Tangleweed had a chance to record a tune on an early 20th century Edison wax cylinder recording rig. Martin Fisher, audio archivist at Middle Tennessee State University, set up the acoustic recording studio at last week’s Folk Alliance conference in Memphis

This being a pre-electric recording studio, the band was gathered around a single horn, which was connected directly to a lathe that etched the sounds into a blank wax cylinder. Each cylinder blank could hold two minutes, so we had to tweak the arrangement and push the tempo a bit to get it in under the maximum time. We recorded two takes. It’s all live to mono, so there’s no ‘fixing in the mix’, as it were.

The tune is a Tangleweed medley called ‘The Logan Square Dance’.

We will have audio of the cylinder itself soon.

One of Tangleweed’s sets at the 2010 Folk Alliance  Conference in Memphis is available for download. One of our first sets was at the Steam Powered Preservation Society, who had a multi-mic recording setup for capturing the performances.

You can download it here as a zip file:

http://thespps.org/mp3s/partners/sppsshowcases/fa2010/mp3/tangleweed2010-02-18.mp3f.zip

If you’re attending the 2010 Folk Alliance conference in Memphis, please take a moment to visit us during one of our showcase sets. Tangleweed will be an official Performance Alley Showcase Artist at this year’s conference. We will also be performing a number of private showcases during the conference.

Our official showcase is scheduled for Friday, 7:30PM in the Chattanooga room.

Thursday:
10:30PM First Timers Showcase     Rm Hootenanny Hall
11:15PM Steam Powered Prsv. Soc   Rm 1721                 
11:45PM Concerts in your home     Rm 1926
 1:00AM Pie-Hole                  Rm 1706

Friday:
 2:30PM LilFest II                Rm 1724
 7:30PM Performance Alley         Rm Chattanooga
 1:45AM LilFest II                Rm 1724

Saturday:
 2:00PM LilFest II                Rm 1724
11:00PM Omega Delta Psi           Rm 1709
12:45AM LilFest II                Rm 1724

Phil at rest

For years Punxsutawney Phil has been forecasting the end of winter on February 2nd. Phil told the world today we’ll be holding on to winter for another 6 weeks.

We’ve put together a tribute as to what really went on this morning in our coloring book “Tangleweed Saves Ground Hog Day” To receive your very own copy of “TSGHD” just email Paul your mailing address and we’ll send a copy off to you.  Have no fear, once your coloring book has been sent we will not retain your mailing address.

paul@tangleweed.org