Hell, the traditional folks make a lot of the punks look like corporate shills. And since I know Church used to live in DC, I’ll say that I would actually be more surprised if Ian and Jeff over at Dischord weren’t influenced in some ways by DC’s folk scene before it completely vanished.

The traditional scene is kind of a weird scene in some respects. You can spend years going to shows and come away with the sense that this is a tiny little scene that few people are paying attention to. Then one year you go to something like Merl Fest down in NC and suddenly realize just how huge the thing really is. I mean were talking about thousands of people, from all over the world, who descend on this little community college in rural NC for four days. And that’s just a small fraction of the traditional world.

It really is an amazing experience. Made all the better by the fact that it is full of some of the nicest people you will ever meet. Seriously! Go to Merl Fest not knowing anyone, and by Sunday you’ll have 30 new friends. But don’t go to bed early. Some of the best music is performed by the crowd, at the campgrounds after hours. Hell, there are folks who buy a camping pass and never even bother picking up tickets for the festival. They just spend their nights picking around camp fires and then spend their days recharging for the next night’s picking sessions.

I think you captured the tempo just about right. My (properly, The) GF was skeptical about the whole affair (my fault for giving her wrock songs early into my immersion in the genre. Some were less than good), but she gradually came around during the course the show.

It was tolerant interest during Snidget (who is very young, so is still finding the line b/t enthusiasim and gushing. I found her charming, but I had more background than the GF,), perking up for Whompy, who has a very disarming , yet subversive, stage presence. By the time the Lupins came on, she was up and, pretty soon, dancing.

My ultimate take on this? The record labels are done. There’s no way they can be nimble enough to latch onto a genre like this. I bought two CD’s after the show (Snidget didn’t have one:( ). Neither are getting counted on Soundscan. The labels will decry how nobody’s buying CD’s anymore, even though they’re the obvious way to manage backups of anyone’s music library.

(OK, getting a bit political there. Dial it back, Church.) The Lupins wrock hard. Alex has gotten a bit of a ’star’ reputation in wrock circles, and I’ll just say he’s earned it.

’nuff said. I’ll have some video of the Lupins up soon ( the earlier acts were victims to my camcorders fickleness…)