Do you suffer from shaky, unsteady hands?
When others behold your visage, do they remark on your clammy deathlike pallor - known colloquially as ‘the bar tan’?
Afflicted with drooping eyes and hunched shoulders?
At 8:50 in the morning, do find yourself shambling towards that subway exit with the rest of the unspeakably turgid herd in an abattoir-like trudge?
Indeed, the ravages of the big city can take its toll on a person’s health and spirit.
New York City Banjoist and Guitarist Extraordinaire Sean Condron has a tonic for folks who suffer maladies both temporary and chronic.
The rollicking and happy sound of the banjo will have a palliative effect on all who come within the influence of it’s vibrating strands of steel.
Ring out! Ring out! The old banjo! I say.
All blocked up, you tell me? Poor, Poor Dear. Perhaps the pleasantly purgative power of traditional jazz is the cure for you. Have you invited you liver out one too many times? Come thrill to the raucous sounds of a real live Jug Band and de-tox while you dance! Feeling a bit phlegmatic? A victim of Dyscrasia, you say? Let a haunting Appalachian fiddle tune put your humours in balance.
A program of Refined and (ahem) Moral Entertainments for all who enter these portals!
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February 2007 - Sean is now a Wizard Recording Artist!!You can now own your very own cylinder copy of 'East Virginia Blues' and 'Roll Down the Line' Peter has pressed a limited edition of twenty copies each on his own boutique cylinder label Wizard Recordings. They come in a custom designed can. They can be purchased directly from Peter Dilg. You can contact Peter at verticalcut@earthlink.net or via Alexander Graham Bell's invention at 516 223 0533 On June 4th, 2005, Along with The Roulette Sisters, I was fortunate to get picked for a spot recording my voice and banjo on an authentic 1899 wax cylinder phonograph in Laboratory Building 11 at the Edison National Historic Site. It was a public demonstration that involved the recording and playback of the newly pressed wax cylinder. I believe we only had two minutes and change to work with! In order to get clarity and volume, I had to get right up and poke my face into the long tapered cone that attached right to a needle cutting away my sonic impressions into the wax. The banjo, of course, was the perfect instrument for the process; it’s timbre being sharp and succinct. After the wax had cooled, we listened. It’s a haunting experience to hear yourself sound 140 years old, leaving only a cylinder or two as the only evidence of your time on this mortal coil. The recording engineer was Peter Dilg who is an expert in antique phonographs and, as he writes, “distributor of the New Indestructible Cylinder Record”! Among the luminaries he has recorded are Baby Gramps, Les Paul, Vince Giordano, and They Might Be Giants. If you’re ever in Baldwin, N.Y., look him up at the Baldwin Antique Center. Here is the fruit of that day’s labors:
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Sean and Nikki SuddenIn 2001, at the invite of my friend Joe Armstrong, I had the pleasure to play some shows with the legendary Nikki Sudden of Swell Maps fame. I ran into Nikki a few times over the proceeding years, in Berlin and New York. We had some good times together, and talked about playing again. Then in March of 2006, while I was away gigging, Nikki left a message on my machine asking to do some shows with him in New York. I was shocked and saddened when I got back and found out he had passed away after his show at the Knitting Factory. In some ways, being the Rock ‘n’ Roll romantic that he was, it was an ending Nikki might have written for himself. Cheers, Nikki. Here is the video from an April 2001 show (also playing are Joe and Stephan from my old band Impure Thoughts).
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Jug Addicts at the Rodeo Bar Every 1st Wednesday!The next date is March 7th at 10 pm.
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