Folk yeah! Large folk festival planned for March 30 in Deep Ellum

by Sarah Blaskovich

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It's an excellent excuse to see a bunch of local bands all in one place.

DEEP ELLUM — The Deep Ellum Big Folkin' Festival returns for year two on Saturday, March 30 at Prophet Bar. Last year's inaugural festival was a rollickin' good time, with local bands Whiskey Folk Ramblers; Telegraph Canyon; Bravo, Max!; and Parallel Play performing to a packed, excitable audience.

The BFF isn't only a festival for folk-specific folks; the lineup includes bands in the genres of bluegrass and rock, too, said Jeremy Drake, one of two organizers, who plays in the band Parallel Play.

"Like last year, it isn't all folk because, honestly, who gives a folk?" he said.

This fest costs $15 online or $20 at the door. The list of about 30 bands includes:

• Holy Moly
• The O's
• Quaker City Nighthawks
• Goodnight Ned
• Parallel Play
• Kirby Brown
• RTB2

There are a lot of folkin' awesome jokes we could make about BFF2, but we'll let organizer Drake handle that:

PegNews: Why do it a second time?

Drake: Why the folk not? Ordinarily, you might never see any of these bands on the same bill together -- but you should. It's kind of like browsing Wikipedia. You start by looking for one thing, but then you click a link or something reminds you of another topic and then you look that up. All of a sudden, it's two hours later you're still on Wikipedia reading about something completely different and you can't even remember what you were searching for in the first place! I think the Big Folkin' Festival is going to be like that for people. They are going to come for one band in a specific genre and leave loving another band that they may have never even heard of. At the end of The Deep Ellum Big Folkin' Festival 2, you might not remember how you got there, but you'll learn something!

Was organizing this festival a long-term goal?

I had the idea for this festival five years ago. I thought the name was hilarious. ... When we got to [the] stage of making this big folkin' idea an actual festival, we were totally literal about it. We made it big: 30 bands on five stages all in one night. The response we got from our crowd was huge. People did get it! The festival was shaped by the enthusiasm of the audience before, during, and after the show through word of mouth, feedback offline and online, a spontaneous hashtag (#folkyeah), and good old fashioned clapping and stomping. The festival is now something bigger than just our idea: It's taken on a life of its own thanks to the bands, the neighborhood of Deep Ellum, and the fans.

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