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Sunday, March 16th, 2008
Sylvia's dance teacher invited us to a rehearsal of the show her troupe is working on currently. Wow! I am excited now about going to the performance. Lovely bodies in motion -- though we were so close to the dancers I had a bit of a hard time seeing the whole group of them as a unit -- I was just focusing in on individuals. Listening to the music of the first few dances, I was thinking "These are fantastic Dylan songs! How come I've never heard them? I gotta find out what album they're from." But turns out they are not by Dylan at all, but by Ray LaMontagne.
posted evening of March 16th, 2008: Respond
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My usual practice, when I'm in the gym with my iPod, is to listen to one of the Apostropher's Unfunkked tapes -- they get your blood moving nicely. Today I listened to the pod's shuffle function, which gave me mixed results as far as good workout music. 12 tracks, from getting on the machines to getting back to the locker room.
- Started out with the Hot Five's "Djangology", which turns out to be a fantastic song for running on the elliptical machine, one of the best ever I think. It's just so exuberant and fun. Source was disk 2 of the fantastic mix tape which Gertrude Crumlift Sturdley sent my way.
- Next was "Broke Down Engine", from The Definitive Blind Willie McTell. Not such a great tune for moving (although I think the Dylan version would be). Indeed I was about to make a categorical statement that Blues are no good for workout music, when
- "Candy Man" from Best of Mississippi John Hurt came on. This might not totally invalidate my thesis since it is more rag-time than Blues, but still. A funny performance -- this is recorded live at Oberlin College in 68 or so, Hurt was getting pretty old, and towards the end of the record he is missing a lot of lyrics. But you don't hold it against him -- he's good-natured about it and so is the audience. And his guitar playing is totally solid.
- "Satellite", from Robyn Hitchcock's 11/14/2004 performance at Maxwell's. I've been listening repeatedly to his cover of "Satellite of Love" and initially I thought he was playing that. A little slow, but still fun to move to.
- Between-song talk from the same concert -- a wonderful Happy Thanksgiving from Hitchcock -- he says "I hope this Thanksgiving you can find something to be thankful for -- it just has to be an internal thing," and more.
- More concert banter from Hitchcock -- this from a Jan. 2008 show in London. Cracking me up but not great for working out. Check this out:
Now, the thing about voices in your head, is, the first very important question: Is it your friend. George Bush, the president... of the, united, states... has a direct line to God. But we only have his word for it; God has said nothing at all. When your little pal in there gets chatty, just... don't give him your pin number.
- "For the Sake of Days Gone By", by America's Blue Yodeler, Jimmy Rodgers (though I was thinking at the time, it was by Ernie Tubb). Now this is more like it -- I'm moving fast again.
- A twofer, "Mule Skinner Blues" by Jimmy Rodgers.
- Stage banter again? From Hitchcock's 3/14/97 show at the Knitting Factory.
- Good music again -- I seem to be hitting about .500 -- "Skoodle Oodle Doo" by Big Bill Broonzy. I should make a "good music for working out" playlist which could then be shuffled freely.
- "Sugarfoot Stomp" by the Fletcher Henderson orchestra, which would definitely go on that playlist.
- "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest" by Dylan, which would probably not go on; but it was a very nice song for cooling down and walking back to the locker room. I wonder if Dylan was thinking about "The Walrus and the Carpenter" when he wrote this lyric, it fits very well.
posted evening of March 16th, 2008: Respond
➳ More posts about random tunes
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Saturday, March 15th, 2008
For a while my A string has been fraying and in need of replacement -- tonight I put a new string on. Well a couple of things about this: it took a frustratingly long time to get it on and wound properly, a job that should take less than a minute. So I'm frustrated about not being skillful at it. But more, I don't like how long it took me to get around to doing it -- I get intimidated by stuff like this in a really not useful way. Both of these things are also true of sharpening knives, and it drives me crazy that all the knives in my kitchen and most of the blades in my wood shop are not sharp the way they ought to be, and how intimidated I get at the thought of making them sharp. I'm not sure how to approach this.
posted evening of March 15th, 2008: Respond
➳ More posts about Fiddling
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Thursday, March 13th, 2008
Jerry and I practiced this evening for the first time in about a month, and it was productive. We're going to play the open mic at Tierney's next week; our set will be chosen from this list: - Weary Day
- The Louisville Burglar
- Bed on Your Floor
- K.C. Moan
- John Hardy was a Desperate Man
There are other songs we can play pretty well but those five are solid. If you're around Montclair next Thursday evening, come by and check us out. (The fiddle lessons that I have just, in the same past month as we have not practiced, started taking, seemed to really be paying off -- along with the increased amount of practicing I am doing on my own to support them: I was feeling much more confident with rhythms and starting to see some new ornamentations I could apply to vary the melodies and harmonies I play. Also, double stops! Few and hesitant to be sure, but palpable double stops.)
posted evening of March 13th, 2008: Respond
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Saturday, March 8th, 2008
Listening in the car to Robyn Hitchcock's April '96 concert in Bilbao, and Sylvia says "I want to hear the one about the street." Cool -- I fast-forwarded to "De Chirico Street". Listened for a minute and then Sylvia says, "There's too much stuff happening on that street." 
posted evening of March 8th, 2008: Respond
➳ More posts about Gig Notes
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So the first melody I came up with whilst riffing on "Mama Tried", was apparently this one -- not sure how exactly, it doesn't sound much like "Mama Tried" at all.
posted evening of March 8th, 2008: Respond
➳ More posts about Songs
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Friday, March 7th, 2008
This morning I was thinking about how to do a fiddle accompaniment to "Mama Tried", and I came up with a melody that was pretty distinct from that song. Neat! Thought it over for a while and then hummed it into my cell phone's recorder; so I would have it later on to write down. By the evening I had forgotten it, and listening to my humming wasn't a lot of help. But I tried repeating the process -- thinking about how I might accompany "Mama Tried" -- and came up with two other distinct melodies! This song is like a gold mine. Hoping I will be able eventually to come up with the tune from this morning, I liked it; the two from this evening are Laughing in the Back Yard and Biscuits on the Table.
posted evening of March 7th, 2008: Respond
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Monday, March third, 2008
Happy Birthday, Robyn!
posted afternoon of March third, 2008: Respond
➳ More posts about Birthdays
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Saturday, March first, 2008
A very nice musical find while we were on vacation: I stopped by a record dealer who had set up shop across the street from the Havenside mall in Charlotte -- his sign advertised REGGAE REGGAE REGGAE in big letters and I thought it might be nice to get a couple of Reggae records, of which I currently have almost none. But as I came to find out, the dealer is a West Virginian and he has a nice selection of bluegrass mixed in with the REGGAE REGGAE REGGAE. In particular I found and bought Kentucky Mountains by The Delmore Brothers -- I've been looking for a recording by them ever since I learned their "Weary Day" from John Miller's version. Well, the verdict -- after listening to the record, I like Miller's version better than the original (and actually, I like our version better than the original); but there are some excellent other songs on the record. "Trouble Ain't Nothin' but the Blues", "Freight Train Boogie", "You Can't Do Wrong and Get By" -- generally beautiful songs. I was interested to see that Dylan had said the Delmore Brothers "influenced every harmony I've ever tried to sing."
posted evening of March first, 2008: Respond
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Thursday, February 28th, 2008
Tonight at the open mic I met Dan Kinsley. I sure like his music -- go to his web site and you can download his album Antidepressant Blues for free! His band The Unpronounceable is playing tomorrow night at Here's to the Arts.
posted evening of February 28th, 2008: Respond
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