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| Photo courtesy of Shawn Cote Festival highlights included the Arootsakoostik debut of The Ghost of Paul Revere, seen here playing barefoot. Pictured are, from left, Matt Young on harmonica, vocalist Max Davis on banjo, vocalist Griffin Sherry on guitar, vocalist Sean McCarthy on bass guitar, and Matt Baker on mandolin. |
By Shawn Cote
Special to the Aroostook Republican
NEW SWEDEN — The Arootsakoostik Music Festival marked its sixth year Saturday under sunny skies at Thomas Park in New Sweden.
Throughout much of the all-day event, the crisp sounds of acoustic instruments adeptly played only occasionally gave way to crashing electric guitars or experimental electronica, as various musicians took to the Music Bowl and lower field stage of sun-dappled Thomas Park. Bands such as the alt-country threesome Wesley Hartley & the Traveling Trees and folk duo Putnam Smith & Sorcha delighted fans with standout performances, as festival-goers visited the food vendors and were entertained with horse rides and a chainsaw-carving demonstration.
All in all, said Presque Isle native Cate Smith, it was not a bad way to spend a Saturday.
“I love listening to live music,” she said. “I was invited by somebody who was here in the past, and I heard it was a lot of fun. And so far, it has been. It’s been a perfect day. Everything I’ve heard so far has been fun. My baked potato was great.”
A celebration of Maine music and musicians, Arootsakoostik features a wide variety of musical genres, from traditional folk and bluegrass music to arty indie rock and New Wave, much of it steeped in the kind of earthy Americana rarely heard on commercial radio.
As in years past, proceeds from the event will be donated to local charities.
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| Photo courtesy of Shawn Cote Picking and grinning, from left, folk musician favorites Putnam Smith & Sorcha combine their talents on the field stage of Thomas Park, New Sweden. Multi-instrumentalist Smith is from Portland, while Sorcha is a downeast Maine native. |
First to take the stage was Travis Cyr, founder of Arootsakoostik and one half of the “acousta-funky-folk-grass” duo Travis Cyr and the Strings of Calamity. Due to power issues, Cyr, who organized the event, was forced to perform solo until joined by the band Dark Hollow Bottling Co. for the last song of his set.
“It’s hard to put on and play the event, you know?” he chuckled.
Minor setbacks and the occasional mosquito bite aside, Cyr was pleased with the way this year’s event unfolded. His love of music and his enthusiasm for Arootsakoostik is obvious and infectious. Asked to discuss his reasons for launching the annual event six years ago, he said a northern venue was needed to focus attention on up and coming musical talent.
“Being a musician myself, a traveling musician, up and down the state the past 10 years, I’ve crossed paths with a lot of good talent. And there’s a lot of good talent that has originated up here, but it has ventured elsewhere. So, along my travels, I started making all these friends and thinking, man, I always come down here to see your area, to play for your people. I’d like to bring you guys up to my neck of the woods and showcase you. I think it’s important to showcase what we’re doing, because a lot of people that come to this might not see it elsewhere.”
Griffin Sherry, vocalist and guitarist with The Ghost of Paul Revere, agrees. “We’re really honored to be asked up here, because I’d never been this far north before,” he said. “It’s nice to find a community that’s so accepting to different types of music. And it’s good to give people access, because it’s tougher in rural areas to get music that’s not necessarily mainstream, and especially small local artists — to try to give them exposure and get people listening. It’s an awesome thing that Travis is doing.”
Ghost is a Portland-based band whose debut CD boasts six tracks of sublime, foot-stomping nu-grass, each song distinguished by gorgeous three part-harmonies and a distinctive blending of folk, bluegrass, and Staples Singers-inspired gospel that Sherry describes as “holler folk.”
“We’re not quite folk, we’re not quite bluegrass, we’re just kind of an amalgamation of a lot of different influences,” he said. “The three of us that are singing, we’ve known each other since we were little kids, so singing together kind of comes naturally.”
Banjoist Max Davis, one of the other singers in The Ghost of Paul Revere, loves the communal aspect of Arootsakoostik.
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| Photo courtesy of Shawn Cote Musician and Arootsakoostik organizer Travis Cyr takes to the stage minus the Strings of Calamity for a mostly solo set, as staging issues prevented his mandolin player from joining him. “It’s hard to put on and play the event, you know?” he said. |
“Last night we came up here early and a lot of the members of Theodore Treehouse were here, and we just kind of set up camp next to them and ended up sitting around the campfire playing songs and passing guitars back and forth. We had never met these guys, and we’ve been in the [same] city for a year now and just haven’t had a chance to share that kind of experience. That same thing has happened with a bunch of bands today. It’s just been really great meeting people, swapping ideas. That kind of thing has been wonderful.”
All agreed that Arootsakoostik is an invaluable local venue for live music that has never received the exposure it deserves. “Everything I’ve always listened to I had to seek out,” Cyr said. “My love is acoustic roots-bases music. I think it’s a melting pot of all kinds of things — folk, country, bluegrass, old-timey, rock and roll — and I think as a festival it’s important to showcase a little bit of everything, but keep it real.”
Judging from the positive response to Arootsakoostik over the years, Cyr and his musician friends have done a more than decent job of keeping it real.
As for the guys in The Ghost of Paul Revere, they’re looking forward to stopping by Burger Boy before they head south.
“A restaurant that calls itself ‘Burger Boy’ just sounds like it’d be at least mediocre-ally [sic] great,” said Sherry.
Photo courtesy of Shawn Cote
Artist Pasco Grove of Searsport fashions a sculpture out of wood using only a chainsaw at the Arootsakoostik Music Festival in New Sweden.
