Flaming Hobos

One of the songs we are working up is actually a combo of two separate Irish tunes that have been intertwined into a single song. The two songs are, Crooked Jack and The Blacksmith and the arrangement comes to us via Nickel Creek.  As one might suspect they do not opt for the easy way to arrange the two songs.  So it is not a simple; sing one song and then transition to the other one. No, they are intertwined and at various points overlap in small pieces, or near the end the final verse of each of the songs are sung simultaneously.

The other fun part of the arrangement are the chords. They may be this convoluted in the origional but somehow I get the felling that the may ahve taken a bit of liberty with the melodies and chord progressions. Here is the chords progression through one of the verses of one of the blacksmith segments:

G Bm Em Asus2 C Bm D+ Em D G Asus2 Em F#m  B7 G Bm D C# C D  Em  D  Bm   Asus2  G  F#m

Sounds really cool once you get it but is not your run of the mill chord progression. But what I am finding to be the tricky part is actually the rhythm.  It cover a wide spectrum of rhythmic styles from slow strums all the way to fast eighth note strums and everything in between.

It will be the type of songs that goes well and the crowd will love and we will have a blast playing or it will crash and burn spectacularly.  We are planning on having fun with it.

I was hoping to post a ling to one of Nickel Creeks performances of the song but I was not able to find it. So here is a video of an Irish group doing the Blacksmith portion of the song.

Found this awesome rat rod at the Zephyrhills Vintage Car Races.

Rat Rod

Very odd, but strangely compelling, video clip of a musical trio consisting of two iPhones and a Nintendo DS. And yes, it is as odd as it sounds it will be…

Very cool flash mob stunt thing that took place in New York City’s Grand Central Station.

New recording due in about a week from Chris Thile’s new group, Punch Brothers. The CD will include all 4 movments of The Blind Leaving the Blind plus some additional songs. You can hear some samples at their new website: PunchBrothers.com

Since I felt like I did not have enough going on in my life (ha!) I agreed to perform at the Sweetwater Organic Farm on March 30th. At the time I had no clear picture in mind as to what I was going to do, but nonetheless I agreed to perform on that day. To fulfill this gig, I so hastily agreed to, I have enlisted the help of a few friends.

The group tentatively consists of my sister, Jana Jones, on the bass, Phil Myers on the mando, myself on the guitar, and hopefully Kevin on the Fiddle. I am calling the group the Flaming Hobos at the moment…