Faun Fables Put Theatrical Folk-Rock in the Family Kitchen
By Andrew Clayman
Published in The Knoxville Voice, August 2008
While most “unconventional” songwriters try their best to break with tradition, Dawn McCarthy embraces every last fiber of it. In her decade plus as the whimsical storytelling siren behind Oakland’s Faun Fables, McCarthy (aka “Dawn the Faun”) has weaved high-concept, typically trippy concoctions out of everything from Medieval Anglo-folk and gypsy music to full-on Zepplinesque rock mysticism. Most of her work is intended to be experienced in three-dimensions, with choreographed dances and props making for shows more akin to a theater production than a rock concert. To clear up any confusion, however, Faun Fables is very much a band first—having long been one of the weirdest acts on Chicago’s weirdest indie rock label, Drag City.
Following up 2006’s The Transit Rider—the album version of McCarthy’s irony-free stage show about a surreal subway experience—Faun Fables has returned this summer with a new EP and an even more unusual focus.
“There’s a lot of writing out there that has to do with reflections about the home—with ‘home’ being more of an abstract, emotional concept,” McCarthy says. “I wanted to approach that subject in a much more concrete, tactile way. There are a lot of mundane little details about housekeeping and chores that are actually really fun to focus on, when you think about it.”
Yes, Dawn the Faun has created an experimental folk album about house chores. Or at least, that’s the simple way of summing it up. The four song EP A Table Forgotten certainly works on a lot more levels than that.
“A lot of the inspiration for the project came from work I was doing with the Idyllwild Art Academy,” says McCarthy, referring to the Southern California school where she recently held an artist residency. “I had this theme of home and hearths and housekeeping that I wanted to start working on, and it turned out that many of the students’ interests involved family roots, or lost roots. With those ideas, it really turned into a neat way to connect current practices with longstanding traditions. So we worked up this show together, and I developed songs, some of which are on this EP and some of which will be on the full length that’s coming out next year.”
As with all Faun Fables releases, McCarthy fleshed out these new tunes with her right hand man Nils Frykdahl (Sleepytime Gorilla Museum), a talented multi-instrumentalist who also happens to be the father of McCarthy’s currently in-utero child, due in October. Other key contributors to the album’s almost tribal but plaintive tone include violinist Meredith Yayanos and utility player Kirana Peyton.
For Fables fans, A Table Forgotten delivers some familiar elements, particularly the emphasis on unique, makeshift percussion—in this case often provided by what McCarthy refers to as “mechanical household tools.” But there are also moments that require no theatrics or elaborate storylines to hit their mark.
The song “Pictures,” for example, is a gorgeous folk ballad made particularly haunting by McCarthy’s ethereal vocal performance. In the simplest terms possible, it’s a song about nostalgia—the way a home changes when some of its inhabitants have moved on.
“‘Pictures’ was sparked by an old friend who left me a phone message,” McCarthy says. “I think I was really motivated by missing this friend and also feeling kind of isolated at that time. The melody just kind of sprang out of me— dedicated to this kind of aching feeling for people we’ve known in our lives who might not be around anymore— times or places you can’t really go back to. It’s wild to me how these pictures can hold that experience of something that was once a present moment in time. When it’s hit me the most in kind of a heartbreaking way is going to a memorial, when they put together a photo collage of someone. And you just look at all these snapshots of times of life, that were so alive and vibrant— it’s incredible how powerful those pictures can be.”
In many ways, “Pictures” helps sum up much of McCarthy’s approach to music not just on A Table Forgotten, but throughout her career. By exploring the small nuances in life, she winds up building songs that are gigantic both in their presentation and overall themes. For McCarthy, it’s all just a part of her job as a modern day storyteller.
“I look around and I see that stories are still as prevalent and important as they’ve even been in human culture,” she says. “It’s just that now, we have a lot more means to deliver them, perhaps—films, TV, even YouTube videos. There’s more of that. The medium of it has shifted, but I think stories still are there. And as far as I know, everyone will still respond to a good storyteller. It’s something very intrinsic to human nature— to tell stories. For me, I love the human contact—the live performance itself. I love films and books, as well, but I’m definitely a sucker for the live stuff.”
Fortunately for Faun Fables, their devoted fan base seems to share that opinion.
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