How It's Supposed to Be

Three Cheers for the Lewes, DE Sea Shanty Festival!

What a glorious weekend!

Lewes, Delaware is the “oldest town in the oldest state in America”, maintained by the Lewes Historical Society. And it’s pretty cool.

In the town center they’ve restored a bunch of old buildings, including a tiny 1790s-era tavern, which is an absolute trip to enter: low ceilings, creaky everything, two small rooms with a tiny bar at the end and very little lighting. Here’s us at the start of that set doing Barrett’s Privateers:

Later on, during this exclusive, 25-person Friday night set in this tiny room, a massive storm blew in. We were two verses into “Old Maui”, most of the candles blew out and the lights started to flicker off. So I shouted: “EVERYONE, SIT AND DRINK IN THE DARK AS GOD INTENDED!”

We, as a people, have strayed from the Good Path by drinking in large, well-lit establishments. Having tried both Paths, I can now tell you that there is something deeply superior in having a drink next to someone you can barely see in a tiny wooden room as nature roars out its fury, once again trying and failing to kill you. It feels like an achievement.

The buildings in this little town are incredible. There’s a schoolhouse that still has these cursive-training books from 1875 where children had to perfectly and meticulously copy cursive writing, line after line after endless line. TRY DOING THAT ON YOUR DIDDLEPAD™, BRAYDEN AND SKYLER!!!

But here’s the thing. I’ve been to these recreated historic towns before, and never really enjoyed them. There’s something bizarre about watching paid actors carry on old timey “tasks” that are in fact meaningless. Everything feels so controlled, and therefore… dead.

The thing with the Lewes Shanty Festival is that things got real. Not only did we have to Drink in the Dark As God Intended (DDAGI), Folks all over the grounds started to spontaneously break out in nautical singing, the pub staff hurriedly served strange concoctions to the throngs of people, and the kids at the festival started to go a bit feral, like they were singing and dancing the demons away. There was a scheduled shanty sing in the tavern but once it was over people just kept rolling in and starting their own singing. And it was all good, it was all alive. Check it out:

Personally, I am really feeling the acoustic/shanty-folk thing (and the polka thing) these days. The heavy guitars and noisy bass and drums are just starting to lose their charm entirely. This is for several reasons; the fucking hassle of having to provide rock backline at every show. The piercing tinnitus that only gets worse as you age, even with earplugs. The total inability to actually hear the folk instruments and the harmonies. But also, and this is a big one for me personally, fewer kids.

Yeah some aging punks get their kids to come to shows and it’s fine. We’ve had kids at a few shows and it’s been great, but this is always a huge exception to the rule. Not only do children’s ears need heavy protection, the punk shows always have to be super late for some reason; we’ve reigned this in over the years but still routinely take stage at 11pm. Why? Does anyone have a good answer for this, other than “the bar owners want people drinking there as long as possible”?

Kids bring life, energy and collective power to an event; they mean that the music isn’t just entertainment, it’s also the production of a way of life, a transmission of values. Most children in our culture grow up to re-invent everything every generation because their parents have to get a babysitter for the cultural/entertainment events they attend. There is no transmission, no continuity. Just HERE’S THE NEWEST THING YOU’LL LOVE NOT BEING ABLE TO EXPLAIN TO YOUR BORING OLD PARENTS.

At the Lewes Festival, I carried my 5 year-old son in my arms as one of those anarchic groups broke into Stan’s Northwest Passage, and the group of 100 people gathered around sang along. My son sang loudly and proudly, as he knows the song well. It was the first time we’d done something like this together. I had a smile on my face for the rest of the day. Something inside me whispered: this is how it’s supposed to be.