Author: Tim K

Using a phone as a banjo pickup

Chrissy soldered a mic wire onto an old phone receiver – and it sounds great on vocals – but more recently Tim’s been experimenting with using it to pick up banjo and sent it through pedals.

Here’s how it sounds in action – running the banjo input an Empress Reverb and Echosystem in this video, then a little Rat and Tubescreamer distortion and (at the end) a Boss Slicer.

The banjo riff is the chords to the traditional folksong “Nottamun Town” as we do it, and which Bob Dylan used for his song “Masters of War.”

The saw!

The saw might just be the most musical tool out there and one of the most attention-grabbing folk instruments ever. Here’s Chrissy demonstrating at a rehearsal. Bowing the saw sets it vibrating, which makes a musical tone, a little like rubbing a wet finger over the edge of a glass. Then by bending the blade, it changes the resonating length of the saw, which smoothly shifts the pitch. To create vibrato, you shake or bounce your knee a little.

And yes, that’s a plain old saw that’s been used and still could be used to cut wood. We’ve also been experimenting with running the sound through effects and it sounds astonishingly creepy and beautiful.

There’s a full version of Cruel Mother with two saw solos here:

Which side are you on?

Here’s a half-silly video for May Day, more the International Worker’s Day, though the pagan nature festival stuff’s great too.

The song’s “Which Side Are You On?” which written by Florence Reece in 1931, after anti-union thugs terrorized her family during the Harlan County War. (Stick around to the end to see her sing it)

This recording’s from out upcoming album, which will go to wychwood.bandcamp.com in time.

Video from Plan 9 from Outer Space and Harlan County USA.

Audio from a Derek Jensen talk on Endgame, the Acolytes of Horror video on The Dead Don’t Die, The Dead Don’t Die, some forgotten podcast on a Buzzfeed reporter turned alt-right troll, Fear & Desire, Lain: Serial Experiments, Harlan County USA, Florence Reece, a VCR, and us.

Images from Curren Sheldon/Ohio Valley Resource, Scott Olson/Rolling Stone, Workers’ World, Kevin Ridder/Appalachian Voices, and Megan Roark-Halcomb/Labour Notes.

Check out Harlan County USA and “The Dead Don’t Die: How Deadpan Dooms Us,” you won’t regret it.

Happy Easter

Happy spring fertility festival, here’s a song that has something to do with the death and rebirth of a Middle Eastern sun deity. (Some of his followers have sure been misguided, but we can probably agree faith in him has inspired some pretty good music.)

That’s true pal Evelyne on loud cello and quiet vocals (perils of a single mic setup), about 10 min after we said “hey wanna do a cello solo on this song you heard for the first time last night?”

Lyric video for Blackest Crow

“The blackest crow that ever flew
Would surely turn to white
If ever I proved false to you
Bright day would turn to night”

“Blackest Crow” is a traditional folksong from Appalachia and the Ozarks, likely with some Irish roots. Most modern versions go back to versions by Tommy Jarrell (1901-1985), a legendary fiddler, banjo player, and singer from the Mount Airy region of North Carolina’s Appalachian Mountains. Our version was inspired by the one done by Red Tail Ring, which seems to run though Bruce Molsky and back to Tommy.

The drawing is “Pesta Kommer, 1894–95 (Plague’s Coming)” by Norwegian artist Theodor Kittelsen (1857-1914), who made it for his 1900 book “Svartedauen (Black death).” And yes, it does change over the course of the video and, no, that has nothing to do with Kittelsen and everything to do with our perverse impulses.

Our friend Evelyne played cello on this one. All the other sounds are by us (Tim and Chrissy), aside from some samples from the 1956 movie “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”

New tracks! Best ever recordings

Hey friends, we’re pretty excited to share a couple songs on bandcamp, as a preview of an album we’ve been working on through much of the pandemic. “Blackest Crow” is the first recording we’ve made that really captures that idea of blackgrass that’s been motivating us all along, and “Bury me beneath the weeping willow” is an actually decent acoustic recording, so we’re pretty proud and excited.

wychwood.bandcamp.com

Renaissance woman and true friend Evelyne Russell played cello on “Blackest Crow” and sang on “Bury Me.” We’re probably contractually obligated to point out that none of the effects on her cello or ugly noises on “Blackest Crow” generally are her fault. There will be all-acoustic and black noise versions of just about every song on that album, so you’ll be able to pick your poison then.

In conclusion, please wander over to bandcamp and take a listen.

wychwood.bandcamp.com

Twisting knobs is fun

Chrissy has a new touchsynth. The arc of pandemic musicking seems to bend inevitably towards us just becoming an experimental electronic duo, presumably while changing the name of the project to Witchwire.

For the nerds who want to know how this is being made:

Chrissy is playing the Hyve TouchSynth.

It’s being fed through an Empress Reverb pedal, with a bit of delay on the side from the Empress Echosystem and distortion from the Proco Lil’ Rat and a Caline Tubescreamer clone.

The Boss Slicer is the green thing that’s chopping up the signal into harmonic/rhythmic patterns.

Things get cooler ~1min in, when Tim remembers to turn on the Orange Micro Dark amp, which – confusingly – is purple. Before that, everything was coming out of the Orange Micro Terror amp, which is, of course, orange. And white.

Why sing for trees

Here’s some more info on the tree songs cause some Ottawa activists and musicians have been working on.

First, an article on pal of Wychwood (and basically all Ottawa folkies) Chris White playing music and working on a worthy cause.

Second, Tim’s attempt to put chopping trees in the context of Ottawa’s creepy developer-friendly politics.

Carol Song Walk

Chrissy’s organizing a carol song walk this Sunday at 2pm through the Log Drive Cafe, here’s the info:

You’re invited to come carolling Sunday Dec.12 at 2pm. We will meet at Minto Park and walk from there.

What’s a Song Walk? A good old-fashioned carolling session with some walking in between songs. Everyone will have the chance to request or lead a song and doing so is very much encouraged.

We will be singing from a booklet compiled by Maura Volante, a fine local singer and community singing.