NETWIFM: Week Of the Weird
Dec. 3rd, 2005 09:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kniteracyWell, it's been a week. And I'm afraid at least part of this report will be, um, slightly snarky.
Not Exactly the Week in Folk Music
Tuesday night at Sharps
I talked about last week's Sharps having more than the usual passel of Americans; this past week we had one: a fiddler named Tom Bailey who announced that he was originally from Virginia but had moved to New York and did some busking there. Now, I felt bad for this guy, because he played after a fiddler and he was a fiddler himself-- and then he played second out of all the performers, so he had no chance to ease into the Sharps mentality. I don't envy anybody who ends up being first or second to sing at their first outing anywhere, really I don't. This fellow was obviously used to playing to audiences that might or might not be listening, and he spoke really loudly and came off as a bit arrogant. Now, he did a very in-your-face version of Jack of Diamonds that included both singing and fiddlering, which is unusual enough in the Appalachians and nigh unheard of in London, so he redeemed himself, but I admit to not being quite as friendly with him as I had been with last week's two kind American amateurs and chalking him up to 'ego the size of Montana; drive on through.' His second song was a lot better: he had a chance to suss out the crowd and see what things were like.
We had some lovely songs from many of the regulars, and there was a girl there who looked quite young but had one of those ageless faces; she did a very good, very Anne Briggs inspired "Gathering Rushes." Now, I can't sing like Anne Briggs, and she's not my most favourite singer to listen to, but anybody who can come up with that clear, sweet head voice and manage those effortless, toss-off ornaments is impressive to listen to.
There was an older woman there whose name I didn't catch, who was also a fine singer. I know I've said before that we don't have a lot of women at Sharps and it's true: there are three or four regular women and the odd visitor or lady who shows up occasionally. Rosie from Australia, who last week did a version of "Gin and Raspberry" that I really liked, sang something I don't remember alas.
Music Hall John did some lovely, funny stuff, and Les even managed to sing a song I liked, which was quite odd. A fellow who usually shows up with a guitar and does quite a bit of fusion showed up with a bazouki and kicked Matty Groves' ass. I mean, I loved his version so much I wanted to take it home. I didn't have time to catch him afterwards and tell him how much the tune reminded me of the Appalachian one I know, but I'll get him eventually. I always enjoy what he does. Apparently he's a schoolteacher: he told a story on Tuesday about studying Oedipus Rex with his class-- who were not at all surprised about the plot twists in the play. Too much Oprah? Not enough murder ballads? It's hard to say.
Speaking of murder ballads, a fellow I hadn't seen for awhile and didn't remember singing the last time I saw him got up and performed a very long and boring version of Babes in the Wood, which he basically read out of a book. Wow. I really do think of ballad singing as storytelling, and you just can't do that with your head stuck in a book, y'all. It was complete with divine retribution to the fellow who sent the babes out into the woods. I really like the version I heard on the Cold Mountain support CD. It didn't go into any of the backstory with the will and the inheritance and the greedy uncle, it just told the story of the two children lost in the wood and the funeral given them by the birds when they froze to death, poor dears. I mean, isn't that angsty enough? Do we have to have emo wars in balladry?
I sang two a capella songs because I was too frazzed to remember my harp. I sang the Wind and Rain version of "Two Sisters" and "Sweet Potatoes."
Many years ago, at an Amherst Early Music, I learned the meaning of the word "twee." Bill Taylor used it to describe something played by New York-based "Celtic" harper Ellen Tepper, and I thought he was being harsh. Actually, I still do. She asked for his opinion, played this really complicated set of Irish pieces with multiple lever-changes and much twiddling of thumbs and fingers, and at the end, he said, "Well, we have a word for that in Scotland. The word is 'twee'." She was about forty at the time, and I think she spent the next two hours trying to pull herself together. She skipped the next class, and I found her trying to fix her face in the bathroom after a long bout of crying. I'd been playing the harp for six months, and I thought she was great, and I told her so, and it cheered her up. Thinking back on it, though-- it was an awfully sweet arrangement. In fact, it probably was twee. At Sharps on Tuesday night, we had another perfect example of twee. These two had shown up the week before and done a couple of twee things, so I was prepared. I probably didn't write much about folk clubs last week except for the Walking the Witch session in Hayes, so I don't know if I mentioned that a duo at Sharps had done a jazzified version of "Dance to Your Daddy" that made me twitch and turn colours. No? Didn't think so. Same people. She is sweet and blonde and wears pigtails and sings with her hands clasped behind her back. He is an earnest, technique-perfect guitarist. Together, they are the Twee Twins. Let's just say that we were already a little tired on Tuesday, and when I heard them launch into a really Victorian arrangement of "Jock O' Hazeldean," I just started packing to go, at which point the emcee gestured desperately and asked me to do one more song as long as it was short. Y'all know I can't resist singing or playing, so that's why we stayed, why I sang "Sweet Potatoes," and why I know how every last note of a really twee arrangement of "Jock O'Hazeldean" sounds when a couple of people who probably think Joan Baez was primative stand up and sing it.
Right. So that's your snarky Sharps report. I swear there was some good stuff. Sam who volunteers at the library sang some lovely things, Tom from Virginia really blew me away with his second song, we had sing-a-longs with Gerry, that lovely girl with the Anne Briggs voice, a kid from London who did a Jesus song and made me want to spontaneously burst into Plastic Jesus (but I worried I might offend him), and quite a lot of good concertina playing, oddly enough. In fact, it was even reported that that day's Metro had had a survey about which people Londoners are afraid to sit next to on the Tube, and five percent of respondents said they were afraid to sit next to someone who looked like they might be a concertina player. ;)
Wednesday night at Folkmob
Wednesday was the usual mixed bag at Folkmob; we got there half an hour late and they were already halfway around the singing circle. I passed the first go-round and found myself sitting right next to Tone Def Leppard. I know I've said before that this guy is really not all that bad-- I just think a lot of their stuff is in very, very, very bad taste. Now, if that makes me a snob, so be it. They're perfectly nice people, and I'm impressed that he can play and sing at all with the rhythmless drumming right in his ear like that, but I guess love makes you do funny things.
The most interesting character at Folkmob on Thursday was a guy with an electronic keyboard and -- a clarinet. He had canned accompaniment on the keyboard and played the clarinet. He was there with a Sweet Blonde Thang who basically sat there and stared adoringly at him while he played. See above line about love. Not, you know that J doesn't stare at me adoringly sometimes still, I think. Does he? Do you, honey?
We had a Jake Thackery song from Sue, lovely Irish singing from Mike P, pretty guitary work and nice versions of "Come by the Hills" and "Rare Old Times" from that fellow whose name I can never remember who sings from his throat, nice if emotionless harmony from two girls who came with one of the guys in that duo I'm always praising (including yet another not-raw-enough cover of Leonard Cohen's lovely "Hallelujah:" I swear I'm going to have to cover it myself), both those guys playing separately, one of the guys from Walking the Witch, Dave the emcee doing some lovely guitar accompaniments, T the Joan Baez wannabe who really takes all this very seriously, a girl who sang some kickass country songs but whose version of "Hotel California" I could have done without, and the old fellow who must have had a great tenor in his day but who will never in my mind live down the night he sand "Coward of the County" a capella. I guess you don't notice the gang-rape verse so much when there's a whole band of Nashville session musicians behind Kenny Rogers, huh.
I had some discussion with the sound guys about next week's guest spot, talked about mics, assured them I had a headset (thanks,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bedlamhouse!), and made sure it was OK to have Three Weird Sisters playing over the CD player before the show started and during breaks. I also talked to Dave about callylevy and little_cinnamon; I'm afraid I talked them up so much he'll probably give them the whole middle break. I plan to let them know about that-- um, in this LJ post, if they read it; they're being all Medieval tonight.
Oh, and regarding next Wednesday's gig-- what do you nice people think I should wear? At the moment I'm torn between jeans and a "Strangers Have the Best Candy" t-shirt and something a little less attitudinal. And that's about as far as I've gotten. But enough of that: it's now time to cook dinner and then off to working on material for Wednesday.
Not Exactly the Week in Folk Music
Tuesday night at Sharps
I talked about last week's Sharps having more than the usual passel of Americans; this past week we had one: a fiddler named Tom Bailey who announced that he was originally from Virginia but had moved to New York and did some busking there. Now, I felt bad for this guy, because he played after a fiddler and he was a fiddler himself-- and then he played second out of all the performers, so he had no chance to ease into the Sharps mentality. I don't envy anybody who ends up being first or second to sing at their first outing anywhere, really I don't. This fellow was obviously used to playing to audiences that might or might not be listening, and he spoke really loudly and came off as a bit arrogant. Now, he did a very in-your-face version of Jack of Diamonds that included both singing and fiddlering, which is unusual enough in the Appalachians and nigh unheard of in London, so he redeemed himself, but I admit to not being quite as friendly with him as I had been with last week's two kind American amateurs and chalking him up to 'ego the size of Montana; drive on through.' His second song was a lot better: he had a chance to suss out the crowd and see what things were like.
We had some lovely songs from many of the regulars, and there was a girl there who looked quite young but had one of those ageless faces; she did a very good, very Anne Briggs inspired "Gathering Rushes." Now, I can't sing like Anne Briggs, and she's not my most favourite singer to listen to, but anybody who can come up with that clear, sweet head voice and manage those effortless, toss-off ornaments is impressive to listen to.
There was an older woman there whose name I didn't catch, who was also a fine singer. I know I've said before that we don't have a lot of women at Sharps and it's true: there are three or four regular women and the odd visitor or lady who shows up occasionally. Rosie from Australia, who last week did a version of "Gin and Raspberry" that I really liked, sang something I don't remember alas.
Music Hall John did some lovely, funny stuff, and Les even managed to sing a song I liked, which was quite odd. A fellow who usually shows up with a guitar and does quite a bit of fusion showed up with a bazouki and kicked Matty Groves' ass. I mean, I loved his version so much I wanted to take it home. I didn't have time to catch him afterwards and tell him how much the tune reminded me of the Appalachian one I know, but I'll get him eventually. I always enjoy what he does. Apparently he's a schoolteacher: he told a story on Tuesday about studying Oedipus Rex with his class-- who were not at all surprised about the plot twists in the play. Too much Oprah? Not enough murder ballads? It's hard to say.
Speaking of murder ballads, a fellow I hadn't seen for awhile and didn't remember singing the last time I saw him got up and performed a very long and boring version of Babes in the Wood, which he basically read out of a book. Wow. I really do think of ballad singing as storytelling, and you just can't do that with your head stuck in a book, y'all. It was complete with divine retribution to the fellow who sent the babes out into the woods. I really like the version I heard on the Cold Mountain support CD. It didn't go into any of the backstory with the will and the inheritance and the greedy uncle, it just told the story of the two children lost in the wood and the funeral given them by the birds when they froze to death, poor dears. I mean, isn't that angsty enough? Do we have to have emo wars in balladry?
I sang two a capella songs because I was too frazzed to remember my harp. I sang the Wind and Rain version of "Two Sisters" and "Sweet Potatoes."
Many years ago, at an Amherst Early Music, I learned the meaning of the word "twee." Bill Taylor used it to describe something played by New York-based "Celtic" harper Ellen Tepper, and I thought he was being harsh. Actually, I still do. She asked for his opinion, played this really complicated set of Irish pieces with multiple lever-changes and much twiddling of thumbs and fingers, and at the end, he said, "Well, we have a word for that in Scotland. The word is 'twee'." She was about forty at the time, and I think she spent the next two hours trying to pull herself together. She skipped the next class, and I found her trying to fix her face in the bathroom after a long bout of crying. I'd been playing the harp for six months, and I thought she was great, and I told her so, and it cheered her up. Thinking back on it, though-- it was an awfully sweet arrangement. In fact, it probably was twee. At Sharps on Tuesday night, we had another perfect example of twee. These two had shown up the week before and done a couple of twee things, so I was prepared. I probably didn't write much about folk clubs last week except for the Walking the Witch session in Hayes, so I don't know if I mentioned that a duo at Sharps had done a jazzified version of "Dance to Your Daddy" that made me twitch and turn colours. No? Didn't think so. Same people. She is sweet and blonde and wears pigtails and sings with her hands clasped behind her back. He is an earnest, technique-perfect guitarist. Together, they are the Twee Twins. Let's just say that we were already a little tired on Tuesday, and when I heard them launch into a really Victorian arrangement of "Jock O' Hazeldean," I just started packing to go, at which point the emcee gestured desperately and asked me to do one more song as long as it was short. Y'all know I can't resist singing or playing, so that's why we stayed, why I sang "Sweet Potatoes," and why I know how every last note of a really twee arrangement of "Jock O'Hazeldean" sounds when a couple of people who probably think Joan Baez was primative stand up and sing it.
Right. So that's your snarky Sharps report. I swear there was some good stuff. Sam who volunteers at the library sang some lovely things, Tom from Virginia really blew me away with his second song, we had sing-a-longs with Gerry, that lovely girl with the Anne Briggs voice, a kid from London who did a Jesus song and made me want to spontaneously burst into Plastic Jesus (but I worried I might offend him), and quite a lot of good concertina playing, oddly enough. In fact, it was even reported that that day's Metro had had a survey about which people Londoners are afraid to sit next to on the Tube, and five percent of respondents said they were afraid to sit next to someone who looked like they might be a concertina player. ;)
Wednesday night at Folkmob
Wednesday was the usual mixed bag at Folkmob; we got there half an hour late and they were already halfway around the singing circle. I passed the first go-round and found myself sitting right next to Tone Def Leppard. I know I've said before that this guy is really not all that bad-- I just think a lot of their stuff is in very, very, very bad taste. Now, if that makes me a snob, so be it. They're perfectly nice people, and I'm impressed that he can play and sing at all with the rhythmless drumming right in his ear like that, but I guess love makes you do funny things.
The most interesting character at Folkmob on Thursday was a guy with an electronic keyboard and -- a clarinet. He had canned accompaniment on the keyboard and played the clarinet. He was there with a Sweet Blonde Thang who basically sat there and stared adoringly at him while he played. See above line about love. Not, you know that J doesn't stare at me adoringly sometimes still, I think. Does he? Do you, honey?
We had a Jake Thackery song from Sue, lovely Irish singing from Mike P, pretty guitary work and nice versions of "Come by the Hills" and "Rare Old Times" from that fellow whose name I can never remember who sings from his throat, nice if emotionless harmony from two girls who came with one of the guys in that duo I'm always praising (including yet another not-raw-enough cover of Leonard Cohen's lovely "Hallelujah:" I swear I'm going to have to cover it myself), both those guys playing separately, one of the guys from Walking the Witch, Dave the emcee doing some lovely guitar accompaniments, T the Joan Baez wannabe who really takes all this very seriously, a girl who sang some kickass country songs but whose version of "Hotel California" I could have done without, and the old fellow who must have had a great tenor in his day but who will never in my mind live down the night he sand "Coward of the County" a capella. I guess you don't notice the gang-rape verse so much when there's a whole band of Nashville session musicians behind Kenny Rogers, huh.
I had some discussion with the sound guys about next week's guest spot, talked about mics, assured them I had a headset (thanks,
bedlamhouse!), and made sure it was OK to have Three Weird Sisters playing over the CD player before the show started and during breaks. I also talked to Dave about callylevy and little_cinnamon; I'm afraid I talked them up so much he'll probably give them the whole middle break. I plan to let them know about that-- um, in this LJ post, if they read it; they're being all Medieval tonight.Oh, and regarding next Wednesday's gig-- what do you nice people think I should wear? At the moment I'm torn between jeans and a "Strangers Have the Best Candy" t-shirt and something a little less attitudinal. And that's about as far as I've gotten. But enough of that: it's now time to cook dinner and then off to working on material for Wednesday.
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twee
Date: 2005-12-03 11:45 pm (UTC)Re: twee
Date: 2005-12-04 01:54 am (UTC)Re: twee
Date: 2005-12-04 02:03 am (UTC)Forgive me Father, for I have tweed
Date: 2005-12-05 04:47 am (UTC)