Bellicose Bumpkin

In the last couple of months, the weekly Thursday night jams with my bluegrass band – Laughing Grass – were getting cancelled for a variety of reasons. After nearly a month of missed practices, we finally got together last Thursday and played for the final time – at least for a long while. The banjo player is busy with other musical projects and wanted a hiatus. I was finding those weekly trips to Weymouth to be more and more of a pain and won’t miss them – and I think the time for a hiatus is right. I’ve been in a number of bands, and they always end for one reason or another. This band was fun. It was my first bluegrass band and really set me off exploring a musical genre that I’ve always liked but didn’t really know much about. It led me to my current interest in roots and old time music. Before joining, I hadn’t been in a band since probably 1990. School, work, kids, and life in general had put music way on the back burner and I rarely played for almost 15 years.
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This puts me in an interesting spot musically. I’ve taken to playing solo acoustic gigs recently. There is a lot to be said for being a one man show: you don’t have to travel for practice and deal with the scheduling conflicts of other musicians. The down side is that playing with other people is a heck of a lot of fun. I’m playing regularly with a bass player – though I’m not sure where it’s going. We are joined occasionally by a mandolin player and a few times with an old time clawhammer banjo picker but usually it’s just the two of us.
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With the exception of the clawhammer banjo picker – John, I’ve been playing with musicians I’ve known since high school. It might be interesting to find some local musicians and get exposed to a new group of people. Through John, I’ve been exposed to a pretty active folk music scene that looks pretty interesting.
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For now, I’m going to enjoy the holidays with the family, and give some thought to the next musical project.

Here’s a video of “Little Bird Of Heaven” a song by the Reeltime Travelers from my recent gig at the Flat Iron Cafe. I have no idea what the heck this song is about but it has that old time/roots sound that really appeals to me these days. My version is slower, more subdued and I think works well given that I don’t have a clawhammer banjo or any other accompaniment. Unfortunately there’s a lot of crow noise but I still like it.

Here is a recording from the Flat Iron Cafe – it’s an old Monkee’s song. There is a bit of crowd noise but not a bad version. It was taken by my friend Katie – who toughed it out all the way to the end.

My column in this week’s Middleboro Gazette talks about the FinCom initiative to do an IT assessment, and the BOS/TM initiative to turn that good idea into a useless one.

Also in the Leisure section is a nice announcement of the gig I’ll be doing at the Flat Iron Cafe this Saturday, Nov. 21 starting at 8 PM.

I’ve had pretty good response from the bordering-on-spam emails I’ve sent out about the gig – so it should be a fun time. On the bright side, if you find the music bad, the Flat Iron serves beer and wine to help you deaden the pain. The only agenda I have for this gig is fun – and I expect the same will be true for those attending.