sweasel.com

Very nice – my boss on the first overseas contract I did, back in 1996, was a P.E. by day and an aspiring Bluegrass banjo-player by evening-and-weekend avocation. When I told him that I’d come over to Germany with a rather wide selection of audio tapes, some of which were Blues and Bluegrass that included considerable pickin’ an’ grinnin’ selections, he immediately borrowed them to make copies – the ones he didn’t already have copies of, that is.

I was treated to his rendition of “Smokey Mountain Breakdown”, among other selections, when invited over for dinner on a couple of occasions. He was pretty good, and was getting better – we temporary expatriates didn’t have a lot of evening recreations/distractions, aside from a few beers down at the Gasthof, so he was getting in a fair amount of practice time…

We had to go down to the basement (Keller it is in Deutsche-speak, I think), though – his wife was not a banjo fan at all, and his five-string (not a Gibson, I don’t think) was definitely a “hoss”.

My first banjo was an Epiphone masterclone. It’s hoss-loud, but it sounds (in the worlds of Uncle B) like two dustbin lids banging together.

Nice catch Stoaty.

For anyone who’s interested in fine banjo music, I suggest a look around itunes/etc for works by Alan Munde and Butch Robbins. Munde mingles some rather eclectic things with the Scruggs stuff.

And Butch Robbins “40 Years Late” is very much worth listening to.

The nicest banjo music I’ve ever heard was a sweet rendtion of the Christmas Silver Bells piece. Not the effete Bing Crosby thingy, rather the choral piece (can’t seems to find a youtube of it).

BBB

Oh, very nice. Is the little dragon red? 🙂 I have such a lovely mental image of Weasel playing the banjo, while the chickens sit ’round about in rapt attention. And Mr. Fox is just on the edge, listening too, while Charlotte licks her paws, pretending not to care. Uncle Badger is listening too, with his eyes closed and face lifted up to the sun, but you can see him tapping his toe.

BigBlueBug–not a banjo rendition, but is this what you meant?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LraGJ-QRSMY

***idly wonders if there are any forums that cater to banjo players who want advice and critiques of their skills***

***even more idly wonders if there are any forum-members in the aforementioned forums with mustelid avatars***

The chickens do actually appear to like the sound of the banjo. I suspect that’s because they associate it with Summer sunshine, and me sitting out in the garden with them. Also, chickens like sounds — you’ll often catch them pecking at things that are not edible but make interesting sounds. Some day, I shall design a chicken toy based around this.

The dragon, like all the inlays, appears to be Pearloid, AKA Mother of Toilet Seat. As this is clearly a high level instrument, I can only assume they got carried away by that new-fangled wonder substance, plastic.

Heh heh. There is such a forum, FG (in fact, there are several). Which is why I was vague in describing this banjo — I’m going to want to brag about it, and I post on those forums using — gasp — my own real name.

I haven’t posted any audio anywhere, though. The way I grew up playing, we’d all just jam and everybody would get a break. I don’t believe I know a single tune from beginning to end as a soloist.

“…I post on those forums using — gasp — my own real name.”

But, there are CRAZY people on teh innernets! Some day you’ll wake up in a pit with some dude saying “It puts the lotion on the banjo”.

Practice up, Stoaty…

I fully expect you to be able to knock this out, shortly…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzM0WoqBKbk&feature=player_embedded

That is indeed the piece.

I believe it was played on a tenor banjo which had been
converted to a 5 string. It seemed a nice balance between extending the range while keeping the timbre of a tenor. Now I’m sorry I sold my Mastertone ;>(

Oh well, back to the colored pencils. The Tulle in a finely detailed tutu makes me want to design laser based colored pencils. Like this:

http://thecorgiadventure.blogspot.com/2011/11/swan-lake-no-rabbit.html

Oh….and one more for you to work on…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sYgllgF7lc

Somebody I know took lessons from Fleck in Providence in the early Eighties. I cannot beLIEVE he was there when I moved there and I never knew it (not that I had heard of him until many years later).

Bug, dude — is that your blog? Put the link in your comment details.

Ah the Flecktones. Off to iTunes.

BBB–well, there were a couple of Youtube banjo versions of the Carol of The Bells, but nothing that really floated my boat. . .but then, I’m very verbally oriented, so even the most impressive solely-instrumental stuff doesn’t get the admiration it deserves from me.

A Banjo, eh? Have you limeys ever seen “Deliverance”? Team building canoeing trips are never pretty… well, except for one unfortunate souls mouth.

Some day, I shall design a chicken toy…

In case you were looking for that tipping point to “I have too much time on my hands”, you may have found it.

According to Pawn Stars, those old Gibson Mandolins sell for a ton, too. I actually prefer the shuffling sound of the mandolin over the plonka plonka sound of the banjo but they both have their place in good bluegrass.

Chickens and banjos…what’s next? A banjo picking chicken? If anyone could pull it off, our girl, stoaty, can. 🙂

Chicken toys would be a revelation, Gromulin. It means all those poor, bored battery hens would have something to do other than peck at each other their whole short, miserable lives.

I bet chickens could play Pong.

Deborah, you are deeply psychic.

One of my enduring memories will be of an afternoon a few months ago when I rounded the corner by the greenhouse, one paw full of worms, the other of seedlings, to find Her Stoatliness sitting on a wooden chair by the back door, a row of chickens gathered about her feet, like the front row at a Metallica gig, as she serenaded them with ‘two skeletons copulating on a tin roof’ or whatever banjo anthems are called.

This Really Happened.

And it was very, very strange.

Badgers eat worms. Hundreds of them in a night, sometimes. It’s why they make such a mess of people’s gardens. It’s their main protein source.

I keep telling him that almost nobody knows that, and he keeps posting cryptic references to worms.

Hmm from the tone this happily married couple’s posts it sounds like some certain Badgers would rather eat worms than listen to baajo music.

😉

They know it if the remember their Beatrix Potter. Mr Badger was complaining about lack of worms and grubs, so he swiped the Flopsy Bunny babies for dinner instead.

I think they used to train chickens to play actual ping pong…or was that pidgeons?

I’m holding out for the bluegrass Catsophone.

Wait…Stoaty Weasel-Badger is not your real name? Really?

Sooooo disappointed here.

I have to ask: What does Uncle Badger do with the worms? Does he use them to aerate the soil in his garden? Does he treat the girls, hand-feeding them one worm at a time? Or does he just toss them out into the grass—like so many Easter Eggs—for the them to happily find? Or OR! I can’t bear to think about it—does he nibble on the worms himself?

I wasn’t going to mention this, but since someone brought up the subject of chickens…. Jan Brett, author and illustrator of children’s books, was in our city this weekend and was interviewed by the local rag. She & her husband, a bassist with the Boston Symphony, love animals and keep some 60 exotic chickens. She admits to giving some of them kisses and foot massages now and then, and there’s one that sits on her shoulder at night while she paints. Right now she’s working on a book about a chicken Cinderella, and has chosen which two of the flock will be the models for illustrations of Cinderella and her prince.

Uncle B, you thinking of holiday fruit cakes yet? Never could stand them but this fruit – but not quite like the nasty I’ve had before – cake, looks rather good. Maybe because it doesn’t have that candied stuff.

http://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/recipes/430420/Mary-Berry-s-Victorian-Christmas-cake

What are sultanas? Arab raisins?

Chicken Cinderella? Bless her.

Found that recipe here- from Mildred and Fairy, on your side of the pond. Fairy, a lethal white, is a good watch…er…(lethals are blind)…um…helper.

http://www.guinealynx.info/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1964959#1964959

The European Badger is a vermivore? The American Badger prefers small animals and fruit. And the Wisconsin Badger prefers pizza and brats.

Oh, fer cripe’s sake… What make and model banjo is it? What kind of tone ring? Resonater or no? Plectrum? Tenor? 5-string? Inquiring minds want to know…

BTW, I recently acquired a very fancy revolver in a similar manner. Still reaserching it and trying to get full details and a fair price estimate. I promised the previous owner if I found what I considered a fair price buyer for it, I would remit to her the difference between what I already paid her and that price, minus any expenses. I just didn’t want to see her get ripped-off. I was afraid she might put it out at a garage sale and take the first $ 100 that came along, which would be absurd. She knows nadda about guns.

I thought I remembered seeing something cogent and delightful (perhaps?) to the banjo-philes – took me a bit to find it (there is a helluva lot of YouTube banjo stuff – not all of it great, perhaps, but most of it at least pretty good)…

Mayhap some will enjoy this piece of clawhammer work, called “The Great Remember” – Fair Warning: It’s a solo bit, from earlier this year, by Steve Martin, who is not to some people’s taste, but whom I personally find to be extremely worthwhile. While some may disagree, I like him quite a lot because he’s good at a whole bunch of stuff (in fact, damn good at the whole bunch) while remaining, to all appearances, not especially egotistical about any of it.

He is, for instance (as our U.K. cousins would put it), a fair dab hand with a five-string, and knows his way around some solid Bluegrass.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

MIke C. – If you could use any assistance on details and/or fair price on your revolver, I am (and have been for quite some years) a gunsmith as a second occupation (more of an avocation, mostly), and might be able to lend some aid. If interested, PM me at bridgesjsjr(at)hotmail(dot)com, and let me know.

I had a couple of $90-$100 banjos in my time, and taught myself to play the banjo, using the 3-fingered picking style I taught myself on guitar.

Then I acquired some “leisure money”, and promptly bought myself a Deering for a little over $900. Alas, it turns out I am a 100-dollar banjo player, not a 900-dollar banjo player–a point driven home to me quite viciously when a visiting buddy of mine picked it up and played it. ZOMG.

My 3-finger picking style is fine for the guitar, but on the banjo–oh, my god, is it ever wrong. Unfortunately, I’m too lazy to break myself of the badness, so my banjo playing will never rise above the poor-to-mediocre range. Or, to put it more succinctly, the hundred-dollar range.

I’m strictly a porch picker, JW. When it comes to serious Scruggs-style tunes, it’s like my fingers go, “wait, you want me to play ALL those notes?” However, Instrument Acquisition Syndrome is not in the least related to musicianship.

It’s a resonator, Mike. Which is unfortunate; I don’t have a good frailer and that’s what I was looking for. Still, banjos are like cats…when one fetches up in your life, you have to take it in.

And I loved that clip, J.S. Most banjoists seem to think Martin is doing us a service, raising the instrument’s profile a bit. Particularly clawhammer, which isn’t as well known. He’s a good player in both styles.

Instrument Acquisition Syndrome… I knew I had something!

BTW, J.S.: Martin started out playing banjo at Disneyland (but you probably already knew that). I like pretty much everything he does (comedy, writing, bluegrass), but his art taste leaves me totally unimpressed. But then, most modern art seems to have aggrandize linoleum patterns, which I’m pretty convinced is an elaborate practical joke being played on the people who buy it.

Sorry for the slow response – duty called and all that!

Us Eurasian badgers eats more or less anything, but worms are a great staple component of the diet. An upturned dustbin filled with discarded Big Macs can come a close second, mind you.

Pride? That’s for lions.

As for fruit cakes, I delight in grossing out Her Stoatliness in tea rooms, which I rate solely on their ability to make a good, moist fruit cake. No jokes please…

Last Sunday was ‘stir-up Sunday’ here in ye olde countrie, where the goodwives of the parish would make the Christmas puddings. The wisest among them would make them a year ahead,of course – Christmas puddings maturing wonderfully well with age. Whisper it not, but I have several in a secret stash that are several years old – and all the better for it!

The ‘stir up’ bit relates both to the process of mixing in all those ingredients that so terrify Americans and, also, the following verse from the Book of Common Prayer- it being the last Sunday before Advent, when it was always read: “Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Stir up? Stir up? Geddit?

Look, they didn’t have television, OK?

Anyway, if you lot think Christmas cake is the work of the devil, you should try a Christmas pudding!

Meanwhile, I am being educated in the ways of Thanksgiving which, as it seems I don’t have to give anyone a present, seems like a damned fine idea to me. Even if it does mean turkey twice in one month!

What’s up with “Black Pudding”? It looks like tar heroin. I can’t believe the stuff Brits eat. It’s either weird or stinky. 🙂

Even if it does mean turkey twice in one month!

The day after you can make Turkey Enchiladas. Delish!

I like to put down a layer of mashed potatoes, some stuffing, corn, a layer of chopped leftover turkey, smother in gravy, and nuke it til it glows. That is how you make Turkey Lurkey Hoo Hah, a dish fit for a King!