Making Ripples: post-corporate adventures in Floyd County Virginia

The Leningrad Cowboys - nothing succeeds like excess

Finland's answers to the Blues Brothers are still alive and rocking today.

With their extreme hair styles, bizarre glasses and pointy shoes, the Finnish rock group, the Leningrad Cowboys make a splendid contrast to the Red Army Choir as they performed together recently in a rousing rendition of "Sweet Home Alabama" to the enthusiastic applause of Russian teen-agers.

This is a seriously off-the-wall group and if you are into truly bizarre musicians, you may enjoy this video. I definitely want a pair of the glasses they are wearing.

Like the Blues Brothers, the Leningrad Cowboys are a product of a movie, in this case, "Leningrad Cowboys Go America", in which the world's worst polka band comes to America to find fame and fortune. Their dead-pan humor and relentless pursuit of success at all costs made them a cult favorite for all 10 of us who watched the movie.

Now the group is world renown. If you Google "Leningrad Cowboys images", you will find hundreds of images from their CDs and concert tours.

Thanks to old friend Gunter Leonhart for the link to http://www.tothepointnews.com/content/view/3114/85/  and to gonza.techno for the image.

UPDATE: Sippican Cottage, another woodworker/blogger has posted more performances by the Leningrad Cowboys. Visit his site for two fine videos.

House Concerts and 21st Century Touring

In response to my last post, Fran Snyder, a singer-songwriter based in Lawrence, KS, sent me a link to his website ConcertsInYourHome.com which is a resource for musicians and house concert hosts alike.

He also has a blog, house concerts and 21st century touring where he discusses the growing "house concert" movement  which creates meaningful and financially rewarding opportunities for artists and which brings neighborhoods and music lovers together in a common cause.

The music industry is changing and the old business models need to be re-examined if musicians are to thrive in a world where labels no longer control distribution and the economics of playing noisy clubs for tips is increasingly less rewarding.

Perhaps musicians can take a lesson from writers who have turned to self publishing in order to reach audiences and have successfully bypassed the traditional publishing industry and its insider network. Very few get rich, but most of the writers I know who have done this have managed to sell books and generate some income.

More and more musicians seem to be self publishing also, but what if they really got behind a grassroots effort to augment their income with performances in house concert venues?

One musician friend feels that playing for tips is demeaning for a professional musician. How about working for donations?  Working for a living always involves having to make choices and being able to draw an audience.

Providing background music in a club means that you are always interrupting someone's conversation. If you are good enough to command the attention of the crowd and willing to overlook the screamers in the front table, you may pull in enough tips and applause to make the day worth while.

How about setting up a few house concerts with congenial hosts?  Donations are understood to be the price of entry and you get an attentive audience. Your only problem as an entertainer is drawing a crowd through reputation and promotional activity.

I would be interested in hearing if there is a down side to house concerts from the musician's standpoint.

Let's have some discussion on the 21st Century touring model.

House Concerts are a time for coming together

It was a fine way of starting off the new year. People from all over Floyd County were greeting friends and making new ones at Mac and Jenny Traynham's farmhouse in Willis.

Mac and Jenny were hosting a house concert by the Hushpuppies, a Greensboro, NC, old-time music revival band.

It was an evening to remember, a full house of music lovers, lively tunes, and a bountiful spread of pot-luck refreshments.

The Hushpuppies entertained the packed house with old-time and gospel music they have learned from elderly fiddle and banjo players throughout the South. All four musicians sing and play several instruments. They are talented and likable entertainers.

From left to right in the photo, they are Molly Stouten, Jon Newlin, Amy Davis, and Steve Terrill. You can find out more about them and their music here.

They have a refreshing naturalness about them and they manage to integrate tunes from many sources into a style that is very much their own. From rousing dance tunes to wry musical commentaries on life, this talented quartet held the audience spellbound from their opening notes to the final flourish.

They shared the histories of the songs and told us about the musicians they had learned them from. They also invited the audience to sing along with them and there were many who joined in on the old time songs. People were happily singing along to tunes I had never heard before!

House concerts are becoming an increasingly popular venue for musicians and audiences alike. House concerts are hosted by fans in someone's house or private space. Donations are requested and go directly to the performers. CD sales are an important part of the evening for performers and the audience alike.

Everyone benefits. The audience gets to hear music performed in an intimate environment and can actually chat with the performers on a personal basis. In a house concert, the musicians get an attentive audience that is there to hear the music and they find house concerts to be more financially rewarding than playing cafes.

If you would like to find out more about house concerts, perhaps to put on one of your own, talk to Mac and Jenny Traynham or Google "house concerts". There is a lot more information available on this do-it-yourself concert phenomena.

Complaining to music - now a worldwide phenomenon

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Complaining to music  is a performance art with a growing audience. Lyrical and funny, these choirs captivate listeners with lyrics that strike to the heart of our everyday lives.

If you listen to these choirs perform in their own languages and read the English subtitles, you will see an amazing commonality of complaints. We seem to have the same dreams and we are frustrated in trying to achieve them, even if it is only trying to live a quiet life and be loved.

It all got started by Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen in Helsinki. They discussed the possibility of transforming the huge energy people put into complaining into something powerful like music. They have created an amazing outpouring of creativity in many different countries.

I wrote an article about this last November, but now they've gone worldwide. Everything you ever wanted to know about Complaints Choirs, including how to organize one can be found on this site. There are now 10 operational Complaints Choirs and the number keeps on growing.

I think the Hamburg Complaints Choir is one of the most enjoyable, although the Complaints Choir of the Poikkilaakson Elementary School is a close second. 

Even the Mayor of Bodø in Northern Norway is performing with their Complaints Choir! Check out his ceremonial necklace.

The St Petersburg Choir is truly the saddest, although their singers have their bright and cheerful moments as you can see in the picture at the beginning of this article.

Complaints Choirs are currently forming in London, Pittsburgh, Juneau, Gabriola Island off Vancouver Island, and at Penn State University.

Tired of not being heard? Form a Complaints Choir and get on YouTube!

Floyd Country Store Reopens in Style

Late night preparations

Woody Crenshaw and a large group of contractors and friends worked many long hours to complete the renovation of the Floyd Country Store in time for the February 2nd Friday Night Jamboree.

Woody took great care to build the addition using materials and construction techniques that matched the original structure.

He added at least 30 feet to the back of the old Country Store to make room for a new dance floor and stage and he matched the antique embossed  tin ceiling panels so well that you have to look very carefully to see where the old panels leave off and the new panels begin.

I dropped in during the last frantic days to admire the controlled chaos that Woody was keeping under control while still managing to run his lighting company and preside over the 'Round the Mountain Artisan Network.

Even with his cell phone ringing constantly and workmen coming up to check on final details, Woody Crenshaw was the soul of hospitality. I was invited to share in the food brought in for the construction and sound check crews.

I grabbed a cup of soup and watched old friends Bernie Coveney, Abe Goorsky, Michael Kovicks, and Chris Luster play for the sound check of the newly-constructed dance hall.

Woody had installed a brand new sound system and had brought in Stage Sound from Roanoke to manage the sound check and set the system up for use.

Watching these professionals set up seven microphones and two monitor speakers was a revelation. It took only minutes for them to adjust the sound system so the bright empty room was producing clean sound, free from undesired noise and reverberations.

Once the mikes were set up,  the musicians began playing to complete the sound check and Liz Stone took advantage of the new dance floor and performed the very first dance steps in the new Floyd Country Store.

I came by late that night on my way home and workmen were still painting and putting up shelving. Woody vowed that the store would reopen on February 2nd, even if there were a few things that still needed to be completed.

It was all worth it! The reopening came off on schedule!

On Friday night, our friends Mac and Jenny Mac Traynham opened the evening by playing a round of Gospel tunes to a packed house. The new sound system carried the music throughout the store even over the excited chatter of hundreds of patrons.

It was one of the busiest Friday Night Jamborees I have ever seen at the store. Woody manned the soda fountain when he wasn't being besieged by well-wishers. A troop of local cloggers in costumes took to the packed dance floor and performed while surrounded by dozens of other dancers.

It was a fine way to spend a very cold evening and we all had a great time. Mark your calendars. The Friday Night Jamboree is back and is better than ever!

Two for the Price of One

Last Friday, Gretchen and I broke away for a few hours and managed to catch Mac and Jenny Traynham playing at Oddfellas Cantina. They are fine performers and have been active in the performance and preservation of the music of Appalachia. We make it a point to hear them whenever we can.

Mac is a true professional. This particular night he was playing up a storm even though he was feeling poorly. But he brought along a young couple to play the second set and they did a great job.

Jackson Cunningham and Anya Hinkle played a set of high energy country music.

I was not able to find out much about Jackson other than he is a competent guitar player with a good singing voice.

But, like so many of the people we meet in Floyd, there is far more to Anya Hinkle than a violinist with a great country voice. An avid cyclist, she competed in NCCA road races while she was getting her Ph.D. at UC-Berkely. She is now a post-doctorate fellow in the Department of Biological Sciences at Virginia Tech.

I hope we have a chance to hear Hinkle and Cunningham again. Their performance was a nice follow-on to the Traynams.

Bernie Coveney - a special kind of guitar teacher

Bernie is a professional guitar player who shows his students how to let their music out so others can hear it.

He views his approach as a matter of teaching students how to play songs, not to rotely practice music. For example, in the first lesson he generally asks students what song they want to play. When the student identifies it, Bernie says, "Good! That's what we are going to learn!"

Bernie's approach to teaching the guitar produces extraordinary results. He taught one young boy a few Major 7 chords and showed him how to string verses together in his first lesson. The boy went home and by the time he came back for his second lesson, he had composed a song for his mother using the chords he had been taught. The boy's mother was in tears!

Bernie has learned that students want to play a song. They don't want to learn musical notation, theory, etc., they want to play. This is true for all of his students from the youngest to the oldest. Bernie gears his lesson to the student so the student is on a winning track from the very beginning.

As he puts it, he gets the student to the point where the music comes out and he just gets out of their way.

Bernie's simple explanation does not tell the full story. Bernie is a gentle and spiritual person who has a high level of awareness. He is very sensitive to the needs of his students and is very much aware when they are having difficulty or when they need to try their wings. If you have ever had the privilege of talking with Bernie, you know what I mean.

He tries to get his students to open their ears and identify what is happening in a song and to create their own notes from the very beginning. Bernie will take a tune and encourage a student to explore new ways to place a note and to play with time.

Some of Bernie's students have PhDs degrees in music. They come to Bernie because they have all the musical theory, but they cannot play. They can read music, but they have never learned to perform without sheet music in front of them. Bernie teaches his students how to play.

I think that Bernie is the ideal teacher to rehabilitate failed purposes in music. How many budding musicians despair of endless practice sessions of scales and chords and quit instead of playing the songs that inspired them to take up music in the first place?

Bernie's approach to teaching cuts to the chase immediately. If the student is willing to practice, he is working with tools that let him play songs from the very first lesson.

Bernie has years of experience writing and performing music and he rehearses for many hours every day. He can be heard several nights a week at different venues in Floyd, VA, playing original compositions, gypsy/jazz, bluegrass, blues, country and a little bit of rock 'n roll. He likes playing with people who stimulate him and says that Floyd has a lot of musicians who do that. There is an environment here that is good for the arts.

For guitar lessons or for a musical engagement, you can contact Bernie at (540) 651-4690 or email him at akarosa@swva.net. He does not have a website or a blog yet, but I am working on him to start one, because he has a lot of knowledge to share and more people should know about him.

If you have a lot of music bottled  up inside you, you need to talk to Bernie Coveney. He just might be able to help you. After interviewing him for this article, I wanted to start playing music again, something I haven't thought about for years.

Bernie has that effect on people.  :)

A treat for the eyes and ears at Oddfellas Cantina

Last Wednesday, Gretchen and I wandered into Oddfellas Cantina to hear Bernie Coveney and Chris Luster playing with Rob Neukirch. 

We never know what we are going to hear on Wednesday nights because that's the night the musicians try out new songs and invite musicians in the audience to participate.

We were sitting there enjoying the music when we were joined by photographer and blogger Doug Thompson and his wife Amy. The band kept jamming and were having so much fun that Doug and I started shooting pictures.

It was one of those nights where the music was so good and the songs were so entertaining that I began to lose track of time.

Sally Walker dropped by from the Cafe Del Sol about then and we persuaded her to join us.

We were having a great old time and it felt like the evening couldn't get any better, when Rob and Bernie persuaded Sally to take the stage and sing.

The fact they were playing something she had never sung didn't stop Sally. She took the mike and swung into action without missing a beat. She is an expressive and talented singer and her singing that night was just magic.

We had such a great time that we stayed until closing. I think we are making up for years of living in places which didn't have any local entertainment.

That seems to be one of the big differences between Floyd and other places we have lived. We can live, work, and play in Floyd. We don't have to drive miles into the big city to hear top rate musicians. Furthermore, there is live music in this town six nights a week.

The biggest problem we seem to run into is deciding which of our friends do we listen to on any given night. When you have good friends playing at several places, it makes for an interesting dilemma.

While the band was warming up, we noticed that one wall displayed watercolors by a new artist, Chris Bazeley.  Chris is an English illustrator with a touch of cartoonist in his makeup. According to the artist's brother, who lives in Floyd, the exhibit will hang on the wall for two months.

I would cheerfully hang any of these watercolors in my office, but this one, Reading Light, was one of my favorites.

You can see from the detail that his pictures have a subtle humor. I find it quite appealing.

Go to Chris Bazeley's website to see more of his fine art, including Flying School and Inflight Refueling.

Another Thursday night in Floyd

Life just doesn't get much better than this. Good music in an intimate venue that provides great food and genuine hospitality.

Gretchen and I and Doug Thompson are discussing the fate of the world over dinner at Oddfellas Cantina while Bill Smith and Rich Rittenhouse play original and classic blues tunes.

Bill and Rich, also known as Chicken Wings and Gravy, play the blues in a way you will not soon forget. Their understated competence showed these two to be masters of their art.

I have seen too many blues groups which relied on histrionics and flashy vocals to capture an audience's attention, so it was a complete surprise to encounter the arresting performance that these two put on.

They didn't introduce themselves, they just started playing quietly and purposefully, but you knew immediatly that these guys were something out of the ordinary because you couldn't take your attention off them. They didn't speak much at all, they just let their music do the talking for them.

You can read more about them on chickenwings and gravy.com.

Self-promotion is not a part-time job - part 1

Over the years, I've seen many talented people who were hopefully expecting the world to discover them. I occasionally heard them lament the success of those who seemed to be far less talented. These hopeful souls have missed the entire point. When you are good at something, let people know about it.

The best cure for non-discovery is skillfully done self-promotion. By skillful self-promotion, I mean self-promotion that works for you, that fits your style, and that seems to be a logical extension of the product or services you intend to provide.

Self-promotion is occasionally linked to a gimmick, like wearing a green hat or wearing distinctive clothing. This actually quite unnecessary if you really intend to do business with people. All you need to do is to engage them in conversation and give them something to remember you by.

If you feel that adding one prospective customer at a time is too slow, think again. Word of mouth advertising works when you make a desired impact on someone and that usually happens one a one-to-one basis unless you have a busy schedule of public appearances.

For example, I meet a lot of talented musicians now that I spend more time in Floyd, VA, but a lot of them have no promotional material, no web site and no business cards! These are people who have daytime jobs, but are playing music professionally several times a week. When I see them performing, it is often a chore to find out who they are and if my notes aren't complete, I fail to provide much background information about them when I blog about their performance.

Last week, I ran into Mac Traynham at the Old-Time Music Jam at Oddfellas Cantina. Mac plays the fiddle, guitar, banjo and sings at musical venues all over Virginia. He has also made a CD. Mac is very good at making music. 

I'm sure there are dozens of other performers who play as well, but Mac was one of the very few who gave me a business card. As A result, I was able to look him up on Google and I know how to reach him for interviews or to find where he is playing.

In today's world where you can print excellent four-color business cards on your home computer, there is no reason not to have business cards for every one of your business identities.

There may be an art to designing high impact business cards, but you start by getting cards that say who you are and what you do. Once you start handing out cards, you will come up with a dozen different ways to improve them. The important thing is to always have business cards to pass out wherever you are.

Do you have business cards? Do you carry them with you?

In the next post, I will discuss some ways you can use business cards effectively.

Old Time Music Night at Oddfellas

On the second Thursday of the month, Oddfellas Cantina hosts an old time music night. When they bill it as old-time music, they aren't kidding. This music is before Bluegrass, before Carter family music, even before Gospel. The tunes you will hear are early Scottish and English melodies, mostly reels and other dances.

This group consists of a core of regular players and a lot of others who walk in and start playing as the mood strikes them. The level of skill was quite evident as the music never faltered as players joined in or left the stage to eat their suppers. The old-time music just kept on coming.

Phil Woddail is one of three core members of this group. He coaxes more music out of a harmonica than I thought possible. Lester Gillespie is another of the original members and plays the bass. Mac Traynham, not shown here, is the third member of the core group and plays the fiddle.

Chris Youngblood, the blond guitar player, is the only other member of the group that I could identify. If you readers know the names of the other players, please let me know and I will see that their names are added.

Rob Neukirch, the owner of Oddfellas Cantina hosts live music five nights a week. That's pretty spectacular for a county that has only one stoplight, but then again, Floyd, VA is a different kind of place...