Album Review – Throw Another Fife on the Fire

I’ve been waiting for an album like this for a long time. In the music industry they say that the best records have great performances of great material, with great engineering. If you nail those three things, you’ve got a winner. Throw Another Fife on the Fire, an album by a group called Confluence, checks off all these boxes masterfully.

I received my copy today, rushed home from work, and queued it up in my studio, where I can hear every glorious detail sparkling through the monitors.

The album is centered around the alluring fifing of Billy White, Kara Loyal, Emily Barone, and Troy Paolantonio. Anyone who has ever heard a fife knows how harsh an instrument it can be in the hands of the less experienced. Fortunatley the fifing on this album is not being performed by the less experienced. Instead, they are professionals in the truest sense, and the tonal quality of every track is lush and beautiful. Sometimes it is bright and happy, other times it is haunting and dark, but alway smooth, clean, and effortlessly performed. And for recording geeks like me, it is impeccably engineered.

The first track, which includes the classic Hey! Johnnie Cope Are You Waukin’ Yet?, might lead you to believe that this will be a traditional fife and drum album, something you might expect from the United States Army Old Guard Fife & Drum Corps. But I believe it is a well placed trap, as the performers are all present or past members of the illustrious aforementioned organization.

One measure into the fife duet of track two, performed by the very talented Billy White and Kara Loyal, will quickly have you rethinking what you thought this album was going to be. The track, entitled A Team, and many others, were written by Billy White. The duet, which starts off lively and in a minor key, has three movements, including a lovely melancholy second movement. The structure of the melodies, harmonies and movements immediately sets it apart from the traditional structures of fife music.

Track three takes another left turn down a moss covered cobble stone street leading you to a cozy pub, maybe in County Clare, where a guitar provides a heartbeat intro for a slow jig called Home Alone. The guitar, performed by Josh Dukes, who is one of the few Americans to win an All-Ireland championship on the instrument, compliments the jig with a perfectly understated rhythm. Josh’s talents appear throughout the album, including a swift reel where the tonal quality of his guitar is reminiscent of the great guitarist, John Doyal.

The space that is carved out in the first three tracks allows the musicians to explore a vast array of musical styles from Celtic, to Bluegrass, to Classical, and even a mixed meter Jazz oriented tune, that I admittedly wrote twenty-five years ago.  The performers deftly weave these styles together into a mesmerising tapestry that anyone would want to hang on their wall. Each track has its unique charm, and new musicians and new instruments are introduced throughout, all anchored by the fife. Have you heard a five string banjo or mandolin on a fife album before? You will on this album, and they’re performed by a seasoned master, Ryan Mullins. The color that his bluegrass-style playing brings to the album is undeniably gorgeous. His playing on The Eighteenth of December compliments the fife like a warm summer day.

Are there drums, you might be wondering? Yes, and they are brilliant. Dave Loyal and Mark Reilly have created beautiful tension, in a tune called Evil Olive, which loops back onto itself like a palindrome. Each track they are on is flawless, crisp, and well crafted.

In addition to Kara and Billy on the fifes, there is Emily Barone and Troy Paolantonio, who come to the fife through years of classical training the flute. Both are incredibly accomplished musicians with a long string of accolades, and both bring a sensibility to the fife that is essential for the complex material presented on this album. Their energy shines through on every duet, trio, and quartet they perform.

The album rounds out the way it began, with a nod to tradition. But this album also builds on the tradition of fifing and illustrates how a well placed guitar, banjo, or mandolin can bring something new to a musical form that is hundreds of years old. It is a grand addition to the catalog of fife and drum albums. It makes me happy, as good music should, and will get many rotations in my house.

You can find Throw Another Fife on the Fire on CD Baby.

Banish Misfortune

chapel
 
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.

 
chapel
 
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

Any Time At All

Morphing reels to jigs, and vice-versa, is a fun game that we sometimes play on Tuesday evenings at John Stone’s. Here is how it works. We take a tune, any tune, and begin playing it in a different time signature. If it is a reel (2/4), we might play it as a jig (6/8) or as a slip jig (9/8). My buddy Brian Hebert is sort of the king of the morphs. In fact, he has just released a whole CD of Beatles morphs. On his new album, Any Time At All, he took classics like She Loves You and turned it into a slip jig, Penny Lane is now a hornpipe, and Strawberry Fields has been rendered as a waltz.
 
Any Time At All
 
Here is what the Liverpool Echo – yes the very same Liverpool that gave us the Beatles – had to say about Brian’s new album:

A SURPRISINGLY gutsy album of instrumental Beatles songs done in a raw and edgy Celtic folk style. Crammed full of wild bodrans, duelling mandolins, and skirling Irish pipes, reminding of Planxty, de Danaan and The Chieftains, with a taste of Bert Jansche’s Pentangle, it’s a radical reinvention of the great Lennon and McCartney songs that brings a whole new dimension to something we thought we already knew everything there was to know about.

Tonight I, along with Unstachio and our friend Joey Sullivan, backed Brian and a couple of his Beatles morphs for a local Television station. It was a good bit of fun and was a great opportunity to see how a TV show is produced first hand. It was also the first time I have ever performed for a TV show. Not quite Ed Sullivan, but cool nonetheless.

You can find out more about Brian and his CD on his website. Also, you can order a copy of his CD from cdbaby.

To whet your appetite I’ve included a track from his CD, which you may recognized as Please Please Me as a Jig.
 
Please Please Me Jig by baconworks

Christmas Wish

I was looking through some old files and found this recording from a session that Unstachio and I did a few months back. It was the same session that South Wind/Out on the Ocean came from.

The tune was written by George and is called the Christmas Wish.
 
Christmas Wish
 
I recall, at the time, that we both thought we could do better and decided to move on. Again, with the rosey glasses of time, I listen to this now and feel pretty good about it. The one real problem with the recording is that there is an unfortunate hum/buzz. I’m not sure how that happened and I did my best to reduce its impact on the overall quality.

It wouldn’t surprise me if George and I come back to this one again at some point, but for now here ya go.
 
Christmas Wish by baconworks

Country Roads

Country Road
 
Most people, these days, will not admit to being big fans of John Denver. I’ll admit it. Always have been. Ever since I was a child and my parents would throw that scratchy vinyl onto our gargantuan record player … you know the kind, where the speakers, turn table and radio dials are all built into a big honkn’ piece of furniture. It was big enough to make a good television stand as well.
 
stero cabinet
 
John Denver songs remind me of the innocence and beauty of childhood. It reminds me of a peaceful time in life where family is your only focus and you can’t ever imagine that when you grow life will present you with challenges. What is not to like about that?

While many will not freely admit they like John Denver, I have proof that most people actually do. I recorded this impromptu version of Country Roads Saturday evening at a friend’s house along with thirty other friends. We played lots of tunes and sang lots of songs. Irish tunes, sea chanties, classic rock, English ballads, drinking songs, songs about ale, songs about dog fat, songs about war, songs about trombones … but John Denver’s Country Roads is always the song people sing the loudest at parties. Always.

While the recording quality is not great I hear something wonderful in it. I hear friends. I hear family. I hear joy. And it brings me right back to being a child, playing in my living room with my family, my father trying to find the notes on his Goya while the record played. And I can only assume, when I listen to this, that the other players and singers have similar unspoken memories and feelings. The music brings them back, like a country road, to a peaceful and happy place, and in that space and time, it unites us. It completely transcends pop music and becomes folk music, which is really what music was meant to be in the first place.
 
Country Roads by baconworks

The Long Trip Home

The Long Trip Home   You know the old line:

Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.

Well, I’m gonna try anyhow.
 
I am supper happy to announce that my buddy Josh Dukes just released his first album. No, I’m not going to do a track by track album review, I think you should listen for yourself. But I will tell you this, the first time I listened I thought, ‘hmmm, this makes me want to get better at playing the flute…damn him.’ The second time I listened I thought, ‘well now, listen to that sweet guitar playing, why didn’t I think of that slick chord progression…ggrrrrr’. Needless to say, I was afraid to listen to it a third time…but I couldn’t resist. And I’m happy to say that Josh is the man. He, along with a host of other very talented musicians have put together an album of really tasty traditional tunes. Plus he’s got all the instruments I like on this album; his Olwell, guitar, the bunka-bunka (that’s the tenor banjo for those not in-the-know), ye ole goat skins and a variety of other cool instruments.
 
But, I’m sure that you don’t need to hear me ramble on about what a great recording this is and why you should get your own copy. So, instead, take a listen for yourself. Josh was kind enough to let me post one of his tracks here. Then, immediately following, I want you to head over to CD Baby and make one yours so that you can hear the remaining fourteen tracks. Also, if you are local or plan to be mustering in the rain at Sudbury this weekend, I have a dozen or so copies on hand for the reasonable price of $15.

I am certain you will enjoy it.

 

The Home Ruler

Bodhran
 
My long time cohort Roger Hunnewell, A.K.A the Beave, was visiting this weekend. Roger and I started the band that we eventually would call Amadán, many years ago. I have not had much of an opportunity to hang out with Rogi lately. Needless to say, we reminisced over a few cigars and couple of frosty brews. At about three in the morning, after being sufficiently over-served, we decided to flip on the recording equipment. After trying out a few tunes and discovering that we should have started recording long before all the ales and cigars, we opted for a tune with an easier pace.

I don’t think this recording will win any awards, but it was fun. It is a tune called The Home Ruler written by Frank McCollum from Ballycastle, county Antrim. Roger played bodhran while I played the flute. I then did a quick overdub of some guitar parts. All complete before the sun came up, well, close anyhow.

Here comes Joshua Dukes

Joshua Dukes
 
One of my most talented and humble friends is about to release his first album. His name is Joshua Dukes and, man, let me tell you, this album is gonna rock. He occasionally sends me tracks as he is working on them and I occasionally quit playing music after listening to them.

Josh tells me the album will be ready in early July but you can email him now if you are interested in getting in line for a copy. I recommend it. His email address is joshuadukes@mac.com. He is also on facebook where you can hear a few of his newest tracks.

Josh had some help on the album from a variety of other talented musicians. Here is the run down:
Josh Dukes – Flute, Guitar, Bouzouki, Bodhran
Sean McComiskey – Accordion
Peter Brice -Accordion
Jim Eagan – Fiddle
Danny Noveck – Fiddle
Brendon Bell – Flute
Patrick Cavanagh – Banjo

Josh was kind enough to send along a finished track prior to the albums release so that I could share with you. This track is a real nice example of his great flute playing. Enjoy.

Evening with Eamon

Eamon Marshall
 
In December of 1999 there was a tragic accident that took the lives of six Worcester fireman. It is quite possible that the number might have been seven had Eamon Marshall, a fellow fireman, not been in the hospital for some planned surgery. Instead of being on the scene with his unit, he heard the crushing news as he was recuperating at his home. As any good firefighter, he regrets not being there to help his men and, as evidence, their pictures still hang on his refrigerator as a reminder of all that was lost.

I met Eamon a couple years ago, long after the fire. Selfishly, I am glad he had a medical issue that kept him from the heat of that day. I am glad because I have had the great pleasure of playing some wonderful music with him and, consequently, my life has been enriched.

Eamon and his brother Jimmie both started playing the button accordion when they were young boys. I can only imagine that the sibling rivalry to out-tune each other is one of the things that shaped Eamon into the fine craftsman of his instrument that he is. But, instead of taking my word for it you can judge for yourself.

A few evenings ago I went to Eamon’s home, set up a couple of microphones and the two of us just played. We did not worry too much about getting the perfect take. In fact, most things we played only once. And while there my be a few missed notes and disjointed endings, the overall feeling was quite nice.

It makes me wonder how many people around the world are sitting in their living room with friends making great music. Music that will never be heard. Fortunately, this is one evening that did not slip into the ether without being captured.

Below are a couple of highlights. The first recording is of a lovely waltz that I learned from Eamon. He tells me it is called Matthew’s Waltz.

The Maltese Cross is the first tune of the second set. It is a tune that Eamon wrote. The Maltese Cross is the insignia that Eamon’s unit wore on their uniforms. We could not remember the name of the second tune in the set. If anyone knows, please leave a comment and let me know.

If you want to hear Eamon play live he is often found at the sessions at John Stone’s in Ashland, MA on Tuesday evenings.

Collaborative Recording

In my recent post, LP – On the Mend, I talked about how the low cost of digital recording equipment brings high quality recordings into the hands of everyday musicians. An exciting idea, which I intentionally skimmed past in that post, is that the marriage of digital recording and the big pipes of the internet also makes collaborative recording ridiculously easy.

Imagine this hypothetical scenario. John Lennon is sitting at his white grand piano in his big white room at Tittenhurst. Has a brilliant thought and flips on the eight track recorder. “This song needs a string section”, he thinks to himself. He then takes the one-inch open-reel tape that he has just recorded on, packages it up in a big box and ships it off to New York. A week later, when it arrives, Phil Spector adds the string section. Phil then calls John on the phone and says, “Hey man, you gotta hop on the next plane to New York so you can hear the final results…”
 


 
Now image how things would be different if they could have emailed the recorded tracks back and forth. In fact, since we are no longer talking about physical tape, John could have emailed the recorded tracks to ten or a hundred different studios in virtually no time at all. I can just imagine the email.

Engineers around the world…
I just recorded the basic tracks for a song called ‘Imagine’. I have sent this track to a hundred recording studios with the hopes that each will bring in some session musicians and lay down a string section for me. Once your recording is complete, email it back to me and I will make a grand selection to be included on my next album. -John.

Our technology makes this sort of collaborative recording very easy. So easy, in fact, that no coordination between you and the studios of the world needs to take place at all. Simply post your music on the internet and wait for the emails to roll in with remixed versions of your tune.

Think I’m crazy? Well, I have proof. I posted an mp3 of On the Mend to baconworks.com on Monday. Less than a week later a friend sent me the following email:

…finally got my recording crap working again. So……I noodled around with your great tune. It’s got shades of Longnancy’s Jig to it. Anyway , hope you didn’t mind me Pluc’n with it.

:-{ Mustachio

That just made my week.

Below is Mustachio’s new version of On the Mend with a new bouzouki track mixed in. Hearing this makes me want to go change my guitar parts to give the bouzouki more room. Imagine all the possibilities!