To me, the biggest issue in deciding to join a "collective" wherein one can write and perform gentle music with other like-minded citizens might be soap and/or laundry detergent.

Or, more properly, the lack thereof.

Perhaps, though, that's just a concern of us Older Folks. I do seem to remember a pile of my dirty clothes the size of a horse in the bedroom of one of my college apartments -- and you can ask my roommate at the time, Kevin DeLorey, because he literally moved into the closet when he couldn't deal with my foul-reeking pile of shirts and jeans.

Hygiene aside, these music collective folks seem to exude a dreamy enthusiasm for plucking acoustic instruments and spinning delicate melodies and harmonies that, often, indicate some genuinely songwriting gifts. I'm talking about purveyors of so-called "freak folk" or "indie folk," and, over the course of a few weeks of furlough and vacation time, I've been listening to some of these artists. Some are good and, Lord, many are horrible -- but, dammit, they're all kooks. THAT'S what's best. They're top-shelf kooks!

This all springs to mind as I sit here typing and listening to Joanna Newsome work her way through the 10-minute opus called "Have One On Me." It's a very pretty song with occasionally funny lyrics about her on-again/off-again relationship with a wizard.

Not really. Not the wizard part. No hobbits, either.

But you could see where a wizard MIGHT sneak in there if Joanna wasn't careful. As it is, there are too many references to spiders for comfort, but that's just me.

Otherwise, Newsome's got a lot of very cool musical ideas going on including a complex vocal round towards the end of the song that most folks of a particular musical predilection would associate with, yes, Gentle Giant! I mean, I seriously doubt that many of the Freak Folkers have ever heard of Gentle Giant, but could this BE any more of a Freak Folk antecedent? Except for drummer John Weathers' Oakland A's uniform!

Basically, I think a lot of this -- whether Joanna or Gentle Giant -- just comes from the fact that these are instruments that are fun to explore when you've just inhaled your 19th bong and the whole renovated circus big-top tent that you all live in — the one in the middle of a Vermont pumpkin field — is gray-blue with the fog of fine herbage.

Yes: instruments such as lutes, harps, hammered dulcimers, a single theramin, flutes, cellos, recorders — all of which are perhaps best negotiated in these situations by guys with big floppy leather hats and burgeoning facial hair that looks scraped off a peach. Not to be sexist about it, but this leaves space for the women in the collective to sing their seraphim harmonies and dance lightly around the tent pole trailing scarves behind them like prancing fauns.

Speaking of fauns, one of the many bands I've heard creating indie folk is called Faun Fables, from Oakland. Hard to believe they're close to Berkeley but ...

On the Faun Fables official web site is where I found the presumably self-penned description of their 2006 album The Transit Rider:

"A rider is born onto the transit sytem, a network of roads, rails, corridors and trails that meets itself on the far side of the world. In a setting of ongoing motion, among strangers, fluorescent lights, amidst the limping dogs and singing landscape, she will try to find a place only dreamt of: the picnic stop."

Well, picnics are good. I just don't think I'd want to go on a picnic with the two folks who comprise Faun Fables. Here's why. It's a video for one of their songs called "With Words and Cake."

The Pagan Babe Weirdo who writes most of the material is called Dawn McCarthy, while the Goat Beard Dude multi-instrumentalist is Nils Frykdahl — because there's no way he could just be Joe Weaver. You'll see what I mean in the video: I mean, LOOK at the guy.

I've gotta say, I don't just think it's because I'm an Aging Rock Dude. No. This video is one of the unintentionally funniest things I've seen (and heard) in a long time. Look, Pagan Babe Weirdo and Goat Beard Dude, I spent a LOT of my twenties on dope, but this is uncalled for. Seriously. Y'all need to dial it back a bit.

Anyhoo, that's this week's journey through Freak Folk. I will continue to explore this subgenre of contemporary music and report back occasionally.