March 11, 2019
comment 0

Session

I met up with Ted and Isabel today to play some Old Time music. We’ve been having these sessions regularly, and I am enjoying them so much. Ted and I had already been playing together for a while before Isabel joined us. We had a tune list and were working on improving our performance. Isabel knows many of the tunes Ted and I had been playing plus she’s introduced several tunes into the mix which are new to me.

I find these sessions to be exhilarating and so much fun! At the same time, they’re mentally exhausting for me as I’m trying to focus on listening to what the others are playing and adapt my playing on the fly. As well, with the tunes that are new to me, I’m trying to figure out how best to contribute as we’re playing them and I’m finding it’s taking a few sessions to fully start to feel one of these new tunes. Fortunately I feel comfortable enough to not worry too much about messing up during a session.

We’re starting to really cook on some of these tunes, such as Rachel (Texas Quickstep), Sandy Boys, Snake River Reel and Greasy Coat. We still have work to do on some of the others, but I feel they’re all coming along. I made up a list of tunes that either Ted and I or all three of us have played together so far and was surprised there were over 40 of them on the list. We play some of these tunes a lot more than others, of course, and I think for all three of us, some tunes are quickly becoming favourites.

Isabel introduced two tunes today – Old Bunch of Keys and Icy Mountain. I’m familiar with Old Bunch of Keys but had never tried to play it before. I don’t think I had even heard Icy Mountain previously. Homework. The first thing to do is get on YouTube and listen to various versions of each of these tunes, until I get those melodies stuck in my ever-so-tiny brain. I need to be able to hear a tune in my head to learn it. Sometimes in a session, when we flounder, we find a version of a tune we like and listen to it together, and that seems to really help.

I feel as if I’m becoming a better banjo player pretty quickly as a result of playing music with my new friends. I’m learning a bunch of new tunes more or less at once, and I’m also learning to listen and be sensitive to the other players. Although I’ve played with others some at banjo camps and festivals, more of my time has been as a front porch player, so this has been a fantastic opportunity for me.

March 9, 2019
comment 0

Sea Monkeys

Did you ever order anything from the back pages of a comic book? I once ordered up some sea monkeys and sure enough a packet of what appeared to be freeze-dried brine shrimp arrived in the post. I don’t recall the result being a bowlfull of happiness but even then I was managing my expectations.

March 8, 2019
comment 0

Squeeze Box Man – reinvented

Some regular visitors to this little oasis in the blog-swamp may have read my Lazy Allen Stories (now available in paperback and for Kindle on Amazon as Squeeze Box Man – The Lazy Allen Stories). I’ve been working with Jacob Yerex to reinvent these stories in a completely different format – as comic books.

Lazy, Staashu and the whole gang will soon be coming to life in a series of comic books

We’ve been doing a lot of planning, trying to figure out how to represent the characters and stories in this format. The plan for the first issue is to deal with the first 3 stories in the book, plus one brand new story as well as a shorter vignette, focusing on Lazy’s character.

Broadly speaking, Jacob is responsible for the artwork and I’m responsible for the narrative arc, dialog and new stories. The plan is to produce the premier issue as a comic book, with colour cover and black & white art inside.

This project came about after Jacob read the stories. He suggested they would really work well in graphic novel format. This made perfect sense to me. After all, polka accordion players really are superheros, aren’t they? I would say at least 2/3 of the necessary work has already been accomplished for issue number one. Stay tuned for more details.


March 8, 2019
comment 0

Kitchens are for cooking

Sometimes that’s all about the music. I was looking for a different version of Lady on the Green on YouTube when I stumbled into this delightful video. I love this tune. I learned to play it on banjo a couple years ago at one of Cathy Barton’s workshops at Midwest Banjo Camp and recently I’ve been playing it with my friends Ted (on guitar) and Isabel (on fiddle). The fiddlers on this video are Maddy Mullany and Ben Zorn.

March 7, 2019
comments 5

Clive D’Oliveira RIP

Clive D’Oliveira passed away early this morning, from cancer. He was just shy of his 64th birthday. Clive was a rigorous and thoughtful painter and an old friend we’ve known for many years. I think we met him back in the day because we had a mutual painter friend, John Howlin. Clive was part of a large group exhibition Sheila and I and Scott Childs worked on organizing back in 1995, called Strachan Project, and again in Big Show a decade later.

Crossword
Clive (left) with fellow artists Claude Breeze and Tim Noonan

Clive was a man of strong opinions and he wasn’t shy about telling you the straight goods as he saw them. I always enjoyed chit-chatting about art and the art world with him.

Archeton #6

I long admired Clive’s work and his approach to painting, in part because it was so different from my own. I liked that he worked in series, that he did careful studies for his larger paintings, and that he explored his ideas thoroughly before moving on.

Rest in peace my friend.

Hollow Cube – Blanco

If you’re interested in seeing more of Clive’s work, many of his paintings are represented on his website.

Filed under: RIP
March 6, 2019
comments 2

Bad Movie Night in Long Branch

The other night, with Tuffy P working late bringing home the bacon, I got a wee fire going in the woodstove and turned on the television. Channel 11 often has wonderfully entertaining bad movies playing and this night was no exception. I didn’t know until later this crazy little flick was called Transporter.

It had everything. I tuned in right in the midst of an unbelievable and insane, super-long car chase. It seems the protagonist was a really good driver, a pro whose occupation was delivering bad shit for a load of cash, no questions asked. Naturally he’s a former Special Forces guy (his branch of Special Forces did a lot of driving). Buddy was driving a black BMW and there were cars blowing up everywhere, pedestrians jumping out of the way, and plenty of gunfire. It was a carnival. I confess in real life I’ve recently witnessed guys in BMWs driving insanely on a number of occasions and watching the film, I thought, of course he drives a BMW. My apologies to all the careful and respectful BMW drivers out there.

The movie got better and better. One of the “packages” turned out to be human. Yes, there was an attractive babe-in-a-bag stuffed in his trunk. Now Buddy had a bunch of stupid rules he lived by and naturally, at just the right time he broke all his own rules. Otherwise there wouldn’t be a movie, right? So it was no surprise that the babe-in-a-bag, who was unhurt – her make-up wasn’t even smeared – wound up aggressively seducing our hero and making him breakfast too.

Unfortunately the bad guys tracked them down and fired guided missiles at Buddy’s spectacular house by the beach, blowing it to smithereens. Unfortunately for the bad guys they didn’t aim their missiles well enough to hit their targets. Fortunately, there was an escape hatch direct to the ocean, complete with an extra set of scuba gear ready and waiting, so our hero and the babe could dive to safety.

Somewhere deep down, Buddy had a heart of gold (you knew that, right?). The babe’s father was involved with a human smuggling ring and even though our hero had rules forbidding such a thing, he was compelled to get involved. Of course.

Another character added colour to the film – a heavy-smoking French police inspector, who knew that Buddy had been up to no good but more-or-less left him alone because he didn’t cause trouble. When lavish homes in his jurisdiction gtt blowed up good, though, he really had no choice but to arrest our hero. Fortunately he saw the light and let Buddy escape so he could shut down the human smuggling ring and release the victims.

This film had action, lots of car chases, explosions aplenty, bad acting, more than its fair share of stereotypes – oh and did I mention martial arts? Yes, Buddy was a top-rate martial arts expert who beat beat the pants off plenty of ne’er-do-wells. The movie sort of even had a plot, but that was kind of besides the point.

There are two kinds of really bad movies – the ones you just can’t watch, and the ones you just can’t seem to turn off, even though you should know better. I couldn’t turn this one off. Tuffy P came home during the film, saw what I was watching and decided to read the paper, with me in the background offering up a play-by-play.