I finished my degree and fled to Sydney to further my studies, exploring Paddington Town Hall, the Basement and the Roundhouse, seeing the likes of The Laughing Clowns, The Sardines and Mental as Anything.

You may be asking, what’s this got to do with folk music?? Stay with me.

A year later I arrived in Canberra and soon began a career as a journalist, I soon met the love of my life and we married and had two boys.

I was a great one for getting out of the house and taking my eldest, then two, to any kind of event with a soul in a city purported to be without one. I stumbled across a group of musicians at the ANU and hence my love affair with the National Folk Festival began.

Don’t get me wrong, I still love going to indie music festivals, Marcus and I have done Austin City Limits, Womadeliade and the Big Day Out, with Splendour in the Grass in our sights.

But for me there is nothing like the National Folk Festival.

And nothing like folk music. For me, not the clichéd Australian ballads or Euro pin-up trad or the impossible prettiness of the likes of The Corrs. I am talking about the often fierce, moving, funny and always deeply personal stories as told by the hands of musical wizards.

By about February every year I start getting pumped. Just thinking about the atmosphere; the food; the ever-expanding group of friends I have coaxed along (who are now also addicted); the colourful characters; the incredibly eclectic spread of music; the feeling on the Thursday night when you sit down with a Guinness and know you have left all your cares behind you for five glorious days; and the beautiful moments – a child busking, old friendships igniting around a camp-fire over mulled wine or a young girl playing fierce fiddle alongside an old seadog on his accordion piano at the Sessions Bar.

And then it dawned on me. I wanted to be in on the act. I wanted to participate. I wanted to walk into the Sessions Bar with the tell-tale black case slung over my shoulder (yes with something in it) looking like “I knew what I was doing with strings and things”.

Oh yes I have played the spoon on a beer bottle at 5am or strummed a torch with a fork to effect some kind of rhythmic noise with a group of bewildered Greek drummers at 6am – but it’s not the same…..

I wanted just once to know what it felt like to let fly with an instrument not needing to think about technical crap but having the music flow from your heart and soul (and still sound good!).

And now for the very first time in my life, I am doing something I never thought possible at this time of my life. I am making a serious attempt to learn a musical instrument. The fiddle. And it’s friggin’ fabulous.

Additional Information for 2012 Stallholders

Applications are being accepted for the following positions:

• Administration Officer
• Operations Manager

For further details, and to download the duty statements and selection criteria for these positions, please visit our Positions Vacant page.

No, not the lost songs of Eric Bogle – but some of the Festival’s famous promotional posters.

A picture can say a thousand words, and the NFF’s posters have been telling Australians about their musical history for the last 45 years.

The Festival Poster has long been a major tool used to promote the annual event. Forty-five years on, the posters provide a fascinating reflection of Australia’s cultural history and the evolution of this iconic event.

In building an archive of materials relating to the history of the Festival, the National Folk Festival has collected 42 of the 45 Festival Posters and is now launching a nation-wide search for the final three posters missing from its collection. The missing three posters are: 1971 Festival in Adelaide; 1974 in Brisbane and 1977 in Adelaide.

NFF Managing Director, Sebastian Flynn said the collection of posters documented the history of the Festival as a touring event and also revealed the growth of the festival over the years.

“In true bardic fashion, the Festival originally travelled around the country and was held in a different state each year,” Sebastian said. “The posters document the history of the Festival and an important aspect of Australian culture through music and dance. We’d like to ensure that there is a complete collection.”

The posters reveal the range of artists and performers who have appeared at the National Folk Festival.

“The posters’ chart the headlining performances over the years from the early songs and dance music of Australia’s early settlers, through to renowned Australian songwriters such as Eric Bogle and contemporary singers like Kavisha Mazella and Canberra’s own Fred Smith, who is documenting the story of the involvement of Australians in overseas conflict,” Sebastian said.

“The posters also remind us of the many overseas performers who have performed at the Festival, including Martin Carthy, Nic Jones, Mike Compton, Riccardo Tesi, Paul Brady and Andy Irvine. Many of these artists have had a big influence on Australian music and musicians. Encouraging international artists to share their skill and experience has been a very strong part of the National Folk Festival’s commitment to incubate new Australian talent.”

By the late 1980’s the National Folk Festival had grown in popularity and complexity, making it difficult for the organising folk federations in the respective states to manage.

In 1992 the Australian Folk Trust took over the Festival’s organisation and made provision for it to take place in Canberra each Easter with a stable management team.   It was decided that the Festival, which takes place at Exhibition Park in Canberra every Easter, would feature a different state each year to reflect the touring tradition of the event. The 2012 featured State is Queensland.

The Festival Poster is still a big part of the NFF’s promotional activity.  The NFF would like to hear from anyone who might have copies of the 1971, 1974 and 1977 festivals. Please contact the National Folk Festival office on 02 6262 4792 or email: info@folkfestival.org.au

The almost-complete Festival Poster archive can be seen at the NFF office in Mitchell.

For more information check the National Folk Festival website and social media pages.

Website: http://www.folkfestival.org.au/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/#!/folkfestival

Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/natfolkfest

Media Contact | Sophie Morrison | (02) 6273 0232 | 0407 608 441 | sophie.morrison@contentgroup.com.au

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