[Text by Olivia Rebert; From the Ithaca Times]
As he gazed out the second-story window of Juna’s Café, Michael Hansen had a far away look in his muddy green eyes. With his dark brown hair parted neatly and a green sweater over his plaid red and green shirt, he spoke enthusiastically about his passion for music. Hansen has only been in in town since late November, but the upcoming folk musician said he hopes to plant his roots in Ithaca.
“I always said when I was 27 I wanted to be doing what I wanted to,” Hansen said. “I feel like that has been fulfilled by living here.”
Originally from Forest Hill, MD, Hansen appreciated music early in life. His father took him record shopping early on Saturday mornings at a local open-air flea market. And his father’s attempt at becoming a musician nudged Hansen into the art as well. “I play banjo now because my father tried to play banjo in the early ’80s,” he said.
While Hansen was into bands like The Grateful Dead, Nirvana and Phish for a while, he couldn’t help but be drawn into the music he grew up on. “I listened to folk music and it felt very real,” he said. “I still remember some of the old ballads and they’re timeless in their language, insight and mystery. Folk has a haunting quality. You don’t get that on the radio.”
Hansen, who has been playing music for 10 years, earned a degree in philosophy from Salisbury University in Maryland. Just out of college, he got a job working as a traveling salesman for a pharmaceutical company and it was at that time he realized he wanted music to be more than just a pastime.
“I went around the entire county for 11 months straight and put about 63,000 miles on a truck they gave me,” he said. “But the whole time I had a banjo, a guitar and a ukulele with me. I played on street corners and met people. It made me realize that I wanted to start pursuing music a little more seriously.”
After traveling across the country, Hansen went to Ireland where he played in bars, taking in the atmosphere, making friends and experiencing different kinds of folk music.
“I played on the street and I got invited to play in pubs and asked by musicians to play before their sets,” Hansen said. “The Irish style of folk music is very different but similar too. Musicians play four-string banjos and use a pick there and I play claw-hammer style. But it’s the same instrument.”
Hansen was first introduced to what he thought was an attempt to play banjo in a funkier way during vacation in Ocean City, MD. A street musician was picking at the strings like a base instead of using a pick or plucking them. As it turned out, the musician was using a very old technique: claw hammer. And the band would spark his interest in coming to Ithaca.
“I was walking on the boardwalk and I heard this old time band playing banjo, fiddle and guitar,” he said. “I asked them where they were from and they said Ithaca. They were The Buvas — they still play here.”
Hansen wanted to move to Ithaca for several reasons. Ithaca is a prime place for old time music and he was impressed by the music community when he visited 20 days before his move here. “Ithaca is one of the hotspots for old time music,” he said. “Every night of the week you can find some form of it. That’s unheard of in a lot of places. And there are so many people to play with in your living room. It’s collaborative.”
Matt Noonan, a local banjo player, first met Hansen after he sent a message to Noonan asking for a couch to crash on during a particularly folk-filled weekend downtown. Noonan invited Hansen to stay and since then the two have put together several open mic performances with other friends. Noonan believes Hansen’s style sets him a part from other Ithaca folk musicians.
“You can tell he’s not from around here,” Noonan said. “He plays solo while a lot of a lot of people here are in groups — The Chicken Chokers, The Horse Flies — and he’s done a lot of busking. His style is fast, note-y and catches other people’s attention.”
With the singing voice of a man at least 30 years his elder, the young musician spins stories about heartbreak, criminals and plain old trouble.
One song that captures the audience attention is “Foolin’ Blues,” an unrequited love ballad. “I wrote ‘Foolin’ Blues’ about a girl in Denver I had been in love but decided that she was fooling me too much. I wrote, ‘you say it’s a bad time when I live right next door then you want my love when I move to some foreign shore.’ Sometimes we forget we can write about our own lives and they can be more interesting than something we just come up with.”
Hansen released his debut album The Attic Sessions in 2007. The album came out in a few different forms before this time. Ultimately, he would like to put it to rest and create something new he can share with the community.
“I’m trying to write a song about somebody finding a cassette of an outlaw’s plea to the jury — it’s going to be like an outlaw version of Socrates,” he said. “I’m also writing four songs based on a poem by T.S. Elliot called ‘Ash Wednesday.’ I like to dig into old songs and characters and add the missing details.”
While his lyrics are creative, passionate and sometimes comic, Hansen admits they’re not all his own, but are recycled from older ballads. In his song titled “The Other Side,” Hansen sings “well my horses ain’t hungry, they don’t need no hay,” a lyric that originated from the classic folk song “The Wagoner’s Lad.”
“I like to incorporate old lyrics and give them new chords and choruses — I get a new song,” he said. “That’s the way things work — you take just as much as you need and you add just as much as you need.”
Josh Cridler, who plays drums and the mandolin, grew up with Hansen and spent much time with him as they stayed up late playing together and recording in high school and whenever they see each other. Cridler thinks Hansen is unique and adds his special touch to old songs. “Mike takes old music and gives it new life — his own flair,” Cridler said. “It’s hard to compare him to anyone.
And while Hansen writes from his own experiences or his stream of conscious thoughts, he believes there are certain story veins running underneath the skin of folk music that are drawn from time and time again.
“There are so many great themes,” he said. “like how the man goes out to seek his fortune and leaves the woman behind. It’s not like country music — it’s not like my dog left, my aunt died and I lost my eye.”
As for his upcoming plans in Ithaca, Hansen said he would like to form a jug band, get back into composing soundtracks for silent films (Buster Keaton inspired him to learn the ukulele), give banjo lessons and do a big collaboration with other artists in town, all on top of making a new album with Chad Crumm, a local musician and producer.
“I would love to creatively embark on a musical journey with people in town,” he said. “I’m setting up some roots here.”
Overall, Hansen enjoys playing folk music because it evokes the memories of a past era when he believes people were more caring. And his music takes his audience members to the past.
“I think a lot of people want to live in a different time. We live in a modern world that’s very scary and sterile. But folk isn’t sterile, it’s contagious.”
Michael Hansen will be playing this Wednesday, Feb. 27 at 7pm at the Pourhouse in Trumansburg. For more information, call 607-387-7687.
