M.A.: I know for me it’s kind of all summed up in the phrase “community street band”, which can mean anything from a massive samba line that’s a community samba school but they’re putting out like 40 people in the street for the bateria, to a five or six person collection of acoustic instrumentalists, to that kind of more marching band ensemble where people have the brass instruments combined with the percussion combined with woodwinds and reeds, etc. Jhon: How would you characterize the nature of the music and musicians that comprise Honk, and how does it compare with or differ from what you would experience at your garden-variety music festival? Read on and learn more from this dialogue about the renaissance of street music presently underway and its many boisterous manifestations around the country marching under the banner of Honk! Antares and Tyson Lynn, at a neighborhood cafe in Seattle’s Ballard district. Two weeks later i was able to meet up for a chat with two of the organizers, M.A. In early June of this year, i had the opportunity to attend and assist with the Pacific Northwest’s regional variant of this cultural phenomenon, Honk! Fest West. For here, you do more than passively consume a carefully manufactured spectacle you are an intrinsic element in the action, wherein the bands themselves merely provide the soundtrack. They are music festivals, yes, but of a decidedly different quality and character than the one where you paid $400 for a weekend of gazing at big name acts on a stage in an anonymous crowd of thousands.
Since 2006, many such ragtag street ensembles have gathered together in a number of colorful convocations that celebrate the integral role music and rhythm play in community life, known collectively as Honk (or some variation thereof).
One that serves to help us find our collective heartbeat through the art of musical fun-making. Driven by a participatory and do-it-yourself ethic that dissolves such distinctions as performer and audience and other perceived barriers in a carnavalesque turnabout, a new kind of folk music is emerging. What comes to mind when you think “brass band”? A college football game? John Philip Sousa? Military marches? The Rose Parade, maybe? How about “music festival”? Do you think of Bonnaroo, Coachella, or some other such enormous commercial event produced for profit by a big entertainment company? For over a decade now, mobile, non-electrified musical groups of varied sizes and styles have played an increasingly significant role in rallying energies in public spaces, be it for party or protest (and often these are one and the same!).
A raucous, playful family.” – HONK! Fest West website But all of us have found that live, energetic, mobile, acoustic music-no matter which side of the mouthpiece you are on-brings audience and band together in something like family. “ Our festival is part musical gathering, part community activism. Jhon Sanders of Many Mouths One Stomach talks with Michael Antares and Tyson Lynn from Seattle’s Honk! Fest West about the brass band renaissance, the role of street music in folk life, and all things Honk. Closing festivities for Honk! Fest West 2012 at the Experience Music Project.
0 kommentar(er)
