Michael Hurley + Daniel Higgs + Paper Wings + Screening of ‘Snock ‘N Roll: Adventures with Michael Hurley’ + Kraak DJ’S

7:00 pm - Kraak DJ’S
Rummage in their collection of outsider folk and mix it all on the turntables.

7:30 - Snock ‘N Roll: Adventures with Michael Hurley
(director: Marc Israel - 25 min)
Idiosyncratic portrait by filmmaker Marc Israel about folk-troubadour Michael Hurley. The perfect introduction to Doc Snock who will appear on stage later in the evening.

8:00 pm - Paper Wings (b)
Their rider states: a bottle of whiskey and a buffet piano. They consider themselves to be a ‘cover band’ along the lines of Norah Jones and her Little Willies (who threw themselves at the country legacy). Paper Wings focus upon folk and country and even a touch of cabaret. The music is acoustic and in trio. If we listen very well, then the similarity of the vocal sound with that of Bram Vanparys is very striking. Could Paper Wings thus… ?

9:00 pm - Daniel Higgs – Daniel Arcus Incus Ululat Higgs to his friends – is the final addition to this programme that is an implicit tribute to Harry Smith’s ‘Anthology Of Folk’. This poet, artist and musician from Baltimore has been making mantra-like country-folk with cryptic lyrics full of contractions, dualism and very many spiritual and religious elements and confusing imagery since 2000. In a distant past he sang in hardcore band Lungfish and was recently also to be heard in Swedish psychedelic drone rock-band The Skull Defekts.

10:00 pm - Michael Hurley (us)
"Hurley is a national treasure."
(Time Out New York)
"Hurley remains one of the elusive masters of American folk."
(Billboard)

Lucinda Williams and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy are fans. Cat Power, Yo La Tengo and Vetiver cover his songs. Ladies and gentlemen: we're talking about Michael Hurley, one of the very last true American folk-troubadours around. Hurley – now more than 70 years old – debuted for the legendary Smithsonian Folkways label in ’64 with ‘First Songs’. The story goes that it was recorded on the very same reel-to-reel machine used for Leadbelly's ‘Last Sessions’.

His album ‘Have Moicy!’ (from ’76) was described at the time by The Village Voice as ‘the greatest folk album of the rock era’ and it landed in the Rolling Stone's Top Ten Albums of ‘70’s. As an outsider, Hurley even recorded albums for Warner and in recent years he's passed by via Gnomosong, the label of new weird folkie Devendra Banhart.

Hurley’s songs are quite eccentric and he works with returning characters like werewolves, whiskey drinkers and wild ducks. Figures that are often to be found on the covers of his albums, as Hurley is namely a drawing talent too.

For the first time in 10 years, Doc Snock – Hurley’s nickname – tours Europe again with his excellent outsider folk.