announce
Ok, new venue. Dan’s firehouse. Mariner rehearsal for our 50th anniversary.
I like Dan’s house because he has cool things like this giant metal Ancient Mariner logo in his bathroom…and…he lives in a firehouse.
announce
Great turnout for a great cause.Erin is a young man who, unfortunately, has cancer. The fife & drum came together to raise money to help him, as much as we can.
Here is a picture of Erin.
announce
I’m here! But I can’t seem to upload music through the WP app. So just pics for now.
technology
I just completed a long overdue upgrade of my WordPress install. I wouldn’t call it painless but at least most things still seem to be working. If you do notice any glitches, please let me know!
Here is the cool part…wait for it…I upgraded because I just purchased a new iPhone. More to the point, I am writing this post with my iPhone along with the help of a tasty beer and the WordPress iPhone app! Oh the power!!! This will make on-the-spot micro blogging much more feasible. How probable?? Not sure. But definitely possible.
I plan on giving it a go this Saturday at the Erin Long benefit concert, the annual Firehouse Fiesta, as well as the Hygienic Arts Festival.
Stay tuned.
new music
Just before the holidays I decided it might be good to dust off the fife and begin working on some recordings. More dust had collected on it than I had anticipated.
For a warm up I decided to go back to basics. Something easy. Something I’d played a million times. Unfortunately dust doesn’t care about basics and, sadly, it took a while to get the lip back. This recording was from those first few days so be kind.
The tune is called Si Bheag Si Mhor, which roughly translated means “The little fairy hill and the big fairy hill”. It was penned by Turlough O’Carolan’s and is thought to be his first tune. It is said to be about a mythical battle between the fairy inhabitants of two neighboring hills in Co. Leitrim. Folklore surrounding the hills tells of ancient warriors whose mortal bodies lie entombed within the hills. From time to time these spirits revive their quarrel. Not something I’d like to happen upon during a dusky evening in Leitrim.
The arrangement is one that I put together back in the early nineties. It is in two voices. Since it is slow and sweet, my buddy Joe and I used to play it for the ladies. We referred to it as our wooing the women tune. I can’t say it ever worked. In fact, one evening, as we were trying to impress, these young ladies turned the tables by playing the arrangement for us. Embarrassing. I think that may have been the last time we ever tried to woo anyone with music.
Si Bheag Si Mhor by baconworks
new music
Admittedly, I’ve been a bit quiet on baconworks for the last month. I blame it on holidays, a site crash and general laziness.
To get things going again check this out. I stumbled upon a set of jigs that I recorded at a Stone’s session two years ago. I don’t know the name of any of them but it is a nice set. You can hear the casualness of the musicians as they come in and drop out throughout the set. This is very typical behavior since the sets are loosely planned at best. In this case I would say completely unplanned. Consequently, as the set progresses from tune to tune, the other musicians stop to listen and ponder their next move.
Notice the smashing glass at the end of the set. The pint leapt off the stool in front of us. Happens all the time at Stones. After all the place is haunted.
Jigs at Stones by baconworks
live music
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.
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
album
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.
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
friend music
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.
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
