Offensive fiddle warning

Subject: RE: Offensive fiddle warning
From: John P
Date: 11 Nov 12 - 01:26 PM

Lots of fast notes with a not-very-imaginative old-style hard rock (NOT heavy metal) backing that doesn't really follow the tune. Boring. An ending with one more asshole breaking (or pretending to break, it doesn't matter) a musical instrument.

It looks like communicating an attitude is more important than the music.

Subject: RE: Offensive fiddle warning
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 11 Nov 12 - 01:25 PM

A fantastic video, rather that than all the boring trad mamby pamby playing in a pub session fiddlers!!!

Subject: RE: Offensive fiddle warning
From: Midchuck
Date: 11 Nov 12 - 12:49 PM

Sorry. Hit "submit" first rather than last.

What I meant to say was, the 60s psychedelic videos aren't the worst.

The 70s are.

My Proof:

Peter

Subject: RE: Offensive fiddle warning
From: Midchuck
Date: 11 Nov 12 - 12:46 PM

Subject: RE: Offensive fiddle warning
From: Beer
Date: 11 Nov 12 - 12:16 PM

Poor choice of words by saying
"completely bored". Iapologizee for this.
ad.

Subject: RE: Offensive fiddle warning
From: GUEST,Big Al Whittle
Date: 11 Nov 12 - 12:15 PM

Music's great. the video is very dated in concept - like those bloody awful 1960's psychedelic films. I always hated them.

Do you remember Jean Luc Ponty who used to play with Zappa - at least I saw him a couple of times doing so. Now there was a fiddler a bit like Hendrix - more like him than this guy. Very nice though he is.

Subject: RE: Offensive fiddle warning
From: meself
Date: 11 Nov 12 - 10:57 AM

Me brudder tells me he saw Ashley two nights ago, at the Scottish Club in Windsor, Ontario, and that it was a 'great show' - which I take to mean it was straight-ahead, no-nonsense Cape Breton fiddling.

I don't think Ashley is 'completely bored' with traditional tunes, since he seems to continue to play them with great spirit and vigor - however, I think he WOULD be bored with them if he never played anything else, or in anything other than trad. style - but I think that could be said of many outstanding trad. musicians. He and Nathalie M. were the first two Cape Breton fiddlers to make full-time professional careers of their music - I imagine it's one thing to play the dance in Mabou every Saturday night, and quite another to perform every night of the week and twice on Sunday for years on end. The boredom factor might well set in ....

Btw, there are reams of clips on youtube of Ashley playing in conventional style and setting - not sure why anyone is passing judgement on him on the basis of this one clip - other than that it is the one that the OP, for reasons that are not entirely clear, chose to draw our attention to.

Subject: RE: Offensive fiddle warning
From: Beer
Date: 10 Nov 12 - 11:38 PM

Dead on Barbara.
I just got home from playing guitar with 7 fiddlers. Great time. they are probably still going at it. Ashley was a no show. Damn.
ad.

Subject: RE: Offensive fiddle warning
From: Beer
Date: 10 Nov 12 - 11:33 PM

I'm going out on the limb on this.

I truly believe that Ashley is a fiddling genius. I'll also say that I do not like what he does when he steps out of the traditional box. I think he is completely bored with traditional tunes because if I was to guess, it came to him so easy to learn and play. He had to break away. Much to the disappointment of many. I was back stage at a festival when I passed by him and and said "Break a leg". He said thanks then was called up. He sat on a chair and played for over an hour non stop. He did all the traditional tunes as well as White Christmas then You are my Sunshine, back to Here Comes Santa Clause. He was there (I.M.O.) completely bored and playing whatever came to mind. The audience went completely wild with appraise.
Despite what Steve Mansfield said above, in my book he Einsteinine (and #Hendrix#). Way ahead of his time.

Ad.

Subject: RE: Offensive fiddle warning
From: Barbara
Date: 10 Nov 12 - 11:06 PM

The fiddle? I'd guess they went to some trouble to stage that to shock people. And I'd also guess it's a set up for a bad boy image -- borrow a fiddle from someone who is repairing it, or one in need of repair, drop it in the video, and then back to the shop with it.
Or it came from a thrift store, already separated. Someone found it that way.

The back is already lifted when it hits the ground; nothing further breaks; you don't see him throw or drop it; and nothing obvious is damaged further by the fall. No splinters; no stepping on it; nope.

Dropping it would not cause that particular kind of damage IMHO.

Blessings
Barbara

Subject: RE: Offensive fiddle warning
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 10 Nov 12 - 09:55 PM

Ashley played at home this summer on Port Hawkesbury's Granville Green. He played very well and he played mostly traditional stuff with a couple of newer tunes thrown in but nothing too wild. He said that home was the hardest place to play because the people all knew him as a youngster and expected the same music from him now. He didn't disappoint!

Subject: RE: Offensive fiddle warning
From: gnu
Date: 10 Nov 12 - 09:37 PM

We can all agree to disagree then?

Right. Hands up for agree? Now, hands up for disagree? Fuck! Half and half. Any ideas on that? I mean, someONE has to be RIGHT, eh? No....?

Subject: RE: Offensive fiddle warning
From: meself
Date: 10 Nov 12 - 08:44 PM

Which could be said of many pairs of melodies from within almost any tradition - particularly as heard by those from outside the tradition.

Subject: RE: Offensive fiddle warning
From: michaelr
Date: 10 Nov 12 - 08:11 PM

Yeah, I've always liked that one. MJL is great, and so is IMA. But listen back to the tune in the OP, and there isn't much difference. They could well be variants of each other.

Subject: RE: Offensive fiddle warning
From: gnu
Date: 10 Nov 12 - 07:58 PM

Sleepy Maggie in which Mary Jane is at some of her best IMO. Ashley does a great job as well. But, that is expected from a misfit. Otherwise he wouldn't be tolerated.

Subject: RE: Offensive fiddle warning
From: GUEST,DrWord
Date: 10 Nov 12 - 06:35 PM

what Artful_Codger said. Yeah. What Artful_Codger said!!!!! preeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeecisely!!!!

keep on pickin'
dennis

Subject: RE: Offensive fiddle warning
From: gnu
Date: 10 Nov 12 - 06:33 PM

I warned yas.

Fact is, fer me, I AM trad... that's what I used to play and sing when I could still do so. I still sing trad songs to myself, of course. But, there is only ONE kinda music that I simply do not like and it would be terribly rude for me to say anything about Baptist Hymns... or those DEATH & DESTRUCTION types... gee whiz... that's at least two.

As for the comments regarding quality, outstanding! Positive and otherwise.

As for the comments regarding judging others' tastes... well, I can understand but, some of them? Gee whiz, eh?

Say... anyone got some good fiddle tune links? Leave out the Maritimers, eh... that's a given. >;-)

Subject: RE: Offensive fiddle warning
From: Continuity Jones
Date: 10 Nov 12 - 06:07 PM

What I find so dull with music like this is the clod hopping backing track. It seems whenever trad crosses into this territory it always meets up with 3rd rate genrists who do a reasonable impersonation of how something once sounded fresh 40 years ago. Now though it merely sounds like a hoary old pastiche by a band of grand-dads trying to be cool.

Subject: RE: Offensive fiddle warning
From: michaelr
Date: 10 Nov 12 - 05:49 PM

Yeah, that's why they called him Papa John Screech. I haven't forgotten. He was painful to listen to.

As I said, Ashley MacIsaac has plenty of trad cred in his background. I happen not to like what he chose to do with it.

Subject: RE: Offensive fiddle warning
From: Mark Clark
Date: 10 Nov 12 - 03:41 PM

Folks have evidently forgotten Papa John Creach playing electric fiddle with Hot Tuna. Creach and Jorma Kaukonen trading screaming licks in front of a 50 foot wall of amps & speakers. It got so you couldn't tell who's lead you were hearing.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Offensive fiddle warning
From: Midchuck
Date: 10 Nov 12 - 01:22 PM

I'm with meself. (that sounds wrong, but how else can I say it?)

"I don't like the way he plays the instrument" is not equal to "He plays the instrument poorly". It's quite possible to be amazed by a performer's ability even if the music itself does nothing, or less, for you. That's why I watch grand opera on the tube sometimes.

P.

Subject: RE: Offensive fiddle warning
From: meself
Date: 10 Nov 12 - 10:30 AM

"Over-amplified"? No doubt. "Idiot"? He's been accused of worse. But "talentless"? As I say, you don't have to like what he's doing, but that word simply doesn't apply here.

Subject: RE: Offensive fiddle warning
From: GUEST,Woodsie
Date: 10 Nov 12 - 07:54 AM

Nothing really new though here's High Tide from 1969 Death Warmed Up

Subject: RE: Offensive fiddle warning
From: Artful Codger
Date: 10 Nov 12 - 07:52 AM

And a "who gives a toss what some random people think" button. Making listening decisions based on the "taste" of the herd is just another fast track to mediocrity and homogeneity.

Subject: RE: Offensive fiddle warning
From: alex s
Date: 10 Nov 12 - 07:38 AM

There should also be an "EXCELLENT" button, Happy

Subject: RE: Offensive fiddle warning
From: SteveMansfield
Date: 10 Nov 12 - 07:37 AM

> Jimmy Hendricks

Who presumably is a talentless overamplified idiot who plays in your local pub until someone manages to stop him.

If the endlessly inventive electric guitarist Jimmy #Hendrix# had played like that, we'd have forgotten all about him a long, long time ago ....

Subject: RE: Offensive fiddle warning
From: Mr Happy
Date: 10 Nov 12 - 05:47 AM

There should be a 'DON'T LIKE' button on here!

Subject: RE: Offensive fiddle warning
From: katlaughing
Date: 09 Nov 12 - 10:56 PM

i've got one of his earlier cds and i've always liked it. it has what i would call more heavy rock.

i do not like the end...no fiddle deserves that

Subject: RE: Offensive fiddle warning
From: Beer
Date: 09 Nov 12 - 10:55 PM

Ashley is to the fiddle as Jimmy Hendricks was to the guitar.
Adrien

Subject: RE: Offensive fiddle warning
From: meself
Date: 09 Nov 12 - 10:31 PM

The tune he's playing in the video is 'Bog an Lochan'.

Ashley 'actually started out as a very talented fiddler' and went on to be an extraordinarily talented fiddler. Which doesn't mean anyone is required to like what he's doing in that video.

Subject: RE: Offensive fiddle warning
From: michaelr
Date: 09 Nov 12 - 10:14 PM

Ah yes, the bad boy of Cape Breton fiddling. He's been getting mileage out of these variations on "Drowsy Maggie" (or is it "Sleepy Maggie"? I can never remember) for twenty years now.

Ashley MacIsaac, from a family that includes Natalie McMaster, actually started out as a very talented fiddler. I guess he just had to rebel.

Subject: Offensive fiddle warning
From: gnu
Date: 09 Nov 12 - 09:47 PM

Heavy metal fiddle. Viewer discretion is advised.