Monday, October 12, 2009

The Jerk plays The Banjo

Steve Martin at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, San Francisco - 10/3/09

Steve Martin
with the Steep Canyon Rangers


Saturday, October 3, 2009

Speedway Meadow, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco


Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival

Hoedown at Alice's->
Freddie's Lilt->
The Crow
Daddy Played The Banjo*
Pitkin County Turnaround
Late For School
Nowhere To Law Low**
Be Still Moses**
Jubilation Day
Clawhammer Medley
Hide Behind A Rock
Words Unspoken
Tin Roof
Calico Train
Orange Blossom Special

* with Tim O'Brien; ** without Steve

Fun show. A really good time, definitely well worth it! Steve is crackin' jokes between nearly every song because, after all, he's Steve Martin! What do you expect him to do, just play music and humorlessly leave it at that? Heck no, dang it! He gives the crowd many truly laugh out loud moments not to mention some great banjo playin'. The Steep Canyon Rangers as Steve's backup band are just excellent. Is this world class bluegrass? Ya know what, I can't tell ya... I can only tell ya what I like and me likes this mucho, thank you very much. Late For School has gotta be my favorite here as it's just this totally nonsensical jolly meandering tale that could almost be something out of Saturday Night Live. And then at the end of Orange Blossom Special my feeling of elatedness for the greatness of the musical presentation sank to sadness for I simply did not want it to end. Ah well, this ain't no jam band, just a bluegrass band, and what they gave the crowd was, for my money, nothing less than splendid.

Have a listen to Orange Blossom Special


10-3-09 a.k.a. 10-03-09 a.k.a. 10/3/09 a.k.a. 10/03/09 a.k.a. 09-10-03

stealth audience recording by Easy Ed from the
fourth row directly in front of a speaker stack (about 20-30 feet away)

Rode NT4 stereo microphone mounted to the top of a cowboy hat >
Sony D8 DAT (with microphone preamps modified by Oade Brothers) @ 44.1kHz >
Tascam DA-P1 DAT (playback) > coax digital out > Sek'd Prodif Plus soundcard >
Sound Forge 7 (fade in and out, track markers) > .wav files > Trader's Little Helper >
FLAC level 8 encoding (align on sector boundaries)


HardlyStrictlyBluegrass2009-500

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Unlesss I am missing something, the link is for the Living Colour show.

Zoooma said...

I just fixed it.

Zoooma said...

Since I futz around with tables, I copy & paste from a previous post and change the into for the new post, but sometimes I miss a link which usually gets caught with a once-over... but not today which goes to show I shouldn't create such posts while drinking.

. said...

Thanks for this, from the muddy banks of the Mekong River!
Big fan of Steve Martin. Loved his earlier movies, and got dismayed when he moved into the bland "family popcorn" end of the market. "Bowfinger" is his last great movie, and when I asked a friend who knew Steve why he didn't make more movies like this, he said that Steve simply can't hustle the money to make them, because they do zip at the box office. So there you go - it ain't his fault, folks! Yoks cost bucks!

(There's a link at the end of my blog to three hours of hazy 60's psychedelia, if you're interested in that kind of thing).

Unknown said...

I just finished listening to this. Decent stuff. I always liked Martin. I've been aware of his talent with the banjo. I wouldn't rush out to get every show of the tour but am happy to have listened to it.

Thanks for sharing, Zoooma.

Zoooma said...

Thanks for your Thanks, RDOwens. Very cool of you. Glad you dug the tunes.

(Let's Go Dodgers!!!!!)

The Tattoo Blog Guy said...

Zooma, Thanks for this one! My son is a big Steve Martin fan and guitarist. Downloaded the other day and expect to give it a listen this weekend.

Here he is doing some Steve Martin a few years ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEatD0BYJ44

jointathan said...

Nice post. What a talent that Steve Martin, and not just proficient, but a professional on the banjo. It would be interesting to hear the end of the tour to see how things season.

Thank you

one says one number and the other another
but they were set at the same time. Hmmm...

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