Belfast-based singer-songwriter Dan Beckman’s story reads a bit like Woody Guthrie or Bob Dylan. Smart, eloquent, socially aware kid from the sticks sets out across America to see how the other half lives. Draws from his experiences to write songs. Becomes iconic countercultural figure. And so on.

Now obviously, Beckman’s not exactly on the same level as those two, but the mythological elements remain the same. Beckman’s band, Uke of Spaces Corners, performs Saturday night at the New Vaudeville Revue at the American Legion Hall on High Street in Belfast, a variety show featuring music, comedy, theater and poetry.

Uke of Spaces Corners, which features Beckman and a revolving stable of musicians from Waldo County and beyond, plays a mix of folk,

punk and noisy experimentation that’s as challenging as it is scrappily endearing. It’s been called folk punk, freak folk, avant-folk, indie rock and lots more genres, but Beckman just prefers to call it music.

“I feel like a lot of my foundation is in punk. But it isn’t folk punk. We don’t try to make politics the most important part of it. I’m passionate about politics, but I don’t feel the need to sing about [it],” said Beckman. “The sounds and the tones are a major part of it. We like to make it sound good to us and to other people.”

Beckman grew up in a tiny town in southern Minnesota called Bricelyn, where he worked on corn and soybean farms and in his family’s hardware store, and struggled along in school. He was different. He was a bright kid who liked art and weird things. And as I can personally attest, being different in a small-town grade school is akin to wearing a T-shirt that says, “Please make my life miserable.”

Beckman found solace in music, through the guitar he got when he was 15, and the tapes he found at thrift stores.

“I really liked Pink Floyd, the Grateful Dead, Neil Young, the Rolling Stones. I really got into the Violent Femmes and the Velvet Underground, too. They inspired me to remove two of the strings from my guitar, so for four or five years I played with four strings. Six confused me,” said Beckman. “Then I got a Sonic Youth record and it was pretty much all over from there.”

Transferring to an arts high school in Minneapolis helped, too. He flourished there, playing in several local punk bands until he left school at age 20. Instead of going to college, though, Beckman chose a more unorthodox path.

“I started traveling. I hopped trains all over the country for maybe four years, and then would come back to Minneapolis and spend the winters there,” he recalled. “It was a way to learn about the world from the backside, and see how the economy works, and where the poor people are and the people outside of society. It was a conscious decision for me. I didn’t want to go to college and spend a bunch of money and pay it back.”

By the time he was done exploring the country, he was in his mid-20s. He lived in Asheville, N.C., where he played in bands and made his own instruments. He and his partner, Amy Moon, rafted down the Ohio River. They were living in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit, and the devastation they witnessed sparked the decision to move again. They set off on a journey across the U.S. to find a new home and settled on Maine, for the ocean and the four seasons. They specifically went to Belfast for the memories.

“A long time ago I played in Belfast, very randomly, at [now defunct] Logos Pub with my other band, Impractical Cockpit,” said Beckman. “It was one of the first shows we had played, and it was the first that I remember where we didn’t clear the whole audience. I thought, ‘Wow, this is a small town, and people came out and actually liked us.’ I always remembered that. Belfast is very unique.”

Beckman and Moon settled in a house in East Belfast with a big barn, where last summer they hosted musicians and artists from all over the country, and continued to make music as Uke of Space Corners. In case you didn’t know, there’s a small but thriving experimental folk scene in Waldo County. How cool is that?

After all, Belfast is a town where they have the New Vaudeville Revue, art galleries on every corner (Beckman works at Waterfall Arts), amazing bakeries, its own poet laureate, the best natural-foods store in eastern Maine, and noise rock shows in barns.

Sure, I’m biased, since I spent half my childhood there. But you can understand why it feels like a bit of a progressive utopia, and why it feels like home to Beckman.

“People work with each other. I feel like there’s a progressiveness to the place. Even the more conservative people still want to coexist with everyone else,” said Beckman. “Everyone I’ve met, whether they’ve been here for generations or came from away more recently, they seem to get along. I would not have expected that out of a small town. I love it here.”

Uke of Spaces Corners will play at the New Vaudeville Revue at 7 p.m. Saturday, March 15, at the American Legion Hall on High Street in Belfast. Tickets are $10 at the Fertile Mind Bookshop and at the door. For more on Uke of Spaces Corners, visit www.myspace.com/ukeoffphillips. Emily Burnham can be reached at eburnham@bangordailynews.net.