Skipping on Easter for folk tunes
Written by Josh Doyle

While most spent last Sunday at home with ham and Easter eggs, some of us spent it at Vinyl with Craig Cardiff. Cardiff stopped by Guelph for a live show the day after performing in his hometown of Waterloo, before heading back to Ottawa where he now resides. I was uncertain which held more promise, family dinner or the show, but was converted before Cardiff ever struck a chord.

A small but spirited crowd of music enthusiasts and folk lovers huddled around the stage for a show they knew held promise, and was evidently worth skipping dinner for. After a set by Robyn Dell’unto, a regular songbird whose comedic approach made her a natural fit to open for Cardiff. I had a chance to sit down with Cardiff as he shared with me some of his ideas on music.
“I do a lot of house concerts, churches and prisons. I think all of them are equally interesting,” Cardiff said in response to how he felt about more personal venues. Cardiff explained that the space is incidental so long as first and foremost comes music.
“I just like places where people make music or want to have music made for them. I’ve always felt pretty lucky to [be a part of] that.”
As the dedicated group of fans waited for him to start, most of them were content to sit cross-legged on the dirty floor of club Vinyl, Craig made a small request.
“Could we rearrange ourselves better? There’s lots of room up here on the stage and beside me. You guys are all back there in the dark,” Cardiff said. And that was how a handful of music lovers came to sit on the stage beside Cardiff, as he spent the next two hours delivering a heart warming catalog of songs to a crowd of 120. His call and response style of involving the audience made it less of a concert and more of a large group of friends and strangers getting together.
“The shows that I enjoy the most happen in places where it’s most intimate,” Cardiff said, remarking on the smaller than ordinary party that claimed the floor. He didn’t expect anything more from our city on Easter Sunday. But that didn’t stop him from making jokes about ignoring the phone calls of ambitious aunt’s, and the excuses the audience must have made in order to be there.
Cardiff involved his audience to the point that they stopped being an audience. A larger group would have only taken away from the solid relationship he formed with the whole room. Cardiff explained that what he does “requires a smaller group. After two or three hundred people it becomes a different domain.”
“I feel like what I do is a combination of music with an improvised element,” Cardiff said, looking over the growing crowd. His between song antics and personable approach made it also a comedy show, as Cardiff pulled enough material out of the air to have everyone in Vinyl laughing hysterically. Needless to say, if you were present last Sunday night, you were entertained.
Cardiff is truly a pioneer of independent music, giving a new name to that scene by producing upwards of 12 albums within roughly the past 10 years. His recent album, Mistletoe, was “recorded entirely on an iPod touch … and I think you should buy three copies.”
Cardiff’s successful attempt at selling me on his new album isn’t an isolated incident, and his approach to playing music is quite similar to his approach to marketing that music. His vast fan base exists mostly out of sheer love for seeing him live, which speaks to his word of mouth style of promotion. He also praised Kevin Priddle, the U of G student-DJ and show promoter who put the performance together for being “excited about music, and making music happen.”
Cardiff’s philosophy seems to hinge on the idea that music is a joint effort, and takes the interest of everyone to be truly successful. I for one have no reservations to being a part of any music that sounds as good as Cardiff’s, and highly recommend you keep your ear to the ground for when he comes back next fall.

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