This time the tune is He Might Be A Vampire and Molegrip von Mousetrouser (aka Lizzie X) posted her cover on Soundcloud.

Here’s my original version for comparison purposes.

I just love it when this happens. It’s why I post my free ukulele songsheets!

So go ahead and download one or more, make your own audio or video of it and make sure to send me the link!

I even got all bold in there and tried my hand at tabbing out some of the fiddly bits. I hope it’s all understandable.

Download it and play it yourself!

Today it was supposed to be just me and sal at the Ballard Sunday Market. But just as we got set up my friend Julie B. happened by. She’s jammed with me several times at the Pike Place Market. She plays delicious violin.

Et voilà! Accidental Rhino.

And it was a blast! Great crowds and applause and dancing babies.

We got a couple inquiries about parties (not bad for a band who hadn’t all played together before then) and a nice hat to split after a couple hours playing.

I think that’s a hopeful sign for my whole A. Rhino concept. I want to be able to take some of gigs I’m offered when playing solo that I have to turn down because they would really work better with a band.

Plus… I love it when a plan comes together!

(cross-posted from Google+)

Here’s a hint: the money was nice and all, but that wasn’t the important part.

Sort of a “music biz without the biz” thing. I hope you’ll check it out.

It’s been a couple weeks since the Snakez have busked at a farmers market and the first time in most of a year that the whole band has made it to Ballard. I’ve strummed quite a bit of solo ukulele there in the meantime.

I hasten to point out that this was also the Snakez debut of salamandir’s new C tuba. He has been playing an Eb tuba with us for sometime, but he just acquired the C and is all hipped to master it. So what’s the difference? (you may well be asking).

If you “uncurled” the Eb tuba you’d end up with a big-ass bugle about 13 feet long. Uncurl the C tuba and your bugle is now 16 feet long.1 Also it has 4 valves instead 3, one of which allows to drop down an entire octave. Cuz lower is better too.

We got our favorite spot (under a big tree at the south end) and were set up and ready to rock when they rang the 10 o’clock bell to announce the opening of the market.

We played about an hour and then took a break. I had a good idea. (I was careful not to scare it. My good ideas are often kinda lonely and shy.)

I walked up the street and found the Summer Januaries: Sean on guitar and Rachel on fiddle. I know them from the Pike Place Market and have run into them at other busking venues, most recently at yesterday’s Magnolia Farmers Market, where they were the featured act.

I said, “you want to play an hour on the big spot up yonder?” and they said, “yes.”

This not only gave us Snakez a nice long break it also gave all the nearby vendors a break from us. Mind you they were all saying cool things about how they were enjoying our peculiar brand of cartoon jazz, but we don’t want them to become tired of us, y’know? That’s why it’s so important for buskers to communicate with the rest of the folks at a market like this or a street fair, etc. We’re all in the scene together and we might as well help each other out instead of getting in each other’s way.

While Sean and Rachel were playing—and to great éclat2 I might add!—I wandered about and ate a Dante’s Inferno Dog.

I also ran into The Gloria Darlings—oddly enough, another guitar (Pandi) and fiddle (Milly) duo—who  were setting up to play a ways up the street. Pandi had not only recognized Sean and Rachel but also recognized the assorted Snakez detritus we had left behind. She wondered if “we had some sort of rotation going on there?” and I said, “yes,” and further… “we’ll be playing about one more hour then packing up so would you like the spot?” and Pandi said “yes.”

So that’s where we wandered off into the sunset. The Gloria Darlings were taking the crowd by storm. We’d gotten to busk two hours for fabulous crowds. The Summer Januaries also shared the “stage” with us so the passersby and the nearby vendors were treated to a 4+ hour concert by 8 assorted musicians!

None of us Snakez “made our fortunes” there, but we certainly got enough love offerings, applause, laughs and dancing babies to make it all worthwhile.

And to think, summer is barely two weeks old.

I can’t wait for the rest!

footnotes:
1. bigger is better, amirite? back to where you was
2. this would refer to definitions 2 & 3 – back to where you was.

Robert is the chief instigator of Bakelite 78. I first met him at the Blue Moon Tavern open mike a while back. He’d come in with his band and sat down near me at the bar. One of his bandmates (Erin Jordan) stared at me a bit and then asked if I wasn’t part of Snake Suspenderz. She’d met me some time back when the Snakes were just me and Thaddeus and we had played at a showcase sponsored by the local chapter of Just Plain Folks. I think I blogged once before about this, but it’s too late in the evening to look it up right now.

We got to talking and they invited the Snakes to open for them at the Can Can. Since then we’ve played that venue three more times, but I haven’t seen hide nor hair of Bakelite 78.

But there was Robert, on the northwest corner of the Ballard Market, working solo (with an awesome megaphone for his vocals).

He turned me on to their latest CD, What The Moon Has Done, and I’m going to pass on the favor now. You should definitely check out this music! And I’ve made it easy by embedding their album right here!

Don’t say I never gave you nothin’!

(And hey! Buy this music! You’ll be glad you have it on your CD/mp3 player every time you listen. Tell ‘em Howlin’ Hobbit sent you.)

There’s a link on the songsheet page to watch the video. I may blog a bit more in depth about it later.

Let me know what you think! And please, if you like the video, spread it around.

Last Tuesday he came up to the bridge spot at the market, where I was playing my second set of the day, and sat in on a couple numbers. We hadn’t played together in months but we didn’t have too much trouble falling into a groove. My friend and fellow market rat Rob D’Arc caught this example on video.

You can right-click on the title and save the file to your own machine. Feel free to post it all over the place or just share the link to this post.

Hope you like it!

Summertime – Howlin’ Hobbit & Fiddlin’ Joe Fulton

With that in mind I’ve installed the WordPress app on my phone and this is a test of its publishing capabilities.

In other words, nothing to see here, move along!

salamandir, Sketch, Hobbit & Thadd

This photo was shot by John Cornicello in the little “backstage studio” that the Moisture Festival had set up at Hale’s Palladium. It’s our new PR shot. We’re pretty stoked.