Banjo versus TV: Week 57

A check-in on the Banjo versus TV project — J.R.'s ongoing plan to spend more time on his banjo than on TV. This post covers 3/29/2009 through 4/4/2009.

I owe you a link to a video for this week. It might take a while for the video to come together.

There's a Chicago artist who's proposed a whole-city-sings-a-song montage video and he's asked various groups at the Old Town School of Folk Music to help him create a demo. So this week The Hump Night Thumpers put on our jug band semi-finery and played Welcome Table on the street outside the school.

We recorded the event. Now the project guy is going to mix us together with other groups performing the same song and create one single video.

I'll provide a link to the finished product when it's been put together.

I'm told that the video caught a good shot of me nearly bonking another band member in the head with my banjo's peghead. I hope they use that part.

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Also in the last week:

• I've been meaning to go for some time, and I finally went to my first First Friday at the Old Town School of Folk Music.
• Speaking of the Old Town School of Folk Music, quite a bit of my banjo time lately has come from jamming at the OTS. If you're in the Chicago area you really should stop by the school. Great place.
• I watched Joe Versus the Volcano. You'd think this would count as TV time and you'd be right, since the rules clearly state that videos count as TV time unless they're banjo-related. But it's got a music connection, too, because the soundtrack is just wonderful! I'd love to get a a soundtrack CD but it looks like there isn't one. There's only a promotional CD, of which only 3000 were created. Bummer.
• Homespun has a series of books called the All Star Bluegrass Jam Along series. I got the banjo edition (written and performed by Tony Trischka) and got a copy of the mandolin edition (by Matt Flinner) so we can make it part of our morning practice. (Okay, I also picked up the guitar, bass and fiddle editions because I'm that way with books.)
  
  They did a really good job with this series. The play-along CD tracks are well thought-out and the tabs are very clear, even if they're probably a little beyond me at this point.
  
  I've been working on Blackberry Blossom from that book. Ouch, it's hard.
  
  Other songs from the series — and they all look just as hard: Bill Cheatham, Black Mountain Rag, Farewell Blues, I'll Fly Away, Footprints in the Snow, All the Good Times Are Past and Gone, In the Pines, I Am a Pilgrim, John Hardy, Little Maggie, New River Train, Old Joe Clark, Pretty polly, Don't That Road Look Rough and Rocky, Sally Ann, Sittin' On Top of the World, Soldier's Joy, Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms, Way Downtown and Down in the Willow Garden.