By Kim Nowacki
Yakima Herald-Republic

This weekend’s Yakima Folklife Festival marks the one-year anniversary
of singer/songwriter Colin Spring ’s relationship with Yakima. He’s
been back several times since last year’s festival, has several sets
scheduled for this weekend, and will be back again next month for two
concerts.

Wild-haired and wickedly funny, Spring writes modern folk-rock music
that’s gritty, real and romantic, but also bright and humorous at times.
It’s poetic urban storytelling reminiscent of Dylan, Springsteen and
Steve Forbert.

“I always wanted to play punk-rock in the ’70s stylings,” says Spring
who cites John Prine, Warren Zevon, Jackson Browne, Social Distortion
and Suicidal Tendencies among his influences. “It’s always been my goal.”

His first album came out in 1998, the second during his “tortured
years” — “it’s kind of tough for me to listen to that album,” he says.

On the third, “Cancion de Pollo,” and his latest album, “How I Came to
Cry These Tears of Cool” — which features the drumming talents of
Ellensburg-bred Mark Pickerel plus a number of top-notch musicians —
Spring tells four-minute epics, elaborate stories you have to hear again
and again to truly understand the complexity of his songwriting.

“Sometimes when you say folk, people think you sing about chocolate and
cats,” he says with a smirk.

For Spring’s songs, he draws from fact and fiction, from his own life
and the stories of others heard four times removed.

He explains all this on the back cover of “Tears of Cool,” where he
lays bare his own turbulent past — as unbelievable as it is in parts.

He writes in tiny type of suburban hipster parents, broken homes,
Federales with machine guns, odd jobs, odder living arrangements, love and
loss, the results of circumstance and rolling with the punches.

When Spring, who now calls Portland home, makes his way back to town,
he’ll be accompanied by his band, the Post Modern Conveniences. Members
include Billy “Lonesome Dewey” Miller on upright bass and drums and
“What the Hell” Denell Fahy on accordion.