READIN

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010

🦋 Tuesday Random 10

(Hoping the posting of random playlists does not wear on my readers' patience...) Tonight's shuffle went very nicely indeed:

1. "Cryin' Holy Unto the Lord", The Charles River Valley Boys
2. "Dead Cats on the Line", Vassar Clements (This is originally by Tampa Red.)
3. Dialog of patter between Robyn and Grant Lee, about "the rubber thing". At the end of this interlude, Robyn counts in "1, 2, 3, 4--" to the next song they are going to play, and the playlist moves to
4. "The Dozen" by Big Bill Broonzy, in exactly the rhythm and tempo that Robyn had counted out. This is one of the most pleasant things that has happened to my ears all day.
5. "Señor Blues", Taj Mahal
6. "A Globe of Frogs" -- live performance, off of Give it to the Thoth Boys
7. "Beaver Slide Rag", Peg Leg Howell and his Gang
8. "The Truth", Kimberley Rew -- shades of "The Man With the Lightbulb Head"!
9. "Grooving on an Inner Plane"
10. "I'm Thinking Tonight of my Blue Eyes", the Nitty-Gritty Dirt Band with Mother Maybelle.

posted evening of June 15th, 2010: 4 responses
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Monday, June 14th, 2010

🦋 What does that song sound like?...

John and I had a great practice session last night, recorded a bunch of practice takes of tunes -- including a new take of "The Ballad of Hollis Brown", which I have put into the Hitchcock-heavy mix in place of the messy old take of that song. (And the mix is no longer "random"... oh well...)

Big news is, our band has a name now! We are Mountain Station, named after the train station near my house. (As John said, cool -- now all we need is a banjo player and a bass...) Here are some other cuts from the practice last night:

• Medley of "Windfall" and "California Stars" (Purely spur-of-the-moment -- I kept thinking "Windfall" sounded like some other song I knew... At first I was thinking "Broke-Down Palace"; turned out to be "California Stars".)
• "Bill Cheatham"
• "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues"

posted morning of June 14th, 2010: 2 responses
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Sunday, June 13th, 2010

🦋 Overneck

...Speaking of music everybody should listen to, check out this ridiculous overneck fingering from Ronnie Moipolai in Botswana:

posted afternoon of June 13th, 2010: Respond
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🦋 Redneck

The Apostropher's recent Holler mix tape includes Ray Wylie Hubbard's cover of "Choctaw Bingo" -- this is maybe the most affecting song on the tape, the strongest; it is a violent song, feels like getting punched in the gut.

Something else from Hubbard, here he is talking about "Up Against the Wall Redneck Mother":

↻...done

posted afternoon of June 13th, 2010: 4 responses
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Saturday, June 12th, 2010

🦋 Hitchcock-heavy random 10

Nice music for listening to while translating (if that verb is not going too far). The rare kind of random selection of tunes that makes you think it ought to be saved as a playlist and distributed as a mix tape.

1. "The Ballad of Hollis Brown" performed in practice by me and John. I think this would be a really good song to cut a recording of. (edit:) We recorded a better take of Hollis Brown, a medley with "Alabama Bound" -- I have included this in the mix.
2. (edit:) I am adding a track here, though it was not in the shuffle, Ray Wylie Hubbard's version of "Choctaw Bingo".
3. Weird and entertaining dialog between Robyn Hitchcock and Grant Lee Phillips as part of their Elixirs & Remedies record, about getting Grant a bloody drink.
4. A guest appearance by Robyn on Departure Lounge's Win them back (which is almost exactly "Heart of Gold").
5. "I'm only you" from Storefront Hitchcock. Ahhh....
6. "All around the watertank" by Old and in the Way (song that belongs on the fiddle mix)
7. "(A Man's Got to Know His Limitations,) Briggs" from Obliteration Pie
8. "Wang Wang Blues" by Fletcher Henderson's orchestra.
9. Kim Rew, "The Radio Played 'Good Vibrations'"
10. "I Miss You More" by local band 13 Scotland Rd., who are totally deserving of wider attention -- check out their web site.
11. Venus 3!!! playing "Red Locust Frenzy".

Here are the files: Hitchcock-heavy random 10. Artists represented:

• Me and John (who still need a band name) (Update: We have a name! We are Mountain Station.)
• Robyn Hitchcock in various configurations
• Old and In The Way
• Fletcher Henderson and his orchestra
• Kimberley Rew (who is almost a various configuration of Robyn Hitchcock in my limited understanding)
• 13 Scotland Rd.
• (added) Ray Wiley Hubbard.

Nice!

(Realizing that the greatness of this mix tape depends on the listener not minding that almost all of the songs are by Robyn Hitchcock -- to me this seems more like a selling point than a hit against it.)

Most of the Hitchcock music represented here can be had by purchasing Olé Tarantula and Storefront Hitchcock (either of which purchases is easily justifiable on the merits).

I think a better take of "Hollis Brown" should happen this afternoon -- God willing, it will replace the one that's currently in the mix. (Done!) Another change that needs to be made to the pure random-10-ness of this mix is, "Choctaw Bingo" should be inserted between the first and second tracks.

The combination of this mix and the fiddle mix is making me think shuffling recordings of songs I am playing in with songs I am listening to, could be a really productive way to go about making music...

↻...done

posted evening of June 12th, 2010: Respond

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

🦋 Dithyramb

My sorry condition of being an Argentine prevents me from engaging in the genre -- obligatory in Uruguay -- of dithyramb; my subject is after all a Uruguayan.

* And I have a sneaking hunch that Borges is not saying quite what I at first took him to be saying, either -- that the usage is exaggeration or mis-naming, that "dithyramb" is here just a manner of speaking.

posted evening of June 9th, 2010: Respond
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Saturday, June 5th, 2010

🦋 Music in the fiddle

A mix with some of my favorite fiddle music, and a couple of my own performances... link and notes below the fold.

posted evening of June 5th, 2010: 2 responses
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Thursday, June third, 2010

🦋 The Music in the Story

In the spring Jack Bondurant saw Bertha Minnix playing the mandolin for the first time at a corn shucking at the Mitchell place in Snow Creek. She held her head cocked low, eyes concentrating on the frets of her mandolin, made in the old teardrop style, the rounded bell of the instrument like a wooden scoop nestled against her narrow waist, the tight lace Dunkard bonnet on her crown and the long black dress to the wrist and ankle.... Jack watched Bertha Minnix's fingers ply the strings, the fret hand moving in quick jumps, her plucking a blur of twitching knuckle strokes, working through "Billy in the New Ground" while people slapped their hands in time....

Bertha Minnix set her mouth again, cradling the mandolin to her belly, picking out the chords for "Old Dan Tucker," and the younger men and women standing there swayed and sang along.

Get out'a th' way for old Dan Tucker
He's too late t' get his supper
Supper is over an' breakfast fry'n
Old Dan Tucker stand'n there cry'n
Washed his face in the fry'n pan
Combed his head on a wagon wheel
An' died with a toothache in his heel

Here are Clarke Buehling and the Skirtlifters performing "Old Dan Tucker" at the Beavers Bend Folk Festival last fall:

posted evening of June third, 2010: Respond
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Monday, May 31st, 2010

🦋 Monday random 10

This weekend I finally got around to moving all of my music files over to the (no longer) new computer... It's nice having all my music, or much of it, all in one place and easy to access. I'm working on a mix tape of songs with nice fiddle parts... In the mean time, here are ten consecutive songs in the shuffle...

1. "When You Awake" by Bob Dylan and The Band; and what's more the version from Before the Flood with its pretty fiddle part, which track is going right onto the mix tape!
2. "Lime House Blues" by Roy Smeck. Off a lovely mix tape from Petquality, "Pet's Guitar Picks".
3. "The Boys of Blue Hill" from one of my practice tapes. This was a surprise for me -- turns out since I'm storing my practice sessions under the "My Music" folder, Windows Media Player considers them part of its library. Cool!
4. "Let the Mermaids Flirt With Me" by Mississippi John Hurt.
5. "Lonesome Road Blues," by W. Lee O'Daniel and his Hillbilly Boys. The band name sort of says it all...
6. "Egyptian Cream" by Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians. Song I know vaguely but not too well, by the Egyptians!
7. "King Bolden's Song", by the Louis James String Band. More fodder for the fiddle mix tape...
8. "The Tennessee Stud," Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.
9. "Chinese Water Python," Robyn Hitchcock.
10. "Simple Twist of Fate" by Jeff Tweedy.

Links below the fold, as I find them...

• Here is Django's performance of "Lime House Blues"
• the Tweedy performance of "Simple Twist" comes from Carnival Saloon's mix tape
• The Louis James String Band tune is on the record of the Mobile Strugglers and the Louis James String Band, which I recommend highly.
• "Let the Mermaids Flirt With Me" by Mississippi John Hurt. I don't think I have heard this song even once, which surprises me. It is a fun tune. An amazing number of amateur covers of this song can be found searching the web; some of them are very well done.
• "Lonesome Road Blues" is available on Volume IV of Western Swing Chronicles.
• "Egyptian Cream" is on Gotta Let This Hen Out; but the version I was listening to is from Give it to the Thoth Boys.
• "Tennessee Stud" is a Johnny Cash song; this version is from Will the Circle Be Unbroken, which should be in everybody's music collection. Some other nice versions (including Doc Watson's, who plays guitar in the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band version) are on YouTube.
• a decent cover of "Chinese Water Python."

↻...done

posted morning of May 31st, 2010: 2 responses

🦋 The Long Weekend

Some of the nicest weather we've had all month, yesterday and today. John and I played music for a long time yesterday afternoon, sitting out in the sunny, mild backyard; then Andrea came over and we barbecued some chicken and hot dogs, and all in all it was just about the perfect spring/summer evening.

And the weekend continues! Happy Memorial Day, everyone -- Bob and Janis are coming over to jam for a while this afternoon.

posted morning of May 31st, 2010: Respond
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