Brooklyn in Exile at Treefort, Idaho’s Very Own SXSW-in-Waiting
The city that birthed indie titans Built to Spill has a dense collection of rock clubs to choose from for a metropolis of just over 200,000 souls, fertile ground for founders Lori Shandro and Eric Gilbert, a member of the Idaho math-rock outfit Finn Riggins, to hold a sizable music confab. Treefort has grown since its 2011 inception into a sprawling event, the largest of its kind in the Pacific Northwest, that plays host to over four hundred bands in venues that range from old Shriners halls and punk clubs to converted burrito joints and motel parking lots. Treefort manages to totally saturate this small city when it blows into town. Its rustic, summer camp-themed iconography was pretty much everywhere you looked.
Although Canadian singer-songwriter Mac DeMarco and North Carolina crooner Angel Olsen are less well-known than those receiving top billing at previous editions, the depth of festival’s programming was on display in a more profound way than ever before. Treefort isn’t just a musical endeavor. It also encompasses a host of satellite “forts,” from its outdoor beer festival Alefort to its parallel comedy and film festivals, Comedyfort and Filmfort. Yogafort invites hungover attendees to find their center again in rigorous morning group sessions while StrengthFort provides a forum and competition for some of the region’s most physically powerful individuals. Storyfort hosts readings, spoken word performances and panels on self-publishing.
Above and below: Psychic Twin, by Jessica Ferguson/courtesy Treefort.
From Denver-based hip-hop act Wheelchair Sports Camp, which features the queer, disabled, 3’ 6” and irrepressibly fierce MC Kalyn Heffernan, to London-based rapper/playwright/spoken word artist Kate Tempest, who graced the main stage on the festival’s final afternoon for one of her typically fascinating, hybrid-filled sets, powerful and unusual female vocalists were hard to avoid, even in spaces that normally aren’t particularly hospitable to women. In the El Korah Shrine, where white men have for over a hundred years donned fezzes and pretended that their brotherhood has something to do with Egypt (to the bafflement and mild horror of an Egyptian-American friend who joined her filmmaker boyfriend for the trip), Brooklyn synthpop duo Psychic Twin unleashed an appropriately airy, glam-tinged set on the final night. Most memorably however, Saturday evening the Pollo Rey, a soon-to-close downtown Mexican restaurant, was converted into a club for a set by Shana Falana, expert ex-Brooklynite shoegazers who have ventured up to Kingston, NY to escape the exorbitant rents and concrete inertia. Their set, comprised mostly of songs from their aptly titled fall 2016 album Here Comes the Wave, was the least attended I went to all week, and the most memorable.