I just got back from the Folk Yeah festival up in Big Sur this weekend, having journeyed up the PCH with my man to attend the two-day gathering in the redwoods. We found an ecelctic bunch of music lovers hanging out among the trees, with a heavy bearded contingent (Devendra Banhart's included), as well as some tweaked-out raver types and lots of bemused Big Sur old-timers. Classic rock revivalists Citay – originally a studio project between Ezra Feinberg and Tim Green from The Fucking Champs – stole the two day show, held at the Fernwood Restaurant (you MUST try their lasagne if you're ever up there, and their Caroline Salad is pretty bitchin' too). Citay frontman Ezra, it turns out, is completing a PhD in Psychology at Berkeley, but I think he should put off being a shrink for a few years and continue making awesome music instead.

The Folk Yeah fest (which has nothing to do with LA's Fuck Yeah fest), started last year, and there are plans to make it bigger next time (a weekend in Fall 2007). That would be a very good thing, in my opinion – the event seemed to revived the original beatnik spirit of a now heavily bourgeois Big Sur, which is dominated by overpriced New Agey hotels and retreats, the kind where you'd have to sell incense sticks for a good year to afford a night's stay.  Folk THAT.

 Britt Govea, the man behind Folk Yeah, has been keeping it real and organizing lots of events at the Fernwood in the last year – next up, Black Crowe Chris Robinson and his band The Wooden Family, in late May. Who needs Commer-chella and their Heineken sponsorship when you got beards, patchouli and lasagne just up the road???

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