Empty Nest Syndrome

Maybe that is why I keep starting banjos -  My work table freshly empty calls out for another banjo to begin. Actually I have an idea about trying to get that high lonesome sound that Bill Monrow spoke about, the two string chords of the mountain fiddle player, with a little 3 stringed banjo.

Rooting about in my studio for a piece of wood for the neck I came upon a wonderful old thing from a neighbor's house.  It was that part of the house that Japanese call a, "nageshi."  It is a heavy strip of  wood that runs all around a traditional Japanese  room, about top of the head height along the top half of the wall beams.  I do not know the original purpose, but the locals use it for hanging things, everything from art, to certificates from the emperor, to shirts on hangers you intend to wear the next day.  The room my neighbor was renovating was built some time in the Meiji Era.  That tree was cut down over 100 years ago, cut and ripped and worked all by hand out of Japanese wood.  More effort went into that nageshi than digging and cutting a diamond.  I could not see the wood thrown away, so it waited in my studio for this banjo call.  It is a kind of softwood, unusual for an instrument neck, but hard, straight grained and strong.  I had to fill some nail holes, as it is originally attached, nailed into the beams through a "V" shaped carpenter's cuts in the back.

It is part of the fun, wondering how it will sound, or if it will even work.

R2D2

The good news is that the sheet metal is on the banjo and stopped cutting my fingers.  The bad news is that the resonator sound it makes got me way too interested in blues and the slide sound.  I am seriously thinking of  making the rounds of the recycle shops and buying a 50 dollar Japanese guitar like Hound Dog Tailor had.

One things does lead to another in this world.

an inturption

Last night walking through Ueno Park I heard sounds.  It is my usual course, from my studio at the end of a good day, to the pub on a Saturday night.  Last night my way was blocked by a  parade, rolling right down the main wide Ueno Hiokoji.

The group I saw first Japanese ladies, 50 of them in the same colored  yukatas, dancing a summer festival dance, with a big loud speaker pulled out in front of them and a scratchy record playing a traditional Japanese song.  Next came the samba, drums and whistles and some very genki dancers on one of the hottest nights of the year.

Libby's Ride

I was just looking at Libby's travel Blog, her and friend in a wagon traversing America.  Downsizing.  Real nice.  Up from the Southwest and back to the land where the Conestoga began.

http://www.whittleddown.com/2010/07/grand-tour.html

sharp metal

I hate working with sheet metal.  I can't go 2 minutes without cutting my finger, foot, leg, or arm.   I don't know how my late friend Shoki did it, putting up sheet copper roofing every day.  But as I remember he turned up at the pub with new bandages on his hands most every day.  I hate sheet metal, but this dobro banjo just can't go any other way.  I tired strips of teak on the front and it looked like someones patio. 

sheet stainless

Stay tuned

back streets

I went down the big wide Meiji Dori to get food for the rabbits. 

On the way home I went a stray, little streets I had no idea were there.  Animal trails that turned into roads not long after Edo.  People that live, tiny family factories, shopping streets, all fading, in the back shadow of these big new apartment buildings.  Different people, a society hidden from the new main stream, as they are not on the way to the station or the grocery store.   Apartment house ghosts have no idea that people live behind them.  (Don't tell them)

I found this drunken dancing dog on a shutter of a pet shop sinking now into time.

New Banjo

I am making another banjo.

Years ago my wife asked my mother, “How many banjos does a person need?” It was a good question. My answer continues to be, “One more.”

Each one is different. One long with a shamisen neck, one short made with a tambourine, for putting in my bag, one with a dobro resonator, making a blues sort of a sound.

This new one is altogether different.

Japanese father

It is essential for a father in Japan to have pets to feed in the morning, especially a father of teenagers. The rabbits wait expectantly, the birds begin to sing, even the goldfish rise up in their tank when they feel my steps through the earth.