September 2010

2 Lousy Cell Phone Pictures Of The Exhibition & A Neat One Of A Dog

3 September 2010, 12:25

Already September! With all the activity lately ether I haven’t had time or was simply too tired to blog. Last week’s opening went well, it’s always nice when all the galleries of a certain area open their respective shows on the same evening, gets folks out and walking. The gallerists of most cities have figured that out and Zürich is no exception, I think they’ve divided the city into four areas which have independent gallery nights. It was sunny and hot out, and a bit muggy too. I dropped my stuff off at the hotel downtown, walked to the gallery – about 15-20min away – and just started pouring sweat once indoors… for what seemed like hours, terrible. Fortunately there was a refreshingly fruity pinot blanc to sip on, it’s nice to be with gallery that still serves decent wine!…
How to Play Bones w/ Dom Flemons

4 September 2010, 17:57

How to Play Bones w/ Dom Flemons from Thomas P. Ciaburri.

A fun little rhythm bone tutorial by the Carolina Chocolate Drops’ Dom Flemons!
Some Cool Festiverbant 2010 Crawfish Blues Band Pictures

6 September 2010, 07:53

A portfolio of pictures of the Crawfish Blues Band taken at the Festiverbant by photographer Sitatof (Christophe Losberger). Thanks man!
…
K.M. Williams and Washboard Jackson, Live at KNON, 9/17/10

19 September 2010, 11:22

Sitting on Top of the World
A little Sunday morning Trainreck. (K.M. Williams, Washboard Jackson).

Electric Blues wise these days it rarely gets better than this!

K.M. Williams at reverbnation
K.M. Williams at netvibes
K.M. Williams at myspace
Trainreck at myspace
Washboard Jackson at myspace
Cutoff Washboard

22 September 2010, 18:48

I had been thinking about cutting down the Columbus zinc washboard I use for playing electric blues because of the fact that these days I mostly end up playing sitting at the drum set. And the old National 801 brass board I use for playing with friend Dave’s acoustic blues is slightly shorter than the Columbus and the more I switch between them, the more I notice how nice it is to have that little bit of extra space above the thighs, freeing up my legs for drumming. But I wasn’t quite sure how I wanted to go about it, keep the wood logo plank for knocking or not, until last Sunday that is… You can see how I was directly inspired by Washboard Jackson’s washboard in the video below!
Show Me Your Washboard!

26 September 2010, 13:11

This is a series of 20 short videos from YouTube user tambourine21 that more or less show 19 washboards from the Jug Band Fes(T?) 2007 in, I guess, Tokyo Japan (You can move from one to another with the right – left scrolling arrows).
“I guess” because the info is in Japanese, a language I unfortunately do not read or speak, “more or less” because not all the videos really show the player’s washboard and 19 because one of them is a spoon player.

Hardly anyone actually plays their board
More Snare Or Less Snare?

30 September 2010, 10:16

Every once in a while these last years someone in the blues band I play in would ask “why don’t you get a snare?” And I would answer “because I’m happy with my washboard and bones, and have enough to learn already”. But sometime last winter Blaise, who already had and old drum set lying around, bought a newer one (used) and so as much out of curiosity as anything I pick up his old snare and added it to my set. I had mixed feeling about this, one being the worry that if I actually learned how to use it, I might be pushing the band towards and more electric blues style that I wasn’t sure I actually wanted to be playing. But temptation comes in all forms and there it was…