h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I was really excited to see this entry, actually my husband pointed it out to me as he knows I like Old-time music. I used to listen to it alot living at home, my dad was a record collecter, and just about nothing was safe from his collection so he had a bunch of those funky sized records,not the singles but not the regular size. He had a bunch of Old-time music as well as a bunch of neat stuff from the 20's. Anyway, that is where I got my affinity, although the watching of the movie "O Brother Where Art Thou?" re-kindled my interest. I need to add some to my music collection.

All in all a great entry.

Thanks! I'm glad you liked it. "O Brother" has done a lot for old-time mnusic these days--as you may have suspected, I'm in an old-time band and it's fun to play for people whose exposure in the movie is the most they've gotten. We've had some people come up to us and say, "Okay, so I've seen the movie and now here are you guys... where do I go to get more?" They have this awful, frantic look in their eye, and it's great to give them a few pointers to help them get their fix. Even worse, people who listen to it for long enough inevitably end up playing it, and if you play it long enough, you get what is cheerfully known as the old-time lobotomy, where you are able to play away for hours and hours on end with this blank, entranced look on your face. So pronounced is my own brain alteration that I tend to drool when I'm playing. I wish I was kidding about this. Anyway, if you want specific record recommendations, I'm more than happy to pass some along--though something tells me your dad probably knows a heck of a lot more about it than I do. At any rate, lots of great stuff is available on CD these days, so it's pretty easy to find. Thanks again!

I would LOVE your recommendations. As my birthday is coming up and my husband will find it helpful

Teehee, while we watched the movie, I was just singin' along, my husband had this look of disbelief on his face. But then he remembered my dad.

I can believe it about the just tuning out and playing music!!!
we are also greatly interested in Celtic music, I actually like this CD called Cowboy Celtic. There is a great song called "Custer Died a Runnin'" sung to Gary Owen.

Anyway, we have a couple of bodhrans and more penny whistles than you can shake a stick at, and when you get to messin' around on those whistles, it is easy to get lost. I want to pick up and instrument again, I used to play flute, but I want to learn something new. My husband is a fairly good guitar player, he wants a mandolin, I just need to find something to play.

So tell me about your band. How long have you guys been playing and such?

Phaerie,

Sorry about the delay--life got in the way.

Hope this is in time for your birthday: many people will tell you about classic old-time fiddle and banjo recordings, but my favorites are:

Tommy Jarrell, et al. "June Apple." This is a really nice collection of tunes, played by a very gnarly and funky old fiddler. The one downside is that you have to tolerate a small amount of casual racism in Jarrell's use of the word n****r to describe black people. Jarrell is very much a product of the place where he grew up.

Tommy Jarrell and Fred Cockerham. "Best Fiddle and Banjo Duets." A little more austere, as it's just fiddle and banjo, but it's really nice.

For more modern recordings, I'd recommend two.

Bubba George. "Live at the Grassroots Festival." A beautiful recording of a set by a very hot old-time band. This is a dance album--the tracks average about nine minutes long--but it's a great album to just get lost in.

The Horseflies. "In the Dance Tent." Similar to the Bubba George one (they actually use the same banjo player), but more swirling and hypnotic than the driving Bubba George. Also, they employ three percussionists, so they've got a serious groove going on.

Four albums is a good little recommendations list, so I'll stop there. The two Tommy Jarrell discs can be bought directly from County Sales records (they have a website, but I don't remember what it is. The other two can be ordered from a site called Funkyside. I don't know what the address is exactly, but I think if you type the word "funkyside" and put a "www." in front of it and a ".com" after it, you might be able to find it. Just a guess.

About the band I'm in: we've been playing together for about a year and a half now. But all of us have played old-time music for much longer. I've been at it for five years; another has been doing it for about ten; our guitarist has been doing it for about fifteen years, and our oldest member has been playing for 28 years, which is older than I am. We have no ambition whatsoever. We just play in bars around New York City. We seem to have made a little name for ourselves by now, which makes it easy to line up casual gigs if we feel like playing them. But during the summer it's much better to just play outside, in the park or on the street. If you get the Bubba George disc, we sound like a rougher, slightly slower version of them, and also we don't quite have the amazing vibe that comes from playing together for twenty-five years lke they have.

Funny you mention the new instruments thing, though--I think the bane of many musicians is the constant desire to pick up and try to play as many instruments as possible, and to learn how to play different genres of music. My girlfriend has even stopped rolling her eyes when I say "I want to get a steel guitar" or "I want to get a djembe." I even actually came home with an mbira (a Zimbabwean instrument) and have taken a couple lessons to learn how to play it. She's very tolerant of this. There's just so much good music out there, and life is, both sadly and happily, too short to hear and play it all.

I know how that pesky thing called life gets in the way sometimes.

Na, your not too late, my bday isn't until the first of October, I wrote them down and added them to my list. YAY!!!

THanks a zillion.

Phaerie

The Horseflies? (Yay!)