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Thirty-six years ago the first occurence of what is today called the Annual Berkeley Old Time Music Convention filled downtown Berkeley’s Provo Park (Civic Center Park) with drunken judges, mad fiddlers, demented banjo artistes and old time music lovers. It was called the 35th Annual Stringband Contest. 

Eric Thompson was the responsible party.  

“I went to the city and got the permit,” Thompson recalled. “When I got to the part where the city wanted to know who was sponsoring this event I had to tell them, ‘No one. It’s just happening’”.  

The next year, 1969, they called it the 22nd Annual Old Time Fiddler’s Convention. The final event (proclaimed the 17th Annual) overwhelmed Berkeley’s downtown park in 1970 and Folkway Records issued “Berkeley Farms,” a recording memorializing the first three years. When the city’s Chamber of Commerce decided to encourage the event, the organizers called it off and, like Rip Van Winkle, disappeared for 33 years.  

Last year, local musical legend Marc Silber was asked to officiate the reborn Stringband Contest.  

“It was the first time they’d held the festival in about a hundred years,” Silber explained. “I was a judge and it was just great. There’s nothing like this on the West Coast. There are folks coming all the way from Seattle and San Diego to compete in this, just for a bunch of vegetables.” 

The winners get Berkeley Farmers’ Market vegetables. 

Last year about 16 bands played in the competition, including two youth bands, Silber said. 

“This year we’ve got a kids only competition where they’ll all just get a prize.” In an aside Silber admits, “They couldn’t compete because they’d just win anyway.”  

Suzy Thompson, an event organizer and musician, said that despite the term “old music,” the convention celebrates music that is still fresh and alive. 

“It’s possible to get a superior attitude about what defines old time music,” she said. “The music itself can seem very simple. To the casual observer it can seem that it doesn’t have much to it, but when you listen deeply…when you do deep listening…there’s more to it than what appears on the surface.”  

Her husband Eric agreed. “I recall someone saying they were trying to turn leather britches into Permapress, with all fiddlers playing exactly the same songs with the same variations. We’re not encouraging that. We like to have it as loose as possible. That’s why we bribed the judges with liquor that first year.”  

This year’s event will include Mexican-style old timers the Peña-Govea Stringband, an unnamed all banjo stringband, last year’s winners the Squirrelly Stringband, specially assembled challengers the Squirrel Hunters, the politically appropriately named Buck-Fush, and too many more to elucidate.  

Silber said he doesn’t plan to perform anytime during the weekend festival. “It’s just for white people. But I’ll be teaching my regularly scheduled free guitar classes at Live Oak Park on Sunday morning. Folks have got to get a chance to get the banjo sounds out of their heads,” he said shaking his head ruefully.  

This year, Berkeley’s festival of early American music will spring forth from four different venues.  

Friday evening, Sept. 24, the Freight and Salvage Coffeehouse, itself now 35 years old, will feature an old time concert” with Jody Stecher and Kate Brislin, the Earl White Band, and the Thompson String Ticklers (yep, featuring Eric and Suzy Thompson and various other local old time music aficionados).  

The following day, Saturday, Sept. 25, the downtown Berkeley Farmer’s Market (City Center Park) will present a stringband contest,” at 11 a.m. sharp. Twenty bands are currently scheduled but more are expected. That evening, Ashkenaz Music and Dance Community Center will host a square dance with renowned caller Bill Martin of Portland, Ore. and musical accompaniment provided by Foghorn (also of Portland), Gravel Court (from North Carolina) and last year’s stringband contest winners, the Squirrelly Stringband from San Francisco. Evie Ladin’s clogging workshop begins at 6:30 p.m., the square dance begins at 8 p.m. and there’ll be halftime entertainment by the Barnburners dance troupe.  

On Sunday there will be at least two Evie Ladin dance workshops at various private residences in Berkeley. See the Old Time website for details. The classes start at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. At 3 p.m. Jupiter Brewhouse in downtown Berkeley will offer an afternoon of dance floor space, beer and live, cabaret-style, old time music. Expect a full crowd and lots of impromptu performances by a crowd of musicians.  

How can we miss old time music, if it won’t go away?  

For a complete convention schedule, go to www.berkeleyoldtimemusic.org.  

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