November 30, 2012
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SULFLO has arrived…

The other day I mentioned that I was gathering parts to make an oil can banjo. Well, it arrived in today’s post….

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It comes with all kinds of great info on the sides. For instance:

IMPORTANT – Unless otherwise marked, this package contains SULFLO No. 1 for hand tool use. It should be applied with a brush or squirt can.  SULFLO No. 1 is made heavy so that it clings to the work and cuts down waste. “It eases the pull”

This stuff is manufactured especially for plumbers, steamfitters, electricians and mechanics generally. It even has a guarantee: We guarantee SULFLO to be satisfactory to you. Use our tests or your own, and it will prove better than any other cutting oil. Unless you are satisfied return the can and unused portion of contents to your dealer who will return your money.  On the other side, the can promotes other SULFLO products such as boiler water treatment, fuel oil treatment, boiler seal, soldering paste, pipe joint compound oil insoluble, penetrating oil and an all purpose product. This can is going to make a fine canjo, I just know it.

Tomorrow, I’ll take the cap off and see if there is any product residue. If so, I’ll have to figure out how to clean that out and dry it. I think there is a product available for drying up oils if absolutely necessary. Hopefully the short-scale 5-string banjo neck I bought will find its way to me sometime next week.

November 29, 2012
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Duncan & Brady

Back to our series on murder ballads. Duncan & Brady is also known as Been on the Job Too Long or Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. It’s all about the shooting of a policeman named Brady by a bartender named Duncan. This tune has been quite widely recorded as have many of the ballads featured here.

Let’s start with the Johnson Mountain Boys and some blistering hot bluegrass…

Now that was fine, very fine. Those boys not only play great, they’re good dressers too!

Dave Van Ronk knew how to extract everything a song had to give. This is almost unspeakably good.

Have you heard the Salford Sheiks? If not, it’s my great pleasure to unleash these boys on you…

And one more, again with a different feel….here’s the Lost Radio Rounders….

November 27, 2012
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So what else is new…?

The Argos won the 100th Grey Cup on Sunday. We watched it at a Cineplex movie theatre, a very workable and fun (and huge screen) venue for a sports event  For my American friends who don’t know what I’m talking about, the Grey Cup is the championship game in Canadian football. Canadian football is kind of like American football but the guys are smaller and the field is bigger and, oh yeah, there’s only 3 downs so there’s none of that grinding out a running game business that makes NFL football so boring technical. When I was a youngster I was a big CFL fan. I followed the Argos when Joe Theismann (he went on to play in that other league too, didn’t he?) handed off to Leon McQuay, who slipped and fumbled the championship away. Other favourite players were Sonny Wade in Montreal and George Reed in Regina and Tom Wilkinson in Edmonton. It looks like the Canadian league is enjoying a resurgence these days. I hope the excitement of the 100th Grey Cup season carries over to next year. It was lots of fun watching the hometown Boatmen win big, even though by the half it was pretty clear who was going to win.

I have a couple requests for the CFL mandarins. Get an anthem singer who can belt that puppy out the way it ought to be sung. I’ve had it with pop performers trying to turn an anthem into a pop tune. And did we have to have Justin Bieber and Carly Rae Jepson? Really? Bring back the high school marching bands, that’s what I say. I’m done with the glitz and the light shows and all that jazz. Leave all that for the NFL, thanks.

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Here in Toronto, the news has been all Rob Ford all the time. I guess it isn’t every day your mayor is forced out of office for conflict of interest. It’s pretty easy to pile on Mr. Ford at this time, but I’m going to refrain from doing that here. All I really have to say about the whole sad business is that Toronto municipal politics appears to be broken, divisive and unable to get on with basic tasks like building transit, and the situation seems to have become worse rather than better. I’d like to see some positive ideas and voices emerge from this mess that will revitalize City Hall.

I’m going to leave off tonight with The Count Basie Orchestra, featuring Mr. 5X5, the most fabulous Jimmy Rushing, singing After You’ve Gone…

November 27, 2012
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The Can

I bought a can. On eBay. I’m waiting for it to make its way across the border so my postman can deliver it to 27th St. It looks like this….

It’s a beauty, isn’t it? Sulfur that flows. I like the slogan – It eases the pull. Now I know you’re thinking, what on earth is he going to do with a Sulflo can? Good question. I’m blaming my brother the trout, Salvelinas Fontinalis for this. He pointed me some videos by  a fellow down in Maine named Richard Peek, known on YouTube as rpeek.

It’s a beautiful thing, isn’t it? Yes, it’s a gas can banjo. Here’s another of Mr. rpeek’s creations…

When I saw he was playing with a slide I was hooked. Slide canjo. Damn. Even worse, rpeek has videos on the YouTube machine explaining step by step how to make one of these puppies. Now I have to make me one. So I watched for a nice looking can and I watched for an old 5-string banjo neck, and now I’m waiting for them both to find me here on 27th Street.

I’ve never played a banjo of any sort in my life. I can squeeze out a few of the easy tunes on the button accordion, that’s it. I’m afraid of the banjo. But now I’m committed. I unleashed my PayPal account on the can and on the neck and I just know it’s going to be a beauty. Now I’m going to have to learn what all the bum-ditty is about. That is, assuming I can assemble the beast properly.

November 25, 2012
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East Texas Red

I think I may make the series of thematic music posts I’ve been making on the subject of murder ballads a weekly post rather than continue it daily. While only one reader has mentioned that I seem to be playing a lot of violent music, it is a little creepy hearing all those songs about murders day after day. However, that won’t start until after tonight’s post. Tonight I’m going to feature a Woody Guthrie tune called East Texas Red. It’s about a railroad bull named East Texas Red, the meanest bull around if you want the truth. In the song, sees the cook fire of a couple hobos on the hunt for work and he shows up and kicks over their stew pot so they have nothing to eat. The hobos tell Red he’d better get his business straight because he’ll be riding that little black train one year from that day. What is this little black train? It’s not good news, I can tell you that…

A year goes buy and those hobos find some work but they take the trouble to head back to the spot where East Texas Red dumped their stew pot. They light their cook fire and start cooking their stew and they and wait for Red to show up. He does and you can guess the rest. Red was arrogant and he didn’t get his business straight, but he had no time to plead his case. I guess the message is that if you are mean and nasty one day you’ll be mean and nasty to the wrong guys and you’ll pay for your bad behavior in a really big way.

Here are two versions of East Texas Red, the first by dixiesguitar and the second by heyisis

Attentive readers may have noticed occasional comments on this blog by somebody who goes by the name of East Texas Red. Let me just say that my friend East Texas Red is not the meanest bull around, unlike the guy in the song.

November 24, 2012
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El Paso

Let’s continue with another Daily Dose of Murder Ballads this evening by heading down to border country. Here’s Marty Robbins singing his career-defining tune El Paso.

Robbins wrote this tune and first recorded it for his Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs album of 1959. By 1960, it topped both the country and pop charts. In 1966, Robbins recorded a sequel to El Paso called Feleena.

If you’re interested in hearing another nice version of El Paso, check out Tom Russell’s version on Indians Cowboys Horses Dogs, an all around great record.

November 23, 2012
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Frankie and Johnny AKA Frankie and Albert

I know you know this one. Frankie is a woman – she caught her Johnny, or is it her Albert, with another woman and she shot him down. Like many murder ballads, this one may have origins in an actual murder. The song has been around for some time, and it has been recorded, if we are to believe Wikipedia, at least 256 times. I will hold back and only offer up a few choice versions.

Let’s start with a very young Johnny Cash

Big Bill Broonzy

The Omer Simion Trio did it up with style…no singing necessary. We know the story.

We need a banjo version. I’m sending this one, by David Hurt, out to Salvelinas

Let’s go back to the Harry Smith Anthology and hear Mississippi John Hurt once again