Steve Folta has been a near silent staple in the Shrimper world for twenty five years. His first band Junket appeared on a Shrimper compilation before I met him. His other bands, Speed Bumps and The Uncalled For have also made appearances. But wait, that is not all. Besides having been a member of Falcon Eddy and in a myriad of other bands, Folta has engineered, or mixed a half dozen Refrigerator records (including the newest, due out in April), tracks by Franklin Bruno, records by Diskothi-Q and WCKR SPGT and more. The kid has been around.
What a joy it was when Folta was recording a song or so a week in the process of creating his new record “Time and a Half”. Two months would go by and I would have a bouquet of seven or eight songs by him that would root into my failing memory banks. They somehow found a place in the loose silt of the shore to dig in and grab a hold of something that wave after wave could not dislodge. We are talking hooks, blabbies and frentilemen, hooks and thrown stones, lookout! His one man band jams are the odd variety of garage rock & worm licks that stick with you. I imagine the two Folta’s practically KO’ing one another in the battle of aesthetics as the songs are recorded track by track, punch by uppercut leading to both Folta’s exiting the ring bloodied but victorious. Steve is a retiring fella, and only via a stumble when I was kicked did I just discover his completed album featuring songs I had fallen in love with over the last year. Six bucks for twenty songs. Biff! Bang! Pow! Gonna knock you out.