Way back in the wondrous days of yore, or, more precisely, the mid-to-late 1990s, I was fortunate to cross paths with a jive-talking, ukulele-playing, yodeling hipster who called himself The Viper. He led a Spirits Of Rhythm-inspired combo called The Famous Orchestra, who recorded two CDs before The Viper left the corn belt to teach Jive in Turkey.

I played steel guitar on the second disc, Everything for Everyone, on this ditty, a Hawaiian song about Wisconsin.

Read more about the record on the Viper Blog

Buy the CD on CDBaby.com

This is a track that I had forgotten about for quite a while, an unreleased recording by my old band the Kennett Brothers. The song is the Clash’s Combat Rock classic, ‘Atom Tan‘. The basic tracks for this were recorded during the Clinton administration, so my memory is a bit sketchy, but here’s the personnell to the best of my recollection:

• Ryan “The Viper” Jerving, PhD: Vocals
• Edward Burch: Vocals
• Jay Bennett: Guitar and Banjo
• Kenneth Rainey: Bass and Jawharp

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Tangleweed is playing an Oktoberfest gig this Friday (September 24). It’s the Northcenter Octoberfest, Lincoln, Damen and Irving Park. We love playing in that neighborhood, so come on by and say ‘howdy’. We’re starting early (around 5 or so).

It looks like we’ve got a couple nice gigs coming up in October, starting with a Saturday night gig at the Charleston on the 9th. The Charleston is a fun place, so stop in for a while.

I’ve played two gigs since I had my shoulder patched up last week (more about repairing a torn labrum). Each gig is getting easier.

The first one was like running a marathon, except there was no Gatorade on the way and no space blanket waiting for me at the end. I couldn’t move my arm well enough to get into the upper register, so I played almost the entire show in first position. I also abstained from playing chords for a chunk of the second set. My doctor prescribed Vicodin tablets the size of horse pills, which left me hoarse (no pun intended) and easily confused. I tought that opiates were suppose to help linear improvisation. Hell, it worked for Charlie Parker. Not for me, I guess. I just want to sleep 18 hours a day.

Last night was a lot easier — I can move my left arm pretty well to get to the upper register, I have more strength and mobility, and I can make it through two sets without much pain. I’ve also stopped taking the horse pills, so my voice is slowly getting back to its regular crappy state.

A couple tunes worked really well last night– the old-timey tune Two-Dollar Bill was stronger than it’s ever been, as was the old tune Train 45. We’re working on adding some new songs to our repertoire, including the old string band tune Ginseng Blues (The Cornlikkers used to do that one a lot, with Ryan ‘The Viper’ Jerving handling the yodeling chores), and a Douglass Dillard tune called Banjo in the Holler. We’ve also been working in some jazz standards, including John Coltrane’s Mr. PC, Fats Waller’s Honeysuckle Rose, and Thelonious Monk’s Blue Monk. Ryan is an extremely strong jazz guitar soloist, and he’s able to translate a lot of that to the banjo.