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Looking for music by Clam Chowder

31 Jan 98 - 12:06 PM (#20323)
Subject: Looking for music by Clam Chowder
From: Robert Alley (BoB)

Almost 10 years ago a friend made a copy of a tape containing ol' style Bardic and Filk music. I remember that he said that the group was either Clam Chowder or a splinter group of them. There were songs such as The Ol' Dunn Cow Burned Down or Moggy wasn't Moggy Anymore (not necessarily correct spelling or titles). The music was performed by perhaps three or four men and one or two women singing and playing guitar, mandolin, autoharp type stringed instruments. Thanks in advance for any leads or information anyone can provide!


02 Feb 98 - 12:17 PM (#20464)
Subject: RE: Looking for music by Clam Chowder
From: Bruce O.

They used to be in the Washington, DC area, but I haven't heard of them for several years now. One of the women (Kathy -?) also played a regular harp, and I've heard her sing to her playing, solo.


02 Feb 98 - 04:29 PM (#20487)
Subject: RE: Looking for music by Clam Chowder
From: Bruce O.

The best place to look would be to find the 'House of Musical Traditions' in Tacoma Park, MD (north edge of Washington, DC) on a search engine and go to their catalog of recordings. They carry records and tapes of many local groups was well as nationally and internationally known groups. If you can't find it come back and let me know. I think I could relocate the web link, but don't have it at present.


02 Feb 98 - 04:45 PM (#20490)
Subject: RE: Looking for music by Clam Chowder
From: Bruce O.

Forget above, I went through last year's HMT catalog and there's nothing by Clam Chowder. I don't recall seeing any recordings by them and your tape may have been made at a concert. I tried to do this at one of their gigs at a folk festival, but I had the wrong kind of mic and got more crowd noise than Clam Chowder, and junked the tape.


05 Feb 98 - 11:13 PM (#20763)
Subject: RE: Looking for music by Clam Chowder
From: BoB

Thanks Bruce,

I'm going to try to locate my friends if I can and keep looking. I figured this would be a cold, hard trail. If anything comes up I'll let you know.

Thanks again and take care,

BoB


12 Mar 01 - 07:50 PM (#416163)
Subject: RE: Looking for music by Clam Chowder
From: GUEST,ketil

try searching for the markland medieval mercenary militia home page, some of the members may well have contact points for former members of Clam Chowder as the band was composed mainly of Marklanders.


12 Mar 01 - 09:34 PM (#416238)
Subject: RE: Looking for music by Clam Chowder
From: GutBucketeer

I just "discovered" Clam Chowder when I was looking for examples of "How Can I Keep From Singing" on the web for a voice class I am taking. WOW! they are fantastic!. Incredible harmonies. I even tracked down their web site. It is here:

http://members.aol.com/sirharper/chowder/

You can buy 2 CDs and past cassettes from the website.

It looks like they will be playing at Balticon, the Sci-Fi Convention.

I also heard from my voice teacher that they may be playing at the Royal Mile Pub in Wheaton on June 2nd, 2001.

I have never seen them and really look forward to it.

JAB


13 Mar 01 - 01:10 PM (#416691)
Subject: RE: Looking for music by Clam Chowder
From: z!

The Clams are currently schedule to play Friday night at Balticon, the Baltimore Science Fiction Society's annual conference (www.bsfs.org). They have some great new material, too.

Re the CD's: John did a fine job of pulling songs off the old (and badly stored) analog master tapes, and then mastering the CD's. The song lists are on the web site. Sometime, I'll finish entering the complete discography, and maybe the full song list.

(Gak! Has it -really- been 20+ years?)

z! Techni-Clam, retired (autoharp/bones/vocals/sound)


13 Mar 01 - 03:15 PM (#416787)
Subject: RE: Looking for music by Clam Chowder
From: GUEST,Lynn T

The group still lives in the DC area -- it's soprano/harpist Kathy Sobansky, tenor/guitar John Huff, singer/harper/bass Bob Esty (the sirharper of the above address) and a couple newer folks whose names escape me at present.

Kathy, her husband Ed, Bob and his wife Sue (also recorded as their own ensemble, "Voice of the Turtle") are the core of Clan Cambion, a large group/loose household that used to bridge SCA and Markland, but is now mostly SCA, and which is known for breaking into song at the drop of a hat ("Processions R Us"). The 25-person Thanksgiving dinners at Sobansky's home, Caer Bear, are one continuous echo of multipart harmony... By the way, "Turtle" played the Crownsville Renaissance Faire for years; don't know if they're doing that again this summer.

Lynn


13 Mar 01 - 09:36 PM (#417030)
Subject: RE: Looking for music by Clam Chowder
From: Bob Bolton

G'day,

I see that our GUEST,Lynn T has posted above and I remember a thread a few months back started by Lynn:

Was Your Grandma a Whore?.

Interestingly, I fielded a request from a friend of my youngest brother, a few weeks back, for this very song (inter alia). I did suggest that it sounds quite like a purely American (with English collaboration?) libel of us fine upstanding Aussies ... or a wish not to mention that all the best whores ended up in America before our relatively brief period as a replacement dumping ground for convicts.

Regard(les)s,

Bob Bolton


14 Mar 01 - 09:46 AM (#417254)
Subject: RE: Looking for music by Clam Chowder
From: Jacob B

The Clam Chowder web site mentioned above deserves a blue clicky:

Click here


03 Jun 07 - 12:50 PM (#2067325)
Subject: RE: Looking for music by Clam Chowder
From: GUEST,Carolk

The song: Was Your Grandma a Whore? Is actually titled: Son of a Scoundrel by Shel Silverstein.


06 Sep 13 - 05:55 AM (#3556520)
Subject: RE: Looking for music by Clam Chowder
From: BrooklynJay

According to their website, Clam Chowder will be disbanding after this year's Darkover convention in November.

Truly sad news, as far as I'm concerned. For many reasons - some purely musical, and some purely personal - I had hoped to be able to see one of their live performances.

Now, however... Not so sure. (sigh)


Jay


06 Sep 13 - 08:08 PM (#3556707)
Subject: RE: Looking for music by Clam Chowder
From: dick.hamlet

I happened on this thread too late...

I have an LP titled something like "Clam Chowder for Here or To Go",
which has their signature "Son of a Scoundrel" and others, but a
complete lack of credits -- not even listing the band!

The AOL site doesn't seem to be functioning any more. Send me
a PM if you are interested in the LP, which I could transcribe
to an MP3 format.


06 Sep 13 - 09:37 PM (#3556730)
Subject: RE: Looking for music by Clam Chowder
From: BrooklynJay

This link should work: Clam Chowder Music

Dick, I'll consider your offer. Many thanks. I do know that many (but not all) of the songs from their earlier albums were remastered onto CD's that are available from their website.


Jay