I was sitting on the porch on a beautiful summer day, exploring the Collings guitar that recently entered into my life when I stumbled upon a new melody. I asked my brown eyed boy to give this new melody a name, and without hesitation he said, ‘Bird Song’.
So, I took this…
…and played it into this…
…and ended up with this…
The members of Stoneybatter Band can often be found playing tunes at John Stone’s Public House in Ashland, MA. Here is half the band in the pub working out a new set of tunes late one evening. The first tune is one that I wrote called The Marlin Spike. The other two are tunes Jim dug up and I’d tell ya the name of ’em if I could remember ’em.
I’m gonna make a concerted effort to post at least one video a week of something musical. The only rule is that the video will be one that I took. I will not be reposting video’s of my new favorite band, The Avett Brothers, who have a very deep repertoire of some of the best songwriting I’ve heard in years, or versions of Phish’s brilliant Split Open and Melt, which some have called the “best sounding chaos you will ever hear”, or even gems from the Transatlantic Sessions. Nope, none of the above. Instead, I will post just videos of people I know that make great music…and maybe a few from me.
Here is the first from my buddy Mustachio. He is playing a tune that he recently wrote. He didn’t have a name for it…so, in the interest of getting this video posted, I named it for him. The video is from April 12th, 2011 at John Stone’s Public House in Ashland. He played this after everyone had pretty much gone home, which is always the way it works. Musicians know that the best stuff is always played when no one is around to hear it.
A few months back I was asked if I could put together a recording of our national anthem to be used in a theater production. Cool, I can do that. But then came the challenge. They wanted it to be loose…and dark. Hmmm, how do you make the Star Spangled Banner, which is really a tune called To Anacreon in Heaven, dark? And, if it is to be loose, maybe I should imbibe a few frosty ones before laying tracks? After all, To Anacreon in Heaven is often referred to as a drinking song. Anywho, I let this go until the last minute, and was forced to improvise during the recording. But, in the end, it is loose (that part wasn’t hard) and I guess it is a little dark. You be the judge.
Star Spangled Banner by baconworks
It is probably not fair for me to do a review of last nights show at John Stone’s. What I can say is that those of us that played had a lot of fun. Much of that fun was due to the fact that we had lots of friends and family that came out to listen. So, thank you! I hope we get to do it again!
I was able to record the entire night, except, sadly, for one set of tunes. The recording was done with my pair of KM184’s. So, naturally the charm of the crowd noise has been captured as well.
The set that I’ve included with this post is a nice representation of what the evening sounded like. The set includes a couple of well known session tunes called Lark in the Morning and The Cliff of Mohr. Sandwiched in between these two tunes Joey Sullivan leathers into a bodhran solo. One thing I like about this track is that, in typical session style, the instruments trickle in. First the guitar and tenor banjo. Then the fiddle. Then flute and bouzouki. Finally the uilleann pipes and the bodhran. It’s funny, tunes like these can make your Guinness taste twice as good.
My jeep is packed like a Beverly Hillbilly vehicle in preparation for the Mariners 50th Anniversary. The festivities start with the Mariner Muster this weekend, followed by a week of music with our friends from Switzerland, the Swiss Mariners, and then capped off by a performance at the Deep River Ancient Muster next weekend. It is possible that events from the week will get chronicled at www.themariners.org. Remember, I said possible, not probable.
I know I’ve posted the following track before, but it is a good example of the music we play when we get together with the Swiss. Fun, fun.
Tim Livernois, passed away on Monday. Tim was a member of our musical community, playing fife with the Kentish Guard and Irish flute at our late night sessions. Year after year he and I kicked off the session in the Wayside Inn on Saturday of the Sudbury Muster. He had a casual style of flute playing that I always enjoyed backing.
Tim was also instrumental in bringing color to the muster scene by helping to construct the elaborate Casbah for many years. The Casbah became a well know respite during the evenings festivities and often served as the final destination for many late night wanderers.
A few years ago Tim was diagnosed with Brain Cancer and had a tumor removed. After surgery he had to learn how to function again. He came to the Sudbury Session that year knowing that he couldn’t really play any longer. But he fought his way back and relearned how to play music and, astonishingly, was back in the swing a year later.
Farewell Tim, I’ll miss your color, your playing and your friendship.
With my new Neumann’s in hand, I headed on down the road to the Heineman Ecumenical and Cultural Center, otherwise known as the stone chapel at Framingham State College, for a casual evening of tunes and recording. It has been sort of a personal goal to record with as many of the Stone’s session players as possible. To date I have recorded with Sally the hammered dulcimer goddess, Eamon the accordion acrobat, and of course, my good friend Mustachio the bouzouki bad ass. To the list I wanted to add Mark, sometimes known the White Rabbit, though I don’t really know where that name came from…and am somewhat afraid to ask…but I digress. Anyhow, Mark has both an incredible voice and nice touch on the button accordion. In addition, Mark has the keys to the stone chapel, which we thought would lend itself nicely to some recording. In addition to Mark and I, we also convinced Mustachio to come along.
After a tasty dinner at a local Indian restaurant – musicians don’t play well on empty stomachs – we headed over to the chapel to set up the mics.
Like most chapels, there was lots of natural reverb, which sounds great when playing but adds additional challenges when recording. From a recording engineering perspective it is nice to have well isolated tracks that can be individual tweaked after the recording. Playing live in a reverberant room introduces a bleed of the other instruments onto each mic as well as potentially slathering the tracks in reverb.
We had no real plan and just played tunes that we thought would be fun to try. Sometimes we played them twice, sometimes we didn’t. We played all the instruments at once and there were no overdubs.
After spending a few days listening to the tracks, we decided to do an additional session. Out of this second session came the track included with this post called Banish Misfortune / Sliabh Russell.
In some cases I had two recorded versions to work with and it was possible to take the best bits from both versions and merge them together. That is the case with Banish Misfortune. The first eight measures are from our first take, while the remainder of the track was from our second take. I mixed the two because Mustachio and I were subtly more in sync on the pickup measures in the first take.
Lastly, for recording geeks only, here is an interesting mixing technique the I tried with the concertina:
1. I made two identical copies of the original concertina track.
2. I shifted the first copy 17 milliseconds to the right, thereby creating a delaying of 17 milliseconds.
3. I shifted the second copy 19 milliseconds to the right, creating a delay of 19 milliseconds.
4. I panned copy one hard left and panned copy two hard right.
5. I then brought the volume of both copies to zero.
6. I then slowly brought up the levels of both copies until the delays were barely noticeable.
This gave the concertina a slightly fuller feel and makes it sound like it is in a nice room. With enough mics and good mic placement I should have been able to get a similar effect naturally from the chapel. But I did not have extra mics to work with.
Anyhow, it was lots of fun and I think we did a nice job of capturing three friends just playing music together. Also, I’m looking forward to posting lots of other tracks from The Chapel Sessions including a killer version of Amazing Grace sung by the White Rabbit.
Banish Misfortune / Sliabh Russell by baconworks
Every year the Sudbury Militia and Sudbury Fife and Drum Corps marches from old Sudbury center to the North Bridge in Concord on April 19th. This is not a parade, it is a ten mile march starting in the wee hours of the morning. Why April 19th? Because in 1775 in the morning of April 19th the colonist “made the first forcible resistance to British aggression.” What followed was America’s war for Independence.
Here are a few shots from the march, as well as an mp3 of some of the music that was heard along the way.
Hanover / Harem Scarem by baconworks
Sometimes music takes a long time to develop. Often, in spite of all our efforts to make something creative happen on demand, it just takes years for ideas unfold. That is very much the case with this song that I refer to as William Hollander.
Somewhere close to five years ago I was playing a seisiún at The Skellig in Waltham where I heard an Irishman named Tony sing a song. An amazing song. For ten minutes he sang for the Skellig patrons, entirely acapella. His voice strained as he reached for notes describing his childhood, his loving parents, becoming bound to a butcher, a merchant sailor, a slave trader, a pirate, a condemned outlaw denouncing piracy and whiskey. It was a sprawling song that wove a tapestry of imagery, some beautiful, some appalling. I was stunned.
I had to have this song. After buying him a pint or two I asked him to repeat the melody for me while I scratched the notes onto the back of a napkin. He kindly agreed to email me the lyrics the following day, which he did.
The moment I picked up a guitar to try the melody I knew what to play. That part unfolded quickly. But the lyrics were another story. Tony’s version had thirteen verses and some renditions have up to nineteen verses. Far too many for me to a) remember and b) be able to retain anyone’s attention. I had learned this lesson from another well known song that I sing called Arthur McBride, which has, depending on how you count them, eight to sixteen verses. That is a long time to keep people interested.
The original song, often called The Flying Cloud, has a mysterious origin. The real Flying Cloud is a famous clipper merchant ship that made a miraculously speedy run in the 1850’s from New York, around the horn and to San Francisco in 81 days and 21 hours. Her speed record stood until 1989. The song, however, speaks of piracy and slave trade, which is not part of the Flying Clouds true history. It is, therefore assumed, that the song grew like any great tale. The story gets bigger and better as time passes, which may account for the vast ground the song tries to cover. So many themes in one song are rarely found in modern music, especially without a repeating chorus.
So, I was faced with a dilemma. How do I distill the song down to capture its essence and do so in a manner where I am capable of selling the performance? For years I have mulled over this question. I have tried dropping verses and rewriting verses but have never really been happy.
The version that I’ve recorded here is my first real demo of it with newly revised lyrics. Like other projects that I’ve posted on baconworks, I expect that this is going to take on a life of its own and that this version will not be the last. And, true to the form of folk music, will continue to evolve.
…I was going to post the above earlier today, but before I got a chance my fellow musical Junkie Luke broke into my office, stole the track and worked his bass magic. Take a listen to how the bass changes to reflect the story of each verse, brilliant.
Also, there are already plans in the works to add Mustchio’s killer bouzouki part, and Beave’s bodhran.
William Hollander by baconworks