The dreaded happened at our session last night. As we walk in with instruments on our backs, an interested punter asks excitedly, "Oh, wow, are you guys playing tonight?" Yes, we say, we're starting in just a few minutes. "Awesome, I play spoons!" "Oh, do you play irish music on them there spoons?" "I can play anything that has a beat!" Oh, crap. He got more and more drunk as the night went on....what's worse than a really bad spoon player? A really bad, really drunk spoon player. There are just too many terrible details to go into....but I'm sure you've all been there and can sympathize with us all. We've decided to not go to the pub next Sunday...if he shows up again, maybe he'll think it was a one time thing.
Forgot to mention why I titled the discussion as I did. Spoonman at first thought I was a great "violin" player...until our banjo player came in. He didn't even have to play the banjo for this guy to turn on me and say, "Yeah, you're good, but that thing's the s**t! He's number one...you're second." Gee, thanks.
At the Catskill Irish Arts Week during the Tuesday night concert, after Con Fada O'Drisceoil had sung The Spoons Murder to thunderous applause (and getting one of only a small handful of encores during the week), somebody decided to "accompany" John Wynne, John McEvoy, and Brendan Dolan on spoons (or perhaps bones) from the back of the hall. During their concert set! Talk about a "desert between his two ears!"
I'm actually being serious for a change, my mum plays the spoons. In the beginning I used to be all like 'why me'? But I realise now its a blessing in disguise. I am the only person I know who can totally tune out when a spoon player plays. Its like they aren't even there. Quite funny watching all my friends get worked up about something that I don't even notice.
Does anyone play the forks or the knives instead of the spoons?
Did you hear the joke about the talking fork who said, "It is tine to eat."
On the rare occasions (thankfully very rare) when a spoons player (spooner?) has been present, I have ignored their pitiful and pathetic attempts to keep up with the beat.
Since these occasions usually occurred when I was playing my bass fiddle with the old-time music group, it was easy to ignore the spooner.
"On the rare occasions (thankfully very rare) when a spoons player (spooner?) has been present, I have ignored their pitiful and pathetic attempts to keep up with the beat." hahahaha - thats funny - especially the part where you play a bass fiddle at an old timey group.
Thats such a lie Dow - all my friends are like 'oh my god'! Its quite amusing really, she is a bit of a doll and does cook everyone dinner before the session. Also no one messes with my mum so everyone has to be nice to her.
She went to a session the other day and someone was rude to her about the spoons - apparenlty it was a total hack who cant even play. So Ive found out who he is and he is on the black list...no one messes with my ma!
I'm having a bit of a hard time with the idea of calling off the session for a week just to get rid of a spoons player. Why can't someone just mention to him that he's being disruptive? Isn't the direct approach really a better scenario? What if he then just thinks that it's every other week? Or once a month? There are numerous threads on this site about ways to approach unwanted people in your session.
As far as spoons go, I don't mind them on occasion. Where it gets bad is when the spoons/bones player tries to play on every set. What would be the harm in talking to the person about that? If they are the type that is there because they want to "fit in", then they're not going to be happy sitting there for most of the night, just listening, and probably won't come back.
And speaking of "desert between the ears", I saw a bones player try to play on an air once....
We had a spoons player at a folk club I once ran. He used to 'play' along with the guests. Everyone was too polite to tell him he had no sense of rhythm and no sense of occasion. Until the night the guest took the spoons off him and threw them down the stairs, closely followed by . . . no, unfortunately only the spoons went downstairs.
Irishfiddler 32 is being too kind. I'm a part of that session and when 'Mr Spoons" started playing, he kept a 4/4 beat (barely). I don't often down talk of another musicians skills, but I believe this guy was a traveling cook who carried his utensils in his rollaround suitcase. There was one point where his phone rang and he answered it in the middle of a set, never missed a beat. The man was a multitasking virtuoso. But, as Irishfiddler32 said, the banjo player was the Sh*t, she was # 2 Sh*te and the rest of us were just plain Sh*t. My wife thought I smelled funny when I got home.
The more I think about it the funnier it gets.It would have been a UTube hit for sure. There are characters of all kinds in Savannah, Ga.
First off you know you'll always be the number 1 fiddler in my book. Now that I got you smiling I must say it's good to know the curse is working. Now I have to come up with the fifty I promised the guy.
That's what you get for abandoning us up here. Why anyone would want to leave the noisy, congested, and dirty NY metropolitan area to live happily ever after with the love of her life in the lovely, clean, friendly, quiet, non congested, greater Savannah area is beyond.... scratch that. Best make up the spare room, I'll be there tonight.
My best to Mr. Irishfiddler32 and everyone else there.
Peace,
Ed
p.s. Could you spot me the fifty and give it to the guy next you see him?
I loved the song spoonsmurder, just goes to show what a delicately temperamental lot of psychopaths you melody lot are. You should all say daily prayers for the percussionists who keep you all on the straight and narrow
I heard a great way of dealing with the uninvited spoons player. Usually they sit on the outskirts of the session, at another table or the bar. Say nothing and just order the man a bowl of soup!
"We've decided to not go to the pub next Sunday..."
Do I literally have to drive to Savannah, GA from SW Florida to deal with this eejit for y'all? If I come back on here and read about how your session skipped a week because of some half-wit spooner...
bb, my dad was an ace spoons player, an ability second only to his musical expertise on hosepipes. He also played the banjolele, so thank heavens I inherited none of his skills.
What about the spoons on the recording "Paddy in the Smoke" ?
They sounded OK to me. At least the player seemed to know what he was doing. In those days you´d often get a spoons player at a session and as long as he was able to keep the rhythm, and maybe throw in a bit of ornamentation, nobody was bothered.
Of course there´s nothing worse than a spoons player that can´t keep the rhythm. On the occasions when that happened, those listening usually managed to "persuade" him/her to desist.
In some of the rougher pubs you had to put up with pennies banged on the table, or on the edge of pint glasses, bottles clinked together, and if the percussionist had had a few and was of the dimensions of a barn door, it would take a brave man to object. !
They might be fighting drunk, big as a barn door, or they might be some musician's ma. bb Cruella de Vil, can you extend your ability of screening out the sound of spoons to screen other noises too?
Well, maybe we went to different sessions, Floss.
I heard spoons at sessions in the The Cock, the Shakespear and the Brewery Tap - and that was just in the Holloway Road !
I´m not saying there were spoons played every time, but in my experience it certainly wasn´t " the exception ".
Not going to the session on Sunday was kind of a joke...I don't think we were all that serious. It's just kind of convenient because of an already planned house session on Friday...wouldn't be a big deal to miss Sunday.
Ed, I knew you had something to do with this...very clever, sending in the clown. Oh, and your room is always ready for you...
I wasn't that worried about the spoon player when I saw the angry German guy sitting at the bar shaking his fist at us and pointing to stop playing because he could not hear the futbol match...
Thats when I realized the session as we know it was gone forever ..And whatever kind of Irish Pub I thought I was in had gone to S@#T! So so long PUB! We had good times..To bad it had to end. Good Luck with your Bud Light bottles Big screen TV's and your ScariOkie...Your a match made in H.. And I don't mean Houston...
My late brother played the spoons, Michael Sands paid a lovely tribute to him after his funeral last Easter.
He used to attend a session on a Friday night, somewhat lacking in atmosphere. The only person the punters wanted to hear was him on the spoons, as he was lively.
The above tells us a number of things about spoons, punters, and musicians, paid musicians in this case, paid to attract people to the pub. The attraction turned out to be the unpaid spoons player.
Obviously the "musicians" objected to this and had him banned, which also suggests a number of things.
And why does everyone condemn spoons, bodhrans, banjos, accordions and the rest ASSUMING they are bad players, and then in a sycophantic way say "Oh, if it is a good player it is ok" .
You could begin by condemning all flute players if you take that attitude.
In my case, it might be because very rarely have I met a spoons or bones player who didn't try to play on every durn set! The only exception to that is a particular player that also plays other instruments, and only pulls out the bones on rare occasion.
Hey Geoff, whaddya think yer doing posting that beginners' video? What a star that bloke is! Awesome or what! You do realise that I'm now going to spend all tomorrow learning the bloody spoons, don't you! Sod harmonicas!
None of us at this particular session get paid for bringing patrons into the pub. We're all there to have a good time, play some tunes, and enjoy each other's company. That, unfortunately, was difficult to do last Sunday because of the spoon man. He was drunk, disrespectful, and just plain annoying. If he were to return, I would have to ask him to not join in, as he was distracting and irritating to everyone. I just try not to do that the first time I meet someone...let him have his fun, but if he comes back...
It's been a while since a spoons player came by here. We've never been visited by an atrociously bad one. There are a few melody line players whose instruments I would like to confiscate...whistle players who use assault whistles...fiddlers who are in tune only when they hit an open string....I can't get all fussed about spooners.
I'd have to say this thread is really about eejits, not spoons.
In the case of our friends from Savannah, GA, it was a drunk rude eejit who just happened to have a pair of spoons. He could have had anything at all, but he was drunk, rude and an eejit. Didn't really matter what he was playing after all that.
Ah yes, the eejits. You havn't a monopoly in that article, SWFL. We are lucky though, in that there are among us some old fellows who are wise in the ways of playfully distracting eejits. The offending party is preocupied with something else, while all the time, they're never made to feel any less of a human being. I've witnessed this game many times. It can be done.
No quigley - I fear I cannot block out anything else. Mores the pity I say because my mom may play the spoons - but there are a heck of a lot of session wreckers out there and I just cant block them out.
Yes - I wish I had that too. Then I could block out all those out of tunes fiddle players, rythmically challenged bodhrans and backers who can only back in the key of D...so irritating:(
Some time back, a lady posted an observation that she had heard far worse offenses by melody line players, than by rhythm players. Sorry, I can't remember her name.
Yes welll exactly, I dont blame all "spoon" players or all "bodrahn" players - session wreckers come in many different forms...meldoy instruments certainly have their fair share.
I popped into a pub in Milton Malbay, absolute great session, with a fantastic banjo player. Everyone thought it was great. It was noticeable that there was a bones player, standing just behind the banjo player, playing away with much gusto. No-one was offended, or batted an eyelid. Fitted in perfectly.
So perhaps much of this anti "bodhran, spoons etc" sentiment is a misguided attempt to fit in to what is allegedly accepted in traditional circles.
I think that was the first point I ever made on this site.
bb, wasn't this pretty much how our last exchange went? I remember now because it was on the 4th of July, and we were complaining about the universality of session-wreckers Don't you find disagreements on the mustard board more fun than agreements? Go ahead, place a quarrel. I cant wait!
Mr bliss sir, some of the first Irish music I ever heard was a recording of traveling people having music in their camp. Several people were diddling a tune and the rest were beating on pots and pans and whatnot. Maybe it's because I was a kid, when I heard this, but I've since come to feel this may have been the best introduction to Trad that any American outsider could have.
Well, I was in a session Sunday evening early, there was a guy there from Iran, he had a drum he called a daf, a good 18 inches in diameter, the ring no more than 2 inches deep, a lot of interlocking rings as jingles slung from the inside of the ring under the skin - it made a bloody racket I can tell you, he eventually managed to play it a bit more quietly and then I could hear the banjo and the pipes a bit, but still not my own 'zouk, unless nobody was playing........
Never mind WMD, a single badly-played daf could ruin a session...
Spoons can be very accepted depending on who's playing them, their ability, frequency, relationship with the musicians, etc.
Case in point: check out this video of my friend and neighbor, Autumn, at a session in the Catskills and your spoonist, Yvonne, owner of the pub, is seen playing along with great appreciation from the musicians.
Pete... I love the daf and used to play it along with other associated percussion instruments in my band, "The Baghdad Bad Boys." But I would never attempt to play it with Irish music. Not to say it can't be done, but I would only entertain the idea if it was at someone's house and understood as being experimental... or just for the craic.
It is a long story, and happened long ago, but Santa Barbara *used* to have a yearly Irish festival. Santa Barbara's festival stopped about 3 or 4 years ago. The demise of our local Irish festival can be directly linked to a spoon/bones player. Not just the person, but the actual playing of the (sic) instruments in public at the festival lead to the demise.
One of the punters where my session takes place is a brilliant and inventive spoons player. Unfortunately, by starting time she has usually been drinking for many hours, and timing has been compromised. If we could find a way of having her start *fresh*, ........
murfbox, if you had visited the King's Head in the Holloway Road at around that time, you might have heard the spooner with The Tappers (a pretty good band, the name not influenced by its percussionist) who was widely admired.
Can't remember his name, but he showed me a few slick moves.
Eliot, that's a prodigious amount of damage to be attributed to one spoons player. Was this the unanimous verdict of an honest and impartial inquest? Was the spoons player a guest artist whom you'd imported at great expense? What did you do with the individual afterward? Are they still at large?
I have been to a session once where a lady and her kid(s?) brought limberjacks.
There was also a trombone professor at college who played spoons and trombone at the same time (taking off his shoe and working the slide with his toes). Weird, but pretty good.
I once talked to a spoon player at some length about practice spoons. Comparing them to a drum pad, which is a rubber pad on which you can practice your drumming rudiments without annoying anybody, I told him that the spoons had small pieces of thin rubber stuck to them and were excellent for practicing at home. Couldn't tell if he believed me, but he seemed very interest at the time.
The old-time music group whom I mentioned are people who like to play the type of music which people used to play at home to amuse and bemuse themselves before they had modern conveniences such as computers, television, radio, telegraphs, telephones, railroads, flush toilets, indoor plumbing, etc.
This group of mixed nuts calls themselves the Rackensack Folklore Society and they have been meeting once a month to play old-time music for approximately forty-five years now.
I first heard about them when my father took me to one of their monthly meetings when I was fourteen.
I have been playing my bass fiddle with Rackensack for several years and I do enjoy making music with this group of mixed nuts.
The spoon player is no longer able to attend the monthly meetings due to health problems and no other spoon player has showed up to take his place yet.
Since there are no drummers (such as bodhran players) who participate, if no other bass player shows up, I am the whole rhythm section.
>Eliot, that's a prodigious amount of damage to be attributed to one spoons player. Was this the unanimous verdict of an honest and impartial inquest? Was the spoons player a guest artist whom you'd imported at great expense? What did you do with the individual afterward? Are they still at large?
I think the year was 2001, Summer. The Irish Festival here in SB had qutie a following. Good bands would come up from LA, down from the north, and there was camping and sessions, and good music and so on. There were two stages that were full morning to night, and crowds.
Then, the last day of the festival, we had this huge open session in a meadow. THere were about 40 of us, all the guests, visitors, everyone having fun playing a last session of tunes before the festival ended. This spooner started playing. Now, in a meadow with 40 other musicians you'd think you could hardly hear such a player, but this bloke played the monstrosity so loud, so off beat, and so unmusically that the entire valley was shaking with their thunder.
We, being gentle, put up with the intrusion for a few tunes. Maybe 20 minutes or so without a word. But, this being our last time playing together, eventually one of us very politely and deferentially went up to him and asked him if maybe he could play a little softer. In fact, I think it was me. He didn't. If anything he played louder, more off beat, and seemed like that guy in the white pick up tail gating you in the slow lane when he can pass any time in the fast lane!
A few tunes later, another musician went up to him and insisted he play softer, attempting to explain just how destructive the spoons were to the musical experience we were trying to share.
His response was "I've been playing spoons for 25 years, and I know how to play..." the usual fighting words. Well, at this point, more than a few took him up on the fight, and pretty soon it was an all out shouting match coming close to a brawl. Not just a shouting match, but the kind where faces are red, people are shaking with anger, and it just seems to be going on and on.
(By the way, last year, this same bloke showed up at a gig I was playing and ask to join in -- at my paid gig! Then he started playing without being asked!!! Then he gave me the same line about how well he played and that he was from L.A. and had been playing 25 years. And I had to ask him to stop, but it was ok, since it was our paid gig. I promised to let him play again later, but the broke my promise).
So, at the end of the fight, it turned out that the spooner, of all things, was the head or president or something of an Irish society from Los Angeles, and he was responsible for a good bit of money and the L.A. support of the Irish Festival here in Santa Barbara, and he swore he would do everything he could to make sure there was no more L.A. support for the festival.
Of course, the musicians from up north who were there, having experienced this fight, decided that the S.B. festival was no fun, never wanting to experience such a thing again, so they as much as said this was their last festival. And indeed none would play again in subsequent years.
For two years the festival continued at the same place, but the crowds were scarce, the music 3-rd rate, and the mood depressed. Everyone knew why it was dying. Finally, I think in 2005, it happened one last time in a new venue in Santa Barbara. I played that year. My band -- 4 of us, played to an audience of 6. Then it was over.
So, there is no doubt in my mind, that had the fight with the spooner never happened, then the SB Irish Festival would still be thriving.
And thus, it turns out that Spooners pose a serious threat.
Eliot, it turned out, that in this instance, one Spooner posed a serious threat. I don't ordinarily associate spoons playing with wealth, power, or political clout. Your man not-withstanding, spooners represent the music of the dispossessed. Nowadays, maybe they might be more lacking in musical ability, or musical sense, than anything else. So many people hear this music and want to be a part of it, without comprehending the preparation that is required.
Thanks, Free Reed. That was a blast! Once upon a time, Artis the Spoonman used to be featured in a variety show at the Boarding House in San Francisco. He was plenty good, even back then.
Not me AQ, I'm old-school, a real Bill O'Rights kinda guy. I believe it was Thomas Jefferson who said that the safety of democracy rests on an informed, active and spoony citizenry.
Or maybe that was Charleton Heston? I dunno, been a long day, I'm going to fiddle some tunes and hide the spoons. [shrug]
From barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilisation: Clemenceau speaking qabout the good old US of A seeing as we are into quotes.
Great spoons playing, welcome anywhere, well nearly anywhere.
What ever his views on America and Americans might have been, old Georges Clemenceau was a power on the button box! He had few equals when it came to playing reels.
Yes yes, we get the destruction of spoons, but what about all the session wreckers who dont play spoons? what about all the hacks who play fiddles, flutes, guitars etc etc?
SWFL Fiddler, your spoons nonsense didn't fly over or under my head. I had no trouble understanding it because it hit me squarely in the head. No, it didn't hurt me but my wife will tell you that I am hard-headed anyway.
bb Cruella de vil, you are correct about the session wreckers. As someone else on this web site said, it isn't the instrument that is the problem, it is the idiot who thinks he or she can play the instrument that is the problem.
Guitarists who play three chords when two are needed (see another thread hereabouts), who play two chords when three are needed, who play one chord all the time, who strum mindlessly. Guitarists in bulk, who play different chords - one, two, three or more, but different. Aaaaarrrrgggghhhh!
Put in my place by the spoonman
Put in my place by the spoonman
The dreaded happened at our session last night. As we walk in with instruments on our backs, an interested punter asks excitedly, "Oh, wow, are you guys playing tonight?" Yes, we say, we're starting in just a few minutes. "Awesome, I play spoons!" "Oh, do you play irish music on them there spoons?" "I can play anything that has a beat!" Oh, crap. He got more and more drunk as the night went on....what's worse than a really bad spoon player? A really bad, really drunk spoon player. There are just too many terrible details to go into....but I'm sure you've all been there and can sympathize with us all. We've decided to not go to the pub next Sunday...if he shows up again, maybe he'll think it was a one time thing.
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by irishfiddler32
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
Forgot to mention why I titled the discussion as I did. Spoonman at first thought I was a great "violin" player...until our banjo player came in. He didn't even have to play the banjo for this guy to turn on me and say, "Yeah, you're good, but that thing's the s**t! He's number one...you're second." Gee, thanks.
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by irishfiddler32
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
http://www.tipsyhouse.com/spoonsmurder.mp3
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by Phantom Button
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
At the Catskill Irish Arts Week during the Tuesday night concert, after Con Fada O'Drisceoil had sung The Spoons Murder to thunderous applause (and getting one of only a small handful of encores during the week), somebody decided to "accompany" John Wynne, John McEvoy, and Brendan Dolan on spoons (or perhaps bones) from the back of the hall. During their concert set! Talk about a "desert between his two ears!"
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by GaryAMartin
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
My mom plays the spoons
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by bb
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
I use spoons to eat.
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by Phantom Button
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
I cook eggs
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by Phantom Button
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
I serve them in a bodhran
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by Phantom Button
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
Makes a nice bowl...
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by Phantom Button
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
I'm actually being serious for a change, my mum plays the spoons. In the beginning I used to be all like 'why me'? But I realise now its a blessing in disguise. I am the only person I know who can totally tune out when a spoon player plays. Its like they aren't even there. Quite funny watching all my friends get worked up about something that I don't even notice.
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by bb
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
But what happens like when your mom shows up at the session?
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by Phantom Button
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
Does anyone play the forks or the knives instead of the spoons?
Did you hear the joke about the talking fork who said, "It is tine to eat."
On the rare occasions (thankfully very rare) when a spoons player (spooner?) has been present, I have ignored their pitiful and pathetic attempts to keep up with the beat.
Since these occasions usually occurred when I was playing my bass fiddle with the old-time music group, it was easy to ignore the spooner.
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by fauxcelt
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
nothing happens PB - she turnes up and its like I just cant hear it.
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by bb
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
"On the rare occasions (thankfully very rare) when a spoons player (spooner?) has been present, I have ignored their pitiful and pathetic attempts to keep up with the beat." hahahaha - thats funny - especially the part where you play a bass fiddle at an old timey group.
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by bb
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
But beebs... don't your friends say, "uh... beebs... what's with yer mom and the spoons?"
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by Phantom Button
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
No cause she makes me nice chicken soup on a Tuesday night.
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by Dr. Dow
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
Thats such a lie Dow - all my friends are like 'oh my god'! Its quite amusing really, she is a bit of a doll and does cook everyone dinner before the session. Also no one messes with my mum so everyone has to be nice to her.
She went to a session the other day and someone was rude to her about the spoons - apparenlty it was a total hack who cant even play. So Ive found out who he is and he is on the black list...no one messes with my ma!
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by bb
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
I'm having a bit of a hard time with the idea of calling off the session for a week just to get rid of a spoons player. Why can't someone just mention to him that he's being disruptive? Isn't the direct approach really a better scenario? What if he then just thinks that it's every other week? Or once a month? There are numerous threads on this site about ways to approach unwanted people in your session.
As far as spoons go, I don't mind them on occasion. Where it gets bad is when the spoons/bones player tries to play on every set. What would be the harm in talking to the person about that? If they are the type that is there because they want to "fit in", then they're not going to be happy sitting there for most of the night, just listening, and probably won't come back.
And speaking of "desert between the ears", I saw a bones player try to play on an air once....
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by Reverend
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
We had a spoons player at a folk club I once ran. He used to 'play' along with the guests. Everyone was too polite to tell him he had no sense of rhythm and no sense of occasion. Until the night the guest took the spoons off him and threw them down the stairs, closely followed by . . . no, unfortunately only the spoons went downstairs.
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by c.g.
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
Hey beebs, we had a woman playing spoons at the dan the other week, Rinne knew her and she was from Sydney. Was that your mum?
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by kjay_bc_box
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
Yup~ That was her
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by bb
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
Nobody on Gods earth could convince me that spoons have any place in any type of music. It is not a skill it's a torture.
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by bogman
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
Irishfiddler 32 is being too kind. I'm a part of that session and when 'Mr Spoons" started playing, he kept a 4/4 beat (barely). I don't often down talk of another musicians skills, but I believe this guy was a traveling cook who carried his utensils in his rollaround suitcase. There was one point where his phone rang and he answered it in the middle of a set, never missed a beat. The man was a multitasking virtuoso. But, as Irishfiddler32 said, the banjo player was the Sh*t, she was # 2 Sh*te and the rest of us were just plain Sh*t. My wife thought I smelled funny when I got home.
The more I think about it the funnier it gets.It would have been a UTube hit for sure. There are characters of all kinds in Savannah, Ga.
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by thepig521
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
Hey there ms. second fiddler,
First off you know you'll always be the number 1 fiddler in my book. Now that I got you smiling I must say it's good to know the curse is working. Now I have to come up with the fifty I promised the guy.
That's what you get for abandoning us up here. Why anyone would want to leave the noisy, congested, and dirty NY metropolitan area to live happily ever after with the love of her life in the lovely, clean, friendly, quiet, non congested, greater Savannah area is beyond.... scratch that. Best make up the spare room, I'll be there tonight.
My best to Mr. Irishfiddler32 and everyone else there.
Peace,
Ed
p.s. Could you spot me the fifty and give it to the guy next you see him?
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by ejsant
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
I loved the song spoonsmurder, just goes to show what a delicately temperamental lot of psychopaths you melody lot are. You should all say daily prayers for the percussionists who keep you all on the straight and narrow
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by mcknowall
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
I heard a great way of dealing with the uninvited spoons player. Usually they sit on the outskirts of the session, at another table or the bar. Say nothing and just order the man a bowl of soup!
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by mumhain abu
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
Seriously, this is all good and funny, but:
"We've decided to not go to the pub next Sunday..."
Do I literally have to drive to Savannah, GA from SW Florida to deal with this eejit for y'all? If I come back on here and read about how your session skipped a week because of some half-wit spooner...
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
>> Say nothing and just order the man a bowl of soup!
Love it! Very clever!
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by Reverend
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
"Say nothing and just order the man a bowl of soup!"
I believe it was the venerable Harry Bradley who came up with that one.
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by mumhain abu
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
The advanced tutorial - http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Mt0QczmQ4Sc.
For beginners - http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=qK_M8TIEE-4.
For those who hate the feckin' things -
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ATzpeUnJR_0.
bb, my dad was an ace spoons player, an ability second only to his musical expertise on hosepipes. He also played the banjolele, so thank heavens I inherited none of his skills.
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by MacCruiskeen
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
The problem isn't the instrument, surely? It's the player.
Think how much worse it would be if he had a trumpet, or electronic bagpipes not quite in concert pitch.
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by LowProfile
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
What about the spoons playing on Paddy in the Smoke?
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by mcswiss
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
What about the spoons on the recording "Paddy in the Smoke" ?
They sounded OK to me. At least the player seemed to know what he was doing. In those days you´d often get a spoons player at a session and as long as he was able to keep the rhythm, and maybe throw in a bit of ornamentation, nobody was bothered.
Of course there´s nothing worse than a spoons player that can´t keep the rhythm. On the occasions when that happened, those listening usually managed to "persuade" him/her to desist.
In some of the rougher pubs you had to put up with pennies banged on the table, or on the edge of pint glasses, bottles clinked together, and if the percussionist had had a few and was of the dimensions of a barn door, it would take a brave man to object. !
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by murfbox
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
Sorry, Tintin, cross posting there !
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by murfbox
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
They might be fighting drunk, big as a barn door, or they might be some musician's ma. bb Cruella de Vil, can you extend your ability of screening out the sound of spoons to screen other noises too?
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
'In those days you´d often get a spoons player at a session'.
Sorry, murfbox, but this just ain't true. They were the exception rather than the rule.
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by MacCruiskeen
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
Well, maybe we went to different sessions, Floss.
I heard spoons at sessions in the The Cock, the Shakespear and the Brewery Tap - and that was just in the Holloway Road !
I´m not saying there were spoons played every time, but in my experience it certainly wasn´t " the exception ".
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by murfbox
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
Not going to the session on Sunday was kind of a joke...I don't think we were all that serious. It's just kind of convenient because of an already planned house session on Friday...wouldn't be a big deal to miss Sunday.
Ed, I knew you had something to do with this...very clever, sending in the clown. Oh, and your room is always ready for you...
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by irishfiddler32
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
I wasn't that worried about the spoon player when I saw the angry German guy sitting at the bar shaking his fist at us and pointing to stop playing because he could not hear the futbol match...
Thats when I realized the session as we know it was gone forever ..And whatever kind of Irish Pub I thought I was in had gone to S@#T! So so long PUB! We had good times..To bad it had to end. Good Luck with your Bud Light bottles Big screen TV's and your ScariOkie...Your a match made in H.. And I don't mean Houston...
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by lamh trom
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
My late brother played the spoons, Michael Sands paid a lovely tribute to him after his funeral last Easter.
He used to attend a session on a Friday night, somewhat lacking in atmosphere. The only person the punters wanted to hear was him on the spoons, as he was lively.
The above tells us a number of things about spoons, punters, and musicians, paid musicians in this case, paid to attract people to the pub. The attraction turned out to be the unpaid spoons player.
Obviously the "musicians" objected to this and had him banned, which also suggests a number of things.
And why does everyone condemn spoons, bodhrans, banjos, accordions and the rest ASSUMING they are bad players, and then in a sycophantic way say "Oh, if it is a good player it is ok" .
You could begin by condemning all flute players if you take that attitude.
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by bodhran bliss
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
In my case, it might be because very rarely have I met a spoons or bones player who didn't try to play on every durn set! The only exception to that is a particular player that also plays other instruments, and only pulls out the bones on rare occasion.
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by Reverend
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
Hey Geoff, whaddya think yer doing posting that beginners' video? What a star that bloke is! Awesome or what! You do realise that I'm now going to spend all tomorrow learning the bloody spoons, don't you! Sod harmonicas!
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by Steve Shaw
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
None of us at this particular session get paid for bringing patrons into the pub. We're all there to have a good time, play some tunes, and enjoy each other's company. That, unfortunately, was difficult to do last Sunday because of the spoon man. He was drunk, disrespectful, and just plain annoying. If he were to return, I would have to ask him to not join in, as he was distracting and irritating to everyone. I just try not to do that the first time I meet someone...let him have his fun, but if he comes back...
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by irishfiddler32
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
And if he arrives with bagpipes he has just bought, will he get one chance as well?
I took spoons off someone once and threw them away, because he wouldn't listen. All it needs is a bit of authority.
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by bodhran bliss
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
It's been a while since a spoons player came by here. We've never been visited by an atrociously bad one. There are a few melody line players whose instruments I would like to confiscate...whistle players who use assault whistles...fiddlers who are in tune only when they hit an open string....I can't get all fussed about spooners.
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
I'd have to say this thread is really about eejits, not spoons.
In the case of our friends from Savannah, GA, it was a drunk rude eejit who just happened to have a pair of spoons. He could have had anything at all, but he was drunk, rude and an eejit. Didn't really matter what he was playing after all that.
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
Ah yes, the eejits. You havn't a monopoly in that article, SWFL. We are lucky though, in that there are among us some old fellows who are wise in the ways of playfully distracting eejits. The offending party is preocupied with something else, while all the time, they're never made to feel any less of a human being. I've witnessed this game many times. It can be done.
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
No quigley - I fear I cannot block out anything else. Mores the pity I say because my mom may play the spoons - but there are a heck of a lot of session wreckers out there and I just cant block them out.
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by bb
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
bb Cruella de Vill, I was hoping you had latched onto some special mental discipline, like something out of India, or China.
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
Yes - I wish I had that too. Then I could block out all those out of tunes fiddle players, rythmically challenged bodhrans and backers who can only back in the key of D...so irritating:(
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by bb
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
Some time back, a lady posted an observation that she had heard far worse offenses by melody line players, than by rhythm players. Sorry, I can't remember her name.
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
Yes welll exactly, I dont blame all "spoon" players or all "bodrahn" players - session wreckers come in many different forms...meldoy instruments certainly have their fair share.
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by bb
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
I popped into a pub in Milton Malbay, absolute great session, with a fantastic banjo player. Everyone thought it was great. It was noticeable that there was a bones player, standing just behind the banjo player, playing away with much gusto. No-one was offended, or batted an eyelid. Fitted in perfectly.
So perhaps much of this anti "bodhran, spoons etc" sentiment is a misguided attempt to fit in to what is allegedly accepted in traditional circles.
I think that was the first point I ever made on this site.
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by bodhran bliss
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
bb, wasn't this pretty much how our last exchange went? I remember now because it was on the 4th of July, and we were complaining about the universality of session-wreckers Don't you find disagreements on the mustard board more fun than agreements? Go ahead, place a quarrel. I cant wait!
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
I do get into disagreements lots on here - but I'm feeling pretty cheerful this morning (for some unknown reason). Sorry
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by bb
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
Mr bliss sir, some of the first Irish music I ever heard was a recording of traveling people having music in their camp. Several people were diddling a tune and the rest were beating on pots and pans and whatnot. Maybe it's because I was a kid, when I heard this, but I've since come to feel this may have been the best introduction to Trad that any American outsider could have.
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
bb, quite right. Don't let yourself get drawn into some eejit agenda. There are morning wreckers out there too.
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
Well, I was in a session Sunday evening early, there was a guy there from Iran, he had a drum he called a daf, a good 18 inches in diameter, the ring no more than 2 inches deep, a lot of interlocking rings as jingles slung from the inside of the ring under the skin - it made a bloody racket I can tell you, he eventually managed to play it a bit more quietly and then I could hear the banjo and the pipes a bit, but still not my own 'zouk, unless nobody was playing........
Never mind WMD, a single badly-played daf could ruin a session...
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by Guernsey Pete
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
Spoons can be very accepted depending on who's playing them, their ability, frequency, relationship with the musicians, etc.
Case in point: check out this video of my friend and neighbor, Autumn, at a session in the Catskills and your spoonist, Yvonne, owner of the pub, is seen playing along with great appreciation from the musicians.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDKh6yF67sw
# Posted on July 23rd 2008 by Phantom Button
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
Pete... I love the daf and used to play it along with other associated percussion instruments in my band, "The Baghdad Bad Boys." But I would never attempt to play it with Irish music. Not to say it can't be done, but I would only entertain the idea if it was at someone's house and understood as being experimental... or just for the craic.
# Posted on July 23rd 2008 by Phantom Button
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
Hey Phanbutt, the punters clapped when she STOPPED playing, that doesn't count
# Posted on July 23rd 2008 by mcknowall
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
Hahahaha
# Posted on July 23rd 2008 by Phantom Button
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
It is a long story, and happened long ago, but Santa Barbara *used* to have a yearly Irish festival. Santa Barbara's festival stopped about 3 or 4 years ago. The demise of our local Irish festival can be directly linked to a spoon/bones player. Not just the person, but the actual playing of the (sic) instruments in public at the festival lead to the demise.
# Posted on July 23rd 2008 by Eliot
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
One of the punters where my session takes place is a brilliant and inventive spoons player. Unfortunately, by starting time she has usually been drinking for many hours, and timing has been compromised. If we could find a way of having her start *fresh*, ........
murfbox, if you had visited the King's Head in the Holloway Road at around that time, you might have heard the spooner with The Tappers (a pretty good band, the name not influenced by its percussionist) who was widely admired.
Can't remember his name, but he showed me a few slick moves.
# Posted on July 23rd 2008 by oldstrings
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
Eliot, that's a prodigious amount of damage to be attributed to one spoons player. Was this the unanimous verdict of an honest and impartial inquest? Was the spoons player a guest artist whom you'd imported at great expense? What did you do with the individual afterward? Are they still at large?
# Posted on July 23rd 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
Eliot, how did that happen?
By the way, I had emailed you in the spring about possibly coming to UCSB for grad school. It's now very certain, and I will be there in September. :D
# Posted on July 23rd 2008 by jasonb
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
I have been to a session once where a lady and her kid(s?) brought limberjacks.
There was also a trombone professor at college who played spoons and trombone at the same time (taking off his shoe and working the slide with his toes). Weird, but pretty good.
# Posted on July 23rd 2008 by jasonb
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
I once talked to a spoon player at some length about practice spoons. Comparing them to a drum pad, which is a rubber pad on which you can practice your drumming rudiments without annoying anybody, I told him that the spoons had small pieces of thin rubber stuck to them and were excellent for practicing at home. Couldn't tell if he believed me, but he seemed very interest at the time.
# Posted on July 23rd 2008 by Free Reed
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
The old-time music group whom I mentioned are people who like to play the type of music which people used to play at home to amuse and bemuse themselves before they had modern conveniences such as computers, television, radio, telegraphs, telephones, railroads, flush toilets, indoor plumbing, etc.
This group of mixed nuts calls themselves the Rackensack Folklore Society and they have been meeting once a month to play old-time music for approximately forty-five years now.
I first heard about them when my father took me to one of their monthly meetings when I was fourteen.
I have been playing my bass fiddle with Rackensack for several years and I do enjoy making music with this group of mixed nuts.
The spoon player is no longer able to attend the monthly meetings due to health problems and no other spoon player has showed up to take his place yet.
Since there are no drummers (such as bodhran players) who participate, if no other bass player shows up, I am the whole rhythm section.
# Posted on July 23rd 2008 by fauxcelt
How a spooner ended the SB Irish Festival...
>Eliot, that's a prodigious amount of damage to be attributed to one spoons player. Was this the unanimous verdict of an honest and impartial inquest? Was the spoons player a guest artist whom you'd imported at great expense? What did you do with the individual afterward? Are they still at large?
I think the year was 2001, Summer. The Irish Festival here in SB had qutie a following. Good bands would come up from LA, down from the north, and there was camping and sessions, and good music and so on. There were two stages that were full morning to night, and crowds.
Then, the last day of the festival, we had this huge open session in a meadow. THere were about 40 of us, all the guests, visitors, everyone having fun playing a last session of tunes before the festival ended. This spooner started playing. Now, in a meadow with 40 other musicians you'd think you could hardly hear such a player, but this bloke played the monstrosity so loud, so off beat, and so unmusically that the entire valley was shaking with their thunder.
We, being gentle, put up with the intrusion for a few tunes. Maybe 20 minutes or so without a word. But, this being our last time playing together, eventually one of us very politely and deferentially went up to him and asked him if maybe he could play a little softer. In fact, I think it was me. He didn't. If anything he played louder, more off beat, and seemed like that guy in the white pick up tail gating you in the slow lane when he can pass any time in the fast lane!
A few tunes later, another musician went up to him and insisted he play softer, attempting to explain just how destructive the spoons were to the musical experience we were trying to share.
His response was "I've been playing spoons for 25 years, and I know how to play..." the usual fighting words. Well, at this point, more than a few took him up on the fight, and pretty soon it was an all out shouting match coming close to a brawl. Not just a shouting match, but the kind where faces are red, people are shaking with anger, and it just seems to be going on and on.
(By the way, last year, this same bloke showed up at a gig I was playing and ask to join in -- at my paid gig! Then he started playing without being asked!!! Then he gave me the same line about how well he played and that he was from L.A. and had been playing 25 years. And I had to ask him to stop, but it was ok, since it was our paid gig. I promised to let him play again later, but the broke my promise).
So, at the end of the fight, it turned out that the spooner, of all things, was the head or president or something of an Irish society from Los Angeles, and he was responsible for a good bit of money and the L.A. support of the Irish Festival here in Santa Barbara, and he swore he would do everything he could to make sure there was no more L.A. support for the festival.
Of course, the musicians from up north who were there, having experienced this fight, decided that the S.B. festival was no fun, never wanting to experience such a thing again, so they as much as said this was their last festival. And indeed none would play again in subsequent years.
For two years the festival continued at the same place, but the crowds were scarce, the music 3-rd rate, and the mood depressed. Everyone knew why it was dying. Finally, I think in 2005, it happened one last time in a new venue in Santa Barbara. I played that year. My band -- 4 of us, played to an audience of 6. Then it was over.
So, there is no doubt in my mind, that had the fight with the spooner never happened, then the SB Irish Festival would still be thriving.
And thus, it turns out that Spooners pose a serious threat.
# Posted on July 23rd 2008 by Eliot
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
Eliot, it turned out, that in this instance, one Spooner posed a serious threat. I don't ordinarily associate spoons playing with wealth, power, or political clout. Your man not-withstanding, spooners represent the music of the dispossessed. Nowadays, maybe they might be more lacking in musical ability, or musical sense, than anything else. So many people hear this music and want to be a part of it, without comprehending the preparation that is required.
# Posted on July 23rd 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
This has got to be the best spoon player I've come across, and a two handed one at that. The art of spoon playing personified.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPaW8xnBBi8
# Posted on July 23rd 2008 by Free Reed
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
Thanks, Free Reed. That was a blast! Once upon a time, Artis the Spoonman used to be featured in a variety show at the Boarding House in San Francisco. He was plenty good, even back then.
# Posted on July 23rd 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
Wow ! That has to be the last word in spoons playing.
On the strength of that they should start a spoons category in the All Ireland
# Posted on July 23rd 2008 by murfbox
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
I guess it's not spoons that kill sessions -- it's the people playing them.
# Posted on July 23rd 2008 by Phantom Button
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
Brought to you by the National Spoon Association.
Also, please remember, when spoons are outlawed, only outlaws will play spoons...
# Posted on July 23rd 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
Well, SWFL, would you advocate stricter licensing laws, or perhaps a spoon exchange program in your community?
# Posted on July 23rd 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
Not me AQ, I'm old-school, a real Bill O'Rights kinda guy. I believe it was Thomas Jefferson who said that the safety of democracy rests on an informed, active and spoony citizenry.
Or maybe that was Charleton Heston? I dunno, been a long day, I'm going to fiddle some tunes and hide the spoons. [shrug]
# Posted on July 23rd 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
From barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilisation: Clemenceau speaking qabout the good old US of A seeing as we are into quotes.
Great spoons playing, welcome anywhere, well nearly anywhere.
# Posted on July 23rd 2008 by bodhran bliss
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
Wow! Amazing spoons there but the song was a bit of a rant.
# Posted on July 24th 2008 by leoj
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
What ever his views on America and Americans might have been, old Georges Clemenceau was a power on the button box! He had few equals when it came to playing reels.
# Posted on July 24th 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
Yes yes, we get the destruction of spoons, but what about all the session wreckers who dont play spoons? what about all the hacks who play fiddles, flutes, guitars etc etc?
# Posted on July 24th 2008 by bb
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
Aha! My point exactly, bb!
It's not what the eejit is playing, it's the eejit!
My spoons-rights nonsense was humor, sorry if it flew over any heads.
# Posted on July 24th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
SWFL Fiddler, your spoons nonsense didn't fly over or under my head. I had no trouble understanding it because it hit me squarely in the head. No, it didn't hurt me but my wife will tell you that I am hard-headed anyway.
bb Cruella de vil, you are correct about the session wreckers. As someone else on this web site said, it isn't the instrument that is the problem, it is the idiot who thinks he or she can play the instrument that is the problem.
# Posted on July 25th 2008 by fauxcelt
Re: Put in my place by the spoonman
Guitarists who play three chords when two are needed (see another thread hereabouts), who play two chords when three are needed, who play one chord all the time, who strum mindlessly. Guitarists in bulk, who play different chords - one, two, three or more, but different. Aaaaarrrrgggghhhh!
# Posted on July 25th 2008 by stevekeene