amazing feat of no-PRO performance 3/15
The owner of the Bazaar Cafe has put a large sign on the wall, easily seen from the audience as the musicians perform. It reads, "ASCAP and BMI want my dough. If you play covers, out you go."
But not me! I'll be playing a set of 100% covers there on Monday night at 7pm, and Les is fine with it because all the sources are firmly in the public domain.
a troupe of aerialists
I love this shot. Check out the large size to really put yourself into the action.
It's from Jon Udell's trapeze photoset.
Horace Weston’s Electronic Jig
I know this is obsessive, given that I've already done five, but I have two new versions of Horace Weston's Old Time Jig, this time dated March 3, 2010. I thought I was done with this tune but I happened to play it at a slower tempo that was just right and magic happened.
The first of the two new versions is a straight acoustic recording from the mic on my laptop. The second is the same recording with an effect that gives it a electronic feeling. After all these straight acoustic recordings, it's interesting to hear it with heavy processing.
The untreated naturalistical acoustic version:
The unholy electronista version aka Horace Weston's Electronic Jig:
- Horace Weston's Electronic Jig.mp3
- Horace Weston's Electronic Jig, March 3 2010.ogv
- Horace Weston's Electronic Jig.flac
- Horace Weston's Electronic Jig.ogg
About the copyright on these recordings, I hereby put them in the public domain.
Horace Weston’s SF Jig
In this awesome gurdonark travelogue video using Horace Weston's Old Time Jig for the soundtrack, I especially like the canned Windows Movie Maker transitions from cut to cut. Very 2010.
Today I finished my meetings in time to catch the BART back to SFO and my hotel. I was able to hike on the San Francisco Bay trail in Burlingame. The trail featured American redhead and mallard ducks, coots, seagulls, gray clouds, passing planes, cute dogs being walked, and ice plant flowers, bumblebees, waves on rocks, and distant foggy hills.
I took a lot of pictures. I also took a lot of video with a special camera–a little Chinese 4 megapixel camera I got on eBay for 25 dollars [a sunplus], whose light sensor gives an ethereal effect that Mr. Holga, whomever he may be, would envy.
I brought the video to my room at the Crowne Plaza, downloaded Windows Movie Maker 2.6 into Windows 7 ( which, does not come with the best MS program). I’ve long been a huge fan of your jig, and
made it the soundtrack to “Impressions: San Francisco”. It’s a kind of lo-fi sense of my afternoon:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/46183897@N00/4369844116/
how tater bug mandolins got their name
The Potato Museum on potato beetles:
In the 1870s the presence of the beetle was so much a part of the Eastern scene that for a brief time ladies black and yellow-striped evening capes were the fashion. And a joke of the period had potato beetles studying mailing lists of seed companies to find out who had ordered seed potatoes.
homestyle mandolin sample pack
I have put together a sample pack of rootsy solo mandolin, a "matched set" to be used in different places in a long form podcast, radio show, or video. The set contains segments from a second or two up to about a minute, to be used for cues, hits, bumps, interstitials and voiceovers.
The chunks are in a variety of lengths - 2 seconds, 15 seconds, 30 seconds, and 45 seconds - to fit different functional requirements in a radio show or video. The longest segments are for a credit sequence or show opener. The 15 and 30 second segments are for voiceover ads. The 1-2 second bits are for marking the beginning or end of a story or scene.
I was thinking of the way the bass worked in Barney Miller. It was a key part of the theme song, and contributed little riffs at the beginning or end of a scene. Every one of these short bits here is a separate take with its own beginning, middle and end, not a clip from a larger work.
The instrument is my old Fairbanks mandolin. The feel is uptempo, excitable, peppy, perky, traditional, natural, organic, old time, americana. Time signature = 4/4, key = G blues .
This is an experiment, so I'd be grateful for feedback on what worked and what didn't. How is the sound quality? Are there lengths of cue that you needed that weren't here? I'm happy to do custom recordings to fill in the gaps. Just ask.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Sampling Plus 1.0 License. If you need a different license feel free to ask.
I have posted the whole set on Freesound and on Soundcloud, and for whenever the time comes that those go south, here they are on my own server:
00:18 (aiff): for a 15-second spot.
00:31 (aiff): for a 30-second spot.
00:31 (aiff): for a 30-second spot.
00:32 (aiff): for a 30-second spot.
00:45 (aiff): for a 45-second spot, for credits, or for a theme song.
00:37 (aiff): for a voiceover that isn't precisely timed.
00:05 (aiff): quick hit for opening or closing a segment.
00:04 (aiff): quick hit for opening or closing a segment.
00:04 (aiff): quick hit for opening or closing a segment.
00:03 (aiff): quick hit for opening or closing a segment.
00:04 (aiff): quick hit for opening or closing a segment.
Homestyle mandolin cue set by lucas_gonzeblues names
- Bat "The Humming Bird"
- Black Spider Dumplin'
- Wade (Monkey) Bolden
- Charles "Cow Cow" Davenport
- Albert "Tongue Tied" Allison
- Brother Hardup and Company
- Tye Tongue Hanley
- Mumbles
- Meat Head Johnson
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.
