home vaudeville & circus shots
These early vaudeville and circus photos: feel like family snapshots -- just pictures of the kids, really -- but from a family of circus performers:
Barrel Full of Monkeys
aerialist #3
From 1890.
I think I'm doing this series of posts on images of trapeze artists/ tightrope walkers because the word "aerialist" is so cool.
aerialist #2
Aerialist wearing wings strapped to his shoulders and feet while suspended from a balloon
Between 1870 and 1900
aerialist
Aerial daredevils existed in the age of ballooning, as well as the age of powered flight. One assumes this woman was a circus performer who got swept up in the ballooning mania. The image itself has a surprisingly dreamlike quality, which is at odds with its inherent horror.
Egyptian Retreat on potato bug
"Egyptian Retreat" is another tune I got from Ellis' Thorough School for the Six or Seven- Stringed Banjo (PDF). In this recording I play the 1st banjo part on the Fairbanks potato-bug mandolin I just got and the 2nd banjo part on my parlor guitar.
Here's the sheet music for people who are inclined suchlike and accordingly:
My recording is hereby in the public domain. Do whatever you want with it.
vintage guitar strings
I came across a set of antique Gibson guitar strings.
There's no date on the box. Thinking about how to figure out the date, I don't ever remember Gibson strings at the guitar store since I started playing in the late 1970s. (Long time!) The graphics on the box suggest a time between 1935 and 1965. The text on the box says that they make strings for guitar, steel guitar, banjo, mandolin, ukulele, and electric bass. The newest of these instruments is electric bass, which didn't become popular until the 1950s.
So 1955-1965.
I posted these photos on Flickr:
They were a gift from the fine albeit curmudgeonly mandolinist Tom Marion. Thanks, Tom!
Fairbanks mandolin 1900
Bought from Bernunzio:
A. C. Fairbanks - Style 15. 1 at $375.00 ea. - $375.00
good, quality Neapolitan style instrument with 9 rosewood ribs, and colored purfling around the top. There are no cracks or repairs. The neck is straight and true. Set up with Dogal strings for a charming sound from the past. PRICE REDUCED....was $450 now on sale for only...
- ca. 1900
- Condition: VG
It's a highly playable instrument in good working order. So far it's been a little tough to learn how to deal with the roundback, which doesn't sit easily on your lap, but I'm getting more comfortable with it day by day.
This round back style of this mandolin predates the flat back style of bluegrass instruments. I hear the difference in tone as being more antique. The timbre has woody corners, like the nasal quack of a cigar box guitar, but prettier. The mood is carnival or amusement park. If you play bottleneck blues on it the sound is like wailing spirits.
photos from Saturday night
Photos by Bona Hong from the Saturday night gig for FORTH magazine at G2 gallery in Venice Beach:
photos from the artwalk gig
Playing the Artwalk in downtown LA was a pretty good time all right. The owner of the gallery I played in was a bitter guy who glared at the musicians, but the room was laid out well, there was a good flow (and ebb) of people, and it was fun to play my songs with pals instead of by myself.
Downtown is always a circus on Artwalk nights. I took photos and posted them on Flickr.
proposing to a centerfold
If I don't make Vorbis and Flac versions of some recording, I'll get complaints. But if I do make one I won't get listens.
My heart is with the Vorbis fans. My head says that the time and disk space is wasted. For now I'm still sticking with it, but it I might as well be proposing to a centerfold for all the good it does.
gallery shows 1/14 and 1/16.
Tomorrow night January 14 2010 during Artwalk I'll play a slack little gallery in downtown LA called The Exchange. Exact location 114 W 5th Street, Los Angeles 90013 (on 5th Street between Spring and Main). Time is more or less between 7:30-9:30. Probably two 30 min sets at 7:45 and 8:30, followed by a set by Dick & Jane. I'll have a trio with David Orser on standup bass and Scotty Boyd on mandolin. We'll be playing uptempo roadhouse rube jazz and jug sounds, more recent and raucous than the solo instrumentals I usually post on the web. This place is a nice room to hang around in, super laid back, good for chatting and whatnot.
On Saturday night January 16 I'll play a party for FORTH magazine at G2 gallery in Venice Beach. G2's address is 1503 Abbot Kinney. Set time is about 7pm, I think. The band will be Tom Marion on mandolin and David Orser again on bass. The crowd will be attractive and stylish, a decent wine will be forced upon attendees, and I imagine it'll be a groovy little deal. That's for the west siders among you.
Both shows free as a bird and free as in beer. And both times I'll spend the overwhelming majority of my time quaffing the wine and blabbing with whatever pals stop by. So stop by to quaff and blab.
photos from a couple gigs
Playing a school for disabled children up in north Hollywood:
The kids get up and mosh, bang on whatever in a semi-rhythm, and generally create pure bedlam. Great crowd. They put the cool indie kids at rock clubs to shame.
Playing at a nursing home in the valley:
The ladies at the nursing home flirt like mad. One was very grabby in a physical way. I felt like Tom Jones.
The day after I did this show I got an email from my aunt saying that my mom was very jazzed because some musician had come to play old timey music in her nursing home. Not the same nursing home that I played at. So it was a moment of instant karma, the good kind.
But let's agree to ignore the freaky Oedipal aspect of karma and my mom's flirty peers. Because that would be freaky.
bumper breakdown from Thorough School
"Juba Breakdown" is the first tune in Ellis' Thorough School for the Six or Seven- Stringed Banjo (PDF). It's a lot of fun to play.
Juba Breakdown (MP3) Juba Breakdown (Ogg Vorbis) Juba Breakdown (Ogg FLAC) Juba Breakdown (MP4 video)
This recording is 1:10 long. The tune would be a natural fit to connect segments in a larger piece like a radio play, so I have also clipped out shorter snippets to fit as needed:
Here's the sheet music for people who are inclined that way (I use the 1st banjo part):
I'm playing it in an anachronistic style, something along the lines of 1930s country, which it absolutely wasn't.
My recording is hereby in the public domain. Do whatever you want with it.
Dyin’ Crapshooter’s Blues
Blind Willie McTell -- Dying Crapshooter's Blues (MP3)
SJI sez:I recently received an email from an enthusiastic Porter Grainger fan. In fact, his first comment was to point out that "Dyin' Crapshooter's Blues" actually made it onto piano rolls! Readers of this blog - and of the book - will know that the composer of "Dyin' Crapshooter's Blues" was Porter Grainger. Grainger was one of those souls who disappeared almost completely from public consciousness, even though he left a significant mark on the music of the 1920s.
Versus --
Essay on Blind Willie McTell on Pseudopodium blog:
[Blind Willie] McTell himself said of his most strikingly original composition, "Dying Crapshooter's Blues" (1.9MB MP3): "I had to steal music from every which way you could get it to get it to fit." Although the criminal's mock testament has a history ranging from Villon to "Streets of Laredo" and "St. James Infirmary," McTell's three years of tinkering resulted in a structure part recitation, part theater -- a three-act pop opera complete with opening fanfare.
