- Each year, folk punk devotees of Australia pack their acoustic instruments and hangover remedies and set off, like Muslims embarking on Hajj, for Tasmania and Hobofopo - the nation’s only dedicated folk punk festival.
The 2019 edition took place last weekend, but for those of who couldn’t make it there is always the festival compilation, featuring twenty songs from the artists involved.
It’s not the biggest musical niche, and so this year’s lineup unsurprisingly contains a few familiar names. As ever though, a couple of overseas faces shake things up a bit - UK emo anti-folk duo Crywank joined by the somewhat similar sounds of New Zealand’s Departure Party.
Other than those two, it’s a fair representation of Australian folk punk geographically, with music from across the continent, and stylistically, with all the subcategories of folk punk present.
There is everything from the virtuoso musicianship of Crooked Fiddle Band to the amateurish racket of Hard Rubbish. Country hoedowns and cheeky humour mixes with bleak acoustic emo and neurotic confessionals, gentle fingerpicking alongside guitars thrashed within an inch of their life.
There are a few new names, but they are outnumbered by regular faces of Australian folk punk – celtic punks Ramshackle Army, acoustic thrashers like Jude Joseph and Billy Puntton, and Hobart’s own Dead Maggies delving once more into the seemingly inexhaustible repository of colourful Tasmanian historical characters.
If there’s a moment that sums up the spirit of Hobofopo as a festival, it’s probably Quinton Trembath singing about stealing the identity of Chris Burrows, followed two songs later by Mr Burrows himself. That’s a large part of the appeal really. It’s a fairly small scene of musicians singing often about micro-scale topics. DIY recordings and touring, connections across state and national borders forged on the love of music. That’s why people love folk punk and Hobofopo, and ultimately your taste for that will determine your feelings about this compilation.
But whether you want to dip in for one listen or submerge for the full hobo lifestyle, however you feel about a serenade on mental illness over acoustic guitars, Hobofopo, celebrating its fourth year is a notable example of how a music scene can thrive without any support from the established music industry. It’s unlikely to top the charts, but as The Dead Maggies sing from the point of view of bushranger Martin Cash, “if you can’t be rich, have a story to tell”.
- Andy Paine.