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Greengrass Vol. 2

This is my second installment in the Greengrass Spotify playlist series. (I think I’m getting pretty good at this, if I do say so myself). One of this week’s artists, Martin Hayes, was also featured last time, so I won’t need to write much about him. Most of the others are new appearances, however, though Chris Thile and Sara Watkins were both included in bands featured last week (between Nickel Creek and Punch Brothers).

The Irish group Planxty is a major influence for all modern Irish musicians, whether they know it or not (member Bill Whelan went on to compose the soundtrack for Riverdance). Their albums appear on several influential individuals’ top ten lists. So we open with “Cunla”, a jig rendered here on uilleann pipes and Gaelic vocals. As an instrumentalist, I’ve become familiar with so many of these tunes but as I did not grow up in the Boston or Ireland of my ancestors, I’m not used to hearing them sung in their native Gaelic. Though it be the language of my people, it sounds completely foreign to me. (Aye, we Americans with our melting pot… I do wish I had a stronger connection to my roots.) We’ll see more of this later in the work of Darach Ó Catháin, and in later playlists when I plan to feature Willie Clancy.

“Saddle the Pony”, etc. (Patrick Street) – Patrick Street’s all-star cast includes master fiddler Kevin Burke (who also played in the Bothy Band), as well as former members of Planxty and De Dannan. The Irish super group has been recording together since 1986. This jig set nicely follows the first track.

“Long Hot Summer Days” (Sara Watkins) – I love this rocking fiddle jam. Sara Watkins (formerly of Nickel Creek) knocked it out of the park with her first solo release. She appears three times in this week’s playlist, later with the instrumental “Freiderick”, and the beautiful and haunting “Bygones”.

“Tomas Ban Mac Aogain” (Darach Ó Catháin) - Ó Catháin is a rich resource of traditional Irish music in the mid-20th century. I include him because he appears on Martin Hayes’ own top ten list, which, should you do you research, will prove to have been a resource used a lot in these compilations.

“The Fairy Reel”, etc. (Danú) – This award-winning Irish traditional group begins this reel set with a nice pipes/box blend. I wish there was more of their material available on Spotify.

“Paddy Fahy’s Jig/Sean Ryan’s Jig”, etc. (Martin Hayes) – I have collected several recordings of Paddy Fahy’s jig and Paddy Fahy’s reel. Until recently I had listened to the jig with the time wrong, as if the first three notes were a pickup to the downbeat rather than the first note being the downbeat, since the original version of it I had didn’t have proper accompaniment to indicate the harmonic rhythm. It’s going to take some adjustment for me to get used to it being done properly. I should mention that even to Spotify opens the doors to music discovery, it also limits you. The Bothy Band isn’t available on Spotify, and they’d surely be featured here regularly if they were. Also, Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill’s latest album, Welcome Here Again, isn’t on Spotify. It’s excellent. I recommend you get it on iTunes.

“My Love Is in America”, etc. (Seamus Egan) – This reel set includes the D-major version of “Toss the Feathers” (or as we used to jokingly call it in the Ric Blair band, “Toss the Cookies!”). The E-minor version will appear below later as part of Martin Hayes’ long set. I also have a recording of a long set by Kevin Burke in which he brilliantly works both versions in. I may feature that one in a later playlist.

“Bonita and Bill Butler” (Alison Krauss and Union Station) – If you think this sounds like George Clooney from O Brother, Where Art Thou?, it’s because that wasn’t Clooney singing. It was Dan Tyminski. AKUS just won another Grammy for best bluegrass album with their latest, Paper Airplane, which this track comes from.

“Pol Ha’penny/Butterflies”, etc. (Martin Hayes) – Pol Ha’penny is another of those popular tunes of which there are going to be several recordings. Hayes does it like no one else, with his trademark “lonesome” style. This long set is one of my favorites, and as I already mentioned, you’ll hear the E-minor version of “Toss the Feathers” at the end.

“The Eleventh Reel” – We end this week’s playlist with a rapid tune from mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile from his 2006 solo album How to Grow a Woman from the Ground. (He’s better than me, by the way. I couldn’t play this if I tried!)

Greengrass, Volume 1

As promised yesterday, here’s my first installment of my Greengrass playlist series on Spotify.

“First Light/Dawn Rant” (Alasdair Fraser) – We begin with the opening track to Alasdair Fraser’s Dawn Dance. This is one of my favorite albums, and one of my seminal influences into celtic music. Unfortunately, there aren’t many works quite like this one. I remember the night I walked into Hear Music on Third St. in Santa Monica and gave this a listen. I snapped it up right away. This tune so properly captures my own interpretation of the Scottish style, properly modernized and “engrooved” for today’s ears. I transcribed this tune for two fiddles, guitar, bass, and djembe and played it with some friends at a friends’ wedding in Malibu. They have since divorced but I still cherish the memory of that day.

“Rye Whiskey” (Punch Brothers) – This Chris Thile’s new band (formerly of Nickel Creek, who are also included below). Punch Brothers will likely appear quite a bit in this series. Their newest album is more progressive, but the previous ones contain a ton of more traditional-sounding bluegrass material that will blend really well with the overall tone I’m trying to set here.

Some polkas by Gaelic Storm – I prefer their earlier releases. They were much less pretentious. After they got famous they started milking the Titanic thing for all it was worth. But their earlier material isn’t on Spotify, so I’ve included this tune for posterity.

Smoothie Song, Scotch and Chocolate (Nickel Creek) – I discovered Nickel Creek when I saw the music video for their first single on CMT while flipping through the channels years and years ago. I hate most of what today passes as country music, but this was definitely not that (how country can you be if you’re from San Diego?). I quickly went out and bought the CD and they became one of my favorite and most influential groups, and each music is equally infuential in their solo works. I saw them perform at Laxson about 10 years ago and I will never forget the experience. I remember my jaw was on the floor the whole time. I’m a pretty descent multi-instrumentalist, but each of these kids blows me away on each of their respective instruments. Chris Thile’s works are also featured in this series and next week will feature Sara Watkins’s solo album, which is one of my new favorites.

“Rolling in the Barrel/Morning Dew” (Martin Hayes & Dennis Cahill) – I saw Hayes and Cahill live on tour with some other celtic acts at Pepperdine University in the late 20th century. Because I was so new to celtic music and still in the middle of my high classical training at the time, my first impression was that Hayes sounded like a junior higher who had only been playing for a couple years and never practiced. He has since become one of my favorite players, and I have since been quite humbled. There is so much nuance in his unique and authentic style that make his sound so distinguishable. Cahill is a master accompanist. His almost minimal style is yet so precise and deliberate. Not many guitarists can do so well at “second fiddle.” Don’t be surprised if these guys end up making a weekly appearance.

“The Fast Lane” (Béla Fleck, Sam Bush) – I got a recording of Live Art a long, long time ago. One of my favorite tunes is one in which Sam Bush plays mandolin. He’s also an excellent fiddler. They’re both veterans of the “Newgrass” scene, so they fit really well in this playlist series. I’ve also included a a track with Béla Fleck and Edgar Meyer (“Lowdown”). I saw them perform at Laxson last year in a trio along with percussionist Zakir Hussain. It was amazing (read my review).

“Afro-Jig” (Eileen Ivers) was one of the fiddlers featured on the Riverdance soundtrack. Again, because of its wild popularity, she faces similar condition to the Gaelic Storm/Titanic situation. However, she did have a long career prior to Riverdance. I remember she was the first fiddle player I ever heard use the Crybaby, and as soon as I did, I immediately went out and bought one of my own and started using it regularly. I’ll include her less-electric works here. She also appears later with a couple reels taken from another compilation, including the favorite, “Julia Delaney’s”.

“Pitkin Cty Turnaround” (Steve Martin) – Martin has been playing the banjo since he was a teenager. On this first record, his chops aren’t quite up to par with his band the Steep Canyon Rangers, but he’s close enough to keep it enjoyable. All they’re televised live performances, on Letterman, or at the Capitol on the Fourth of July, are simply amazing, and Martin has done a great deal in recent years to promote the banjo and bluegrass in general.

“Master Crowley’s” (De Danann) – Crowley’s is one of my favorite tunes. I was introduced to it ages ago from a recording by a bouzouki player from New Mexico, which I transcribed as a pet project for a music notation demo while I was trying to get side gigs as a copyist. I think I might have performed it once or twice on octave mandolin as well. (Note that, by design, Crowley’s also appears in the middle of the next track from Kevin Burke.)

“The Long Set” (Kevin Burke & Cal Scott) – Kevin Burke is one of the most influential British-American Irish fiddle players, one of the members of The Bothy Band, and helping to have established the local scene in Portland, Oregon (think Artichoke Music). His album “If the Cap Fits” is one of the must-have best celtic albums of all time. I was glad to have found some newer recordings recently, but some of his older ones will also appear in this series.

If you don’t have Spotify, you can download it from their website.

With Spotify, we are all Cameron Crowe

After years of operating in Europe, Spotify launched in the US in the summer of 2011 on an invitation-only basis, much like the way Gmail and Google+ began, before later becoming open to all who want to sign up.

I had resisted Spotify for several months. I had so much invested into iTunes over the years, with large play counts, thousands of tracks, and playlists of all sorts. I didn’t want to go overboard with streaming, since there isn’t good coverage in the town where I live, and I had been trying to save money wi AT&T’s basic data plan. Also last summer, Apple had announced details about iTunes Match service, and it was much cheaper.

However, after months of using iTunes Match, even after a couple software update from Apple, the service is very buggy, and the parts that don’t have bugs are completely stripped down. Genius doesn’t work in the cloud. Last Played doesn’t work either, and play counts are sporadic. Even Smart Playlists, one of the oldest features that made iTunes different from other players, don’t work right in the cloud.

By removing these features for users who activate iTunes Match, they are training them in a way to use their cloud library in a way that’s different from the way they’ve gotten used to it. And therefore services like Spotify suddenly seem more attractive. When you compare iTunes (not Match) with Spotify, there are a lot of pros on the iTunes side. But when you move to the cloud, all of the iTunes pros go away and actually move to the “con” column, and suddenly Spotify looks more attractive. Apple shot themselves in the foot with iCloud and thereby put a billion-dollar revenue stream in jeopardy.

So I stuck my toe in, and after a single day of use, I jumped in with both feet. I also signed up for Last.fm, so I now have my play counts stored in the cloud, by a third party, as a way to get around the fact that my iTunes play counts aren’t updating correctly, and I can also get additional credit for those songs I listen to in both iTunes and Spotify.

Spotify is a really amazing service. It’s like having all of your friends CD libraries in the same house, and everyone constantly coming over for listening parties, and then you all make mix tapes for each other for the drive home. And it’s as if one of those friends owned their own record store so you always had access to new music, or old music you just don’t have on your shelves. We no longer have to depend on soundtracks from Cameron Crowe or John Cusack for great compilations. With Spotify, now everyone can be Cameron Crowe or John Cusack!

With a larger library now open to me, I have decided to leverage my experience as a fiddler to create regular playlist series I am calling “Greengrass.” It’s a fusion of Celtic and bluegrass music, assembled with an ear to blending one track with the next, so that despite the diversity of styles, you end up with a feel for the unity of the genres throughout the set. It’s almost like something you’d hear on weekend public radio, but influenced by my progressive tastes. I really hope it goes somewhere. I’ve published two volumes so far on Spotify but I don’t think I have any subscribers yet. Tomorrow I’ll post a link to volume one.

Update: The old scroll-wheel iPods used to have an “On-the-Go Playlist” feature that would allow you to queue up music on the fly, without interrupting the song you were already listening to. Apple discontinued this feature in their iOS devices. But the Spotify app has a “queue” feature that is even more useful than OTG, because you can queue up songs while you’re already listening to a playlist, and when the queued songs are finished, the remaining songs from the playlist you were on before will continue. Brilliant!

MR10: Runner’s World Editor’s Choice

The New Balance MR10 (Minimus Road) was recently named International Editor’s Choice for minimalist running shoe by Runner’s World, even though New Balance is coming out with a new model in March.

I’ve put 90 miles on my pair in the last 2 months, and they’re already seeing signs of wear and tear. The midsoles are separating from the upper near the metatarsal joints where they bend. I had high hopes for these shoes, but I’m sad to say, they’re not the best choice for distance running. Even the more minimalist MT10 (or the winterized MO10 in my case) seems to perform better over longer distances, despite having less padding. I don’t know whether it’s that they’re roomier in the toe box than their trail-equipped siblings, or that the extra cushioning actually creates more friction against the toes. But I always end up with a lot of foot pain after about 6 miles in them (which was less than half the distance I ran in them this morning).

I really do like these shoes, though, and they perform quite well over short distances. Last weekend I wore them when I set a personal record in a 5K and placed second in my age group (my first time placing). My arches were kind of sore for a few days, but I took that as a good sign that they we being exercised properly. It’s ironic that they perform well for short distances, when the reason people typically reach for increased cushioning (over minimal trail shoes) is to provide the extra padding for the long haul. Oh well. Now I’ll just have to spend the next two weeks before the half marathon deciding whether to go with my MO10s or my old, well-worn Saucony Kinvara 2s.

Blogging Church Discipline

I became a fan of Lee Irons because of his work (with the late Meredith Kline) developing the the Framework interpretation of the first three chapters of Genesis. Irons was later censured by the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. He has thorough documented his case online, most recently with a blog about his successful ordination as ruling elder at a PCA church.

This got me wondering whether I should go into greater detail about our own church discipline experience. I admit I don’t have as much documentation as Irons does, at least when it comes to the exoneration part. It was more of a verbal relenting…

Day of protest

My blog is going into blackout mode at midnight EST to protest internet censorship.