Go ahead, punk, meet the folks
A Hobart festival is quickly gaining global cult status, writes Penny McLeod
NATIONAL and international folk-punk acts will join local bands in Hobart for the annual four-day HOBOFOPO festival this weekend.
Thirty acts, including Manchester-based emo anti-folk band Crywank, and The Crooked Fiddle Band from Sydney, will perform at the eight-show event, which starts tomorrow.
“Folk and punk have a few things in common,” says festival director Mark Downie, who performs in Hobart band The Dead Maggies. “One is storytelling and the [other is the] interesting, even politically charged lyrics. It offers interesting content that gets you dancing.”
He says the genre ranges from The Pogues’ style Celtic-influenced music to more “emo acoustic” bands. “Hobart has a reputation for a folk-punk scene, and international acts target Hobart alongside Sydney and Melbourne,” Downie says.
One of the headline acts at this year’s event is The Crooked Fiddle Band. The four-piece chainsaw folk band comprising Jess Randall, Gordon Wallace, Mark Stevens and Joe Gould is performing in Hobart as part of a national tour to promote its new album, Another Subtle Atom Bomb.
“It’s a kind of soundtrack to our various thoughts, fears and hopes around climate change, so it only seems fitting to be bringing it to Hobart, where our guitarist Gordon Wallace studied science by day and played in heavy bands at night many years ago,” says the band’s drummer and percussionist, Joe Gould. “‘Folk-punk’ is the best umbrella description, but you may not realise from that term just how broad it is. There’s high-energy Celtic punk bands, solo songsmiths and all sorts in between.”
Crywank, which has “a massive niche following”, is also performing. The duo — vocalist/guitarist and founder James Clayton, and drummer Dan Watson — headlined this year’s Manchester Punk Festival. “They’re definitely on the emo-acoustic punk side of things with very beautiful vocals,” Downie says.
The festival, which began as a small event four years ago, has gained cult status nationally among the genre’s enthusiasts.
Sixty bands applied to perform at this year’s festival, which is spread across six venues.
“We capped it at 30 because it’s hard to manage that many bands coming from interstate,” Downie says.