Rediscovering and Reimagining

Good songs hold up!

30 seconds of Dreamer & the Hoping Machine rehearsing Aprille Clarke’s 2017 song, “Little Disasters” (recorded by the very same Aprille Clarke!) Members: Jon Ranard, piano and vocals; Alma Drake, acoustic guitars and vocals; Jean Littlejohn, a smidge of piano and vocals; Geb Thomas, bass; Kylie Buddin, electric guitars; Laurie Haag, drums; Pappy Klocke, So Many Things.

A good song will hold up to a lot of interpretations.

Jean LIttlejohn and I have been arranging songs for the current session of the Family Folk Machine, and we realized that the old Quaker-adjacent spiritual, “How Can I Keep From Singing” can be done in pretty much any time signature - including polka time - and hang together. Okay, maybe polka time isn’t the most intuitive way to present this powerful song, but … it works in a weird way, and it had us in hysterics. (Mert-ne mert-ne mert MylifegoesoninendlesssongaboveEarth’slamentation … it’s hilarious.)

The guy in the ball cap in the video still above, that’s Pappy. He’s been playing in the FFM band and mentoring our kid musicians since the very beginning. After our Spring 2024 concert, he said, “Is there any reason we couldn’t just … be a band?” And I couldn’t think of a single one, so here we are.

The focus of our repertoire (la-dee-dah!) is the catalog of original songs, and I do mean catalog, it’s way bigger than just a recipe file, that have been written by members of the Machine since about 2017. When I joined in 2018, songwriting became a major focus, and nearly every season boasted anywhere from two to five all original new songs written by members. Sometimes, maybe even often, with assistance from me, but sometimes not. Little Disasters was pure Aprille.

The choir did it a little slower, and there was a horn section involved. We didn’t have a drummer and our bass player played upright. We were pretty darn acoustic and folky.

Then … the pandemic happened, and we got … creative. I enlisted the help of Laurie Haag to play drums on a couple of tracks we were recording for a 100% online/digital video concert and Jean and I decided we couldn’t live without her. And here she remains.

Our bass player retired and went off to … parts unknown, so a few bass players passed through, but then, miracle of miracles, the incredible Christine Moad of Miss Christine joined us for a couple seasons, and we got spoiled rotten. But it allowed us to seriously up our game and try some more challenging music. The band was starting to smoke. And that trajectory continues.

But in the midst of all that instrumental growth, the choir expanded to Famiily Size, and has now literally become a horde. We don’t actually know right now how many members we have. Some try it, get intimidated or can’t make the time work and drop out. Others show up three-four weeks after start, and we’re not going to turn them away. Right now, our attendance guy thinks it’s about 130 including a passel of kids. They produce a Wall Of Sound that must be experienced to comprehend. If you have never been in front of a singing choir at point blank range, well … get thee to a choiry.

But my point was to talk about rediscovering and reimagining some of these songs, which have seen the light of day exactly once and are memorialized forever on a YouTube channel.

Usually what happens when we select a song for the Machine, it’s been recorded by a singer-songwriter, or a band, and if it seems “choirable,” we adapt it to the choir. This time, the process is reversed. We take a song that was specifically created and sculpted for the choir, and morph it into a song done by a band, in one way shrinking the footprint, but in another way expanding the possibilities. A choir is big and not very maneuverable. It’s a great big 18-wheeler, or a mile-long train. A band is like a rally car; often covered in mud, but man can it take the curves.

The process was pretty simple, honestly. I had some vague ideas about how I’d like to hear some of these songs done, but mostly we just jammed them out. I started playing and somebody added something and we all went, yeah … and then another element came in, and so on. So collaborative. We arranged them in the air, in real time, like in the best musical situations. We all trusted each other to bring the thing that brought us together. That’s a precious thing.

Some of these songs have been heard by about 300 people, and that’s just not enough, because they are darn good songs. We have 21 originals that we’re doing, out of about 40 total, and we picked the creme de la creme, and the most “bandable” ones.

We’re playing them at a theater in downtown Iowa City called The James on February 26. If you’re around, you should totally come. There’ll be a dance floor, and lots and lots of Family Folk Machinists, who are some of the nicest people you will ever meet.