Frank Fairfield at The Poly, Sunday June 5th

with support from Simon Drinkwater

So! Except for a goodbye gig with Red River Dialect and some other yokels in July, this is the last show that Lono will be putting on in Falmouth and Penryn for the foreseeable… I’m going to be making my way into England and perhaps further afield too. Could be a few years, could be a lifetime.

“A young Californian who sings and plays as someone who’s crawled out of the Virginia mountains carrying familiar songs that in his hands sound forgotten: broken lines, a dissonant drone, the fiddle or the banjo all percussion, every rising moment louder than the one before it.” Greil Marcus



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When Frank Fairfield visited last September he left in his wake a sold out crowd entranced to the rhythms of his body, a body born to channel music and the mannerisms of a time that is seemingly not present. When he departed I remarked that it would be unlikely that he would be coming back soon, convinced as I was that he would be on Jools Holland come Christmas. It could be Franks conviction to “playing for the people” that sees him return to Falmouth, to play a set at The Poly on Sunday June 5th, but it is most likely part of the way of being he articulates in the video above. Here’s another.



Frank has been playing banjo, fiddle and guitar since the age of three. The last few years have found him busking on the streets of Los Angeles as well as opening for Fleet Foxes and Cass McCombs on tour. He has a new album of self penned songs just out on Tompkins Square and is travelling Europe to play them. The wonder of his performance is hard to explain – the heavy cotton suits, the starched shirts, the sweat pouring of his brow, the chuckles and hoots… all of these could add up to a caricature. But to me Frank just seems like someone who has found himself dedicated to a way of being that values dignity, spirit, manners and song. If that seems out of place in our times, then let us be out of place with him.

In support we have Simon Drinkwater, whose acoustic guitar playing mixes delicate determination, bursts of fiery improvisation and intuitive explorations of texture. His voice is as three dimensional as the emotional aspects he depicts, and to hear him play the Poly auditorium has long been an intention of mine.