March 23, 2008

And Now For Something Completely Different...

So how did I wind up performing with the Baroque Orchestra of New Jersey (formery Baroque Orchestra of Boonton)? And particularly on the bill of a concert of baroque and other early music designed to "provide opportunities for some of the area's most talented young musicians to experience performance with the full orchestra"? It's a long, but intersting story.

Those of you who have my first CD, The Modern Folk Musician will note the odd inclusion of the "Bach Double" (Concerto for Two Violins and Orchestra in D Minor) on that disc. It was a piece of music that my High School friend Ramsey Ameen introduced me to. Ramsey played classical violin, and one day over at his house he played me a record of that piece with Jasha Heifitz (I think) playing one of the solo violin parts. Well that piece of music just broke me off at the ankles! I had never heard anything so complex and beautiful in all my 17 or 18 years.

Fast forward to sometime in the early 90s. I had picked up and learned to play English Concertina. I had noticed how readily fiddle music adapted itself to that instrument, not only the Celtic and American dance tunes, but some classical music as well. I was remarking upon this to the renouned English singer and concertina player John Roberts, and mentioned to him my fascination with the Bach Double. I said half in jest, "If you learn one violin part on the concertina, I'll learn the other." He, probably thinking that it was just idle talk, said, "Sure."

So I took him up on it. I bought the "Music Minus One" recording of the piece, which contains the sheet music and a recording of the full orchestral version of the piece without the solo parts. A sort of early version of karaoke, I guess. And then in several months of painstaking work, I beat the first movement into my muscle-memory, thereby forcing John to learn the other part. We performed it together at the Old Songs Festival along with a classical guitarist who pissed me off no end by looking at the sheet music of the harpsichord part once or twice and then sight-read it on stage, transcribing it to guitar on the fly.

I then spent another couple of months learning John's part, and double-tracked both parts on my first CD, along with my friend Liz Cabrera playing cello and a hired harpsichordist. For a while, I used to perform the piece live in concert, playing the 1st violin part live against my own music-minus-one recording of me playing the 2nd part plus cello and harpsichord made from the other tracks from the CD. It was a lifelong dream come true, actually playing this piece of music that so captivated me in my youth.

Trouble was that I never had the piece cold. It was a crap-shoot that I might flub the live part. And once I lost it, I couldn't pick it up in the middle. The muscle-memory is sequential. So I would ocassionally end up sitting there on stage totally flustered, while the accompanying tape played on. It was very embarrassing, and I stopped trying to perform it, dropping the piece from my repertoire entirely.

Fast forward again to last July. I had met and come to admire the Dugan family, Nancy and George, along with their teenaged children Connor and Sharlys. They played mostly Irish music as the family band, Dugan's Hooligans. The real stars of the band were the kids; Connor on fiddle and Sharlys on harp and whistle. Connor in particular was quite remarkable, playing with a skill and sensitivity far beyond his years. They had joined the Folk Project, and were going to take part in the Minstrel Coffeehouse's Birthday Show. This is a show where various member musicians are teamed up in randomly selected duos and trios, and then work out one piece of music per group for the show. Connor expressed the desire to be teamed up with me so we could do the Bach Double together. I didn't even know he played anything other than Irish fiddle music. (He plays everything! He'd worked with the Baroque Orchestra of NJ in the past.)

Well, we weren't picked together, but the idea tickled me. So I suggested that we do it together at my CD Release Concert for Ain't Never Been Plugged! He said "Sure!", thereby forcing me to re-learn this piece of music I hadn't played in 10 years, and which had been pretty shakey even back then. Well, I did relearn it, and we did play it to a standing ovation at the concert. Connor's mother Nancy played harpsichord, and I got Liz Cabrera to reprise her role as cellist. And wonder of wonders, the piece became much more solid upon 2nd learning. I'm much more confident in playing it, and have resurrected my party trick of playing it in performance opposite the recording of me doing the other part.

So when Bob Butts, the conductor and music director of the Baroque Orchestra of NJ asked the Dugans to take part in his Family Concert again this year, Connor suggested that he and I do the "Double" with the whole orchestra. And I said, "Sure!" So that's the story. It's going to be a real new experience for me. I've never played in a formal orchestra, and never played with a conductor, not even in school. The concert is Sunday afternoon, April 6, and my first rehearsal with the orchestra is this Wednesday. It's gonna be fun.

February 22, 2008

More on the Legacy of Beebe Bourne

Those of you familiar with my performance of Pat Donohue's "Would You Like To Play the Guitar" might get a kick out of this.

(For those of you not familiar with it, it is a parody of the '1940's hit song, "Swing on a Star" written by Johnny Burke and Jimmy Van Heusen. It was to be the title song of my last CD, ...Or Would You Rather Get a Job? But I was refused permission to record it by the publisher of the original, Beebe Bourne. Read the words to the parody and the strange story of my adventures in trying to record it by following this link. )

In case anyone thought my story was an exaggeration, read the following e-mail I received today from someone who prefers to remain anonymous.

Dear Mike,

I just stumbled upon your hilarious article about the beloved Beebe Bourne. I had to write you to let you know that I have been in that very same position. In my job, I am asked by Producers to get rights to use songs on Television, and when I started working here about six years ago, one of the first negotiations I ever had to perform was with Ms. Bourne.

She scared the crap out of me!

Your description of how she reached down your throat and pulled out your intestines was exactly how I felt!!! After the most gruelling five minute phone call of my life, where she snapped at me, ridiculed the offer I made her, and beat any sense of confidence I had in my knowledge of copyright our of me...she mercifully agreed to our use of the song, but only under the very strict condition that we would not be altering it in any way, shape or form.

I consider myself one of the lucky ones...A colleague of mine wasn't so lucky. After a conversation with Beebe, she locked herself into the ladies room and didn't come out for half an hour - only to emerge red eyed, and shaking like leaf!

Although Beebe has passed on, it's still scary calling the Bourne Company...I still feel that familiar tightening in my stomach as I dial the numbers - praying that I'll get the answering machine...dreading the angry voice on the other side...

Anyway - thanks for the article - it was a great read - I hope that one day you get to record your version of the song! Cheers!

December 15 , 2007

A Concert for the 25th Anniversary of Pete Fornatale's "Mixed Bag"

Left to right:Rex Fowler of Aztec Two-Step, me, Pete Fornatale, Neal Schulman of Aztec Two-Step

Last Thursday night December 13, I got a phone call from Pete Fornatale asking me to perform in a concert celebrating the 25th Anniversary of his radio show, "Mixed Bag". Those of you not in the New York City area may not be aware of the significance of that. "Mixed Bag" was one of the seminal examples of late 60's Progressive Rock Radio, and I had been a great fan of the show pretty much all through my teens and 20's. So needless to say, this was an honor I could hardly turn down. How this came to pass is an interesting series of serendipitous events. Here's the back story:

Some time in the early 80's I am hanging around the house on a Saturday morning when the phone rings, and a friend frantically shouts over the receiver, "Turn on WNEW! Turn on WNEW! You're on WNEW!" So I turn on WNEW and there's my voice coming out of the speaker doing "Ballad of the Sandman". (For those of you unfamiliar with "Sandman", it is a spoken piece about a mythical radio DJ who rebels against dictates and playlists imposed upon him by station corporate management. He delivers a memorable and legendary New Years Eve show from the within locked doors of the studio, and goes out in a blaze of glory.) The actual show that was playing my piece was Pete Fornatale's "Mixed Bag". All my friends sort of felt we knew Pete in a way. His voice presented an intelligent and eminently likeable personna, and he was one of the role models I had in mind when I created the character of "the Sandman". A bunch of us had once written into the station and invited Pete out to dinner so we could meet him in person, but we never got an answer. The station probably thought we were a bunch of wacked out stalkers, and never passed the message on to him.

Over the years, Pete's career in radio followed a winding path. As the general format of radio changed and stations got gobbled up by media conglomerates, Pete took his show from WNEW to K-Rock, and eventually to WFUV, the Fordham University radio station, which currently programs mostly Americana, contemporary folk/rock, and a lot of Celtic music. The station is influential in the New York area folk scene, and Pete is now a venerated fixture there, along with fellow WNEW alumnus, Vin Scelsa.

So how did Pete get hold of this recording, which I had never sent him? This was long before my first CD, so I hadn't even recorded the piece at the time. When the piece ended, Pete said words to the effect that this was a piece by "singer-songwriter Mike Agranoff", and was one of the most remarkable and moving pieces of literature he had ever heard about the radio business. He went on for an embarrassingly long time in that vein, leaving me dumbfounded. I tried to call the station, but there was no one on the switchboard on Saturday. So I left a message, figuring he was never going to call me back after my experience with inviting him to dinner.

Well, the following Monday night, the phone rang, and it was The Great Man Himself. And the story that revealed itself was that I had done "Sandman" live over the air some time earlier on the Gene Shay Show on WHYY, Philadelphia's NPR station. Somehow or other, Christine Lavin (Do you know her? Comedic folkie songwriter.) heard it, got a copy of it, and sent it to her friend Pete, saying "You gotta hear this!" Pete listened to it and flipped! So he put this lo-fi 3rd generation cassette tape on the air on one of the biggest commercial radio stations in New York City. So Pete was delighted that I had heard the broadcast and called the station. He invited me come into New York to the WNEW studios for a live interview for his show, and perform "Sandman" for him and his listeners in person. And he has since played "Sandman" every year on his show closest to New Years Eve. In 1993 (I think) he invited me to perform at his annual World Hunger Year Concert at the Beacon Theater in New York along with Ritchie Havens and Tom Paxton and Peter and Mary (without Paul) and Dion (without the Belmonts) and a bunch of others. Pretty heady stuff.

So this year, a whole bunch of stars aligned themselves. Aztec Two Step is a group that had been pretty major players in Pete's heyday, and have been performing continually since then. They have developed a show in tribute to the music of Simon & Garfunkel. Pete has just published a biographical book called "Simon and Garfunkel, Bookends" about that famous duo. So he put together this concert idea where he would do readings from his book interspersed with music from Aztec Two Step. And the date of the concert was to be December 28...right close to New Years Eve. Who better to open the concert than Agranoff?

So that's how it came to pass. On short notice, but I'm ready for it. If you are in the area, it will be a memorable concert.

Post script, Dec. 29, 2007: Well it was indeed a memorable concert. Sold out house consisting in large part of people who have heard my work ("Sandman"), but had never seen me live. They were primed, and I was glad to be able to deliver. (Standing ovation, encore, good CD sales, and a bunch of additions to my mailing list.) Aztec Two-Step did a beautiful set of Simon & Garfunkel songs, all of which I knew all the words to, and happily sang along from the audience. Nice interplay between them and Pete Fornatale, with Pete giving some background and history to some of the songs.

November 23 , 2007

NORTHLANDZ

I took a trip out to Flemington NJ to visit Northlandz. This is one of the most unlikely and least known tourist attractions in the state. It is the fancy of one Bruce Williams Zaccagnino, an eccentric (and evidently rich) man. And I would liken it to the Watts Towers in the respect that through perseverance and doggedness, he managed to bring this unlikely fancy to reality.

Two fancies, really. Trains and theater organs. And they come together in a rather large but rather ordinary looking building on the side of Highway 202 in Flemington NJ. It looks like a suburban office complex from the outside. But the inside is entirely filled with one enormous model railroad layout. The tour walks you through various chambers in the building on multiple levels. You're likely to encounter Bruce himself at the admissions window selling tickets. He is unmistakably a character. Entering the first chamber you see a really large model railroad layout similar to those on display by model railroad clubs around the country. Trains enter and exit tunnels in mountainsides artfully blended into the walls of the chamber. And then you walk to the next chamber where the tunnels emerge and find yourself in a room about 5 times the size of the first one. And as you progress through the building, the scenery, landscape, and overall scale of the display get progressively more and more outlandish, improbable, and thoroughly over-the-top. It takes about an hour to do the entire tour, and you walk about a mile. (That's a real mile, not a scale mile.) There are cities, canyons, bridges galore, and a recurring theme of outhouses. Some improbable statistics include 52,000 square feet of floor space, 8 (actual, not scale) miles of HO track, 4,000 buildings, half a million trees.

In the center of the building is a small theater with a number of theater organs installed. Yes, those gaudy consoles from the '30's to the '50's with multiple manuals and pedals and stops that look like juke boxes on steroids. And every half hour or so Bruce leaves the ticket window, sits down at one of the consoles and gives a little concert. He's a very good player. The tour through the railroad layout crosses through the theater three times at different levels. Talk about non sequiturs! The whole thing makes absolutely no sense and is absolutely wonderful. Click on the picture above for a picture gallery. Click on any of the pictures in the gallery for an enlarged view.

September 10 , 2007

FORMAL SHOWCASE AT NERFA!

I just got the word that I've been awarded a Formal Showcase at the NERFA (NorthEast Regional Folk Alliance) Convention. This is a regional folk music business convention (isn't that an oxymoron?) held annually in Monticello, NY. The dates for this year's conference are November 9 - 11. The Formal Showcase is a juried opportunity to perform for the 700 or so presenters, press, recording people, and other performers attending the conference. 14 showcasers are selected from about 200 applicants. I applied for and won a showcase back in 2001, and the results were significant for my career (such as it is). Not only did I convince the assembled multitudes that I could hold a place on a big stage, but more importantly, I think I convinced myself. I hope to be able to do as well this year.

September 3 , 2007

THIRD CD DUE OCTOBER 2007

"AIN'T NEVER BEEN PLUGGED!"

Photo by Robert Corwin

"Ain't Never Been Plugged!" is well underway, and will be unveiled at a CD Release Concert on October 26 at the Minstrel Coffeehouse. It's all recorded, and I start mixing today. A bunch of good stuff on there, some of which is new recordings of songs I did on my 1987 "Rocking The Boat" cassette. Some great players helped me, including Jay Ungar on fiddle, Molly Mason on bass, and Eric Mumpower (who?) on bass clarinet. (Bass clarinet? Think of it as a bass guitar with a smile and a wink. Absolutely perfect for the right circumstance.)

The tracks:

1. The Wine Song by Grant Baynham--Shoulda been the theme song to the movie "Sideways"

2. The Highway by Peter Fischman--A wonderful new folk song in the old tradition

3. Planxty Fanny Power by Turloch O'Carolan--Solo fingerstyle guitar transcription of the harp tune.

4. The Dream by Tom Baxter--A new chorus song in the pub sing tradition.

5. First Kiss by Grant Baynham--A marvelous evocation of that magical moment in all of our lives

6. 60's Mudley compiled by James Gordon and Mike Agranoff--All the 60's folk songs there ever were

7. Hands On The Switch / The Explorer by Dave Gordon / Rudyard Kipling--A song and poem about man's use of the Earth from perspectives a century apart

8. Gavotte By J. S. Bach--Concertina rendition of the Gavotte from the 3rd Partita for violin solo.

9. My Favorite Diseases Music by Richard Rodgers, Lyrics by Mike Agranoff--as in, "These are a few of..."

10. The Water Is Wide traditional--Just a beautiful song.

11. The Battle Of Trenton by Mike Agranoff--A recitation in the English Music Hall tradition

12. Solace / Maple Leaf Rag by Scott Joplin--A couple of piano rags

13. Wayfaring Stranger traditional--An unusual version of this hymn

14. The Water Is Weird music traditional, lyrics Mike Agranoff--Don't ask.

July 21, 2007

OR WOULD I RATHER GET A JOB?

To answer the title question of my second CD, I guess the answer is "Yes."

After 27 years at the same day job, I found myself out of work. My company, Mahaffy & Harder Engineering Co. closed its doors.

Well, it's a little more complicated. After several years of financial woes, the company went belly-up in January of 2006. They had designed and manufactured packaging equipment for the food and medical industry since the 1960s. I joined the company in 1980 as a machine design engineer, and found my niche. I worked there without a promotion (by choice) in the same position, becoming extremely proficient at my job and well satisfied and happy in my work. When M&H finally went under, they were bought out by the Ossid Corporation, another packaging machine manufacturer. M&H's line of products filled a hole in Ossid's product line, so it seemed a good deal for all.

Ossid's plan was to move the entire operation to their home base in Rocky Mount, NC. However a number of M&H's key engineering personnel, myself included, were not interested in relocating. So the plan was made that the manufacturing would be moved to North Carolina, but they would keep a smaller engineering and sales office here in New Jersey. This was to be an interrim arrangement to last for 5 to 7 years until the North Carolina engineering staff could be brought up to speed on the M&H equipment. In July of 2006, the remaining engineers moved across the street to a smaller office, and continued our design work, with occasional trips down to North Carolina to get our hands dirty on the actual hardware when necessary. It was a clumsy way to do work, and by the beginning of 2007, the Ossid management decided to pull the plug on the New Jersey office. I was given the option of moving down there, or being laid off. I chose not to move.

I was officially laid off June 28. However, there were still some unfinished projects that needed completion, so they gave me the option of finishing those up working from home as a private contractor, rather than as an Ossid employee. At the last minute, they realized that at home I would not have access to an enormous amount of information and data from pre-computer days that was only available on paper. So they decided to keep the office open a few more weeks. (Their lease expired on September 30, anyway.)

I had not done a lot to look for replacement work. My financial situation is such that I could have retired years ago. But I really enjoy the work and the structure it gives to my life. My immediate supervisor was not in such a happy situation, however, with kids in college and a mortgage and the whole American dream to pay for. He had interviewed with a place in Mahwah, NJ called Polytype America. He told me that the job available was not for him, but it was right up my alley. So I gave them a call, and went in for an interview the day after I started my private contract work. I cobbled together a resume the night before. Didn't shave my beard or cut my hair. Went on my first job interview in 28 years with nothing but my qualifications and my professional experience to sell. In the "Professional Skills" paragraph of the resume, I wrote, "Taking concepts from a sketch on a napkin to complete manufacturing drawings and parts lists." The Chief Engineer read that, chuckled, and said, "We don't use napkins here. We use place mats." and showed me an example. That's when I got the good feeling about the place. Sure enough, a week later, I was offered the job, and accepted. One day, one interview, one job. Part of the deal is that I still get time off to tour. Not bad! I start August 7.

April 11 - 28, 2007

ENGLAND TOUR

Here is a travelogue of my 2007 England tour. Click the picture to enter the tour.

January 13, 2007

A GOOD STORY

I recently created a MySpace page. All us kids are doing it now. So I've been floundering around figuring how to make use of it and trolling for "friends" and generally being a novice. I also get a bunch of friend requests, and happily add them to my growing list. Most of them are from other musicians. But one was from a young woman with a cryptic screen name from Colorado. So I sent her a message saying I was happy to have her as a friend, but puzzled about how it came about that she sent me the invitation. Her reply is below. For those of you unfamiliar with the song she mentions, "Invitation to a Funeral" is a humorous Irish patter song I included on my first CD, The Modern Folk Musician. For those who have not heard it, I've put a link to the song from my MySpace page.

My name is Gina, and I am very, very pleased to talk to you, sir. [She calls me "sir" :-) ] It's actually a bit of an unusual story that leads me to your page, and I will tell it to you.

It was St. Patrick's Day in 2002. My parents had recently divorced, and my mother was moving to Pogosa Springs, Colorado. She and I were taking the last of her things up there one evening. The sun had just set, and it was a bit late to be setting out on the three hour trip, but we did anyway. As luck would have it, a bad snow storm hit while we were on our way to Colorado. At the half-way point of the trip, the road goes up a particularly steep hill, and we hit it going way too fast. The car slid sideways and we almost flew off the road - which would have sent us rocketing off a cliff. Luckily, my mom got control of the car again. After that, the both of us were scared out of our minds. No one else was crazy enough to be out in that weather, so we drove 15 miles per hour down the middle of the road all the way to Pogosa Springs.

My mom suggested that I try and find a radio station, even though we both knew that nothing would come in while driving through the canyons in the snow. Oddly enough, I did find a station, and as it was St. Patrick's Day, they were playing songs about anything green and anything to do with alcohol. On that night, while fearing for our lives in a snowstorm, we heard "Invitation to a Funeral" for the first time. Neither one of us could stop laughing as the tune filled the car. The song took the edge off of an otherwise horrid situation. It was midnight before we got to our destination, but we were a good deal happier and much more relaxed than we otherwise would have been.

Since then, Invitation to a Funeral has been one of my favorite songs to sing at SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) events or for any excuse I can come up with. I looked up the lyrics on your website and remembered (most of, I hope) the tune.

Well, that story was a bit more lengthy than I intended. Oops. At any rate, I thought that it would be nice to hear more of your music, and so I looked to see if you had a MySpace page and was pleased to find you. Thank you for having such great music!

~GiNA~

You never know how your music will touch people in ways you never could have imagined. Thanks for letting me know about this, Gina. I am truly happy to be your friend.

December 28, 2006

GETTIN' AWAY FROM IT ALL

My friend Jenny and I took a holiday in the British Virgin Islands the beginning of December. We spent a week in Virgin Gorda and a couple of days on Tortola doing mostly nothing but vegging out in the sun. Had a bit of an adventure at the outset when I left my passport home. So we spent an unscheduled day in St. Thomas (how awful!) while a friend got it from my house and Fedex-ed it to me there. It showed up around 3:30 in the afternoon the next day, just in time to book a 15 minute flight in a 6-seat Cessna (Air Sunshine) into Virgin Gorda by sundown. Stayed in a rented bungalow. No car, no phone, no TV. Just an assortment of perfect beaches within 10 minutes' walk. The place has been developed by some very rich people who have spent a great deal of money on some very good architects, who have managed to build some magnificent homes that manage to blend into the landscape without scabbing it all up. There was a brand new one next door to us that went so far as to have a cement roof that was sculpted to look like a mountain ridge-line. You'd hardly notice it even though it was 50 feet away. The landscape is pretty spiffy too. Enormous boulders the size of houses scattered all over in random piles. We managed to bring along a camera with a dead battery and no charger, but check out these photos to give you some idea. The island is pretty tiny. You can see pretty much all of it in a day if you rent a car, which we did for one day.

After a week of that, we took a fast ferry to Tortola for two days. That island is much more developed, and not nearly as tastefully. We did make a nice trek through a mountain rainforest in a National park at the highest point in the island. An hour's walk brought us to the fig tree in the photo, where we met a couple from New Jersey, who were kind enough to take the photo above and e-mail it to us. Perhaps we should have been a little more careful of what we were wearing. I suspect that if we got too close to each other with our respective shirts, we might have set off a chain reaction that could have made a radioactive slag pile of the vicinity.

October 1, 2006

PUBLISHED AGAIN (sort of)

I got a letter published in the November 2006 issue of "Car And Driver" Magazine. The letter was in response to a column by contributer Larry Webster about fuel-saving techiques. They edited my letter slightly. I'm reproducing it here in its original text:

Webster's column presented some figures that contradict something I took for apocryphal fact. He states that turning off the air conditioning at 75 mph yields a 5% increase in fuel economy. Open the windows, however, and the gain, he says, drops to 2.5%. I thought at highway speeds the drag of running the A/C with the windows closed was less than that of open windows whout A/C. (I understand that this is very much a function of the specific car and the speed.)

But here's a radical proposal for improving the nation's average gas mileage: Impose a "national speed limit" of 27 miles per gallon. What that would look like in practical terms is a two-tiered speed limit. Reimpose the 55-mph natinal limit, but give cars with EPA Highway ratings of greater than 27 mpg a sticker that permits them to go a maximum of 75 mph, based upon the posted limit. Maybe that will redirect sales of SUV's to more reasonable vehicles, but still allow people who absolutely need the capacities of big vehicles to drive them, albeit at more economical speeds.

August 26, 2006

MY GUITAR

Photo by Peter Fischman
Click the image to see an enlarged view

There have been numerous requests for a photo of my guitar neck, so here it is. The guitar is a 1969 Martin D-28. The inlay is my own design, and I cut all the pieces (except the comet and the lunar surface) from abalone and mother of pearl. I used to build model airplanes in my youth, so I had the tools and the skills. The pieces were inset by luthier Bob McNally, who is best known these days as the designer of the Strumstick and the Backpacker Guitar, which is being built under license by Martin. I shared a house with Bob for a couple of years, and I traded him a fret-and-inlay job for a motorcycle.

The inlays are described below. Clicking on any of the images will show an enlarged view. The entire neck is sprinkled with stars, which were created by drilling numerous holes in the fingerboard and inserting lengths of silver wire, and sanding flush. There are also a number of higher magnitude stars and two of Jupiter's moons made from slightly heavier gold wire. The stars are not evident in the resolution of the above photo, but they can be seen clearly in the detail photos of the inlays below.

Nut and Fret 1 An Earthlike planet Abalone and mother-of-pearl
Fret 3 Full moon Mother-of-pearl
Fret 5 Saturn Planet: Mother-of-pearl Rings: Abalone
Fret 7 Crescent Moon Mother-of-pearl (You can see the places where the original marker dots were removed and filled with black grout. Those are now "black holes".)
Fret 9 Asteroid Abalone This one is a little weird. From the player's perspective, it is a brilliant blue-green. Viewed straight on, as in this photo, it's rather dull.
Fret 12 Jupiter I made this one by cutting strips out of a sheet of pink/salmon abalone, and gluing them face-to-face on a backing of 1/64" aircraft plywood such that one looked at the sawn edges. I left a space to insert the Red Spot, which I made from a particularly red portion of that piece of abalone. I then cut the whole assembly into a circle, which was then inlaid onto the neck. If you look carefully at the full-size photo, you'll see two of Jupiter's moons, which were made from tiny lengths of gold wire inset into holes drilled into the wood.
Frets 15 & 16 Comet Mother-of pearl Cut by Bob McNally
Fret 21 Lunar surface Ivory (Legally obtained from an old piano key) Engraved by Tomas Gonzalez

December 28, 2005

THEY TOLD ME "BREAK A LEG!"

So I did.

On Saturday night, December 10, I slipped on some ice and broke my leg. I Went to the ER and had x-rays taken and a half-cast installed. . Pain is minimal to nonexistant unless I try to make the foot go where it doesn't want to. Inconvenient and clumsy as all hell, though. I'm getting around on crutches.

I got to the orthopedist Tuesday morning. The verdict is that it is as good as can possibly be and still be broken. I have a fracture of the left fibula. No bones are displaced. I have been fitted with a fiberglass boot that looks like a ski boot. I will be able to remove it to bathe after a couple of weeks, much to the relief of those in my vicinity. I expect to go back to work on Wednesday if it doesn't snow. I have temporarily traded my stickshift Mini Cooper with a friend (Thanks, Mark Edelman!) so I have an automatic I will be able to drive. I'll still be probably mooching rides off others to minimize the driving I do while so encumbered. If all goes well, the boot will come off in 6 weeks. I don't know when I'll be dancing again. But I will not be able to play the violin.

Many thanks to those who have helped me with transport and chores, and to those who will in the future. Please pass the word on to anybody you think will be interested. The funny part of it all is that Miko (see item derectly below) is terrified of the aluminum crutches. I think he equates them to the vacuum cleaner.

Went into work on Wednesday. Tiring, but it will get better. One helpful soul suggested I get a single rollerblade to help me get around the plant. I told him I'd also need two training wheels as well. Maybe a Segway?

Update December 28: Healing has been rapid and without incident. I am now walking around mostly without the crutches or the boot. This is not with the blessing of the orthopedist. If he ever found out, he'd probably break my leg. But the swelling is way down, and the lovely technicolor foot has receeded to its usual skin color. There is absolutely no twinge of pain or discomfort, and I've actually fallen a couple of times with the boot because of its clumsiness. So I will use the prosthetics only when I'm going outside or walking for long distances. I'm going on the theory that if it hurts, it's probably doing me no good, and if it doesn't hurt, it's probably doing me no harm.

Update February 12, 2006: Well, I saw the orthopedist last Thursday, and he pronounced me healed, and told me to go and sin no more. As of the beginning of February, I was officially off the crutches I had in practice abandoned by the beginning of the year. I underwent a couple of sessions of physical therapy and some exercises. So I ran my first mile (well, shambled, rather than ran) since my accident. The leg was fine, but the rest of me was so out of shape that I felt almost ready for the crutches again. Should be dancing again in a week or two.

General advice: If you ever take the notion to break your leg just for the fun of it...don't. It's a bad idea.

June 21, 2005

IS THIS CUTE, OR WHAT?

So I'm stretched out on the couch vegging out in front of the tube, and my cat Miko decides to join me and make himself comfortable. I have a new PDA with a built-in camera which was in my shirt pocket at the time. Reached into my pocket and took the picture. 'Nuff said.

March 13, 2005

BRAND NEW SITE FOR THE MINSTREL COFFEEHOUSE

Since 1978, I have been Program Chairman of the Minstrel Coffeehouse. On April 15, the Minstrel will be moving to new facilities at the Morristown Unitarian Fellowship, 21 Normandy Heights Road in Morristown NJ. This will be about the 6th or 7th home for the Minstrel. (Depends upon whether you count a temporary move while one facility was under renovation, and whether being at the same site over two separated time periods as being one home or two.) I will be performing at the opening show of the new location. (It's easy to get a booking when you sleep with the guy who does the booking.)

The MUF is a very classy place. It's a converted 1905 mansion with a separate modern attached meeting hall where the concerts will take place. Back in the '70's the venue had been used occasionally by some of the better-known local acts to produce their own concerts. I remember attending these events, and gazing enviously at the facility, thinking what a wonderful place it would be for the Minstrel. At the time, the rental price was way beyond our means.

Over the years I had from time to time attended concerts at the Fellowship; some produced by MUF itself, and that sense of a high-class and welcoming venue was always there. Eventually I even got booked into some of their events, the most recent of which was back in May '04 when they asked me to be the opening act for a Mad Agnes concert they produced. That old feeling returned as soon as I walked into the building. So on the spur of the moment, I asked the organizer, just hypothetically, what she would think of the Minstrel's moving to the Fellowship. Her eyes lit up, and she said she thought that would be wonderful. So I started putting out tentative feelers with the leadership, and everyone's reaction was similar. They told me that music was always a big part of the MUF's activities, and to have an ongoing music series would be great.

It was that attitude that spurred me to pursue the matter further. At every step of the way there was enthusiasm and cooperation from their Board. They were willing to work with us on a reasonable rental cost. When it came to dealing with the physical drawbacks of the site (echo-y sound and lack of storage space), they were receptive to our proposed solutions that would impose some noticeable changes to the facility. (Large acoustic panels on the walls of the meeting room, and installation of benches in the lobby that would double as storage containers.) This willingness to work with us was what really sold me on the move. I'm the sort of guy who resists change and hates moving. But my gut tells me that this will be a good move.

August 30 , 2004

PHILADELPHIA FOLK FESTIVAL

My name was on the flier of the Philadelphia Folk Festival for many years since the mid '80's. My perenial role there was as a song leader at the late night fire circles in the campground. Midnight to 3:00, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. In 1994, when The Modern Folk Musician first came out, I got to play their "New Faces" concert on Friday afternoon when my face was pushing 50. And I've appeared from time to time since then in various workshops. But this year, I got a position I've been agitating for for about 4 years: that of the "tweener", the performer that shares emcee duties with folk radio DJ, Gene Shay. My job was to perform between acts while they're changing over the stage and sound system to accommodate the next act.

The gig was extremely challenging, very tiring, and mostly an over-the-top success. I performed to maybe 15,000 to 20,000 people. The sound was generally pretty good, and there is a full-blown 3-camera video setup with huge projection TV screens flanking the stage. (That helped me a lot, because it allowed me to use a lot of small-stage techniques of facial expression to good effect. But only after it got dark enough for the screens to be seen.) While I performed, there was frantic activity right next to me as stage hands and sound people moved microphones, pianos, platforms and musicians around. The next act was sound-checking right next to me. (Note to self: Acapella material is risky. You could be singing in E while the band is sound-checking in G.) I never knew how much time I needed to fill. They would give me an estimate before the changeover, and then change that estimate twice before I went on, and three times during my performance. The upcoming act, the stage manager, and the sound techs all had different opinions as to whether I needed to fill more time or not, and how much. It was easy to get rattled.

I was scheduled for the Friday and Sunday concerts. I was well-prepared on Friday. By all accounts, including my own, I knocked the ball out of the park! The "tweeners" are often ignored by the crowd, and met with desultory polite applause, but I grabbed them from the get-go, got them on my side, and could do no wrong. There's a great satisfaction, and no small measure of power, in getting 15,000 people to sing. And laugh. I got Gene Shay to sing on the condition that the audience had to stand up and sing along too. There's a story I had been wanting to tell from that stage for 10 years. It's a true incident that happened to me at Philly 17 years ago that I essentially formalized into a rehearsed monologue that absolutely brought the house down. Walking around the grounds the next day, I was continually being accosted by acquaintences and strangers with glowing accolades.

Pretty heady stuff, but pride goeth before a fall. It didn't last. I had one session on Saturday, an 11:00 AM (opening) session called "Tunes and Tales". It never really jelled. There wasn't much connection between me and the other performers in the session. There didn't seem to be any focus of the event. The daytime sessions are held on smaller stages down at ground level, but still with potent sound systems and capable of accommodating many hundreds of attendees. The day proved oppressively hot and humid, and it really wore me down. Sunday they had me scheduled just about continuously from opening to closing with just a 2-hour break to eat and pee. So I left the site on Saturday about halfway through the evening concert, headed back to the hotel (about a 40-minute drive), skipped the big party (darn!), and turned in.

The Sunday opening session (Chorus Songs) also never got any momentum. It was very sparsely attended, and was hard to get the feeling of people singing together amongst the scattered attendees. Immediately following that I had a Meet The Performer session. For a while there, I wondered if I shouldn't have brought along a deck of cards for solitaire, but eventually a few people did come. Then, after a 2 hour break, I had two back-to-back sessions, Parodies (that went OK) and Ballads (also OK). They had me hosting the Ballads session, which seemed a little odd, considering that John Roberts and Tony Barrand (the two Englishmen that introduced me and half the American folk audience to traditional ballads) were also on the panel. And then immediately following that, I was to assume my "tweener" and co-emcee duties on the Main Stage for the Sunday Concert.

Well, if I knocked it out of the park on Friday, it seemed that I popped up to third on Sunday. (Or at least that's what I thought at first.) Realizing that I would have to rush over from the Ballads session directly to the Main Stage, everyone agreed that I needn't be there from the very beginning. The opening act was already set up, so no filler would be needed. The first performer I was to introduce was a songwriter with no big stage setup, so no music would be needed from me. I was not well familiar with him, so I went to talk with him beforehand to get some facts. When he found out I was going to do the introduction, he got somewhat upset. He had been hoping for Gene Shay to do his intro, and he was going to be filming the performance for some important video. Gene was nowhere to be found, so I had to do it. And I absolutely flubbed it, forgetting a number of the points he wanted me to mention, and stumbling over my tongue. The only way I could have done worse would have been to forget his name.

And things went downhill from there. During the early part of the concert, which was still in daylight, I didn't have the aid of the video screens to help connect with the audience. The sound crew failed to turn on my monitor speakers, so all I could hear was the upcoming act's sound checks. I had had the foresight to use ear-plugs, so I could at least hear my own voice. But I could barely hear my guitar, and I got absolutely no feedback from the audience as to whether there was any reaction. Well, there was one last good opportunity: The final act, John Prine, had a very long change-over scheduled, and I had planned to do "Jake And Molly" there. That's a sure-fire crowd pleaser, and I could do that in my sleep, so the tech issues wouldn't be a problem.

And then I got the word that the Prine's management had told the Stage Manager that under no circumstances would I be allowed to go on before him. Why? I was "distracting and annoying".

Talk about your come-down. I was really downhearted as I packed up my gear and took it up to the car. I went to the CD Sales Booth to collect my stuff, and discovered that I had almost completely sold out of everything I brought. (Quite a surprise, because I had checked earlier in the day, and most of my stock was still there.) That mitigated the disappointment somewhat. So I decided rather than head right back to the hotel, I'd go out to the campgrounds and have a walk-around. At first it was somewhat surreal, wandering in the dark (albeit under a full moon) with others drifting past me, unnoticing, as if I were a ghost. Then I came to some people I knew, who all told me what a great job I did. I hung out and played some music, and felt better.

I staggered into the hotel around midnight to find a few folks, including the organizers, still hanging around in the Hospitality Suite. I took aside the Program Chairman, and asked him his take on my exclusion from the stage, wondering if I'd ever be booked there again. He revealed that the objection was not to my playing or material. What was "distracting and annoying" was the fact that there was to be any music going while they were sound-checking. Prine had brought his own monitor sound system with him, and they were installing and checking it during that long change-over. What was "distracting and annoying" was not me or my material, but the fact that any sound at all was going out over the system. OK. That's maybe understandable. And certainly did not speak badly of me personally, which was my fear. Well, I learned a lot. I have some suggestions to pass along to the Festival. I'd like to do it again, and I think the word will get back to them that I did a good job for the most part.

April 1, 2004

FESTIVALS GALORE

This year I've been chosen to perform in three major folk festivals in the Northeast.

Thursday - Sunday, May 20-24: The Spring Gulch Folk Festival in New Holland PA. I will be opening the Friday night concert, with Eddie from Ohio and Tom Paxton to follow. I'll also be doing workshops over the course of the weekend.

Friday - Sunday, June 25-27: The Old Songs Festival in Altamont, NY. This is a real milestone for me. I have attended every one of these events from the first one in 1981(?). And now I finally get to play the Festival. I will be performing on the Sunday Afternoon concert, and participating in several workshops over the course of the weekend. It has been for me the ideal concept of a folk festival: It is not so large as to be impersonal and daunting, but large enough to have a wonderful roster of performers and huge variety of music and dance over the course of the weekend. I really enjoy the balance of traditional and new music. The grounds are condusive to getting to all the events easily, while avoiding sound bleed. There is shade for the outdoor events, and many sites are under cover. Camping is conveniently on site. I'm really happy about this one.

Friday - Sunday, August 27-29: The Philadelphia Folk Festival in Schwencksville (Bucks County), PA. This is a huge event with some major stars in and out of the folk world. I will be co-host of the main stage on one or more of the evening concerts along with folk radio icon Gene Shay, and will be participating in daytime events throughout the weekend. Part of my emcee duties will be to provide music and sparkling repartee inbetween the acts as the stage is reset. I've been angling for this spot for several years, and this is my year. At this early date, some of the other performers I know of are John Prine, DaVinci's Notebook, La Bottine Souriante, and Taj Mahal.

I'll put details on my scheduled events on my SCHEDULE page as I get them. Hope you can get to some of these.

March 1, 2004

PUBLISHED AGAIN

In the Winter 2004 issue of Sing Out wherein, on page 80, appears an article I wrote, entitled "Is It Live, Or Is It Memorex". The article deals with technical enhancements to live performance. If you don't get Sing Out, click here for the text:

September 25 , 2003

SUCCESSFUL ENGLAND TOUR

I just got home from a real good tour of England. In 2 1/2 weeks, I did 8 performances all around the country, plus 4 concerts at the Otley Black Sheep Festival. The English Folk Scene is subtly different from that in the U.S.

The core of the Folk Scene in England is the folk club. I've not encountered its like here. Essentially these are gatherings of people who like to sing. They take place in function rooms of pubs. People gather at tables over pints of beer, and take turns singing a song. Sometimes there is a moderator to keep the singing moving along; sometimes it just goes as it will in free-form, with a general sensibility prevailing to keep one person or a small group from hogging the proceedings. In the examples I saw, most of the songs are sung acapella, and most have choruses in which everyone joins. Many are traditional, but many are newly written to be sung in such a situation.

The beer is pretty essential to the scene. I saw one or two examples of people getting plastered (and ruining a good session), but that was the exception, rather than the norm. You couldn't run a dry folk event in England. No one would come. There is more tobacco use there than in the States too. Often smoking was forbidden during the event, but that ban was sometimes ignored, and anyway the room smelled of residual tobacco. Sometimes made it uncomfortable to sing.

The concerts I played were an outgrowth of that scene, rather than the more formal performer/audience settings typical in the US. They were held in the folk clubs. The role of the performer is more like that of a featured guest singer at the club, rather than a stage performer. The difference is subtle, but important in the way one approaches the performance. Stage and lighting were minimal or nonexistent. All but one of the club gigs I played were done without a sound system. Audiences ranged from maybe 10 to 40. The intimacy was like that of a house concert. However, since the attendees were used to singing, they would pick up on choruses quickly, and they would sing enthusiastically; none of this breathing the words under their breath for them! Performers accustomed to using microphone technique to produce a soft but beautiful vocal quality would not find such a gig easy. The schedule of the evening generally runs pretty much as follows: Around 8:00 the evening begins with two or three "floor singers". These are regulars of the club, who do around 10 minutes each. In my experience, they were usually pretty good. Then the Featured Guest (me) would do a 40 minute set. Then a 10 minute break to get fresh beer and get rid of used beer, and the second half would mimic the first: a couple of floor singers and then a second set from the Featured Guest.

My audiences tended to be greying, as in the US. I had hints of a younger folk scene here and there, and there are undoubtedly very different venues that cater to the younger generation. Folk clubs usually run weekly. They will operate on weeknights as well as weekends, making it possible to set up a rather condensed tour where you're playing virtually every night. Some clubs have Featured Guests every week. Some as few as once a month, with the rest of the nights being singarounds for the attendees. CD sales tend to be much lighter in the UK than in the US. You can expect to sell only 4 or 5 CD's per gig. On the other hand, they sell for a higher price than in the States. Typical is 12 pounds, which is something more than $18.

The Otley Black Sheep Festival was unlike any US Festival I've been to. Its format more resembled that of a First Night. There were about 20 venues all over the town of Otley, all within walking distance. Most were pubs, but there were a couple of larger halls in a Methodist Church and a Civic Center as well. Most of the events scheduled were concerts and demonstration dance events. There were only one or two "workshops" as we have in US Festivals, and no participatory dancing. The events ran on Thursday and Friday nights, and all day Saturday and Sunday. Performers sold their own CD's off the side of the stage, rather than there being a central Performers' Sales area. Someone told me that Otley had more pubs per capita than any other town in the UK. In the pubs where there were no concerts scheduled, there were official and impromptu singing or fiddle tune sessions, It was in these sessions where I encountered the few obnoxious drunks, never in the concerts.

I had enough free time to do a little sightseeing. My friend Jenny met me in Lincoln and traveled with me for a week of the tour. I got to see Lincoln Cathedral, the National Railway Museum in York, Ilkley Moor (Baht 'At), Seaside parks on opposite shores at Southend and Blackpool, the Industrial Museum in Sheffield, and lots of the left side of the road. Jenny and I went to a "barn dance" at Cecil Sharpe House, the renowned folklore centre in London. (Got so lost looking for our London hotel that I finally had to get out of the car and hail a taxi to lead us there. Nothing beats hiring a native guide when you're in the jungle. I asked the cabbie if this happens often. He said, "All the time!") The barn dance was a mix of contras, English Country Dances, and other such patterned dances done to called figures. Excellent floor and very good sound. The band was a pick up affair with electric fiddle, flute, and keyboard. The music was familiar or familiar-sounding tunes, well played. But I wasn't keen on the sound of the electric fiddle. They announced bands and callers for future dances, and there were a couple of familiar American and Canadian names among the lineup.

The tour was a pretty thorough success. My material and approach dovetails perfectly with the English sensibility. That plus my "exotic" status as a foreigner brought me some pretty good notices, and everyone asked when I'd be back. I probably will go again sometime within the next year or two.

May 1, 2003

TIDBITS OF GOOD NEWS

I got a new car. A Mini Cooper S. British racing green. Picked it up the beginning of April. Sends the "Cute" meter to the peg. Drives like a street-legal go-cart. Plenty of room for me and another person plus luggage. Completely inadequate room for 4. Only one dissatisfaction: the gas mileage is well below what I would have expected.

Other bit of good news is that I've been booked for the Champlain Valley Festival!! This has been sort of a career goal for me, as it is one of my all-time favorite festivals to attend. It's the first weekend in August in Ferrisburgh, Vermont held at Kingsland Bay State Park. Great balance of performers and a magical site right on the shores of Lake Champlain. More details as they emerge on my Schedule page.

December 10 , 2002

SO HOW MANY THINGS CAN GO WRONG WITH A TOUR
(and still not get in the way of a good time?)

December 6-7 I had two gigs planned in North Carolina. I don't fly to gigs all that often, but some months ago I ran into an old acquaintance and fan, Terry Feldman, who had moved down that way. He told me he was involved with a group called the Triangle Folk Music Society in Chapel Hill, and that he'd love to have me come out that way to perform. He gave me the contact number of the booker. So, I sent off a promo packet. They liked it. I told them if I could scare up a companion gig and make a weekend of it, I'd fly down. They gave me some other contacts, and I eventually secured a gig for Friday, December 6 at a place called "Fiddle and Bow" in Winston-Salem, followed by Triangle on December 7. Sounded like a good little mini-tour.

First indication that things were awry came when I sent out my gig notices to the half dozen contacts I had in NC. It seems that Terry had never been made aware of the date of my gig, and had arranged a benefit concert of his own for the same date. And worse, he had engaged the booker of Triangle to perform in that concert. So the two people who might have spurred some of the regulars of that series to come out and hear a stranger weren't even going to be there.

Then, during the week before, North Carolina was hit with an ice storm that knocked out electrical power for a significant portion of the state. (Hmm...Did the Ice Storm follow me from NERFA? See the November 20 entry below) The Thursday before I was to leave, I got a call from Fiddle and Bow that the storm had resulted in conditions at their venue that would not permit a concert. They would pay me the guarantee, (I later proposed that they pay me only half the guarantee, so that we would split the loss.) My plane tickets were not transferrable, so I would still have to fly out on Friday. I then got to thinking that perhaps Triangle was in similar situation. I started calling the organizer, Terry, the information number, the person at whose home I would be staying, and was unable to get through to any of these numbers. That told me that power outages were widespread in the area. I did reach the venue, though, and they said that they had power. So with no firm knowledge of a Saturday cancellation, I had to take the flight, not knowing if I had any gigs at all when I reached North Carolina. On the way to the airport, I did get a call from the organizer that the concert was still on, but who knew how many folks would turn up.

When I reached Greensboro airport, I had the nightmare that besets every musician who flies come true. Down the baggage carousel came my suitcase...but no guitar. I was proud of myself. I stayed calm for the full two hours it took for the baggage folks at Continental to determine that the guitar had been left back in Newark when they determined there was no room in the luggage compartment of the plane. Geez, guys. You'd think they might have let someone at the destination know this? It's a good thing the Friday gig was cancelled, as the guitar finally was delivered to the place I was staying around 9:30 that evening. Just in time for a nice little music party with the folks who were putting me up Friday night.

I spent a couple of hours Saturday morning sightseeing at Old Salem, a restored colonial village, and then headed south for Chapel Hill. I decided to take two-lanes and see some of the countryside. Bad move. Signage in rural North Carolina is nonexistant. After going through the same town three times trying to find my way, I gave up and headed for the interstate. As I approached Chapel Hill, I could see some of the results of the ice storm. Recently felled trees lined the roads. Some sections of town were still dark. I got to the venue, a funky used book and record store in time for sound check. A good thing, because the sound system didn't work. They finally traced it to some bad cables, and re-wired things.

The gig went well, although to a small audience. A large number of the audience finally repaired to the house of the one person who had lights, and we had a nice little party.

On the trip back home, I was able to bring the guitar on board the plane. (Larger plane.) Went through the baggage inspection. They asked me to open the guitar case, and they looked inside the guitar body to make sure it wasn't concealing anything more deadly than my music. They were about to send me on my way, when I helpfully suggested that they look inside the accessory compartment of the guitar case. They did, and immediately came up with my wire clippers. Duh! I sacrificed a cheap pair of wire clippers in the interest of Homeland Security. And on my way from the airport back to my car, I got to test out my brand new Calton super-duper guitar flight case, when I dropped it. (No one to blame but me.) It and the Martin survived nicely.

Lots of fun, nonetheless. Glad I don't fly more often.

November 20 , 2002

NERFA 2002: BLACKED OUT!

November 15-17 was NERFA weekend. This is the North East Regional Folk Alliance Convention. This major area gathering of folk performers, presenters, radio people, recording people, general hangers-on and enthusiasts is a Mecca for folkies to attend workshops, perform in and attend showcases, and generally schmooze and network and do all those other buzzwords not often associated with folkies. This year the event moved to a new, and extremely un-folkie venue, Kutscher's Resort & Conference Center. This was an aging Borscht-Belt hotel in the Catskills. It was sort of weird to watch the Formal Showcases featuring folks like Rod MacDonald and The Mammals on the same stage that had been trod by Jack Benny and Shecky Green.

In 2001, I had won a Formal Showcase at NERFA, and capitalized that into a number of bookings. It seemed only natural that I should follow up this year with a table in the Exhibit Hall and as many "guerilla" showcases as I could scare up. These are privately sponsored showcases held late into the night in individuals' hotel rooms. In the early years of NERFA, they garnered that appelation by being produced without any official sanction or control. More recently, the organizers have registered them, listed them in the program book, and placed minimal controls on them so that they won't compete in the same time slot as the Formal Showcases, and so that they will all be concentrated in one portion of the hotel, so that those who want to sleep at night (silly people!) will not have music coming through the walls untill 4:00 AM.

I decided to run my own showcase room, "Agranoff's Dacha" on Saturday night, and see what other showcases I could get into on Friday night. Friday I was invited into the Plowshares showcase (run by the Plowshares concert series), Fish & Buffie's Wonderful Showcase (run by David Fishken & Ellen Groves), and the Martin Guitar showcase. These were all 15-minute mini-sets. For Agranoff's Dacha, I had half hour sets scheduled for myself, as well as Fishken & Groves, Akire Bubar, Joel Mabus, Jack Williams, and Joe Jencks. I had been stressing that folks should come to see me at the Dacha, because the longer set would give me a chance to do a wider variety of material and some of my longer pieces.

Attendance at all of Friday's showcases was... Well, as Joel Mabus put it, "I played to a crowd of nearly several". So I was placing a lot of hopes on the Saturday performance, since most folks who expressed some commitment to see me were leaning towards Saturday. And a half hour before I was due to go on, the lights went out. And stayed out. Until after we had left on Sunday afternoon. An ice storm had hit the area and brought down trees and power lines. There were still about 15 or so folks who found their way to the Dacha in the dark, but in terms of major exposure, it was all sort of a bust.

There were 750 attendees of the conference and 750 stories of what happened when the lights went out. A post-conference e-mail exchange heaped praise and calumny upon Kutscher's for their handling of the crisis. All I can say is that any place that managed to feed 750 people brunch after the power went out was doing OK in my book.

I don't know if I'll do the guerilla showcase routine next year. I think I have just about saturated this market. Virtually all the presenters at the conference know about me. They either have booked me, will book me, or won't book me. Maybe next year I'll just hang back and enjoy the conference and look for some more social music.

September 29, 2002

GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS, AND GENERAL FOLDEROL

Well, the good news is that whether due to the showcase at NERFA last year or whatever, I am gigging more heavily now than ever in the past. I think that's a good thing. We'll see how well I handle it over the course of the next few months. I picked up a couple of nice multi-gig flying weekends: One in North Carolina in December and a follow-up to my rather successful Chicago trip back in Spring. Next March I'll be going out that way again, and performing on the prestigious Folk Stage concert series broadcast live over WFMT. I've also got some promising murmurings from a couple of festivals I've been angling at over the past few years. (No chicken-counting just yet, but I'll let you know as soon as I hear something definite.) And the capper is that I will be doing a 2-week plus tour of England in September of 2003. Jacey Bedford of the acapella group Artisan has agreed to set that up for me in her other capacity as an agent. I've invested in a Calton case for my guitar, anticipating more flying in the future.

The bad news is that my longtime friend and companion Jenny is leaving the area to care for her parents in Vermont. They are not ill in any specific way, but they are aging, and Jenny feels her duty is to be with them. She has been a very big part of my life for the past 12 years, and I miss her terribly.

And the general folderol is that I got my house painted. Since I moved in, I've been doing it myself on a rotating basis: one wall every 2 or 3 years. It's a small house, and it was quite manageable that way. But there was other repair and maintenance work that needed doing, so I figured I'd get the whole thing done by my friend Scooter, who's in the business. Looks real nice. Tan with dark brown trim. Only thing is, when Scooter showed me the picture in the catalogue of a house done up in that color scheme, it had a big two-storey verandah with columns in front. When he was done, I thought my house would have columns too. It didn't. I gotta talk to Scooter about false advertising.

August 22 , 2002

LAST YEAR I COULDN'T EVEN SPELL "AUTHOR". NOW I ARE ONE!

I have an article published in the Fall 2002 issue of Sing Out! Magazine. (The one with Ralph Stanley on the cover.) It's called "Social Music", and has to do with the general decline of music as a social activity, as opposed to a performance/audience activity. If you're too cheap to buy the issue, click here to read the article.

March 29, 2002

WHAT I DID ON MY WINTER VACATION

Just got back from a 2-week vacation to Trinidad and Tobago. Took lots of notes. Took lots of pictures. I've put together a travelogue. Click on the picture to the right to read the story. (Lots of images. If you have a slow connection, there may be long downloads.)

December 21, 2001

COMPUTER DISASTER
(Warning: Techno-yap follows. Those whose eyes glaze over in response to computer talk should skip to the next article.)

Last Thursday, my new computer slagged. The entire guts were reduced to mashed potatoes. I brought it to the dealer and they replaced the hard drive and the motherboard and the power supply. The supposition was that the power supply blew, and then wiped out the rest of the works.

The good news was that it happened in the last month of my warrantee. The other good news was that the last thing I did before I turned it off for the last time was to do my weekly backup of data. Or so I thought. Got it back 5 days later, reinstalled all my software, and then restored the data. And discovered files missing. LOTS of files missing.

After a lot of head-scratching and useless consultation with tech support, I finally figured it out on my own. Here's what happened: take note if you are doing the same thing.

I back up my files on CDROM, using the Adaptec Easy CD Creator that comes bundled in Windows ME. The process that this program uses to copy files onto a CDROM is as follows. One first creates a "CD Layout". This is a list of files and directories to be copied. This list is given a name. One then uses this named layout to tell the software which files are to be copied.

Well, I store all my created files in various subdirectories of the "My Documents" directory. So what I wanted copied was the entire "My Documents" directory. So I created a CD Layout consisting of the "My Documents" directory, and gave it the name "My Documents". Then, each time I would do a backup, I'd load the "My Documents" CD Layout, and tell the software to copy that layout onto the CD.

Trouble is, what I wanted to do was to copy the "My Documents" DIRECTORY as it existed at the time of each backup. The way the software thinks of it is to copy the set of files that was in the My Documents directory AT THE TIME THE "MY DOCUMENTS" CD LAYOUT WAS CREATED!! So no new documents I added after the time the CD layout was created were recognized or copied.

What gave me the clue were two dialogue boxes that showed up before the copy process took place. One read:

"WARNING: Some source files have been changed since the CD layout was created. Choose 'Stop' to cancel the recording process. Then select 'Validate Layout' to see which files have changed. If you choose to continue, the files in the CD layout will be temporarily updated to reflect the changes."

I read that and said to myself, "Well that's good. I want the changed files to be updated. I'll continue." The second dialoge box read:

"WARNING Some source files have been moved or deleted since the CD layout was created. You should choose 'Stop' now, then select "Validate Layout" from the File menu. This will privide details of which files cannot be found. If you choose to continue, the missing or moved files will be temporarily removed from the disc layout to reflect the changes."

I read that and said to myself, "Yes, I know these files have been removed. I don't need them anymore, so I don't care if they don't go on the copy. I'll continue." THE DAMN THING NEVER WARNED ME THAT THERE WERE NEW FILES ADDED TO THE LAYOUT SINCE IT WAS CREATED, AND THAT THEY WOULD NOT BE COPIED ONTO THE CD!!!! I assumed from the two previous dialogues that the layout would be copied in its latest configuration, since that was the case with changed, moved, or deleted files. It apparently wasn't the case with ADDED files.

I verified that by creating a layout, doing a copy, adding a test file, and doing another copy with the same layout. The added file never showed up in the second copy. I then did the "Verify Layout" command and made another copy. The new file DID show up in the 3rd copy.

Well, I now know what to do to get all my new files in the future. What I want to know is how do I get to the idiots at Adaptec and let them know what idiots they are.

November 22, 2001

And the Verdict at NERFA was...
A STANDING OVATION!

Photo by Richard Cuccaro

This year, I was selected to present a Formal Showcase at the North East Regional Folk Alliance Convention (NERFA), held at SplitRock Resort in Lake Harmony, PA on November 9-11. This is an annual gathering of performers, presenters, radio people, recording people, agents, and other movers and shakers in the Folk world. About 250 acts applied for the Formal Showcase, and I was one of 20 selected. Each act gets 15 minutes on the big stage with professional sound and lights.

"Fifteen minutes!" I thought. How best to use only fifteen minutes? The material I present is so varied, and some of my best pieces are 7 to 13 minutes long by themselves. I decided to do "Give Me Just A Little More Time" to display my guitar work, preceeded by a real nice short Robert Service poem I found that is quite apropos. I followed that by "Jake and Molly", figuring that the recitations are what set me apart from the crowd, and comprise some of my best material. I finished with "Hamlet".

"Jake" was paced about 15% fast in order to not run over my allotted time by too much. I was concerned about that, because the timing is crucial on that piece. Nonetheless, about half way through it I looked out at the audience, and I saw nothing but eyes. That's when I knew it was a lock. Nobody was talking in the back. Nobody was fidgiting. I had every last soul in the room hanging on each word. "Hamlet" was the capper, thanks in no small part to Jody Gill, who was signing the performance. I had briefed her on the piece earlier so she knew what was coming. I announced the piece, and turned to her and said, "Ready Jody?" And everyone in the audience who had heard the piece before suddenly realized what was coming, and let out a roar. I launched into it, and it was Saturday Night at the ASL races. At the end of the piece, I turned to Jody, fell to my knees and kow-towed. And Jody keeled over flat on her back in a mock swoon. And the audience came to its feet and applauded.

It couldn't have gone better if I had scripted it. I nailed all the difficult stuff, and everything went over perfectly. The short term results were a number of inquiries at my table in the Exhibit Hall. Long term...who knows? The incredible audience reaction confirmed to everyone there (not least of all myself!) that I am able to command a big stage. I'm hoping for some larger festival bookings. We'll see. Meanwhile, I feel real good about the performance, and that's left a long-term glow about which I still smile when I recall. For a video of the performance, click here.

September 16, 2001

In the Aftermath of Terror

In the five days since the disaster (I almost wrote "tragedy". That would be inaccurate. The word "tragedy" implies the awful consequences of chance or circumstance. This was deliberate.) in New York and Virginia, there has been volumes written and said on the subject. In the weeks to come, the words will pile higher than the buildings that were brought down. I'll try not to add more than necessary.