WORTHY: FAR West Sacramento

In November Juliet and I got to attend the third annual Folk Alliance Regional West (FAR West) in Sacramento.



Imagine a hotel full of artists and promoters, with an entire floor dedicated to showcasing all that talent to the people who could book them a gig. Every room on the fourth floor had their beds pushed back so the artists could perform acoustically to the handful of promoters going from room to room until 2 a.m. It felt like a college dorm party.

I met up with quite a Tree House artists, including Molly's Revenge, Keith Greeninger, Sherry Austin, and Audrey Auld Mezera.

But between Juliet and I, we found lots of artists we'd love to bring to the Tree House, and we missed seeing a ton of good ones perform.

• Joel Fafrad
• Blame Sally
• Moira Smiley
• Chuck McCabe
• emith
• Jill Knight
• Rita Hoskings
• Raina Rose - She has a tatoo (see image) that looks remarkably like the Tree House Concerts' logo!
  
• Andrew McKnight
• Berkely Hart
• Kaedmon
• I See Hawks in LA - That's the Hawks in the image at the top, with Chojo Jacques.
  
• Annie Gallup
• Kevin Danzig
• Fish Tank Ensemble

The two-person band emith was particularly fun to discover. Stevie and Carol are two different kinds of singers and performers, but together the create a stage presence that is really something. The lyrics and music come off as mysterious and funny, with Stevie singing more irreverently and gravelly and Carol sounding both like an ingenue and a sophisticate at the same time. "Mysterioso, rootsy, and darkly atmospheric..."

Just another note on the Fish Tank Ensemble. Oh my goodness. This band was amazingly entertaining, and not just because it was 1 a.m. The buzz that left the room was thick, and I was right up in front. I had so much fun. Here's a grainy video from YouTube to at least catch their sound. sound.