Ted, Ted, Ted » Music

Peein’ in the Dark

ted — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 00:17:06 +0000

The Bazaar Cafe is a songwriter’s showcase with an open mic Thursday nights. Laura and Kai have been grinding out originals at a fair clip lately, so they signed up last week and did two of their strongest numbers. They were such a hit that they were asked to come back this week. Lilly shot some video of their set.

Come to Fruition

ted — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:47:46 +0000

We spent a gratifying number of hours at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival this weekend. On Friday we saw the Jerry Douglas band, and then Allison Krauss and Robert Plant. Everything about the show was perfect, but the best part was T-Bone Burnett laying his spooky, unsettling vibe over everything. Here’s Laura’s take.

On Saturday we saw Nick Lowe, playing solo. He stopped right in the middle of one song and said “I don’t remember the words to that one.” Which is something you can only do if you’re Nick Lowe.

After him we saw Dave Alvin, which was a revelation. The Blasters, like the Jayhawks and all those other great bands, zipped right past me in their heyday, so I have some catching up to do.

On our way back from getting a new copy of the schedule at the information booth, Lilly and I stumbled on this special treat, a band of stoners who could really sing. I hope they show up on an official stage next year.

Beginning band

ted — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 16:40:17 +0000

Laura’s middle school band had been playing their instruments for about 4 months when they recorded this. We voted to tax ourselves a bit extra a couple of years ago to pay for arts in the schools, and the proceeds started to flow in last year, just in time for Laura’s 6th-grade year. Suddenly her school, never one of the more lavishly equipped in town, had all these new band instruments and a smart, capable music teacher to start things up. Laura decided to learn to play all of the instruments, starting with the alto sax. This year they added a string orchestra, which Laura promptly joined.

Class leader

ted — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 18:23:02 +0000

It’s rare to see a story about Venezuela in the U.S. press that does more than summarize the chatter at the last upper-middle-class cocktail party the correspondent was invited to. Hard to get good help these days, what with the housemaids getting so uppity, that kind of thing. On a few widely-spaced occasions, however, the preoccupations of the high of brow overlap with something that actually matters to people. This surprisingly warm L.A. Times story is an example of what can happen then.

A Tribute to Woody Guthrie

ted — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 17:44:36 +0000

Here is a site with an online multimedia show about Woody.

TheMoMI.org — Exhibition: Bound For Glory: A Tribute to Woody Guthrie

Kinderbanjo

ted — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 19:46:03 +0000

Well that was interesting. I was just at Lilly’s kindergarten class for a song-and-snack to mark her birthday. When I walked into the classroom, an African-American boy named Durrell took one look at my gig bag and said, “That’s a five-string.” A five-string what, I asked him. “I don’t know. A five-string.”

After the songs and my little shtick about Africans inventing the banjo and bringing it this land (lifted from this site and translated into 5-year-old), this kid let on that he knows someone who plays one of these in his neighborhood, which is the housing project across the street from the school. I was doubly impressed: this is not a kid who talks a lot to strange white men, plus I had no idea I was going to run into a (potentially) Black banjo player around this ever-whitening town. I was already stoked about getting involved in this school, but this is better luck than I’d expected. I hope I get to meet this person eventually, if he exists. It’s a commonplace in the old-time music world that Black banjo players are all around, we’re just conditioned not to notice them. I know the second part of that is true; I just hope the first part is too.

Plastic Jesus

ted — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 08:49:34 +0000

Hoedown

ted — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 22:21:18 +0000

When I got back from India, Mary and Laura picked me up at the airport and we hauled ass to the Playmates preschool harvest festival, where Laura and I were booked to do some pickin’ and grinnin’ with our friends Breck and Stanley. We played a few tunes and had a blast, even though I was mostly asleep and in a bit of pain from 24 hours as a sardine. Playmates is on the short list of my favorite places on earth, and it’s always great to be there doing something fun.

Playmates Preschool Harvest Festival

ted — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 20:00:14 +0000

Laura and her backing band furnish a set of tunes in the early afternoon. More info here.

Song and dance

ted — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 09:04:36 +0000

Near the elephant farm we met a tour group of women from the Sree Narayana College, which is in Kerala. They were singing and clapping to pass the time. We joined in as best we could.

I got six clips of this before my battery burned out, of which this one is the silliest. You can see the rest here.