We began work on our third CD yesterday at Kingsize studios. We showed up just-rested-enough after playing two shows with Erie Street Jazz at Hideout and Charleston the night before. Kip and I brought our usual arsenal of falafel sandwiches and spinach pies from Sultan’s Market to sustain our appetites, along with a few beers and the tail-end of a bottle of Buleit Bourbon (courtesy of Paul). Kingsize Engineer Mike Hagler graciously supplied the coffee when we hit a mid-session lull.

Mike’s new studio looks great since our last visit over a year ago. He’s built out the live-room a bit, added some couches and a fridge, and we felt right at home from the moment we arrived. Last year we recorded in a tight circle around the mixing board in the control room, but this time Mike set us up in the big live room, which was great. It’s quite a bit more spacious, both physically and sonically, than the control room. We arranged ourselves in a big circle around a high-mounted pair of mics, and Mike also put one or two mics directly on each of our instruments.

We had five songs ready to go, including three originals and a couple trads. Our intent was to record the instrumental tracks live and add the vocals as overdubs, as well as punching-in the occasional solo or two per each player’s preference. We stuck to this plan without any issues.

We started with a good old trad waltz, “Short Life of Trouble”, and knocked it out in short order. Billy cut both his solos live along with the band, and Kip and Ryan nailed their nicely arranged mando/banjo run to set up the last chorus.

Next up was my newest original, “The Logjam”. It took us a few tries to really nail the timing of the last verse where Paul and Billy get their bows out and I drop a few chord hits while singing the lyrics, but once we got that figured out, we nailed a keeper take in no time. We left nothing but vocals to overdub later on this one (though Paul may try adding a little accordion to the quiet end-section, we’ll see).

Moving right along, we dove into the Takeup Reel Medley, which we figured would pose the most challenges of the day, and indeed it did. It starts with a boppin’ reel composed by Kip, then segues into a highly arranged version of the trad “Cold Frosty Morning”, and concludes with a blowout version of the fiddle classic “Grey Eagle”. We’d hit an all-time audience-energy peak at the Charleston with this one the night before, getting the crowd all fired up clapping, stomping their feet and hollering, so we were feeling great about the performance potential of this medley, but we also kind of wished the nice folks from the Charleston had come over to the studio with us… as things seemed a little stark with just us and the microphones. We did several takes, all of them pretty serviceable, but none quite perfectly to our liking, so we moved on and agreed we’d listen back later to make our final decision. Chances are we’ll keep running this one in rehearsal and go back at it later, but we’ll see how it shakes out.

Kip’s “California” was next, and this one moved along pretty quickly once I got my act together and stopped spoiling takes with early clams… We got just about all the instruments live and just left a hole for Kip’s mando solo. We’ve been using this one to start a trio of tunes on stage, connecting with Short Life of Trouble and Train 45 (from our first CD). We’ll probably insert “Logjam” into the “Train 45″ slot in order to preserve this running order on the CD, as it’s got a similar feel and is in the same key as “Train 45″.

“Listen to the Mockingbird” was last up. This one has been a standard part of our live repertoire for a long time, so we were able to knock out several decent takes very quickly, but Billy wasn’t entirely happy with how he was delivering the amp’d-up finale, so we decided to take a break and do some listening in the control room before going back and taking one last pass at it, at which point Billy nailed it in one try. Holes were left for Ryan and Kip’s two solo breaks, and of course we’ll overdub the vocal part where I shout out bird names for Billy to impersonate on fiddle, but otherwise this one’s complete as-is.

At this point Mike broke down most of the instrument mics and we jumped into vocal/solo overdubs. Ryan nailed the lead vocal on Shortlife very quickly, then Kip and Billy added their harmonies just as swiftly. I then did my lead vocal on Logjam in mostly one take, minus a few false-starts on the quiet part where the tempo stretches out a little. Kip assisted by getting me off the count and just listening to Paul’s bass-bowing for my cues on where to come in (thanks Kip). Then Kip and Billy nailed their harmonies quickly and sweetly in just a few minutes. Next we pulled up California so Billy could drop in one little fiddle run that was omitted from the live-take, at which point Bily and I took off (Billy was ready to crash, having taught his Suzuki classes all morning after a short night of sleep, and I was heading to Empty Bottle to see Scout Niblett), leaving Kip and Ryan to finish the vocals/solos on California, as well as punching in the pair of solos they each take on Mockingbird. I await an update from them on how this went, but I assume it was consistent with everything else and moved along quickly and cleanly.

So, a pretty great return to the studio for us after a year since we last recorded anything beyond “South Australia” with John Abbey for the Old Town School Songbook cd. We’ve got at least four keepers in the bag, and we know what we need to do to nail #5 (the Takeup Reel Medley).

Now we’ll ponder the next batch of tunes, start nailing down the arrangements, and hopefully set some more time to record in the next month or two. As was our pattern last time, we don’t have the tracklist fully worked out for the new cd yet, and we’re just letting material from our live show compete for supremacy where recording is concerned.

We’ll keep you posted on next steps, and possibly even flash a few rough mixes out to our email list once they take shape. Big thanks to Mike Hagler for another great day at Kingsize – always a pleasure.

Buell Kazee’s recording career is not dissimmilar to that of other pioneers of old-time country music. He recorded extensively in the late 1920s, but his recording career did not survive the Great Depression. Inclusion in Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music helped rekindle interest in his work, and he resumed recording and performing after an almost 30-year absence. His postwar career included recordings for Folkways, and a performance at the Newport Folk Festival.

He was an unusually good ballad singer, with a smooth and expressive voice. Kazee’s frailed banjo accompaniment is also impressive.

Interestingly, the titular Dying Soldier is a Yankee, having been laid low by a Southern ball. Kazee was a Baptist preacher, and I suspect the text’s emphasis on redemption and the afterlife had a great deal of appeal to him.

This is an unissued side, recorded for the Brunswick company in January, 1928.

The Dying Soldier (MP3)

Courtesy of Archive.org

I’m not aware of this song being among the ballads Child collected in his landmark folkloric work The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, but it shares common elements with many of the songs therein, and appears to be English in origin. While the references to London Town betray English origins, some of the text has been modernized and Americanized, with the Butcher’s Boy becoming a Railroad Boy in Kazee’s version.

Its inclusion in Harry Smith’s seminal Anthology of American Folk Music has made this a popular song for revivalists to cover, with folks from Peggy Seeger to Elvis Costello taking a crack at it.Kazee’s voice is smoother and gentler than the recorded voices of many of his Kentucky bretheren. The modal banjo accompaniment is georgous.

The Butcher’s Boy (MP3)

Courtesy of Archive.org

We had an interesting experience when we arrived in Lawrence, KS. It turns out that our motel room was already occupied by a Lucho Libre, or Mexican wrestler. He went by the name of “El Jugador de Pleitobajo.” Not wanting to jeapardize our tour in any way, we let him be and found a different room. However, we were awakened in the middle of the night by sounds of powerbombs and piledrivers off the balcony into the motel pool below. El Jugador was obviously practicing for his exhibition match the next night. Good luck to him and his career!

The show at the Bottleneck last night in Lawrence was great. Good sound (thanks Adam), good folks, good time. That Damn Sasquatch came over from Topeka to open the show. Nice guys, and a good, high-energy band. There was a taper at the show. We’ll let you folks know if it shows up on Archive.org or another download site.

They play some of the same trad tunes we do. They do an uptempo version of ‘Short Life of Trouble’ with different lyrics, and in 4/4 time.

The outdoor pool at our hotel was still open, despite it being mid-October and not that warm. I went for a swim before the show to confirm that the water was, in fact, rather cold. Ryan took a swim after the show to confirm that the water was, in fact, still rather cold.

My success in intraband competition continues: I won a bunch of games of pool in a row after the show, so many that I thought it best to stop before the law of averages caught up to me, as I really have no pool skills whatsoever.

We had breakfast this morning at a good little restaurant on Massachussets Ave called the Global Cafe, and then piled in the van to start heading back to Chicago. Bascom Lamar Lunsford’s Ballads, Banjo Tunes, and Sacred Songs of Western North Carolina is in heavy rotation, along with the stellar compilation Down in the Basement.

Here’s the set list from last night’s show:

1. Draggin’ the Bow
2. South Australia
3. Angeline the Baker/ Soldier’s Joy
4. Where You Been
5. Hard Times
6. Takeup Reel/ Cold Frosty Morning/ Grey Eagle
7. California
8. Short Life of Trouble
9. Train #45
10. Never Make it Home
11. Spoonful
12. High on a Mountain
13. Mississippi Trashboat
14. Logjam
15. Ginseng Blues
16. With a Bottle in My Hands
17. Last Call Waltz
18. Heroin
19. Orange Blossom Special

Thanks to everyone for coming out, and to all the good folks at the Bottleneck for their hospitality.

We had a great show at the Bluegrass Cafe in Tama last night. We had a large, appreciative crowd, and played two pretty decent sets. Afterward, we retired to a little bar down the street with some of Ryan’s relatives.

We entertained ourselves with $1.50 Amber Bock drafts and a video game that simulated deer hunting. Paul dominated on the latter. Whle Billy Oh and I were scarcely able to hit a rock, Mr. Wargaski was a cold-blooded killing machine. I, however, remain undefeated in intraband foosball play.

We’ve been slowly jacking up the tempo on a fiddle tune medley we’re planning to record: The Takeup Reel/ Cold Frosty Morning/ Grey Eagle. In practice, we’ve taken it as high as 160 bpm, live, we’re generally around 145 or 150. We’ve also been playing a new instrumental called ‘Mississippi Trashboat,’ which is starting to come together.

We stayed at a farm house in Zearing, Iowa, as guests of Ryan’s cousin Jill and her two small dogs. Everyone got their own bed (always a plus), and we slept well. Tonight we’ll be piling 5 into a hotel room in Lawrence.

There’s a chain of truckstops called ‘Kum and Go’, the most thoroughly indecent franchise name I’ve heard since ‘In and Out Burger’.

We’re on the road for a couple days for a quick swing through Iowa and Kansas. As I write this post, we’re in the van on our way to a show at the Bluegrass Cafe in Tama, Iowa. After that, we head down to Lawrence, Kansas for a show at the Bottleneck with ‘That Damn Sasquatch.’ We’re off Saturday, and then we’ll be back home in time for pie.

These shows will help us tune up in preparation for our return to the studio. We head back to King Size to work with Mike Hagler (who engineered our second record) next weekend. We tend to work pretty fast in the studio, so we’re hoping to knock out five or six tunes in a day of tracking. As was the case with the last record, almost everything will be tracked live, as we tend to work best this way.

We all met up at the airport this morning and rented a minivan from one of the agencies at O’Hare. Paul was carrying the suitbass over his shoulder like a hobo bag when an October gale blew it off. The scroll cracked, sadly, but the instrument was otherwise unharmed and remains in fine playing shape.

Construction at O’Hare seems to have necessitated the removal of all all the Starbucks kiosks from terminal 2, leaving us dispirited and confused while we waited for Billy to swing by in the van. Disaster was averted by a quick stop at the O’Hare Oasis to prevent our heads from imploding in a miserable, desperate, state of coffeelessness.

Technology marvels: Scott is in the front seat on a conference call, I’m in the back seat blogging with a wireless broadband connection. I have some pictures, shot in glorious van-o-rama, but my laptop bluescreens every time I plug my iPhone in, so those will have to wait.

Bob Everhart wrote a great review of our most recent CD for Tradition Magazine, the official magazine of the National Country Music Association. You can read the review below, or read it as a scan here.

TANGLEWEED: Where You Been So Long
Tradition Magazine, Sept/ Oct 2007
Bob Everhart

Bang, just when I was feeling really blue with Jackie, here pops up some fiddle music that just absolutely ‘lifts’ you up whether you want to or not. These guys from Chicago are just my style. They are all excellent pickers, and have the ‘nail’ right on. Paul Wargaski sent it down to me. I would surely like to see what they could do at our festival in LeMars in 2008. This CD will be in the running for ‘National Musicians of the Year’ from the Rural Roots Music Commission in 2008, so we’ll see what happens. Everything they do is ‘up’ and I mean they are right on the razors edge, beat wise, and musician-wise. Billy Oh on fiddle and vocals; Kenneth PW Rainey on mandolin, most lead vocals; Paul Wargaski on bass and vocals; Timothy Ryan Fisher on banjo and vocals; and Scott Judd on guitar and vocals. Together they form one of the finest acoustic bands I’ve heard in a long, long time. These are some incredible music makers here, I especially enjoyed Rainey on the mandolin on ‘Ginseng Blues.’ You’ll dig the yodeling here, it’s for real. This is an all encompassing CD, it covers all the bases, from great traditional to experimental traditional. What I like about good acoustic bands is a solid beat, and that usually comes from the bass. This is a good sounding bass, and mixed just right, try ‘High On The Mountain’ for this particular element of good acoustic music. Tony Bennett liked to sing Hank Williams songs because they were good. He liked good music. Tangleweed likes good 20’s jazz too, try ‘I’ve Found A New Baby.’ Do you like Irish jigs? It’s here too. G# minor takes us out of the traditional bluegrass tuning, but it’s still good. Down and out ‘for real’ hillbilly music is also available here. My favorite is ‘Angeline the Baker/ Soldier’s Joy.’ The introduction is totally creative and neat. The melody line is superb and right on. The ending is exactly what ‘Soldier’s Joy’ is really all about. I also like the Slim Whitman approach to ‘Last Call Waltz.’ Who knows, maybe Tangleweed will save the universe from space aliens some day. I sure hope so!