Veseliyka @ Folklore Village

Somehow, I seem to have become a member of yet another band, at least temporarily. The name of the group is Veseliyka and they play traditional balkan music. Balkan music is, to me, some of the most exciting music in the world and it is a joy to have the opportunity to play this music in yet another band (The Reptile Palace Orchestra has a lot of balkan music in its repertoire, although RPO tends to "reptilize" most everything we do) and to play it on a different instrument. Veseliyka consists of David Kantor (gajda and kaval), Yulian Yordanov (vocals and tupan) and me (tambura.) David is an excellent musician and Yuli is a former professional dancer and dance instructor from Bulgaria who can also play a mean accordian and is a superb vocalist. The instrument I'm playing with this group, the tambura, is an instrument I had never played before. I must be insane. I don't know, exactly, the history of how they came to ask me to play with them, but they were in need of a tambura player for an imminent show at Folklore Village's annual Christmas Festival in Dodgeville, Wisconsin. I suspect I wasn't their first choice. Probably, they would have preferred Biff Blumfumgagnge, string player extraordinaire of the Reptile Palace Orchestra, The Gomers and numerous others. I believe they asked a few other people as well, including my brother Bill. Bill suggested that I would be a good candidate if they were looking for someone who could pick up an unfamiliar stringed instrument and learn a bunch of songs in a hurry. I decided it would be worth a try. I had about three weeks to practice the songs prior to the performance on December 29. On the night of the show, my mood was dampened a bit due to the fact that my family was not allowed to accompany me, the event having sold out. (I have been involved in very few gigs where my family was not welcome to attend, usually at no cost [we were prepared to pay for their admission on this one.] Families of musicians and other performers sacrifice a great deal. In addition to the time spent at actual gigs, there are countless hours spent at rehearsals, practicing, etc. With very few exceptions, it's sort of an unwritten rule in musical circles that performers often bring family members with them, and they are treated like any other guest. Add this to the fact that my family and I have been involved, on and off, with FV for over thirty years, and I have to say that there were some harsh words spoken in our house about the whole business. There is much more that could be written about this particular issue, but for now, I'll just say I may have had somewhat of a bad attitude during much of the festivities.)

Folklore Village had brought Yves Moreau to teach Bulgarian dances for the day and we had sent him a list of the songs we were going to play so he could teach dances to go with them if he thought that that would be the thing to do. I must admit I felt like somewhat of an impostor playing an instrument I didn't really know how to play in the lofty presence of Mr. Moreau. (Of course, I often feel like an impostor when I play. I just pretend I'm a real musician and nobody seems to know any different, so what the heck.) After the dinner, the folksy speeches and the cute skits, it was time to play. Lo and behold, people danced. And they thought we were great. I really enjoyed playing and, when we finished, the applause was quite loud and enthusiastic. Hah! Fooled 'em again! It looks like I will have at least one more opportunity to play with Veseliyka. Look for us at the Madison Folk Ball on January 25, 2008 at the Memorial Union on the University of Wisconsin campus! If you have the chance, check it out - the Folk Ball is a wonderful event which I have attended every year for the last ten years or so.

Happy holiday thingies!

Hello? Is there anybody out there? Five days of internet and telephone problems can give one a sense of disconnectedness in these times of electronic communication. Add to that the fact that this all started happening on the heels of a dual-gig Friday (one at 8:00 a.m. and another, out of town, at 10:00 p.m.) which saw me arriving home at about 3:30 a.m. on Saturday. Of course, after dragging myself out of bed on Saturday, there were christmas errands and a dinner engagement (I think - it all seems so long ago.) It rained all day Saturday, destroying so much of our beautiful snow, and later in the evening the temperature dropped and it all froze (I had to chisel my way into my car on Sunday morning.) Somewhere during the freeze is when our phone and internet connection went somewhere else. Many of our neighbors were in the same boat, so I assumed the weather conditions were responsible. I’ll skip the boring details, but I will say that it was particularly inconvenient to have all this take place while relatives were coming to town and plans were supposed to be taking shape for the ensuing days. It all seems to be working now and I’ve just finished catching up on the most important e-mails, so I thought I’d put a little something up so my readers (I think I have at least six "regulars" now) wouldn’t think I’d deserted them. Happy holiday thingies everyone! (Yes, I intentionally avoided saying “Merry Christmas”, partly because I enjoy pissing off those fundamentalists and partly because not everyone does christmas™.)

Reptile Palace Orchestra: Neenah, WI

I'll be playing with the Reptile Palace Orchestra at Cranky Pat's in Neenah, WI tomorrow night (12/21/07) at 10:00 pm. If you happen to be in the area, or know someone in the area, it should be a good time. I'm told they make a mean pizza.

Icicles

It has been a good year for icicles here in Madison. Unfortunately, while they look cool, they're can cause damage to property and can also be dangerous. Our next-door neighbors had a really impressive collection, but when I went out to get a picture, I found that their landlord had knocked them all off. Here are some others:

Another broken record

The Mighty Pack, still the only socialist team in major league sports, secured the 2nd seed in the playoffs with a 33-14 win over the
St. Louis Rams today. Thanks to Philadelphia, they have a shot at the top seed, although, in order for that to happen, Dallas needs to lose one game and the Packers need to win their last two. Probably the most notable event in this game was Brett Favre surpassing Dan Marino's record of 61,361 career passing yards. Favre now holds just about every record a quarterback can hold. Most consecutive starts by a quarterback (251), games won (160), career touchdown passes (440), pass attempts (8,715), pass completions (5,351), interceptions (438) and now passing yards (61,405). Pretty amazing.

Five Little Known Facts About Me

I’ve been tagged by Dr. Monkey von Monkerstein with the Five Little Known Facts About Me meme. Memememeeme. Me. So, here goes:

1) I have birthmarks on my stomach in the shape of the Big Dipper. Really. Okay, so one of the stars/marks is missing, but the other six are there and it definitely looks like the Dipper. Maybe I’ll have the seventh one tattooed some day.

2) I can roll my stomach. Like a bellydancer. I learned how to do it when I was but a wee bairn by using my rolling stomach to make waves in the bathtub. I've succeeded in teaching Sparkly Seacow to roll her stomach, too.

3) I used to work for a company that makes high-end electric guitars. One of the instruments that we made was cursed. Seriously. Maybe I’ll tell that story at a later date.

4) While a member of Appliances-SFB, I played at the legendary and now defunct CBGB. Oddly, it seems that just about everywhere that band played over the 17 years I was with them has either gone out of business or burned down. A-SFB was an exciting group with which to be involved. Most gigs were an experiment in controlled (or uncontrolled) chaos. Unfortunately, although we played a lot and released three albums, one of which was released in Germany, we never managed to achieve any commercial success. I choose to believe we were ahead of our time. I'd link to them, but there's not much to which to link. The albums can be purchased from Rockhaus (the third album is available now, and the first two should be re-issued any week, now). I found a YouTube video here, a review of our second album here and some poster art here.

5) I saw Jim Morrison’s gravestone in Paris not long before it was stolen. I must point out that I didn’t go to a lot of trouble to see it. It was merely coincidence that the friend that Ms. Ether and I were visiting while on our honeymoon lived about a block from the cemetery. It was something to do while walking around the neighborhood. Cemeteries in Paris are much more crowded than cemeteries in the U.S. We didn’t think it would be possible to find any particular grave without being lucky, simply because you couldn’t see more than a couple of graves from any one spot. Kind of like trying to find a building in New York city without knowing its address. Well, we found it all right, and it didn’t take much luck, either. Gathered around the grave, looking seriously bummed, were a handful of youngsters dressed as punks and goths: lots of black clothing, studded leather, spiked mohawks and black eyeliner. I felt like saying something like "Yup. He's still dead." But I didn't. The area surrounding the grave was littered with cut flowers in empty liquor bottles. While leaving the cemetery, we met a man (seemingly Indian or Pakistani, by his accent - due to my ignorance, I can’t be sure), heading the other way with a book that listed all the famous people buried there. I remember Victor Hugo was one. He asked us, in his melodic accent, “Excuse me. Do you know where is the grave of Jack Morrison?” Just follow the spray paint, dude. You can't miss it. Throughout the cemetery were graves defaced with spray paint that said “Jim” with an arrow pointing in the direction of Morrison’s grave. Unbelievable.

Now I tag Cinderbelle, Sparkly Seacow and Luminiferous Ether.

The Way Things Go

I just got an e-mail from a friend of mine. You know the kind of e-mail I mean - obviously been making the rounds, a fair amount of hyperbole, etc. It was about this "Fantastic Machine" that took these people 13,029 hours to build, blah, blah. After looking at it, I was pretty sure it was fake, and sure enough, it was; no such machine exists. But, it reminded me of a great film called "The Way Things Go" made in 1987 by Swiss artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss. It's about half an hour long and the whole thing is just a Rube Goldberg type experiment. It has no point or function, but it certainly is fun. I give it two big, enthusiastic, well-lubricated thumbs way, way up. To see the whole thing, you have to buy or rent it. Or get it from your local library. Here's a little clip: