announce

Stonybatter to Perform at Fiddlers Green Fri. 1/8

Stoneybatter, the band with the name that everyone loves to hate, is back at the Fiddler’s Green this Friday for another evening of Celtic music.
 
stoneybatter_sm
 
It will be our first performance at the Worcester pub with our complete lineup of musicians. Where else will you be able to hear the pipes, flute, fiddle, banjo, bouzouki, guitar and bodhrán all making noise at the same time?

Here’s a few other reasons why you should come along:

  1. Brian has a new sock muffling his banjo head. Rumor has it that the sock came from one of the Beatles.
  2. Joey ‘Scappy’ Sullivan triumphantly returns as our bodhránist after a scary motorcycle accident that broke his scapula
  3. Buchanan has a new mic that reportedly allows him to dance on tables.
  4. For those music theory geeks out there, Gleason will be featuring his Bb whistle.
  5. You’ll learn new words like Uilleann and Bouzouki to impress your scrabble friends with.

We hope you can make it for a couple of tasty pints, a burger or two, and some good music. The show starts at 8:30!

live music

Jam – The Jolly Beggarman

Jam
 
A couple weeks back I went to a party at my buddy John’s house. My practice over the last year or so has been to record as much live music as I can. Consequently, I recorded most of John’s party.

With this post I’ve included a track that I’ve found myself listening to over and over during the last two weeks. I’m just intrigued by it. So much, in fact, that I’ve since tried, unsuccessfully of course, to reproduce the spirit of the track in the more controlled setting of my home studio. I never planned on posting the original track here. But I’m finding myself compelled.

The musicians at the party were all taking a beer break. After returning with my beer, I sat down and started strumming. I think I was trying to remember the words to Sam’s Gone Away (you can hear me humming during the first few chords). But I quickly gave up on that idea and just started experimenting, trying to find something interesting. I guess the first thing I like is that there is no plan and, initially, it feels rather lazy. Just about then my buddy Roger returns with a full beer and sits down, picks up his bodhran and leathers into it. Things start to take shape. Then my buddy Mark returns with his beer. He picks up his tenor banjo.

I immediately recognize a problem. I’ve capo’ed up my guitar and I know that he will not be able to easily play in my position. So, if you listen closely, you will hear me offer a capo. Quickly realizing how absurd of an idea that is on several levels I, instead, slide my capo down between strums to a more favorable key. I’m actually pretty excited about this part…and still perfecting it.
 
Quickdraw Capo
 
Let me stray from my story for a moment to tell you about this wicked awesome capo, which I’ve been meaning to do for some time now. Another friend of mine saw my post about a video where a guy used this sliding capo. I thought, wow, I need one. And this friend happened to find one in Baltimore, bought it for me and drove it all the way up to me. It is the coolest thing.

Anyhow, after capoing down, I tell my buddy Mark that I’m just noodling and ask if he has a song; it is always easier to talk while playing after a few pints. After a moment of thought he goes into a classic Planxty song called The Jolly Beggarman, which for me requires a bit of experimentation before settling on a comfortable way to back him.

Well, you take a listen and decide for yourself if it was worth posting.
 
Jam / The Jolly Beggarman by baconworks