Fret Soup

The Essential Clarence White

2009-09-03T08:58:00.000-07:00

When I was in Nashville a couple months ago for the NAMM show, I visited some local guitar shops, including Guitar Gallery, the Opryland Gibson Guitar showcase, Gruhn Guitars, and Cotten Music, where I made my only musical purchase of the week: Roland White and Diane Bouska’s wonderful new book The Essential Clarence White: Bluegrass Guitar Leads. In addition to an illuminating biographical intro by Roland that details his life with his brother from their births in rural Maine to Clarence’s death at the age of 29 in 1973, the book includes detailed transcriptions of 14 traditional instrumentals that Clarence recorded at home in 1962. These recordings are included on a CD, along with a couple of video clips made the year he died, and a second CD provides backing tracks (by Roland on guitar and Missy Raines on bass) so students can practice the tunes in the book.

The transcriptions, by Matt Flinner and Steve Pottier, are worth the price of the book by themselves, but each tune is accompanied by detailed notes and technical tips about Clarence’s playing, along with shots of Clarence’s hands in action. So, for example, in the basic instruction section about how to hold the flatpick, you get a close-up example of exactly how Clarence held the pick. One technique that Clarence used in particular, and which is not often talked about in flatpicking technique manuals, is the rest stroke, and in addition to a clear and concise description of this important technique, the notes point out Clarence’s use of it in various points in the transcriptions.

Although these recordings were done at an early stage in Clarence’s life (he was just 19 at the time), and the versions are somewhat simpler than many of his later recorded versions, his style was already fully formed. The wealth of detail and technical information here will keep even advanced guitarists busy for quite awhile, and students just discovering Clarence’s revolutionary style will appreciate the more straightforward approach and essential repertoire, including “Shady Grove,” “Black Mountain Rag,” “Wildwood Flower,” “Nine Pound Hammer,” and “Sally Goodin.”

The Essential Clarence White can be ordered from rolandwhite.com. For more info about Clarence White, see my lesson on his playing in Acoustic Guitar magazine. Password: mandolin.

My Week at Kamp

2009-07-05T21:20:00.001-07:00

I spent last week at Steve Kaufman’s award-winning Acoustic Kamp, teaching guitar to around 150 guitarists, jamming with campers, and performing with current and past musical partners. It was Flatpicking, Banjo, and Mandolin week, which you might think would be dominated by bluegrass pickers and jams, but the presence of Celtic guitarist Tony McManus, Italian flatpicker Beppe Gambetta, jazz chord–solo specialist John Carlini, old-time oriented flatpickers Robin Kessinger and Eric Thompson, theory buff Mike Kaufman, and Swiss new acoustic powerhouse Uwe Kruger kept things lively and varied.

I arrived a day early to get settled in, just in time to join Steve’s Saturday night jam, the final event of the previous week’s camp, and ended up in a wonderful four-guitar jam with Rolly Brown, Mark Cosgrove, and Jeff Jenkins in a room that was being used by luthiers Ken and Virginia Miller, providing us with a ready store of wonderful guitars to sample. An auspicious start to the week.

Kaufman Kamp is organized a bit differently than other camps I’ve taught at. Every camper is assigned to a class, based on their level and experience, and this week there were eight guitar classes, which ranged from a maximum of 20 to a cozy 11. There were also eight guitar instructors, and every class rotated through the instructors, spending two hours with each one. (There was also a Guitar 101 class taught by Cindy Gray for total “which end do I blow in?” beginners.) So I got to see every guitar student in camp, but only for a couple hours. This provides the campers with a helping of each teacher’s wisdom but doesn’t provide much time for in-depth instruction.

However, the daily morning and afternoon classes are just part of the curriculum. There are also slow, medium, and “genre” jams (I co-facilitated a Celtic jam with mandolin instructor Robin Bullock) as well as a Tune of the Day group. These organized picking parties are intended for all instruments and were led by Casey Henry and Keith Yoder. (Casey, a great Scruggs-style banjo player and the youngest instructor at Kamp, seemed to be working 30 hours a day. In addition to teaching the Mandolin 101 and Banjo 101 classes, and leading jams a couple times a day, she also organized the Saturday band scramble and guested on numerous staff concerts.)

Evenings are reserved for staff concerts, which are bookended by open mics for the campers. I was fortunate to have a few performing pals also teaching. In addition to guitarist Eric Thompson, Bill Evans was teaching at Banjo Kamp, and John Reischman was one of the all-star mandolin instructors. We had a great time guesting on each other’s sets, but, of course, part of the fun of these events is getting to play with musicians you don’t normally play with, whether in an impromptu jam or a barely rehearsed onstage performance. I got to try to match pickstrokes with Beppe Gambetta on a blazing version of “Ride the Wild Turkey” and to accompany Yoder and Kamp sensation Marcy Each on a laconic, folky version of “Under the Boardwalk.” (Each’s gorgeous, soulful singing and songwriting was the talk of the dining hall—calling her a combination of Norah Jones and Gillian Welch describes her without really doing her justice.)

And while I enjoyed listening to all of the concerts, I was quite unprepared for the final act of the week: the Kruger Brothers. I’d met Uwe and Jens in Switzerland in the early ’90s at an Alpine country music festival while on tour with Tim O’Brien, and I knew they were great musicians, mostly from seeing them deliver a few pyrotechnic performances at MerleFest in the late ’90s. But I was unprepared for the depth of feeling, sophistication, and earnest soulfulness of their current music. Their seamless “suites” combine classical-sounding passages with folk/country songs and contemporary bluegrass instrumental work, resembling medleys that consist of thematically related banjo tunes, folk songs, classical études, old-time fiddle tunes, funky folkish rock and blues grooves, and wistful ballads, all interwoven with a symphonic eye to the overall arc of the piece.

The Krugers play with a virtuosity that is almost incomprehensible, even to accomplished peers, delivered without a hint of braggadocio and with a sense of joy and self-deprecating humor that seems intended not just as a way of “expressing themselves,” as some virtuosic and overtly emotional “romantic” music can be, but as a way to connect and communicate with their fellows. Jens is truly one of the greatest stringed instrumentalists alive, and his banjo technique is mind-boggling, equaled only by Béla Fleck and Noam Pikelny. And the Krugers’ classical insertions seem totally at home with the rest of their music and never descend to the level of musical chest-thumping. They use what they’ve learned from classical composers to expand and personalize their music, not as a macho display, a way to distinguish themselves from an audience mostly made up of amateur musicians, or to simply make people think “Wow, how did they do that? We certainly got our money’s worth tonight.” What the Kaufman Kamp audience got last Friday night, and all week, while of great value, is exactly the kind of thing that money can’t buy.

Jack Hansen, RIP

2009-06-08T12:43:00.000-07:00

When asked about influences, most musicians tend to cite the marquee names: Django, Doc, Jimi, etc., but people like Seattle-area music icon Jack Hansen, who passed away May 23, tend to exert just as much, if not more, influence on young musicians than do the standard-issue guitar heroes. At least that was the case for me.

Jack never saw much of the limelight and you’ll be hard-pressed to find much about him on the Web, but he played a large part in the Pacific Northwest’s musical life during the last 40 years. He played electric guitar with late-’60s rock band Fat Jack (which included vocalist Kathi McDonald, who, after being fired by Fat Jack for not rehearsing, went on to sing with Ike and Tina Turner, Joe Cocker, Leon Russell, and the Rolling Stones), bluegrass banjo and mandolin with Southfork, archtop swing guitar with violinist Paul Anastasio (who has fiddled with Merle Haggard’s band as well as Asleep at the Wheel), and even lap-slide guitar with the Hawaiian band Stowaways in Paradise, among many, many others. And Jack made much of his living as a guitar repairman, a trustworthy caretaker of the vintage instruments prized by the Northwest’s folk and bluegrass scene.

I was lucky enough to play in a couple of bands with Jack during the 1980s and he was always welcoming, friendly, and forgiving, even to a young whippersnapper like me who could barely keep time and who didn’t know who Jo Jones or George Shuffler were—just two egregious lapses in my swing and bluegrass education. He taught me how to swing—not just to emulate the pulsing flamboyance of Django Reinhardt but the profoundly precise, laidback feel of Count Basie and the melodic, laconic brilliance of Lester Young.

What impressed me the most about Jack was his ability to play bluegrass, jazz, rock ’n’ roll, and folk music equally well, with no hint of pretension or dilettantism, and with a deep understanding of what gave each kind of music its underlying soul and style. When I think about it, that’s pretty much what I’ve aspired to during my own equally broad musical career. Jack seemed to understand exactly why people loved a particular kind of music and his playing never strayed too far from that: Beatles songs are to be sung, swing is to be danced to, etc.

And Jack never took himself or anything else too seriously. I’ll always remember one of my first weeks teaching at the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop in the early ’80s when Jack and a few others decided to turn the unsuspecting church camp into the MASH 4077th and Jack appeared at dinner dressed in a bathrobe, cradling a pitcher of martinis. Then there was the time he did an open mic playing a six-string banjo-guitar while his friend Gene Wilson played a wood-body five-string banjo (think about that for a minute).

Jack would have cringed at the idea of his musical life being boiled down to a sound-bite philosophy, especially a namby-pamby new age one, but I think Jack’s can be summed up with the admonition to “play music you love, with people you love, and play it with love.” But perhaps I’m just getting maudlin thinking about the fact that I’ll never get to play “Minor Swing,” or “All Day and All of the Night,” or “I’ll Remember You Love in My Prayers” with Jack again. What Jack knew was that music is something fun you do with your friends, like playing basketball, or poker. That’s why legions of his friends are mourning with me today the loss of one of our biggest influences.

Joey's Sea Otter Race Report

2009-06-06T09:12:00.000-07:00

Sea Otter Classic 2009
Joey Nygaard

Jr. 15-16 Circuit Race 13th place
For once the race started at 4:00 pm and my dad and I got to Laguna Seca a nice four hours early, leaving time to figure out the insane registering process, hang out around the booths and then get into the racing state of mind. It was not long before we were on the starting line and waiting to see just how fast this years 15-16 field would push the pace. But when the whistle blew it was not the sprint off the line I was expecting and as we slowly made our way up the easy part of the climb I began to wonder whether the race might not be too hard after all. But just when the harder part of the hill came, the attacks went flying and I found myself on the back of the pack, not the place I wanted to be entering the corkscrew, and I had to fight hard to regain my place in the middle of the pack.

I hung on for a few more laps until I was officially dropped. Luckily I was not alone, a rider from the AC team was also off the back. We fought hard to catch up but in the end we ended up fighting it out for the sprint, where he got the better of me and I was unable to come around him.

Cat. 4 Circuit Race
After the Jr. circuit race the day before I decided it would be good training to do the Cat. 4 race. So at 5:00 I made my way to the start line and got lined up with the other 4s. Unlike the Juniors, the Cat. 4s set an extremely fast pace both on the climb and down the descent. Up the climb i could handle, but when it came to the descent I found myself off the back and scrambling for wheels.

I hung on to a variety of different groups, getting ahead on the hill so I would have a head start on the descent and was not blown away. I was starting to feel really good on the hills but with two laps to go I, along with the group I was riding with, got pulled.

I had not expected that they would be pulling riders but I was not too down about it. By that time it was around 6 o'clock and getting very windy so my dad and I retired to the car and then to get a good night sleep for the early road race the next day.

Junior 15-16 Road Race 10th place

The morning of the road race came bright, early and hot. After warming up, I began to make my way over to the start line, where we had to sit for 15 minutes before starting. The whistle blew and we began to proceed along the four mile neutral promenade. As soon as the group hit the first major climb, Team Specialized set up a blistering pace and the group splintered. Stanley and I got off the back and we had to work hard on the descent to catch up.

Once we had caught up it was not long until we were back around to the climb again. Once again the group splintered and I found myself off the back. I found a rhythm and soon enough I was passing people left and right. I came up behind Stanley and as I was passing him, I slowed down a bit, just in case he had enough energy to stay on my wheel. When he did not, I kept up my pace. I was slowly catching the group, and would have but the climb ended and I was faced with a long windy descent. At this point there was only one rider between me and the group and I buried myself to catch him. Once I had caught him we started working together, trying to reel in the main field.

We worked very well together. He, being bigger than me, pulled me down the descents, and I, in return, pulled him up the climbs. We worked together like this for almost the rest of the race, until he bombed the last descent and I could do nothing to stay on his wheel. All I could do was tuck, pedal and hope he didn't get too big a gap. As I made the turn onto the final two-mile hill he had a pretty big gap but nothing I couldn't catch--I thought. Unfortunately the hill was not that steep at all for the first half mile and although I was doing the best I could, the terrain suited him better and I lost ground. But not for long, soon the hill kicked up in gradient and I began to catch up rapidly. I saw the "one K" to go sign, and then 500 meters. By the time I saw 250 meters I had reduced 3/4 of his gap and was closing. But despite all my efforts I was about 10 meters behind him at the final turn, not close enough to pass him, and I crossed the finish line in a satisfying 10th place.

Because of the extreme heat, we only stuck around to check on results, get an iced mocha or two, and watch my teammates on the podium! It was a good end to a long weekend and All Sport-Team Swift had rocked. Keep it up All Sport-Swifties!

--Joey Nygaard

Shasta Spectacular

2009-06-04T09:15:00.000-07:00

Girls Just Want to Play Bluegrass

2009-06-02T21:42:00.000-07:00

I don’t know what’s going on in high school these days, but all my favorite recent bluegrass-based music seems to have been created by teenage girls. Or perhaps, given the depth and maturity of their music, they should be referred to as “young women who have not yet reached the age of 20.” The best folk/bluegrass album I’ve heard this year is by Sarah Jarosz (above), whose debut CD Song Up In Her Head will be released by Sugar Hill Records around the time she graduates from high school in Austin, Texas, this June. It may be difficult to understand how Jarosz has managed to master the mandolin, guitar, clawhammer banjo, octave mandolin, and piano (all of which she plays on the album) at such a young age, but it’s even more astonishing to hear such an assured collection of original songs rivaling that of any of her most obvious influences—Tim O’Brien, Gillian Welch, Nickel Creek, or Darrell Scott. But Jarosz, who will be featured in an upcoming issue of Acoustic Guitar, is not just the next great roots-based singer-songwriter. Her instrumental chops are inventive, fluid, and virtuosic. For example, Song Up In Her Head features many guest appearances from acoustic music superstars, including Stuart Duncan (fiddle), Jerry Douglas (Dobro), and mandolin masters Mike Marshall and Chris Thile; Jarosz also plays mandolin on the CD, but you’ll have to consult the liner notes to tell whether it’s Jarosz, Marshall, or Thile playing mandolin on any given tune.

Another new CD that will have you reaching for the liner notes to see who’s playing those great mandolin (and Dobro) solos is the Lovell Sisters’ Time to Grow. Mandolinist Rebecca Lovell was the youngest person (and only female) to win the MerleFest mandolin contest, at the age of 16 back in 2006, and on this CD she not only plays hot, melodic mandolin solos, reminiscent of Chris Thile’s early playing, she leads her sisters with passionate pop bluegrass singing and songwriting (her song “Distance” was a Grand Prize Winner in the “country” division of the 2008 John Lennon Songwriting Contest). In addition, Megan Lovell may be the best young Dobro player to come along in years, with a fat tone and lyricism usually only heard from the likes of Jerry Douglas. While their sophomore recording doesn’t hold up as well as Jarosz’s debut (few do), the Lovell Sisters are definitely a band to watch, as attendees at this summer’s Telluride Bluegrass Festival and Bonnaroo Festival (among others) are encouraged to do.

Of course, the boys are also getting in on the fun. Jarosz’s CD features the virtuosic fiddle playing of 16-year-old Alex Hargreaves, who is a member of both Jarosz’s band and Mike Marshall’s Big Trio, which can be heard on an eponymous CD released this spring. Hargreaves and his sister Tatiana (13) are the latest sibling string duo to emerge from the West Coast, following Brittany and Natalie Haas and Tristan and Tashina Clarridge. Tatiana’s forte is traditional Appalachian fiddling and singing, as exemplified by her mentor Bruce Molsky, and her debut CD, which will be released this summer, should be a stunner.

So add Sarah Jarosz, the Lovell Sisters, and Alex and Tatiana Hargreaves to the list of great acoustic music being created by the too-young-to-vote crowd, a list that includes (or has included) Cherryholmes, Sierra Hull, and Crooked Still.

On the Road with Joan Baez, pt. 2

2009-05-10T19:28:00.000-07:00

The prospect of spending a few days in any unfamiliar square-state city tends to inspire thoughts of, oh, I don’t know, catching up on my sleep, or finishing whatever 800-page novel I happen to be reading. Last month, while on tour with Joan Baez, my schedule called for spending three days in Lawrence, Kansas. The only thing I knew about Lawrence was that it is the home of the University of Kansas and, well, that’s what I could remember about Lawrence. The first day was our arrival—mid-morning after an overnight bus trip from Madison, Wisconsin. The second day we’d play in Columbia, Missouri, but return after the show to our Lawrence hotel, and the third day was a performance at the Liberty Theater in Lawrence. After stumbling out of the bus the morning of our arrival, I was pleased to discover our deluxe accommodations at the historic, comfortably stylish Eldridge Hotel, across the street from which was both a very promising espresso café and a suitably dusty used bookstore. OK, I thought, a few days in Lawrence could be quite pleasant.

What I’d forgotten was that Lawrence is home to Mass Street Music, one of the best guitar stores in the country. So, after a day of catching up on my sleep, and another filled with a bus ride, sound check, and another great show with Joan and company, etc., I finally remembered that when I’d met Mass Street Music owner Jim Baggett at Steve Kaufman’s Acoustic Kamp a couple of years ago, he’d invited me to come by any time I was in Lawrence. So I walked the seven or eight blocks down the street through a crowd of college-age St. Patrick’s Day revelers and found Mass Street Music in a cozy residential district.

At first glance, Mass Street looks like many a successful, well-organized music store, with a couple of large rooms full of keyboards, electric guitars, accessories, and sound equipment downstairs, and an acoustic room upstairs with a good complement of Taylors, Collings, Eastmans, Martins, and Goodalls. But what really distinguishes Mass Street, at least for guitar junkies, is Jim Baggett’s vintage expertise. He’s been collecting guitars for decades and he moonlights as a vintage-guitar expert for PBS’s Antiques Roadshow. Jim appeared while I was a making my way through a brace of very tasty Collings dreadnoughts, and after a few pleasantries, he said, “Wait here, I’ve got something to show you.” Believe me, any guitarist who hears Jim utter those words isn’t going anywhere.

Soon enough, Jim appeared with a couple of guitars from his personal collection—a luscious late-’30s D-18 that had the richest, fattest tone of any late-’30s D-18 I’d ever played and what he described as “the first D-28,” an amazing 12-fret, slot-head, rosewood dreadnought that sounded like nothing I’d ever played. Jim explained that it was actually the third D-28 ever made, but that the first two had never surfaced, so as far as anyone knew it was the first D-28 in existence, as close to the Holy Grail as any bluegrass-infused flatpicker like me is ever going to get. After playing it and the D-18 for as long as was seemly—I didn’t want to actually start drooling on the finish of these priceless gems—Jim showed me the rest of the repair shop, including a few more prewar dreads he was restoring and one of the cleanest early-’30s 000-28’s I’d ever seen. The back and sides looked liked they’d been hewn from the same log—not something Martin was all that particular about back then—and it was utterly pristine, as if it had rolled out of the Martin assembly room the day before. This wasn’t just a case of a kid in a candy store, but a chocoholic set loose in Willy Wonka’s factory.

So, yes, I now know exactly what there is to do in Lawrence, Kansas, thank you very much.

—Scott Nygaard

Photo (c) Anne Hamersky

On the Road with Joan Baez, pt. 1

2009-05-06T09:02:00.000-07:00

Around 2 AM on the morning, of March 7, Joan Baez’s tour bus oozed out of the muck in the parking lot of the Barangus bar, where I, along with the rest of the Joan Baez band (including Joan herself) had been listening and dancing (or more like wriggling, given the lack of space in the crowded roadhouse) to the All-American Hell Drivers, a loose aggregation of hippie country rockers whose repertoire included Hank Williams classics, New Orleans boogie blues, and even a Michael Jackson hit (a countrified “Billie Jean”). Joan had joined the band on a rockin’ “Long Black Veil” and JB band multi-instrumentalist Dirk Powell had spent most of the evening at the piano.

Thus ended my first night playing guitar and mandolin and singing harmony with Joan Baez, filling in for guitarist John Doyle while he goes off to play a few Irish festivals that he’d booked before getting hired by Joan as musical director/guitarist last summer. The evening had started at the State Theatre in Ithaca, New York, where Joan’s first appearance onstage had elicited the first of many loud, enthusiastic, and adoring ovations from the crowd of 1,600 or so. Though it was the first time I’d played through the entire two-hour set with Joan and her band, it went better than I could ever have expected. Yes, I’d fumbled a few lyrics, missed a couple chords, and gotten a few tempos wrong, but all in all it was a great gig, and by the time we’d finished our funky encore of “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” I was grinning from ear to ear.

I’d approached these gigs with mild trepidation. Even though I knew I wouldn’t have any trouble locking in with the rest of the band (Dirk on mandolin, banjo, fiddle, and piano and Todd Phillips on acoustic bass, both of whom I’d recorded and gigged with numerous times) I’d been a Joan Baez fan since high school and I didn’t want to let her down. I knew that John Doyle’s shoes would be tough ones to fill—his guitar can be a whole band by itself and his rhythm is as varied and exciting as any guitarist in any genre. I’d also have minimal rehearsal time, so I assiduously studied the gig tape John had sent me, realizing at the same time that the band’s arrangements and feel on that early-November gig may very well have changed by the early-March gigs I’d been hired for.

I arrived a couple days early, so we could rehearse on the band’s day off and I could observe one show with John in action. At the first rehearsal, which Joan shyly wandered into about halfway through, I discovered that some of my fears were well-founded. John led the rehearsal, though of course he wouldn’t be at the gigs I played, and his guitar was definitely the rhythmic heart of the band. In addition, some tempos had indeed changed and details that had seemed potentially spontaneous on the tape turned out to be essential parts of the arrangements. But everyone made me feel at ease and I knew I’d have another day to regroup and work things out. Joan was particularly gracious. After one song, where I’d kind of weakly warbled the harmony line and stumbled over a few chords, she suggested that since I had so much to learn, I didn’t necessarily need to sing on every song, but after another, she said, “You seem more comfortable with that one.” (The next morning, while she had breakfast on the bus, she told me that she’d liked what she heard and asked if there was anything she could do to help me.) The thing that ended up helping the most, actually, was sitting in the audience and listening to John play a show with the band. After all that study, I knew the songs pretty well, but watching the show, I found myself thinking “OK, I need to be more aggressive on that intro,” etc.

After the next day’s soundcheck, at which Jason Raboin, the band’s soundman outfitted my mandolin with one of the new DPA clip-on mics and pronounced my amplified guitar sound as “pretty good,” and at which Joan seemed happy and confident, I felt good and ready for the first show. At dinner, Stephanie Hudacek, Joan’s assistant, asked if I felt “nervous? excited?” and I said, “Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.”
--to be continued

photo (c) Anne Hamersky

Peterborough Gig April 10

2009-03-11T21:31:00.001-07:00

Joey's Cherry Pie Criterium Report

2009-02-23T09:03:00.000-08:00

Joey Nygaard
Cherry Pie Crit., 2/8/09
15th place, Junior 15-16

The start of the season is always marked by Cherry Pie Criterium, which is usually a rude awakening for me to my form, and makes me want to train afterward!
As usual, the race was early but not early enough to miss warm-up. We got to the race with time to register, warm-up for a while, and watch Stanley and Ryan Grant kick butt in the race before mine!
The whistle blew, the big pack started off down the hill, and I grabbed a wheel. The pace was fast but not fast enough that I would get dropped right away. I managed to stay in contact for awhile until 4 laps to go when I was near the back of the pack, coming around the little S-curve before the climb, a group of about 5-6 guys went down right in front of me with just enough space for me to slip around them. As I went by I looked to see if any Swifties had gone down but didn't see any (always a good sign!). Although I had avoided the crash I was now way behind the main pack! It was too far to bridge so I began to look for a group to ride with until the end. Luckily (for me) Zack was not that far ahead of me and I caught him. Together we formed a group and started a paceline. Unfortunately I got dropped by a little bit and had to cross the finish line alone.
Although I did not get a great result I was happy. My goal for the race--my first as a 15-16--was to stay with the pack for as long as possible and find a group to ride with if I got dropped. I felt better than I thought I would and I am excited for the season to come!
We stuck around for the Cat. 4 race to cheer on the other Swifties! Then we decided to call it a day and head for home!

Great racing Swifties!
Joey Nygaard

SF Urban Riders Youth Bike Skills in GGP - Pilarcitos CX Race 2008

2008-12-19T12:41:00.001-08:00

Best Books of 2008

2008-12-13T15:52:00.000-08:00

The New York Times just announced their Ten Best Books of 2008, which is as good a reason as any to survey my own reading for the year. While I did read one book on the list, Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland, my reading tends not to be quite as current, although Roberto Bolano’s 2666 is on my Christmas list.

My reading this year was not quite as novel-heavy as in recent years. For some reason I began the year by reading about half of The Reformation by Will Durant and ended it by getting heavily into short stories, occasioned in part by the death of David Foster Wallace, which inspired me to return to some of his short story collections I hadn’t finished and also explore some of the short fiction he’d included on the syllabus of a course he had been teaching, which was posted online by one of his students in one of the many tributes to DFW that either appeared or were overloaded with contributions after his death.

In the middle of the year, there were a number of false starts that confounded me: The Innocent, by Ian McEwan; Author, Author, by David Lodge; The White Castle, by Orhan Pamuk; American Studies (OK, not a novel), by Louis Menand; and The Dean’s December, by Saul Bellow, all of which were written by authors I admire, but whose work didn’t stick this time, although I imagine I will return to some of them at some point in the future.

I got out of my novelistic doldrums with The Confidential Agent, by Graham Greene, my first venture into his “oh so British” world and definitely not my last. Was it a coincidence that I received The Complete Monty Python on DVD for my birthday, soon after finishing it? Perhaps. At any rate, in August I was rewarded with the two best books I read this year, which were actually both published in 2008. So, in addition to short stories and essays by Roberto Bolano, Orhan Pamuk, Donald Barthelme, John Updike, TC Boyle, Edward P. Jones, and others whose names escape me at the moment, here are the Best (somewhat recently published) Books (I read in) 2008, with just a couple annotations:

Atmospheric Disturbances, Rivka Galchen
An exasperating and claustrophobic book that doesn’t resolve in any conventionally satisfying way, but the writing is brilliant and the meditations on identity, existence, and the perplexing nature of relationships that don’t evolve even as the individuals in those relationships mutate, grow, and shrivel, are unique and thought-provoking. Some of the technical minutiae and digressions evoke a “guy book” author like Richard Powers, say, but Galchen gives it her own decidedly female twist, although it is hard to imagine any woman having this much patience and fondness for the irascible, annoying, and mule-headed main (male) character.

Netherland, Joseph O’Neill

Tree of Smoke, Denis Johnson

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz

Oblivion, David Foster Wallace
DFW’s death this fall hit me hard, and I’ve been going back and reading the stories in his various short story/essay collections that I didn’t read when they first came out. As with most short story collections, it’s best to read them one at a time. When this collection, his last fiction publication, came out, I considered it nearly unreadable. I was wrong. The “missive beyond the grave” of the suicide in “Good Old Neon” has been given new significance after DFW’s own suicide. And stories like “Another Pioneer” and “Oblivion” are beautiful, profound, revolutionary, and riveting to the word-wise. I also read or re-read “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again,” his best non-fiction collection, and I’ve gone back to “Girl With Curious Hair” and “Brief Interviews with Hideous Men,” discovering, as I’d thought, that BIwHM is really the only unreadable DFW opus, although the shortness of many of the pieces makes them less daunting.

The Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai

The Ministry of Special Cases, Nathan Englander

The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan

Tim O'Brien, Scott Nygaard, and Mark Schatz - Heartbreak Game

2008-12-08T20:35:00.001-08:00

Tim O'Brien, Scott Nygaard, and Mark Schatz - One Way Street

2008-12-08T20:33:00.001-08:00

This Is Cool

2008-12-01T12:29:00.000-08:00

You don't need no fancy instruments to make music:

The First International Body Music Festival Opens This Week - Tickets on Sale Now!

BARBATUQUES Sao Paulo, Brazil
SLAMMIN All-Body Band Oakland, CA
KEKEÇA Istanbul, Turkey
INUIT THROATSINGERS Nunavut, Canada
THE KECAK PROJECT Bali, Indonesia and Oakland, CA
DERIQUE MCGEE San Francisco, CA
LOOP-IT Bordeaux, France
SANDY SILVA Montreal, Canada
TOP NOTCH STEPPERS San Francisco, CA

TUES DEC 2
Teacher Training Workshop
Incorporating Body Music into Elementary Curricula
First Unitarian Church, Oakland
4-6pm $15

WED DEC 3
Teen Workshop, Destiny Arts Center, Oakland
12-18 yrs., 4:30-6, FREE

Body Music Open Mic, Club Anton, Oakland
21+ 8pm, $10, get up and show it!

THURS DEC 4
Lecture/Demonstration, Oakland Museum of California
Join a discussion with the artists about their work
8pm, $10/$5 Museum members

FRI DEC 5 - SUN DEC 7
Theater Artaud, San Francisco
Evening Concerts - Different Program Every Night
Family Matinee Sunday Afternoon
Workshops in Body Music, Throatsinging, Beatboxing, Turkish Rhythms, Balinese Kecak, plus The Big Sing Sunday morning with Linda Tillery, Rhiannon and more...

Full schedule/details: http://www.crosspulse.com/html/ibmf.html

Joan Baez at Herbst Theater

2008-11-25T12:43:00.000-08:00

Joan Baez’s new CD Day After Tomorrow has been creating a bit of a stir lately. Produced by Steve Earle, with all-acoustic instrumentation and an all-star Nashville band—Tim O’Brien, Darrell Scott, Viktor Krauss, Kenny Malone—the album is one of Joan’s best in many years and has even made Amazon’s Top Ten folk albums of 2008. But the recording pales in comparison to Joan’s live show and rockin’ new band: John Doyle on guitar and mandola; Dirk Powell on banjo, mandolin, accordion, and fiddle; and Todd Phillips on acoustic bass guitar.

I got to see them last week at the luxurious Herbst Theater in San Francisco. Joan sang some songs from the new CD (Steve Earle’s “God Is God,” Eliza Gilkyson’s “Rose of Sharon,” Elvis Costello’s “Scarlet Tide”) as well as many of her early folk classics (“The Lily of the West,” “Fennario,” “Joe Hill”) and some that she described as “what you came to hear” (“Farewell Angelina,” “Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word,” “Love Song to a Stranger,” “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”). Joan has a special affection for Steve Earle’s songs, which is perhaps not surprising considering their sympatico political leanings, and her versions of Earle’s “Christmas in Washington” and “Jerusalem” were highlights.

Joan onstage was charming. Though she looked a bit tired and frail (this is her 50th year as a performer), she pulled off the 90-minute show without faltering, injecting humor even at the end of a solo “Diamonds and Rust” (altering the final line “If you’re offering me diamonds and rust, I’ve already paid” to “If you’re offering me diamonds and rust, I got the Grammy”).

The new band was brilliant, creating a rich bed beneath Joan’s strong vocals, weaving punchy, spontaneous guitar and bass lines, colored by whatever instrument Powell had in his hand at the moment. Particularly nice were Powell’s Cajun fiddle on “Farewell Angelina” and Doyle’s solo guitar backup on “Christmas In Washington.” Joan and the band are continuing to tour this winter and spring. If you’ve ever had any affection for her singing and point of view and want to hear her with a great acoustic band, I’d recommend catching a show on this tour.

And oh yeah, I may be filling in for John Doyle on a few gigs this spring!!

Writing About Music, Pt. 2

2008-11-18T22:06:00.000-08:00

I suppose that music is no less appropriate a subject for a writer than boating, flowers, suicide, marketing, teen pregnancy, vacation rentals, or any other subject that becomes a pretext for a writer’s self-examination/promotion. Often the accompanying photography (that accompanies writing-about-musician[s]) can be quite a bit more attractive. And I suppose that experts in any of these subjects may feel that writing-about-the-[subject of their expertise] is usually just as annoying and useless as I feel that writing-about-music is. But, still.

One problem with writing about music is that everybody has their own tastes in music, which may have been formed by actual listening but is more often simply the unconscious consensus of one’s post-pubescent social group. Much as political opinions/persuasions are often based on one’s parents opinions, musical taste is usually based on the tastes of one’s high school or college social scene. So any writer who writes about music that you would tend to even bother reading is probably going to have to be the kind of person you went to college with, or who went to the same sort of college you did, or who hung out at the same sort of bar/café/library/mall/salon/park/race track you and your friends did during the same general time period.

And because musical tastes are defined by a social group, most of whom are not musicians or musical experts of any sort, in writing-about-music there is no deference toward “experts”—musicians, etc., which is probably as it should be. I mean, it’s just music, right? Why let anybody (except, of course, your best friends in highschool/college) tell you what music to enjoy, anymore than you would let someone tell you what food to enjoy. Music is a sensual experience. But then, so is reading—at least for me. And there are literary experts, people whose taste you defer to simply because they can write better than you, or have read more than you, or have had some sort of literary honorific bestowed upon them. Now you aren’t going to necessarily agree with them, but if you stumble upon John Updike or Dave Eggers or Orhan Pamuk at a party, you’re going to ask them what they’re reading. And you’re probably going to go out and buy whatever it is they’re reading and try to read it yourself, if only so you can share to some extent in their world. But would you necessarily go out and buy the musical recommendation of someone like, I don’t know, Chris Potter or John Adams or Jenny Lewis or Mark Knopfler? Well, I probably would, in at least two of those cases, and yes you might too, which is why in some publications, including the newspaper of record, it is popular to have musicians write-about-music that they’re listening to, and . . . hmm, this isn’t going quite the way I’d intended.
--to be continued

Writing About Music. Pt. 1

2008-11-13T15:12:00.000-08:00

Writing-about-music is what I do, much of the time, especially when I need to make money and opportunities for playing music are slim, but it is a strange thing and rarely successful, except as a way for musicians and other overeducated liberal arts majors to make money. I hate to use the old “dancing about architecture” cliché, but it is, like many cliché’s, apt. Or rather perhaps, “dancing badly about architecture” is more appropriate. Because those people who do actually attempt to write about music--as opposed to those who manufacture writing-about-oneself-in-relation-to music or writing-about-the-lives-of-celebrity/musicians or writing-about-the-effect-of-a-celebrity/musician-and-his-activities-both-public-and-private-on-a-particular-social-aggregate, which is, of course, what most writing-about-music is or has become, at least, pop-culture-writing-about-music--will never really succeed. Writing-about-music will never convey or capture anything that music does; reading writing-about-music will never be more worth your time than listening to or playing music. Which may be why writers-who-write-about-music are probably better off not knowing much about music.

This pedantically begun screed is written in response to the receipt of a recent collection of music writing, published in book form by a music magazine that has recently succumbed to market pressures and “gone under,” surfacing a handful of months later as a website and book-a-zine (their word not mine). I would have normally have ignored such a book, but I was a sometime fan of this unnamed magazine, and was curious about its evolution. Not only that, but some of my friends were featured both on the cover and inside. I quickly grew despondent, however, as I scanned some of the articles, as I realized that none of this, though technically well-written, even approached the music that these people made, and inspiring me to attempt this even more ludicrous project: writing-about-writing-about-music.
--to be continued

New Website

2008-11-08T16:47:00.001-08:00

Since my old website became difficult to manage, I've switched to a wordpress site, and scottnyaard. com will soon point to it (I hope). I'll continue with this blog, and it will mostly be about "not me." The new website/blog will be about "me."

I Have a Dream

2008-11-04T21:47:00.000-08:00

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama . . . little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

--Martin Luther King, August 28, 1963

Hardly Strictly BG

2008-10-07T21:40:00.000-07:00

I had a great time playing at last weekend’s free bluegrass (and beyond) megafest in Golden Gate Park, the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival. This year I was playing with the Bill Evans String Summit, which included Bill on banjo, Megan Lynch and Alex Hargreaves on fiddles, Steve Smith on mandolin, Bill Amatneek on bass, and yours truly on guitar. I’ve been amazed at the quality of the sound at this festival, which has three huge stages and a couple of medium-size stages, including the Porch Stage, where we held forth. Though an all-acoustic band like ours might be leery of the rock ‘n’ roll proportions of this fest, the sound in my experience has been fantastic, both for audience and performer. I’ve never heard a festival stagehand say to me (as I did Sunday) “You probably want more guitar in your monitor than that, don’t you?” and then proceed to get it for me.

After our set, we braved the (estimated 100,000 strong) crowd to try to catch a little of Elvis Costello’s set. Though I didn’t get close enough to actually see Elvis, I did hear him sing a sweet, mournful duet with Emmylou Harris on “Love Hurts” and rage garage-band-style through “What’s So Funny (‘Bout Peace, Love, and Understanding).” After catching some of Ricky Skaggs’ trad bluegrass set, highlighted by the pyrotechnics of guitarist Cody Kilby and fiddler Andy Leftwich, and watching the Bad Livers busk outside the mainstage backstage area, we retreated from the crowds and settled in at the Porch Stage. This is one stage where you can actually see the performers and even grab a comfy spot on the lawn, and here we were treated to a rousing set by Justin Townes Earle (who alternated his own swingy originals with covers of songs by Blind Blake, Arthur Smith, and the Replacements) and a sweet acoustic set by folk diva Maura O’Connell. And we even discovered a great new Vietnamese restaurant on our (long) walk back to the car.

The Future of Bluegrass, #2

2008-10-06T11:15:00.001-07:00

The Future of Bluegrass, #1

2008-10-06T11:13:00.001-07:00

Ralph Stanley Endorses Obama

2008-10-02T16:01:00.000-07:00

Check out this radio ad from Dr. Ralph.

Palin-ese, or Rather, Unease

2008-09-26T11:33:00.000-07:00

From today's NYTimes

On the “CBS Evening News” on Thursday, Katie Couric asked Ms. Palin what she meant when she cited Alaska’s proximity to Russia as foreign affairs experience. Ms. Palin could have anticipated the question — the topic of their interview, pegged to her visit to the United Nations was foreign affairs. Yet Ms. Palin’s answer was surprisingly wobbly: her words tumbled out fast and choppily, like an outboard motor loosened from the stern.

“That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and on our other side, the land — boundary that we have with — Canada,” she replied. She mentioned the jokes made at her expense and seemed for a moment at a loss for the word “caricature.” “It — it’s funny that a comment like that was — kind of made to — cari — I don’t know, you know? Reporters —”

Ms. Couric stepped in. “Mocked?” Ms. Palin looked relieved and even grateful for the help. “Yeah, mocked, I guess that’s the word, yeah.”

Ms. Couric pressed her again to explain the geographic point. “Well, it certainly does,” Ms. Palin said, “because our, our next-door neighbors are foreign countries, they're in the state that I am the executive of.”

Ms. Couric asked the governor if she had ever been involved in negotiations, for example, with her Russian neighbors.

“We have trade missions back and forth,” Ms. Palin said. “We — we do — it’s very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America, where — where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border.”

Ms. Palin, looking at Ms. Couric intently, kept on going. “It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to — to our state.”

David Foster Wallace reading

2008-09-24T13:52:00.001-07:00

New Bluegrass Albums

2008-09-24T13:36:00.000-07:00

A few new bluegrass albums have made it across my desk and into the iTunes folder lately. Here are some capsule reviews. (I’ll be going on about Cherryholmes in an upcoming profile in Acoustic Guitar.)

Cherryholmes, III (five stars)
Yes!!! There is hope for contemporary bluegrass. This is like Nickel Creek with banjo--or AKUS pre-CMA awards. Cia Leigh Cherryholmes is my favorite young bluegrass-related singer, she writes edgy songs, and plays banjo like Ron Block on steroids. Skip Cherryholmes is a total rhythm guitar monster. The sort of over-the-top metal-ish chord stuff is very cool and the whole mash/thrash rhythm thing makes total sense when played with this sense of abandon and rock and roll energy. “Sumatra” is the coolest bluegrass instrumental I’ve heard in a long time.

Michael Cleveland and Flamekeeper, Leavin' Town (four stars)
Totally great pre-Lonesome River Band bluegrass. If you, like me, heard a band like this at your local pizza parlor at an impressionable age, it could change your life. Go to the Bluegrass Blog and vote for 'em in every category you can.

Cadillac Sky, Gravity's Our Enemy (three stars)
These guys are all great players, but the vocals and songs are too much like those pop country bands I only hear when I accidentally turn on the CMA Awards or get to a movie at a multiplex too early. I really don’t like contemporary country music, whether it’s played by an arena rock band, a contestant on American Idol, or a quintet of young bluegrass virtuosi. But obviously millions of people love it. It’s just not my thing. Good luck to these boys, though. They should go far.

More DFW

2008-09-23T22:22:00.000-07:00

Here's an edited transcript (minus coughing, etc.) of the Kenyon College speech.

Punch Brothers

2008-09-23T13:20:00.001-07:00

I wrote this awhile ago, but Acoustic Guitar finally published it here. Lately, I've been getting into Chris's new CD with Edgar Meyer. When does this guy sleep?

Punch Brothers
Punch

The Punch Brothers are a new band composed of some of the hottest young musicians in bluegrass—Chris Thile (mandolin and lead vocals), Chris Eldridge (guitar), Greg Garrison (bass), Noam Pikelny (banjo), and Gabe Witcher (fiddle), but there is little here that traditional bluegrass fans will recognize. Combining early-20th-century harmonic ambiguity and dissonance, angsty alt-pop-influenced lyrics and rhythms, and pastoral minimalist counterpoint, as well as contemporary folk and bluegrass, the Punch Brothers have created a new kind of string music as revolutionary and distinct as that of Bill Monroe, David Grisman, Django Reinhardt, or Alison Krauss, but it’s hard to imagine Punch Music becoming a musical genre. This will not be easy music for musicians to imitate. Time signatures and tonal centers shift regularly, there is rarely a clear delineation between soloist and accompaniment, and written and improvised sections merge seamlessly. The core of the album is Thile’s four-movement, 42-minute suite “The Blind Leaving the Blind,”written in reaction to his recent divorce. Though each movement includes lyrics and vocal melodies (many of which are hauntingly gorgeous), Thile eschews any regular kind of song form; the vocal sections are just one part of the whole, integrated with the breathtaking instrumental work. The suite is bookended by four shorter pieces written by the band. The dissonant bluegrass of the leadoff track, “Punch Bowl,” gets you ready for the expansive central suite, while the three concluding pieces operate as both a series of epilogues and a preview of the next Punch Brothers group effort, although it may take awhile to completely recover from the auditory effect of this Punch. (Nonesuch, nonesuch.com)

David Foster Wallace 1962-2008

2008-09-21T09:53:00.000-07:00

I was pretty devastated by the death of David Foster Wallace this week, and I've been trying to find something to say about him and his writing that would be fitting and approach the way I feel about him/it.

A.O. Scott got it right in today's NY Times:

"The Best Mind of His Generation"

For the uninitiated, check out DFW's brilliant essay, Tense Present, on English grammar and usage, originally published in Harper's, also included in Consider the Lobster.

Appreciation and mourning in Paper Cuts.

The Howling Fantods, DFW fan website.

From the commencement address DFW gave at Kenyon College in 2005:

"Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings.

"They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing.

"And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving. ... The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.

"That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing."

Derwent Vale: Scott Nygaard, Brittany Haas and Tristan Clarridge

2008-09-02T17:39:00.001-07:00

Two of my fave fiddlers in the world.

Junior Nationals

2008-08-16T12:48:00.001-07:00

Joey had a great Nationals, but I thought I'd let him tell you about it:

Tuesday, Aug. 5
After the long drive down on Monday we spent the night at my uncle’s house in Irvine, and I had time to put together my odd aero setup so I could have it ready for test-riding the TT course. We arrived at the hotel in time to meet up with the other Swifties and get ready for the ride. The TT course started out on a mostly flat bike path for a mile. Then we got on the main road and started the three-mile climb. The climb was not steep but it was long enough to hurt and there was no shade!!!! After that it was all downhill until the turnaround. Then it was as hard as you can go the last kilometer up to the finish! After checking out the 11k course that Stanley and I would do, we rode the rest of the 18k course, did a few pyramids, and rode back. We spent the rest of the day driving to the host hotel to register, chilling, and taking naps. Before we went to bed we had a team meeting to discuss the upcoming race!

Wednesday, Aug. 6
National Championship Time Trial
Result: 20th place, 1:33 behind the winner.

On the morning of the time trial we didn’t have to get up that early. Stanley and I had very late start times so we went for a morning ride to loosen up. After that we got to hang around until almost one thirty in the afternoon, and then I rode over to the course with my Dad. The warm-up parking lot was wide open without any shade, so Stephen Gerber had run over to WalMart to buy the team a tent for warmup. After doing my pyramids I made my way down to the start and got in line behind the guy who would be starting in front of me.
On the course, I quickly got myself up to speed and tried to hold a steady fast pace. After almost a mile on the bike path my legs were feeling good and I had finally caught sight of the guy in front of me. I didn’t make up that much ground on him until I started the climb. Then he visibly slowed down and I caught him in no time. The hill was longer than I remembered and by the time I got to the top I had passed another guy, too. After that it was all downhill until the turnaround, which coincidentally was also the 1K to go mark! Upon seeing the final “K” sign I went for it as hard as I could go! After crossing the line I did roll-out and waited around for results. I thought I might have done pretty well because I passed two guys and wasn’t passed by anyone. When results finally showed up I was in 20th place, but just 1:33 behind the leader, John Funk, and five seconds in front of Marcus Smith, the guy who I had only beaten three times before (one of which was Nationals TT two years ago!). Obviously there were lots of good guys in my age group. Two years ago, John Funk won and I was 2:20 behind him, but ended up in sixth, just six seconds off the podium. Team Swift in general had a good race. Stanley got an awesome fourth, Ryan got fifth, and Ashlyn got sixth!!!

Thursday, Aug. 7
National Championship Criterium
Result: 35th place, pack finish.

The day after the TT and the day of the crit, I had to get up a little bit early to give me time to warm up and still watch a bit of racing! Stanley’s race was first, so I got to watch him for a bit before I started to warm up.
The whistle blew and we were off! As soon as we went around the first turn it was clear to me that I would be very lucky to finish the race without crashing. Most of the guys in my field would slam on the brakes when starting a corner, even when the pack slowed a bit, but I managed to stay out of trouble and hold a good enough position to not get dropped. With one lap to go I had great position up at the front but on the second-to-last turn the guy in front of me totally slammed on the brakes. Not wanting to crash on the last lap I got out of his way, which meant out of the main pack, and by the time I had gotten back up to speed I was dangling on the back. On the final stretch I managed to catch up with some other Nor-Cal guys, Tyler Hanson and Chris LaBerge, who were also on the back, and I sprinted it out with them.
Immediately after my race Ashlyn started hers. We stuck around to see Ashlyn get sixth and Ryan finish a spectacular third!!!!

Friday, Aug. 8
National Championship Road Race
Result: 15th place, pack finish.

The schedule of the road race was very similar to the previous day of racing. Stanley went off first, then me, then Ashlyn etc. But this time I didn’t get to watch Stanley’s race while I warmed up.
I would be doing three laps of an odd course. The start/finish line was on top of a small hill. The race would start by going down one side of the hill, and finish going up the other side after circling around a high school for a while!
After being delayed for a while on the start line, the group got off to a slow start down the hill. But not for long. As soon as we hit the first small incline, the attacking started. The group had not even gone half a lap but still they were totally devoted to one thing: going as fast as possible! The attacks kept on going and finally a small three-man break managed to stay away for more than a lap. On the climb up to the finish on the second lap I found an opening and flew up the side of the pack to the front.But on the final lap the pack really turned up the gas to bring the break back, and I lost my good position in the tight chicanes through the high school. On the start of the last climb we managed to catch the group!
The field was going all out now, a couple of guys got overexcited and crashed, causing a small pile up. Then another guy went down right next to me, his bike went spinning through the air, coming within a foot of hitting my head, but I was able to hold my position. Two guys crashed towards the end of the race and during the sprint, some people who had given all their effort trying to stay with the group fell behind. I ended up sprinting it out with the remainder of my group, which was only about 14. I just managed to make it past all the stragglers in the last hundred meters! I ended up in a satisfying 15th, the last one in the leading group--but at least I was in the lead group! John Funk and Alexander Freund, who had finished 1-2 in the TT, separated by just one tenth of a second, finished 10th and 12th, so 15th was very satisfying.

Like the day before, we stuck around to see the other Swifties race. Ashlyn got on the podium in fifth with an awesome race. But then came the first race tragedy--Ryan crashed and broke his collarbone and was rushed off to the hospital! It was the fourth (or fifth?) broken collarbone of the season for Team Swift but one of the worst times to crash!! We really thought that Ryan was going to win the 15-16 RR.
After taking care of Ryan’s bike, Stanley, Greg, Ashlyn, Stephen, and I decided to celebrate the end of a good year by doing some high-speed go-karting, loving the fact of seeing how fast you could go with so little effort! The parents dominated but Stanley gave them a run for their money (he’d already had some experience of how fast you could really go around those tight corners).

Saturday and Sunday
The rest of our time in LA we spent watching other racing and chilling. We stayed long enough to see Tyler’s and Lindsay’s races, and to congratulate them on their second and eleventh places. After that it was time for us to start the long ride back to Nor-Cal!!!!

GREAT RACING TEAM SWIFT!!!!

GET WELL SOON, RYAN!!!!

Joey Nygaard

Contemporary String Band Workshop

2008-07-18T18:20:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be participating in a new workshop put on by the Centrum Foundation in Port Townsend, WA, and directed by his honor, the Right Reverend Darol Anger, otherwise known as the Legendary Fiddling Weirdo (well at least to some). Also on the lecturer's side of the podium will be Tristan Clarridge, who just won his 47th (or something, I lost count) National Fiddling Championship (at the age of 22?) and the inimitable Matt Flinner, mando king supreme. It will be in November (13-16 to be exact), not the warmest time to visit the Northwest, but a time when post-summer festival withdrawal has got most of us by the short hairs. Should be fun. Check it out!

Contemporary String Band Workshop

Cool 2008 Albums

2008-07-17T12:55:00.000-07:00

Looking at my list of Best of 2007, I realize I haven't said much about 2008 albums, so here's a list that could make the Best of 2008:

Kate Rusby, Awkward Annie
Tim O'Brien, Chameleon
Dave Douglas, Moonshine
Eliza Carthy, Dreams of Breathing Underwater
Cassandra Wilson, Loverly
Joan as Policewoman, To Survive
Crooked Still, Still Crooked
Dan Tyminski, Wheels
Karine Polwart, This Earthly Spell
Annbjorg Lien, Waltz with Me

Joey Hangs with the Elite 4s

2008-07-15T12:47:00.000-07:00

Joey finished with the Cat 4 pack for the first time last Saturday, at the Coyote Creek Circuit Race, a 1.9-mile circuit with a 100-foot climb that the 4s circled 10 times in 45 minutes--you do the math. Here's his report:

We left in the morning preparing for a fun change from the usual juniors races. It was my first cat 4 road race and I was determined to stay with the pack for as long as I could, but being only a 2 mile circuit and having a fair-sized climb I wasn’t too worried. Starting at the front of the group off the line gave me a perfect position for the climb, which the group sped up the climb and started down the small descent. While turning onto the longer flat section of the couse, the man in front of me’s rear tire blew out and he slid out, but he managed not to fall and kept his balance. Not wanting to crash again, I decided to take it easy on the descent but not so easy that I would get dropped.

With 5 laps to go I was comfortably in the pack and feeling great, so great in fact I was beginning to wonder if I could hang on ‘til the finish!! With two laps to go I was sure I could do it and it even passed through my mind that it would be fun to try an attack up the climb, but I couldn’t get a good enough position. With one lap remaining, the pack started to really hammer and I had to fight to stay in position. When the group got to the last climb up to the finish line I had lost some ground but was still barely with the group. Once the sprint started, the field split and I was near the front of the second group only 15 meters behind the lead group!!

I was very proud of myself after the race. It was my first cat 4 race that I had finished with the pack and it encouraged me to do more 4s road races. The race also was great for my bike handling skills considering there were some very sketchy riders (including the rider who caused the crash at the Wente Crit that broke my collarbone) and corners.

Sadly I was the only Swiftie there but a few friendly Roaring Mouse riders we knew from rides were good company!!!!!
Joey Nygaard

Eliza Carthy

2008-07-02T19:07:00.000-07:00

Eliza Carthy may very well be my favorite singer. Her combination of vocal power and restrained passion tends to produced renditions of songs that immediately become definitive to my ears. Her songwriting, on the other hand, is something I haven't quite gotten. My favorite recordings are those, like Anglicana and Rice, that primarily stick to traditional material. Her "pop" folk-rock records are a taste that I've not yet acquired. Until now . . . I think. Her latest, Dreams of Breathing Underwater, is a record that, unlike Angels and Cigarettes, her last recording of original songs, will likely remain in my CD player for quite some time.

I think the problem with Eliza is her lack of irony. Her lyrics tend not to scan, but that doesn't necessarily phase me. I'm a big fan of Jenny Lewis, who shares a certain lyrical irregularity with Eliza. But Jenny's songs are filled with irony and subtle humor. Eliza's are not, and her music is not. It's hard to imagine her writing these tragicomic songs about anyone other than herself. And occasionally we get a little more personal information than we'd like. I really don't need to know, for instance, that she has "given blow jobs on couches to men who didn't want me anymore," as she wrote in "The Company of Men." Of course, I may be like those people who think that Richard Thompson "should lighten up." Maybe I don't get it. It wouldn't be the first time. But the one real misstep here illustrates the problem. Had "Mr. Magnifico" been sung by Richard Thompson, with tongue firmly planted in cheek and electric guitar set on stun, it would have worked. Here it's semi-narrated by one Tim Matthew with obbligato by a trumpet-playing refugee from Marty Robbins' band. The effect is more Benny Hill than Monty Python, to exhaust my knowledge of British TV humour.

The good news, though is that there is just one of these (OK, maybe two, I haven't decided about "Little Bigman" yet) and that Eliza has written a brace of excellent songs--including "Rows of Angels," "Rosalie," "Like I Care," "Hug You Like a Mountain," and "Lavenders," and that's the first time I've ever been able to say that. I may not be quoting any of her lyrics as my favorites, but the wedding of music to lyric and vocal on this CD ranks with her classic trad material, and the CD is marked by numerous brilliant musical moments--such as the gorgeous and loose folk string sections that come and go throughout the CD; the distorted guitar, horn, and accordion line that ends "Like I Care"; the luscious vocal trio (with Eddie Reader and Heather McCleod) on "Lavenders"; and the stunning combination of sweet violins, wah-wah-ish guitar noises, and ashcan drum-kittery on "Simple Things," to name just a few. Though hearing her voice on this recording in some ways makes this old fogey long for another of her trad records, I have a feeling this one will stay with me for quite awhile and may soon rank with my favorite "new song" recordings. Time will tell. For now, I'll just go give it another spin.

Junior Points Series Podium

2008-06-29T18:29:00.000-07:00

After missing two of the Junior Points Series races (and most of the regional championships) with a broken collarbone, Joey was surprised last weekend to find out that he'd finished 5th in the points series. So surprised in fact, that he had no team hat, shirt, or vest nearby when the podium was announced. He at least remembered to take off his helmet (notice white object lying behind his feet).

Supreme Idiocy

2008-06-28T17:19:00.000-07:00

The recent decision by the US Supreme Court to overturn the handgun ban in Washington D.C. defies credulity. In the San Francisco Chronicle the story recounting the Stupefyingly Insane Court's reasoning ran side-by-side with the story of a man and his two teenage sons who were brutally murdered in their car because their car had momentarily blocked the path of the gunman's car.

A photo in the Chronicle showed a bunch of gun nuts celebrating the decision, including a man holding a crude placard that read "If guns kill people, do pencils misspell words?" Thus clearly identifying the lunacy of people who can equate the murder of a human being with a misspelled word.

A gig this Thursday

2008-06-16T21:52:00.001-07:00

I haven't been using this blog for gig promotion, or any other kind really, but I'm not sure why. So here goes.

Marsha Genensky, Scott Nygaard, and Paul Kotapish

June 19, 8 pm, Freight and Salvage, Berkeley, CA, www.thefreight.org

Though they come from different musical backgrounds, Anonymous 4 vocalist Marsha Genensky, Grammy-winning bluegrass guitarist Scott Nygaard, and virtuoso Celtic/old-time mandolinist Paul Kotapish are united by their love of traditional American music. Marsha made her mark as founding member of the vocal quartet Anonymous 4, with 18 chart-topping recordings of medieval and contemporary classical music and traditional American song. Scott has performed and recorded with Tim O’Brien, Laurie Lewis, Chris Thile, Jerry Douglas, Darol Anger, and others, and released two acclaimed CDs of his instrumental music. Paul has contributed his mandolin and guitar chops to Kevin Burke’s Open House, Wake the Dead, the Hillbillies from Mars, and numerous West Coast Celtic and old-time groups. This unique evening of solos, duos, and trios will feature their elegant and inspired arrangements of Appalachian ballads, mountain fiddle tunes, and old-time songs.

Clifford Brown on Soupy Sales TV Show

2008-05-06T21:49:00.001-07:00

The greatest trumpeter ever. I love at the end where Clifford plays while Soupy does the "Soupy Shuffle."

Valley Tan and SFBG&OTF

2008-04-01T19:19:00.001-07:00

My friend Tara Shupe just started Valley Tan, a groovy little acoustic music magazine mostly about the Salt Lake music scene. I agreed to write some stuff for it, but since I know almost nothing about Salt Lake, I decided to write about the San Francisco Bluegrass and Old-Time fest. Check it out at Valley Tan or keep reading.

San Francisco Bluegrass and Old-Time Music Festival
By Scott Nygaard

For most San Francisco residents, mention of their “local bluegrass festival” immediately brings to mind the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, the annual Indian summer event in Golden Gate Park for which local billionaire/banjoist Warren Hellman imports a large number of the people you think of when the term Americana is bandied about (thus the “hardly” part of the name) for half a million freeloading music-loving party goers. But for the local bluegrass community, the real San Francisco bluegrass festival occurs in the doldrums of midwinter, when the musician-run San Francisco Bluegrass and Old-Time Music festival takes over a slew of local venues for nine days of concerts, square dances, workshops, films, jam sessions, and community building.

While the Hardly Strictly festival favors Nashville-based headliners like Del McCoury, Emmylou Harris, and Ricky Skaggs, along with such not-even-close-to-bluegrass acts like Elvis Costello, Los Lobos, and this year’s oddity Boz Scaggs (Ricky’s long-lost second cousin twice removed?), and generally gives the local bluegrass scene the cold shoulder, the SFBG&OT fest revels in the multifaceted local bluegrass and old-time scene, while importing a healthy dose of the Portland old-time crowd and even a few choice trad headliners like the Foghorn String Band, Ralph Stanley, Danny Barnes, or this year’s score, the Carolina Chocolate Drops.
Venues include local acoustic hangouts like the Freight and Salvage, Noe Valley Ministry, Plough and Stars, and Atlas Cafe, along with a few less-trafficked settings (whose denizens appear a bit surprised to see banjos and mandolins in their midst) like the Make-Out Room, Swedish American Hall, and the Verdi Club, an old Italian-American social club in San Francisco’s Mission District that hosted a day of workshops and concerts I was fortunate to be a part of this year.

Since it was Super Bowl Sunday and most bluegrass fans had never heard of the Verdi Club, turnout was not quite as robust as the organizers had hoped (though the festival is not heavily promoted, many SBFBG&OT fest concerts are sell-outs), but not as bad as some had feared. With guitar workshops by Jim Nunally (who had performed two nights earlier with David Grisman’s Bluegrass Experience) and myself, mandolin workshops by Eric Thompson and Ida Viper’s Brian Oberlin, a fiddle workshop by the Crooked Jades’ Sophie Vitells, and an old-time banjo workshop by Mark Petteys, the day got off to a sleepy start but was in high spirits by the time the late afternoon jam session broke up and the evening concert kicked off.

The lineup that night typified the eclectic and charming nature of the local San Francisco scene, which, while still reeling under the effects of the Summer of Love to some extent, is also home to a rabidly traditional “play-me-something-I’m-used-to” contingent. Leading off the night was Jimmie Rodgers acolyte Toshio Hirano with note-perfect guitar-and-vocal renditions of classic Rodgers and Hank Williams songs. Hirano was followed by the duo of myself and Celtic/old-time mandolinist Paul Kotapish. Up next was the Mercury Dimes, a rollicking Charlie Poole-ish string band that featured the twin fiddles of Elise Engelberg and Michael Follstad and the ragged-but-right old-timey singing of guitarist Matt Knoth and guest banjoist (and festival organizer) Tom Lucas.

After that, I was back at work as the “second guitarist” with Eric Thompson’s Kleptograss, a collection of Bay Area stalwarts that includes Jody Stecher on mandolin and banjo, Paul Shelasky on fiddle and momentously bad jokes, Paul Knight on bass, and Thompson on guitar, mandolin, clawhammer banjo, and Puerto Rican ten-string cuatro (which, by the way, is even harder to tune than a mandolin). If there were any ghosts of the old Verdi Club regulars lingering in the rafters they might have been less surprised than the bluegrass crowd to hear the Greek kalamatiano and Puerto Rican tunes that pepper Kleptograss’s repertoire of fiddle tunes, Gypsy swing, and Muddy Waters blues, but if the “extreme eclectic” repertoire bothered anyone in the audience (spectral or corporeal), they politely kept it to themselves. Closing the show was local bluegrass favorite, the Brewglass Boys, this night missing their leader Belle Monroe, who was snowbound in the far reaches of Nevada and whose progress (or lack thereof) was regularly monitored by the evening’s emcee, Chuck Poling.

But this was just one night of many at this year’s San Francisco Bluegrass and Old-Time festival. Other festivalgoers were treated to the likes of Peter Rowan, Town Mountain, the Freight Hoppers, the Crooked Jades (with new member Rose Sinclair on banjo and slide guitar), the Spring Creek Bluegrass Band, and Jackstraw, not to mention local up-and-comers Homespun Rowdy, the Whoreshoes, and the Barefoot Nellies. With all that talent, I doubt anyone was longing for a Skaggs (either Ricky or Boz).

Bill Frisell 'Just Like A Woman'

2008-03-31T20:41:00.001-07:00

He makes it look so easy.

Poetry

2008-03-18T21:22:00.001-07:00

I recently started getting Garrison Keillor's "The Writer's Almanac" delivered to me daily by email. The "Almanac" begins with a poem, and it's really no surprise, but I have a very different taste in poetry than Garrison Keillor. So I thought I'd start posting a few poems I might choose if I were in charge of the poems at "The Writer's Almanac." Of course, I'm going to have to respect copyright, so I'll start with something from the 12th century. I've wondered if Pablo Neruda might have been familiar with this one.

Absence

Every night I scan
the heavens with my eyes
seeking the star
that you are contemplating.

I question travellers
from the four corners of the earth
hoping to meet one
who has breathed your fragrance.

When the wind blows
I make sure it blows in my face:
the breeze might bring me
news of you.

I wander over roads
without aim, without purpose.
Perhaps a song
will sound your name.

Secretly I study
every face I see
hoping against hope
to glimpse a trace of your beauty.

--Abu Bakr al-Turtushi

Remembering Matt and Kristy

2008-03-13T10:57:00.000-07:00

The cycling community has really pulled together over this horrible incident. Joey did the Tuesday night Golden Gate Park ride with the Roaring Mouse team, and it was good to see our friends from that team. There are all sorts of events and memorial sites up.

Remembering Kristy

Remembering Matt

We'll miss the memorial ride on Sunday, but here's info:

Team Roaring Mouse Cycles and Third Pillar Racing Team are holding a joint memorial ride this Saturday March 15th, to honor the lives of Kristy Gough and Matt Peterson, our two teammates killed on Steven's Creek Canyon last Sunday while on a training ride. We welcome friends, family, fellow cyclists and all those whose lives have been touched by Matt and Kristy. Our ride will include a visit to the site of the crash site for those to share their memories.

When: Saturday, March 15th

Where: Leaving from Foothill College
12345 El Monte Road,
Los Altos Hills, CA 94022

Google map to location: http://tinyurl.com/2b6qvb

**We kindly request you do NOT drive out to the crash site during this time, as we need to keep cars to a minimum in the area, given the road conditions.

Time: Meet at 2:30pm, ride by 3pm

Length: 30-45 minutes to the crash site. Base pace (ie, mellow). No drop.

Route:
Start @ Foothill College (Parking Lot #1, near the football stadium; see link above for map)

- Left on El Monte
- Right on Foothill Expressway
- Continue on Steven's Creek Canyon
- Return

Route directions via Google: http://tinyurl.com/2pc8pf

**Press are welcome to attend, however we request respect during our ride. It would mean the most to us if press were to accompany us on their bikes, as we are all cyclists this week.

A Tragic Loss

2008-03-10T09:29:00.000-07:00

The Bay Area Cycling community is in shock from the loss of two of its own yesterday. From the SF Chronicle:

Sheriff's deputy hits cyclists, killing 2

(03-09) 20:42 PDT Cupertino -- A rookie Santa Clara County deputy sheriff patrolling a winding Cupertino road Sunday morning veered into the opposite lane of traffic and struck three bicyclists, killing two, including a rising star in the Bay Area cycling community, authorities said.

Authorities did not release the names of the riders who were killed, but friends identified them as Kristy Gough, 30, of San Leandro and Matt Peterson, 29, of San Francisco. The third cyclist, whose name was not released, was listed in critical condition Sunday night at Stanford University Medical Center.

Gough was a professional triathlete who recently took up road racing and who friends said won every race she entered this year. She and Peterson, also an amateur road racing cyclist, both won their divisions in a March 1 road racing event in downtown Merced.

My condolences to all who knew Kristy and Matt and best wishes to the unidentified cyclist still in the hospital. As they say, be careful out there people.

I didn't know Matt or Kristy, but I'd been hearing about Kristy, and I know a few of Matt's temmates. It turns out their teams met for a training ride at the same spot Joey and I went for a training ride yesterday--Canada Rd. But Joey had been sick for a couple days and we did an easy and shortish ride, not venturing up into the hills. Matt had just won his first race--the Merco Criterium, and Kristy, a champion triathlete, just started racing this year. Here are her USACycling results--8 races, 8 wins.

03/02/2008 - Merco Credit Union Foothills Road Race - Road Race - Cat 3/4
1	Kristy Gough	274487	00:00.0	649	Third Pillar

03/01/2008 - Merco Credit Union Cycling Classic Downtown GP - Criterium - Cat 3/4
1	Kristy Gough	274487	00:00.0	862	Third Pillar

02/24/2008 - Original Merced Criterium - Criterium - Cat 3
1	Kristy Gough	274487	00:00:00.00	804	Third Pillar

02/17/2008 - Pine Flat Road Race - Road Race - Cat 4
1	Kristy Gough	274487

02/16/2008 - Cantua Creek Road Race - Road Race - Cat 4
1	Kristy Gough	274487	00:00:00.00	905	Third Pillar

02/16/2008 - Snelling Road Race - Road Race - Cat 3
1	Kristy Gough	274487	00:00.0	906	Third Pillar

02/10/2008 - Cherry Pie Criterium - Criterium - Cat 4
1	Kristy Gough	274487			3rd Pillar

01/26/2008 - Early Bird Road Race - Road Race - Cat 4
1	Kristy Gough	0			Unattached

Finally!

2008-03-07T12:23:00.000-08:00

Yikes, it's been almost 3 months since my last blog! This part-time editing job and raft of gigs with various folks has kept me pretty busy. Plus I just got out of the habit, I guess. I could go on and on about all the things I've been doing, but--boring. So I'll just mention a couple cool albums I've heard recently.

First off, Petri Hakala's Trad. Petri is an amazing mandolin player from Finland, and on this solo CD he plays, you guessed it, traditional Finnish tunes, on mandolins, mandola, mandocello, and guitar. I've had the pleasure of playing with Petri in the past and he's right up there with the best American mando players. His tone and fluidity are fantastic and he even plays a Gilchrist, which most players seem to regard as the best newly made mandolins. The CD is solo in that nobody else plays on it, but Petri overdubs other parts for a very nice sound that doesn't stray too far from the traditional polskas and waltzes. His guitar playing is a revelation for me--I didn't even know he played guitar--but it's his clean and crisp mando playing that is the main attraction.
David Grier has also released a solo CD recently--Live at the Linda. In David's case, it is entirely solo, just David and his 1946 Martin D-28. It will come as no surprise to anyone who's heard David that this is a phenomenal guitar record. There's no one who can do what David does with such taste and ease. What I love about this CD is the tone of David's guitar, which is difficult to render in a live setting. It may be due to the fact that David is playing a D-28, rather than his previously favored D-18, but David's tone on this CD is the best I've heard, remarkably lush and rich. It's enough to excuse the covers of "Killing Me Softly" and "America the Beautiful" and the bad jokes told between songs. Actually the "Glass Eye" joke is a good one.

Acoustic Guitar

2007-12-21T12:11:00.000-08:00

I've got three articles in the latest issue of Acoustic Guitar magazine: a feature on Steve Earle, a lesson with Nina Gerber, and a review of a cool little Collings 0-1A.

And speaking of Acoustic Guitar, I'll be back in the office on a part-time basis starting in January. And I'm hoping my new title of Senior Editor isn't just a reflection of my age.

Clive and Christine

2007-12-20T09:13:00.000-08:00

I've been trying to post a couple of YouTube videos but it doesn't seem to be working, so I'll have to resort to the old style--posting links.

The CD player in my home stereo has developed an annoying and apparently incurable case of the hiccups, so I've been spinning a lot of LPS, you know, vinyl? One gem I dug out was this:

I remember the night I got it. It was at a Michelle Shocked concert, actually--her first tour. I didn't much like Michelle's show--I'd been dragged to it by a friend--but she was on the same record company as Clive and Christine (Cooking Vinyl), and this LP was for sale at their record table. I had seen them in Richard Thompson's band a couple months earlier, so I bought it and stayed up half the night listening to it, over and over.

Listening to it again inspired a YouTube search that turned up this amazing performance, reminding me what an incredible musical partnership this was.

Clive and Christine Live

And definitely check out this relic of the '80s--Clive with Christine singing harmony (nice go-go boots) and Richard Thompson on lead guitar.

Clive with RT and CC

Dwelling in the past is never recommended for too long. Here's Amazing Christine singing "Amazing Grace" last year.

Amazing Grace

NIYAZ

2007-12-04T14:34:00.001-08:00

The amazing Azam Ali singing. But what the heck kinda cello/oud thingy is Loga Ramin Torkian playing?

2-Mile Challenge

2007-12-04T12:22:00.000-08:00

Clif Bar's 2-Mile Challenge site is pretty cool, if only to remind you how close you are to things you might still think about driving to. Of course, in San Francisco, there might be a couple hundred feet of climbing or urban traffic nightmare involved in any 2-mile ride, but . . .

"Take some time, and learn how to play"

2007-11-27T21:21:00.000-08:00

There's a great review of the video games Rock Star and Guitar Hero in today's Chronicle. Sample:

"If this were strictly a review, Rock Band from Electronic Arts - and its first cousin Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock from Activision - would probably both have the Little Man jumping out of his chair. In terms of entertainment value, it doesn't get much better than these two titles.
But something still seems fundamentally wrong when you pick up the video games, which both require that you press an ever-changing sequence of colored buttons to simulate playing the guitar and bass. (Rock Band also has a microphone for karaoke and a small drum kit.) What kid will ever want to pick up a real guitar, when learning to play a fake one is so easy? If Rock Band had been available in the late 1980s, would we even have a Green Day - or just three more no-name slackers killing a lot of time in their parents' basement?"

Sample #2:

"I don't think the makers of Rock Band have to be banned, boycotted or even need to apologize. But both games should definitely be accompanied by the following disclaimer:
1. No matter how good you get at Rock Band, you will never play the Coachella festival.
2. Nobody ever won his soul back from the real devil playing the ax that came with Guitar Hero III.
3. Playing a Guitar Hero or Rock Band guitar is a fairly effective form of birth control. Seriously, look at yourself in the mirror. No one who sees you playing this thing will want to have sex with you.
4. The plastic Guitar Hero guitar is pretty much useless around the campfire. (Even as kindling.)
5. If you get "Mississippi Queen" stuck in your head for more than two hours, consult a physician immediately.

Devon Sproule

2007-11-27T13:06:00.000-08:00

The January issue of Acoustic Guitar is out, with my feature on Clarence White and profile of Devon Sproule. Unfortunately there's a typo in the article on Devon. The flat symbol (b) got deleted from the Eb in the following sentence, making it appear as if I think that Bb is a good chord for modulating to the key of E and forever tarnishing my reputation as a theory nerd.

"After four repetitions of that progression, the Bb/D lets Sproule modulate neatly into Eb for the soaring (I–vi–IV–V) chorus."

Ah well, I'll live. And as with all these short profiles, there are usually nice moments from the interview that don't make it into print, because of word limitations. So here's an excerpt from my interview with Devon:

Do you usually write with the guitar in hand?
I’ve started writing more around refrains—coming up with a one- or two-sentence refrain for a song. Those things usually take the longest, of the process. After that, the mystery or intimidating part is gone, and I can fill in the puzzle around it.

Is there an example of that on the new record?
Yeah, there’s a few—“Let’s Go Out,” “Stop By Any Time,” even “Old Virginia Block” is that way. I knew what I was aiming for at the end of each verse. Some of those are a little more stream-of-consciousness writing, and then it's a matter of going through the thesaurus and the rhyme dictionary and tightening up the stream-of-consciousness thing. There are a few other ones—“Does the Day Feel Long” is kind of experimenting with having a refrain that comes in not at the end of each verse or at the beginning of each chorus but that just pokes its head up once in awhile. Yeah, mostly the sort of jazz or swing-structured songs—the “Great American Songbook” songs. That’s what I wrote in my press release at least.

Well, you’re American, or Canadian—North American.
I pretty much identify myself as a Virginian, until I’m applying for a Canadian Arts Council grant, and then I’m all Canada—another Joni Mitchell.

The new album almost paints a portrait of a social scene—a neighborhood or group of friends. How much of this is observation and how much is invented?
It’s mostly personal. I got married a couple years ago, and I was writing most of these songs during and about that time. I was kind of digging having my own space. When one gets married, because you’ve chosen this person to spend all your time with, your social life really gets down to the important stuff. So I just have a few friends, but they’re really awesome. They’re all older than me, and smarter than me, and have these amazing vocabularies. They’re either great songwriters or doctoral candidates in the English department at U VA or whatever. That’s so fun having that kind of family.

And my husband and I we like to drink [laughs]. My girlfriend Danielle got the roughs for the record and she said, “I love it so much, but I’m worried because you mention drinking in almost every song.” And I realize that it is kind of a big part of my life, but there’s this beautiful language that works with it—that comes with it. I feel like there’s always a way to say something nice about drinking or the social stuff around it, or the problems with it, which I’ve started to encounter [laughs].

Do you keep a journal or ever put yourself in a place and try to imagine yourself there?
It’s a little bit of both. When I’m having long drives, I’ll turn off the book on tape and try to comb through my recent experiences and see if there are any interesting snapshots. I’ll try to think of the most interesting way to word them and then write those down. Actually my friend just gave me a little hand recorder thing. I haven’t used it yet, but I’m excited about becoming a safer driver with that.

Uncle Earl - Streak O' Lean, Streak O'Fat

2007-11-24T16:56:00.001-08:00

The brilliant g'earls of Uncle Earl.

Ouch!

2007-11-14T10:02:00.000-08:00

Sunday we went on a tour of long 12-percent grades in Eastern Sonoma County. This wasn't our intention when we started, but we were tagging along with a Team Swift teammate and his dad, who live in Petaluma, and I neglected to look closely at the map before we took off. We went over Sonoma Mountain twice (once each way) and then started up Trinity Grade, before we came to our senses. About a mile and a half up Trinity, Joey--who was leading the group--rounded a turn and saw that it was going to continue at 12 percent or so for awhile (see the photo above--last year's Tour of California on the same climb), said to himself "this is stupid," and turned around.

This would have been a great hard training ride in the middle of the season, but when we've barely got any miles in our legs and are just riding once a week or so? Nada. When I went back and looked at my Sonoma County bike map, I counted seven 3-arrow climbs on our 40-mile loop. Climbing is one thing, blowing out your knees when you're just supposed to be riding base miles is another. Fortunately we didn't hurt ourselves, but the moral of the story is: Always check your map.

The American Idea

2007-11-05T07:45:00.000-08:00

In its latest edition, its 150th anniversary issue, the Atlantic magazine asked a number of writers, politicians, artists, scientists, and other thinkers to reflect on the future of “the American idea” in “around 300 words.” Somehow I was overlooked, so I will take a stab at it here.

Three little words that seem so pure and virtuous, yet themselves define the contradictions inherent in the phrase. First “the,” the definitive article that implies a single American idea, encompassing the populist American exclusion, arrogance, and belligerence of “my country, right or wrong,” “love it or leave it,” and “if you ain’t fer us, yer ag’in’ us.”

Second, “American,” which connotes both an inclusiveness and a wrongheaded arrogance. There are, after all, as any good PC-er will tell you, many countries in North and South America, yet America is usually defined as a single country: the United States of America, the name of which represents a very American concept--unity amid diversity, a melting pot of cultures.

And then that third word, “idea,” bringing to mind the great “American” virtues of independent thinking (a concept nurtured, if not born, in Greece), entrepreneurship (derived from a French word), and avant-garde (another French word) creativity.

America is above all a land of contradictions, of convenient ignorance, where the anti-immigrant throng fears what its ancestors (immigrants, of course) once wreaked upon the original “Americans”--the destruction of a way of life. To some, the American idea is that all persons, whatever their race, creed, religion, or ancestry, should be able to contribute equally to society, to live their lives the way they want, and to be compensated fairly for their labors, but of course this does not happen in America. It may be true that “anyone” can do this--grow up to be President, rich and happy, an American Idol, etc., but the American idea has never been that “everyone” can. This is why socialism is un-American, and capitalism, unrestrained by anything other than cronyism and the legal bribery perpetrated by lobbyism, is American.

But, of course, I am also a contradiction. Here I am complaining that the American idea is more individualistic than collectivist, yet I’m a musician who plays “unpopular” music, ignoring the tastes of the majority; a devoted father who insists on a capricious career that involves large chunks of time away from my family instead of conforming to the societal norm of a salaried, corporate, home-every-night job; and an anti-church socialist who decries the self-centered, materialist ways of the decidedly church-going, capitalist society I live in. In short, an individual, an entrepreneur (though hardly a successful one), a true American. At least, I like to think so. You got a problem with that?

Team Swift Ride

2007-10-30T11:31:00.001-07:00

The Team Swift Cycle with Champions ride Sunday was great. My brother Steve joined Joey and me this year, making it a nice Nygaard family event, and though the list of celebrities wasn't quite as dazzling as in previous years (which have included Freddie Rodriguez, Chris Horner, Roberto Gaggioli, and others) the weather was gorgeous and the riding fast and fun. Joey finished the 50-miler with the front group of pros (including some members of the BMC team) and older Swifties, and I didn't get dropped as badly as in past years. I've been taking my own advice to Joey lately ("just don't get dropped") and made it to the turnaround at 27 miles in the lead group. Then the attacks started and I got dropped but rolled into the rest stop (at 37 miles) with Joey's coach, Laura Charameda. Joey hasn't been riding that much recently. After taking most of the summer off, we rode a couple hard 35-milers in the last couple weeks to get ready. But he was flying on Sunday, taking his turn in the paceline (that's him riding third wheel above) to bring back one attack early on. The lead group really takes off on a short climb about 5-7 miles from the end, and he hung in there, going 35 mph on the flat at one point. Not bad for an 85-pound 13-year-old.
Photo (c) Veronika Lenzi, www.veronikalenzi.com

Nathan again

2007-10-30T11:24:00.000-07:00

After rereading my interview excerpt with Nathan below, I realized that if you haven't heard the band, the references to the Eurythmics, Journey, Boney M, etc. might be misleading. So, to correct that and let you know just how amazing these folks are, here's an MP3 of "Discarded Debris" that is different from the version on Jimson Weed.

Yes on A, No on H

2007-10-24T13:17:00.000-07:00

For San Francisco bike folks (and for everyone else too, really), it'll be a very clear choice this election day, at least for two local props. Let's see, do we want more money for Muni (as if you had to ask)? OK then that's a "yes" on Proposition A. And do we want room in the City for up to 20,000 more motor vehicles? Huh? I don't think so. As if there aren't enough WMDs (Weapons piloted by Moronic Drivers) in the city already. Amazingly Proposition H would also classify Hummers as "low-emission vehicles." Hey, they're only low-emission if you don't drive them!

For more info, check out the SF Bike Coalition's page about the props, or Transit not Traffic.

Russ Barenberg, Nathan, etc.

2007-10-23T08:38:00.000-07:00

I have three stories in the new (December) issue of Acoustic Guitar: a feature lesson with Russ Barenberg, a profile of the band Nathan, and a review of a Baden dreadnought. The interview with Keri and Shelley from Nathan was great, but I had to boil it all down to a short profile for the magazine. So here's a bit of the interview, conducted over cappuccinos and pastries at a cafe in Berkeley:

What were your first musical experiences?
Shelley Marshall: I played accordion as a kid. My parents are Slavic, Russian and Polish, so they put me into accordion lessons, thinking it was the hippest thing you could do for your kid and affordable at the same time. I thought it was pretty normal until about grade 4. My dad played banjo, so we always had a banjo lying around. I picked it up about 3 years ago. And a guitar was always lying around. I had older brothers and sisters so by the time I was able to play stuff by ear I was playing Boney M and Meat Loaf and the Clash and Jimi Hendrix. Kind of classic rock through the ‘80s; that’s when I turned the radio off.

Keri Latimer: Sounds like me. We didn’t really have any musical things in our family. I really wanted to play piano when I was little, but we didn’t have a piano, so I had this piece of cardboard with piano keys, like a cardboard piano that didn’t make any noise. I took group lessons before elementary school, but it sucked really bad. My mom said it makes her feel really sad to remember me playing on this piece of cardboard. As I got older I really wanted to play guitar, starting with ‘80s music, Eurythmics. And I played Journey on the piano, to make myself cry. All that adolescent angst, you know.

Do you remember the first song you wrote?
Keri: I wrote my first song when we moved from Calgary to Lethbridge, in the backseat of the car. It was like “I’ve lost it, I’m never gonna find it, but if I do I’ll guard it well and always walk behind it, where I can see it, and I won’t lose it again.” It was called “Happiness.” [laughs] I was so sad to move.

Shelley: That’s good, I like that. We should rework that one.

Keri: How about your first song?

Shelley: Grade 7, I had my first all-girl band, with stolen band instruments, we called it Petty Larceny. We had “Mating Call of the Mongoose” and “ET Go Home,” silly adolescent songs. I played solos, like every key on the piano down chromatically. I mostly wrote instrumental stuff until I started playing with Keri. I’m not a singer. I never thought of myself as one.

Keri: But you are a singer.

Shelley: On an album it’s nice to have a different, not-so-nice voice so that when Keri’s songs come on it’s like, “Ah.”

Keri: This is our eternal fight.

Shelley: The diversity is nice. I’m not a singer, but I like to write songs.

Was there a particular song or singer that made you think “I want to do that”?
Keri: According to my parents and grandparents I sang since I could walk—you know, right away. I used to love to hog the spotlight. I knew every song when I was 2—Christmas carols and . . . any opportunity there was to get up on any platform and sing some songs, that’s what I did. I got shyer as I got older, I think. Now I’m up there wondering “What am I doing up here?” But when I heard the Eurythmics—it could have been the musical style, but it definitely was her voice too. I remember going “Whoah, I love this woman.”

Was that when you thought “I want to do this, I want to be a musician.”?
Keri: I always knew. When I played Barbies I was the musician. I always wanted to do it.

Shelley: There are so many bands and performers I’ve heard and said “Oh I want to be that person so much.” Like Boney M, Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, Neil Young (when I was younger), a lot of people that don’t sing really well. I’d say “How do they get away with that?” I always loved the idea of being in a band. But I never thought I’d do it seriously.

Josefin's Waltz Live at StringNation 2007

2007-10-19T12:44:00.001-07:00

This was quite an amazing moment, but it's pretty funny to see all the impatient folks behind Roger and me as we play the intro.

Another Online Lesson

2007-10-11T09:26:00.000-07:00

Check out Acoustic Guitar's new website, which features my latest lesson: All About Jazz Chords.

Camps 2008

2007-10-09T15:02:00.000-07:00

I'll be teaching at two new camps next year (well, new for me): Sore Fingers Week, in Oxfordshire, England, March 24-48 and Guitar Week at the Swannanoa Gathering in Asheville, NC, July 27-Aug. 2. Besides being two highly regarded music camps, which I've heard about for many years, they are in two of my favorite places in the world--England and the mountains of North Carolina. Should be fun.

Roger and Me

2007-10-02T18:34:00.000-07:00

I got together a couple weeks ago with Swedish guitarist Roger Tallroth to start work on our duo album. It was a great couple days of rehearsing and getting to know each other's playing better and it ended with a few recorded sketches, which will be fleshed out, added to, and finalized some time in 2008. It'll mostly be original tunes--mine and Roger's, and should be quite interesting. I'm very excited about it. We sort of fell into a natural role of Roger as accompanist and me as melody player. But that designation doesn't begin to describe what's going on. Roger completely reinvents the idea of accompanist. Everything is fair game for variation when he plays, and he slides in and out of harmonies, counterpoint, and polyrhythms with incredible ease. I often found myself holding on for dear life, just trying to play the melody to a couple of his polskas. We had about a half hour of daylight left for a few pictures on the top of Bernal Heights. Anne Hamersky is the photographer, of course.

Photos: (c) 2007, Anne Hamersky, www.annehamersky.com

Steve Earle

2007-09-27T08:41:00.000-07:00

I interviewed Steve Earle a couple weeks ago, mostly about his new album, Washington Square Serenade, which was released Tuesday. I'm finishing up the article for Acoustic Guitar, but here's a quote that probably won't make the article:

In “Tennessee Blues” you say “this ain’t never been my home.” Do you feel that way about Nashville?
Yeah, I mean, I hope nobody takes offense to it, but I don’t think there’s any secret that we butted heads for 32 years. I’m here right now, I still have a house here, but I’m a lot more comfortable in New York. It was a lot of things. I was able to live here for 30 years mainly ‘cause I was gone a lot. I was never particularly comfortable here, the town was never particularly comfortable with me. I was OK with that, I was OK with being uncomfortable. And I was intentionally antagonistic at times.

It was a couple of things. The last couple of elections made me want to not, at least on my days off, feel like I was behind enemy lines. I’ve said it before, to look out my front door and see a mixed-race, same-sex couple holding hands made me feel safe, after what’s happened. And the other thing is, I’m getting older and I’m in the best shape I’ve ever been in. I finally managed to quit smoking a couple of years ago, and where you’re seriously overmarried like I am, you start taking better care of yourself. I don’t know, I may be around for awhile now. I certainly missed the “live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse” thing. I missed the boat on that, so now I gotta figure out another plan. If I had something debilitating happen to me, like a stroke or a heart attack, is this where I want to get my wings clipped? I’d rather be one of those old Commies in the Village that runs over my foot with their motorized wheelchair every once in awhile than be stuck here, if I get to where I can’t travel.

Beppe Gambetta

2007-09-25T10:51:00.000-07:00

I got to hang out for a bit with Beppe Gambetta last week, interviewing him for an upcoming Acoustic Guitar Feature Lesson. He talked a lot about (and demonstrated) these wild down-down-up picking things he's been doing--how he's discovered connections to Sardinian folk music, Irish triplet ornaments, Nick Lucas's playing, and all sorts of other things. Cool and crazy stuff, which will be laid out in notation in the lesson (you can hear a lot of it on his new CD, Slade Stomp).

That's Beppe's lovely wife Federica in the middle photo. BTW, I'm thinking of starting a League of Tall Guitar Players. Beppe, me, Roger Tallroth, John Doyle, Dan Crary, Tony Marcus . . . let's see, who else? Bill Frisell? They'd have to be at least 6 feet tall physically, and of course, tall, musically as well, I suppose. Silly idea, I know.

Photos: (c) 2007, Anne Hamersky, www.annehamersky.com

Lang and Venuti with Paul Whiteman

2007-09-20T17:30:00.001-07:00

Unbelievable performance by Eddie Lang and Joe Venuti about 30 seconds in.

SCRAPER BIKE

2007-09-19T09:33:00.001-07:00

I love this. I think it'll be part of Bicycle Film Festival in SF this weekend.

If Only It Were True

2007-09-13T12:37:00.000-07:00

Martha Scanlan

2007-09-10T21:00:00.000-07:00

It seems like years since I've blogged. Way too busy with other things--vacationing in Hawaii, getting ready for some Websters gigs and a demo recording session with Roger Tallroth, some bike riding, and writing numerous articles. Acoustic Guitar finally published my profile of Martha Scanlan, and there should be profiles of Nathan and Devon Sproule (as well as features on Russ Barenberg and Clarence White) in upcoming issues. And Strings magazine published my profile of Oisin McAuley.

I'm also waiting to see if I get an interview with Steve Earle, for another feature. That'll be fun. He's never at a loss for words.

Online Lesson

2007-07-31T15:14:00.000-07:00

My Theme and Variations lesson is posted at Acoustic Guitar's website, completely with recording. The first time I've ever recorded any Mozart--though it is only two measures.

Once

2007-07-26T13:22:00.001-07:00

Last night I saw the new indie movie Once, which I would highly recommend to anyone, really, but mostly to anyone who has ever been frustrated with the way music and musicians are treated on the big and small screens. This is the most realistic treatment of musicians and the way they work that I've ever seen. There's no overblown Rocky approach, songs are allowed to be performed, usually on the street, in rehearsal, or as they are being written, in their entirety. This is almost unheard of on film or documentaries (other than concert films), since filmmakers seem to think that allowing an entire piece of music to be heard would put a film audience to sleep.

The movie stars Glen Hansard, lead singer of the Irish band, the Frames, and Marketa Irglova, both musicians, and until this movie, nonactors. Hansard was originally signed up as songwriter and consultant but when the intended star (Cillian Murphy) became unavailable, he was recruited. His performances with Irglova are stunning and while it ostensibly centers on their budding romance and musical collaboration, by the end you realize that the film portrays the sort of fleeting, temporary (thus the title, Once) musical interactions that happen all the time in the music world, and that are what keep musicians doing what they do. It doesn't hurt that Hansard's songs are catchy and literate (and that his performances are powerful and heartfelt) and that Irglova is one of the most charming screen presences I've seen in awhile. Definitely a movie not to be missed.

New Team Swift Blog

2007-07-23T20:33:00.000-07:00

I created a blog for Joey's bike racing team, Team Swift, so some of the bike stuff here will probably migrate over there, plus more results, race reports, etc. from the whole team.

Ashlyn Gerber, National Champ

2007-07-16T10:59:00.000-07:00

Joey's Team Swift teammate Ashlyn Gerber won the 13-14 National Criterium Championship yesterday!

Sheet Music

2007-07-12T18:10:00.000-07:00

I was looking for the lyrics to the old song "Avalon" for a lesson I'm writing for Acoustic Guitar, and I stumbled upon this old sheet music. But the best one I found was this one for "Chinatown." As they say, they don't make 'em like they used to.

Haruki Murakami on Music

2007-07-09T11:42:00.000-07:00

From an essay in the NYTimes book review:

Whether in music or in fiction, the most basic thing is rhythm. Your style needs to have good, natural, steady rhythm, or people won’t keep reading your work. I learned the importance of rhythm from music — and mainly from jazz. Next comes melody — which, in literature, means the appropriate arrangement of the words to match the rhythm. If the way the words fit the rhythm is smooth and beautiful, you can’t ask for anything more. Next is harmony — the internal mental sounds that support the words. Then comes the part I like best: free improvisation. Through some special channel, the story comes welling out freely from inside. All I have to do is get into the flow. Finally comes what may be the most important thing: that high you experience upon completing a work — upon ending your “performance” and feeling you have succeeded in reaching a place that is new and meaningful. And if all goes well, you get to share that sense of elevation with your readers (your audience). That is a marvelous culmination that can be achieved in no other way.

One Hour in Hungary by Vasen

2007-07-06T16:19:00.001-07:00

A great tune by a great band. I like to think of the title as "One Hour in Hungry." I'm posting this here partly so I can learn it

Politics

2007-07-05T10:24:00.000-07:00

OK, I promised myself I wouldn't get too political in this blog, but this is kind of interesting--and peripherally related to music.

One of the topics of the TGIFriday's crew at Kaufman Kamp was how few people in the US actually vote. Beppe and Tony were both amazed at the low percentage of voter turnout. This week I'm working on a story on the band Nathan, and songwriter Keri Latimer had this to say about her politics (or lack thereof):

"I’m not very political at all. Or I can’t seem to follow politics, because they frustrate me and then my frustration leads me to just turn everything off and then I become stupid about it all. So I can’t talk politics with anybody. "Scarecrow" [which features the refrain 'I feel a podium under my feet] is my song about politicians, how I see them in general. Most politicians just like to be up on the platform, waving their arms around. It’s so strange, it’s accepted now that the parties will pander to what they think the majority of the people want instead of taking a stand on something and sticking to it. It’s all a matter of polls, and 'If everyone wants this, we’ll say we’re going to do that.' And everyone knows that they’re not really going to. So how can you even vote nowadays when you know that nobody really means what they say? It’s really strange that we all just go along with it. [In 'Scarecrow'] I was thinking of them like scarecrows and how they want you to believe that they’re guarding the fields, but they secretly want to be crows."

DAROS on YouTube

2007-07-03T17:23:00.001-07:00

Here's a rockin' tune from the StringNation festival with Brittany Haas tearing up "Duck River." How does she do that?

Kaufman Kamp

2007-07-03T17:11:00.000-07:00

Well, I’ve been off the blog for awhile. Too many other things to do, I guess. But I thought I should post something about my week at Kaufman Kamp. Steve Kaufman had been asking me for a few years, and I’d declined, mostly because when I was working it would have meant taking a week of vacation time to do it. Had I known how much fun it was, I would have made more of an effort to get there. Steve is not only a great guitarist and businessman, but puts on an incredible event.

The teaching format was a little different than other camps I’ve been to, where I either had the same guitarists for a week, or had two to five classes that meet daily. At Kaufman Kamp, the guitarists are split into groups by level and rotate through all the guitar instructors (of which there were nine the week I was there). This means you see every group once, for two hours. It took me awhile to figure out how to teach that way, but it worked well. You end up teaching real concepts and spending very little time saying “put your second finger on the third fret . . . no the third fret . . . no your second finger.

It was also a good hang and I met and re-met lots of great folks. I shared a cab to Kamp with the legendary banjoist Pat Cloud, who currently has the great misfortune to be living in my hometown of Long Beach, CA. He’s an amazing banjo player—none like him really: bebop and jazz lines on melodic banjo—crazy. And he’s a fun guy to hang with—favorite line: “Where does the time come from?” I spent a couple post-concert evenings at the local TGIFridays imbibing Sam Adams with Beppe Gambetta, his wife Frederica, Casey Henry, and Tony McManus, who kept us in stitches until they kicked us out: One of his gems: “I come from Paisley, Scotland, which is known for being the stingiest place in Scotland. At Christmas every year, a man there takes his children to visit Santa’s grave.” I also enjoyed hanging with Rolly Brown, Adam Granger, Mike Kaufman, Steve Kilby, Jim Baggett, and Marcy Marxer.

There was also an incredible group of mandolin instructors: Alan Bibey, John Moore, Don Stiernberg, Roland White, Radim Zenkl, and the unsung Emory Lester, who, if he was in the right band would be winning IBMA Mandolin Player of the Year for the next decade. I was thrilled that he asked me to play a tune with him on his concert set.

As for the Kampers, this was one of the largest and most cohesive groups of students I’d ever seen. Great players—ages 12 to well, I don’t know, but there were a few downright old guys. They all seemed to look after each other, have a great time together, and as Rolly Brown commented at the end of the week, there wasn’t a dud class the whole week.

On the last night I played my 20-minute concert set. I was a little nervous, but it went OK—I got Tony McManus to play “Josefin’s Waltz” with me and ended with “Richmond Blues,” with Steve K joining in. Then after I went backstage, Steve told me they wanted me onstage again. There were no encores, so I thought they just wanted me to take a little bow or something. But no, they were presenting me with the Kaufy Award—for “contributions to flatpicking.” What a shock and an honor. I was very moved and couldn’t really think of much to say. But it was a nice cap to the week, and made me feel very welcome in East Tennessee. Thanks, Steve.

New NorCal Juniors Cycling Blog

2007-06-06T09:46:00.000-07:00

Another parent has started a juniors cycling blog that features a nice picture of Joey gritting his teeth at the start of the Dunlap Time Trial. I'm not sure how many other blogs feature juniors race reports and photos. I know the AMD blog does, occasionally. There should be more.

Junior Regional Championships

2007-06-04T14:23:00.000-07:00

Joey just finished doing all three Northern California Junior Regional Championships--one a week for the last three weekends.

The first one was the Panoche Pass road race, a 24-mile out and back course. It was supposed to be fairly hilly, so we thought it might be a good one for him, but we rode the course the day before and discovered that the 12-miles after the turnaround was pretty much all downhill into a headwind. Since Joey is anywhere from 40-70 pounds lighter than some of the big 13-14s he decided his goal was just to stay with the group until the turnaround (at the top of the only real climb). This he managed to do, and was fourth over the top, but then he got dropped on the descent and rode mostly alone to the finish. Nonetheless, his 6th place was none too shabby, especially considering he beat James LaBerge, who would win the criterium championship a week later.

Speaking of the crit championship, a flat course against big thighs--not Joey's forte. But the race split immediately with a group of the big 4 going off the front. Joey stayed with the second group, got boxed out in the final sprint, and finished 9th.

Yesterday was the Dunlap Time Trial in Winters, one of Joey's favorites. His goal was to beat Marcus Smith's time, since he knew that with a flat time trial he wouldn't be able to match the bigger older kids. He rode well and finished just 5 seconds behind Marcus in 6th place. I figured that Marcus's rear disc wheel gave him at least a 5-second advantage, so in my book it was a dead heat. Joey however wasn't buying it. While looking at the results he said, "Not sixth again. It's always sixth. It started at Nationals." Some kid he'd beaten overheard him and said "You got sixth at Nationals? Wow!" Good to be reminded that there ain't nothin' wrong with sixth place.

Here's a nice photo of Joey in his full TT gear. And here's a cool video of the Crit championships. Notice Joey going hard on the inside right from the gun.

Revised Tune

2007-06-04T14:12:00.000-07:00

Way back in December I posted a tune I'd written. Well, it's gone through a number of revisions, and here it is now. Hopefully this is the final version (although I'm still not sure about the chords), and it has yet another stupid title (but not as bad as the first).

Thought for Food

2007-05-23T12:34:00.000-07:00

Two great quotes from David Foster Wallace's Everything and More, A Compact History of Infinity.

"The dreads and dangers of abstract thinking are a big reason why we now all like to stay so busy and bombarded with stimuli all the time."

"Never before have there been so many gaping chasms between what the world seems to be and what science tells us it is."

New Swedes

2007-05-23T12:02:00.000-07:00

Well, I haven't been blogging for awhile. A local community tragedy has been consuming mind and body for the last two weeks, and, well, blogging just seemed a bit silly.

At any rate, I had a great time hanging out with the tall men in the Swedish band Vasen at the StringNation festival and have been listening nonstop to their new CD, Linnaeus Vasen, as well as the new CD by Olov Johannson (Vasen's nyckelharpist), I Lust Och Glod, and three Swedish CDs that arrived in the mail while I was gone: Lena Willemark's Alvdalens Elektriska, the Ale Moller Band's brilliant new CD Djef Djel and Sofia Karlsson's Visor Fran Vinden, all of which are highly recommended (available at CDRoots). More on the wonders of each of them soon.

Meanwhile, here's the first tune on Linnaeus Vasen.

String Nation

2007-05-10T06:04:00.000-07:00

The String Nation festival starts tomorrow, in Camden, New Jersey. This is Darol's brainchild, the first festival of contemporary world string band music. And while some festivals start small, Darol and festival director Joseph Milano decided to go all out in their first venture and get some of the best Irish, Swedish, Brazilian, and American string musicians in the world. Vasen, Tim O'Brien, Seamus Egan, Mike Marshall, Hamilton de Holanda, and of course Darol and me and the Republic of Strings, which will expand to twice or thrice its size for this gig. And from what I hear, every hot young string player on the East Coast (and beyond) who doesn't have a gig this weekend is going to be there. It should be too much fun.

More Cat's Hill Photos

2007-05-09T17:23:00.000-07:00

Anne put up a gallery of her Cat's Hill photos. They take a little while to load, but they're worth it. Wish I'd been there.

Cat's Hill

2007-05-06T12:54:00.000-07:00

Well, I missed Cat's Hill again this year, but Anne just sent me this photo. I assume this is not the reason Joey finished off the Cat's Hill podium for the first time since he started racing. Just kidding, Joe. He said he felt good, but had trouble getting clipped in and by the time he did the group was gone and he was weaving between 10-12 kids to get going. At only three short (but brutal) laps, it's pretty much a sprint from the gun. Joey did end up riding most of the race with Katrina Howard, two-time National Champion at only age 11, which is who he rode with the first time he rode Cat's Hill two years ago.

Joey's teammate Brentley won the 13-14s, his second Junior Points Series win in a row. He's getting to be a pretty formidable rider (he also almost won a Cat 5 crit in Santa Rosa a couple weeks ago), and has got to be a good bet for a podium spot at Nationals for Team Swift. It apparently was a good day all around. Our friend Courtenay Brown was third in the Women's Pro race and another Swiftie, Ryan, was fourth in the 15-16s (I haven't seen results of the 17-18 race but I heard Ethan and Tyler were both very active at the front.

Indie Coffee

2007-05-04T06:04:00.000-07:00

While Googling to doublecheck the name of the coffee shop I went to in downtown Charlottesville, VA, last weekend, Mudhouse, I came upon this great resource: Indiecoffeeshops.com

As I battle the increasingly milky Starbucks latte (you'd think a Triple Tall Latte would do the trick, but no) and discover that non-Bay Area Peets' drinks are weaker than the originals, Indie Coffeshops are about the only places left for real coffee.

Tony Rice

2007-05-02T11:02:00.000-07:00

My Tony Rice interview is now on the stands (and online) in the current issue of Acoustic Guitar magazine, with great photos by the miraculous Anne Hamersky.

Nathan

2007-04-23T20:47:00.000-07:00

I interviewed Keri Latimer and Shelley Marshall of Nathan today--sipping cappuccinos at Cafe Fanny in Berkeley, seated outside next to the parking lot as the trucks and Volvos roared by (I hope my little tape recorder captured everything).

This is one band that absolutely needs to be better known, and it may be time to do some proselytizing. They played Sunday night at the Freight and Salvage (I missed it due to a gig in Felton with Bill Evans) and seemed pretty happy with the gig, although they said there were only 20 people there. What? How can that be? Why isn't this band famous (or at least able to draw a couple hundred people in a supposedly hip, tuned-in place like the SF Bay Area). They've got two cute gals leading the band, one of whom plays the accordion and banjo and electric guitar; Keri is the best lyricist in pop music; they're funny; their songs are stuffed full of hooks and cool guitar lines.

OK, you're wondering about that "best lyricist in pop music" line. Examples:

I feel a podium under my feet / empty crates, encyclopedia
I feel a podium under my feet / sound alarms, invite the media

or

Refrigerator hums a song it claims the TV taught it
Just before it flickered out, left us fending for ourselves

or

Who needs pictures when there's music,talking walls and next-door neighbors,ceiling creaks and radiators

or

I’m going down the highway with a suitcase full of all my bad ideas
Going to check them out, See what I have been missing all these years

or

And as sure as a sharp corner comes a jack-knife kind of creepiness / Sweeps up and over me

or

there’s a sparkle in me wanting some catastrophe to drop whatever it is doing and come rushing

So maybe it's that part about them being funny. I mean all serious pop stars are of course . . . serious. Whatever, this is a band that needs to be on everyone's iPod, now. I'm ashamed to say I still haven't actually seen them perform. We can just be thankful that in Winnipeg, as Keri says, "if you can sign your name, you can get a grant" which is what's keeping them going to some degree. I assume they're bigger in their hometown and other hip spots in Canada.

Here's an MP3 of "Discarded Debris."

Wente Road Race

2007-04-23T12:42:00.000-07:00

Well, I could write a report from Joey's race on Saturday, but I'll let him this time:

Josef Nygaard
Wente Vineyards Road Race
April 21, 2007
Jr 15-16

The race was at twelve o’clock in the afternoon. We got to the race around ten so we had a good two hours before the start. It was my first big points series race since Cherry Pie, so it was nice to see a few familiar faces. I was racing the 15-16 race because they didn’t have a 13-14 category, but there were a few other 13-14s racing too, including my teammate Brentley.

When the race stated it was very slow until we got to the first hill. Then the 15-16s started to notch up the pace a little and Brentley and I got dropped. Brentley and I rode together for a few miles then Brentley blew me away on the descent and I pretty much rode by myself for the rest of the race. So I kind of ended up doing a 25-mile time trial, since the rest of the 13-14s were either behind or in front of me and I wasn’t supposed to ride with the other adult categories.

I’d been training really hard lately, but I hadn’t raced any big races for awhile, so I wasn’t sure how I would do. My goal before the race was to stay with Marcus Smith, who had podiumed twice at Nationals last summer and who I had only beaten once before (by one second in the time trial at Nationals). Brentley and I dropped him on the first climb and at the end of the race I had beaten him by more than 5 minutes. I felt terrific about my race.

It was a great day for Team Swift all around. Ryan got 5th in the 15-16 race and Tyler won the 17-18s! And if they had separated the 13-14s, Brentley would have gotten second and I would have gotten third.
Josef Nygaard
Team Swift
Age 12

More on CM Ride

2007-04-06T13:09:00.000-07:00

One rider's account of the incident:

This was towards the end of the ride (after splitting off and dissipating). We had about 30 people by the time we were leaving Japantown when I heard a noise, which I could even hear over the music, and I turned my head to see a minivan on my left just having run over a bike and saw the rider on the ground. Riders nearby yelled at the driver to stop and the minivan just sped away. Many people in the ride chased after the van and surrounded it after catching up with it at the red light. The driver had her hand pressed on the horn the entire time. The cops got there pretty much right away as they were following right behind us. I rode away with the rest of the ride but some people stayed behind to deal with the cops. I didn't see the rear window get smashed but I can say that I only saw the couple sitting in the front of the minivan as the rest of the windows were heavily tinted and we could not see that there was anyone else in the vehicle.

The driver's response to the idea that she had hit a rider was "that's ridiculous."

Cars Rule the World

2007-04-05T12:44:00.000-07:00

If there was ever any doubt that cars and their drivers rule the world, the front page article in the Chronicle about the woman whose rear car window was broken and whose daughters were “terrorized” by Critical Mass cyclists confirms it. How about kids who are actually hit by cars while riding their bikes? Unfortunately, you’ll never see any reports about this, though it happens all the time. If the Chronicle were to run a story every time a cyclist was “attacked” or “terrorized,” it would have to become a daily column.

I don’t think Critical Mass’s approach--creating as much of a nuisance with bicycles once a month as cars create every day--is an effective way of promoting bicycle rights (those “terrorized” girls are certainly unlikely to become bike activists), but it has been relatively harmless. Complaints that Critical Mass riders break the law by rolling through red lights and stop signs seems odd in a city where double parking (illegal in the state of California) is a way of life.

What’s amazing is that in Matier and Ross’s original report there is obviously no concern that the woman may have actually hit one of the cyclists. Clearly this is so common it’s not worth their concern. And the fact that the cyclist rode off without confronting the woman is not evidence that it didn’t happen. He’s probably just had the usual cyclist’s experience with reporting collisions with automobiles, bike vandalism, or stolen bikes to the police.

As for the woman’s broken window (which will supposedly cost $5,300 to fix?), well, welcome to the big city, whiny suburban mom. My little Toyota Corolla has suffered four broken windows on the streets of SF since I bought it nine years ago, and though I’ve duly reported them, nothing has ever come of it (no surprise to me). I’ve had two stolen bikes (reported to police with, of course, no results) and one serious accident in which the driver drove off after threatening to make me pay for the scratches to his bumper--though he had pulled into the street right in front of me. With only a totalled front wheel (and a thoroughly bruised body) the police, when contacted later, would only give me the driver’s phone number, but suggested that since I had no real injuries (OK, you slam into a car going 25 mph, flip up and over the hood, land first on your helmet and then on your butt and tell me you have “no real injuries”) and minimal replacement cost for a new wheel, there wasn’t much point in pursuing it. But I consider that I’ve had a relatively benign expericence as a cyclist in San Francisco. I just don’t rely on the police for help (I assume they have better things to do). Whiny suburban mom, on the other hand, seems to have higher expectations.

Of course, I don’t condone the act of violence that created the broken window, but it’s amazing how many people are criticizing cyclists. Here we are in this progressive part of the state where we pat ourselves on the back because we’re supposedly helping to end climate change by remembering to toss our newspapers and plastic containers in a recycling bin or turn off appliances that aren’t in use, but few people are willing to take real action and give up their carbon-spewing WMDD’s (wheeled, motorized destructive devices), an act that may increasingly be seen as heroic.

Maybe it’s time for Critical Mass to change its tactics. I mean it’s nice to go for a bike ride around the city once a month, but nobody is going to be convinced that cars are a nuisance by watching bikes create the same nuisance. Here’s an idea. Everyone who has ever done a Critical Mass ride go out and buy a $100, $500 car, anything you think that will get you as far as the Golden Gate Bridge, then toss the pink slip (don’t register it, of course) so it can’t be traced to you, and at 7 am on May 1, drive to the toll plaza of the Golden Gate Bridge (either side) park your car in the road, get out, lock the door, and walk away. You think a bunch of cyclists cruising through the streets causes chaos, you ain’t seen nothin’.

Idle Americans

2007-04-04T11:29:00.000-07:00

As a confirmed anti-TV snob, I have not seen an entire episode of the current water-cooler fave--American Idol. Until last night. With Anne and Joey in the jungles of Guatemala and me slightly bleary from trying to record a solo album in my bedroom while they're gone (more on that later), I sat down for a bit of mindless diversion and actually watched an entire episode of "Karaoke Without Irony."

I think what surprised me most was how lame the "judges" were. I mean, these three are presumably paid quite a lot to do what? Almost nothing, it seems. You'd think they could find an unemployed sitcom writer who could punch up a few clever lines for them to resort to when their brains failed (which appears to be often). Pitchy? How many times did Randy Jackson use that? And what does singing in tune have to do with being a pop star? I certainly prefer it when people sing in tune but that has never had anything to do with popularity (or creativity or style for that matter).

I was actually quite affected by the contestants, most of whom have some talent and are clearly earnest in their desire to find a venue for it. But why was their no mention of the fact that they were all incredibly wooden? I mean Paula Abdul is a dancer, right? I don't know, maybe this has come up before, but one of the contestants (names escape me) who was singing her ass off, looked like she was walking on stilts. Doesn't an ability to move in time really have more to do with being a pop star than how "pitchy" you are? Oh well, probably my first and last experience with AI, although I do see how people can get hooked on it--kind of like being addicted to Krispy Kremes.

Ronde Van Brisbeen

2007-04-02T21:20:00.000-07:00

Joey did another Cat 4 race this weekend. The Ronde Van Brisbeen circuit race, which takes place about 5 miles from our house. They do 1.7-mile laps for 50 minutes, and it's all up and down--long downhill and long climb, but not too steep--about 100 feet per lap. He had the most trouble staying in the group on the downhills. He's just so little that guys were flying by him while he was spun out in his biggest gear. He stayed with them for about one and a half laps, but they did the first lap in 3:30, for an average speed, I think, of 31 mph!! He was pulled after 20 minutes and five laps, but he'd gone 8.5 miles, for an average speed of 25.5 mph--on a course in which he climbed 500 feet!! He had fun, though, the little monster. "That was a heck of an interval," he said with a big smile on his face.

Oisin McAuley

2007-03-28T11:15:00.000-07:00

Just got off the phone with Oisin, interviewing him for an article that will appear in Strings magazine, though I'm not sure when exactly. A very interesting guy. His background and wide-ranging interests remind me of a lot of young American fiddlers--classical and traditional music training, Scottish influence from growing up in Donegal, interested in jazz, spent a year in Brittany playing and learning tunes, can play kickass traditional fiddle but is also very into improvising (a rarety for Irish musicians, mainly, I think, because their brains are filled with the thousands of tunes they have to be able to pull up at any given seisun). He's now living in Boston, where he'll undoubtedly soak up even more music. Watch out!

Back in the Saddle

2007-03-26T18:03:00.000-07:00

Joey raced for the first time in over a month this weekend at the ColaVita Sutter Home Corporate Crit in Santa Rosa and did great--he placed second in the Junior 12-14 race and rode with the group for about 5 laps in the Cat 4 race.

His attack right after the prime sprint (just like we'd talked about on the way to the race) split the junior field, with only one other racer able to follow. Joey and the other kid (a teammate, Brentley, who, at 6'3" barely qualifies as a kid, yet is only 13) worked together and easily outdistanced the rest of the field, then Brentley attacked on the penultimate lap and Joey couldn't match his strength. (Joey had planned to attack on the last lap, right after Brentley's pull, hoping to catch him out enough to get a gap he might be able to maintain to the finish line, but alas . . .)

It was his first Cat 4 race and he hung in (at speeds of 27-30 mph) for 5 laps. After he was dropped he lost touch pretty quick and was pulled as the field (75-80 racers?) was getting close to lapping him.

He really enjoyed both races, which is great because he usually doesn't get too excited about flat crits. But as he's getting stronger, he doesn't have to rely on hills to drop other racers. And Cat 4 races are a good way for him to get some speed training in. I certainly can't get him going that fast on our own.

There are some good photos here. That's Joey leading the pack on the second page, photo #0012. Joey's riding next to Brentley in #0011.

Best Online Record Store

2007-03-22T20:48:00.000-07:00

If I won the lottery, one of the first things I'd do is send a big pile of money to CD Roots and tell resident world-music guru Cliff Furnald to send me one copy of everything he gets in. It's about the only place to get contemporary Nordic music in the US and there's just piles of great stuff from every corner of the world you'd care to dip your ears into. I'm too broke to partake of much these days, but I go by often and drool.

Cool New Music

2007-03-16T12:42:00.000-07:00

I haven't been writing about music here much lately, most likely because I've been busy writing about it for print publications. But there are a few new CDs that have caught my ear, some of which I hope to soon be writing about for trad media.

Nathan, Key Principles
This band's 2004 CD Jimson Weed was one of my favorite recordings that year. And if this one doesn't knock me out quite so much, it's probably because I know what to expect (or hope for). Primary singer and songwriter Keri Latimer (previously McTige) is one of my favorite lyricists. I noticed many reviews of Jimson Weed described the music as "creepy" but unless that word has come to mean "inventive, funny, and poignant" I'd have to disagree.

Oisin McAuley, Far from the Hills of Donegal
There are a lot of great Irish fiddlers around, but how many of them can improvise? OK there are also a bunch of young hotshots in the US who can do anything, but how many Irish fiddlers can improvise and make it sound totally traditional while groovin' like a mofo? As far as I can tell, just one--Oisin McAuley. He also manages to imitate the Irish pipes' sliding and wailing to a greater degree than anyone I've heard.

Devon Sproule, Keep Your Silver Shined
Another great young songwriter and guitarist (and singer). What I like most about Devon is how she's internalized the jazz and swing music that color her songs. Instead of trying to write a "jazz standard" or simply imitate swing music, she uses jazz's harmonic and rhythmic signatures as part of the music she draws on to construct her songs.

Adam Rogers, Time and the Infinite
I don't have much use for anything approaching mainstream jazz guitar these days. The music has become so cliched, and the harmonic approach (ii-V-I's till the cows come home) bores me. Adam Rogers' first trio record is a little more mainstream than his last few, which featured Chris Potter's saxophone and Edward Simon's piano. While he plays a few standards here, he also explores some modern semi-classical harmonic ideas, and his single-note soloing continues to be some of the most inventive and fluid around.

Solvang

2007-03-12T21:13:00.000-07:00

Well, it wasn't the longest or hardest ride I've done, but the Solvang half Century Joey and I (and my brother Dane) did this weekend was definitely my fastest long ride. Spurred on by Joey, who cannot ride slowly, I averaged 16.7 mph for the 50 miles. Joey averaged 17.2, and would have been faster if he hadn't spent a few miles dawdling along waiting for us.

The Solvang 50 is an interesting ride. It attracts thousands of people, many of whom look like they don't know what they've gotten into, presumably having been talked into the ride by bike-crazy family members. There were people walking up slopes that barely qualify as a hill to us northern CA hill-crazy types. But it was cool to see so many people trying it--people who wouldn't have made it to the 20-mile rest stop on the Marin Century.

Most of the hardcore cyclists seem to have opted for the 100, but we thought that was a bit much for Joey, who'd only ridden a couple of fast 40-milers before (and I hadn't ridden farther than 50 since the Marin metric century a couple years ago). Considering Joey finished off the last 3 miles of the ride by hammering at about 23 mph (and dropping absolutely everyone in sight--including a couple of tri-geeks who'd passed us earlier on a long downhill), I think he probably could have gone a bit farther, but not 100. Next year.