What I'm reading while uploading...

• Hardcore Troubadours - a bio of the Old Crow Medicine Show
• Catalogs of Data Visualization on Coding Horror
• Minorities become the majority in 10 percent of U.S. counties - which has the interesting quote

  In northern Virginia, Teresita Jacinto said she feels less welcome today than when she first arrived 30 years ago, when she was one of few Hispanics in the area.

  "Not only are we feeling less welcome, we are feeling threatened," said Jacinto, a teacher in Woodbridge, Virginia, about 20 miles southwest of Washington.
  ...
  "I think across the board all of us feel like we're not welcome," said Jacinto, who was born in the U.S. and volunteers for an advocacy group called Mexicans Without Borders.

  Perhaps it's because she's feeling unwelcome because she's advocating an unpopular cause?

• The Old Crow Medicine Show on AT & T Blueroom
• Green Fakers on Radar. The celebrity excuses are funny.
  

A good time was had by all

My first ever gig at Limerick Junction was a success. Everyone seemed to have a good time. The songs "I Miss Ronald Reagan" (written by Tommy Womack) and my song "Heroin and Cheetos" seemed to go over particularly well. My would-be guitar showcase of Bonaparte's retreat fell a bit flat. The room sounds noticeably different when full than when half full and that threw me off a bit as the set progressed.

On the whole a good night. The A-Sides rocked as usual. The photo was taken by my brother, who also recorded the show.

A good crowd

As usual, I did the open mic last night. Unusually, there was a good and enthusiastic crowd, probably the best I've ever had. I happened to be in fine voice last night too, which helped. A good time was had by all.

My funniest line from last night

Was when I said "I've seen the greatest minds of my generation destroyed by Dave Mathews", which got a good laugh from my fellow acoustic purists who were going over new material at the open mic last night.

Which I won by the way. I could just barely hear myself in the monitors, but evidently is sounded good in the crowd. I got my guitar showpiece, Bonaparte's Retreat (in Drop D tuning) mostly right, which is a rare thing.

The theme for the best of all country songs

I was looking up the history of my favorite fiddle tune, Bonaparte's Retreat (I play it in drop D), and came across this little Southern gem. To wit, three men

were taken prisoner by the Guard-no one knows why, but the area had been ravaged by scalawags and bushwackers, and the populace had suffered numerous raids of family farms by Union troops hunting provisions. The village of Waynesville had been burned two months earlier, and the citizenry was beleaguered and anxious. Cantrell writes: "The group traveled toward Cataloochee Valley and Henry Grooms, clutching his fiddle and bow, was asked by his captors to play a tune. Realizing he was performing for his own firing squad Grooms struck up Bonaparte's Retreat." When he finished the three men were lined up against an oak tree and shot, the bodies left where they feel. Henry's wife gathered the bodies and buried them in a single grove in Sutton Cemetery No. 1 in the Mount Sterling community, the plain headstone reading only "Murdered."

Now I just need to write the song.

Happy, Happy

I won the open Mic at Limerick Junction last night, it was a decent performance on my part. I did the standard material.

Three items of interest

• The UltraMarathon Man
• David Lee Roth Doing Bluegrass - sort of disturbing
• Not disturbing is Norman Blake in a rare YouTube appearance
  

For those scoring at home

I won the open mic last night. I flubbed the Carter family song but the flatpicking on Ruby Ridge went over very well.

Open Mic Night once again

I did the open mic night at Limerick for the first time in quite a while last night. The songs I played were Blackjack County Chain, Red Clay Halo, Will You Miss Me, and
Waitin' Around to Die. I played breaks on Blackjack County Chain and Will You Miss Me. It's hard to tell how it all sounded with the PA the way it is. I'm bringing my pre-amp next time.

The A-Sides are in the photo above.

Midweek rapid fire

• Real life Pac Man - hysterical
• One must not question the existence of Global Warming - This is in line with a trend I've been noticing in the media and it's associated hacks, which is the annoying "No serious [insert either scientist, economist, expert, industry insider, analyst] disputes the existence of [insert theory that one is pushing]" mantra.
  
• Proportionate responses - one of the more daft comments on the Israel -Hezbollah conflict was that Israel's response was disproportionate. Intentionally proportionate responses went out with the Greeks, and it's only by accident now when the response is proportionate. The whole notion of strategy is matching strength to weakness. That is most of Sun Tsu's Art of war.
• AcousticFriends.com - MySpace for the bluegrass/acoustic crowd. I'm listed on there as "Pale Rider".
• Townes van Zandt Lyrics - and some tab
• A guide to black and white photography
  

A circle of hell appears at Turner field

I came across this somehow

A Guinness World Record-Setting Event for Banjo Players!
...
We plan to bring together the most number of banjo players assembled at one location to play the same song at the same time.
...
All banjo players are welcome to attend. Only those who can demonstrate the ability to play the song Foggy Mountain Breakdown for 5 minutes will be counted toward the Guinness World Record. The tempo will be 120 beats per minute, and we'll play in the key of G.
...
We'll stand together on the field in small teams, according to the type of instrument played and the style of play.

That's a whole lot of banjo. I have all the usual bluegrass prejudices against the banjo I suppose.

Last night's open mic

It went very well. I didn't win, but everything was well received, and the playing and singing were good. For some reason the bass drops out in the monitors, but other than that, it was good fun. I did Magnolia Wind, Left Alone, Waitin' Round to Die, Red Clay Halo and Walkin' Cane.

Victory was mine (somehow)

I did the open mic last night at Limerick. I played a rather weak set of Walkin' Cane, my Tom Waits' song, the new one (Left Alone) and Raining this Morning. Somehow I won.

I'm going to be practicing the songs instead of the flatpicking all week now.

Friday rapid fire

• Reno 911 is popular in Iraq of all places. It seems they think it's real.
• A nice collection of flatpicking tablature, all in Tabledit format.
• Hounddog Radio seems cool.
• View System Uptime.
• A nice article on using curves and levels in Photoshop.
  

Recording attempts

Last night I attempted to record four flatpick tunes, and eventually to create a Steve French, Musician site on MySpace. I was unable to get the recording levels right on three of them (I blame the Samson digital pre-amp) and I can't seem to get the musician page set up right on MySpace.

In any case, one of them did turn out okay; the volume level is very low (just like me!) but it's not terrible.

I played Cooley's Reel, which is an old Irish fiddle tune in E-Minor. I do it a bit faster than it's normally done, but I think it turned out okay. I originally heard this song done by Steve Kaufman, but the actual music I got from BluegrassGuitar.com. I do both lead and rhythm on the song.

You can download it here (right click and choose "Save As" (Command-Click on the Mac)).

Thoughts?

UPDATE: Eric remixed it for me, which helped the volume levels a lot. The file is updated.

Another open mic night done

Due to the small number of entrants, I wound up doing six songs. They were "Walkin' Cane", It's Raining Here This Morning", "Red Clay Halo", "Ruby Ridge", "Blackjack County Chain" and "Tin Foil and Stone". Tin Foil and Stone was the new song for the week. I think I'm going to work in a Guy Clark song for next week.

Last night's open mic

It went well. I did Red Clay Halo, Walkin' Cane, Ruby Ridge, Blackjack County Chain, and a new (to me) Tom Waits song.

Tuesday rapid fire

• The story and original lyrics to Bonaparte's Retreat.
• A very good bio-article on Micky Spillaine.
• A new conspiracy site!
• You've got your pain ray in my sonic blaster!
  

My first live blog

Here I am at Jake's recording a jam. This will be the first real test of the technology. I'll keep you all posted.

The Toadpickers rise again!

Last night was the return of bluegrass to Jake's Roadhouse. The usual crowd was there, only now it would appear that we are the house band. Halloween is when the bluegrass is going to be advertised again.

Jake's was pretty much the same. The usual crowd was there. We played on the stage which is something we seldom did before. The low ceiling has been removed which makes sound a bit more lost than it was before. Also the entire place is much cleaner and better lit.

Rising from the ashes

I just got word that Bluegrass is returning to Jake's on Monday's starting tonight.

Testing the condenser mic

I just recorded the old warhorse "Whiskey Before Breakfast" with myself on the lead and rhythm. On the whole I'm liking the new mic. It seems to do a fine job. I need to educate myself a bit on the whole recording process, but I do like it.

USB mic review

For those looking for the review, let me say I'm not done experimenting with it (or the podcast) yet. I still need to record the music (which I'll be creating) which will be a flatpicked version of Saint Anne's Reel.

And, of course, religious podcasts are called "GodCasts".

The Appalachians

I just finished watching The Appalachians on PBS. On the whole, it was good, but had a few glaring flaws namely:

• Why was it funded by the Department of Veteran's Affairs and NASA?
• The failure to draw the conclusion that successful unionization was the cause of the increased wages for the coal miners, hence the increased mechanization (and safety) of the mines, and also the drop in the people needed to work the mines. The producers treated these as unrelated events.
• No music past the Carter Family, which is quite notable since there is much footage of Clarence Ashley and Doc Watson available.
  
• No mention of traits that carried over from Scotland and Ireland, namely a desire to be on the far edge of society (and I'm sure many others, such as whiskey making) Instead they concentrated just on the music as the only carryover. While important, it was hardly the whole thing.
  
• No mention of bluegrass music; they stop at string bands.
• They omit the details of the modification of the banjo over time. Originally it was a four sting instrument made from gourds. It evolved into a 5 string instrument made from cats, and now leather. They present it as coming into existence fully formed as a 5 stringed instrument. It's an interesting progression and on that stuck out by it's absense.
  
• And most importantly, they omit the importance of the cultural factors and the terrain in explaining the hardness of their lives. They wanted their independence at any cost, and living on land inhospitable to mankind was the price they paid.

Telluride

I have now been downloading the Telluride bluegrass festival (a legal download) for a day and a half now. It's a legal download off of BluegrassBox.com. I'm surprised that someone offered it in it's entirety this way.

Catch Up Day

As work has finally relented a tad, here are the links I've been meaning to post

• The Moving GMAP, a combination of Google Maps and GPS data, I need to get me one of them.
• The best curved corners code I've seen yet.
• James Lileks is a very good writer.
  

And here is a very grainy photo of the usual Jakes' bluegrass crew. From left to right is Jim (playing Beths's guitar, he usually plays dobro), Beth, and Walter on mandolin.

The Boo Hoo Ramblers

I saw the Boo Hoo Ramblers at Blind Willies' last night and they're still my favorite new (to me) band. A very tight trio of guitar (periodically banjo) bass and fiddle the Boo Hoo boys perform a well stuctured and very long show. I highly recommend seeing them.

On a side note, the singer/guitarist is Clark Ashton, who also has Commuter Art Gallery, A.K.A. the house with all the large iron statues in the front yard on North Druid Hills road.

I'm blown away

I searched for Gillian Welch on Google, and discovered CMT bluegrass radio. CMT generally features the dregs of soccer mom country music and is generally best ignored. However, I now see they have a bluegrass station and I'm utterly blown away. It's absolutely superb, both in audio quality and in selection.

Jimmy Martin RIP

He actually passed away several days again, but I'm finally getting around to writing about it. He was certainly one of the towering figures in bluegrass, both as a songwriter and as a showman.

This article from Gritz goes a long way for an interview. It does not go into what exactly was wrong with him in term of mental illness. I've heard it was definitely something serious; and judging from live recordings he always seemed very odd. It also touches on the many feuds he's had with people.

He does have several pieces of high praise for Earl Scruggs who is yet another towering figure in the genre who probably won't be in this world for much longer either.

Some information wants to be free

I discovered the sites in this order

• Roger McGuinn's Folk Den - Where Roger McGuinn keeps his favorite folk songs alive, with both lyrics, mp3s and tab.


• The Mudcat Cafe / Digital Tradition - a truly staggering selection of traditional music information and what not.


• Bluegrass Box - Seemingly all user contributed freely and legally available music, all in ftp form.


• The Steam Powered Preservation Society - Mostly the field recordings of Tut Taylor, who seemingly has been recording for 40 years.

We truly do live in a golden age in a lot of ways.