Entertainment For Lively Minds
Mossman takes us for a ride
Kate Mossman has given us the analogue/print equivalent of the noddy. What do you mean there isn’t a mandolin shop on Staten Island? Once you get off the ferry, if you hop on a bus, in about 15 minutes you can be at Mandolin Brothers, a specialist music store with a truly amazing range of mostly acoustic guitars, mandolins and banjos.
And unlike the snotty youths that normally work in music stores in Europe (and in Manhattan, come to that) the staff at Mandolin Brothers really know their stuff and are happy to let you try absolutely anything. And given that they have vintage Martins and Gibsons in the $12,000 to $25,000 range, that’s quite something.
I went there precisely because of the Joni Mitchell song and was not disappointed. Kate should do the same:
Mandolin Brothers®, Ltd., 629 Forest Avenue, Staten Island, New York 10310-2576
Phone 718 981-8585, 718 981-3226 or Fax 718 816-4416
www.mandoweb.com
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But,
can you locate mandolin strings in the middle of Austin?
Sorry - what I MEANT to say was...
In September I took a ferry to Staten Island to see if there really was a mandolin shop there. Would you believe, there IS! It's called Mandolin Brothers! I bought a lot of mandolins from it!
Kate's slip
Well, I'll let you off this time, provided you promise to listen to Jenny and the Cold Caller by David Heavenor, a singer/songwriter frequently heard on BBC Scotland's Iain Anderson Show, available on iTunes but curiously absent from the Word environs.
You never know, it might just turn out to be the discovery of a lifetime (and, no, it's not me!).
High Council of Mandolins
Should an arbiter be required, R.E.M's Peter Buck is something of an authority on matters concerning mandolins. Specifically - their global dispersal, the volume of mandolins per head (MPH) within a given area, and the implementation of culls wherever the mandolin population grows so dense that it begins to impact negatively on other string instruments - the endangered Medieval Lute, for instance.
Imminent tragedy
I learned today that the unique Bhawanipatna Sitar Reserve - home to more autochthonous stick-zither-family species than any other sitar forest on earth - is under serious threat from an uncontrolled influx of feral Czech violas, which are believed to have escaped when a container ship was wrecked off the coast of Chatrapur.
Unless a large-scale international rescue effort is mounted quickly, one of the planet's rarest and most elusive sounds could soon be a thing of the past: the haunting twang, ping, booooiing of ten thousand stick zithers tuning up during the summer solstice at midnight, their brief mating season.
Contact Zitherwatch UK to find out what you can do to help.
The grey squirrels...
...in my neck of the woods have taken to storing their acorns between the strings of the resident Stick Zithers. This has the effect of altering the mating call of the Zither and in extreme cases silencing it altogether. Unsurprisingly the local population has crashed.
I can forecast a day when I stare out across the Thames estuary and see only desolate tidal mud flats, where once huge flocks of Zithers would amass for their annual migration to folk music festivals the length and breadth of Canada.
A nice song with just the correct dosage of mandolin is
Waves by Grantura
You can hear it here http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendI...
Best mandolin player?
Chris Thile, then Sam Bush. Then...
...then Adam Steffey
..ex of Union Station and bloody awesome
Stick, the wrong end of
It's amazing how easily some people get carried away on a flight of their own fancy. To my knowledge, Joni Mitchell has never played the mandolin, not on a recording anyway, I don't think David Heavenor plays the mandolin, I'm willing to bet good money that Kate Mossman doesn't either, and I don't. So what's with all this mandolin business?
Tangential
I was near Brick Lane today and discovered a shop dedicated to ukuleles. Called The Duke Of Uke, of course.
I can't resist posting this here
This man is the God of Ukes, surely?