The Roving Musicologist

Travel post #17: Thai Karaoke Hypnosis Therapy

Finally something that rocks!

Giant Kittens and Karaoke are two of the prime ingredients for Thai night ambiance.

Many times, the batteries run out.  That’s it, give up, moments gone.  Not this one, though.  I had time to go downtown, buy batteries, and come back.  They were still at it.  They invited me in for a few drinks…and musicologist gold.  Then they asked for money and the moment was over.

The Karaoke was done with live instruments.

Travel Post #7: GFF part 2: The Old Man

I’m always trying to find old men playing any kind of instrument.  I don’t like it when people can sing too well, when their voices can handle any note with ease.  Playing traditional music makes some people work…they can’t change the notes around to fit their range.

There were about fifty people onstage when this guy played.  Various people would play together during the set, and sometimes the entire orchestra.  Then there were a few two minute solo songs.  This guy came forward, did his thing, and then rejoined the line, like it was no big deal.

This is probably it for the traditional music posts for awhile…I am currently in Turkey which abounds with interesting street noise.

The lucky charm of an Albanian bus driver.

Travel Post #6: Gjirokaster Folk Festival with Three Women

High in the Mountains

Gjirokaster is a small town in the south of Albania.  All of the old houses are made of stone.  Even the roofs of the houses are made of a black slate that is found on the hillsides.  Because of a lack on investment in the town, there isn’t money to keep them up and there are wrecks of the houses scattered around town.  But many of them are still up and there is an Ottoman castle on the top of the mountain.  That’s where this festival was, overlooking the valley far below.

These singers were about the first thing I heard when I came in, and one of the two best things I recorded over the course of two days there.

While it sounds like it has been looped, it hasn’t.

Grandfather Claws (Portland, Oregon)

This Band performs sitting on the ground without back support, hence stretching is necessary to maintain proper posture.

Grandfather Claws is a band, two men and two women, that I happened to catch shortly before I left Oregon.  I found them in the few recordings that I took with me when I left the country and they seem to be an appropriate thing to post after Michael Hurley, as they both represent, for me, a sort of rambling approach to folk music.  What people call noise music, while it is approached from many angles, is at its core more folk than anything else.  While it is influenced by esoteric ideas from all over the spectrum of music (well, hopefully), when you go to a noise show you are seeing these ideas being refracted in a way that will almost necessarily reflect a homespun approach.

http://www.myspace.com/grandfatherclaws

What I have posted here is only about a quarter of the show; to post more I would have had to reduce the quality to the point that many of the quieter tones would have been lost.

Michael Hurley of Astoria, Oregon

There is scratching at the beginning, then things get better.

How you will see the world after Michael Hurley

Michael Hurley was there for the folk scene in early 1960’s New York, was associated with the Holy Modal Rounders, and now lives out in the land of the Goonies.  He played this show in an art gallery run buy a big guy with a ponytail.  We came in a little late and so paid at the end of the show.  Right after we paid, one of the small town weirdos came up to the art gallery owner and started talking about how someone had ruined their system for stealing breakfast from the local diner.  Ponyman was just trying to get us out of there at that point…this is who we had given our money to, some guy that loved to steal breakfast, not to Michael Hurley.  So I bought a couple of his comics and my friend bought a cd…because we have to keep Michael Hurley alive:

http://www.snockonews.net/

He wears this shirt a lot.