A Fistful of Sugar aims to turn the Folk Festival into their playground

STARTING SIX: When A Fistful of Sugar plays the Folk Fest tomorrow, they’ll be 12-strong.
Lisa Schaffer

A Fistful of Sugar started out as a trio — just Michael Shax, his wife Lisa Watson and their friend Meaghan Kyle —  but that didn’t last long. By the time they left the Connie’s Ric Rac stage after playing their first official gig, Philly folk veteran the Rev. TJ McGlinchey emerged from the shadows to say he liked what he saw and wanted in. That was back in 2010. By the time A Fistful of Sugar opens the main stage at the Philadelphia Folk Festival tomorrow, they’ll be 12-strong, with six songwriters and a litany of instruments fleshing out their bluegrass-roots-rock-country-jug-kitchen-sink sound: fiddle, accordion, ukulele, horns — it’s a long list.

“We’ve spent the last few years trying to wrestle our different approaches to the writing and performance into a somewhat cohesive sound, and we’re excited at where this is going,” says Shax. Americana-loving, crate-digging music geeks will relish this band’s inventiveness. You’ll hear flashes of the Lovin’ Spoonful, Even Dozen Jug Band and Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks all over their full-length studio debut, Perspicacity, released earlier this year. A good example of this band’s eclecticism is “Lady Midas,” written by Will Mills, a classically trained fiddler who also plays with Irish punk band Clancy’s Pistol. The song kicks off with a vaguely Eastern European sound that calls to mind spooky ’30 classic cartoon “Mysterious Mose,” then breaks to a grander section that could be from Kurt Weill, then breaks back. Shax’s “Brother Brother,” meanwhile, is a years-in-the-making rambler that recollects a cross-country drive, polished and perfected from notes scribbled in the margins of his highway atlas. “Three hippie kids bound for Barstow/ Were hitchin’ for a ride …”

Obviously, there aren’t a lot of opportunities for a 12-piece band to show its stuff. “Nobody is strictly making it on AFoS,” says Shax, “Everybody has other projects going.” Among them are Watson, Kyle and Jess McDowell’s red-hot No Good Sister, whose impeccable vocal harmonies scored some buzz at last spring’s SXSW.

The band’s interests aren’t strictly musical, either, as they’re launching the Folk Fest’s first-ever scavenger hunt. “I was sitting around with [Watson and McDowell] when I tossed out the idea. The floodgates opened! We had three pages of ideas within minutes,” recalls Shax, an avid geocaching enthusiast. The hunt will have music fans trekking across the festival grounds, taking photos, solving riddles and collecting points — all while enjoying the music and exploring the area. (Meet the band in Dulcimer Grove, around 3:30 p.m. on Friday. If you get there late, pick up an instruction sheet from the information center.)

A Fistful of Sugar plays the Philadelphia Folk Festival, Main Stage, Fri., Aug. 15, 2:30 p.m. The Philadelphia Folk Festival runs Fri-Sun., Aug. 15-17, Old Poole Farm, Upper Salford Township, Pa., 215-247-1300, pfs.org.