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Thursday, September 18, 2008

Second Wednesday, Old Timey jam

Hosted at The Bread and Jam Cafe

130 Remsen Street, Cohoes

7:30pm - 9:30pm

Let’s try it for the next 3 months and see where it goes. Here’s the dates:

October 8
November 12
December 10

All skill levels welcome. Slow jam for the first 1/2 hour.

Listeners, too. The cafe has food and beverages, WiFi, and couches.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Lake Genero and some new tunes

What a nice gathering we had this year. I've got some field recordings up on my tunes site. I'll be working on editing more so check in from time to time.

I've firmed up some more opinions over the past few months. One being that I'm not the sort of fiddler who likes to play the same old stuff for the sake of being comfortable. I've been in numerous jams, in the past few years where the unquestioned framework is to aim for tunes that everybody knows. You know, after the 5th Over The Waterfall in a weekend, I just feel like screaming. I mean that in the nicest way, but I don't care how well played it is, the challenge is gone after awhile. I love a new tune that catches my attention with its freshness and curiosity. Yep, I know not everyone is up to jumping in on a jam to play by ear, but golly gosh, I wish more folks could take that leap to find out that it's way easier than they think. A work in progress, no doubt. That said, I so don't want to make anyone feel badly about their abilities or what floats their boat. We're all in a different lane on the music highway, I guess.

Here's some of the new (to me) tunes that are up on the tunes site...

Moon Over the Hill, a Melvin Wine tune *Edit - See the comments below. Thanks, Brendan*
Old Greasy Coat, a variation of the old standard
Hard Road to Travel, still looking for a source
Old Billy Hell
Lucy Neil, from Norman Edmunds

Hey, so play nice. Learn some new tunes, eh?