For our feature Nice Playlist, Brah, we ask some of our favorite musicians to make a themed Spotify playlist for us. You know, Songs to Make-out To, The Worst Bands I Have Ever Heard, Songs Your Mom Would Like, we just ask them to be creative, and then we post them to The Ardent Music Blog and share them with you. When you’re looking for a good Spotify playlist, now you know where to look. This week we invited music aficionado Rachelandthecity to put one together for us for Folk Alliance International. We invite you to take listen to the playlist while you read why the musician included each song. Enjoy!
I look forward to the International Folk Alliance Conference every year. I always meet a lot of great people and discover tons of good music. It is easily my favorite music convention. Held in downtown Memphis for the last 6 years at The Marriott, it’s a small event hosting just 2000 people. The day is filled with panels and classes, with a few private showcases, but the main music event starts at 6PM Wednesday through Saturday and features about 30 official showcases each night. Then at around 10:30 the music moves upstairs to the top three floors of the hotel with about 6 hours of showcases every night featuring hundreds of musicians. The beds have been removed from the rooms and so about 30 rooms on each floor, around 90 in all, are turned into small showcase rooms with bands playing 20 minute sets. You’ll never see so much fantastic music in such a short amount of time anywhere else in the world.Not to mention, one of the most fun parts of the conference is the sense of community. Don’t be surprised to catch Steve Poltz sitting next to you while you’re catching a set from Matt the Electrician, or find yourself sharing a cigarette on the stairwell with members of The Tuttles and The Milk Carton Kids, and did you hear Anthony Da Costa was turning 21? Well, you’re invited to the party to watch as he is serenaded by Carrie Elkin, Danny Schmidt, Raina Rose, Rebecca Loebe, and many more.
This is a playlist of some of my favorite artists that played FAI this year. It is in no way complete (there seem to be a lot of artists either without music on Spotify or without their latest work) but this should give you a glimpse of some of the fantastic musicians that passed through Memphis last week. Now, that FAI is leaving Memphis and headed to Kansas City, we hope these folks will find another reason to visit us soon!
1. The Milk Carton Kids
I liked these guys so much when I first heard them last month that I invited them to Ardent to record an episode of The Warm Up. You can hear it here.
2. Humming House
This Nashville based group is friends with Carolina Story (who I really love too) so I caught them in a packed room where everyone seemed to be singing along.
3. Matt the Electrician
This guy is so mind blowing that I saw him play three times at the Folk Alliance – and I invited him to play The Warm Up. He played a brand new song that he named right before we recorded it. Listen to that performance here.
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