Desktop Blues

If you're Jonesing for some blues during the MBR's mid-summer hiatus. Here's a link you'll have fun with.

North American Music Weekend

If we’d been thinking ahead, the MBR experience for 2006 would have included a show to celebrate Cinco de Mayo and completed the trifecta of North American patriotic holidays.

Coming on the heels of the IFfestival/Hoping for Hoping weekend, our performances at Canada Deh and the 2nd of July at the American Club of China made for a busy fortnight of gigs.

It was great to be back at Da An Park for another free show open to the public; we were a younger, smaller band the first time around, at the 2003 Migration Music Festival.

Unchanged was the oddly inspiring mix of local and foreign music fans that congregated in the amphitheater and on the grassy slopes.

A backstage highlight was the air conditioning, which went some ways toward increasing the camaraderie of the performers, as did the mojitos (eh, TC?).

We had a grueling sound check in the afternoon, not so much from the length, but because of the searing heat on stage. The sound crew were on the ball and did a good job of accommodating our wall of sound, although I think I heard someone say that they wouldn’t mic Slim’s tapping because it “wouldn’t sound good.” Little do they know.

Not having a mic for his feet might have been the reason that Slim spent so much time dancing with the crowd (okay, it was a crowd of two--Scott Cook and a two-year-old lad).

I thought our set sounded great. Unlike the rest of the bands, we even had our own sound guy, Max, sit at the board during our performance and monitor our sound.

Milk, on the other hand, didn’t come for a sound check, had no one at the mixing table, but knew how to make the party rock. The smoke machine that anemically belched a few poorly timed blasts of violet-scented fog during our set was working overtime for Milk.

I knew we were in for a good show when Kevin opened the first set up with the slightly teetering piano theme from my favorite Canadian television phenomenon, the Trailer Park Boys.

As always, Milk was curiously costumed, with masks featuring prominently. The lead singer and the female go-go dancer wore demonic leather masks; the male dancer had on a mask that might have come from lacrosse; and the bassist had a hockey goalie mask.

Not content to let the night end when the music stopped, Conor, Slim, and I headed over to JB’s for the England v. Portugal match. In the taxi, Conor predicted, accurately, it turned out, that no goals would be scored during the two halves or the overtime periods, and that the game would be decided by penalty kicks.

He did not predict that England would end up losing. Honestly, though, the crowd at JB’s, with a few notable exceptions, did not seem particularly surprised at the game’s outcome. England did not put on a good performance, in my opinion. But, hey, I'm American. What could I possibly know about footie?

Feeling sporty after the game, Slim and I got into a 3 A.M. broad jump competition in a pocket park just behind the Buxiban pub. That boy has got some legs on him.

If you’ve already read TC’s account, you know that I was absent from Sunday’s performance at the ACC, so I can’t say what happened at that gig. I will venture that the music was excellent, and the people were unprepared for the audio onslaught that the MBR foisted upon them.

Maybe one of the other Ramblers could post a lowdown on the hoedown. (Edit: To avert a showdown, the lowdown on the hoedown will not go down.)

Just a quick note/rave on a song that I've been trying to learn for years – "Mississippi Blues" by William Brown. Ordinary title, ordinary name, but extraordinary song. As I understand it, William Brown is not the "Willie Brown" that sang the M&O blues or the one Robert Johnson mentions in one of his recordings of "Crossroads".

So I guess William Brown is a bit of a mystery, but you can catch a bit of him speaking and the two songs he recorded for Alan Lomax, which is available on a CD called Deep River of Song: Mississippi - The Blues Lineage. (You can find and listen to it at Amazon.com) The other song he recorded for Lomax, "Ragged and Dirty" has been recorded many times by many musicians since, including good 'ol bob dylan.

The song itself is a wonderful piece to study on the guitar --- I think he plays it the key of C, A position (capoed at third fret). Brown plays with a technique that has inspired so many fingerstyle guitarists today, picking the bass lines and the melody at the same time, as if the guitar were a piano.

Although the song has a typical blues structure, Brown plays an unusual melody against the bass that sounds almost like it's a ballad. It gives the entire song a gentle, lilting feel.

I'll have to go back and re-read the liner notes, but I think the song was recorded in the early morning before daybreak, at least that's what a picture in my head when I listen to it. It's just a sublime recording, and it's a song I'll be learning for the rest of my life.

Hope to see you at Canada Day, eh?

From Peace to Patriotism

After a blast of two days of awesome music and fun at the first ever IF Festival and then the Hoping for Peace Festival, the Ramblers head into another two-day blast of music and fun at the Canada Day Celebration, in Da-An Park, and then the American Fourth of July Celebration, at the American Club.

Celebrating patriotism is always dangerous because patriotism breeds that "us and them" feeling. However, with that cool peace feeling that the Ramblers got from last weekend, we can try to bring out the best of patriotism: a sense of pride in who you are, where you came from, and what drives your gears to make the world a better place.

It's all good fun...

Mud Bloods, each and every one

Last year at this time, we were fully engaged in the Mud and Water Tour of Taipei’s live houses. This year, we are keeping busy with outdoor events.

This last weekend we took part in a combined birthday party for Athula and Dave. Dave only mentioned it was his birthday once we were at the party. Athula, on the other hand, has been talking up this party for over a month. I believe that most of the people at Chris’s place were Athula’s customers/friends from the ‘Tan, the way he wanted.

Athula catered the event with his delicious Sri Lankan food: two varieties of rice, chick peas, several meat curry dishes, a potato curry. Even Slim had two plates. That is saying something. I was fortunate to have another plate of food the next evening at the Sandcastle. S and J took a bunch of the chicken curry and rice home from the party at Athula’s urging.

The weather cooperated, at least in the sense that it didn’t rain. It was warm and humid, but that is a given when it should rain but doesn’t. Some people told me the atmosphere on the balcony was so close that they had to go to the bridge in order to breathe some fresh air. I was sporting the oh-so-fashionable dish towel around my neck so I could wipe my sweaty face

There were lots of great people there. I especially enjoyed talking with one Bi-tan gent about his past life working for the Canadian forestry department, his thoughts on forest maintenance, and the sorry state of low-land forests in Taiwan. Interestingly, his adult son is also in Taiwan, teaching English in I-lan, I believe. Two-generation ex-pat families are the next big thing.

This coming weekend, we are performing at two separate events. The first, on Saturday, June 24, is the IF Festival at Hua-shan. Sunday the 25th, we’ll be at Hoping for Hoping in Lungtan at the Kun-lun Herb Garden. We’re on during the heat of the afternoon. I think we’ll be trading in our blues-suits for something more relaxed, probably tropical wear.

The next weekend, we’ll be playing July 1 at Da-An Park in celebration of Canada Day and then at the American Club for the Am Cham 4th of July celebration on July 2.

And when it pours...

Hoping for Hoping has been postponed due to the heavy rain that has been pounding northern Taiwan. The new dates are June 23 to June 25. I believe we'll be performing on Sunday the 25th.

On the 24th, we'll be at Huashan in Taipei. I haven't got the name of the event we're performing at, but it was sold to us as a wedding celebration for two of Slim's former colleagues. Judging from the proposal that we were shown, it will be quite a shindig. More on that later.

When it rains, it pours.

I mean this in the best possible sense. As mentioned previously, this weekend is Hoping for Hoping. We play Saturday afternoon, June 10. That’s the “rain.” It’s a gig. Gigs are good. Two gigs at the same time is when it “pours.”

On Saturday, June 10, the San Francisco Guitar Quartet is performing two shows at Taipei’s National Theater. This is the group’s first international tour; last year’s performances in Guam don’t count as international for these Americanos.

According to the band’s website, they play music from “traditions including classical, world and ethnic traditions, and improvisation.” Tickets are available from www.ticket.com.tw

My connection to this band is that Christoper Hanford, one of the founding members, was my high school classmate back in California. He and I got together yesterday evening to reminisce about the old days and catch each other up with what we’ve been doing in the intervening 23 years.

Greetings from Dobrofest in Trnava, Slovakia...first moment i've had all week to get to an internet cafe. Been a fun week, as you might imagine. Where do I start? unseasonably cold weather (think rainy day during Chinese new year in taipei) I've heard a lot of good music, been jamming a lot, meeting and playing with great musicians from all over the world, mostly the US and Europe. Bluegrass has an enormous following in the region, more than half the bands at the fest have either come from Slovakia or Czech republic. Also a few great groups that are not bluegrass or blues...Lots of singing of the semi-offical "Dobro" anthem (dobro...dobro!!...DOBRO...DOBRO!!!) and drinking a local gin-type licqor called bobrovinca (sp?) affectionally renamed "dobrovinca!" Makes a hell of a martini.

Taken lots of pictures, you can expect a fuller report with video and photos when I get back to taipei -- I gave two performances -- one at a house-turned-museum that Beethoven used to visit in the countryside. Apparently he would visit there because he was sweet on some Count's niece. Another performance on the main stage, which went all right. I also had the pleasure of playing for representatives from Taiwan's official representative office in slovakia, whom Peter invited to attend the festival.

And Peter "Bonzo" Radyvani is as crazy as ever -- and did a great job in organizing this festival, now in its 15th year. at in on a few songs for his set last night, which turned into a late night/early morning jam.

Heading back to Taipei tomorrow night after a day in Vienna. See you soon.

Chuffed Squirrel ...

As wet as the weather is now, you might not believe that the Muddy Basin Ramblers are planning to keep busy over the next month performing at outdoor music festivals. To get the season started, we turned a rain-cancelled hiking trip into an excuse to get together in the Hsintian hinterlands and do some improvisational jamming.

Probably we had all thought it would have been more like a Muddy Basin practice, but it turned into an evening more similar to the Big Drum sessions of old. We were on the porch, just winding the weekend down to its natural conclusion, passing the instruments around.

“Open the Gate!” Mother was licking the floor, a squirrel (NSFW) was hanging upside-down rocking to the brass, and the neighboring dog was answering the trombone. On the bed, under the canopy, the doctor inserted needles, but no water flowed. Just the rain, always the rain.

The smell of travel was in the air. Fingers was in town, on his way from South Central to South China. And Dave was packed and ready to roll off to the DobroFest in Trnava, Slovakia.

Trnava’s bluesiest booster, Bonzo, annually hosts a global gathering of guitar gypsies who celebrate the music of resonant guitars in the hometown of John Dopyera, the “Do” behind Dobro.

We met Bonzo when we shared the bill with him at the first BSOT Blues Bash in Taichung last spring. A few days later, we attended his show at the LR (hearing the same jokes) and then joined him on stage for a set, climaxing in a stirring rendition of G-L-O-R-I-A in front of a mystified audience.

That was then, and this is now. And right now, this very minute, the world’s best resonant guitar players, Dave included, are making their way toward a small town in Slovakia. Dave will perform from 12:50 to 1:20 P.M. on Saturday, June 3, on the main stage at the Museum’s Garden in Trnava.

... Fancy Goat

You have to seriously love the Blues to travel halfway around the world to perform for half an hour. According to the notes for the 2005 DobroFest, the informal jamming lasts late into the evening, so I don’t imagine those thirty minutes will be the extent of the guitar slinging for ol’ Dave.

Dave might even drop us a post if he’s able to leave the music long enough to spend a few minutes in a cyber café.

Keep the weekend of June 9-11 free. Hoping for Hoping is just around the corner. We’re on Saturday in the late afternoon.

I was listening to Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk" today, and the marching band riffs reminded me of that part of my past. Also, I dreamt last night that I was wandering around my brother's old high school, Clear Lake High in Texas (home of the Falcons). I hadn't gone back in time, it was still present day, but I was just walking around the hallways and ended up outside as a tornado approached. "Do you think it's dangerous?" a sandy-haired student asked me.

"Are you kidding, look at those explosions!" I said, pointing at the blasts coming from the now towering school. It had only been one floor before. Then I woke up.

I started playing trumpet at 11, in sixth grade. I'd lost interest in both violin and piano after years of lessons, and I looked up to my older brother Kevin's exhalted status as a band member (he plays the flute). So when we went to Seabrook Intermediate School to the band room filled with tables and instruments, all seeming quite shiny and complicated -there were so many buttons and valves!- I picked the trumpet after falling in love with the sound and the versatility of the instrument (and the fact that it only had three buttons and didn't mind getting wet). My parents, wary of yet another loss of interest, took me to a pawn shop, where they rummaged around the back and fit together a patchwork cornet, with silver and gold pieces that clashed underneath thick tarnish. It would do, and did. I started playing in the marching band after we moved to Florida at Maitland Junior High School the next year. I picked the instrument up at an average rate, perhaps a bit faster than others, but my range and power were both abysmal. Still, I loved playing and saved up for a silver-plated Bach Stradivarius, the instrument I still play today. It had a beautiful tone and facilitated fast, complicated riffs and sonorous melodic soloes, but of course in marching season, none of that mattered. What mattered on the field was projection, mainly. "We got the beat" wasn't exactly Hummel.

It was fun hanging out with friends from band, and making interesting patterns on various football fields, even dancing about out there, but I didn't have enough pure volume to be effective on the field back when the law of the band was the higher you could play, the better you were. It was really just that simple. I recall in one practice session, for regular band and not even marching band, another trumpet player, disgruntled because he had a lower chair, interrupted me, yelling, "Just play a high C! Just try to play it!" to somehow prove his point that I shouldn't be talking about trumpet playing. It was indeed a rare day I could easily hit that note.

"Just play anything well!" I shot back, but his point was made. I could play many things better than anyone there, but for pure power and Chuck Mangione-type screaming high notes, I was complete crap. A friend of mine who many considered my arch-rival, Jim Engle, had me every time when it came to range, though I did learn to play loud when the music called for it. Sometimes, anyway. I nearly ruined Romeo and Juliet squeaking through a high loud bit, but for the big garbonzo closing of Samson and Delilah I was the loudest damn thing in the orchestra. Jim and I traded off on solos and seats; he was typically first chair for marching season, while I'd take over for concert season.

Back then, I was quite defensive about it and tried to compensate with a certain amount of arrogance about my playing. "Good luck next year, TC, and try not to be such a jerk about your trumpet" was an oft-repeated reminder in my yearbooks. Really adolescent, when I think about it now.

So I looked on in envy as Jim and other trumpeters marched up to the front of the stands during shows and play solos into the cheering crowds. I knew that I'd make first chair again after marching season for concerts and things, but it still seemed like a defeat.

When I was 13 I got braces, not the thin wire type, but the whole-tooth-encompassing type, which I thought was the end of my trumpet playing career. After building up enough caluses inside my upper lip, however, I found that I could still play reasonably well. When they came off four years later, not much changed. I could still play, just about as well as before.

In high school, wearing the thick black wool uniforms of the Winter Park Wildcats in the hot Florida weather didn't help my growing dissatisfaction with marching band. I did the usual low-chair marching season/high chair for concert season shuffle for a couple of years. In the end I dropped band completely my senior year, electing to play instead with the Florida Symphony Youth Orchestra. The school band conductor, Ken Williams, went to the symphony board to try to get me kicked out of the FSYO based on my reluctance to be in the school band, but he failed when my dad showed up at the meeting and challenged him to give a good reason why I couldn't play in the orchestra, except pure spite.

I continued to play in college, both at Washington & Lee and at Tunghai University. Both had orchestras, but neither had a marching band, much less a group as impressive as the marching band my brother ended up playing in , Texas A&M's world-famous Corps of Cadets. I'd pretty much plateaued, in any case. Further playing hadn't helped my range an iota. Once, at a gig in the Bahamas, I just ran out of steam and had to drop part of a mariachi solo down an octave, which was so embarrassing I got sympathy pats afterwards. I did, however, get my first taste of jazz and blues playing with my pal Boogie in a little jazz trio at a local sandwich shop, which was fun while it lasted.

The next marching experience I'd have would be in the army, and the only music involved there was singing army marching songs. I put the trumpet aside, and years passed. I didn't pick it up again until I got invited to play with the Muddy Basin Ramblers a couple of years ago.

Finally, I thought when I first sat in with the group, finally, I've found a place where I can play pretty much what I like for the crowd out there, Chuck Mangione be damned.

"...we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth."

And so the Ramblers took the lift to the top of the 101, or as high up as they let us. It was only the 84th floor, but that was plenty high. (Check out this shot from Paogao's photos!)

Giddy and surreal are the best two words I can use to describe the whole thing. As we arrived at the top, thanks to those super fast lifts, we all noticed that all the climbers who had made the climb had wonderfully smug looks on their faces, which to be honest were well deserved because their efforts raised a bunch of cash for some really good causes. However, when reports came in that the climb could be made in thirty minutes or less, I felt a little bad that I didn't try to do it myself. So that made me want to try to play a little better, put a little more effort into being tight on the beat, and so on.

Unfortunately, due to the surreality of the height, the early hours, and the plentiful wine and Taiwan Beer (Thanks, Matthew Lien!), finding the perfect groove in the music was daunting. Not only that, but the Muddy Basin Ramblers had to face their worst nemesis--the inability to hear one another.

Hearing the whole picture was difficult. Dave set himself up on the right side of the stage close to Thumper, and this definitely helped tighten up the whole beat-tone kind of thing. But it was rough for me on stage left. I could hear it, but it was a half-step too late.

All in all, the whole shenanigan was a success. We moved around the stage while playing to create the best sound, and in the end, it worked well, and we are getting better and better at using those tricky condenser microphones. (Thanks go out to Dave for his ever increasing knowlege of microphone technology and technique!)

But the real reason it was so much fun was that lots of money became the lubricant to help things get better instead of becoming the root of evil. Plus, fun was had by all.

Thanks to everyone who does things like organizing these things to help the world become a better place. It makes it easy for lazy and confused folks (like me) to help out. The world thanks you.

Though we are scattered, we can find common ground, and a common groove, even at the top of super-tall structures.

Trolling For The Blues

This is Trainreck, a two-piece blues band. That's K.M. Williams on guitar and Washboard Jackson on percussion. I stumbled across this video of them performing on YouTube. You've got to see Washboard Jackson play. He plays the washboard and kit at the same time: no sticks, just hands and feet.

Here's their myspace website with mp3s of some of their music.

And one more site they claim.

The picture is of them on "stage" at the Juke Joint Festival 2005 in Clarksdale, Mississippi.

They're going to be playing at the Frogg Blues Festival in Elmo, Texas in August. (I know that sounds a lot like "emo," but don't hold it against them, Slim.)

"Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens,..."

And so, the Muddy Basin Ramblers are set to climb the Taipei 101, with or without the aid of electric lifts or elevators. This is one tall building. It's the tallest in the world for now, and I challange anyone to find another incident in history of a jug band, blues band, or "whatever we play" band playing on the top of the the tallest building in the world. God give us strength. Not only will we be towering over the world, we will be towering over the Muddy Basin, which we all hold so dear. It should be fun, and interesting as always.

This gig, at the true tip-top of Tiptown, Taiwan, will also be full of good people who have not used the lifts, but have taken the stairs for a good cause, the Garden of Hope, with thanks to the L’Association des Canadiens. (You've just gotta like the idea of helpin' the xiao pengyous have a good life.) So it will be even more fun.

Tomorrow is the soundcheck, so we shall see what the day brings.

Adventures of a Jug Band


As many of those far-flung Ramblers followers may have noticed, the website has been renovated, and in the parlor, stories of the "adventures of a jug band" have been promised. Actually, stories of the Ramblers have been around for sometime.

In dark corners of the Internet, often through underground counter-revolutionary servers in the mainland, which can only be accessed by having counter-revolutionary software that is unavailable in most of the world, a lot of Muddy Basin Ramblers fan-fic can be found. I can't post the links here for two reasons. One, it would be counter-revolutionary and two, we are now involved in high-powered legal battles trying to get the rights to all of the stories. (That way, when our movie deal comes through, we won't have to worry about continuity problems that may arise in the sequels or prequels).

However, dear readers, I can provide a few snippets from some of them. But you should note, these are not official Muddy Basin Rambler products and they may not be safe for children or pets. Use at your own discretion:

"Peering over the tumbler of whiskey, Slim knew that he had to figure out where Thumper and Steamboat were, but the Captain hadn't called in for a long time, and the ice in the cooler was melting faster and faster...."

"Fog settled in as the Ramblers started to sing. Their voices only brought in more of that obscuring fog, but the harmonica cut clean, and the fog began to clear...."

"Dr. Huguley smiled as he listened to the recordings. It wasn't what he had expected, but it would do well enough for the plan at hand...."

"If you could have seen him, you would have thought he was sleeping or dead, but no one noticed him. No one could have. He had blended into the plush red sofa in the far corner of the room. Some may have seen the slight, sharp movement of the head--up maybe a centimeter, and then a glint in the eye as it looked out under the brim of the hat. In one movement, the trumpet case was open..."

"'We may look like gentleman [sic] but...'"

"Captain Dave looked around the stadium shaking his head. The lear jet had done much more damage than he had expected."

"The Sandman whipped out his sax. The beams of the laser sights lit up the floor around his feet with an eerie glow. He knew he needed to do something or a rain of teflon coated lead would fall on the stage...."

"With only ten minutes to go, the city was arriving too quickly. The Ramblers knew things were going way to fast. In one motion, they all started to chuck all of the instruments into the back of the bus. All the while, the interior of the vehicle began to shrink slowly...."

"The tap shoes were starting to heat up and the sparks began to fly. Then the roar of the washboard erupted forward and the Ramblers all stepped up...."



"The Basin filled up with joy and happiness...."



Well, that's all we can give you now, but keep your eyes open for more. The adventures are always just around the corner...when you're in the Muddy Basin!

Spy Ware

This title has nothing to do with our last performance. Instead, it refers to the site tracker embedded in this page's html code. Besides indicating how many times the page has been loaded, it reveals information about where visitors are coming from, known as referring links, and also indicates a visitor's host ISP, location, time spent on the page, the type of browser used, and other technical information. I wasn't aware exactly what a site tracker program did when I installed it on the page; I just wanted to see some indication of how few people were actually visiting this site.

What has become the most interesting part about having this program on the page is that I can try to guess who is actually stopping by. I'll give you an example. Today, May 9, 2006, the page was loaded 6 times (so far) by someone in Omaha, Nebraska. This just happens to be Slim's hometown. I figure this is one of his friends. I've met several of them when they've visited Taipei.

Other visits have come from people conducting Google searches. I've mentioned these visitors before, in connection with my fixation on Shar-peis, and they keep coming. Sandy's post about Don Mo's ukuleles attracted a fair amount of attention when that post was more current, but recently Slim's article on whiskey jugs has been pulling in the hits also. Just today we recieved one visitor who performed a Google search on the phrase "how to play a whiskey jug." Most of our visitors are not visitors at all, but members of the MBRs. More than 90% of the site's visits are from fewer than ten ISPs located in Taiwan. No surprise there.

The surprising visitor of today is more mysterious. This visitor is reading this blog from an ISP (internet service provider) located in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. That in itself is not so unusual. Blogger has that "next blog" button up at the top right that takes visitors on a tour of random blogs. Visitors can and do come from all over, even central Asia. What is unusual is that this person has accessed the Muddy Basin Ramblers blog over two dozen times. I believe that makes you an honorary Rambler. If this is you, please drop us a comment and let us know who you are so we can send you your membership card and kazoo. For those of you who want to know the context to the photo at left, check this link.

I apologize to any of you who feel your privacy is being violated. It probably won't come as a surprise to most of you to know that your Interent activity is being monitored. If you want to sneak around on the Net, try something like this.

Edit:
The Onion for May 10 carries a picture of a (different) band and the following headline:

Local Band Attempts to Track Down

Mysterious Visitor To Its Website

There are no bars on the windows!

Leave it to TC to spot the detail that ties the whole gig together. There were no bars. There were policemen just down the way, and they were protecting us, and the masters of reality, and their teen age children, from the commoners.

Question: Who were those people that cleaned up the tables, chairs, tents, empty bottles, and mosquito corpses? They were like fairies that flitted about, hauling heavy equipment, extinguishing the mega-barbecue, returning calm and order to the leafy suburban cul-de-sac. They looked like a bunch of middle-aged Chinese women, but that must have been a disguise.

How about the microphone that broadcast our catty asides? Every once in a while, when we realized what we were saying, and that the microphone was probably picking it up, we’d slyly look out at the assembled to see if they were reacting. But if they heard us, they never let on.

The music was spirited, and we were full of spirits. An open bar is a great way to celebrate the coming of evening. I remember Connor saying, “Play another fast one,” a couple of times during the second set. And we did, until we switched gears and gave them a little gospel with Ain’t Gonna Study the War No More, and then a little later, Taiwan Song, which seemed relevant, almost, to a leaving Taiwan party.

Technically, it was a pretty simple set up. We used one condenser microphone, and ran that into a combined amp/PA unit that they had handy. It was quite a tool. All of the mixing controls were one the back, and it included a CD player and tape recorder. A good toy to have, or at least play with.

We had a lot of room in which to work, and we were able to array ourselves around the microphone without much difficulty. TC mentioned that we didn’t mic his bass because it sounded loud enough in sound check, but I couldn’t hear it much myself. Conor played into his amp as normal and layered his sound on top.

Speaking of Conor, he busted out Red River, the song where he does a nice solo intro. We’ve given him a good-humored hard time about the length of the solo in the past, and he kept it pretty short this time. Too bad. It’s a ripping tune. I think he just wanted to get the big band sound underneath his harp again.

Jump forward to the end of the night, after the jam in the house (what was his name?), the brass section and violinist headed off in a taxi, and the rest of us were ferried out to the main road in a car.

Not quite ready to head down the mountain, we grabbed further liquids and retired to a nearby street for our post-gig debriefing. I remember getting pretty comfy on Slim’s beer-logo groundcover.

Eventually, we got a taxi, after I vainly tried to flag down numerous private vehicles. Taxis are not easy to come by on Yangmingshan at 3 A.M. on a Sunday morning.

We jammed into the first taxi that came along, agreed to pay a NT$100 surcharge, and started down the mountain. We switched to a more comfortable ride near the old Shi-lin night market, and sped into Taipei by way of the Chien-kuo Expressway. Conor and Dave got out at Hsin-hai and Roosevelt and caught their third taxi of the night. Will, I let out at a Yoshinoya in Hsintian somewhere, and I took the taxi all the way to my hilltop. Now I know that my house is just a one hour, NT$700 taxi ride away from Yangmingshan.

Dream Community Show

As always, I had fun playing, and our set culminated with one of the band's favorite numbers, Nagasaki, with Tim, Will, and Sandy bustin' moves downstage with the crowd. It was a great having Wayne there to help out with our live sound -- it took a lot of stress off the band as far as set-up was concerned, since we were using two large condenser mics for our sound, which can be tricky, especially in larger outdoor spaces. But I think we pulled it off all right -- after the soundcheck earlier in the afternoon, one of the soundcrew told Wayne, "This is how all bands should do it!" With Wayne, it was nice to have a "third" ear as well, a different/critical perspective to keep us honest.

According to the organizers, a good number of people there had never heard of us and were asking a lot of questions. People also asked if we had a CD out -- we're working on that one (see the post below).

Also, saw plenty of familiar faces, lots of Taipei friends, and also Ian from Hsinchu, and another very nice guy also from Hsinchu who saw us at Janis R's Earth Day jam last year. The nice guy (sorry I forgot your name) apologized to me because at the Earth Day show, he went up to my mom (who was visiting Taiwan and watching me perform for the first time ever) and said to her in a drunken glee, "your son's band FUCKIN rocks!", or something to that effect. He seemed a bit sheepish recounting the story to me on Saturday. So, to my Hsinchu friend -- it's all right, dude. It's pretty hard to rile up my mom -- I think she had a fun time at that show. (And thanks for the compliment!)

It was a great day with performances from the artists-in-residence -- three multi-talented circus performers who were just amazing and Gary the samba teacher from San Franscisco, and his students.

The Anglers and the Soundclashes both put on great shows -- the Anglers laid down nice, soothing reggae grooves and the Soundclashes were just the right kind of frantic. Fireflower played before us, and I'm sorry to say that we missed a lot of their set because we were getting ready, but later in the evening, I took part in a great jam with Fireflower's lead singer/guitarist Douglas, Zoe, a banjo player named Charlie, Wesley from the S-clashes and Conor, who was as ebullient as ever. I had completely lost track of time by then.

Thanks to Dory, Yingqi (Inchi), Gordon Tsai and the Dream Community for a nice party.

Recording the Muddy Basin


After almost 4 years and plenty of material in our repetoire, I feel we're ready to put out a CD/album.

I started researching in earnest a few months back about our options for recording -- the obvious, traditional studio route isn't attractive -- there's the pressure of time and cost, and the idea of a padded, airtight room and ultra-clean production techniques doesn't appeal to me, at least for the MBRs.

To me, the essence of our sound is a down-home jam. Be it at my small but cozy apartment on Xinhai Road, the Sandcastle, outdoors in the hills, by the Bitan River, or at an athletic field at a certain university-- our music is made best when we're simply hanging out, relaxed, among friends, and engaging in lots of silly and hilarious banter.

From a technical standpoint, we're not the easiest band in the world to amplify on stage or in the studio, since we use instruments with a wide variety of dynamic ranges (everything from loud brass to the quiet ukulele), and we change instruments for different songs. And, physical presence is an important element-- we're used to hearing each other and playing in a circle, either standing up or sitting down.

What we're aiming for is an 'ambient' recording that balances our overall sound with the right amount of detail.

So, instead of micing each instrument, I decided that we should try some of the standard techniques for recording classical music, which is commonly referred to as stereo recording. Many classical recordings are recorded with a matched stereo pair of microphones that capture the overall sound in a concert hall. With this set-up, ideally, the listener hears what the audience hears with the instruments arranged spatially in a stereo spread..

This approach makes it both easier and more difficult -- easier in the sense that you may have just one pair or several pairs of mics to set up. The hard part is tweaking the position of the mics and musicians so you have a balance of the right "spatial" feel and the right amount of detail. This is where a lot of discussion, debate, and technical theories starts among recording engineers, musicians, etc.

This technique and a portable recording rig (see below) also allows us to record in some ununusal spots -- we've scoped out a few outdoor spaces near Sandy and TC's, and there's a nice wooden pavilion on the Xianji Hiking Trail that I've always wanted to try out as an acoustic space.

So the goal for now is, at the end, for listeners to "hear" the fun we have playing jug band music and feel like they're sitting there with us...


Recording -- Technical stuff


Been reading a lot, filling my head till I'm dizzy with information. For recording techniques, there's a lot on the internet, but I've learned the most by reading articles on stereo microphone and recording techniques by Bruce Bartlett. On the microphone front, we've been using two Rode NT1As, which we often use for stage performances. I've built up a small microphone collection, which includes a pair of Electrovoice 635a mics, commonly used by television reporters in the field with a "nice radio announcer type" sound, which you can hear at this site on broadcast mics; a stereo pair of superlux small diaphragm condensers (living in Taiwan, gotta use something relatively local!); and a cheap ribbon microphone made in China by Apex, which has a nice sound and will be interesting to experiment with.

We're recording to hard disk using an 867mhz 12" Powerbook G4 (which I bought from TC) and a MOTU Traveler firewire interface. So far it's proven to be stable and relatively easy to use. I chose the MOTU Traveler for its portability and solid functionality -- we want to do some recording in outdoor spaces (in the wilderness and perhaps an abandoned temple), and the fact that it was designed for use in the field with a portable battery makes it very appealing. It also has 4 high-quality mic preamps and plenty of inputs which gives us some flexibility. We're using MOTU's bundled software, Audiodesk, a run-of-the-mill DAW more than sufficient for our purposes. To power the MOTU unit and firewire hard drive, I bought a 12v battery used for photography lighting -- it fits in a small shoulder bag and weighs about 4 pounds. I'm looking forward to testing this out.

While I've written about the technical side, it's just one half of the story. We have a bit of work to do musically as far cleaning up and improving our arrangements, but taking on the challenges ahead will also be rewarding and fun.

Global Rhythm Festival 2006

This Saturday, April 22

Here's a map, courtesy of FearsomOrange on Forumosa.

And directions for taking the bus.

Take the MRT to KunYang, then hop the blue 817 or 36 and tell them you want to get off at Hu Qian Jie. Then walk a quick half a block to the community. There is a pay parking lot there if you're driving.

The Muddy Basin Ramblers will be on at approximately 5:45 PM.

When will my Chinese shar-pei lose his first set of teeth?

I can't believe the search items that people feed into google. Even more surprising is that this blog would be listed as a site where you might learn the answer to the question.

The Ramblers had a productive practice at the Sand Castle this last Saturday. I think I remember Dave saying we had sixteen songs recorded on his amazing portable recording rig.

At the back of the studio (S and J's living room), Dave placed a couple of condensor microphones on stands about six feet high. In the middle, he had two "broadcast journalist" microphones--you know, the kind roving reporters stick in the face of some World Bank witchdoctor for a soundbite, but without the fuzzy cap on the end.

The cables from these four microphones, including one we had Zoe pick up on her way down to Bitan, ran into some type of mixer/pre-amp device, and then by firewire into his Apple laptop. If Dave feels like it, maybe he could post one day on what sort of hardware he is working with.


I listened to one song while everyone else was practicing the next song we recorded. The sound was lush, unlike any recording of ours that I have heard in the past. I'm eager to hear what the rest of the night sounded like, and if you are to, check out the basement. If it seems a bit dark, scroll down to find an archive of Muddy Basin Ramblers mp3s.




The talk between songs at the Sand Castle this weekend was varied. Here's a sampling of topics I remember:

1. the rearranged furniture: more like an antique store
2. the need for coasters: you put a ring on it, you buy it
3. where to stand for optimum sound: by the antique cabinet (U break, U buy)
4. our upcoming gig: in Hsichi, at the Dream Community
5. whether we'd be playing at the top of 101: we'd like to
6. how much Sandy reminded me of Freddy Mercury: a lot (I think it was the lean torso and muscle shirt)
7. what color TC's new recumbent bike would be: red
8. how cold my feet got while I was standing in stocking feet by the door: very cold, till Sandy sacrificed his own luxury sandals (yeah, Freddy)
9. who would go to Chris's for late night pasta: everybody but me and Dave?
10. how much our singing on one song sounded like a rope that was fraying at the end: not that much, but it was an interesting image
11. how patient the orange tabby was: very, until Sandy tormented it past normal bounds and it turned into a spitting, hissing feline terror
12. the advantages of being a house band: undecided (What place is cool enough for us to want to play there every month?)

If you're a careful reader, you noticed #4. We're playing this Saturday at the Global Rhythm Fest 2006 at the Dream Community in Hsichi. Ther doesn't seem to be much on that website that has anything to do with this weekend's activity, but I came across this on Forumosa that explains what to expect. I don't know if any of us have been there before, Zoe?, but I reckon we'll find it just the same on Saturday.

As for #5, wouldn't that be fine? I don't know how likely it is, but we are pretty tight with the organizers of the Taipei 101 Climbathon, so I suppose we have a chance. If it comes off, we might be able to claim a record of sorts: the only jug band to have played at the top of the tallest building in the world. I heard on the radio this morning that Jacques and Rick Monday have already climbed it a couple of times in the last week. Rick credited his stairmaster sessions at the local gym to his fine form; I'm not sure to what Jacques ascribes his stamina, probably clean living.

If you haven't seen the video I mentioned in a previous post, here it is. The climb is on May 21st. (Why do I think I have to work that day?) Uh oh.