Rattlebrained

Did you know? The Alan Lomax Archives over at YouTube regularly posts videos from their archives.

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Congratulations to Marco Marchi & The Mojo Workers, winner of the 1st Swiss Blues Challenge! (above picture)

Besides fighting Geneva’s rush hour traffic to be on time for the sound check

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Spent the last week working on a website for Swamp Train which is one reason this blog has slowed down – it’s not finished but is presentable (I hope), please leave a message if things look weird in your browser – so it was a nice break to join friend Blaise for a gig at the 2nd Festival Blues de Giez. Giez is a small village at the foot of the Swiss Jura mountains not far from Grandson and the festival take place in the village’s ridding school. An old wood building with straw bales, sawdust and a huge “is my back straight” mirror along one of the sides the ring was filled with tables for the pizza and other more local style foods that us blues fan could indulge with while listening to the various bands that played. Blaze and I opened the festivities followed by our friends from Geneva: Floyd Beaumont and the Arkadelphians and then our own (Swamp Train’s) guitarist Mr. CutFinger ; so as you can see we were among family.

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August has passed in a flash as it will when you’re having fun ;-)…

First I spent a couple of weeks helping friend Bill prepare some of his cool home made instruments for his first art show! This event will take place in Fribourg at the Atelier-Galerie J.-J. Hofstetter on September 9th at 8pm. He has programed a series of concerts with them (the instruments) and various other musicians so check out the schedule if you happen to be near by.

Bill, as it has already been mentioned here and there in this blog, also plays with the Fanfare du Loup Orchestra

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We, Swamp Train, had a fantastic time last night at the _Festival Outdoorelch near Balmberg BE, and want to thank the everyone there! A small festival on a hilltop among the many that cover the landscape south of Bern, an area where enough artists have lost their way in the 11 years it has taken place that the organizer just shrugged and laughed when our guitarist, Cutfinger, showed up at pretty much the time we were programed to play. Fortunately _Dalia, the band that played before us, had started later than indicated on the program which was, we were told, just an suggestion and not to be worried about the half hour during which they were to clear the stage and we were to set up, line check and begin our set.

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Although at first I played my small drumset and washboard combination with my hands (wearing my washboard gloves), over the winter I hurt my middle finger joint banging on the heavy old ride cymbal I picked up last year and as I’ve already mentioned I’m sure, began to experiment with various multi-dowel drumsticks which have considerably changed the way I’m playing; possibly not only for the best, time will tell…

In both cases however there have been

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Wouldn’t you know that the weather would go from mild to hot on the day we (Swamp Train) began 3 days of recordings for our first album. Still, I guess it’s fortunate that around here heatwaves are usually pretty dry, even if the temperature on the studio’s dinky little wood thermometer hit 36.5°C / 97.7°F, it was possible to grin and bear it; although it obviously helped the occasional flame of temper that can occur when 4 guys are stuck in a closed over hot and unventilated environment for two long.
None of them very serious, thankfully. I’m sure having managed to get 4-5 tracks on tape hardisk by Monday evening helped keep our spirits tame.

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