Category: choons

stuff I hear

downtime

Stewart would like to apologise to both listeners of the automatic podcast for the two week downtime. We lost power, and the server’s network connection didn’t come back up properly. All is restored.

I wish I could have captured the sound of all the pudding cups on the plane popping in quick succession as we gained altitude today.

Bob Briehl, the autoharp man in Canada

After ferrying Catherine around for another exciting adventure in LibraryQuest, we took my autoharps to Appalachian Instruments in Oakville for a repair. I have half expecting Bob to declare at least one of them a junker, but apparently they’re more than salvageable. Indeed, the older Type A is apparently a rather nice 1950s wood-bar black felt Silvertone, and the Type B, despite the warped top, is a good little player except for a couple of weak springs. Bob’s busy repairing and generally refurbing them, and we should get them back in a week or two. Should we form an autoharp folk duo?

Bob’s the local luminary of the autoharp, and has many models and spares in stock. It’s best to leave a message on the store’s phone, as he’s not always there. He also teaches, and does house calls.

Appalachian Instruments
117 Westside Drive, Oakville ON L6K 1P2
171 Solingate Drive Oakville ON L6L 3S8
(905) 845-0638

Update: Bob advised of a change of address.

how does he do that?

Someone asked how the automatic podcast works. It’s a bit complex, and they probably will be sorry they asked.

I have all my music saved as MP3s on a server running Firefly Media Server. It stores all its information about tracks in a SQLite database, so I can very easily grab a random selection of tracks.

Since I know the name of the track and the artist from the Firefly database, I have a selection of script lines that I can feed to flite, a very simple speech synthesizer. Each of these spoken lines is stored as as wav file, and then each candidate MP3 is converted to wav, and the whole mess is joined together using SoX. SoX also created the nifty (well, I think so) intro and outro sweeps.

The huge wav file of the whole show is converted to MP3 using LAME and uploaded to my webhost with scp. All of this process is done by one Perl script – it also creates the web page, the RSS feed, and even logs the tracks on Last.fm.

Couldn’t be simpler.

blues minus the blues

All the “… Blues” tracks I have, minus the blues:

  • 12th street
  • 1st precinct
  • 30-20
  • 99 year
  • airplane
  • alcoholic
  • all
  • all in down and out
  • all night long
  • answering machine
  • apron string
  • arcade
  • arkansas hard luck
  • autogeddon
  • back door
  • bad shoes
  • bamalong
  • banker’s wife
  • bankhead
  • barber’s
  • barnyard
  • bath house
  • bay rum
  • beach boy
  • bedside
  • bert’s
  • big house
  • big mouth
  • big spit
  • billy goat
  • black and blue
  • black bottom
  • black cat
  • black crow
  • black dog
  • black-eyed
  • black hand
  • black sheep
  • blowing
  • bluebottle
  • blue coat
  • blue day
  • blue jeans
  • bob dylan
  • bob lee junior
  • bone dry
  • boogie woogie
  • bottle of
  • bourgeois
  • bread line
  • brownie’s
  • brown’s ferry
  • brown skin
  • bull frog
  • cairo
  • candy man
  • cannonball
  • carroll county
  • carter’s
  • catfish
  • c.c. & o
  • cell phone
  • checkout
  • chester
  • chicago
  • chile
  • chilly wind
  • choking
  • city
  • coal mine
  • coal tipple
  • cocaine
  • cold penitentiary
  • columbus stockade
  • coming into hard times
  • country
  • courting
  • crazy
  • crooked creek
  • cross road
  • cross tie
  • crow jane
  • cumberland
  • custard pie
  • custom-made woman
  • cut 1/2
  • dachau
  • dago
  • dark holler
  • davidson county
  • dead shrimp
  • death bell
  • deep elem
  • deep river
  • depot
  • diamond ring
  • dickson county
  • dirty guitar
  • dixie flyer
  • dom
  • don’t let your deal go down
  • do right daddy
  • down south
  • dreaming
  • dry town
  • dust bowl
  • dust pan
  • dust pneumonia
  • dying crapshooter’s
  • early mornin’
  • east virginia
  • ec
  • electro-shock
  • elk river
  • empty bottle
  • empty pocket
  • evening prayer
  • evil twin
  • expressman
  • farewell
  • farm girl
  • fine artiste
  • fisherman’s
  • fishin’
  • fishing
  • fixin’ to die
  • florida
  • folsom prison
  • football
  • framer’s
  • franklin
  • franklin county
  • freddy’s
  • freight train
  • fresno
  • frisco whistle
  • gambler’s
  • gambling
  • georgia brown
  • georgia wobble
  • ghost woman
  • ginseng
  • go easy
  • goin’ away
  • goin’ to leave you
  • got the drunken
  • got the farm land
  • grace kelly
  • gravel camp
  • guitar
  • hard time killing floor
  • haunted road
  • helena
  • henhouse
  • hesitation
  • highway
  • highway 51
  • hobo
  • hometown
  • honey babe
  • honky tonk
  • hot jelly roll
  • housefly
  • huckleberry
  • ice water
  • indian squaw
  • intersoular
  • jailhouse
  • jake bottle
  • jake leg
  • jake walk
  • james allen
  • james alley
  • jellyfish
  • jersey bull
  • john henry
  • johnson city
  • just like tom thumb’s
  • kansas city
  • kentucky
  • killin’
  • kindhearted woman
  • kozmic
  • kristin’s
  • kyle’s worried
  • labor
  • land locked
  • leake county
  • lee highway
  • left all alone again
  • lightnin’s
  • little
  • living here
  • logan county
  • lonely
  • lonesome
  • lonesome road
  • lonesome weary
  • long chain charlie
  • lost boy
  • lost train
  • louisburg
  • lovesick
  • low d
  • mad man
  • maggie walker
  • man trouble
  • married life
  • married man’s
  • married woman
  • match box
  • mean conductor
  • mean old ball and chain
  • mean talking
  • mehitabel’s
  • mexican
  • middlin’
  • milk cow
  • milwaukee
  • minglewood
  • mississippi boweavil
  • miss meal cramp
  • mistreated
  • mistreated mama
  • mitchell
  • mixed
  • moatsville
  • mobile county
  • morning
  • mourning
  • mr. e’s beautiful
  • muleskinner
  • multiple relationship
  • muscle shoals
  • my human gets me
  • narrow gauge
  • natural bridge
  • new ground
  • new minglewood
  • newport
  • new river
  • new talking
  • new white house
  • new york j-d
  • night woman
  • north country
  • no sleep
  • n.r.a.
  • number
  • old lonesome
  • old rock island
  • old weary
  • old woman
  • ontario
  • oozlin’ daddy
  • original stack o’lee
  • outlaw
  • paddlin’ madeline
  • pan american
  • parchman farm
  • patrick county
  • phonograph
  • poca river
  • police dog
  • police sergeant
  • pony
  • poor boy
  • poor girl’s
  • poor jane
  • port arthur
  • pot licker
  • pouring down
  • prison cell
  • puckett
  • quill
  • rabbit foot
  • radar
  • railroad
  • railroad hammer
  • ramblin’
  • red night gown
  • reno
  • restraining order
  • rheumatism
  • richmond
  • rip van winkle
  • rising river
  • rising sun
  • river
  • rock style
  • rollin’ dough
  • rolling log
  • roll my
  • rooster
  • rotten world
  • rowdy
  • rub alcohol
  • salt lake city
  • salty dog
  • san francisco bay
  • seattle rainy day
  • shaking wee
  • showers of rain
  • sisco harmonica
  • situation comedy
  • skool dinner
  • sobbin’ woman
  • sonny’s
  • spanish
  • spike driver
  • starvation farm
  • statesboro
  • station
  • steel rail
  • stockade
  • stove pipe
  • strawberry
  • string band
  • subterranean homesick
  • sugar
  • suits crybaby
  • sundown
  • sven
  • sweet woman
  • talking dust bowl
  • talking fishing
  • talking world war iii
  • talkin’ hard luck
  • talkin’ woody, bob, bruce & dan
  • tallahatchie river
  • teasin’ brown
  • tennessee river bottom
  • tequila hop
  • terraplane
  • testosterone
  • the france
  • three ball
  • tinker’s
  • tipple
  • toby woman
  • tokyo business
  • tombstone
  • tough luck
  • train
  • trane’s slo
  • travelin’
  • travelin’ railroad man
  • triangle
  • t&t
  • turtle
  • tuxedo
  • two-timing
  • unexplained
  • unknown
  • up country
  • upside down church
  • v.b.
  • violin
  • walking
  • wang wang harmonica
  • washington
  • washington talkin’
  • way down yonder
  • wayward girl
  • weeping willow
  • west carey street
  • whiskey & gin
  • white flag
  • white house
  • white-shoe
  • wilkes county
  • window pane
  • winnsboro cotton mill
  • working girl
  • workingman
  • worried
  • worried man
  • xmas prison
  • yodeling
  • yodeling fiddling
  • young girl

And yes, I excluded I Guess That’s Why They Call It The …

mandolin strata

mandolin parts and ideas at Big Muddy Mandolins

I spent a great couple of hours with Mike Dulak of Big Muddy Mandolins. Mike’s been making instruments for years, and is the largest industry in Rocheport. I caught him in the middle of moving his shop, so things were a little chaotic. The above pile of part-finished, discarded or otherwise parts summed up the state of the workshop as I saw it. And yes, that is a uke body.

Mike’s really refined his workflow. He’s built a nifty broach to cut all the string slots in a nut in one swipe. He has a fretting jig that cuts all the slots in one pass (hey, mandolin fretboards are quite short). But to make up for that, he shapes heel necks by hand using a rasp and sandpaper.

I’m really glad I visited, and makes my mandolin a little bit more special to know who made it, and see where it was made.

best of 2008

Best albums; and yeah, even in order of preference:

  1. Shall Noise Upon — Apollo Sunshine: came to this completely cold, having never even heard of them. Stylistically all over the place: whisky and hellfire on one track giving way to mellow dippiness that I think even McCa would blanch at. Ultimately, it’s Singing To The Earth (To Thank Her For You) that sold it to me.
  2. Funplex — The B-52’s: worth the wait from 1992. Fun dance music with gleefully smutty lyrics. Now my very favourite B-52’s album.
  3. Music Tapes for Clouds and Tornadoes — The Music Tapes: look, it’s got Freeing Song By Reindeer on it. If it doesn’t make you shed tears of joy while you caterwaul Ride the elves’ cloven-hooved horsey … along with Julian, there’s something wrong with you.
  4. Proof of Love — Old Man Luedecke: Chris Luedecke just gets better and better as a songwriter, and his self-deprecating stage persona as Old Man Luedecke is a hoot.
  5. Recapturing the Banjo — Otis Taylor: great banjo work from this bluesman.
  6. Everytime! —Sheesham & Lotus: the high-steppin’, cake-walkin’ fiddle, banjo and harmonica duo release their first official album, recorded in crackly faux-78 “Sepiatone”. Almost as much fun as seeing them live.
  7. Earth Sciences — Laura Barrett: Toronto’s queen of the kalimba‘s second EP wins out over her full length release (Victory Garden), in that the EP has Robot Ponies, and doesn’t have the annoying final track which appears to be all of the other tracks layered on top of one another.
  8. Luna — The Aliens: Piper-era Floyd mixed with the Beach Boys, all fed through a special Fife filter.
  9. Með Suð í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust — Sigur Rós: I still have no idea what they’re singing about, but I wish they’d keep doing it.
  10. Then We Were Older — Ideal Free Distribution: another slab of catchy psych-pop from Kentucky.

Near Miss: Holler and Stomp — Dressy Bessy: angular bubblegum pop, quite delightful.
Definitely Demented: Live! From CarnEGGy Hall — Orriel Smith: seriously, coloratura chicken impersonations. Beyond weird, and beyond brilliant.
It Came Out Last Year, So Now It’s All Car Ads: Oh, My Darling — Basia Bulat: despite that, it’s great. And she plays autoharp.

i was the sound man (kinda)

I went to hear Chris Coole yesterday at The Local, and got pressed into the not-very-arduous duty of looking after the levels. With only voice and instrument, it’s not that hard, and I only once managed to produce an ear-splitting blast of feedback. There was a slight ring if Chris leaned forward and his guitar started to feed back a couple of times.

I also ran my first soundboard-audience matrix recording rig, with the PMD620 recording off the board, and my old minidisc recording from my table. The Local’s not short of ambient noise, so it’s nice to control it. The board gives a clean but rather dead mono recording, while the audience mics pick up lots of colour (and dropped plates, door chimes, …)

I haven’t put the full matrix together yet, but tried it on one excerpted song. Once you know what you’re doing, aligning tracks in Audacity is pretty simple – just find a clear note or beat in each track, get the tracks roughly aligned with the Time Shift tool, then zoom in as close as you can to refine the match. I suppose I should have delayed the audience track by about 0.01s to mimic the distance from the stage, but that’s a bit nerdy. Limiting the audience to 25% of the final mix, I get a great warm sound, but one that’s unfortunately almost entirely monaural.

2008 contenders

I fear I may have to play by the “best of” rules that everyone else plays by this year. As I have had to rip and encode all of my albums this year, I can’t tell which older releases I bought this year. So here are the 2008 releases:

  • A Sound Legacy: 60 Years of Folkways Records and 20 Years of Smithsonian Folkways
  • Accelerate — R.E.M.
  • April — Sun Kil Moon
  • Bad Case of History — Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians
  • Cheap — Seasick Steve
  • Como Now: The Voices of Panola Co., Mississippi
  • Conor Oberst — Conor Oberst
  • Devotion — Beach House
  • Earth Sciences — Laura Barrett
  • Electronic Projects for Musicians — The Apples in Stereo
  • Everytime! — Sheesham and Lotus
  • Funplex — The B-52’s
  • Holler and Stomp — Dressy Bessy
  • In a Cave — Elf Power
  • Live at the Moonshine Café — Steve Payne with Al Lerman
  • Live! From CarnEGGy Hall — Orriel Smith
  • Luna — The Aliens
  • Með Suð í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust — Sigur Rós
  • Modern Guilt — Beck
  • Music Tapes for Clouds and Tornadoes — The Music Tapes
  • Proof of Love — Old Man Luedecke
  • Recapturing The Banjo — Otis Taylor
  • Sea Lion — The Ruby Suns
  • Shadow Cat — Robyn Hitchcock
  • Shall Noise Upon — Apollo Sunshine
  • Skeletal Lamping — Of Montreal
  • Soft Airplane — Chad Van Gaalen
  • Spectrum 14th century — Final Fantasy
  • That Lucky Old Sun — Brian Wilson
  • The Living and The Dead — Jolie Holland
  • The Singing Saw At Christmastime — Julian Koster
  • Then We Were Older — Ideal Free Distribution
  • Third — Portishead
  • Turn the Water on, Boy! — The Coal Porters
  • Victory Garden — Laura Barrett
  • Volume One — She & Him

Music Tapes Caroling … at our house!

Julian Koster played at our house last night as part of his Music Tapes Caroling tour. We had one other guest, Dan Farrar from Dunnville. It was a great night. Julian played some Music Tapes classics (he played Freeing Song by Reindeer, my favourite ‘Tapes song so far), while Badger Saw played some carols. A fun night.

Julian plays Freeing Saw by Reindeer, while Badger Saw and Rudolph the dog look on
Julian plays Freeing Saw by Reindeer, while Badger Saw and Rudolph the dog look on
Badger Saw sings to us, while Julian supports
Badger Saw sings to us, while Julian supports
My banjo now has Julian Koster power
My banjo now has Julian Koster power

Recording is here: Julian Koster – Music Tapes Caroling, our house – 1 Dec 2008:

  1. Introducing Badger Saw
  2. O Tannenbaum
  3. Introduction to a song flown by a little blind girl
  4. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
  5. Introducing the Emergency Banjo
  6. Takeshi & Elisha
  7. Introduction to Freeing Song by Reindeer
  8. Freeing Song by Reindeer
  9. well suited to a throat …
  10. Introduction to The Silly Old Man
  11. The Silly Old Man said “My Hat is a Cow!”
  12. Introduction to The First Noël
  13. The First Noël

aagh! brainscrub required!!

So I was idly picking away on the mandolin sort of playing scales when this song from my childhood starts playing itself. It’s the Uist Tramping Song, and has ultra-cheesy lyrics:

Come along, come along, let us foot it out together,
Come along, come along, be it fair or stormy weather,
With the hills of home before us and the purple of the heather,
Let us sing in happy chorus, come along, come along.

No, really. I always thought that footing it out would involve a lot of squelching, this being Scotland. Must’ve learnt it when I was 8 or so; our headmaster was a teuchter, so my head is filled with Gaelic-ish things still. One of the pieces I recently heard Rhiannon Giddens perform with the Carolina Chocolate Drops, so they’re not all bad.

Anyway, to share the brainmelt, here it is in all its awfulness:

Plus the score, if you care to: Uist Tramping Song [pdf].

cosmic coincidence

Three consecutive space songs in today’s helping of the automatic podcast:

  • The Lovely Universe — Circulatory System
  • See The Constellation — They Might Be Giants
  • Kelly, Watch the Stars! — Air

That’s the thing about randomness – we see patterns that are of no import.

mandolin madness

Lack of recent posts have been almost entirely due to this:

It’s a Big Muddy flat top mandolin, hand made in Missouri with a lovely Adirondack spruce top.

I really like the portability of the mandolin. I didn’t think I’d like the tiny scale (hey, its entire fretboard is only as long as 6 of my banjo frets), but it’s pretty comfortable. Way more so than a ukulele.