Posted in dance, hammered dulcimer, traditional music, tagged Butch and Christie, Chattanooga, contradance on February 27, 2008 | No Comments »
Here’s Butch and me playing at the Chattanooga Area Contradance last weekend… Fun as ever. The first tune is “A Roof for the Rain” by our friend, Ken Kolodner. Then we take it into Bill Cheatham, which didn’t work out to be the slickest transition ever, but we didn’t end up with a [...]
Posted in captured sound, tagged calliope, carousel, Chattanooga, coolidge park on February 25, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Today was another perfect Sunday. Silvia is visiting from Slovakia, so we got to take her out on the town. First, brunch and bloody marys at the Northshore, and then a ride on the Coolidge Park carousel. What simple joys in life! I’ve been on the carousel many times now, but this was the first [...]
Posted in dance, hammered dulcimer, traditional music, tagged Butch and Christie, Chattanooga, contradance on February 21, 2008 | No Comments »
Well the time has finally come for Butch and I to play for the Chattanooga contradance. I’m excited about this because although we’ve played for contradances before, it’s always been with a group, and this time it’s just us as a duo. That means that we get to pull out all kinds of tunes we’ve [...]
Posted in hammered dulcimer, improvisation, traditional music, tagged arkansas traveler, dulcimer, old time, Rayna Gellert, victrola on February 20, 2008 | No Comments »
Another record we listened to at my Victrola party was Arkansas Traveler (as a fox trot)! It’s been one of my favorite old time tunes ever since I heard Rayna Gellert’s rendition. Most people think of Looney Toons or “Picking up my baby bumble bee” when they hear this tune, but I think [...]
Posted in captured sound, improvisation, voice, tagged huggin' a'chalkin, victrola on February 19, 2008 | 1 Comment »
It’s something I’ve only heard about in oral history interviews about the 1930s. But golly, with luck like mine, I landed myself at my very own Victrola party tonight, where I got to pick out all the records and listen to them on an authentic RCA Victrola. I spent an hour [...]
Posted in traditional music, voice, tagged Balkan camp, brass band, mendocino, california on February 18, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Another one from the archives. I spent a glorious week at Balkan Camp in Mendocino, up on the green green coast of Northern California during the summer of 2001, where my two best friends were my minidisc recorder and my gaida (Bulgarian bagpipe). I had joined the dishwashing crew in order to attend [...]
Posted in captured sound, tagged Chattanooga, Jefferson Heights, Valentine's Day on February 15, 2008 | No Comments »
Tonight was pretty cool. It wasn’t the ultimate best party I’ve ever been to at Terry Cannon’s place, but I do have to admit that it’s mighty cool to be able to walk approximately 56 yards to the hippest most happenin’ place in my neighborhood. I really really dig that there’s live music [...]
Posted in original music, voice, tagged round on February 12, 2008 | 1 Comment »
I wrote a round in the shower last week. Or at least I was pretty sure it was a round. Couldn’t be 100% sure until I tried it out with some friends, which I finally did last night at Carla’s house in Memphis. So this is me, Adrian, Carla, and Butch all giving it a [...]
Posted in hammered dulcimer, improvisation, tagged dulcimer, no strings attached on February 11, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Going a bit out of chronological order here, and stepping back to Saturday night, 2/9/2008. This was one of the hot numbers in the No Strings Attached set, where they invited up Guy George, Karen Mueller, and Butch Ross for a little “Lady Be Good.” That’s Wes Chappell on mandolin, Randy Marchany on [...]
Posted in original music, voice, tagged Adrian Kosky, Jefferson Heights, mountain dulcimer on February 11, 2008 | No Comments »
I’m feeling like a doofus tonight for forgetting to set up my recorder at our house concert in Memphis. It’s not that I necessarily wanted to capture me and Butch, but we did something very special at the end with our Australian friend, Adrian Kosky. He had played a few of his own songs at [...]
