Inktrails from Alaska

The Ten Commandments of Jamming

Amended for our local jam....

I. Thou shalt not ever forsake the beat.

II. Thou shalt arrange thyselves in a small circle so that thou mayest hear and see the other musicians. Thou shalt listen with thine ears to the songs and attempt to play in accord with the group; also, open thine eyes betimes to look about thee, lest there be some visual sign someone is endeavoring to send thee. Thou shalt play softly when someone lifteth his voice in song, when playing harmony, and when thou knowest not what thou is doing.

III. Thou shalt play in tune. Tune thine instrument well, and tune it often with thine electric tuner, lest the sounds emanating from thine instument be unclean.

IV. Thou shalt commence and cease playing each tune together as one, so that the noise ye make be a joyful noise, and not a heinous tinkling that goeth in fits and starts, for that is unclean, and is an abomination. Whensoever a musician sticketh forth his foot as though he were afflicted with a cramp in the fatted calf, thou must complete the rest of that verse, and then cease.

V. Thou shalt stick out thine own foot or else lift up thy voice crying "This is it!", or "Last time!" if thou hast been the one to begin the song, and it has been played sufficient times over. If the one who began a tune endeth it not by one of these signs, then the tune will just go on and on, like the begats, until the listeners say, "Hark! It all soundeth the same." Especially ye take care with Olde Timey tunes.

VI. Thou shalt concentrate and thou shalt not confound the music by mixing up the A part and the B part. Most songs, but not all, proceedeth according to the ancient law "AABB". But if thou sinneth in this regard, or make any mistake that is unclean, thou may atone, not by ceasing to play, but by reentering the tune in the proper place and playing on.

VII. Thou shalt take thine own turn in the circle, and not presume to play out of turn. Be thou patient, for do not The Byrds say “to everything,, turn turn turn”?. Be thou ready to play or sing when thy turn comest round again.

VIII. Thou shalt not speed up or slow down when playing a tune, for it is an abomination. (See commandment I) Thou shalt keep the beat of thine friend whose turn it is.

IX. Thou shalt not, by thine own self, commence noodling off on a tune the other musicians know not, unless asked or unless thou art teaching that tune, for it is an abomination. If thou wouldst thine friends learn a new tune, thou shalt go to the copy shop and bring forth copies.

Eileen Ivers Weekend, Master Class

Eileen Ivers plays at the Hering Auditorium at Lathrop Highschool this Sunday at 4pm here in Fairbanks. She's staying over a day to do a master class in fiddling Monday night, September 26, 7pm at the Pomegranate Café on 2nd St. It's all very exciting. She says she's bringing musicians from the band to jam with us afterward. I interviewed her for Alaska This Month and we had a great, fun, hour-long chat. She's a wonderfully friendly person! If you want to attend the master class, you MUST prepay and pre-register with Gail Holmes by calling 457-2552 before the class, preferably by Sunday night. Only 25 slots are available, and at last count the class was more than half-filled.

Young, Angry and Poor

There's a music festival tomorrow at the Ester Community Park. I'll be there selling flags and wearing earplugs. It's called the "Young, Angry and Poor" festival, though after talking with the organizers, an admirable group of four young women in their twenties, I think it should be named the "Young, Bored and Underemployed" festival. They told me it was to fill the gaping hole most young people feel exists in Fairbanks. "There's nothing to do," they said, "So we thought we'd MAKE something to do." Hey, it works for me! Good on these young women for taking action!

Last night my boyfriend was talking to the fellow who is in charge of the sound. This guy swore that everyone would be in tune and there would be no tuning on the stage. He was very emphatic about that. Frankly, I'd rather they stop and tune, should things go bad, than simply continue on at ear-melting volume offkey. However, I see from some reports that there will be some older folks that I know (not just all punk bands), so I guess I'll get to take my earplugs out at some point.

Hey, it's not that I don't like punk! I like it just fine. I had pink hair once upon a time. It isn't that I don't want to hear the punk bands, it's just that you can hear it just dandy with earplugs in, too. Then maybe your ears will ring less later.

I'll be interested to see how many people show up and what the scene will be.....

Articles & Cawfee Tawk

Having had a cup of coffee I've got diarrhea of the keyboard. If you had me on the phone I'd be talking your ear off. Tip: the key to drinking the old, reheated coffee from the pot you didn't finish yesterday is half and half. Enough half and half can make anything taste great. If you happen to have whipping cream (unwhipped) use that instead. Butterfat makes it better.

I'm gearing up for the Midnight Sun Intertribal Powwow. As Media Director I have my hands full. Today I need to fax a bunch of PSAs to more radio stations, I handed out posters to folks to put up yesterday, and the postering efforts continue. I've written all the news articles I'm going to write and you can find one of them here. In the same issue you can also read my interview with Emmylou Harris. The other part of that interview is in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, but unfortunately they make you pay to read it online. Sorry, folks!

Last night was the first time it didn't rain all night at my place. We have been having a monsoon season early, with lots of thunderstorms. On the 4th of July I played for an hour down at Alaskaland under a big tent. I started out with three people in the audience and one of those was my boyfriend! By the time I was done I'd attracted about 25 folks, and I could see folks dancing and skipping around to the fiddle all over the grounds outside the tent as well.

My landlord is retired and has nothing to do but set projects for himself. Unfortunately for me and the other tenant, he has fixated on the water system. Every day he arrives and starts messing with the plumbing, resulting in combinations of a)no water at all, b)no hot water at all, c)rusty mud instead of water and/or d)no water pressure so that it's impossible to do anything with what water is available. These projects inevitably entail large grinding, drilling, cutting, sawing and banging noises from the garage, which is underneath my place. The floor is a mere one inch-thick, and everything that happens down there is brilliantly audible. Including the ringing of his telephone, which sometimes starts at 7am.

So what with firecrackers, thunder and lightning, and the industrial cacophony from below, Sofia was close to having a nervous dog breakdown. It got so that as soon as the sky clouded over she'd start shaking, and then hyperventilating. She's been crawling into my lap, or staying at my heel for weeks now. Petting her and talking to her didn't seem to make things better, instead, she shook more and panted even harder. Sometimes she'd crawl under the coffeetable or my desk. Nothing I did would distract her and I was beginning to get pretty worried.

Luckily I got an email from the Humane Association that had an article about this very subject. I found out that petting and soothing does make it worse for some dogs. What many dogs need is a safe, dark cuddly den place to hide. My house is particularly dark, and the closet is very dark. So I put her dog pillows (she has Stevie's pillow under her pillow for emotional comfort, we both still miss him a lot) in a corner of the closet and closed both the sliding doors, leaving one end just open enough for slim Sofia to slide through. She immediately went in, curled up and went to sleep. This morning she's a much happier dog!

Some dogs have a RUN AWAY reaction to thunder, lightning and loud noises. Sofia would probably react that way if she were outside during the noisy times. You can read the article here.

Meanwhile I'm doing fine. The rain doesn't cloud the sky with gray all day and all night, like in Oregon. The clouds break up, blue sky pokes you in the eye with its brilliance and I'm getting tan from the sun. This year has been great as far as mosquitos go, nary a bug during the normal daylight hours. It's been a beautiful summer so far, albeit with a few forest fire smoke days, but nothing serious.

Midnight Sun Festival 2005

Summer Solstice
June 21, 2005

The sun goes in circles on the solstice, not bothering to set. Twenty-four hours of daylight are heady for a bunch of folks who live through the long, dark winter up here. We party and frolic at every chance we get!

My part in the Midnight Sun Festival started weeks before June 21st. The Tanana Highlanders were scheduled to play, necessitating a particular urgency to weekly band practice, the date coming as it did on the heels of the Fairbanks Folk Festival.

One of the nice things about the music portion of the Midnight Sun Festival is that they allow a band to perform for an hour or more, because there are far more hours to fill with music than at the Folk Fest, where acts only get 20 minutes onstage.A twenty-minute set is barely enough time to warm up and then suddenly you are offstage again. Playing for an hour is much more enjoyable. We get warmed up, get to play to the crowd, get to stretch our musical muscles. Yep, got to exercise those hambones!

First and 2nd Avenues, all the interconnecting streets, and Golden Heart Plaza were filled with vendors, entertainers and people, people, people. People and kids, people and dogs, people and food. There was a stage at 2nd and Cushman, 2nd and Noble, and on the plaza. The Tanana Highlanders played at the 2nd and Cushman stage, and were scheduled to play immediately following on the 2nd and Noble stage. As we played our last number, the UAF Steel Drum band was setting up behind us. We grabbed our cases and stands and headed down the street. On a normal day it would be a three-minute walk, max. During the festival it must have taken us fifteen, easy. It was one of those situations where there were so many people that you had to keep shuffling along and apologizing to whomever you poked in the butt with your violin case. Everyone was good-natured, and I figured no one was going to beat up a woman in Scots “wenchware.” Cleavage will get you everywhere.

The jumble of folks who get together every Thursday at the Co-op Building (in the Two Street Station Coffeeshop) for the Celtic Jam had decided along with me that it would be good fun to play onstage at the Midnight Sun Festival. So after I finally squeezed myself past two fat children and a golden retriever (making a nice POP noise) I reached the stage and found my friends ready to play. Unbeknownst to me our set had been increased from an hour to an hour and a half. We had a good old time playing lots of tunes to a very large crowd. We sounded positively orchestral at times. Behind us the rock and roll band scheduled next started unloading drum cases...

Wandering around later I had a huge pulled pork sandwich from Big Daddy’s Barbeque ($5), saw lots of kids with cotton candy, talked to the Red Cross folks, watch a willing victim get dropped into the dunk tank, and as I walked back to my canopy grooved to the sounds of Sweating Honey who were playing under the tent on the plaza stage.

Around midnight we finally started putting things away, and the crowds were persuaded to call an end to a thoroughly energetic and fun day. I didn’t get home until 1:30am, didn’t get to bed for at least an hour later, and still haven’t unloaded the truck. I was good for very little yesterday and I’m still tired today but it’s a good tired.

Happy Solstice!

Fairbanks Folk Festival Report

Saturday, June 11 was a prototypical summer day, perfect for hanging out on a lawn, eating ice cream and letting the dogs and kids run wild while the adults listened to music.

The Moose Pavilion is surrounded by lawn, separated from the park road by a ditch that was full of sprinkler and rain water, our “moat,” and another nice 25 foot wide strip of green. The No Nukes North, Peace Center and myself set up our canopies on that lawn. Some other folks were selling Navajo jewelry, and they didn’t have a canopy so they put their tables under the trees at the end of the “moat.” The Hot Licks ice cream folks needed electricity, so they set up their tiny little stand right by the log building that housed the bathrooms. They had something in common with that place, in that sooner or later, everyone availed themselves of both. Considering the near 90 degree heat, I think it was ice cream that kept me from heat stroke!

The stage was a thrown together affair of 2x4s, and a large quilt was tied up behind it to serve as the back of the stage. It stood in front of the Moose Pavilion picnic shelter, where musicians milled around, waiting for their 20 minute set on stage. Lots of solo acts, many bluegrass bands, and three or four Celtic groups entertained.

Everyone who performed volunteered their performance. There was no admission, the entire event was free. Several folks who came to my booth (I was selling flags and Celtic items, see my website http://www.celticandmore.com) told me they couldn’t find their State of Alaska Employee Picnic but were more than happy to go to the folk festival instead!

Somewhere out there a children’s stage existed, and I had friends who performed on it, but I never did find out where it was. All day long I watched children and dogs playing in the water in the moat.

As the afternoon wore on, clouds began to circle, the wind changed several times, and I began to worry about the afternoon rain shower that had been forecast. As of 5, things were still dry. But with my last set on stage due at 8:40, I realized that I’d better pack up the booth before my set so that I wouldn’t be fiddling away and suddenly feel like I had to dash across the moat to save my stock. So away everything went, into plastic boxes and set under the canopy just in case.

Just as we were finishing our set, the clouds bumped together and it began to rain. “Hey,” I told the audience, “How about that? Just like Scotland!”

At the end of the day, event organizerTrudy Heffernan gave her thanks to all those who helped make the Fairbanks Folk Festival possible. “There wasn’t a bad set in the bunch,” she said. I had to agree.

Fairbanks Folk Festival

Today I'm off to the Fairbanks Folk Festival, at Alaskaland (aka "Pioneer Park," but I passed a trailer park in Canada named that and can't get that out of my mind every time I hear it) in the Moose Pavilion. It's a gorgeous day and going to be lots of fun!

I'm setting up a booth to sell flags from all over the world, some Celtic Jewelry, tankards and whiskey flasks and other interesting things. It will be easy to find, what with big flags flying all about it.

The Tanana Highlanders play at 8:40pm tonight, so catch me then, or tune in on KUAC, on the web at KUAC. It's cool that KUAC has a webcast of their station.

Tarawathie drafted me to play with them as well, and we'll be on at 4:40 in the afternoon, sadly not making the radio time this year.

Be sure to come by and say hi if you are going to the festival!

Darol Anger & the Republic of Strings

It's always nice to reconnect to folks from the past, and it's wonderful to meet your idols. A few weeks ago I got to do both when Darol Anger and his Republic of Strings played Fairbanks.

When I was in college at University of California at Santa Cruz, a bluegrass band called Tin Roof played in the dining hall. Their fiddle player really knocked me out and I began to try to catch him whenever he played, at Cooperhouse, and around town. Eventually I got up my gumption and talked to him, and that's how I got a fiddle lesson with Darol Anger.

I have to say that he was an extremely generous and kind person then, and certainly appears to be the same today. When I spoke with him after the concert he remembered me, and we chatted about the Santa Cruz days a bit together, and parted with a hug.

His musical generosity was apparent that night. Long ago, when I'd asked him to show me something, or asked him how he did something, he showed me. The truly great don't feel threatened by other musicians. I have run into musicians who won't show me how they did something because they were afraid I'd "steal their licks." This is a sure sign that those people aren't going to go anywhere with their music. The more you share, the more you learn. It's an open door, and music belongs to everyone. Darol was just as open and generous as he could be with his music. It was clear he was still like that, because he had a group of musicians that were confident, charismatic and simply stunning in their abilities. Everyone took solos, everyone took leads, and sometimes you could see Darol standing a bit back just grooving on the whole thing.

Brittany Haas plays the fiddle with the Republic of Strings. Right there that's another very clear sign that Darol is not a prima donna! Most fiddle players I know don't want to be in a band with two fiddles. They want to be the only violin! I love playing in a band with two fiddles! There are wonderful possibilities with two beautiful voices like that! Brittany has a style that blends elements of Swedish, Russian and other traditions. She's very smooth and melodic. I enjoyed the tone of her violin, which was much brighter than Darol's, something I am sure they worked out together.

Scott Nygaard, editor of Acoustic Guitar Magazine, played guitar flawlessly. I was too far away to see what kind of guitar it was, but I suspect it was a Martin. He is a good flatpicker as well as a consummate rhythm player, and indeed, the rhythms he had to produce were at times quite complex.

Rushad Eggleston played a fierce cello, doing things, as Darol said during the concert, "I've never seen a cellist do, EVER." Wearing purple pants and and a scowl, he attacked his instrument with gusto, pulling sounds out of it I certainly had never heard before, either. After the concert he told me that he's in no less than seven rock bands in New York City (in which he plays electric guitar). It fit.

That night the Republic of Strings played music from all over the world, something that attracts me greatly, as I love exploring different musical traditons. I think my favorite piece was a Brazilian one, "Andre de Sabato Nuovo," the musical story of a man who has bought new shoes..........and they're too small.

Other destinations included Ireland, Africa, Scandinavia, Manhattan and Appalachia. Plus I kept hearing that Swedish influence in Brittany Haas fiddle. Very wonderful stuff.

I'm all set for citizenship in the Republic of Strings. If Darol will let me know what the national anthem is, I'll play it.

Dervish Cuts Loose

The last stop on their five week tour was Anchorage, Alaska, and Dervish were tired and ready to get on that 2:30 AM plane back to Ireland. Despite having one foot on the runway, they delivered a powerful show that had anyone with a heartbeat clapping, swaying and doing that special wiggling movement that passes for dancing when confined to stadium seats.

The two double-stringed rhythm instruments, Brian McDonagh on the mandola and Michael Homles on the bouzouki, set the bottom line with rhythms and low-end, followed by Liam Kelly's flirtingly beautiful flute notes that evoked blue sky overhead. Tom Morrow and Shane Mitchell would jump into the mix together and take everything a notch higher, playing in lightspeed unison that left the audience gasping. Music played in spirals of excitement: it doesn't get any better than this.

In between tunes, Dervish created the appropriate support for songs sung in Irish, English and Gallic, songs that varied from traditional Irish to Bob Dylan (Boots of Spanish Leather). Cathy Jordan's clear alto cut through even the fullest arrangements, even leading the audience in an Irish language chorus during one song.

The biggest surprise was the encore. You could have knocked me over with a raindrop when Cathy Jordan came out and sang "Gypsies, Tramp and Thieves," and made it work as an Irish number. Now that's talent!

All Wet

It's taken me about a week to get over the stress of St. Patrick's week! Two days before I was to play at the Westmark my guitar player called me up and said, "I have bad news." Before he even went any further I knew what it was. He couldn't do the gig. Shit.

So.....there I was, piper out of town, guitar player being sent out of town by his boss, and a hotel gig to do in two days. So I racked my brains (they rattled) and I finally asked Lindy Raines, of the Mighty Untouchables blues band, who just happens to give lessons at the same place I do, if he would sit in with me. And he said YES, thank God.

That night and during every spare minute thereafter we were either rehearsing or I was making charts for him. Charts with BIG letters for us forty-something's eyeballs.

We did fine, there were the usual glitches but they loved us and I hope they'll have us back. Whoever "us" is the next time around! It was the first time Lindy had ever played Celtic music and he left humming "Merrily Kissed the Quaker" and swearing he was going to get me for getting all these tunes stuck in his head. Ah, another addict. The first one's free.....

I would have liked nothing better at the end of that day than to get into a nice, hot shower. But nooOOOOOooo. When I got home my cabin was losing heat. The furnace had gone out. The furnace also heats our hot water. No house heat, no hot water. So I called the landlord and he told me how to push the red button to get the furnace going again.

But that didn't fix my hot water situation.

So far I haven't had a shower yet. It's been a week. Every time I try, either whatever hot water there was has been used by the other tenant, or it does what it did this morning.

I pushed the button before going to sleep last night. As usual, the furnace had quit while I was in town. It's just a good thing it's not forty below right now! Anyway, after a couple of tries the furnace started up and I went upstairs and eventually went to bed, just hoping that it would stay on all night so I could take a shower in the morning. After a week a person feels skanky, you know?

This morning I checked the thermostat. The cabin was still at 70 degrees. So far so good. That meant that there should be hot water!

I turned on the shower and experimentally checked the temperature. Cold. But wait, you usually have to run it a while to get the hot water, so I undressed (being an optimist) and tested it again in a couple of minutes. Success! Really hot water, with pretty good pressure, to boot! I hopped into the shower, got my very long hair all soaked, my body all wet, turned around to stick my face in the stream and that was when the hot water ran out.

Yep. All wet and unwashed in cold water. God fracking fruckle dithering ruthermuckers! Arrrrggghhh!

Yes folks, I pay for a place with water and heat and I get NEITHER right now. What a pisser!

When was the last time you had to dry off and then actually clean the important places with wet wipes? Grrrrrr.

I left the landlord a message. I was even polite. But firm. And wet.