Oxblood Oxfords

The title of this silly little post is compliments of my good mother, who decided to honor my "red" shoes with a truly dazzling color.  As I polished them tonight, it struck me that they are nigh ten years young.

As much as I'd like to polish them with sentiment, they're really just nice Italian shoes that I bought off a discount rack.   Here's what I remember:

 - I bought them for about $80 US.  It's not much now, but that's somewhere near $300 in '98 dollars.  That was a good chunk of rent in those days.

 - I wore them to my sister Katie's wedding.  I remember this because my grandmother commented that my shoes reminded her of her father.

 - I wore them when I interviewed once with Merck, and twice with Pfizer.  They're not particularly lucky shoes.

 - I wore them to work at the University of Utah on the day I found out I had to pull a bunch (tons in a very literal sense) of coaxial cable out from under the floor.  Fine day to wear the nice shoes, thought I.

 - I managed to get a toe jammed in a Trax rail walking downtown with the old man & brothers.  There was a nasty scuff on the toe, long since buffed to a glistening sheen.

 - These shoes are churchin' animals.  Watch out!

I don't think I'd care much about these shoes if they didn't look so dang good.  I couldn't resist the urge to figure shoe-years out.  I reckon the average shoe lasts maybe two years.  Since 80 is ripe old age for people, we'll just extrapolate.  Forty shoe-years per earth year.  That puts these fine oxfords at 400 shoe-years old!  Since the result is so rewarding, I'll stick with this formula in favor of a more believable (and therefore boring) one.

As wonderful as these red shoes could be, I would be remiss should I fail to disclose flaws inevitable.  The heel treads are worn down to the stacked leather, and the inner leather lining at the heel is worn completely through.  The laces have worn into the tongue, and there are a few deep scratches that insist on remaining.  Now that I think about it, they have another flaw worth mentioning.  They are slow.  They're not uncomfortable, but the boot-stomping Sam could catch the red-shoe-wearing Sam in short order.  In fact, that is one reason why they wound up getting jammed in the train tracks.  I was trying to walk fast, and drove the shoes to protest.  That was about a hundred shoe-years ago, so I don't remember it clearly anyway.

I'm beat.  I wonder what I'll think about this when I read it awake.

This weekend has been a whirlwind of music, smoke, fish and snow.  Tuesday night's outing at the bar turned out to be a lot more fun than I had anticipated.  First of all, the benefits were killer.  Both significant other and I were admitted without having to fork over the $7 cover, and I was given three drink tickets redeemable for three cheap beers.  As a non drinker, I traded them for friends.

We were the final act of the night, playing from around 11:00 to midnight.  The crowd was loud, and mixing at the soundboard was one-of-a-kind.  We played to a screaming inebriated crowd.  Without pickups, my little mando was drowned by the booming bass and ringing guitar.  I'll need to either get a pickup installed in my old Weber mando, or I'll need to break down and get an electric if I am to be heard.

The old man tunes at Burt's in the dark, smoky "musicians area"

We played about twelve songs that lyrically covered the most important things including church, love, loss and a giant ship filled with religion.  Musically, it was an amalgamate of various sounds favoring the bass and the guitar.  The banjo and mando needed to step into the marvelous world of electronics to compete.  I would guess we sound much better during our practices, though a few beloved in attendance claimed we sounded great.

Warming up on stage

With my lack of experience performing, I was unsure what to expect.  I discovered that the well-oiled audience is a grateful and forgiving one, and that the teetotalers in the band were the ones that came through in the end.  The whole ordeal was a lot of fun and I would gladly do it again when the next chance comes.  It's looking like I'll be at it again sometime near the end of May.  Maybe it will finally be warm by then.

The other half of the whirlwind took place in Montana on the Beaverhead and Madison rivers.  I don't have any pictures yet, but I'll post them when they make their way to my inbox.  Dad, uncle, cousin, brothers and I caught probably around one hundred fish over the duration of the trip.  I got a cold (probably from Burt's Tiki Lounge), but managed to fish through it.  The weather was freezing up until the minute it was time to head back to Utah, but the objective was to catch fish.  We reeled them in in great numbers, so the trip was an overwhelming success.  In the future, I will probably be making this trip with Springbar tent and kids in tow.  I'll be the happier for it, though a time will come when I will surely miss the days of responsibility-free fly fishing.  I have seen entire afternoons spent on the bank as father and offspring stare and contemplate massive tangles of unruly nylon as trout rise free of threat or concern.

Of All The Things I Could Be Doing...

...I decide to sit down here and write a blog entry that will inevitably take about six times longer than I intend to spend.

I was in Boise two weeks ago, Portland for two days last week, and I am off to Montana to fly fish tomorrow.  Oh yea, and I am heading off to the bar tonight when I am normally heading for bed.  Have I packed? Have I practiced? Yet here I sit content with a belly full of hot dog and Frank Sinatra singing "Pennies from Heaven" just for me.  And suddenly it occurs to me that I might be happier this very second than I will be tomorrow in the car, or the day after as I freeze in some Montana river.  I tip my hat (circumspectly) to those who never leave the house.  While I am in a hat-tipping mood, I will dive into the purpose of this post.

I tip my hat to the only man who single-handedly created a genera.  The cross-eyed child.

I tip my hat to my Senior Prom date.  The sixteen year old girl who fell in love on an April afternoon while dreaming atop a cooling slab of granite.  She who in three days will wake up alone as a bride of eleven years. 

With nothing redemptive to add, I sign off in record time to head for the waters as Jonah once did, wickedness at the heel and unknown adventure at the toe.

Dare I Put This in Print?

Apparently, I will have the great honor of playing mando at Burt's Tiki Lounge on 22 April.  Voted as one of America's top 20 dive bars in the United States by reputable Stuff Magazine, I am left speechless.  Then again, I could have said no.

A few months ago, I answered one of those "mandolinist wanted" ads you see all over the place these days, and I wound up at a loosely organized tryout of sorts with a band called the Colorado City Runaways.  I played around with them for an hour or so a few weeks ago, and they called back for some more.  A name like "Colorado City Runaways" begs questioning, but they are also the types of questions that can get you in trouble in a hurry.  I kept most of my questions to myself and just played.

I don't consider myself a band member by the way.  Like your least favorite substitute teacher, I am investing little and keeping my bags packed and in hand.  They used to have this really cute girl who could sing and play the mandolin, so like the aforementioned substitute teacher, the band has their eyes peeled for a suitable long-term replacement.  In this case that would be an attractive, singing female version of me.  After a jam/rehearsal a few weeks ago, I offered to wear a dress (in jest of course) to ease the tension, but it did nothing but serve as a reminder of their misfortune and my unalterable biological deficiencies.

Our critical point of difference is our level of commitment.  I don't think it likely that the mandolin will ever be a source of income.  I play for enjoyment and because it is another mode of communication.  Other musicians I associate with have a much higher level of dedication.  With that dedication comes hope for a future in music.  Tenure instead of lowly substitution.

As much as I enjoy chopping with the ol' axe, it's actually pretty low on the list of priorities.  There are about five things or so that are simply far more important, so this will fall by the side when it must.  For some reason, picking tunes in a top 20 "dive bar" just does not seem to be my scene.  Regardless of whether any of you are there or not, I'll be sure to let you know how it goes.

Going Electric

I have wanted an electric mandolin for years, and I think one may be somewhere in my future.  Shortly after buying my current axe of choice, the Vessel F-5, I announced that this was No. 2 of perhaps ten or so.  No. 3 was destined to be either a Bussman Old Wave C# style or some obscure electric.

If you even bothered to read this far, you might ask yourself what an electric mandolin sounds like.  Thanks to YouTube and the Stoneman Family, I found the best mandolin video of all time.  Seriously.

How'd ya like that, daddy?

Now playing the mandolin is great stuff, but this Stoneman chick takes it to a whole new level.  She makes it look like the kind of thing governments either outlaw or highly regulate, and churches decry as outright sin.  If she would have stopped hopping around, I might have been able to find out more about her mandolin.  It is definitely an electric/acoustic, and appears to be a modified Gibson similar to Ole' Hoss, Sam Bush's 1937 Gibson F-5.  I would laugh for a week if it turned out to be the same mandolin, but it isn't.

Knowing very little about guitars in general, and next to nothing about electric guitars has made my electric mandolin search very challenging.  It is not as if one can drop by the local guitar shop and play a handful of samples.  I have only personally seen and played one; a "Tinycaster" made by Gary Vessel.  The following video represents what I am after a little more closely.  Much thanks to SkiBumK27 for posting.

This is no The Lemon Song solo, but we're not talking guitars here either.  This actually makes pretty basic open chord forms sound a lot cooler than they usually do.

In the end, I imagine I will wind up with a solid body model, partly because they seem to be a bit less expensive.  Besides, I will buy it so I can plug it in and make it scream.  My F-5 is more than adequate for my acoustic needs right now.

Plethora of Plectra

I created a good deal of marital friction this week when I announced that I spent a whoppin' thirty five dollars US. on picks.  I tried to blame it on the weak dollar, but that argument fell flat.  Backed into a corner, I successfully countered that I had not spent a dime on picks in nearly ten years.  Given the quantities ordered, I should not need picks for another ten.

Ivoroid pick & mandolin waiting

Without resorting to pun, I am very selective about picks.  I imagine guitar players can be pretty choosy as well.  Melissa and I were at a local guitar shop last weekend just to check out the pick selection.  I was amazed at what is out there for guitars.  They had a whole wall devoted to picks.  There were a few I thought might be fun to try on the mando, but we ended up leaving with our cash.  As I said, I am discerning, exacting and fastidious about my picks.

This is hopefully the last chapter to a very long story.  My first mandolin pick was chosen by an idiot who thought a small instrument required a dainty pick (see near mint eagle pick in picture).  It quickly became apparent that the rapid picking and hearty chopping of bluegrass mandolin required one tough pick.  There was an ominous reason the eagle pick had wings, for on occasion, a mando string would catch the little pick and launch it.  I lost several this way, and the only one remaining is the one I never played with.  Some guy at Intermountain Guitar & Banjo convinced me to buy a Golden Gate pick and mentioned that David Grisman used that pick for years.  I bought one for around $3, but found it was too thick for my taste at that time.

I began using a larger guitar pick (about .75mm thickness) after I gave up on the midget picks.  I would hold it sideways using one of the blunt ends to hit the strings.  This worked great for a few years.

Somewhere during this time, I struck up a friendship with Pete Carney.  Pete takes everything he does seriously, and he does a lot.  He owns an injection molding company in Salt Lake, and he co-designed Butterfly picks.  He gave me a handful, and I have used them for years.  You can see a bunch of them in the middle of the picture below.  I recently decided that I needed to change directions when I lost a pick at a jam and could not cut it with any of the loaners I was offered.  As great as the Butterflies are, they are uncommon.  I also noticed that they are not symmetrical, and the typical user will hold the pick only one way.  The Golden Gates for example, are a triangle.  There are six picking surfaces as opposed to one.  They are cheap, and relatively common.  I resurrected my old Golden Gate, and began using it again.

Is anything "a dime a dozen anymore?"

I began searching for other triangle-style picks in various materials including polycarbonate, Delrin, horn, Tortis, and authentic outlawed hawksbill tortoise.  I quickly decided against the hawksbill route for two good reasons: Availability and jail.  Why get attached to something I won't be able to find easily in the future?  There is also the issue of cost.  I took a plunge in the pressure cooker for buying eighteen picks for $35.  I could have spent that on a single Tortis pick.  Who knows what the going rate is for real tortoise.  With my luck, the going rate would be some astronomical fine or jail time... and they probably wouldn't let me keep my pick.

I have a friend who plays with a tortoise pick made from an old hairbrush.  He got it at some festival for $20.  I have a feeling it meant more to the tortoise than it does to him.

I finally wound up here.  I did not spend hours mining the Internet, but these guys had a great selection for us mandolin players.  Suddenly, the ivoroid picks caught my eye.  The guy who made my mandolin, Gary Vessel, thinks these are terrific.  They have the triangle shape I was after, and they really look great.  Ivoroid is the cool white stuff used to bind guitars and mandolins.  It is made out of celluloid, which is probably one of the most beautiful plastics out there.  On the downside, it degrades rather quickly and is highly volatile during manufacture.  The picks are shaped by hand in their shop and are just about the same size as the famed Golden Gate pick.  I bought six of those and a dozen Golden Gates.

After around twenty four hours of casual get-distracted-by-the-mandolin picking, I must say I really do like the ivoroid picks.  I'm not ready to exclude the GGs, so I keep one of each in the wallet and everything else in the case.  All the others are reminders of good friends and great jams down the road.

Distant Frets

It's no secret.  I have been fighting.  In the corner, a black case covered in faux leather sits untouched as the calluses slowly vanish.  There have been a few moments of joy, but they depart immediately if noticed or outwardly acknowledged.  I have spent hours contemplating the plectrum.  I even took the opportunity to play with genuine outlawed tortoiseshell, carefully created from a pre-ban hairbrush.  

I have measured the nut and made very fine adjustments to the bridge.  There is a tiny piece of rolled paper wedged between both "G" strings on the headstock to help eliminate a faint buzz.  Each of eight strings has been carefully removed, examined and replaced.  I have also checked fret wear.  Still, she offers no reason, and appears willing to give anything requested of her.

I have run multiple patterns ad nauseam.  Many of them are unimpressive, or even ugly in their elemental form.  The left hand hits notes that the right hand can't seem to touch on the up-stroke.  Pick direction is not the problem, and the source has been unbelievably elusive.

On Saturday night, I finally broke through.  The issue was nothing other than a modified pick angle I was consciously trying to change.  I have decided to standardize on easy-to-find Golden Gate picks, though I still really like my Butterfly picks designed and molded by my good friend, Pete Carney.  My playing is far from perfect of course, but once again, it is a stress reliever rather than a contributor.  I already know it can't last forever.  There are always distant frets, just barely out of reach.  One day, I will reach them only to discover others.  In the meantime, my fingertips are sore once again.