October 1, 2010
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The Old Tyme Fiddler’s Dream

Let’s listen to a little bit of Canadian old time fiddle music. Here’s Mac Beattie with The Old Tyme Fiddler’s Dream, a fantastic song that showcases a number of Canadian fiddlers.

Next up is Don Messer and his Islanders playing one of my favourite fiddle tunes, The St. Anne’s Reel, featuring some great dancing.

Finally, just because I can, I’m going to feature a tune I’ve featured on this blog before, and I just might feature again. I could listen to this one 100 times in a row and not get bored. It’s Ward Allen playing Maple Sugar.

September 30, 2010
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Visiting another Planet

I’ve been spending some most enjoyable time lately on another planet (some of you are thinking we know, we know Mister Anchovy). It’s Planet Barberella. Barberella was kind enough to send a post out to me, and I sure appreciate that. Regulars to this blog will understand with just one visit to Planet Barberella why I  like it over there.  On the five fish anchovy rating scale, it gets a truck-load of delicious salties. Highly recommended.

September 30, 2010
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What was your first record?

Readers of my generation will know that when I ask the question, “what was your first record”, I’m talking about those funny looking discs they used to record music on. They were perfect. There was really no need to mess with them. When I was a boy, my father bought me an old record player from Ross’ junk store in the Junction and one record, a 78 (for the kids out there, 78 refers to the number rpms the turntable has to spin at to play the tune). I loved the anticipatory crackle before the music kicked in. My first record was Walking the Floor over You by Ernest Tubb. I have no idea why my father chose to give me that one, especially since he as a jazz hound, but I’ve had a sweet tooth for that old time country sound ever since.

Walking the Floor over You was recorded in 1941 and is the song most people associate with Ernest Tubb even today. Here is Mr. Tubb performing Walking the Floor over You.

I had that old 78 for a long time. I wish I still had it today.

Here’s my second favourite Ernest Tubb tune, Drivin Nails in my Coffin.

September 28, 2010
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Some Polish folk music

An oberek can be a formal dance or in the Polish-American tradition, a brass-driven social dance. It can also be a folk tune – and regular readers of this blog will know how charged up I get when I hear a little roots music.

Here’s a couple more samples of Polish folk music. Although my heritage is Polish, I don’t have much knowledge or information about this musical tradition at all.


More familiar to me is the sound of bands like The Dynatones. They may sing in Polish and play polkas and obereks, but oddly enough I think of that sound as American music. Here’s Scrubby and the Dynatones:

September 28, 2010
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When is the best time to….

I regularly look at what search terms people are using causing them to land on this little island in the sun. Lately, there have been many searches for Ontario mushrooms, best time to pick mushrooms, pictures of edible mushrooms Ontario and so on. I’ve been posting pictures of the mushrooms I’ve been collecting all summer but hardly anyone has been searching for them until recently.

There is a common belief that fall is the time for mushroom picking, and there is no doubt there are a lot of mushrooms around during the fall season. In some parts of North America, the fall brings much needed rains and the rains bring mushrooms. It’s a little different around here in Ontario. There are edible mushrooms available in the forests where I live throughout the spring summer and fall. The mix of what is available changes along the way.

Now is the time for the shaggy manes, the honey mushrooms (and related to them, the aborted entoloma), the Hypsizygus,  and if you know where to find them, the king bolete. (Those of you who know some good spots for king boletes should immediately create a detailed map and send it to me, for research purposes only, you understand.) Some people find parasol mushrooms. Salvelinas and I saw some people with a big haul of russulas. That one is a mystery to me because I have trouble identifying them to species. I’ve heard that some people use taste to decide which are the good ones, but I’m not knowledgeable enough to go down that road. I know there are other edible species around, but I haven’t learned to identify them yet. My goal is to learn a few more species each year, and one day I might find the fall holds more fungal treasures than I thought.

The lobster mushrooms are finishing and once we get a good frost, I think that will be the end of them. It’s been weeks since I’ve seen a chanterelle. I checked some spots that are usually good for hedgehogs the other day and there were none, so perhaps that season is past too. The summer boletes are gone, and in fact on Sunday, I don’t think I saw a single bolete of any variety when I was out in the woods.

There is also a hazard for the intrepid fall mushroom hound, and that is hunting season. Through the fall various animals are “in season” and fair game for hunters. Hunters make me nervous. Each year people are accidentally killed by hunters who mistake some movement in the woods for a turkey or a bear or a deer. One of my Newfoundland dogs, Ellie Mae, looks not unlike a bear as she ambles through the woods. Some people will say, hey Mister Anchovy, you’re giving hunters a bad rap here. They’re careful and responsible and would never shoot at anything they were not 100% sure of.  Perhaps it is true. I don’t want to take a chance.

Wear something bright in the woods
Uncle charged in hunting accident

Each year there are numerous reports of people being accidentally shot in the woods. Apparently quite a number of hunters die after falling from tree stands too but that’s another story.  Anyway, as we get into the fall, I start to worry about having my dogs in the woods. In fact, on Sunday I stopped at one forest and before I even let the dogs out of the car, I heard three shots in the woods, causing me to put my basket back in the car and high-tail it to a different forest.

I find plenty of mushrooms throughout the summer months and into September. I’ll be watching for shaggy manes, and I may make another couple trips into the woods without Memphis and Ellie Mae, but while mushroom season seems to ramping up for some people, soon I’ll be hanging up my baskets until spring.

September 27, 2010
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Ouch

Tuffy P and I signed up for a “core training” class over at the Assembly Hall. It isn’t the first time and it kind of reminds me of an old joke…the one about two guys from (insert place you want to insult) who go on a bargain cruise and once they’re on ship they’re chained down in steerage with an orr in front of them. There’s a guy with a whip and a guy with a chain and all the passengers are forced to row. At the end of their two week cruise, one guy says to the other guy, “I wonder, are we expected to tip the guy with the drum?” ….and the other guy says, “I don’t know, but I didn’t tip him last year……” ba dum bum.
Once again I’m the only guy in the class. It consists of an hour of slow and torturous exercises using weapons of mass destruction such as medicine balls, stability balls and BOSU balls. Sure, I feel fine now, but I know that in a day or so I’m going to have to treat the pain with stiff shots of very good Scotch. Last week I was sore for three days.  Ouch.
September 25, 2010
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Mr. 5X5

Today I’d like to feature Mr. 5X5, Little Jimmy Rushing. Mr. Rushing sang for the Basie band but I’m more familiar with some of his other work, because my father used to play an album produced by John Hammond called simply Mr. 5X5. He loved that album and played it a lot on the hi fi in the living room with the volume up high.

Here’s a Jimmy Rushing mix.