Folk, part 1

Devendra Banhart


I don't think I've ever seen a beard look so feminine.


If I were a boy, I would grow this beard. And I would wear the vest regardless. I like to think that Devendra Banhart and I are sort of on the same wavelength in terms of getting dressed - which is not to say I pull it off, but that in an ideal world, we are of a similar mind. I think my favorite clothes are things that remind me of other things, like costumes. Take moccasins or cowboy boots, for example.

After seeing pics of Devendra Banhart at OutsideLands from this past weekend, I pulled Cripple Crow out from my stack of cds and have been listening to it on repeat. I was having a discussion with Russ and Ciana a few months ago (back in June) about folk. We were leaving the SFMoma and debating whether Frida Kahlo is a folk artist and what folk art is in the first place.

And there are lyrics that float through this Cripple Crow album that scream folk to me. For example: Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are the only Beatles in the world... or I heard somebody say that the war ended today, but everybody knows it's going still. Our motherland and motherseas. Here's what we believe: it's simple - we don't want to kill... And there are the songs about having babies and growing your hair out long. Topical, but still something people will be able to relate to for a long long time. I mean, if having babies isn't of the people, I don't know what is.

I guess what I want to say is that I'm all about folk. And I don't believe folk art means art done by people who don't know what they're doing. Maybe you could say it's about the stuff that brings us together, instead of what alienates us (even if alienation is what brings us together these days..). I think folk art is about drawing on common symbols and a shared understanding to make a connection. And I like that connection. I like the connection with the past because it's so hard to find these days.

Where modernity is about new new new, folk to me is about digging up the old and knowing it like you were there the first time. It's about being human instead of a machine. It's about taking your time. It's about being here now while slipping out of yourself into that collective consciousness. I think there's something to that. And I want to find out first hand.