Not much charge left on this computer.Went to my first bluegrass festival, this weekend, at Pendarvis Farm in Southeast Portland, where i began my recent adventures, of the last month and a half. Hangin with the pickers, around campfires, picnic tables, and barns was totally inspiring and educational to me, passing around home-made food, instruments, stories, and traditional songs, late into the night, early into the morning. Playing with excellent musicians, and having music be a normal function of everyday life totally opened the floodgates for me, allowing me to understand music and its performance in a way i never have, that has totally lit the fire under my kettle.
Returning to the site where my adventures began allowed me to take stock of a lot of things that have happened, and i have been psyching myself up and preparing to write about all the festivals and travels and bands and revelations that have occurred this summer. In the meantime, i give you some bleak bluegrass music. I'm a total beginner when it comes to bluegrass, a total infant; basically, i like the grateful dead and jerry garcia's solo stuff, a little bill monroe, a little ralph stanley sometimes. This album is the early recordings of Dock Boggs, who was a fantastic banjo player, totally gritty and real. He's best known for his inclusion on Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music. I love a good murder ballad...
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