An Item About obscure and little-known performers and groups. For instance, one performer I haven't been able to find anything about is Keedy. I have her CD 'Chase The Clouds', and while I think it's excellent, I can't find out anything about her. Does anyone else know?16 responses total.
I have a tape of "The Incredible String Band" that I think is wonderfull with with strange medeivel (sp?) bluegrass with tabla, yet I know nothing about them, anyone have any info?
Wow. An Alta Vista search on +keedy +"chase the clouds" only turns up copies for sale, or people listing their CD collections. And only about 19 total listings. One page gives a 1991 date for the disc. This is certainly one of the most obscure items I've ever looked up on the web. The Incredible String Band are *much* better known. They were a classic 1960s hippie band from Britain, sort of a psychedelic folk outfit. The two principal performers were Mike Heron and Robin Williamson, and at some point their girlfriends also joined in the band. They split up in the mid-1970s, with both Heron and Williamson continuing to this day in low-key solo careers. "The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter" is supposed to be their best album. The Hannibal label put together a nice promotional sampler when they acquired much of the ISB back catalog, and I see that fairly regularly in the used market. Most of their best albums were issued on CD by the Ryko/Hannibal or Elektra labels, though they might be drifting out of print again. www.allmusic.com has a decent introductory essay on the band. They have enough fans that there are probably a good number of fan web sites.
I think I may have you all beaten when it comes to obscure albums. :) I used to have a couple of LPs by a Kiwi bluegrass band that my uncle played in (back in the 60s or 70s) called Stoney Lonesome. (there is apparently a blues band today called the Stoney Lonesome Blues Band, which I foundw with a hotbot search, but it is unrelated). The song of theirs that I remember the most was a bluegrass cover of a Roling Stones song...I forget the title though. Can you beat that? ;-)
Singer-songwriter Bernice Lewis sometimes plays with an all-girl ukulele band. They covered the Barenaked Ladies' "If I Had A Million Dollars."
Stephen Christoff is a guy who Eric and I struck up a conversation with while he was playing the musical saw for change downtown. It just so happened that he was opening for someone that night in the basement of the Unitarian church; it just so happened further that he had a few CDs left to sell. He plays the mandolin and sings mostly, with musical saw on a few tracks.
That sounds really cool. I've gotten to be a big musical saw fan lately. (Did you know that a musical saw player is called a "sawyer"?)
Didn't know that. That's wonderful.
What is a musical saw?
By playing a saw blade wtih mallets or a violin bow, you can get a musical tone out of it. By bending the blade in certain ways, you can change the pitch (I'm not sure exactly what determines the pitch you get). Usually it comes out with a mournful glissando-y sound. Can anyone think of a fairly common recording that has musical saw on it? It shows up in the oddest of places, but I can't think of examples at the moment.
Musical saw is all over Mercury Rev's latest, "Deserter's Songs," and skilled sawyer Julian Koster plays both on Neutral Milk Hotel's "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" and, less obscurely, on a They Might Be Giants song - "James K. Polk," I think. I found a website on musical saws once. It had info on saws to buy (apparently they make saws solely for musical purposes) and tips from Julian Koster on playing the saw. I wish I still had the URL...
An Alta Vista search on +"musical saw" +"julian koster" finds: http://homepages.enterprise.net/scruss/musicalsaw.html which might be the page you are looking for.
In other musical saw news, I just discovered a saw player in the credits for "Ghostyhead," for a particularly haunting melody that I'd just assumed was some sort of electronic gobbledygook.
Saws and theremins do sound somewhat alike.
That's just what I was thinking.
Though I believe that saws are actually easier to play in some respects, because the pitch is much easier to control (i.e. a saw doesn't alter in pitch every time your hand shakes a little).
Tom Wait's CD "The Black Rider" has musical saw on it in a few places, too.
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