#bruce molsky

[offtheleashart]

Sounds Like Savannah

2023 Savannah Music Festival Lucas Theater for the Arts Today is the last day of the 2023 Savannah Music Festival. The 17-day event, now in its 34th year, took place at a half-dozen venues, both indoor and out, in Savannah’s Historic District. While maybe not as well known outside the Savannah area as some other festivals, all the performances I attended drew large and enthusiastic crowds. The…

[iwantoseeafrigatebird]

the Orkney trip

part 12

day 10 (continued)

The orkney blues festival! I started sitting in the royal hotel, first featuring a texan and spider who was on harmonica. The texan performed with Jerry Jeff Walker and got a request to do Mister Bojangles, I was extremely delighted as the song is special to me too. I don't remember was it them or were the italiens who came after who also played a whiter shade of pale which is again special to me due to being a withnail and i soundtrack. Later on in the evening, there was this guy called Ian Siegal who had a Kris Kristofferson story to tell (in which Kristofferson mistook him for someone else during a concert) with a song written in Kristofferson's style.

Malcolm from the ferry was sitting just next to me and gave me some old time banjo recommendations. Of them I'm really enjoying Bruce Molsky right now, his version of the wreck of the dandenong accompanied me from Thurso to Inverness where I am at the moment waiting for the connecting train to take me to Edinburgh. He also recommended me Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer who collaborated with a chinese musician and produced an album called "from china to appalachia" wherein they play both classic chinese and appalachian tunes with banjos and chinese classical hammered dulcimar (i used to play chinese dulcimar too) and it sounded beautiful. I cannot believe the existence of this album. The true "folk music from around the world unite" moment.

local tribute band at the legion.

the italiens, tom attah, and two californian harmonica players who just happened to be around for the festival. they played with the band in the legion too. At one time they had three harmonica players in the house. It was so much fun because it was an instrument I truely adore, those two californians are all good players and Spider from aberdeen is simply phenomenal.

the finale performance in the town hall.

They all jam very well together. it was a bit of a tribute concert for the singer Kyla Brox's (she has a powerful and beautiful voice perfect for the blues) late father too, she invited Ian Siegal to do a song she used to do with her dad and required two voices, which was a really heartfelt performance in my opinion. Everyone was having fun.

musicians being musicians

But if I have to pick a favourite, it's the Aberdeen Harmonica player for sure! I recorded everything and they sound reasonably good, here's a link if anyone's interested. I don't usually listen to this kind of blues but just the energy and virtuosity makes it all worthwhile.

Advertisement time, Brown's hostel in Stromness, 25£ could get you a superb bed if shared with others (there were three beds in my room but no one else was there that night). It's over fifty years old now and accordingly was the first hostel in Stromness. They had sleeping bags on bunk beds at first, but gradually people started to expect better rooms and facilities and she gradually upgraded everything.

When I phoned her, I said I just needed one bed. She didn't have any single room anymore, so asked "do you mind sharing?" I said "oh no of course not definitely". Then I thought where have I heard this dialogue before: fortunately this ain't nantucket, the whaling industry has died out, and there was no harpooner coming back from peddling his head. It was a Sunday too.

-

day 11

Catching the 6:30 ferry from Stromness to Scrabster. Final farewell to The Old Man and to the island of Hoy. Put on Farewell to Stromness as well, be cheesy.

The seastack is clearly visible.

Waiting for the train in Thurso, killing time in a second hand bookshop with a sizable collection of books about seafaring and ships. The owner said he always buy books about ships and has got five times as much back home. Noted down a few names that I might go home and look up online.

Finally, the sign of the national cycles network route 1 in front of thurso station. It's where I started, it's my "to and back again". Met quite a few cyclists who did the route from land's end to John O'Groats.

(tbc)

[newengland-alligator]

Music Tag Game

Shuffle your ‘on repeat’ playlist and list the first 10 songs that play, then tag 10 people.

Tagged by @ainulindaelynn!

1.) Tom Tom by Holy Fuck

2.) Mirage by OneRepublic

3.) No Glory in the West by Orville Peck

4.) This is the Day by The The

5.) The Thunder Rolls by Brooks Jefferson

6.) Counting the whole Prince of Egypt soundtrack here lol

7.) Grey Warden from Dragon Age: Inquisition

8.) Wander My Friends by Bear McCreary

9.) Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie by Bruce Molsky

10.) Some Beach by Blake Shelton

No pressure tagging: @crystalromana, @forensicbec, @nooly , @saathi1013, @macaronipeach, @neinofthem-jeyneofpoole-main, @robotics5, @i-lived-i-died-and-now-i-sleep, @that-gay-jedi, @notebooks-and-laptops and anyone who would like to participate!

[charlunday]

Obscure Everlark song week 1! 🏹+🥖

This song is entirely instrumental but definitely worth a listen. To me, this is what growing back together sounds like. ❤️

[rabbitrah]

@mxmollusca tagged me and asked me to share five songs that are quintessential to my personality and other people might be unfamiliar with. I thought about it for a while and decided to pick five lesser known songs that have been standard "sing out loud" songs for me at different points in my life. Because of that and who I am, it's a pretty folky collection.

For the people I'm tagging: What are five songs that you've repeatedly sung out loud?

@frenchfrysword

@thatiswhy

@oatmilktruther

@vonlipwig

@colifower

@thatfuchsiafloralrobe

I just tagged the first people to pop into my head honestly, but if we're mutuals and you want to do this, please do so and tag me 💛

[eclecticprincesswitch]

Ariel plays Half Past Four on her fiddle

Ariel plays one of Ed Haley's Old Fiddle Tunes called Half Past Four on her fiddle she learned from Bruce Molsky.

[celtic-cd-releases]

https://www.louisebichan.co.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/LBichan

https://louisebichan.bandcamp.com/album/the-lost-summer

https://open.spotify.com/album/1toTfBlALagifN1IdeHZaD

[theloniousbach]

BACK TO FUR PEACE RANCH: ACOUSTIC HOT TUNA with Larry Campbell, 5 NOVEMBER 2022

My best laid plans last night were to catch a real time set from Small’s Live by a piano trio led by Kevin Hays who deserves attention, though I sometimes find him a bit too clever for my own good. My jazz listening/writing is the one thing that hasn’t resettled since my sentimental journeys to Santa Fe and Pittsburgh. On the Monday in Santa Fe, I took advantage of the time zone shift to catch Miki Yamanka’s late set in real time and came in the middle of Alan Broadbent (not with Harvie S) before it. Those haven’t made it into one of these souvenirs, so seeing Hays would have allowed a cadenza about them. But I saw no more jazz out west and just the Lew Tabackin and Jeremy Pelt shows over this past week.

Instead there has been the Caffe Lena trad/folk excursion with Bruce Molsky and Beppe Gambetta (so I haven’t suffered). Though I had missed the social media announcement of this show, there it was. We jumped in for the last 45 minutes of the second set, about a third of the total, just as Larry Campbell embarked on Deep Elem Blues.

Having not immediately deleted an announcement that Acoustic Hot Tuna will be in Steelville in about three weeks. It’s a legendary intimate destination venue a couple of hours southeast of St Louis. With housing, it’s north of $200 each. So, no, but reluctantly. But that put this personally important band on my mind yet again.

Looking at the setlist, I regret missing Good Shepherd and That’ll Never Happen No More because I take a stab at as well as several rarities (True Religion, Keep On Truckin’, Highway Song (David Crosby sang on the original and he came up as they tuned into open G for the Water Song encore. In any case he was alive at the time), and Ode for Billy Dean. Campbell sung Police Dog Blues and Big River Blues which would have been fun.

What we did see was a healthy dose of Reverend Gary Davis. Not Candyman which opened the second set, but Hesitation Blues!! (Campbell on fiddle), Death Don’t Have No Mercy!!!!! (Jorma said, “We’ve been too cheerful.” Perhaps. I like playing it in my way as solace as I think of my coming losses.), and Let Us Get Together Right Down Here as the set closer. Between them, Jorma and Campbell are where I have learned most about the Reverend.

There were a couple of Jorma songs which I identified via the set lists, not by my own recognition. They have glorious chords and thoughtful lyrics (swallowed up again as Jorma’s voice has regressed to mean from the Quarantine Concert days and being off the road highpoint), but one camera angle put Jack Casady right in front. As I find my own way around my young singer-songwriter friend’s chord progressions and thereby figure out some things about the bass, I saw so much more about what he accomplishes sometimes with a quarter or even half note. He got a couple of flat out solos on Deep Elem Blues and Let Us Get Together Right Down Here.

Larry Campbell has quite the pedigree, doesn’t he? Music director for Bob Dylan and then the Levon Helm Rambles; a stint with Phil Lesh and Friends; and this longstanding friendship. Between those four gigs, he touches on keeping alive key parts of the music of my youth.

That said, I’m not sure he quite fit last/that night. I don’t blame him though. While Jorma doesn’t retain his QC voice, his guitar playing remains even more ornate from those months of being able to really practice. He takes up more space, so where to fit in?

I’m not going to return to the whole show in its entirety (but okay, Police Dog, Shepherd, No More, and Candy Man maybe) so as not to endure ads etc. BUT I’m very glad to have followed my nose about this show and I got a writing prompt out of it.

Jazz returns. I’ll catch that Kevin Hays set in the Small’s Archive in a week or so and I have a Smoke show pass already bought for this afternoon.

But Hot Tuna has also had a huge impact of the epigenetics of my musical DNA.

[whatilistenedtoatwork]

From March 6th to March 10th, 2023

06-03-23

STEELEYE SPAN “Below The Salt”; NO DOUBT “Tragic Kingdom”; ROBYN “Body Talk”; ALANIS MORISSETTE “Jagged Little Pill”; ECHOBELLY “Lustra”; KATE NASH “Made Of Bricks”; ERYKAH BADU “Mama’s Gun”; BLONDIE “Parallel Lines”; PJ HARVEY “The Peel Sessions: 1991-2004”; HOLE “Pretty On The Inside”; KRISTIN HERSH “Strange Angels”

07-03-23

NEW MODEL ARMY “Vengeance”; GEORGE MICHAEL “Faith” ; MINUTEMEN “Double Nickels On The Dime”; THE SMITHS “The Smiths”; THE COUP “Kill My Landlord”; JURASSIC 5 “Jurassic 5”; OS MUTANTES “Mutantes”; BOB DYLAN “Planet Waves”; SONIC YOUTH “Bad Moon Rising”; BARENAKED LADIES “Born On A Pirate Ship”; LUCINDA WILLIAMS “Happy Woman Blues”; BELA FLECK “Natural Bridge”

08-02-23

TONY BENN & ROY BAILEY “The Writing On The Wall: Live At Cambridge”; BEN FOLDS “Ben Folds Live”; PAUL McCARTNEY “Unplugged (The Official Bootleg)”; ALY BAIN, ALE MOLLER, & BRUCE MOLSKY “Meeting Point: Live At The Liverpool Philharmonic”; BOB MARLEY & THE WAILERS “Live Jam (12-02-73)”; JEAN MICHEL JARRE “The Concerts In China”; PRIMAL SCREAM “PRML SCRM Live In Japan”

09-03-23

GUIDED BY VOICES “Jellyfish Reflector”; NED’S ATOMIC DUSTBIN “One More - No More. Live 29.07.00”; OS MUTANTES “Mutantes ao Vivo: Barbican Theatre”; MOTORHEAD “No Sleep ‘Til Hammersmith”; THE DARKNESS “The Platinum Correction”; PIXIES “Subbacultcha”; ASH “Tokyo Blitz”; CROWDED HOUSE “Farewell To The World”; OASIS “Familiar To Millions”; BILLY BRAGG “Live At The Barbican”

10-03-23

KIRSTY MacCOLL “Tropical Brainstorm”; BJORK “Volta”; VERUCA SALT “Resolver”; KATE & ANNA McGARRIGLE “Matapedia”; THE SLITS “Cut”; HOLE “Celebrity Skin”; THE BREEDERS “All Nerve”; ARETHA FRANKLIN “Soft & Beautiful”; LUSH “Spooky”; BELLY “Sweet Ride: The Best Of Belly”

[continent-of-wild-endeavor]

Oh...okay, Bruce...

[newengland-alligator]

Get to know the Blogger

Thank you @paraparadigm for the tag!

Share your wallpaper:

(Screenshot of The Ninth Wave by Ivan Aivazovsky)

Last song you listened to:

Currently reading:

Song of the Lioness: Alanna: the First Adventure by Tamara Pierce

Dance of Death by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

I also just finished reading Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao and The Winter Prince by Elizabeth Wein

Last movie:

But I'm a Cheerleader (1999)

Last show:

I've been rewatching Yellowjackets Season 1 in preparation for the new season!

Craving:

Salted Honey Pie (I make it + a homemade graham cracker crust, if anyone ever wants the recipe hit me up!)

What are you wearing right now:

Shorts, a tank-top and rainbow crocs! Yes it's still basically winter where I live...I have a high cold tolerance ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

How tall are you:

5'2

Piercings:

One in each ear.

Tattoos:

8!

Glasses? Contacts?

Glasses! My eyes are too dry for contacts

Last thing you ate:

Homemade tacos!

Favorite color:

Either dark seafoam green or sunrise/sunset orange

Current obsession:

My brain is constantly all over the place, but it's usually either Dragon Age or Elder Scrolls related

Any pets:

1 cat (he's my baby boy!), 3 dogs, some chickens and guinea hens!

Favorite fictional character:

Wei Wuxian, Serana Volkihar, Anders, Merrill, Basim Ibn Ishaq, Laura Kinney, Alanna of Trebond...lol I can't pick just one!

The last place you traveled:

Hmm, Massachusetts for a family member's funeral last year, otherwise I haven't been out-of-state.

Idk who else might want to do this, but for anyone else who I didn't tag, but who’d like to do it consider yourself tagged!

@crystalromana @illegible-scribble @velvet-coalmine @aeide @ainulindaelynn @momo-de-avis @deathstars @thelightofmorning @sihirbazi @zevsurana @notebooks-and-laptops @lesbianfemmefatale

[scenicworlds]

August 11, 2022

House concert with Bruce Molsky. Portland, ME.

[firstfootingscotland]

Pacific Northwest, Pendulum Band, Perth, Limerick and Aberdeen!

Hello from Aberdeen! What a week it’s been! I returned from the Pacific Northwest of the USA a week ago today after shows with phenomenal banjoist Allison de Groot. Allison’s playing is exquisite, rhythmically infectious, and simultaneously reveals both her deep listening to vintage banjo material and her spontaneously playful creative spirit. We performed our shows as low-tech as possible in an attempt to highlight what feels at the heart of our duo show: musical response and rapport between two individuals, and between banjo and feet. Allison has two new albums out that you won’t want to miss: a new CD with Bruce Molsky’s Mountain Drifters and a duo record with fiddler Tatiana Hargreaves! 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Rose City Folk School (@rosecityfolkschoolpdx) on Feb 18, 2019 at 8:26pm PST

(Allison de Groot and I performing Five Miles of Elm Wood at the Rose City Folk School in Portland, Oregon. Video by Leela Grace, who also opened the show with a beautiful set of original songs and banjo tunes!) 

I flew back to Edinburgh Friday and hopped right into soundcheck at the Queen’s Hall with Mairi Campbell and her Pendulum Band. Despite my being a little bleary from crossing continents and oceans, the Pendulum Band show was an exquisitely enjoyable evening. From her first step onstage, Mairi electrified the audience. She’s an absolute hero, dissolving boundaries of genre, performance, and instrument at every turn. Improvising onstage together through both sound and gesture, I was filled with energy and inspiration just being near her. It was made inextricably clear to all that night that Mairi is made of music. Her fantastic solo show Auld Lang Syne is currently touring Scotland! In it, Mairi sings, dances, plays, speaks, and is, frankly, utterly captivating. Check out the preview below and visit her website for tour dates.

(Mairi Campbell’s show Auld Lang Syne is on tour in Scotland now! Click here for tour dates!)

Sunday, I joined an intrepid contingent of artists, curators, and scholars to trundle from Edinburgh to the Perth Theatre by car for an event we called Casting a New Vision for Step Dance Education in Scotland: a Day of Conversation and Professional Development. The event was co-presented by the Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland, the University of Edinburgh’s Moray House School of Education, Fèisean nan Gàidheal, and Horsecross Arts. In scheming up the proceedings, my co-organizers and I wanted it to feel like a day of delights, fuelling inspiration, encouragement, and solidarity. The programme was packed! The day included participatory step dance masterclasses, step dance teaching feedback sessions (in which three teachers taught short 10-minute classes and received constructive feedback from their peers), a seminar on safe and healthy dance teaching practice delivered by Wendy Timmons, director of the MSc in Dance Science and Education at the University of Edinburgh, an interview with Halifax-based step dancer Harvey Beaton via Skype, and facilitated group discussions around support and sustainability with Michelle Brady, coordinator of the Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland and Nicola Simpson, senior development officer for Fèisean nan Gàidheal. In addition to programming designed to nourish, enrich, and continue the training needs of this unique group of traditional arts educators, step dance teachers from across Scotland also had the rare opportunity to connect with their colleagues and cast a new vision for sustainability, preservation, creativity, and community-building for traditional dance in Scotland. Delegates from Inverness, Aberdeen, Islay, South Uist, Midlothian, Skye, Perth, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dunfermline, and Fort William were in attendance. It was both incredibly exciting and immensely humbling for me to be in the presence of so many knowledgeable and devoted traditional arts educators. There were so many lively discussions, connections, and conversations around step dance education that I hope will continue!! Driving home, I felt invigorated, inspired by the rich traditions and inspiringly devoted dancers here in Scotland, and filled with hope. 

(Delegates at Casting a New Vision for Step Dance Education in Scotland: a Day of Conversation and Professional Development, Perth Theatre, 24 February)

On Monday morning I flew to Shannon, Ireland where I had the pleasure of taking part in Common Treads, a two-day event celebrating diversity within percussive dance styles from Ireland, Britain and North America at the Irish World Academy, University of Limerick. Convened by Dr. Mats Melin and Dr. Orfhlaith Ní Bhriain, the event assembled a remarkable summit of dancers including Liam Scanlon, Marianne Larose, Jimmy Smith, Toby Bennett, and myself. It was wonderful to return to the Irish World Academy, a space that was incredibly formative for me as place of study, of collaboration, of exploration, and of tremendous possibility. The building itself was often referred to as a “house of light and welcome” by the late founder Mícheál Ó’ Súilleabháin (1) Made of glass, brass, and sparkling mosaic, it beckons partitioners and scholars across the Shannon River from the UL campus to collapse the false binary of research and art, the practical and the poetic, in favour of a more holistically-integrated encounter. I had the distinct pleasure of being present for all of the masterclasses and what a feast it was: from Liam Scanlon’s satisfyingly percussive earthiness, Marianne Larose’s grace, strength, and dexterity, Jimmy Smith’s magical fool-the-eye, trick-of-the-leg winking insouciance, and Toby Bennett’s elegant, buoyant, bracingly articulate clog dancing. I spent my session sharing percussive dance vocabulary as well as speaking about utilizing these steps with the musicians that I have the pleasure to engage with in making concerts. The event was very special indeed, allowing me to reconnected with mentors, be in conversation with colleagues, as well as engage with the bright and extremely talented students at the Irish World Academy. 

(Working with the students at the Irish World Academy, University of Limerick, photo by Mats Melin)

These are rich times indeed. And it’s not over yet! TONIGHT, I travel by train to Aberdeen for a weekend of percussive dance workshops and performances organized by Jennifer Oag and Feerochie featuring Kae Sakurai, Aneta Dortova, and Toby Bennett! Hope to see you in that great Granite city this weekend! It all kicks off tomorrow night! 

Saturday, 2 March: Percussive Dance Performance with Nic Gareiss & Friends at FoodStory, 13-5 Thistle St., Aberdeen, 8 pm. More info here.

Sunday 3 March: workshops at Academy of Expressive Arts, 8 Gaelic Lane, Aberdeen:

12-1 pm Introduction to Scottish Step Dance with Kae Sakurai, more info here.

1:15-2:15 pm Dance the Tune with Nic Gareiss, more info here.

2:30-3:30 pm Lakeland Stepping with Toby Bennett, more info here.

3:45-4:45 pm Sean-nós Dance with Aneta Dortova, more info here.

First Footing is a collaboration between dancer and dance researcher Nic Gareiss, the Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland, University of Edinburgh Moray House School of Education, and the School of Scottish Studies with support from Creative Scotland. For engagement opportunities check out the First Footing website.

(1) Comhrá: A Conversation with Mícheál Ó’ Súilleabháin, by Anya Peterson Royce, COMHAIMSEARTHA: Of Our Times, Spring 2019, p. 8

[taxicabmetric]

Tatiana killing it on the fiddle per usual

[chemsexholmes]

while im at it cause I cant shut up about this quiz. here's the versions of those 3 fiddle songs I recommend listening to, they're my personal favorites