Friday Night Frolic — Pink Hyaline Dreams

A week spent by the lake in a thirty-five square mile town inhabited by roughly one thousand people in Penobscot County, Maine can be wholly rejuvenating. Or not. To tell the truth, I'm not quite sure yet—being just back from the bivouac.

I have a large family, but only eight of us were at the lakeside home my father built. I did relax, at times. At other times, I drank too much wine. Or got pink with too much sun. I had some vivid and strange dreams. We played mad horseshoes and Texas hold 'em. I read The Old Man and the Sea out loud to the children (now that's a book that really ought to be read aloud, even if only to oneself). And my daughter, from the floating dock, had her own Santiago/marlin moment. Only her big fish turned out to be a rock.

The lake is absent a portal to the virtual world other than a spotty Verizon signal on my smartphone—a rather old smart phone, which seems to have lost some of its smartness—though I managed to post a few stippled, mildly smart smartphone photographs to my Facebook wall. Like the painted indigo skies and shimmery coralline waters of the early evening lake and such.

I didn't open my laptop.

I didn't write.

Well, that's not entirely true, I opened my laptop twice to slide in Pete Wernick's ("Dr. Banjo") Bluegrass Banjo CD instructions.

And I wrote a poem. A failure of a poem. But this is how all writing starts: as a ruddy failure.

I also watched a lot of this:

So, rather than write, which I find difficult to do unless I'm alone, I decided to focus on the banjo (an instrument I've been slowly learning to play since I featured this talented woman back in March). I followed Wernick's instructions and practiced right-hand rolls and slides, worked on three-finger banjo picking, and took a break from the frail. And while writing this post and researching Wernick/Dr. Banjo I unearthed some startling information: Wernick is a survivor of a horrific 1989 plane crash in which a little more than one-third of the 296 passengers and crew were killed. That he—or anyone else—was able to walk away from the catastrophe is not a minor miracle. And once again, here, I find myself writing about planes—a subject that prompts bitty seeds of sweat to articulate along the frons.

(It wasn't always like this, me and aerophobia. As a young professional I was often air bound. Only after both of my children were born did I become panicky at the thought of flying. But I do it. If I must.)

Later that same day—the day United Airlines Flight 232 went down hard, fracturing into several pieces and somersaulting into a blazing crimson orb in Sioux City, Iowa—Wernick, along with his wife and son, boarded another flight to his destination: a music festival in Albany, NY. That is a dedicated banjoist. Werner later wrote an unrecorded song about the tragedy.

Here, you will find Werner picking away at Foggy Mountain Breakdown with Steve Martin and Earl Scruggs. On Martin's Grammy Award-winning The Crow: New Songs for the Five-String Banjo, Werner played on two songs, having co-written one of them with Martin.

But Wernick and Martin, established and well recognized banjoists, are not who I'm showcasing today (though they're both certainly showcase-worthy) because it's come to my attention that I've been featuring a succession of male musicians. Meaning it's high time to make some room for the ladies:



Red Molly is a New York based folk/bluegrass force. But as the Boston Globe reported last year:

"Red Molly may be from New York, but their bluegrass and old-time gospel sounds and buoyant three-part harmonies are so down-home it's as if their notes are carried to you on the crisp air of the Ozarks."

The rosy trio is currently on a yearlong nationwide tour. You can find their schedule on their website. Here, their newest band member, Molly Venter, is introduced:



Strumming the banjo, dreaming of playing it as well as these ladies, and back to my laptop's keyboard, now, I feel rejuvenated and as buoyant as a pinkened hyaline floaty.

"Friday Night Frolic" - Instruments of Love

Internet source unknown

Just when I thought I was making headway, covering some ground, having mastered—with the aid of Banjo Method Book I—the C, D7, G7, Em and D chords on my shiny banjo, with my now calloused and painful fingers, strumming a strained, discordant version of The Drunken Sailor, and Oh Susanna, along comes this guy with his band of string benders to remind me and my scaly finger pads that I've barely scratched the surface of the very layered, very complex world of stricken and plucked instruments.



Never mind notes. What I know about Christopher Thile is what a gentleman to whom I was serendipitously adjacently seated—in the coffee shop told me yesterday: Thile's a virtuoso who began playing the mandolin at the age of five, formed the band Nickel Creek three years later, and recorded his first album (with original compositions) when he was just thirteen years old. A year earlier he had won the national mandolin championship in Kansas.

This gentleman happened to be a singer/songwriter/ mandolinist himself, who's had his songs played by musicians like Alison  Krauss. He had seen a teen Thile making love to his mandolin at a Carolinian festival. Making love, he said. In a coffee shop. In his radio voice. In No-Place-Special, Massachusetts. We were both surrounded by our respective laptops, books, notepads and coffee. In the sort of spousal disclosure that married people do with strangers, we had both dropped the "H" and "W" words as our conversation rolled along, so there was tacit understanding that discussing the intimacies of music was proper within certain confines. And it was. Confined. And proper. I took furious notes, but I couldn't shake the image from my mind. Making love. To his mandolin.

How does one make love to his mandolin?



You still with me?

It does evoke a certain sensation doesn't it? All that pulling back and thrusting forward of flatpicked notes, the intensely expressive music, the arousal of senses, culminating in a pleasurable and satisfying climax of vibrations...

... I know, how cheap.

So much for subtlety...

But I must tell you that I now understand what the gentleman with the radio voice in the coffee shop in No-Place-Special, Massachusetts was talking about. And as I gaze at my book of chords and quarter notes and forward rolls, and attempt to strum some kind of discernible piece of music from the simplest of chords, I am highly aware of the unfortunate fact that it may be a long time before I can bounce back and forth between Bach and bluegrass. Or make any kind of clumsy love to my banjo. (As if this will ever happen at all.)

It could be a very long time.



And until then, I'm going to keep beating down the path. Callous fingers and sore shoulders. No shortcuts. Straight forward, over the hills, through the potholed valleys, comin' round the mountain... banjo clutched closely to womb... when she comes. A long, long time from now.

It'll happen.

Until then, enjoy Chris and the Punch Brothers.

"Friday Night Frolic" - Take Refuge

Source unknown

A five string banjo sits in one corner of my bedroom, a thin film of dust coating its heel, fret board and sandpaper-like head. The banjo was a gift to my husband, but he hasn't had time to figure out how to play it. He barely has time to fiddle with his standard six-string guitar.

I love the bright, clear, bell-like sound of the banjo.

I'd been thinking about this banjo for some time. Thinking about how lonely it looks in the corner, like it's been punished, banished to a junction of pale walls as penance. But it's shiny chrome parts and virgin strings are entirely innocent. I'm certain it's waiting for the gentle touch of nimble fingers.

Which are not mine.



But I picked it up anyway. This morning. I did. I've had a soundtrack running through my head for a while. (A soundtrack Abigail Washburn could easily compose.) This happens sometimes when I read certain stories, stories that come with a haversack of depth and emotion. Heavy luggage that can't be shed. Even if the luggage belongs to someone else, even if it's not real. It still haunts. As in the case of Tim O'Brien's stories about Vietnam.

I still remember the tears of exhausted sixth grade classmates. I remember the MIA and POW posters. I remember friends who lost loved ones in a senseless war. I see that not much has changed. Except, perhaps, for the draft.

The soundtrack is one of refuge. Refuge is what we search for. It's what O'Brien's characters long for. I often find my refuge in song and music. And for some mysterious reason the resonating soundtrack while reading Tim O'Brien was filled with folk, blues, bluegrass vibrations. So I grabbed the banjo, opened my laptop and went to eHow to figure out how to tune it. Then I learned about its chords, like G, D7 and Em, watched a video, opened up a chart and tried to roll. Don't try this without metal picks. It hurts. And I think my hands are too small and my fingers too short.

But I'm going to keep trying.

I want to make my own soundtrack. And someday maybe I can do this:



That beautiful voice belongs to Abigail Washburn. Fortunately, Ms. Washburn abandoned her plan to study law in order to develop an alternate conduit of communication. With her banjo. I won't abandon writing. But I'm going to work on that banjo.

Abigail Washburn's new album, City of Refuge, can be found here. Interestingly, the album was made by Ms. Washburn with the hope that, within it, everyone would find a sense of belonging.

"Friday Night Frolic" - Sigh No More (the weekend is here!)

Zest and Gusto.

There's a distinct drop beyond that gentle slope: the steep cut of the double black diamond. And though you have a map, you can't be sure of what lies beyond the gnarly, spiral drop. The mind sees the angle and asks, How the hell do I maneuver down this, and where does it smooth out and straighten?  The passage is narrow, with a double fall line which will require some skillful carving. You're going to have to pick your way down this baby.

She closes her eyes for a while, and forces a patient smile. She wants this. After all, she introduced us to the run, skated right up to it, and declared she was ready. Ready for the double black.

Alright then, I say, let's do it.

Wait, I'm not sure, Mama! she shouts into the clouds. I've already worked my way down a portion of the upper ledge; I turn up toward the top of the mountain where she's leaning on her poles, and nod affirmatively, reassuring her that she's ready, reminding her that she brought her brother and me to this sleek, snow-covered gap. So she swallows the fear, and tears down the gully, edges dug in, teeth grinding, thighs burning, and arrives at the bottom with the widest grin I've ever seen her wear.

This is how Mumford & Sons introduce their music to us. With zest and gusto. But they also understand and accept, even appreciate, inevitable weak moments. They are young, so young that my maternal instincts kick in—hell, I'm old enough to be their mother—when I hear them cry about giving their all, rolling stones away, bellowing how love will not betray you, dismay you or enslave you. Boys singing about desires, regrets and redemption at such a young age can bring a mother to tears. I want to pull them into my bosom and reassure them of their capabilities and marvelousness, tell them I'm happy for them, excited by what they've become and what they will continue to be and do. Embracing their talents and gifts, they're carving a unique place for themselves in music's history.

  Roll Away Your Stone by Glassnotemusic

But these young men—Ben Lovett, Country Winston, Marcus Mumford and Ted Dwane—have apparently received plenty of good mothering. Yes, some sweet love and attention and encouragement. It's evident in their song, voice and posture. There's warmth in their hearts, in their music, and even on their website, which includes Marcus' Book Club (where he discusses The Outline of Sanity—a visionary manual exploring the increasing common suspicion that there must be an alternative to the "fast-paced and meaningless blur of modern life"—which he claims changed his life);  Ben's Recipes (like an alternative full English fry-up, and other on the road catering ideas); and, Ted's Photography—beautiful sepia-toned rooftop portraits in which the London sky threatens storm.

They are approachable and real, their music steeped in raw honesty, as well as a distinct Shakespearean influence. At the heart of their songwriting is love, life, death, and true poetry.

  Little Lion Man by Glassnotemusic

Inside their debut album's liner, they offer recognition by noting: "We would like to thank our makers and keepers, with all of our heart; those who are close to us even when we are far away. Without you we would not have made this album."

I'd like to echo the majestic mountain's desire: Design your own maps, or wing it if it so pleases. Blaze the trail. Carve through narrow passages. Keep digging those edges in. Don't worry about the fall line or where it all straightens out. You see far beyond it—a parallel glide through sweeping landscape of mountains and valleys, and sunny skies.

  The Cave by Glassnotemusic

"Friday Night Frolic" - Chocolate Is As Chocolate Does

[Source]

It melts in your mouth, a smooth and silky texture. It rolls along your tongue and awakens your senses. It makes you giddy with its seratonin-like feel-good molecules. It can be both sweet and bitter. Hershey, Godiva, Lindt, Valrhona. USA, Belgian, Swiss, French. But a chocolatier is not a chocolatier is not a chocolatier.

And pure chocolate is to mousse as stringband is to symphony. The deconstruction of a whipped, velvety articulation that defies definition. Nuanced enough to delight varied palates.

To wit: Carolina Chocolate Drops.




Ingredients: Beat box, fiddle and banjo. Simple, no?


And what they can do with a jug and kazoo:



Sweet and bitter, yet comfort food.

Keep wrapped tightly and store in cool, dry place. Allow to slowly melt on tongue. Relish the lingering finish. Warning: may cause addiction.

"Friday Night Frolic" - GONE GONE GONE!

Alison Krauss, an extraordinary country artist (but so much more than just a country artist): 

You may have heard her ethereal voice from several different movie soundtracks, such as Mona Lisa Smile, Cold Mountain, (where she sings the heartbreaking and haunting melody, The Scarlet Tide—click, but I warn you, there will be tears) and O Brother, Where Art Thou; or, from TV series like The Wire and Sesame Street. Perchance you have seen her performing with Yo-Yo Ma, or on Austin City Limits?  More likely, you discovered her via her wildly popular 2007 masterful collaboration, Raising Sand, with Robert Plant (yes, the one and only Led Zeppelin hard rocker)—produced by the distinguished and innovative Mr. T. Bone Burnett (do look him up). But, if by slim chance you haven't yet been acquainted with this multi, multi talented woman, then you simply must, there is no longer any excuse. Here, an opportunity...

The introduction... by way of a an old Everly Brothers tune (and rockin' with Plant):




But wait... more... (because yes, Robert is fantastic and now you are likely ready to go, go go —done moved on—but this really is about Alison) Alison—backed up by the venerable Union Station—slowing it down a bit, this, one of my daughter's favorite songs:





This accomplished singer, songwriter, fiddler—GONE, GONE, GONE... out of this world good. 

"Friday Night Frolic" - It's Friday Night - Go On, Raise a Ruckus

What a girl would tweet if a girl could tweet. Rock me. 
Click HERE for more about Old Crow Medicine Show (the fab five).