Come see Blackgrass on Friday at Thinq Tank, along with Leslie Woods and some band full of old farts at play. It's Hellraiser 2k3, the inaugural fundraiser for Hellbender Press.

My four-year-old daughter loves the Ramones (and that song in particular). It was used in the kids film Jimmy Neutron.

Then if your realy ready for a challenge listen to some Diamanda Galas... Now that is some hard listening that I love

and as for the evil banjo, I think most christians would agree lol

I saw Diamanda in New York, lucked out and got in for free, man what a great night. I love Diamanda...

I completely agree with you about perfomance verses recording, Tom Waits talks about this in his interviews he says your sorta like a doctor in the studio and the song is the patient your just trying to keep it alive lol.

I also love a lot of hard metal and punk music live that I would never listen to in my house, the physical thump and pluck of the intstruments is much more immediate in person as well as overtones that don't always record that well.

I also don't care much for the studio recordings of Bill Monroe but love the live recordings of him. I've read the labels actualy tried to get him to tone down and be less raw which would end up in a deader sound than the live recordings, also Bluegrass being an improvisational artform can be difficult to record.

you buy me a beer and i'll let you adopt one of my cats.

I understand when someone says, "I don't speak Hungarian." Right, I don't either. But if someone said, "I hate Hungarian," I wouldn't understand. What's to hate? Just because you don't speak it?

First off Bill Monroe and Earl Scruggs didn't transcend Bluegrass they invented it. Bill Monroe combined the Ancient Irish Mixolodian fiddle melodies with the blues pentatonic scale, and added the improvisational style of Jazz music. Speeding everything up to match the industrial movement of the time trains, steel, cars, etc. This music didn't exist before Bill Monroe. He took an italin instrument, an african instrument, and the irish fiddle to make a completely new form of music, that we call Bluegrass.

Sure there are a lot of mediocre musicians that claim they play bluegrass but that's true of every art form. There are as many great singers/musicians if not more that come out Bluegrass as others.

The Mccoury family
Ricky Scaggs
Allison Kraus
Ralph Stanley
The Carter Family
Bill Keith
Tony Rice
Doc Watson
Peter Rowan(is that his first name)Walls of Time
etc...

I don't know about anyone else, but these ancient melodies move me to tears, and help me to deal with the pain of living, always dying...

Nah, I don't think it's lack of understanding of the form that explains my apathy. I used to listen to lots and lots of bluegrass (and various spin-off genres)for about 15 years, went to bunches of shows & festivals, played a fair amount of banjo/guitar/mando. My tastes tended towards more fusion-y type stuff like Tony Trischka and David Grisman, and more traditional old-timey playing. I never was super hardcore into the "classic" 50s-60s style, but I still liked that stuff a lot

But it's weird...over maybe about a year or so, I just went from finding lots of pleasure in the music, to finding it annoying and grating. I can intellectually appreciate the adventurousness of guys like Don Reno, or Sonny Osborne, or Bill Keith, etc. but the music doesn't speak to me at all.

It's like a big groups of painters who only paint still lifes of fruit, and only use blue paint. Sure, there's a lot of interesting things that can be done, and genius always will shine through, but after a while, one blue fruit painting starts looking like every other blue painting.

Then I went to see Allison Kraus at the Bijou theatre, and Del Mccoury opened up I was just floored by the mandolin, and ever now and then I would think about how good that deeper shade of blue sounded, all the while I'm listening to Sonic Youth, Guided by Voices, Django Reindhardt. I finaly bought the cd like 6 years later and have been wearing out a Deeper shade of blue ever since. I just love Del's voice on that CD, and the song choices they pick.

I had a banjo the entire time and would pull it out to jam at parties and entertain myself and annoy others.

Well in the last few years I decided to make a go at realy learning to play it well, and I'm finding it to be a challenging endeavor. I do think it has something to do with the chemistry of memories, as I can get emotional just playing the melodies to certain old songs. Wayfaring Stranger was my great grandmother's favorite song and I'm proud that I can play it. Granted I wouldn't include it in a set as it's a bit overdone. But I play it around the house all the time, and just let those memories fill my soul.

Ya know I haven't even got to Reno or Grisman yet, I appreciate Tony and Bela but I realy dig having a song in the mix I like to hear solid lyrics.

Just curious which tour did ya see with Diamanda, mine was malediction and prayers just her and the piano and what do ya think about Danny Barnes the bad livers boy do you like him?

http://www.dannybarnes.com/

I understand though we all have different taste. Everbody loves Radiohead and I can appreciate there greatness but I don't care to listen to them much, I like a little more gravel in the gut, like Jeff Buckley or Sonic Youth.

Hey and here's one for ya I can't stand the Beatles, I get beat up for that all the time lol

Sounds like your interest are moving to other things family etc...

Hey ya ever thought about playing music with your kid?

Speaking of which the Roots are coming to town soon and that bass player kicks booty.

The Roots
Boston, MA
Venue: Tweeter Center, Sprite Tour
Sun Sep 14

The content in my opinion is what makes it interesting, the form or language, I find to be only relevant as a reference to time and geography, and become symbolic. The time reference however cannot be denied as a major seventh chord could start a riot in the 1800s now we think of it as common place. the ability enjoy certain sounds change as we listen to them. A chord that we used to think of as a painfull sound becomes rich with harmonic overtones and symbolic, poetic meaning.

However if the content is no good, no amount of skill can help, and only the very base listener will enjoy it.