I’ve been messing about with a bit of fiction for some time, since approximately the dawn of the last ice age. One day I hope to finish it. The story is set in 1982 in Toronto. The narrator is Lazarus Allen, but we just call him Lazy. Lazy is a burnt out musician working in a bottling plant who becomes involved with a polka-punk band.
From time to time I plan to publish either an excerpt or a related story over on my Ello page. I just want to see how bits of it sit on a page. For those of you who visit that space, you can find me @eugeneknapik. I posted a story over there a few minutes ago. For now, I’m only sharing these infrequent excerpts on Ello.
If you need an Ello invitation, by the way, I have a few. I can fix you up until they’re gone.
So, I roll out of bet at around 6:30 to find Tuffy P re-organizing the junk drawer, cleaning the coffee-maker and waiting for me to haul my butt out of the sack to take the dogs out for their Sunday morning constitutional. The junk drawer is like a tardis, modest in size from the outside but infinite on the inside, and yes it does have time travel capability. She found this in the drawer….
When Don Harron created Charlie Farquharson, he created a character who, it seemed, was always around (at least as long as I can remember) giving us the straight goods on just about everything. We need the likes of Charlie around these parts. I read today that Don Harron has passed, age 90. Charlie’s alter ego Mr. Harron did a few things on his own too – even hosted Morningside for 5 years, but it is Charlie I think he will be remembered for most.
Here’s a short sample of Charlie on Canadian politics (from YouTube)
Those of you who dropped by the other night know I was foiled in my attempt to videotape more banjo practice when my trusty old point-and-shoot camera bit the dust. I was thinking today that I carry around a phone that takes pretty good pictures and video – if only I had some kind of device to hold it in place, I could shoot banjo practice videos on my phone for now.
I stopped into the Apple store after work and picked up an item that clamps onto my phone, sits like a tripod, sticks like a magnet and can grip by wrapping around almost anything. Back in business.
In last night’s post about my camera I posted a couple versions of Bonaparte’s March. I have a ways to go to really relax into this tune, but that will come with time and practice. My banjo is in sawmill tuning with a capo at the second fret, and the 5th string tuned to A (A-modal tuning). I like this tune because it is haunting and hypnotic and repetitive. Unlike a lot of Old Time tunes which are up-tempo and suitable for square dancing or flat-footing, this one is more like a relentless dirge.
I mentioned in the post the other night that I learned this tune from Cathy Barton Para at the Midwest Banjo Camp last June – in a class about banjo tunes from the Midwest.
I had every intention tonight of recording more banjo practice on video. Specifically I wanted to record myself playing a tune called Bonaparte’s March on clawhammer banjo. I’ve learned that recording myself is a great learning tool. It encourages me to listen carefully to how I actually played the tune rather than how I imagined I played it. I can see what I need to do to improve. If I managed a half-way listenable recording I planned to post it here on 27th Street.
I know, because I look at my stats from time to time, that is a dumb thing to do (it seems everytime I post banjo practice, visits tail right off…haha) but I was going to do it anyway. So I set up a tri-pod and attached my trusty low-end point and shoot digital camera, set it to record, and sat down to play. I no sooner started into the tune when the camera gave me a tadringggg kind of happy sound that meant whatever I was trying to do I wasn’t doing anymore. I got up to look at the camera. It was now set up to shoot panoramic stills. I reset and started again. Tadringggg. Tadringgg. Tadringgg. Tadringgg. No matter what I tried, tadringgg. I shut it off and turned it on. I fiddled with the settings. My camera refused to record more than 3 seconds of video. Was my playing that bad that even my camera refused to listen?
It seems more likely that this camera has had the biscuit. I can’t really complain though. We bought it for around $100 and it has reliably taken hundreds and hundreds of quality stills and videos. Maybe it will continue to take stills for a while. Who knows. I do know it won’t take any more video. I like shooting video, so at some point I’m going to have to do something about this, but it can wait for a while until I figure out the best solution. Does it make sense to simply splurge and buy a better quality compact point and shoot camera, or maybe I should get something specifically for video.
The tune I was going to record is one I learned at the Midwest Banjo Camp, taught by Cathy Barton Para. It is one of the tunes that Garry Harrison and the Indian Creek Delta Boys learned from Harvey “Pappy” Taylor in Southern Illinois. Although you are spared having to listen to me play the tune, I would like to share the some version of the tune with you none-the-less. Here are Nathan McAlister and Sours playing Bonaparte’s March. No banjo on this one, but it does have a concertina – nice touch.
Bonaparte’s March is one of the tunes banjo players refer to as “modal”. We play it in a special tuning called sawmill or mountain modal tuning. It’s a hypnotic and repetitive tune. It’s got an A part and a B part but both parts resolve the same way. This tune is usually played in A-modal. For me that means I tune to sawmill tuning and capo up to the second fret. My banjos have “railroad spikes” and I used one of those to tune the fifth (drone) string up from G to A as well.
There is another video performance of Bonaparte’s March from way back in 1984, featuring the Indian Creek Delta Boys. What a great historical record!
This version is close to the way I learned the tune at banjo camp, as I have no trouble playing along with this video.
I recorded some banjo practice the other night. Here’s me trying to play Cumberland Gap.
I recorded it with an inexpensive point and shoot digital camera with not quite enough light, so there are limitations (besides the obvious ones involving my playing)
27th Street 