Rattlebrained

We, Swamp Train, had a fantastic time last night at the _Festival Outdoorelch near Balmberg BE, and want to thank the everyone there! A small festival on a hilltop among the many that cover the landscape south of Bern, an area where enough artists have lost their way in the 11 years it has taken place that the organizer just shrugged and laughed when our guitarist, Cutfinger, showed up at pretty much the time we were programed to play. Fortunately _Dalia, the band that played before us, had started later than indicated on the program which was, we were told, just an suggestion and not to be worried about the half hour during which they were to clear the stage and we were to set up, line check and begin our set.

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Although at first I played my small drumset and washboard combination with my hands (wearing my washboard gloves), over the winter I hurt my middle finger joint banging on the heavy old ride cymbal I picked up last year and as I’ve already mentioned I’m sure, began to experiment with various multi-dowel drumsticks which have considerably changed the way I’m playing; possibly not only for the best, time will tell…

In both cases however there have been

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Wouldn’t you know that the weather would go from mild to hot on the day we (Swamp Train) began 3 days of recordings for our first album. Still, I guess it’s fortunate that around here heatwaves are usually pretty dry, even if the temperature on the studio’s dinky little wood thermometer hit 36.5°C / 97.7°F, it was possible to grin and bear it; although it obviously helped the occasional flame of temper that can occur when 4 guys are stuck in a closed over hot and unventilated environment for two long.
None of them very serious, thankfully. I’m sure having managed to get 4-5 tracks on tape hardisk by Monday evening helped keep our spirits tame.

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A few pictures from our (Swamp Train’s) Saturday afternoon Chevrolet 100ans Event gig last weekend:

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Switzerland is a small country but still to get to our afternoon gig at the Hotel Alpina in Fiescheralp== I had to get up at 5h30, a way too early hour to go play the blues. At 7h30 I picked up Dominik where he lives near Murten, packed his bass and PA gear which means unpacking my stuff to get the weight centered in the car and off we were for our 9 o’clock rdv with the rest of the band at a highway truckstop near Martigny. From there it’s another one and a halve hour drive to Fiesch where we transfered all our gear into two large carts to roll them onto the teleferic (again!) that took us up the mountain. The cable car was pretty big but with the beautiful weather and it being a vacation weekend it was crowded…

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From last week’s gig.
It’s not easy to comment on ones own bones work but I was happily surprised with this video because while playing I felt that I was really screwing up the song with all the mistakes I was making, but in the end there are only two or three that are glaringly obvious (to me at least).

The website of Keb' Mo'

Jeizinen is a charming Valaisan alpine village perched above Gampel-Steg. I can imagine that it hasn’t changed much in the recent years, no big ugly tourist apartment “chalets” to be seen nor are cars allowed; it’s not even clear they would make it through the village’s pathways. Although the lack of snow would have made it easy for us to drive up to it we had been warned that the parking lot was a lot farther away from the Restaurant Bielti than the top of the village’s teleferic (cable car), so we drove to the bottom of that as planned.

Having checked out the timetables we expected a 45 min. wait, but once the guy there found out we where the musicians he had us move all are gear directly into the cable car, a small box for maybe 10 people, and up we went…

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