January 26, 2013
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Mosaics on Pinterest

dsc04896I decided to create a Pinterest board for the mosaics Tuffy P and I do. At this point we’ve made several of them, mostly birds, and I wanted to group some photos in one spot in case anybody wanted to see the work. Until we made the blue jay, we made these to decorate our house and garden. Then someone saw the birds at our house and wanted a blue jay so we had our first commission. We’re open to doing more birds for people and would even consider other custom mosaic work (it would be tremendous fun, for instance, to make an entire mosaic wall). Figuring out pricing is a bit of a challenge for us. Size is one thing but there is also level of complexity to consider. The owl above, for instance, was a very complex piece of work that took us a long time to complete.

As we do more, I’ll drop photos on to the mosaics board and anyone interested can see the work as a group over there.

January 25, 2013
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Happy Birthday Tuffy P!

Tuffy P with Memphis and Rossi

Tuffy P with Memphis and Rossi

To celebrate Tuffy’s birthday we enjoyed dinner at Longrain Pan Asian, a neighbourhood place here in Long Branch that we’ve visited a couple times. We like to support the local businesses and tonight the Lakeshore was pretty snowy and slippery so we didn’t want to be driving far in any case. When we arrived home, the Newfs were waiting at the door, looking forward to their last walk of the day. For those not from around here, Toronto recieved a pile of snow in a very short time this afternoon, the powdery beautify fluffy stuff. Beautiful.

January 23, 2013
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Cold Frosty Morning

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 morning when the sensible thing would have been to fire up the woodstove, curl up with a couple cats and sleep til noon.

Here are Truman Price and Adam Price

Here’s Michael Garvin fiddling in the snow

 

January 22, 2013
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Flirting with Mermaids

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 music, or what I like to call that folky-dolky music. That includes the blues, and regular readers of 27th Street know it also includes the ukulele.

Manitoba Hal is a really good uke player. He also happens to be a really good songwriter and performer too. Flirting with Mermaids is a well-balanced mix of original tunes and covers, recorded with clean, sparse arrangements that let the uke and vocals play off one another nicely.

I’ve only had a chance to listen through a couple times, but I’ll be giving Hal’s music some time. So far my favourite is a very bluesy arrangement of the Merle Travis tune, Sixteen Tons.  As I type this, I’m listening to Down in Pubnico – it’s got some accordion and fiddle happening along with the uke. I’m enjoying the way this one builds with additional vocals.

I like that Manitoba Hal has strayed a little off the beaten path and worked at finding a unique and personal style. I think there is plenty of room for some alternative instrumentation in a recording scene that loves guitars/bass/drums.

I did a search for Manitoba Hal on YouTube and sure enough there he is….

Thanks Barb for sending Flirting with the Mermaids my way. I’m really enjoying this!

January 22, 2013
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Delia’s Gone

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERADelia was a gamblin’ girl
She gambled all around.
Delia was a gamblin girl
She laid her money down.
All the friends I ever had are gone.

I’m not sure what I was thinking back in 1993 when I named that pudgy little kitten Delia after a very sad folk song, except that at the time I was listening quite a lot to Bob Dylan’s World Gone Wrong recording, which contained a fantastic version of the tune.

She was William’s pal for a few years and then after Spud joined the outfit, her and Spud were inseparable for a long time. She outlived poor Spud and became Queen. Stubborn. Cranky. Determined. She craved attention and affection but at the same time, affection was almost too much for her to bear. She never liked to be picked up. She hated going to the vets most of all.

Her best moment occurred close to 15 years ago. She killed a mouse and deposited it on my pillow, an inch from my eyes so when I awoke I would see it right away. I did, then I saw Delia watching, purring, a foot away.

She’s been fading over the past year, but Delia was no quitter. Today, finally, she could hardly stand and we took her to the vet and now she’s gone.

January 21, 2013
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Fishin’ Line

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 of old time gut banjo strings, but I was interested to read that some players make their own strings using fishin’ line. I was able to find the appropriate line diameters online no problem and even read some discussions about monofiliment vs fluorocarbon line for banjos.

I have 3 sizes of line, and I’m trying it on the first three strings. I’m leaving the 4th – the wound string – on the instrument. I tried it on the 5th string as well, but I like the steel string for the drone string. I can’t explain why. I just do. I had to make some minor adjustments to my bridge but that was no big deal.

I like the sound….mellower than steel strings with a nice plunkiness. On the can, volume is about the same as with steel strings. Drawbacks? Well, I prestretched the lengths of fishin’ line but still the strings drift flat fairly quickly. I read that is to be expected and it settles down after a couple days. I hope so. I like the idea of using fishin’ line for strings on a home-made instrument.

This is a trial. I’m going to use the fishin’ line for a while and decide what I like best. Maybe one day I’ll even try a set of Nylgut strings and see what they’re like. This is all valuable research just in case I decide to make another banjo down the road. I have enough fishin’ line for a truckload of them. Har.

January 20, 2013
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Barlow Knife

Continuing our exploration of old time banjo and fiddle music, let’s look at a song called Barlow Knife. A Barlow knife is a style of folding pocket knife, invented in the UK and popularized in North America in the 18th and 19th centuries. Tom Sawyer had a Barlow knife.

This tune is sometimes also called Cabin Creek.

Here’s a nice fiddle version by John Kirk

And a Clawhammer banjo version by Larry Toto

 

January 19, 2013
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Soup Saturday

Since late fall, most Saturdays have been Soup Saturdays around here. I’ve been making all kinds of different hearty and delicious soups. Today’s soup was green pea. Here’s how I made it.

I had a piece of bbq bacon from Starsky’s so I sliced it up and fried it up until it started to crisp, then chopped it into little pieces and set it aside.

I chopped up some leeks (normally I would use an onion for this but I had some nice leeks so I thought I’d use them), some bok choy that I found in the fridge (I thought I ought to use it before it became a science project), a big carrot and a red shepherd’s pepper and started them cooking with a little vegetable oil in a Dutch oven. I added in a little salt and just a little dried cumin as the veggies sauteed. Meanwhile, I soaked some dried mushrooms in a bowl of water (use whatever dried mushrooms you have for this, whatever you like).

After 10 minutes or so, I added some stock and a splash of beer (I was drinking a Steam Whistle at the time). I chopped up the mushrooms and tossed them into the pot. Then I rinsed about a cup and a half of dried green split peas (the yellow ones work just as well….choose your colour) and tossed them in. Oh, and I also added in a couple bay leaves. These can be removed later.

I brought the soup up to a simmer, put the lid on, left the heat on low and went to practice the oil can banjo for an hour. At that point I added in the bacon and as well, I chopped up a piece of kielbassa and tossed that in too. Ten more minutes and the soup was ready. The only thing to do was to adjust the seasoning and add in some fresh ground pepper.

Some people like to puree their pea soup or partially puree it (separate out a portion of the soup, puree it and add it back in to the rest), but I thought the texture was just right and I was enjoying the bits of orange from the carrots and red from the pepper so I kept it as is.

We served the pea soup with fresh bread (also great with skillet corn bread – next time). Delicious.

January 18, 2013
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A most interesting bit of television history

I was surfing around the YouTube machine, and this video popped up amidst the usual folky-ka-dolky music I like to listen to. It features Frank Zappa on the Steve Allen Show in 1963, and the gig was Frank playing the bicycle along with Steve Allen and the orchestra and some taped noise. It appears that Mr. Allen is not sure if he should take Mr Zappa in any way seriously at all, but he runs with it and the result is delightful.