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Jimmy LaFave

Folk Alliance Conference 2004 (continued)

As always at Folk Alliance, there was way too much music going on to see but a fraction, and I don't usually go to the main showcases, when I'm eating and sleeping, getting ready to stay up till three or four again. But I greatly enjoyed many guerrilla showcases I saw.

The weirdest, coolest one was the room with Chandler Travis, from Cape Cod. I'd walked by the room on my way somewhere, and saw a quartet of guys in their forties or fifties dressed in their pajamas with felt top hats on, that kind of thing. They were playing a kind of bent retro pop music that's right up my alley, and I made up my mind to get back there, but failed to make a mental note of the room.

Chandler Travis

But my friend Laurie McClain pulled me down there at 2 in the morning the last night, and I had a very big time. They were passing the guitars around and accompanying the pilgrims, and all that I heard were good, especially Deb Pasternak from Boston and Frank Meyer from Austin (his song about if dogs could talk was really amazing). But Chandler Travis themselves were fabulous. (When they said they were from Cape Cod, I knew they must be friends of Johnny Spampinato from NRBQ, and they turned out to be that and more, as co-members of the band The Incredible Casuals.)    continue