FOLKIES TO HURL BANJOS INTO GOWANUS CANAL AT BROOKLYN FOLK FEST

APRIL 10 COMPETITION MERGES MUSIC, SPORTS, MURKY WATER

When the Brooklyn Folk Festival returns to St. Anne's Church in April, it'll include what's become one of the annual event's most popular traditions: the legendary banjo toss.

"The banjo toss is a world famous epic event, looked forward to by millions desperate for catharsis!," jokes festival founder and producer Eli Smith, who first launched the first Brooklyn Folk Festival in 2009. A longtime banjo player himself, Smith also performs with the Down Hill Strugglers, an old-time string band that will perform at the Brooklyn Folk Festival with special guest John Cohen.

Hailed by The Associated Press for giving "new meaning to the term heavy metal," the banjo toss takes place at the Gowanus Canal, a waterway that once served as a major transportation route for Brooklyn's factories, tanneries and mills. Taking place on Sunday, April 10th — the final afternoon of the three-day festival, most of which takes place at St. Anne's Church on Montague Street — the event brings dozens of competitors to the canal's shoreline in South Brooklyn, with all participants taking turns throwing a banjo into the murky water. The farthest toss wins, with last year's prize-winning throw measuring a whopping 85 feet. Winners take home a free banjo.

Here's a video recap of the 2015 festival that includes footage of the banjo toss.

The banjo toss also brings some needed attention to the Gowanus Canal, whose once-busy waters have become the source of pollution over the past half-century. In the years immediately following World War I, it was America's busiest commercial canal, with more than six million tons of cargo being shipped along its waters every year. With all that activity came a severe level of contamination, though. There isn't much recreation alongside the canal these days, making the banjo toss all the more unique.  Rubber gloves are provided for contestants.

This year's banjo toss will take place at 1:00 p.m. on Sunday, April 10th, with all competitors and onlookers encouraged to meet at the intersection of Smith and 9th Street before parading with a live banjo toss jug band band to the so-called "banjo tossing arena."

NEWPORT FOLK FESTIVAL-BOOKED AND "BEST OF WHAT'S NEXT" (PASTE MAGAZINE) BROOKLYN BAND SPIRIT FAMILY REUNION SETS JUNE 15 RELEASE FOR DEBUT ALBUM 'NO SEPARATION'

NEW YORKERS AND WASHINGTONIANS: SFR PLAYING IN YOUR TOWN IN MAY

Spirit Family Reunion – the six-piece Brooklyn band which is set to play at Newport Folk Festival and is "best of what's next" according to Paste Magazine – will release its debut full-length album 'No Separation' June 15.

All six members of Spirit Family Reunion sing and the harmonies, which are unplanned, are simply stunning, led by the soulful voices of guitarist Nick Panken, fiddler Mat Davidson, and banjo player Maggie Carson. The band's repertoire, chemistry, harmonies, and instrumentation came to fruition with a weekly residency at the Lovin' Cup Café in Williamsburg, playing without a PA. The band has since expanded its fanbase by opening for the late Levon Helm, The Alabama Shakes, and David Wax Museum; playing Gowanus and Bushwick parties; busking in Union Square; and touring extensively, at one point in a former Navy van, all without a booking agent.

Spirit Family Reunion makes high-energy original, contemporary American music with the spirit of an old-time church revival but with a universal, secular spirit. Singer Panken says, "I write simple songs that anyone could pick up on. I want to take the church feeling and make it more universal." Audience members dance, holler, stomp, shout, and chant along until the line between performer and fan is blurred and a community is created by the act of the concert.

In addition to their own songs, Spirit Family Reunion recorded a stunning version of "Green Green Rocky Road," featuring undeniably soulful vocals from Mat Davidson. The song comes from the repertoire of Dave Van Ronk (about whom the Coen Brothers are presently making a film); and "Give Me Wings," which they learned from an undated acetate that drummer Peter Pezzimenti found at a Salvation Army by the mysteriously named King Cunningham.

Other high points on the album include the banjo-led "I Want To Be Relieved," the song of gratitude "To All My Friends And Relations," and the hallelujah-inducing "I Am Following the Sound."

'No Separation' was recorded in Brooklyn and Richmond, VA with the help of bike shop mechanic and recording engineer Andrew Gerhan.

Spirit Family Reunion will perform in New York at Mercury Lounge May 12 and near Washington, D.C. at Jammin' Java May 21. Other tour dates are posted here.

Spirit Family Reunion is Carson (banjo and vocals), Davidson (fiddle and vocals), Panken (guitar and vocals), Pezzimenti (drums and vocals), Stephen Weinheimer (washboard, drums, and vocals), and Ken Woodward (upright bass and vocals).