Roadkill Ghost Choir // Paper Hill Casket Company
Wednesday June 5th, 2013
BAR – New Haven, CT
FREE
When you’ve been writing about music as long as I have, you tend to meet a large number of people who are based around music themselves. Sometimes these people can help you in ways you didn’t even dream possible.
Recently, I saw an old friend of mine. We hadn’t talked in a good number of years (Moving to Texas then back to Connecticut can have that effect) and when we ran into each other he instantly began complaining about the kids these days. I actually never remember being “the kids”, I always remember complaining about kids these days, even when I was sixteen.
The other day I emailed my friend and asked him if I could use excerpts of what he said for a show preview I’m writing. He agreed under the strict condition that he remain anonymous. I said that wouldn’t be a problem because he made such good points his identity is secondary.
So, here I present to you, a brief portion of a long conversation I recently had with an old friend.
“Kids these days don’t know anything about music”, my friend told me after we saw each other for the first time in many years and got the small talk out of the way. “You hear these bands like Mumford & Sons and Civil Wars on the radio… Then kids hear their parents music and wonder how those classic bands were ripping off modern bands. Kids can’t put their mind around it because it doesn’t make any sense, but kids have short attention spans so eventually they move on and go back to their cell phone games”.
When I was last in Connecticut, growing up for the bulk of my life, I saw the CT music scene comprised of punk, hardcore and ultimately ska music. It seems like CT was one of the hubs for ska music back in the late 1990’s and I never really realized it until I went to other places that didn’t have Spring Heeled Jack. Now, this folk music is taking over everywhere, though it’s not really anything new.
“Take this band for example, Roadkill Ghost Choir”, my friend went on, “They’ll be playing here soon enough—for free no less. And you know what kids at the shows are saying about them? They say they sound like a less heavy version of Mumford & Sons. Or Of Monsters and Men without the female vocals. These kids… They don’t understand folk music, man. Folk music has been around since before you or I was born and even if you live forever, man, folk music will be around long after we’re dead”.
Now I don’t like to generalize all people of the same age group, but my friend did have a point I had to agree with. Far too many people look at who’s doing it now as opposed to who came before them because, well, music history is something for really only the true music lovers and some kids just see music as a phase.
“They don’t know who Neil Young is. They’ve never even put on a Woody Guthrie record, you know, and here they are, standing around near me, trying to talk to each other like they know folk music. It’s embarrassing and I want to go outside when mom picks them up in her mini-van and tell her to please let them listen to music that existed before 2010”, he concluded.
Well, he didn’t stop there, but I will. We talked about other subjects that didn’t really have anything to do with this show preview. Maybe that didn’t have anything to do with it either. Who knows.
So if you’re at all interested in seeing some good old fashioned folk music like your parents and even grandparents used to listen to, then you need to check out Roadkill Ghost Choir, who are out on tour in support of their “Quiet Light EP” available now.
Opening the free show at BAR is New Haven’s own darlings Paper Hill Casket Company, who released a very fine album in “Undertow” late last year and are rumored to be playing some new songs for you.
Being that the show starts at 9 pm and is at a bar called “BAR”, there shouldn’t be any of those kids these days there.
"Quiet Light" by Roadkill Ghost Choir is available for purchase and listening here:
"Undertow" by Paper Hill Casket Company is available at your pleasure here:
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