Barf on Algoma (a review of this year’s Bluegrass Adventure)

The stain left in northern Wisconsin this year, not by a bodily fluid but by a clever acronym (namely B.A.R.F or Bluegrass and Roots Festival) is not unlike the damage done to a stylish taupe vest after one’s humors are balanced on it after a night of saturnalian excess. One is not sure of what has just happened, and not knowing what has happened we are less sure of what will happen. But take comfort in the lingering acrid smell that still faintly appears on your clothes and on the sacred grounds of the Algoma Hunting and Fishing Club. No amount of laundering and no amount of rain can wash away the trodden-in excrement of good times gone past, because said good times only ripen with temporal distance. Memory is a revisionist, and as such, events gets repeated with the same glossed over abandon as the scrolling news floats by while a disinterested newscaster yawns through the same tired advice from the station’s resident nutritionalist. So why should we give a damn about counting your precious calories? The very things we seek to live for are floating away right beneath our feet. But don’t fret too much about our collectively imperfect recollections. Truth and clarity are ugly things. The word for this softening of memory is nostalgia. Deep down, all modern bluegrass fans share this same nostalgia, this same anachronistic fetish for what we ourselves have never experienced. Yet, that’s not entirely true because even though our minds and bodies are tyrants, music transcends all, and for a few blissful moments a connection is made to this nonexistent past haven gestating like a bucolic womb in all of our minds. This year’s Festival was no exception. It is the quality of the people and the quality of the music that make it such. Our sickened psyches will tie the loose ends. Let the breath of this coming winter be a cathartic for whatever discomforts might have been suffered. The passage of time can only make Old Crow whiskey taste more like ambrosia. And it goes without saying that, in the future, rain will seem like a necessary backdrop to facilitate the appreciation of early morning banjar playing. One can only hope that next year, only those with a healthy dollop of dog shit ground into the soles of their shoes will be allowed through the gates. In this capacity, I think I can say with confidence that this year’s festival was undoubtedly the best yet. And if reality is the whore I really think she is, let’s strive to paint her the bluegrass way. And no this doesn’t mean in some apple-cheeked Rockwell fashion. Let’s tell the truth this time. But try to make the truth timeless and a little more universal. More like a Brueghel. Not appealing but trancendant. Nothing less that a culmination of the human experience.