Freak Scene #80: Arcadia Folk Fest an Antidote to Big Festival Burnout
Plus, the debut song from 10-year-old Matilda Aileen, and my misgivings about the whole thing
A Guide to Music in Western Mass. (and sometimes Connecticut)
This week in Freak Scene, we hear from Jim Olsen of Signature Sounds about the seventh incarnation of the Arcadia Folk Festival, and Matilda Aileen offers me the opportunity to confront my misgivings about little kids singing pop songs.
Let’s face it: big musical festivals are exhausting. Spending multiple days, and who knows how much money, tramping around parks, through fields or across fairgrounds hoping the schedule works out and the weather cooperates can be grueling. Arcadia Folk Festival is the antidote.
Now in its seventh year, Arcadia happens Saturday at Mass Audubon’s Arcadia Wildlife Sanctuary in Easthampton, where a mix of touring and local roots-oriented musicians perform on stages set up in the woods. (There’s also an associated tribute to The Basement Tapes by Bob Dylan and the Band tonight, Friday, at the Academy of Music.) This year’s Arcadia lineup features Josh Ritter & His Royal City Band (who have a new album out next month), Amy Helm, Steve Poltz, Red Baraat, Viv & Riley, Rachel Baiman, Jerron Paxton, Cloudbelly, BettySoo, Kissing Other Ppl (a trio comprising Baiman, Viv and Riley), Old Hat Stringband and Little Roots (tickets).
“You're not going to get muddy in any way, or overtaxed, and there's something sweet about that,” says Jim Olsen, president of Signature Sounds, which puts on the festival. “It’s a beautiful location. It’s a perfect kind of size: we're capped at 1,700 people, which doesn't feel huge. It kind of has that Green River vibe, where it’s very family friendly, and kids are just running around, and nobody's worried about where they are.”
Olsen was still running the Green River Festival when Signature Sounds Presents launched Arcadia Folk Festival in 2018. Now owned by DSP Shows, Green River encompasses a wider range of musical styles, and also requires a lot more work to put on. Starting Arcadia was a way of narrowing the focus, in just about every sense.
“We intentionally wanted it to be a folk festival to keep the size small and the sort of political, environmental theme — folk is just very friendly for that,” Olsen says. “Obviously, with Signature Sounds, we've worked with a lot of singer-songwriters, people who lean toward folk.”
Indeed, Ritter released his first two albums on Signature Sounds, and many of the festival’s other performers, past and present, have Signature connections, too. Like Signature Sounds’ other big event, the Back Porch Festival, the lineup for Arcadia always includes musicians from the area.
“We love to showcase locals, and we love to have a combination of locals and touring musicians — with pretty much anything that Signature Sounds does, you’ll find that that's the case,” Olsen says.
Arcadia also emphasizes sustainability. The festival is fully solar powered, all the food options are plant-based and concert-goers are encouraged to ride their bikes to the event, where there’s a bike valet. The festival is also a fundraiser for Mass Audubon, which recently lost a $25 million federal grant to protect 10,000 acres of forests and wetlands in the Connecticut River watershed. Proceeds from the festival won’t come close to compensating, but it helps raise awareness.
“It’s intended to be a celebration of Arcadia and of the Valley, and it’s a really good and effective fundraiser for Arcadia at a time where their funding is really uncertain due to you-know-who,” Olsen says. “Not only do we have this great festival, but we’re raising money for Arcadia.”
Matilda Aileen Calls Out a Bully on ‘Rude Boy’
As a general rule, I find it troubling when little kids are singing pop songs like adults. Matilda Aileen walks a fine line on her debut single “Rude Boy,” a song about adolescent concerns that she performs with poise beyond her years.
The 10-year-old Northampton singer released “Rude Boy” last week. Known as Maisie to her friends (I, too, have a 10-year-old, who travels in some of the same circles), Matilda Aileen sounds stern as she addresses a kid who was bullying some of her classmates at school. “You can call me names / You can laugh in my face / But you can’t make fun of my friends and walk away,” she sings.
“Rude Boy” is a slick, professional sounding pop-country track that Matilda Aileen co-wrote in July 2024 with the Nashville-based singer Jackie Bristow through Bristow’s SongCatcher mentorship program, which focuses on teaching kids the basics of songwriting and singing. Bristow and co-producer Mark Punch built an arrangement around strummed acoustic guitar, gritty electric licks and a whirring organ, paired with Matilda Aileen’s tuneful, but very young voice. If that combination is a little jarring (to my ears, at least), the track is age appropriate, which is to her and her parents’ credit. Matilda Aileen is singing about something that plenty of tweens can relate to, and standing up for herself in a way that her peers may well find empowering. Or maybe they’ll gloss right over the message and just think “Rude Boy” is a catchy tune (or, based on the conversation I overheard in the car this week on the way to camp, marvel that one of their peers has a song at all without realizing what it’s about).
Matilda Aileen began writing songs when she was 8 as an emotional outlet when her parents separated, and she’s writing all the time now, her mom tells me. So maybe “Rude Boy” is the start of something more in music. Or maybe she’ll head in a different direction altogether: after all, she’s only 10, and a world of possibilities awaits.
Upcoming Concerts
Speaking of Signature Sounds, the Austin-based singer Brennen Leigh releases her new album Don’t You Ever Give Up on Love on the label Oct. 3 and plays that night at the Iron Horse in Northampton (tickets). Also coming to the Iron Horse: the Julliard-trained singer Morgan James Oct. 11 (tickets) and the Togolese musician Dogo du Togo Oct. 25 (tickets).
Bombyx in Florence hosts the Bill Charlap Trio Nov. 2 (tickets), the Ireland-Québec trad/Celtic/folk band Grosse Isle for an afternoon show Nov. 23 (tickets) and Roomful of Teeth Dec. 7 (tickets).
The Shea Theater in Turners Falls hosts Michael Glabicki of Rusted Root with Dirk Miller Oct. 11 (tickets), Donna the Buffalo Nov. 7 (tickets) and Connecticut roots-rockers North County Band Nov. 21 (tickets).
Infinity Music Hall in Hartford presents the English Beat Nov. 28 (tickets), Preservation Hall Jazz Band doing a “Creole Christmas” show Nov. 30 (tickets) and Connecticut singer Javier Colon Dec. 20 (tickets).
Big Head Todd & the Monsters Feb. 19 at play College Street Music Hall in New Haven (tickets).
The Space Ballroom in Hamden hosts Georgia rapper Rittz Oct. 28 (tickets).
That’s a wrap for now, but Freak Scene is always seeking submissions. You can send music for coverage consideration to erdanton at gmail or reply to this email. Check out these guidelines first.
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