Happy Halloween

Well in the spirit of Halloween and all things spooky, I tried to think of the spookiest music I’ve ever heard.  I’m pretty sure the scariest stuff comes from somewhere in Asia (or possibly Alabama)… I’m thinking Balinese Monkey Chant or something like Peking Opera.  But my searches on the internet yielded nothing that really scared me.  So I have resorted to the quintessential “scary music” instrument: the theremin.  And what I’ve found is a quite the chilling performance by Thomas Grillo. Something about his hands and his face, together with the tux and the dramatic lighting, makes me wish there was some way to install this guy and his electric box on my front porch to scare all the kiddies away.  (So I can keep all the peanut butter cups to myself!)

New (old) Hammond Organ

Wonders never cease.  How have I made it this far in life without ever laying hands on one of these bad boys??  I was skeptical at first about having an instrument in the house that required (gasp!) electricity, but when I sat down at that estate sale to try it out, and found the F# diminished chord button, I was smitten.  Forty dollars later, I’m now the proud owner of a wonderful nineteen-fifty-something Hammond S-100 chord organ.  And it’s awesome.

I now feel like I could have the coolest Halloween house on the block AND audition for the Lookouts.  That’d be a sweet summer gig!  How is Chattanooga letting them get away with having no live organist anyway?

Billy in the Lowground

I’m thinking that one of the highest insults you can pay a banjoist is to ask “What was that tune?” when they stop playing, when all the while it was Soldier’s Joy.  That’s one of the first things I ever liked about the banjo,  how the melody gets cooked into a casserole of counter melodies, so even “Three Blind Mice” would sound fresh… But it’s been a while since I’ve spent a lot of time with a banjo player who does this trick so masterfully.  Seems like when Matt Evans plays, even the old tunes sound new again, like I’m hearing them for the first time.  So today’s magic tune was Billy in the Lowground.  I’m a goober for not recognizing it, but when Matt plays tunes in the key of C, I just assume it could be anything.  We played it beautifully inside the house, and then relocated to the great outdoors and tried to recreate the moment.  It’s just not the same when I actually know that I know the tune we’re playing.  But anyway, it’s a nice version all the same.  Perfect weather in Chattanooga today for the key of C.