Singer-songwriter to bring her funky folk to Palmer

PALMER — Attendees of Marian Call’s Thursday concert in Palmer should expect songs about three main themes.

“Traveling, Alaska and the Internet,” Call said.

Call will perform at Vagabond Blues at 7 p.m. Her website describes her music as “whimsical Alaskan folk funk.” She said she would add that it’s family friendly.

“It’s not a concert for kids, but I think it’s a concert that they usually tend to enjoy,” she said.

The show is also part of a celebration of National Poetry Month, so Call will talk a little bit about poetry — which, she said, is her forte. She’s strongest as a lyricist.

She’s been an Alaskan since college — for eight and going on nine years now. She’s a full-time singer-songwriter who just last year finished up a tour of all 50 states and Canada. Her latest album, Vanilla, will be available at the show and she’s on the verge of releasing a two-disc set with one disc all about Alaska.

“It’s a massive project. I’m excited to be done,” she said. “Hopefully I’ll come back and play in Palmer or the Valley again once I have a CD release.”

As for those song themes, it’s relatively obvious why someone who spends her time performing across the country would be thinking a lot about traveling.

That second theme, Alaska, has a few meanings to Call. First of all it’s the only place she’s really lived as an adult.

She says she goes to great lengths to live in Alaska. And she’s been lucky to be able to be a professional performer here rather than in more obvious places like New York, Los Angeles, Austin or Nashville.

“I wanted to be here more than I wanted to be an entertainer,” Call said.

Which brings us to that third theme — the Internet. Call is a firm believer in the power of social networking.

“I might only be in town a few hours, but through Facebook and Twitter I can be friends with people in Fairbanks and Tok and Talkeetna and Juneau,” she said.

It’s also really the thing that allows her to live this life outside of one of those cities with a thriving recording industry.

“I probably wouldn’t have been able to be in any kind of entertainment business,” without the Internet, Call said.

She said she thinks its fertile ground for songwriting.

“I guess a songwriter should write about whatever concerns people in that day and age,” Call said. “We spend a lot of time in front of a computer so that’s what I end up writing about.”

One of the problems with that, though, is that technology moves at a pace that tends to date songs relatively quickly. She wrote a song about Windows Vista and how much she hated it, which she figures likely will lose some relevance in a few years.

“But you can apply it to any software really,” she said, laughing.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.