I play the banjo and I am proud of it

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: olddude
Date: 12 Oct 09 - 09:24 PM

I am proud of my banjo but not how bad I play it

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 12 Oct 09 - 09:20 PM

Guy, for equal time (on dissed instruments), check out this full film (of which that is only a clip), especially at 3:12. These are multi-talented gals!

~ Becky in Long Beach this week

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: Guy Wolff
Date: 12 Oct 09 - 06:15 PM

AND <><>>< Wait for it <><>><> fantastic English Kitchen Banjo


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4gPWB80uyc



I love this guy . Al the best , Guy

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: Guy Wolff
Date: 12 Oct 09 - 06:08 PM

A lot of Banjos !!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT5HpK0eWW4

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: Patrick-Costello
Date: 12 Oct 09 - 05:48 PM

I love my banjo and I love my guitar even more now that I can hear!

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/10/12/cc-friendly-folk-fes.html

-Patrick
http://dailyfrail.com/

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: Banjiman
Date: 12 Oct 09 - 05:43 PM

Matt, I'm with you mate.

Favourite is another matter (though I like Dan's playing a lot) to best. IMHO.

But hey, let's all just enjoy the talent that's being linked to from this thread.

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 12 Oct 09 - 04:40 PM

by the way, Ed Hicks is playing the Kit & Cutter folk night in Deptford on Saturday. I've not heard him before but I'm looking forward to it - he's another young old-timey clawhammer player apparently...

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 12 Oct 09 - 04:38 PM

Thing is, if you're talking from a purely technical point of view you'd have just as good a case for saying John Dowland is the best banjo player in the UK. (Not sure what his parents were thinking when they gave him that name! Probably wanted him to become a musician...)

He's also impressively young. In terms of technical ability he's certainly on a par with Dan Walsh. Different style of playing - Dowland's 3-finger, and coming from that Trishka/Bela Fleck jazzy fusion school of 'newgrass'. He was the first Brit to win that national US competition.

But I can't say I'm really a fan of that type of playing. In any school - fast bluegrass or fast clawhammer tends to get a bit mechanistic and leaves me ultimately cold.

My fave banjoists are probably Frank Profitt and Peggy Seeger. Neither of whose playing was/is exactly flashy. They played banjo as an organic part of being a singer singing a song.

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: Banjiman
Date: 12 Oct 09 - 04:28 PM

I'll ask him if he is embarrassed about his label (not originally given to him by me) when I see him.

I didn't say music was a competition, but sometimes you see a level of technical excellence that you just know you can't attain......and neither can many/ any others. That's just how it is!

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 Oct 09 - 03:32 PM

yes, he is very good/excellent,
but no I dont agree,because its difficult to say one person is better than another when they are playing in different styles or totally different types of banjo,music is not a competition
I expect he[dan Walsh] is embarrassed about such a statement.

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: Banjiman
Date: 12 Oct 09 - 02:51 PM

"I dont like this best rubbish."


Respect where it is due Dick. Sometimes you just have to accept that someone is better than you (well me actually)..... and everyone else you've ever heard.

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: greg stephens
Date: 12 Oct 09 - 02:40 PM

Most of the clips posted suffer from only presenting one banjo at a time. Not so with this one, Barney McKenna asks a few friends round.

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 Oct 09 - 01:06 PM

I dont like this best rubbish.

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: Marje
Date: 12 Oct 09 - 12:49 PM

Well, I like the banjo very much and enjooy hearing it played. I'd never make a banjo joke.

But then I play melodeon ...

Marje

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 12 Oct 09 - 12:42 PM

Banjos got a bad name because of a vast number of lousy banjoists, who tended to drown out everyone else (banjos are LOUD).

An extremely easy instrument to get started with, it's all too tempting the progress from halting, simple noise into virtuosic, high-speed noise.

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: banjoman
Date: 12 Oct 09 - 10:54 AM

I have been playing banjo now for almost 50 years and more recently started making them, mainly for myself although I have sold the odd one or two. I currently have about 20 banjos in various stages ranging from playable to in bits. I love banjo jokes and am amazed at the wit that thinks them up. However, my favourite ploy is to change them to Melodeon jokes, as I absolutely detest these instruments no matter who is playing them. I refer to them as the last refuge of the musically inept.
Some of my best friends play melodeons
Pete

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 12 Oct 09 - 03:56 AM

Hi Russ,

Thanks for the reference - now I'll just have to see if I can find it.

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: Banjiman
Date: 12 Oct 09 - 02:49 AM

Dan Walsh. The best banjo player in the UK? (He's still in his early 20's)

Prepare to weep. Come see him at Kirkby Fleetham Folk Club on Saturday 14th November.

This guy is brilliant!

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: Rasener
Date: 12 Oct 09 - 02:27 AM

Don't know if this was already posted.

Robert with the Pixies snippet on you tube

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: Charley Noble
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 08:42 PM

I play a vintage S.S. Stewart Orchestra 5-string banjo and here's a link to how I play Johnnie o' Breadisley in my arrangement of John Masefield's poem "Mother Carey": Click here for lyrics and MP3 Sample!

What'cha think?

"If you use a banjo as a snow shovel, do so, only don't wonder if it sounds dull afterwards", attributed to Samual S. Stewart.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: Peace
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 07:23 PM

"I play the banjo and I am proud of it"

Me too.

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 06:33 PM

Greg - I tried googling to get a clip of Robert or the Pixies before I posted, but could only find this

Kitty

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: The Vulgar Boatman
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 06:15 PM

Since it's my birthday, two sketches from a long life - where other pubs had a cribbage session on Sunday lunchtimes, we had a banjo school in the Top House in Bramcote in the sixties... and the sainted Barney once offered to run away with my missus. Thankfully, she refused the offer. Still playing a battered but much loved Jack Abbot.

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: greg stephens
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 06:05 PM

Robert Murch, the current superstar of the banjo firmament, was mentioned earlier. Anyone know how to find some video? Forget bluegrass, old time. Murch picking is where it's at. When I heard him I pretty nearly smashed my banjo.

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: Joe_F
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 05:46 PM

On a banjo should be written: This machine kills blue devils.

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: Acorn4
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 05:42 PM

I didn't realise this thread was coming up otherwise I would have recorded this and stuck it on Youtube -may well do that if the thread is still up and running in a couple of day's time:-

My humble offering:-

Banjos 'R' Sexy.

1.Well I'm driving down the highway,
Kinda surveying the scene
Giving all the chicks the eye
If yo all know what I mean
A trail of dust and broken hearts
But I don't give a damn.
I love em and I leave em,
That's the kinda guy I am.

2.It ain't my fifty gallon hat
Or my designer stubble,
My hairy chest,
That bulge in my Levis
Girls find irresistible
It ain't my daddy's millions
Or my open top Ford Mustang
My animal magnetism, my infinite modesty, or my all over suntan.

3.Now them good ole boys they envy me
I always get the girl
You either got it or you ain't
I tell them as my lip curls
You all cain't do what I can do
They all knew what I meant
As I leapt into the backseat
And produced my instrument.

Now I know some folks will disagree
But Its so plain for everyone to see:-

Chorus:-

Banjos are sexy, Banjos are cool,
All joking aside, those banjos rule OK
As I go round from town to town
I hear the folks all sing
Who's that guy with the banjo
He pulls the women and the strings.

4.Now John Wayne and Clint Eastwood,
Were both real megadudes,
But me , I put them in the shade,
Picking my good ole banjo tunes,
With it strapped around my shoulders
I'm feeling so well hung,
Let my fingers do the walking,
As it rattles like a machine gun.


My banjo makes me feel like I'm a King
At least it would if I could play the sodding thing.

Chorus:-

Banjos are sexy...

5.Mothers lock up their daughters
Slap asbos on my head,
But they all scream and wet themselves
As I hit that G spot dead ,
Then they'll throw their knickers on the stage,
I'll throw them back at them,.
or use then to wipe
The sweat from off my good ole
Five string friend.

Old banjos never die, you'll hear me croon
They just go slowly out of tune.

Chorus

Lers banjos sont sexy
Les banjos sont cool
Cen'est pas un badinage
Les banjos regnesur le monde OK
Et comme je roule de ville on ville
On dit "Orgh, c'est rock and roll
Et donnez moi un home avec le sexy banjo.

The song was actually written because I'm trying seriously to learn the five string, and I wanted a song to do where the cock-ups don't matter too much.

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 05:39 PM

Rob Murch - wonderful banjo player, plays with the Dartmoor Pixies, who will be playing for the Haddenham ceilidh next month on 7 November!

Kitty

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: Rasener
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 04:22 PM

Well I think that Banjo players are less disliked than bodhran players :-)

I don't think people dislike banjo players, but maybe banjo players can't take the jokes as easily as other instrument players

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 04:17 PM

Shimrod,

For a detailed analyis of the transformation of the image of banjos, banjo players,and banjo playing during the 19th and 20th centuries, see See Karen Linn's "That Half-Barbaric Twang: THE BANJO IN AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE".

Russ (Permanent GUEST and banjo player)

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: Don Firth
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 03:29 PM

Hmm! I don't think I've ever encountered this. I know that miscellaneous smart remarks are made about just about every musical instrument there is ("An oboe is an ill wind that nobody blows good!"}, but is actual predudice against the banjo a real issue?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 03:23 PM

I've never understood where this prejudice against banjos comes from. As a non-player it's always been one of my favourites for listening to.

If I thought that playing any sort of instrument was remotely possible (which I'm sure it isn't - people who do play must be projecting some sort of complex illusion) I would like to play a banjo.

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: Don Firth
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 03:20 PM

I have a banjo and I'm not afraid to use it!
             --Tom Rawson, local (Seattle area) singer/banjoist

Don Firth

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: Rasener
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 02:38 PM

http://www.keithpearson.co.uk/

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 02:20 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wGgvbHcgyc&feature=related

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 02:11 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgmceZoM1Y8&feature=related check out all the ROSCOE HOLCOMB,THERE IS AGREAT VERSION OF LITLE GRAY MULE

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: Rasener
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 01:40 PM

You naughty little boy Timmy :-) You will go blind :-)

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 01:37 PM

Me and me mates used to do "Banjo"
We would gather in darkened rooms
Wear bib fronted overalls and arm bands and play with each other.
In those days it was illegal even between consenting adults.
Today there is still a certain stigma attached to the practice but it does me old heart good to know that there are younger better players out there. Who are not ashamed,will not hide their predilections away,
And are prepared to be proud and LOUD!

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: stallion
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 01:20 PM

mmmmmmmm Paulo two wonderful thumbs to be under! Lucky bugger!

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: Rasener
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 01:05 PM

Who was the banjo player in the last video?

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: Rasener
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 12:45 PM

This one seems quite appropriate for the men and women who deliver letters in the UK

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kL7FpOAOoMQ&feature=related

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: Rasener
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 12:42 PM

I just love this one. I think thats the tenor banjo. Just love te sound. A guy called John Bastable.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpA5vxAEYUQ&feature=related

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: Rasener
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 12:37 PM

>>Just watched the clip. That is very jolly! Listening to that has just got to put you in a good frame of mind!<<

Which one. there are 2

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: Banjiman
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 12:28 PM

"Those women have you under their thumb. :-)"

You're only jealous Les.

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 12:25 PM

Just watched the clip. That is very jolly! Listening to that has just got to put you in a good frame of mind!

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: Rasener
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 12:24 PM

A banjo should lead Paul (just like Lonnie Donegan). Those women have you under their thumb. :-)

Goo plug though :-)

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: Banjiman
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 12:17 PM

...... on my Goldtone Bob Carlin 350 special.

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: Banjiman
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 12:16 PM

Here's something a bit more subtle, just to prove that the 5 string banjo can work to accompany british folky style music.

I'm playing with the Mrs and the much too talented Rebekah Findlay (the fiddler who gave me a good whooping above).

One Stone (+ banjo player) The Visito(e)r

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: Rasener
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 12:11 PM

Now you just be careful young man, or I may have to come over there and banjo you :-)

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: Banjiman
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 12:10 PM

Villan, it's OK my great grandparents told me about him......

Subject: RE: I play the banjo and I am proud of it
From: Mooh
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 12:08 PM

Greg...Haven't read the thread yet, just watched your first posted YouTube link. I love your band, absolutely love it, and the first thing that came to mind was how am I going to put one like it together?

You must have so much fun!

Peace, Mooh.