Archive for the ‘UrbanGuitar’ Category

The Frozen Barn Blues

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The Frozen Barn Blues

While exploring the haunted and sadly abandoned farmhouse just outside Toronto’s city limits, Rob and I wandered into this adjacent barn space that had clearly been used as a crazy clubhouse, replete with a massive Austin Powers billboard on one wall.

This was the first time we had found a chance to jam together, and man was it freezing in there, one of those penetrating, damp colds that marks the beginning of a good ol’ Canadian winter. I was carting along my old wooden 1920’s flute, an instrument appropriate for the vintage of the farmhouse, which is a piece of work to play in tune at the best of times, so, given the sub-zero temperatures I appreciate you cutting me a little slack in the tuning department…in fact I was kinda pleased with myself that I managed to rock out spontaneously with this Blues riff!

After a couple of hasty takes I could barely feel my fingers anymore, so we hustled out of there and headed for the nearest Tim Horton’s. For more pictures of this desolate country site, check out my slideshow on Phanfare.

A Jurassic Moment

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The Blue-Eyed Lass, Scottish Trad

Well, last week was March Break here in Ontario, and it seemed like half the city cleared out, sensibly heading someplace warm or maybe hitting the slopes north of the city. Me? Between meeting with students and a few gigs around town, I had just enough going on that I stick around and revel in how much less traffic there was in getting around town. I ended up having some fine adventures in-town, including this Jurassic moment out in The Junction!

I had been tipped off the day before that a couple of the buildings out in The Junction were coming down, including the old, abandoned GE factory and NRI (National Rubber Institute?) where I had tagged along with members of TLR camera club. I had joined them and played flute in the cold while they wandered around taking photos and documenting massive interior spaces.

Dinosaurs of the manufacturing era, I’m glad that these buildings have been documented in sight and sound as they meet their demise: these warehouses each have their own characteristics, personality…and lifespan, it would seem. NRI is like an contemporary version of the slow-moving herbivore like the Brontosaurus, especially when compared to the stealth and deadly accuracy of the T-Rex pictured above. This Trawna-saurus Rex is kinda cute, though, don’t you think?

This image reminds me of that scene in Jurassic Park, you know, where the dinosaur peers eerily into the car of our hapless heroes. The sounds that this dino made were absolutely awe-inspiring, and if you listen carefully, there is one particular moment towards the end where a wall comes down, the cascade of bricks completely engulfing this old Scottish Air.

Where one might imagine the sound of a building being being torn down as ugly or just plain noisy, this recording reveals that the sounds of demolition can be endlessly nuanced and even beautiful in their own way. The flute offers contrast, and adds to the poignancy of the moment where our urban landscape changes dramatically. For the better? For the worse? Depends on who you talk to, of course.

Recorded on a second floor area of NRI as the adjacent section was being torn down, I returned a few days later at dusk, just to check in on my old friend. As I tried to get my bearings in the fading light and clambered over large mounds of bricks and metal, I suddenly realized that the space where this recording was made – that whole section of the building – had vanished.

Where I had stood and played my flute no longer existed.

So, how was your March Break?

Sumer Is I’Cumin In

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Sumer Is I’cumin In

Sumer Is I-Cumin In is the oldest surviving English-language song. Medieval Brits happily sang this upon spotting cuckoos, harbingers of warmer weather.

It was the Big Green Bus with the California plates parked on Bloor Street that caught my attention, and led to one of the strangest – and most satisfying – musical experiences of the summer thus far. Just when I had an evening clear to catch up on some UrbanFlute postings, this bizzare concert jumped in the way, in the name of SleepyTime Gorilla Museum! (more…)

Urban Bansuri

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Raga Shivranjani, Banusri

About 5 weeks ago I dropped by the busy worksite of the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandira just north of Pearson International Airport to see if I might don work boots and lend a hand, and was welcomed onto the site with a wonderful, friendly and informative tour. This temple, a cultural & architectural jewel – and very much in the news with its grand opening just last weekend – is simply indescribable. Although only able to catch the festivities after sundown, I was impressed by the incredible enthusiasm and excitement still in the air. (more…)

Caboose No.04990

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And this just in…help restore this 112-year old piece of history!

In simply looking for a Railroad Song, I first tried Arlo Guthrie which led to learning about Casey Jones, and in a matter of minutes, I had opened a window on a whole musical railroad culture with links directly back to Stephen Foster, one of America’s most renowned and prolific songwriters.

I invite you to learn more about The New Christy Minstrels, one of whose members is Dolan Ellis, “Arizona’s Official State Balladeer” since 1966! Well, just some technical difficulty embedding his song…and in the meantime, this should keep you railway buffs amused!

Photo Cliff Grassmick

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Cut from the Same Cloth?!

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Gariboldi

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Koehler

Hey, how did Jack and Meg embed themselves on UrbanFlute?!? The music of The White Stripes can be found all the way from The Royal Opera House to your local bowling lanes…

I think it’s the first time I have ever left a taxi with it’s meter running, but it was worth it! Just finished with exams in Winnipeg, and on an impulse I stopped in and recorded in the historic setting of the Uptown Bowling Lanes. Originally opened as a movie theatre in 1931, this wonderfully preserved buiding was alive with the sounds of kids’ birthday parties on a Saturday afternoon (more…)

Nirvana at the RCM!

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Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, sure, but Kurt Cobain?!? Even I was caught off-guard as I walked into the Royal Conservatory of Music to meet with students.

On the heels of the massive MTNA Teachers Conference held just a couple of weeks ago here in Toronto, and inspired by that morning’s sweeping keynote speech delivered by Bramwell Tovey with it’s particular emphasis on the lost art of improvisation in the classical music tradition, (more…)