Last year’s performance at the Old Town School’s Folk and Roots Festival in Chicago was a blast. It will now forever be recorded on their highlight video, available for view at their website. A clip of us playing “Draggin’ the Bow” is imbedded in the middle of the video. Unfortunately, we won’t be gracing the mainstage again this year, but we’ve got a full festival season ahead of us, which you can check out on our calendar.

More music from the Archive… See my previous post for more information on Bob Skyles and his Skyrockets.

Bob Skyles and his Skyrockets: You Picked Number Four (MP3)

Courtesy of the North Albany Archive of Recorded Sound.

More music from the Archive… Bob Skyles and his Skyrockets were a family band from Pecos, Texas, that split the difference between the Western Swing dance bands like the Texas Playboys and novelty groups like the Hoosier Hotshots. They recorded for Bluebird in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

Like many bands of the day (see my previous Luke Wills entry, for example), the band’s recorded output differed from what they played at their dance gigs. Jim Lowe’s informative page on the band reprints portions of a 1995 interview band member Cliff Kendrick did with researcher Duncan McLean. Kendrick’s sentiments about the material were unambiguous:

We thought all that stuff was terrible. Corny as hell. The record company, they wanted a comedy band, see, like Bluebird’s answer to the Hoosier Hotshots. We hated it. But we went along with it - fooled around, played that stupid whoopie-whistle. Bob came up with all those dumb songs - we never played them in the clubs, you know; we played straight dance stuff, and jazz, then. But hell, who were we to complain? Those records sold well, earned us a bit of money. And that’s what it was all about.

I suppose you never imagined anyone would be listening to them sixty years later?

Hell, I wouldn’t've imagined anyone listening to them sixty days later. We sure never did.

Despite the band’s reservations, the material has aged surprisingly well, largely due to the solid musicianship of the Skyrockets and some very likeable vocals.

Bob Skyles and his Skyrockets: All Night Long (MP3)

Courtesy of the North Albany Archive of Recorded Sound.

For the past four years I have worked as an acompianist for the School of Ballet Chicago at 218 S. Wabash in downtown  Chicago. This has put me in contact with principle Goffrey dancers who’s children are in my classes, (we were in the same building for years) as well as many other proffessional dancers from Alvin Ailey company, to the director of Deeply Rooted, and  Luna Negra. In fact I have been submerged in the dance world for many years having worked as an acompianist for Collumbia College, River North, Zephyre, Hubbard St, and have two (legitimate children, which are both mine), with a proffessional dancer. The last time I was on a New York subway I ran into at 4 or 5 different dancers that I knew from different jobs. I have trained with highly regarded musicians, and am currently surrounded by old school Russian ballet piano players.

So what’s the big deal, all of this sounds rather normal for say a pianist. But I am a banjoist. I love Scruggs, and play many a fiddle tune for tendus, and chasses’ as well as classical guitar peices from Sor, to Bach, having learned how to adapt guitar music to the banjo. I must say that reactions to seeing a banjo in a point class turns many a head. In fact like, much of my past, people think I am lying or crazy when I tell them about it.

The truth may be that this marks a point when the hillbillies like their Irish ansesters after the fall of Rome, are reintroducing the masses to the classics during these dark ages, and the fall of the Amercan empire. And like our Irish ansesters the muslims will probably get the credit. This is evident in that “Hillbilly Teeth” can be purchased in the the vending machine at the Pizza Hut near my house, and movies like “Joe Dirt” dont seem offensive to people. If Pizza Hut sold “Jungle Bunny Hair or “Jew Noses” they would be sued and it would be national news. Poor whites are the outgroup in the current politics of hate. Banjo players are at the very bottom of this class. I have coined the term “lower leisure class” to describe this demograhic.

The Russians are very concerned about banjo in the ballet class, but they are are dying off and replacements can not be found. Maybe the banjo is reaching  the appex of Western Culture and we banjo players are the new cultural warriors bringing civilization back the barbarians, or western culture is in much worse decline than we thought. Either way I have a job.

Tangleweed warms up at Kinetic Playground, Wed. 4/18/07

Well, this is turning into a great birthday for me. That’s right I share a birthday with Adolph Hitler & Carmen Electra.

Since fame by association is not enough for me. I have recently been thrust into the media spotlight be winning the Earth Day Quiz on WBEZ’s radio show World View.

After a rocky start flubbing the first question on the midwests contribution of Global warming gasses (5%). I eaked out a victory with a right answer in the tie breaker question of “How many cellular phones were retired in 2005?” My guess of 100 million was closest (the actual is estimated between 100 & 300 Million)

My prize is a Sun Oven provided by Sun Oven owner Paul Munsen! Which I am looking forward to taking on to road to this summers festivals. When you see us at this summers festivals feel free to ask me What’s Cooking?

www.chicagopublicradio.org/worldview

www.sunoven.com

Truth in advertising… This is a nice little page to get a pitch reference if you don’t have a pitch pipe or tuning fork handy:

www.onlinetuningfork.com

This is a useful companion to the Javascript BPM calculator.

This is the latest Phil Ochs clip that I’ve ever seen, from April, 1974. Phil was strangled while traveling in Africa the year before, and his voice is noticeably weaker after the attack. He occasionally lapses into a Lou Reed-esque sprechstimme here. In less than two years, he would be dead by his own hand.