Brian Turk, a 47-year-old bassist, understands how folk music might seem irrelevant today, especially in comparison to its explosion in the ‘50s and ‘60s.
But he’s adamant this unique American art form be celebrated and preserved for generations.
Turk will take the stage twice at this weekend’s first annual Gainesville Folk Festival at Heartwood Soundstage. First, he’ll perform Saturday evening with his rock-based bluegrass band Wild Shiners.
Wild Shiners
Turk met like-minded folkies at the Riverhawk Music Festival in Brooksville, Florida, nearly 15 years ago, and it didn’t take long for them to start playing music together.
Wild Shiners doesn’t have a narrow style, Turk said, and it dabbles in many genres, including country and jazz.
“If a jam band and a traditional bluegrass band had an illegitimate child, it would be us,” Turk said.
He added the band looks up to rock greats like the Grateful Dead and Phish, but it is still heavily inspired by bluegrass musicians like Tony Rice.
While Tom Grant’s expressive banjo playing and Andrew Cook’s classically trained fiddling make for traditional bluegrass instrumentation, T’ai Welch’s rock drumming style counters the folksy feel of the band.
Another juxtaposition lies in the songwriting. Grant’s mercurial and otherworldly lyricism contrasts with singer Mike Lagasse’s traditional bluegrass writing, which makes Wild Shiners sound like two different bands, Turk said.
For instance, in “Walls and Walls Apart,” Grant sings, “Where is what we knew and called our love? Is it still inside for us to find, with the dove? And leave behind these worlds that never flew.”
Turk said recording, performing and making money off music isn’t what folk is about. He believes having a shared vocabulary of songs within the community and playing in casual settings is the magic of folk music.
“One thing that makes it so special … is the informal communion of musicians,” he said. “What I mean by that is getting together and jamming.”
On Sunday, Turk will perform on the main stage with his other band Uncle Mosie, and he’ll be contra dancing — a type of dance that is square-dancing adjacent, Turk said — in the lawn, too.
Short Stack
Alternative country group Short Stack will take the stage just before Wild Shiners. Short Stack frontman Dylan Kadas, 23, said his group’s music isn’t exactly folk.
Though inspired by country musicians like The Kernal, Short Stack won’t have any acoustic guitars in its set. In fact, Kadas plays a Casiotone keyboard with “funky modulations,” which isn’t often found in other bands of the genre.
Kadas, a singer and songwriter originally from Austin, Texas, played solo in Gainesville prior to forming Short Stack in 2022. He got tired of playing alone, he said.
He conveys various emotions through the band’s songs, from happiness to depression, love to loss. “Chasm of Love,” an unreleased heartbreak tune, will be on the setlist, with lyrics like “Peering over the side, there’s a chasm of love, tunnels of light shoot me, back up above.”
Kadas said he puts great effort into lyric writing and feels the song structures push the words to the forefront.
“There's an older school approach to songwriting – with a lot of influence from old country in folk music – but with more modern, sonic vibes,” Kadas said of the band’s style.
Short Stack’s performance this weekend comes about a year after releasing its six-track debut EP, “Crawl.” The band also released two singles in August 2025.
(V)owls
Another band on the bill Saturday for the Gainesville Folk Festival is (V)owls, not to be confused with A, E, I, O and U.
The group began at the artsy Gainesville café Coffee Culture’s open mic night as a duo, Caitlyn Vinci and Tristan Harvey. Watching from the sidelines was Amy Lindroth, who would muster up the courage to join the pair, which eventually morphed into a five-piece.
In the past decade, the group has met nearly every Tuesday at 9 p.m. to practice, Lindroth said. As all members take turns singing and writing music for the band, they each bring their individual expression to the table (notably LBX, or Lunchbox, a member who freestyle raps in the middle of their songs).
Lindroth, the 32-year-old lead guitarist, described the band’s style as “swamp folk” and “heart music,” genres that are unique to Gainesville and lyrically driven, respectively.
“We are trying to inspire that sense of community with our listeners and a sense of home, so that our listeners feel like they're part of something greater,” she said.
Though the pandemic derailed its Southeast tour and parenthood took up some of its members’ time, the band hasn’t slowed down. Last year, it released a 17-track concept album compiling nearly every song (V)owls has written.
Lindroth said that even if the band weren’t to continue, the members would still have each other and help one another to keep their creative sparks lit. Just like her connection to her bandmates, she doesn’t want folk music to die.
“I think the folk tradition is so important in keeping a lot of these old songs and stories alive through sharing them around the campfire or sharing them with each other,” she said.
Contact Isabel Kraby at ikraby@alligator.org. Follow her on X @isabelgkraby.
Isabel is a general assignment reporter for The Avenue and is starting her first semester with The Alligator. She is a junior journalism student and transferred to UF from Daytona State College after her freshman year. When she's not writing for Ave, she loves going to concerts, crocheting and designing spreads for Rowdy Magazine.
