A recent transplant to Richmond from Alabama via upstate New York, Laura Confer is primed and ready to experience the city everyone is so happy to show off. As she navigates this new terrain, she’ll be writing about her adventures. Tell her where she should go! Tell her what she should do! Tell her to stop talking about food so much!
There was a guinea pig in the bathroom. The cage, easily taking up half the floor space, housed a cinnamon-brown little dude with a quivering nose, who was apparently up for auction.
A recent transplant to Richmond from Alabama via upstate New York, Laura Confer is primed and ready to experience the city everyone is so happy to show off. As she navigates this new terrain, she’ll be writing about her adventures. Tell her where she should go! Tell her what she should do! Tell her to stop talking about food so much!
There was a guinea pig in the bathroom. The cage, easily taking up half the floor space, housed a cinnamon-brown little dude with a quivering nose, who was apparently up for auction.
That was just one of the many fun little side projects going on at the Harvest Folk Festival. The day-long house show featured tons of folk and bluegrass bands, and donations went to benefit The Rear Gallery, a community-focused art space that sponsored and promoted the show. Bands crowded into the small living room of the house, jammed up against a fireplace covered in a birdcage-printed tapestry. Braided ropes of brightly colored fabric tented the ceiling, strung with paper flowers and hearts. There were couches and chairs, but people were milling around, sitting on the floor, talking and clapping along and humming to themselves in time with the music. Next door, in the dining room, a huge table held the remains of a potluck, a mishmash of nibbly things brought in throughout the day and gradually worn away to look very much like the aftereffects of a family holiday dinner.
I didn’t know a single person there, but I didn’t feel like an outsider. Driving up to the neighborhood, one that I haven’t yet visited in my admittedly short Richmond residency, I was nervous. My friend Scott Hailey had told me about this show. His band, Haints in the Holler, was the last band slated to play the Harvest Folk Festival, and even though he couldn’t make the show, I promised I would go. I moved to Richmond from upstate New York about three weeks ago with a couple of my closest friends in tow, and Scott – a new friend, one of the many people I’ve been meeting here who are unbelievably nice and super excited to show off their lovely city – told me about the Harvest Folk Fest right before I made the journey down. When my friends and I pulled up outside the house, teeming with these relaxed, happy people who clearly knew one another, I was a little intimidated. Maybe kind of a lot intimidated.
The guinea pig in the bathroom
But that dissipated almost immediately. Walking in, the first friendly face we met was Foster’s, this adorable black and brown hound who was working the crowd better than any politician I’ve seen. Foster is the pet of Graham Remocaldo and Mica Whitney, owners of the house on Greenwood Avenue and members of the band Swamptrees, who played earlier that day. Standing out on the porch alone soon after I arrived, smoking and listening through the open windows to the music, I randomly met Adam, another member of Haints in the Holler. Once he learned that I was brand new there and had been directed to the show by his fellow band member, he introduced me to several people hanging out nearby, including Mica and Graham.
With my can of PBR sticking out of my front jacket pocket (when in Richmond, am I right?), Mica walked me through the house, where Julie Storey from the Haints was reading tarot cards and people were getting henna tattoos. The show, which was the last one to be held at the house before Mica and Graham head off on a long, wandering bike ride around the country next year, celebrated Richmond’s local folk acts in a kind of complementary fashion to the Richmond Folk Festival, a huge annual event that had taken place the prior weekend. This much smaller, more intimate show emanated a particular kind of welcoming hominess I’m starting to identify as a very Richmond quality, evidenced by this woman talking to a perfect stranger about the details of her life (she and Graham need to rehome Foster, who wouldn’t be very happy on a bike trip that lasts a couple of years) before crawling into a pup tent and putting on a shadow puppet show for my two friends and me. Mica and Graham, along with Shawn Jones from The Rear Gallery, put together this showcase of local folk bands out of pride for their city’s music scene. Over $2 bourbon drinks at 821 the night after the show, Shawn praised all the groups that played, happily telling this new girl all about Richmond’s talent. His enthusiasm, and hopes that the Harvest Folk Fest will become an annual thing, was infectious because it’s so clearly heartfelt.
It’s a lovely thing.
That night, when Haints in the Holler were gearing up to play the last set of the day, I felt like I was a part of that homespun enthusiasm even more strongly. Though people were scattered out into the front and back yards in between bands, once word circulated the Haints were about to start, there was a mass exodus to the living room. People comfortably crowded in, very close to the band, and patiently waited while the members tuned their instruments and adjusted the straps. When the music started, the understated but uplifting sounds filling the room, we all smiled, happy to be there, happy to be a part of this quietly powerful thing those four people were giving us. That music, and the band’s easy, intimate back and forth rapport with the crowd gathered there, was so familiar and warm. The welcoming atmosphere of the festival just cannot be understated, and I have a feeling it’s a trend I’ll see over and over again as I settle into my new city.
I’ll be visiting the blue house on Greenwood one more time, though not to listen to twangy tunes; I’ll be back to nab that awesome dog Foster.
