September 25 - 27th
What a privilege and honor to have been invited to perform at the 10th anniversary of the Tygh Valley Bluegrass Festival! It was an absolute treat for the band to actually stay in one spot for three days and have the opportunity to visit with people, hang out and relax. In addition to our stage duties we taught workshops, led the band scramble and presented the annual slow jam. . . . which just gets bigger and better every year! We traveled to the festival with photographer Cleve Friedman, who proved to be an interesting and able conversationalist, and camped next door to emcee George McKnight, who is a wonderful "after hours" host. The audience was appreciative and it was great fun to see folks running around in their KBPR baseball caps. There were heartwarming moments, lots of laughter and the feel of a "family reunion" throughout the entire weekend. It was the best way possible to wrap up the summer festival season! Special thanks to Steve and Marilyn Fine for watching over our mercantile all weekend and to George McKnight for the pictures!
Leading the annual slow jam is always great fun We are so proud of our slow jammers and all they learned! Our Saturday night show was high energy
excitement for the festival guests
We previewed our upcoming gospel We love meeting people at the mercantile table! How many men does it take to jump start the banjo
CD to the delight of the crowd players van? All of them apparently!
June 27, 2009
Sternwheeler Days in Cascade Locks, Oregon was, by band vote, one of the the top three beautiful scenes we’ve played to. The audience was absolutely terrific. They listened and sang along (which means they have put in homework hours since almost all our songs are originals). We had many surprise visits from folks we have met along our travels or who have discovered us on line or on air. As we were setting up one of the voters in the “Name Tom’s Banjo” contest approached to let us know she had voted for “Dark Angel” and wanted to give Tom’s banjo a closer inspection. At times we felt like we were in the middle of an HO railroad layout with trains heading East behind us and West on the Washington side of the river. The cannon and mortar fire from the rendezvous encampment was hilarious as it punctuated our legendary firecracker introductions. The steamboats were beautiful and continually full of waving passengers enjoying the music as they traveled past the stage. The was an amazing assortment of vendor booths and food galore, and soundman Ken from Jacobs Productions not only did a great job but he was so incredibly nice and fun to be around! We hope everyone takes in this wonderful community celebration next year. It is a treasure.
Cartwrights Music Concert Series and Art Gone Wild in Stayton, Oregon hosted our first CD release party. . . and oh what a party it was! It was a full house with a very enthusiastic audience, many of whom spent the night singing along to songs off our first CD "Burning Down the House". There were several prize drawings, AMAZING cookies and we could not have asked for a better reception of the music off our new CD "stories never told". Both the Stayton and Salem cable access stations showed up to film the event, and the Statesman Journal gave us such good coverage. . . we couldn't be happier! It was the debut of Tom's new banjo (we'll be having a contest soon to name it) and our new thermal photo mugs - both of which were huge hits. Special thanks to Houston Riggs for the pictures and for manning the mercantile for us. Extra special thanks to all who came to make this such a memorable event!
from my latest CD One Plus Six , featuring guitar , stand up bass, banjo, fiddle and drums
From my CD One Plus Six and also featured in the Acoustic Rainbow CD Sampler , Volume 33
Americana with guitar , upright bass, banjo , fiddle and percussion .
I was born & raised in Saint John, New Brunswick, and got the fuck out as fast as I could turn 20. In 1986 I relocated my ass to Toronto and was quickly thrown out of every band I was ever in at this point. ("Nails on chalk-board charm" is what my style has being called, I think I'm annoyingly weird). What to do. Enter the Dregs Of Humanity. The Dregs of Humanity were originally concieved as a busking act around 1989, while on tour with Rochester's Uncle Sam (an absolutely brillant band that I was mis-managing at the time), their singer Dave Genter & I were playing on top of the bus in the parking lot of Blondies (a Detriot club, it burned down), when he joked that WE should go on tour as the "Dregs Of Humanity" and play nothing but parking lots. So I did. For about five years. Putting more roll in the rock and taking the 'o' out of country, lo-fi Acadian blues, if you will, just a singing 'bout those and what I know, keeping it simple. Since Detroit The Dregs has become a sort of rogues gallery. Having had members of, (at different times), Teenage Head, The Illuminati, Sassy Scarlet, Coyote Shivers, Uncle Sam, Cloven Blade, The Veins, Platinum Blonde, Robin Black, The Sinisters, and a plethora of Toronto's best seminal musicians. 1993 saw the release of "The Dregs'" debut cassette, (Yes! Cassette! It had just replaced vinyl & we were all very impressed), a limited run of 1000 numbered cassettes that have since spread out on the wind. As have the other two following releases."Dregless" & 1994's "Endsville" I occasionally see copies in the morgues of college radio stations. (I steal them).......... ....Then the Sinisters came and gave me a last name. (for the Sinisters epic tale go to myspace.com/thesinisters it's just too involved to tell, and there's audio/visual aids over there...)........ ..... 1999 brought the CD "Blues from the Boneyard",(originally on my label 'Skeller" )distibuted still available through October 32nd), Now this was a a stripped down blues dealie. Designed to reflect the New Brunswick kitchen parties of my mis-spent youth. Since 2001 a string of drummers have come and gone, chief among them...Jack Peddler, who I originally met when he was playing with Coyote Shivers in NYC, lucky for me, the Dental Police caught his hairy ass and sent it back to Hamilton ON. Jack's a fucking laff and a 1/2 and a terrific drummer. voted 1 country drummer 1968..., Karl Anderson from "Tylenol 5", (Karl would play the opening of a fridge), Jim Brown of the Illuminati (who appears on the upcoming live EP - "Hellbound n' Down") and Killer Ky Anto of Robin Black/Crash Kelly (who produced and drummed on the 2006 indie release "Urban Industrial Blues". (Ky was the fucking maaaaaan! Kept me on time like a german train being driven by an obsessive compulsive drum major)......... But people move on and punk's get old and go country. Now I'm Backed up by the Cemetery men, who bear a striking resemblance to the Trailer Park Ghouls I hung out with last year..... featuring Steve Barber (Evildoers), On Upright Bass, Dale Kennedy (The Flu), On Lap Steel/ electric guitar & Cory Smith (Saigon Brothel) on acoustic slide guitar. And there's more musicians we're digging up....need fiddle & banjo players, apply within. This, is my return to my Maritime roots. There's no fucking about with this. We are a party band, We ain't out to reshape the music world or your perceptions there of. We are only here to make you Drink, Dance and have a good time.
"My search revealed an act I'd never heard of before. Troy Sinister and the Cemetery Men. Considering my love of old-skool country I feel like I've let myself down for not hearing about Troy sooner. His voice hints of 1960s Bob Dylan mixed with the jangling acoustic melodic swagger of Johnny Cash.And he wrote a song called Dustbowl Cowboys. What more could a snap-shirt-seeking gal want? Warm up your harmonica and play along with this bluesy, dusty number by Troy Sinister and the Cemetery Men!"
-New Music Canada Track of the Day March 10, 2009: Troy Sinister & Cemetery Men "Dustbowl Cowboys" Posted by Amanda Putz on Mar 10, 2009
Quote from guitarist Robert Tiernan:
“I want to thank Mark for offering this track to me as a collaboration. If you don’t know him, he is a wonderful musician and a very interesting person who has done and continues to do many great things and you should go look into his pages and listen to his music, you’ll be happy you did.~~~The Sit-jo is an instrument I put together from old banjo parts I found in a music store I worked in a while back, and features a bridge from the drone strings of a Sitar. With only one playing string and two drones, it’s a pretty limited instrument, really just a novelty, but I think it sounds cool and am very happy that I could use it on this song. It isn’t very stable in the tuning department because it uses friction tuners and the neck is kind of loose, but it held together pretty well for this, and I hope you dig it…When does a banjo sound like a sitar? When Monkeys Fly!”
How to Build Speed in Your Playing by Angie
Do not try to play faster than your ability. This will result in the easier parts being faster than the harder elements, and the result will be "learned poor timing", and no one will be able to play along with you.
Slow, deliberate timing, is the key, even if it sounds like a tape being played too slowly. Just keep on keepin' on, drill, drill, drill, but do it slowly.
As you learn, you will speed up without trying, and it will sound good. Slow, steady, even progress. At some point, after many days of trying, you will make a "quantum jump," you will suddenly sound better.
It comes in small steps, so keep practicing the drills, fit them into songs. Listen to others, attempt to play with others, even if you can't keep up. Most pickers understand, and will slow down for you, playing evenly. Take the advice of pickers who have learned the hard way.
When you see some youngster seemingly playing like a pro, just remember, he didn't do it all at once. He just simply put more time into it, and kids seem to have the time.
Angie's Banjo.com
http://www.angiesbanjo.com
Free Banjo Ezines and Ebook
Article Source: Niche Article Directory | Free Content | Free Article Submission
Rick Alexander - Dobro Resonator, Guitars, Mandolin, Banjo, Harmonica, Bass
written by Rick Alexander ©2007 RACo Music BMI
from RACo CD 0029 "SLYDEXIC"