Craigslist finally flagged our post!

I'm amazed it stayed up as long as it did. But you can't say we didn't warn you. We were spiked by a shithead angry that nobody would take a day off from work to provide her a ride at her convenience. Thanks, Pat!

So if you've indicated an interest via an anonymous CL reply, but never given us a real email address or phone number, our sole link is gone. We can't follow up on any requests or promises.

If you found your way here, presumably you're still interested. It's up to you to email michaelhagen at gmail.com to get into the loop.

Hope to see you this weekend!

Phila's 2nd Street Fest is Sun, Aug 3. No Names will be there!

http://www.2ndstfestival.org/

Two stages. Ten hours of nonstop music. The Folksong Society curates the acts, but it definitely tilts away from the wimpy and towards the kick-ass. Hogmaw was at last year's fest. Caribefunk will be at this year's. Terrific food.

I'm going, as is my brother Dennis. Connie and son Connor are probables. Anyone reading these words -- veterans, newbies, maybes, even definite noes -- is invited. First beer's on me.

Email normnconquest at gmail dot com or michaelhagen at gmail dot com if you want wingmen.

Discount tickets for resale on craigslist

The first offer I've seen this summer.

Two all-fest with tent camping tix, $160 each, $25 each off the current available price. As with any CL deal, approach with common sense. I'd make a lowball offer and/or ask for a combo discount on both.

The asking prices tend to drop as the date approaches, so you might want to hit this search link every few days if you're on a tight budget.
http://philadelphia.craigslist.org/search/sss?query=folk+festival&sort=rel

Take a minute to introduce yourself. Also, name our campsite

If you're returning to the freakshow temporarily known as The Campsite With No Name(TM), click the comment link below and say hi to the new folks. Tell them a little about yourself. Act normal, if you can. Do not mention get-rich-quick opportunities in multilevel marketing, your apocalyptic survivalist philosophies or any bizarre sexual preferences that cannot be summed up in fewer than a thousand words. Some stuff is just better saved for the second date, OK?

If you've wandered in from craigslist, prowl around these pages and ponder if the Philly Folk Fest is right for you, and if this ragtag remnant of lovable losers with their high-spirited hijinks is the bunch you want to hang out with over a long weekend. If you're not immediately repelled, click the comment link and introduce yourself to your new neighbors. What's your name, age, hometown, favorite music? New to camping? New to the festival? New to all this corny fiddle-and-banjo crap? What do you do in the unreal world? And what will it take to fan that spark of curiosity into a full-throated yes? Because we'll do whatever it takes to spin the ugly truth and distract you from your well-founded fears about this dubious weekend misadventure.

Also, if you have an idea for an actual name for our campsite, here's the place for nominations.

We need a sentimental YouTube anthem video here to seduce and manipulate the suggestible fence sitters. Any suggestions?

First time camper? Here are some tips from Gizmodo's Indefinitely Wild blog

We could write pages and pages of useful stuff about how to camp or which tent to buy. But the lazy way to go (always our favorite) is to point you to a blog researched and written by real camping pros. There's a lot of hard-core wilderness info not really relevant to sleeping in a tent in a newly mown hay field in August (mountaineering? sub-zero sleeping bags? seriously?). Take what you need, and leave the rest. First-timer camping tips from Indefinitely Wild

Completely Off Topic: Mt. Airy concerts move to a new home

The long-running summer concert series formerly held on the front porch of Philadelphia's Mt. Airy railroad station will continue nearby on the neighborhood's main shopping street. The concerts' host, book dealer Walk a Crooked Mile, is leaving the station after 19 years. New owners will take the bookstore, as yet un-re-named, to 7141 Germantown Avenue next month. But even before the store launches, the new space (next door to the Sedgwick Theater) will host the (now) indoor concerts.

7141 Germantown Avenue Concert Series (All shows 7-9 pm)
Here's the announced lineup to date. I'll update later with info on these performers.
Saturday, June 14: Art Miron and Millard Fuller
Saturday, June 21: Skyline
Thursday, June 26: Prose From Dover
Saturday, July 5: Philadelphia Area Songwriters Alliance hosted by Sharon Abbott
Saturday, July 12: Jake Michael and Mitchell Redding
Friday, July 18: The Phillip Bennett Band
Saturday, July 26: Last Chance featuring Jack Scott and Ingrid Rosenback
Thursday, July 31: Mt.Airy's own Nothing's Wrong
Thursday, August 7: Kenny Sykes and Friends
Friday, August 15: Acoustic Blender

Thinking about joining the Campsite With No Name(TM)?

So, various members of our campsite are posting on craigslist looking for new people to join our ragtag bunch of lovable losers for hijinks and hilarity August 14-17 2014 at the Old Pool Farm near Schwenksville, PA.

I almost forgot that I started this blog six years ago and then never followed through. It took most of an hour to figure out the user name, and get a fresh password assigned, but now the abandoned folkfesttips.blogspot.com might actually be put to good use.

Rather than write tons of one-on-one emails, I'm copying over the best questions and answers here so that anyone interested has all the deep, dark secrets. Even if you're not a camper, or already have a camping home, hopefully you'll learn something useful about having a fun festival.

The morning-after debrief: August 18, 2014

If the 53rd Annual Philadelphia Folk Festival doesn't end with this level of shame and regret, it will not be because I didn't try my damnedest. Are you people up to the challenge?

Hear many of the 2014 fest artists on this Spotify playlist

You need to install the free Spotify Player. It will open much, much, much more music than this one puny playlist, so it's well worth your time and trouble.

Once that's done, click the link below to hear 43 songs that offer a taste of who you'll hear August 14-17 at the Old Pool Farm. One thing's for sure: it's the most eclectic mix of genres you'll hear at any three-day event this summer.

Not necessarily my favorite tracks from many of these acts, and there are some names on the bill who aren't Spotify artists. I may try creating my own alternate list if a sleepless night happens anytime soon.

Listen HERE: Spotfiy PFF Playlist

If the embed link doesn't work for you, launch your Spotify and search for "PFF Playlist"

Oh, wow! The entire run of Fast Folk Musical Magazine is streaming for free on Spotify!

Well, to be honest, I haven't double checked every single album. But nothing I searched for wasn't found. This is a treasure trove of singer-songwriter greatness.

What it is, is they started recording the shows and open mics at the Speakeasy in Greenwich Village, and at the end of each month they'd press an LP with the best songs from the previous month, which was sold at the venue and by subscription. So these include the very first recordings of an amazing number of '80s folk artists. Later, they took the tape recorders on the road to other cities and to festivals across the country. The LPs eventually gave way to CDs, and eventually the internet supplanted compilation CDs as the place to hear emerging artists. 

So fire up your Spotify Player, search for "Fast Folk Musical Magazine" and be prepared to be amazed.
Or this link seems to work in Windows. Fast Folk Musical Mag albums

Full disclosure: I designed most of the album covers during the 2000s. You can see my wondrous works in little 1-by-1-inch windows on the Spotify Player screen. 

Here are up-to-date links for important festival info

Tickets - Official festival site

Tickets - Craigslist

Schedule of Main Stage concerts

Five-Day Weather forecast for Schwenksville

Janis Ian returns

I'm guessing it's about five years since we last saw her in Schwenksville. My only expectations from her for that show were 1965's "Society's Child and 1975's "At Seventeen." Apparently, she's been busy in the 30+ years in between, but had never crossed my path.  This song, new to me, bowled me over and becomes more of a favorite the older I get.

Cooler strategies, Part 1

You end up Sunday night with one last crisp, cool salad, one perfect fresh peach and one perky lime slice for your last Corona of the weekend. Much easier to do if you start with a well-packed cooler. Here, three tips:

1) Freeze your beverages rock solid. Single serve sodas, half gallons of lemonade or iced tea. Only freeze sturdy plastic bottles with screw-on tops to contain the expanding ice. Plastic bottles with snap-on tops? The plastic safety strip will tear and slush will ooze into your freezer. Cans will bend under  pressure and the pop top rabs will burst. Milk, especially low-fat, freezes OK in a paper carton. Never freeze half-and-half; it curdles. You have to plan ahead to have some thawed and some thawing drinks. Never freeze beer.

2) Carefully open the cardboard on an empty box wine, salvaging the empty plastic bladder. Rinse well, fill with clean water and freeze. With a little creative squeezing, you can mold it around your cargo for custom fit in a small cooler that keeps the maximum ice touching the maximum beer bottle surface. Half thawed, it makes a nice cold pillow in the small of your pack or a cold treatment for sunburn or speains. Fully thawed, it's a cool drink of water, and it's one more recyclable container you won't have to carry home.

3) Keep a sharp knife in the cooler where your lemons and limes are stored. Attach a bottle opener by string or magnet to every cooler in camp. No sadder sight than an unopened beer.

A Kathy Mattea favorite from 1992

Kathy and her band, Monster Truck Pull, headed the Sunday afternoon concert in 1992. Her first Philly Folk Fest. She was transitioning from a truck-song-singing country queen to something much more thoughtful, and the "Lonesome Standard Time" album is still my favorite.



Scottish balladeer Dougie MacLean opened that show. I think that was his first time at the festival also.The connection was that Kathy sang his "Ready for the Storm" on her "Time Passes By" album.

Port-a-Potty Wisdom, Part 1

If your mission requires toilet tissue, always check the roll to be certain it hasn't run empty.

You can wipe down the seat with a damp paper towel. If you remember to take a damp paper towel with you.

The floor is frequently damp with mud or worse, so hang your trousers on the coathook provided, rather than dangle them around your ankles. In case the coathook is missing or broken, MacGyver would unfold a sturdy paper clip as an improvised replacement.

There is no upside to looking down in the hole, so don't.

If you have a choice, prefer the pot nearest the lamp pole at night. The toilet's roof is translucent and your aim will be appreciably better in a better-lit compartment.

The concert-area cans are cleaned and emptied right before the gates open, so your best odds for a clean and stank-free toilet are before the concerts begin.

Be thoughtful of nearby listeners and DON'T let the door slam on your exit.

The morning after

After four days of sweating and heavy lifting and three short nights sleeping on hard ground, you're thinking of three things at one a.m. on a Monday morning: a flush toilet, a long hot bath and twelve hours on an innerspring mattress with crisp, cool sheets.

Do yourself one favor before all that: Toss the sweaty, greasy, dirty clothes in the washer before bed. If the damp mass sits all night festering in a plastic bag on the front porch, then bakes under six hours of hot sun, you'll have mildew a-plenty when you stagger out of bed at the crack of noon.