While most of the western world watched a football game, my friend A and I trundled down to Hugh’s Room for a boys night out – The Banjo Special show, featuring Arnie Naiman, Chris Quinn, Chris Coole and Brian Taheny. The show featured a variety… Read More
I’ve found a couple more oil cans I like on ebay, so I guess I’m going to have to make a couple more banjos. It’s going to cost me more to ship these things to me than to pay for the cans themselves, but c’est… Read More
I thought everyone would be going to Hugh’s Room for the 13th Annual Banjo Special.
The Foxfire series of books was compiled from what was originally a magazine called Foxfire . A fellow named Eliot Wigginton started it with his 9th and 10th grade English classes in 1966 in the Appalachian Mountains of north Georgia at the consolidated Rabun County… Read More
I’ve been continuing to immerse myself in old time music, listening to about as many clawhammer banjo and fiddle tunes as I can. Here’s a Daily Dose of Little Liza Jane… Let’s start with The Black & Tan String Band and then move on to… Read More
I’ve had some requests to post a video here of me playing the oil can banjo. This is a bit of a problem for me. The first problem is that I’m a duffer. I’ve only been hammering away at this machine for a month. The… Read More
This afternoon, I drove up to Cookstown Ontario, about a 45 minute drive north of 27th Street to meet Dena Lee and visit her shop, the Story Gourd Workshop. I’ve wanted to do this for some time since I found out she was making gourd… Read More
There seems to be various old time tunes called Cold Frosty Morning or Frosty Morning or Frosty Morn or some variation. In Toronto this morning it was so cold my thoughts were freezing as they bubbled out of my brain. It was the kind of… Read More
My friend Barb, who among other things blogs as Bad Tempered Zombie, introduced me to the recording Flirting with Mermaids by Manitoba Hal. She did this in the best possible way – she mailed me the CD! Barb knows I like all kinds of roots… Read More
I happened on some bargain fishin’ line in my travels today, which I bought because I wanted to try it out as strings for the oil can banjo. Sure you can buy the fancy Nylgut synthetic strings that imitate the colour and feel and sound… Read More
27th Street 