Hank Bradley's Counterfeiting, Stealing, and Cultural Plundering: a Manual for Applied Ethnomusicologists, with 12 Tunes for Fiddle

Note: The live music business is at its slowest during these hot summer weeks here in New Orleans. If you're a tourist you're in luck because you have the whole town to yourself. But for those of us in the live music industry, well, lets say this is a "quiet" time. Good time however to look back at the old MarkRubin.com website & revisit a few topics. This week I found this review of Hank Bradley's book from over 15 years ago and it holds up well over all time. I understand Mr. Bradley even has a gig in Seattle this week (7/17/14) that if you can attend, you shouldn't miss.


Counterfeiting, Stealing, and Cultural Plundering:
A Manual for Applied Ethnomusicologists, with 12 Tunes for Fiddle by Hank Bradley 

Mill Gulch Music Press, Seattle WA 1989

Hank Bradley, AKA The Poison Coyote Kid, is a multi-instrumentalist/cultural critic of ferocious talent and intellect living and playing in the Seattle area. At a jam session I attended many years ago he played hours of guitar backing up Romanian and Greek fiddlers in oft impenetrable time signatures and then turned to me, whipped out a fiddle and ripped through Bob Wills' most arcane and modal version of "Done Gone," just my kind of player.  A wise music fan would be on the lookout for his singular LP release, "The Return of the Poison Coyote Kid," which features the greatest song ever penned about a Hot Dog stand ("The Mayor Is A Good Old Boy.")

Mr. Bradley hinted to me that little book got him in a bit of "trouble" when it was first published as many folks still avoid eye contact or give him a wide berth at festivals and other gatherings of "folkniks." As he explained it to me, he intended it simply to be a handbook of good manners designed for those folks who ran off into the hinterlands looking for old people they could hassle about music.  His reflections on cultural differences between the applied ethnomusicologist (Yankee in this case) and the tradition bearer (a Southerner, closer to my experience) especially caught my attention, using "Villages" to stand in for cultures:
 
"Consider a Brooklyn bluegrasser at a 1970 Virginia Fiddlers Convention. A northern villager knows you're supposed to take public transportation, resist US war involvement, minimize meat and junk food consumption, excoriate polluters, and meet women and all socially conscious people as fellow and equals. 

Oh yes, Bad Livers are in part responsible for this, I'll cop to it.

Whereas southerners know that construction pays best and everybody's OK in their place, and that you're supposed to drive with courage, respect your cousin in uniform, hunt well, shoot straight, suspect the cosmopolitans, hold your alcohol, be gallant to the ladies when appropriate, and be a connoisseur of good prime rib. 

If these villagers stick to musical topics, all will go well enough socially, but if not it is easy to see how a heartfelt opinion on either side might lead to hurt feelings and hostility on the other."
 
As a Southern Jewish Bluegrass musician, I often found myself in the presence of folks at a picking session who would normally be burning a cross on my front lawn, (not a joke, BTW) so I could really relate. And these many years later, very sad to report,  Bradley's warnings still seems to hold true. Just last year (2013,) a Texas fiddler I brought up to instruct at a very well known fiddle camp in the economically well off, socially "liberal" North West US had more than a few attendees going out of their way to make him feel very uncomfortable for holding the very sorts of opinions that in fact made him an authentic, living voice of his community. Lead to some mighty "hurt feelings" all around, I can assure you. 

For some in the "traditional folk" community today it appears, there is still a glaring disconnect between the creative output of a living culture and what it is that actually makes the life that creates that culture's very output. "Just teach me the tune, I don't need to hear about what the tune is for..." is a phrase I've heard more than once as an instructor at a music camp. It's expressed in a way that I think isn't intentionally malicious, but sure could be seen that way. And worst still, its needlessly pointless, as it contributes to drawing people apart rather than focusing on the one thing music does best: bring us all together. **

White Top Mountaineers, maybe TOO authentic?

It many ways this mirrors my experience of performing Yiddish Music in Europe and points East: Happy dancing Jews on stage, great! Not so happy Jews coming back to take back their dead relatives apartment? No so great. 

Not that long ago it was literally impossible for me to interest my local folk club in Austin TX in a rare performance by actual traditional bearer fiddlers from White Top Mountain in sponsoring even a little house concert, but they got real worked up about a foreign immigrant who plays their own version of American music. What's the take away from that? Must traditions be filtered and refined by outsiders before they are fit to be enjoined with? It's hard not to see racial and class prejudice behind such glaring disconnects, as the tradition bearers themselves never seem to mind who comes to learn from them. It's a troubling question on many levels.

But Mr. Bradley is wisely unburdened by others baggage as well. Hank is famous (infamous?) for presenting his original fiddle tunes as "learned from some old master he found in the hills somewhere," duping a hoople in the process and teaching them a fine lesson all at the same time. The last chapter of this thin tome includes 12 of these tunes with titles like "Dance of the Music Critics" and "Chase the Squid," and they are well worth your time in learning. Chock full of interesting insights on the process of the "folk revival," and a overall great read.

Copies can be secured contacting the publisher, 8033 14th Ave NE, Seattle WA 98115. Or simply email him here.


** (Possibly the "camp" model contributes to this contextual break, knowing full well these pointed political jabs would be very much out of place where this music is created and nurtured? Another conversation for another time. I run a camp of my own now, so its something I think a lot about.) :-)
 

Charlie Haden - RIP

I've seen online, without confirmation, that bassist/composer Charlie Haden has passed. Let's assume he hasn't, because that would represent a major loss to the firmament of American music and would make me very sad, but allow me to share my experiences with him assuming it's not true.

When Bad Livers were out there all by our lonesome, charting new courses out in the music world, we had the occasion to run into Mr. Haden more than a few times. He was always gracious, cordial and friendly and took a real interest in my playing, giving me much needed encouragement. When we first met we were both backstage at a street festival in Atlanta. He came from a folk music family and he told us how he appreciated what Danny and I were doing to live within the music, yet propel it forward, making it relevant to contemporary audiences. On one occasion in NYC, he was to be interviewed by the Jazz DJ and we were playing a live set for tail end the Folk DJs show.

At that time Danny and I had stripped the live show down to just banjo and bass, with long stream of conscious jams, weaving together our tunes with material Big Bill Broozy, Monk, Jimmy Martin and Sun Ra. Going out on  limb every time. There he was, behind the glass standing up as to catch the scene. Dark glasses in the middle of the day, with a huge smile plastered on his face. "Man, that was out of sight guys." he told us as we were packing up to make way. "You were cookin'." He was a bit of a gear freak, as many bassists are. "Hey man, I see you got Golden Spirals on your D and G. Good choice. So, hey, uh you got anymore?" LaBella stopped making these nylon wrapped gut strings a few years earlier and no other string on the market then was even close. "Why yes sir, I do." I reached into my case and pulled out a brand new-dead stock G string I had found in ratty box of odd strings in Lawrence KS just the week before. "With my compliments," I said as I laid it on him. I reckoned he could make better use of it than I.

I guess I should also mention that I saw Charlie many many years earlier, but had no idea what I was seeing. I had come to see the minutemen in Santa Monica in 1984. Still not sure what I saw however.

I'll be dialing up "Steal Away" tonight and remember a really class act.

"Free Jazz"

....or whatever that meant to Bad Livers

Maestro

I've worked with many many wonderful jazz musicians over the years, in many many wonderful situations. But for some reason, none of these cats ever once considered me a "jazz" man nor ever hired me to play improvisational or spontaneously composed musics.* I was always "the bluegrass guy" or the "klezmer guy" or the "polka guy" or worst of all "the Trad guy." Was I incapable or that level of craft? Maybe so. But please understand however that even I realize that I was entirely responsible for that opinion of me and must take full responsibility for. I sure went out of my way to let folks know what opinion I held the "self expressive" free jazz and jam band musics I had encountered. Talked my way into a box I reckon. Hell, I take exception to the very term "jazz," but that's another blog post entirely.

But recently I was reminded of my short lesson with Buell Neidlinger, (this gets its own story soon)  who I met in Pt. Townsend Washington at a Bad Livers show. And from that recollection I was led to remember the dreamlike state and entirely unspoken level of total creative "freedom" that I felt and expressed onstage musically for a great many years with my Bad Livers musical partner Danny Barnes. Only now through the filter of time can I get a good picture on what a gift it was to share music in that way. Damn glad I left myself kvell a bit about it. It's good to give yourself a break, if you can.

I present the attached video for your consideration. For contexts sake, bear this in mind. This was videoed in 2009. Aside from a single 45 minute set at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival the year before, this was the first time we stepped onstage in 9 years. 8 of those with no communication of any kind, at all. When we last worked with each other, Bad Liver shows had evolved into a 2 hour stream of consciousness presentation of musical dexterity and humor, anti-academic alternative histories and narrative delivered unironically entirely informed by the deep traditions of Southern elocution and storytelling and a really great stand up act, honed by a decade of 200+ dates a year on the road in front of mostly confused, sometimes charmed but oft unpleasant audiences. 

For our 2nd set this night in SF. We just walked out, looked each other in the eye and started. It starts with Monk and ends with Narciso Martinez, much like one of our mix tapes in the rental car, usually board tapes from my "Overnight" shift on KUT Radio for a decade.  Nobody ever trusted me more than Barnes. I'd take a bullet for him, even today. For reals.

Years earlier, we tried to capture that live show vibe on tape by setting up a couple mics in my old wooden house in Austin (nestled in the Ridgetop neighborhood, hence the name.) My little pal Lance the Wonder Korgi wrapped himself around the mic stand at my feet and we hit record on a DAT machine. Got a call from my old pal Dan Foster, and Lance speaks up a few times, but other wise it's just exactly what we presented live for at least the prior 3 years. We called it "The Ridgetop Sessions," and it's still available today on CD Baby. (yeah, the Mad Cat Trio CD got re-issued too!) :

 

 

 

 

 

 

* I make the notable exception of composer/percussionist Aaron Alexander, who did in fact put his trust in me and made a member of his "Midrash Mish Mosh" ensemble in 2004. He and his compositions loom large in my psyche and I am forever grateful.

The Peon and the Patron

I've been thinking a lot about patronage and peonage these days. Times are such that the arts are required to make their own way or simply go away. Everyday someone tells me how they heard my music on Spotify, and I guess that's cool. But they used to say that they bought my CD and enjoyed it. Now the trend is to not buy anything and just stream it all. Great for the listener, but it begs the question: Why should the artists continue to create content for a community that doesn't value it, even when they claim they enjoy it? Are we only to enjoy art made by the idle rich, the only people who can afford to produce it? I spent over $3000 on my last CD release and have to date recouped less than $500. Are my releases simply vanities? Dynamic conversations on every end of the question.

But frankly, I'm too old to get into all the arguments. All I can do is say "Here's my catalog."  If you like what I've been putting down all these years, then let me know the only meaningful way you can in our present society and buy something. Anything. Every little bit counts, even the .0057 cents I received from a years worth of my music streaming on Spotify:

First Review in for Texas Fiddle-Okie Guitar

"Texas fiddler Sean Orr and Texas-based, Okie guitarist Mark Rubin say there's no "right" way to play Texas fiddle, but they're wrong. THIS is the right way to play Texas fiddle. Full of heart, brimming over with camaraderie, rough-hewn and rowdy, dusty as hell, and beholden to no man. There's a freedom in this music and a powerful sense of love. All the things that make Texas great." 

-KITHFOLK

Speaking of Ukranian Revolutions...

Maybe its a good to time to highlight a forgotten chapter in Euro-Russo relations.

Here's Nestor Makhno. The actual "Most Interesting Man" of his day.

 

And frankly, I don't buy ANY of the revisionist history most available to us. I take him at his word and deed that as a committed Anarchist, he was by definition not an Anti-Semite. 

To the contrary, the Makhnovist Revolutionary Movement not only contained a large Jewish contingent, but also organized defenses of Jewish shtetl's and outlawed Pogroming, punishable by death. A sentence carried out on more than a handful of occasions.

Makhnovschina Banner
Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine

So while we see what's happening today, we'll all have a little more context about the region's history.

Pass it along.

Kiev Ukraine, 1/22/2013

Ridgetop Syncopators Reappreciation

I still contend that this little outfit never got its due.



Named after the neighborhood that I had been living in since I got to Austin in '89, the Ridgetop Syncopators were always band looking for an audience. Styled entirely in the mold of the Milton Brown and Cliff Bruner bands, we were told over and over again by promoters that we weren't "Western Swing" at least by modernist standards. In fact the rejection letters were unintentionally hilarious, noting pointedly that we didn't have a pedal steel guitar or matching vests so how could we be a Texas Swing band? Ah, yes...

We made did big splashes at the Calgary and Winnipeg Folk Festivals in 2006 and appeared as a special guest at the Kennedy Center's Duke Ellington celebration, but couldn't catch the ear of the local hipsters or the old guard C&W folks. We had a regular Wednesday night stand opening for the then very popular WT Special, who when they eventually folded re-formed as JWW and the Prospectors, essentially cloning our lineup and material. But I doubt they've gotten any further than we did!

I still work with nearly everyone of the old Syncopators to this day, and fiddler Sean Orr and I just released a new CD as did steel man George Carver which is worth checking out.



But do me a favor and checkout the little EP we made. I think its still pretty cool.

The first of a Trypich of planned recordings for 2013.

I've got 3 recording projects that I plan to have released this year. Ok, ok, call it making up for lost time. I had planned on directing my creative efforts on more Atomic Duo releases and touring, but when I was let go from that project, I kinda dropped all the balls I had up in the air, personally and professionally. It was time for a deep breath as it turned out, and through the process of recovery and reassessment, I was happily introduced to a community of musicians and players who have been very inspiring, encouraging and actively supportive. Everything happens for a reason I guess, so I'm very happy to have gone through the BS if this is what it can look like on the other side.

Sean Orr & Texas Gold @ Ginny's

In an effort to honor old friendship and long standing mutual appreciation, my first release is a no-frills, nuthin' fancy picking session with one of my oldest musical companions, fiddler Sean Orr. No foolin', Sean and I have been passing ships in the night since the days when we played in different combos that would find themselves gigging at the Samurai Sake House in OKC, OK. Ran into him again when I was playing with Killbilly in Dallas and he was with Cowboys & Indians. Then I ran into him the first week I moved to Austin to find that he was now in Bastrop. Since then, together we've played the stages of the Calgary and Winnipeg Folk Festivals and even a date at the Kennedy Center. We've played Arabic music together, and we've played Polish dances. Can't say there's another cat outside of Danny Barnes that I've played a wider mess of music with, and I've got plenty of recordings of us, but very little with Sean.

2000-2008

Sean and I did put out a traditionalist Texas Swing EP many years ago which was for whatever reason pretty much entirely ignored, but evidently spawned other local groups who seem to be doing pretty well with it at the hipster clubs on the Eastside of Austin where brown people used to live.

When we released "DANCE" back in 2006, we worked hard to get onto the "Western Swing" Festivals, but were uniformly turned down, sometimes quite bitterly, being told that the music of Milton Brown and Cliff Brunner was in fact NOT "Western Swing," but if we added a drummer and wore matching outfits, it would still be "Jazz." That experience lead up to proposed and as of yet unrealized recording project in conjunction with Cornell Hurd (of the "we liked your band but you need to keep your shirts tucked in" Cornell Hurd Band) working title "A Tribute to Rayond Seifert and Asleep at the Wheel: Popular Wheel tunes played in a Texas Swing Style OR 30 Years in and Those Poor Yankees Still Can't Get the Beat Right, Bless Their Dear Hearts." But alas, time moves on and there are in fact much, much better things to do.

original artwork by Howard Rains

Which leads us to this release: "Sean Orr & Mark Rubin present Texas Fiddle - Okie Guitar" for which we have started a modest Kickstarter campaign. Please take a moment and visit this link and consider helping us get this made.

The second proposed release is with songwriter-harmonica player Sean Tracey, and will consist of mostly original material that our former band mates didn't like, rescue our tunes from releases we don't own and cover about a half dozen Bad Livers numbers that I've worked out on claw-hammer banjo and fiddle, currently scheduled for November. Soon after, I plan on releasing the very first "Mark Rubin" release, which is currently in production, working title "The Triumph of Assimilation." Details to follow as they become realized.

Note to my musico pals: Barnes is right, MAKE and don't second guess yourself.

Bless you all for even reading this.

Forward!

Notes for Tuesday, September 24 2013

a) I want to you consider me a Breaking Bad Free Zone. I'm not up to speed so let a dude catch up!

b) I witnessed the reaction to a bad call at football game widely advance similar sense of outrage at the success of Fascism in our country. Let's hear from Br. Carlin (z"l:)

c) Today is HAAM day in Austin. I have two shows with the Hot Nut Riveters, one 5:30-630 at Whole Foods downtown and Midnight at the Saxon Pub! Help keep Austin musicians healthy and support HAAM day! Between sets I will sit in on uBass at the Driskill Hotel Bar with the Blue Ribbon Healers!

Notes for Monday, September 23, 2013

a) Is it just me, but doesn't "American Exceptionalism" sound like broader translation of "Manifest Destiny?"

b) Happy to welcome Brother Guy Forstyh back to the QB spot in the Hot Nut Riveters offense game. Tight end Matt Smith and myself at center gave a truly heroic effort in his absence, but suffice to say the music loving public are making a great collective sigh of reliefCellist and full-time-nice-fellow Micheal Shay will be joining the fun at the Strange Brew Lounge Side Monday evening 7-8:30pm. I hear a rumor that the Blue Ribbon Healers are in town and might make an appearance as well.

c) What's with Homeland Security buying up so many .40 caliber rounds anyway? Do they really need tanks and flame throwers? Anything to do with the Pentagon's latest risk assessments cite internal disorder due to the fabric of civilized society after being ravaged by the effects of Global Warming? You think?  ;-)

d) Here's a video by some pals of mine from Russia called Dobranotch. One of the greatest nights of my life started with them, right after the Pavarotti impersonator, before our set and a live altering set by the former national Moldovan Folk Orchestra set at the mafia operated music festival held in a former Zepplin hanger in Riga Latvia. (Yes, Aaron Alexander. THAT night.) The tune is called "Pope and Sultan" and they own it. I found an old German song with American English from 1822. Not sure if its the same one, but at any rate I'm adding one or the other to my repertoire soon:
As I post it it has 144 views, which is criminal. Pass it around.

Don Walser would have been 79 today..

.. had he survived his Type 2 diabetes. Which I'm ashamed to say I was recently diagnosed with as well. I'm not so bad off that I require insulin and the doctors say I can beat it with diet and exercise, which I have taken seriously.

Here is the obituary I wrote for Don for the Austin Chronicle. As if I need another reminder to follow my doctors advice. In case you may have missed it, here is the last recording I made with Don, "Me and My Old Guitar." Here's the review from No Depression.

On music and poison.

Our Sages teach us that The Torah (the Law) is much like water: It is essential for nurturing the tress that give us shade, and the fruits and vegetables that sustain us. But like water it makes no distinctions, as it also feed the hemlock that will kill us. It is then our duty to identify the difference and educate others so that they thrive and not perish.

But is that not also the case with Music? Can a human truly exist without it? For all it's powerful connective and healing powers, it too can be fashioned into a tool of division and hurt. So we are obliged to always be in the process of learning the differences, and speaking out to warn our fellow humans when we encounter the poisons.

Had my fill of jousting, yes sirree...

Today I shuttered my Facebook account. No one asked me to, nor did anyone even recommend it. I simply decided that good it brought me was far and away not worth the ill it created in my brain.

My brain, like many others, is in the process of trying to kill me. Why should I help it?

So, when I feel the need to share, share here I will. If you have a comment, feel free to send it to me. I appreciate thoughtful debate. Which is why I shuttered my Facebook account.

Ok, that's it. Carry on