| June 10 2008 Well, imagine my pleasure on receiving the June-July issue of The Old-Time Herald today and finding this review of my CD, Sings Songs for the Masses, by Pete Peterson:
"When you live far away from most other musicians, say on Crete, you
will probably develop your own styles and write your own songs after
wearing out all the recordings you brought with you. On this album, the
artist composed about half the songs and tunes; the rest are
traditional. His voice is distinctive, sounding like an old blues
singer, filtered through a rock musician such as Eddie Vedder. The
banjo playing is solid clawhammer with a light, sure touch. Not
traditional old-time music as I know it, but eclectic and distinctive."
You can get the CD here (over on Hark), or from CD Baby or County Sales (their catalog number is HUNTER-2008), or, you can download it from iTunes. May 21 2008 Casey and I will be doing another radio show next week. It'll be on www.wbkm.org at 5 p.m. (EST), Thursday the 29th of May. Another good piece of news I've had floating around for a while: County Sales is carrying my CD, Sings Songs for the Masses. May 15 2008 You've probably seen the news about China (not to mention Burma, too bad their government is making aid almost impossible to get in). It's dire there, some recent incomplete figures suggest 14,463 people dead, another 14,051 missing, 25,788 buried in the debris and 64,746 injured. They're still pulling people out of the rubble, but time is getting short! I was at work and it really got to me that while I was waxing some wooden statues there are nearly 26,000 people stuck in the rubble of collapsed buildings, so I'm going to donate what I can towards aid there. I'm writing to urge you to help out as much as you can. I'm donating money to the Scientology Volunteer Ministers ( http://www.volunteerministers.org/ ), but there are all kinds of other organizations active there - take your pick. You know that famous quote from John Donne? "Ask not for whom the bell tolls"? That whole paragraph reads: "If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." May 06 2008 Various good news: - The Ostrich Testimonies won the Best of Arizona award at the Arizona International Film Festival! - I was interviewed by New Sound Magazine, you can read it online in their May issue. - We have a show this Saturday, the 10th of May, at The Monkey House in Winooski, VT. Should be a lot of fun, Curtis Eller, New York's angriest banjo player and Katie Trautz (of May Fly and Knotty Pine) will be playing that night as well - a fiddle and banjo extravaganza. April 11 2008 Well, I got a little field recorder recently and have been enjoying it. Here are some of the fruits it has borne: Hog Eyed Man. Clawhammer banjo, sawmill tuning (gDGCD), tuned down to F# or so. This is basically Luther Strong's fiddle version, with some of J.D. Cornett's singing mixed in. Creepy tune, but good. Sandy River Belle. Clawhammer banjo. fCFCD, tuned down to around E. First learned it from some old string band, can't remember their name now, but have since added in bits from various Sandy River Belles floating around out there. Run Slave Run (that's an euphemism, the original is worse. I should probably just call it Pateroller but that leads to confusion with Hobart Smith's, which is quite a different tune). Clawhammer banjo. fCFCD, tuned down to E or so. Learned this from various fields recordings of people singing, and there's one version on fife I think, must have been recorded by John Lomax. Great tune, but can't sing it. It seems though that it was a slave song, not a slave-owner's (see Conway's African Banjo Echoes in Appalachia). Those three are all recorded on my bakelite Harmony. For a hundred bucks and being made of plastic it's quite a banjo! Liberty. Clawhammer banjo. gCGCD tuned down to who knows where. Learned this from John Burke's book, Art Rosenbaum's recording and my father's playing. Played on an S.S. Stewart strung with nylgut. What a pretty tune. March 29 2008 The Ostrich Testimonies (for which I wrote and recorded music, see older news) seems to have gotten a good reception at Austin's South By Southwest festival and reviews are starting to come out. Here's one from Variety. And he says about the music: “Hunter Robertson's banjo-driven score is apt accompaniment for doc's emotional highs and lows.” March 6th 2008 Ach, Gary Gygax died on Tuesday. I lived and breathed Dungeons & Dragons for a few years. What made it such a great game? I'm not sure - maybe the combination of rampant imagination and sufficient limits to keep things from being too easy. Anyway, I'm sure glad it was around. March 4th 2008 On February 27th Casey and I played live on Exposure, a show on WRUV hosted by Jeremy Ayers. Our friend Rose came and filmed it. Here are some of the tunes: Old Joe Clarke
Pretty Polly Roving Gambler February 29th 2008 Rod Stradling over at Musical Traditions wrote a nice review of my CD, Sings Songs for the Masses. Excerpts: "So
- this is the second CD I've received this month for which the words
'strange and worthwhile' seem appropriate..."
You can read the entire review here: http://www.mustrad.org.uk/reviews/hunter_r.htm"All of the playing is pretty quirky - and extremely interesting..." While he likes the instrumental stuff, he's not so fond of my singing. This is the point of course at which I chime in with "De Gustibus non disputatum est!" But then he likes the rest of it so... some tastes I heartily agree with. It is a great pleasure to have been reviewed there, and I highly recommend the site. Lots of information on a wide variety of traditional musics. It's where I was introduced to Sardinian polyphonic singing, and that is worth its weight in gold. How much does Sardinian polyphonic singing weigh? I don't know, but it's pretty heavy. February 11 2008 Casey and I got together to practice the other day and we made this short video while we were at it. John Brown's Dream, or Herve Brown's Dream, or Little Rabbit or... Jan. 27 2008 The Ostrich Testimonies, directed by Jonathan VanBallenberghe, for which I wrote and recorded music (played mainly on banjo, with some guitar), is going to be shown soon at the festival South by Southwest. Here's a new trailer for it: Jan. 26 2008 ~ Well, we had a very nice time at the Monkey the other night. We played a few tunes with Knotty Pine and are talking about maybe getting a dance together there with them. After all, it is dance music we play! ~ In the meantime, we have a couple of dates set to play in Morrisville, VT at The Bee's Knees on the 24th of February and the 25th of March, 7:30-10:00. ~ I also recently got a stack of CD's of Sings Songs for the Masses made. Head over to Hark to listen to the songs and to order it. Jan. 17 2008 Had a great Christmas in Arizona. We went to the Cogburn's ostrich ranch and visited - I highly recommend it if you're in the area, especially if you have kids. There're deer to be pet, ostrich, emus and lorrikeets to be fed, giant truck rides and best of all, ostrich fishing! You have to see it with your own two eyes. Good news on The Ostrich Testimonies documentary, it's been accepted to South by Southwest, apparently the second largest film festival after Sundance! I should have a new trailer for it up shortly. Gigs: Casey Abair (on fiddle) and I will be playing at the Monkey House in Winooski, VT on Thursday the 24th of January. Things get going at 8. Also that evening will be Paddy Reagan and Knotty Pine. Hope to see you there! Dec. 1 2007 3 more gigs - the 11th and 17th Dec. at the Monkey House in Winooski, VT and the 15th Dec. at the Skinny Pancake, Burlington, VT. My buddy Casey Abair will be there on fiddle. Oct. 23 2007 I'll be playing a gig at the Langdon Street Café in Montpelier, Vermont on the 4th of December. Dr. Oakroot, who makes and plays cigarbox guitars, will be there that evening as well. Things get going at 8 p.m. October 5 2007 Have moved to Burlington, Vermont. The demand for banjo players unexpectedly plummeted on Crete. I'm giving clawhammer banjo lessons here and just started looking into gigs. April 17 2007 A website for The Ostrich Testimonies with biographies of the crew, a trailer and so on, is up and running: http://www.ostrichtestimonies.com/ April 12 2007 Kurt Vonnegut kicked the bucket yesterday - his teeth no longer hurt him as the French say. He was one of the good guys. Fare thee well Mr. Vonnegut! March 22 2007 I recently finished recording the score for a documentary, "The Ostrich Testimonies", by Jonathan VanBallenberghe. Some pieces I composed for it, some are traditional tunes - most are played on either a nylon-strung S.S. Stewart or a metal-strung open-back Gibson; there are also a few pieces played on various guitars. I've worked before with Jonathan (he's a banjo fan - he plays and has built gourd banjos) and this was a fun piece of work to do. The Ostrich Testimonies is an engrossing documentary, well made, with a gripping story:
You can see the trailer here: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=2016404499 Here are three tunes from the score: Unclouded Day (played on the S.S. Stewart with my wife Féréale singing harmony), Painted Bird (the Stewart as well) and Merry Scene (played on the Gibson). The two instrumentals were of course made for the documentary, if I were to record them as "listening" pieces I would arrange them differently. Dec. 25 2006 This from Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: Joshu's Zen Joshu began the study of Zen when he was sixty years old and continued until he was eighty, when he realized Zen. He taught from the age of eighty until he was one hundred and twenty. A student once asked him: "If I haven't anything in my mind, what shall I do?" Joshu replied: "Throw it out." "But if I haven't anything, how can I throw it out?" continued the questioner. "Well," said Joshu, "then carry it out." This reminds me of a friend of mine who questionned his philosophy professor one day on that old saw, cogito ergo sum. He said "But sometimes I don't think, but I still am. How does that work?" His professor didn't quite know what to make of that. Dec. 23 2006 Another film score in the works with Jonathan VanBallenberghe. Nov. 9 2006 Just came across this excellent quote on Luke Mercier's site (nice banjo's and banjo hardware, fiddles too): "Music is not an escape; it presents a way to make it possible for life to go on." - John Cohen November 1st 2006 Banjohangout.org has something for banjo players of all creeds, denominations and factions. Check it out. October 16th 2006 So, films... One fell through, but the other, If You Are Not Willing to Eat Fire, is done and off to the festivals! Three of my recordings are used in it - You Gonna Need Somebody on Your Bond, Jesus Gonna Make Up My Dyin’ Bed and I Did Bide. Check it out: If You Are Not Willing to Eat Fire Documentary, color, 2006 Directed and produced by Jonathan VanBallenberghe What happens when your business is your life and your business is dying? If You Are Not Willing to Eat Fire puts the spotlight on two of the quirkiest entrepreneurs in the world. Meet Peter Scott: a motivational speaker whose corporate pep rallies leave him suicidal. Peter's public pronouncements of passion, excellence, and accountability work magic on his audience. People have called him a cross between Jay Leno and Tony Robbins. But his professional façade is counterbalanced by a private life dominated by severe anxiety and depression. Tom Cox is an alternative healer who just spent all his savings on a $25,000 device called a psychophotonic healing chamber. Involving crystals, light, and sound, the chamber is said to eliminate stress and weaken disease. But if, as Tom believes, the machine can cure the world, he will first have to decide if becoming a businessman is worth it. April 18th 2006 Well now! Pigs will fly and cowboys will... throat sing. Hear Arthur Miles, recorded in the '20's, yodel and throat sing. http://www.metafilter.com/comments.mefi/42369 April 15th 2006 After a lengthy hiatus from the internet, I returned to find musicians on myspace simply plastered everywhere. Never one to turn down a chance to flock with the herd: http://www.myspace.com/hunterrobertson April 2nd 2006 Have a look at the Cylinder Preservation and Digitalization Project, University of California. Tons of wax cylinder recordings available to download (they even provide the original, unprocessed .wavs if you're interested in restoring them yourself). This is a real treasure trove, 6000+ recordings, with some old timey banjo stuff, more "popular" recordings and several streaming cylinder radio feeds! March 31st 2006 My recordings are going to be used in two films. More as it progresses. March 17th 2006 Several .mp3's are now available to download over on Hark. March 13th 2006 Pictures and a recording of my tin can banjo here. |