Today, I wanted to give a much belated look at some of the coverage for April's revived Clusterfolk Music Festival, which had hard rock involvement via The Uncanny Valley, though they did withdraw from the proper Clusterfolk concert at The Rockstar Bar on late notice. In case you need a refresher, Clusterfolk in 2022 was primarily an online festival concocted by Jackson Reed, 180 Projects, the NORDIK Institute, and various grant organizations, with Bad Taste Cinema filming high quality music videos of eight young and (mostly) local indie/folk acts, with mixing & engineering done at Unsalted Audio. The eight videos had staggered uploads in April leading up to the concert, with Jupiter Marvelous, Distich, and late replacements Sainte Marie (who didn't get a Clusterfolk video) performing at The Rockstar Bar to cap off the festival on April 23rd, and reactions seemed to be positive!
In advance of the concert proper, Clusterfolk did get some positive press from regional news media that I apologize for missing until now!
CBC Radio One's Northern Ontario culture/lifestyle show
Up North did
a 10 minute piece on Clusterfolk on April 11th, where producer Bridget Yard talked to Jackson about the genesis of the new Clusterfolk, how things came together (apparently they had wanted to do the festival in 2021 if not for pandemic challenges), aims & aspirations, what the original 2010-2011 Clusterfolk was like, artist feedback, a preview of the Clusterfolk concert proper (albeit before The Uncanny Valley and
Bad Actors dropped out), and plans to bring back the festival in 2023 as an in-person summer event, before playing local folk duo Distich's song
"Seams" from their festival video. Effective promotion to be sure with some new info, but I am surprised that host Jonathan Pinto didn't ask the questions.
If you didn't catch the feature live on Up North on 89.5 FM, you can hear it on demand at
this link, so definitely do so if you want!
CTV Northern Ontario's Christian D'Avino spotlighted Clusterfolk in
this piece for the former MCTV on April 22nd, featuring interview remarks from both Jackson and Bad Taste Cinema owner Curtis Carriere, and while there's not a lot of new details to glean from it, the regional network television coverage was surely appreciated, so if you missed it on channel 11 (Shaw) or 2 (over the air),
click here to see it for yourself!
SooToday's Lisa Dobrovnik also covered Clusterfolk for
this article on April 5th that approached everything from a future lens, as it beat other outlets to the punch, but it's definitely also worth a read to see how this came together! However, the biggest coverage was via Adrian Vilaca of local internet radio station
The Borderline, so what should you know there?
On April 20th, Adrian interviewed Jackson about Clusterfolk for
this episode of his main Borderline series
The Smart As Trees Podcast, which runs for a solid 53 mintues, so what do we learn here? The interview starts with Jackson discussing his promotional work at the old Cafe Natura and what he's done artistically and abroad since then, before playing Jackson's original song "Go" with his recent solo band The Tweeds about 5:30 in, before getting into Jackson's promotional company Ears & Eyes, and then outlining Clusterfolk and the staff behind it, with Jackson discussing all four of the bands who were
supposed to play at The Rockstar Bar, obviously still including The Uncanny Valley, who are brought up first as the intended headliners. Jackson noted that their music video for
"Stuck In Rotation" was actually filmed at Unsalted Audio, and you can hear it at 16:10.
Sudbury folk duo The Bad Actors (the other late withdrawals) are brought up next, though Jackson doesn't bring up that their song (
"Kelly's Wine") was not a video in the series. That song is played at 22:05, and Jackson does plug Sudbury's
Will Powers (who the Bad Actors replaced initially) afterwards, but doesn't get into that lineup change on air. Distich are plugged next with "Seams" played on air 28:10 in, before Jackson plugs something I didn't know until now: All eight Clusterfolk songs were released as
a compliation album on Bandcamp on April 19th! The album (put out through Jackson & Will's indie label
Care Records) is a totally free download (no "name your price" option), but you can also order it on
cassette tapes for $10, and it was sold at the concert! I recall seeing private Facebook pictures of Clusterfolk tape cases, but I never heard anything about a public release, so why wasn't that pumped up more?
Incidentally, a formal album review of this tape wouldn't be imminent, as I typically don't look at compilations with only one or two hard rock/punk songs (this is why I never reviewed the Dunnplugged CDs), but I really should buy a tape for myself! Jackson last discusses mixed-genre local band
Jupiter Marvelous, and their song
"Stress" is played at 38:55, after Jackson & Jacob Quarrell's joint song
"The Moon" at 34:50. The last 10 minutes features Jackson discussing his post-secondary music program experience, the Clusterfolk poster design, the 2011 Clusterfolk (Jackson did get the old organizers' blessing to use the name), hopes to bring live bands back to the Bellevue Park Bandshell, and final hype for the Clusterfolk concert proper, before playing Jackson's solo song "The Sun" on air at 50:30. Very informative interview with lots of push for the concert proper and the overall conceit of the festival!
I do wish they'd have at least mentioned Storm Rausch, Xeno, and Gabrielle Dumas (the other three Clusterfolk video/album acts who were never advertised for the concert), but kudos to Adrian for having Jackson on for this much time to hype Clusterfolk, and here's hoping it comes back bigger & better in 2023! Definitely visit the above links for all of the Clusterfolk coverage, and check out all eight songs on YouTube and/or Bandcamp, and if you have a cassette deck, consider buying a tape for yourselves! Still surprised that wasn't hyped more. That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and notes on the site this week! Thanks everyone!
