Hurdy Gurdy: Router? I Hardly Know Her!

This run of rainy days we've had have really kept hurdy gurdy production hurtling forth. Last night I glued the bottom on, and weighed it down with a pedal steel guitar and some hammers...gotta make due with what you have, right?

Well, kinda. This morning I went down to the Mega-Lo Hardware and got some supplies to carry me through to the end of this project...namely some wood filler, a chisel, some new jigsaw blades (maybe this will cure my fear of the jigsaw), and a few other things that I'll detail below.

This morning I took the pedal steel off of the hurdy gurdy. It looked like this:


Note the overhang -- the soundboard (top) and bottom of the instrument were provided slightly oversized -- maybe three-quarters of an inch at most. This is helpful, because, as I've tediously relayed, the instrument is not a perfect teardrop shape. Now, the instructions to this kit are pretty good, for the most part. But it suggests that, if you don't have a router, you can take care of the overhang with course sandpaper.

Now, even you have all the time in the world and sandpaper grittier than a David Mamet screenplay, I don't know if you could eliminate a three-quarter inch overhang just by sanding it. Well, you could, but it would be a ridiculous amount of work. I pondered it for a while -- use the jigsaw? Circular saw? I wasn't gonna sand it endlessly. My solution was to use a hand-held router -- really a lino cutter, with a wood-cutting bit.

I'd never used this router before, but it worked pretty well. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of starting with the top -- I should have started with the bottom, as I made some errors and had to learn to control the device, and the results of my novice hand are more visible, since they are on top. There are some pock-marks made by the router...I tell myself it adds to the folksy quality of the instrument.

Here's how the first pass with the router looked. Yikes:


I then went over it with some sandpaper -- first with an electric sander, then by hand. I got it down to something reasonably smooth, if a little, um, folksy...then I glued the peghead on. Here's where we're at:

Hurdy Gurdy Diaries...Day Six, or Something

...Musikits rates the kits they offer by difficulty. They use a hammer scale. This hurdy gurdy has the maximum number of hammers. So I'm stepping into the deep end on this one, especially since I don't really have any carpentry or wood-working chops. The ranking said there would be "character building" moments. Hell yeah it does.

So, I left the hurdy gurdy in the straightening rig all weekend to try to fix the sides. It seemed to work, although it didn't get all the way straight. So, I flipped the instrument over so the top side was up, and glued the soundboard on while it was still in the rig. I was thinking maybe that attaching the soundboard would provide the last little bit of tension to move the head-block over.

Here it is. I weighed the soundboard down with a cymbal, some hammers, some tool batteries, a big magnet, and a tape measure. The spirit of Ybor City lives on:


Once that dried, I flipped it over and started looking at installing the bracing that went under the soundboard. First I had to taper the braces at either end, making them look more triangular at the corners -- like this, basically: /___ instead of this: |___. After another rough outing with the old jigsaw, I did it with a circular saw and it cut it like a hot knife through butter.

Then I widened the hole in the brace and the tail-block with a five-eighths inch counter-sink bit. That allowed me to slide nylon bushings into the brace and the tail-block. I used epoxy to secure the bushing into the brace, then positioned it so that the axle could spin relatively frictionlessly. I glued it in, along with a triangular brace that went on the other side of the wheel-hole. I cut the wheel-hole with the aforementioned jigsaw, and it wasn't exactly straight. But I think it will work. I weighed the braces down with some hammers:


It's sitting and drying now.

While that was happening, I glued the keychest together. This is a box that sits on top of the instrument and holds the keys that fret the strings. There are no guide pins or anything to hold it together -- you just have to glue the parts together and hope they stick! I used rubber bands to hold it all in place for the time being, and also put in the keys, just to be sure the sides were aligned.

Day Three: The Hurdy Gurdy Moves

...so I left the hurdy gurdy in the straightening rig overnight, and it did move over about one centimeter: half of what I wanted it to do. Considering I had put in half the bracing strips, I took that to be progress.

This morning I took it out of the straightening rig, flipped it over, screwed it back in, and installed the bracing strips along the top. My wife looked over my shoulder and said "This looks like the height of tedium." I actually like the minutia, the problem solving, the tactile nature of it all. Whether it will result in a playable, presentable instrument is yet to be seen.

Here's how it looks now:

Hurdy Gurdy, Day Two

...the saga of the basement-built hurdy gurdy continues! I e-mailed MusiKits yesterday about the missing brass crank, and they responded almost immediately, saying they'd put a replacement crank in the mail. So that was nice! I also ordered a varnish kit to use later on -- if I ever get to that step!

So now that the tail block is set, last night I put the sides into the head block. While the sides were "pre-bent" according to the kit description, it took a surprising amount of tension to get them into the block. I was a little nervous, but it seemed to work. I also drilled a hole into the the side for the crank, which was surprisingly hard. 5/8 of an inch is a bit bigger than it sounds! Here's how it looked once the head block was glued and the hole drilled. (Sorry about the night-vision setting. That was an accident.)


The next step was to make sure the body was symmetrical. I traced an outline of the form onto a piece of cardboard, and then flipped the instrument-to-be over and compared the lines. It was definitely NOT symmetrical. The hurdy gurdy is supposed to be egg-shaped, but the head block was about two centimeters off center, which was noticeable to the naked eye. This has been a game of sixteenths of inches so far, so two centimeters was pretty substantial.

The instructions said, if the sides are mis-shapen, to use strong tape to pull the instruments sides into the proper shape. But the masking tape I tried was not strong enough, and I didn't have any other options. So I took some time and built a simple rig that held the tail block in place, while pulling the head block two centimeters over to the left. It looks like this:


It's not pretty, but it should work...fingers crossed. Then I laid in some support strips along the inside top (I can't do the strips on the bottom while it is in the straightening rig). Since I didn't have more than a few clothespins, I used chip-clips and clamps. Yikes.


I'm going to leave it in this rig overnight and see if it comes out straight by tomorrow. Cross your fingers.

Hurdy Gurdy, Man -- Day One

I don't consider myself a craftsman, by any stretch of the imagination. I'm handy around the house, I guess. I can fix things, hang picture frames, mount towel racks, all that fun stuff. And I can keep the various instruments I have in working order, occasionally re-soldering a connection or tightening a loose fitting. But I use experts for things like electrical work, plumbing, and truss rod adjustment.

The only instruments I've built are really just toys -- a shoe-box sized koto made from a kit and a fretless banjo made from a cardboard mailing tube. But I'm home a lot more now, with my new freelance occupation, so I decided I'd take on a more sophisticated kit instrument. I perused Musikits.com, and, inspired by a French-Canadian band I saw at a local festival, settled on the Hurdy Gurdy: obscure, complexly mechanical yet devilishly simple...I ordered the kit, and the photo above is how it arrived.

I think this is a good time to say I've never heard the Donovan song "Hurdy Gurdy Man," but it's been sung to me several times since I announced this project to my friends.

So, first step was to take inventory of the parts. In classic, IKEA-esque fashion, it was missing the brass crank, so I wrote the company. Let's see how long it takes to get a replacement. Everything else -- dozens and dozens of bits of wood, metal, cotton, felt, plastic, rosin, and gut -- were all present.

Not wasting any time, I took on the first step and glued the sides to the tail-piece. This should have been easy, except I spent 45 minutes cleaning out my old bottle of woodglue, before realizing it wasn't usable. Again, I'm no expert. So I went to the hardware store and bought glue and two clamps. The woman looked at me and said "Doin' some clampin', eh?" What answer is there for that question?

Then I tackled the step I feared the most -- I cut the wheel-hole in the soundboard. I hate jigsaws, and have never been good with them. This hole is a little misshapen, but will fortunately be masked by a wheel-hole cover. When I was a kid, working in a warehouse, I broke a jigsaw blade and it was terrifying -- the metal shot out across the room. Safely safety goggled, I fired up my never-used Riobi saw and, well, the blade broke. This time it was less terrifying -- just a little crack and a pile of fragments. So I plugged in my wife's dad's old jigsaw, a metal behemoth that pre-dates most modern safety measures. It cut a little jagged, but I sanded it clean and I seem to have done okay. Not perfect. But hey, that's life...

Have Mercer

In 1970, the Lyrics and Lyricists series was started at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. The idea, proposed by Broadway conductor Maurice Levine and master lyricists E.Y. "Yip" Harburg, was pretty simple: have great lyricists discuss their craft, perform their hits themselves, and curate a program of their music. The series was started at a fortuitous time, because a lot of the Great American Songbook lyricists were still alive, and were able to participate. While trained Broadway/cabaret vocalists did some of the singing, most of the time the lyricists themselves sang, which was pretty odd: many of them weren't performers -- they were writers in an era when writers stayed in their office and wrote, and performers performed, and the two rarely met.

The Lyrics and Lyricists series continues. You can see more about it here. It changed over the years, from first-person narratives to revues speared by experts or performers dedicated to one lyricist. I'll admit that I much prefer being in the company of the lyricists directly, but, well, a lot of them aren't around any more. So I can't fault the organizers for changing things.

The good news is that a lot of the early performances were recorded and released. A lot of the LPs/CDs drawn from this series are out of print, but I've been slowly amassing them...I'll probably do an entry sooner or later that runs them all down. It's fascinating stuff.

Johnny Mercer was one of those rare songwriters of the '30s and '40s who was also an accomplished performer. While that made his Lyrics and Lyricists gig a little slicker than most, it was no less charming or insightful. The other night I had the record of it on...it closes with a 29-song medley of songs that Mercer wrote the lyrics for (and in some cases words AND music for). It's probably 20 minutes long, and just devastating...I swear I almost cried. It's amazing to think of one man being responsible for so many great songs. It was just staggering. Here's the medley...check this out:

Lazy Bones
Goody Goody
Too Marvelous for Words
Jeepers, Creepers
Satin Doll
You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby
That Old Black Magic
Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive
Fools Rush In
I Remember You
Day In-Day Out
Dearly Beloved
Come Rain or Come Shine
Tangerine
Hooray for Hollywood
Laura
Dream
Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe
Something's Gotta Give
One for My Baby
In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening
Skylark
The Autumn Leaves
I Wanna Be Around
Blues in the Night
Charade
The Summer Wind
Moon River
Days of Wine and Roses

Chances are, most people have heard at least a few of these, right?

Dis Ain't Da Drum...

...can a bad drum sound sink a record? I don't think so. That first Moby Grape album had drums that sound like a piece of notebook paper hit with a pencil, but the songs, singing, and guitar playing are so mighty that, well, one overlooks the anemic drummin'. I'm also thinking of the weird gated drum sound on Michael Penn's "No Myth," which is hard to tell if it's just '80s drums or if they are being blown out like that as some sort of special effect.

The subject popped into my head because I went to the record store this morning and picked up the new Jules Shear album More, which for some reason he recorded as Jules Mark Shear. (After what, three decades as just plain old "Jules Shear"? Whatever.) More has what has got to be the worst drum sound I've heard on record this year...simultaneously tinny and cavernous, very modern sounding in a bad way. Digital. The bass drum has the same sorta "pop" to it that I imagine Tom Brady's ACL does -- not a warm heartbeat, but a cold snap.

Fortunately the drum sound doesn't ruin the album...the album kinda ruins the album. I could only get four songs in before I turned it off, but this is a very mannered attempt to ROCK again, from a writer/performer who was always more a pop guy. The title track has hung around his repertoire for years, and wasn't all that great acoustic -- much less electrified all out of proportion. I guess I need to stop buying his records...

Since his mighty trio of disks with Jules and the Polar Bears, to his '80s solo albums (great big '80s pop with brains), to his amazing albums for Island in the '90s, he's been constantly surprising and enlightening...but since Healing Bones, it seems like something left the building. He did a little acoustic album a year or two ago that was a step in the right direction, which he has clearly disregarded with this beast...More was produced by Sean Slade, who made a name for himself making '90s alternative rock albums, of which quite a few now sound dated. This new Shear disk has a distinctly out of time feel, and not in a good "lost classic" way...I'm sad now.

New Release Monday: Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby

Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby
Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby
Stiff Records, 2008

...I think this officially came out last Tuesday, but it was not an easy record to find. I can't tell if it has American distribution, or if it is imported. It's worth tracking down, though.

Eric has always been one of my songwriting/recording heroes, a status probably having something to do with him being one of the first people who made great records that I met in person. It was just once, just for a half hour, but he was opinionated, insightful, charming...I was 16, and it made an impression. His Stiff-era '70s hits ("Whole Wide World," "Semaphore Signals," "Take the K.A.S.H.," "Veronica," etc.) still sound marvelous: grubby, lascivious, fun, but undeniably well-constructed and catchy.

His post-Stiff stuff has been perennially under-rated, and is difficult to come by, which is a shame considering the quality of bands like the Len Bright Combo and the heart and soul of albums like Bungalo High, The Donovan of Trash, and 12 O'Clock Stereo. Buy 'em all, if and when you can find them. If you're in Atlanta, most of the used shops will have a copy of the last one, as it was released on an Atlanta label. It may be the best of the three, too!

Eric has moved to France, and somehow managed to win the heart of singer/songwriter Amy Rigby. They were married in a French civil ceremony recently, and this album is a wonderfully understated set that mixes new songs from Eric and Amy with songs they wrote together. It's not pillow-talk, by any means, but the two compliment each other really well. Amy's winsome wit and classic pop-song gifts elevate the inherent pop in Eric's tunes, while Eric's DIY grit make her songs sound tougher, more heartfelt...

The album is a home-recorded affair, but seemingly a bit more mid-fi-approaching-hi-fi than previous Eric projects...Amy's influence? Old-school rhythm boxes keep the beat mostly, over which the pair lay down Eric's Stonesy electric playing, some great garage organ, some strummed acoustic, and even some synth and found-sound-collage business.

Songs are pretty damn strong...Amy's "Taste of the Keys" is a heartbreaking number delivered from the point of view of a tourist-trap waitress ("...all our specials come topped with cheese..."), while her "First Mate Rigby" is a wonderful dialog, opening with:

Amy: I'm a girl with past full of boys with a past.
Eric: I'm a man with a plan to economize.
Amy: I got baggage to haul and a card for the phone.
Eric: I got bags of my own underneath my eyes.

...gloriously fuzzy chorus.

In fine mettle, Eric throws in the provocative, bittersweet "The Downside of Being a Fuck-Up" and tearful recollection "Another Drive-In Saturday." Together, they pen the hopeful opening "Here Comes My Ship," a nifty Pet Sounds knock-off called ""Trotters,"" and the great pop song "Round," which is followed by a cover of Johnny Cash's "I Still Miss Someone," which closes the disk.

Go to www.wrecklesseric.com for tour dates...and then go to the shows and buy this record from them, so they can get back to France with some money!

The Carter Conundrum

...Ron Carter is one of the more frustrating musicians in jazz. It seems to go unsaid in the jazz media, but it's rare that such a mighty talent has been suffocated by technology and the choices he's made. It's a pretty simple pro/con situation:

Pro: Ron Carter has a tremendous feel for swing, choses great notes, has flawless intonation, and somehow manages to react to other musicians while maintaining awesome time.

Con: He runs his bass through this gawd-awful pickup system that makes it sound like rubber bands strung over a tin can with a balloon stretched over it. Seriously. For the most egregious bass sound ever, listen to the first track on this album.

Carter has defended his pickup sound innumerable times, and it's his right to sound the way he does. His bass, with the pickup on, is not an acoustic instrument...it's all coming from the amp. He tends to record it direct to the board, too, which is terrible...even when it is unnecessary: like his duo album with Helen Merrill or an '80s era solo album that I have. Why do you need a pickup when there are no other instruments? It's a little bit laughable.

What's even more laughable is that I keep track of his albums where the pickup is on and the pickup is off! His early albums with Eric Dolphy and Miles Davis thankfully predate the pickup...his '70s era stuff on Contemporary is rendered pretty unlistenable by the pickup. His recent run of quartet albums find the sound still there, but toned down to a relatively listenable level.

And then there albums like the two he did with the Joey Baron Quartet, or his wonderful new duo album with Houston Person, where the damn thing is off and the bass is recorded acoustically. And the tone is rich and warm. The years of reliance on the pickup has not killed his gift for pulling as much wonderful sound out of the bass as possible...it's strangely reassuring...

Urban Rummagings

...maybe once every two months or so I'll go downtown and dig through old LPs at the few remaining record stores there. There used to be twice as many as there are now, but there are still gems to be found. I went down there on Friday and came home with a hefty stack...it was maybe $65 worth of stuff, but it's hard to put a dollar amount on music...and there were some gems here. The stack pictured contains:

Norma Jean, Let's Go All The Way (RCA, 1964) - Even more than Loretta Lynn, Connie Smith, Patsy Cline, or Jean Shepard, Norma Jean is my favorite hard-country female vocalist. She didn't write, so maybe she's not quite in the same league as Loretta or Dolly, but she was fearless in her choice of material. Also, she liked provocative album titles (like this one, I Guess That Comes From Being Poor, and the amazing Another Man Loved Me Last Night). I've already spun this, and it's great stuff -- potent and unflinching, and nicely (under) produced. ($3.99)

Bobby Short, Bobby Short Loves Cole Porter, (Atlantic, 1971) - I love Bobby Short...not really jazz, although he's a formidable pianist (he accompanies himself here). More of a cabaret songster, with a vivacious, unchecked gusto and elegant swagger. He played for years at the Cafe Carlyle in New York...I think my parents saw him there years ago and brought me back a great CD of him playing a set there. I haven't listened to this yet, but I can't wait. I love Cole Porter, but a lot of his interpreters tend to be too polite or sensual. I bet Short makes this stuff come alive...also, lots of relatively obscure Porter tunes I don't know yet. ($3.99, 2lps)

Whitey and Hogan with the Briarhoppers, Early Radio (Old Homestead, rec. 1939-1951) - I heard Whitey and Hogan on Rounder Records' wonderful Early Days of Bluegrass series, and wanted to hear more. Great rattling stringband, old-tyme country, gospel, and bluegrass...I haven't listened to this yet, but am about to put it on. ($3.99)

Nils Lofgren, Back It Up!! Nils Lofgren Live, An Authorized Bootleg (A&M, 1975) - I actually had this on CD, but it's rare that you see an original pressing of this legendary disk. Basically it's a promo-only live LP that was actually better than the live album Nils eventually issued. Only nine tracks, some with extended guitar workouts that are actually exciting (I'm not usually a big guitar shredding fan)...Nils' self-titled solo album is one of my favorite pop records of the seventies, marked with equal parts flash and vulnerability. This live set has five tracks from that great disk, delivered raucously by a tight but rollicking band. Very cool to have the original pressing, whose artwork has not been reproduced in either of the two CD pressings. Good price, too -- I've seen it for 20 or 30 bucks...($9.99)

Various Artists, Steel Guitar Express (Pedal Steel Guitar Products, 1978) - I love records by sidemen and session musicians...I recently spent quite some time flipping through such projects at Ernest Tubbs' record shop in Nashville. This is a cool compilation featuring 14 top pedal steel guitar players on instrumentals of their choosing...these tracks are actually drawn mostly from solo albums by these guys, so I'm sure once I listen to it, I'll have a laundry list of albums I'll want to check out! Featured players include Jerry Byrd, Lloyd Green, Buddy Emmons, Red Rhodes, and lots more. I'll probably want to take my steel out of the case once I hear this, too...($6.99)

Jean Shepard and Ray Pillow, I'll Take The Dog (Capital, 1966) - I fell hard for the Country Music Foundation's wonderful Jean Shepard compilation Honky Tonk Heroine, and I love good country duet singing, so I figured this would be worth a few bucks. Unfortunately, it's mostly pretty drab stuff...a lot of corn, not a lot of great dark stuff. A little, but not enough. Shepard is typically great. The unknown (to me) Pillow is adequate...($3.99)

Hank Williams, Jr., Live at Cobo Hall Detroit (MGM, 1969) - I was curious about Bocephus's pre-Southern Rock years...in Georgia, where I grew up, it was a law that you needed to have a copy of his Greatest Hits III within 20 feet at all times -- which is fine, because his boisterous, rebel-rousing country-rock hits have aged surprisingly well and are a lot of fun. I wasn't prepared for this disk, where he really emerges as a great hard country singer in the tradition of his daddy. Covers of Hank Sr. are heavy hear, taking five of the eleven tracks...from there, he does one great original ("Standing in the Shadows"), covers of George Jones and Flatt and Scruggs, and even Joe South's "Games People Play." All in front of a rowdy crowd in the same room that Seger cut Live Bullet. Really enjoyable. ($2.99)

Bill Keith and Jim Rooney, Bluegrass: Livin' on the Mountain (Prestige Folklore, 1963) - Great price on this gem, which has seen only some of its tracks reissued on CD. Keith and Rooney, along with the Lily Brothers, Don Stover, and the Charles River Valley Boys, brought bluegrass to Boston. Here Keith (banjo, autoharp, guitar) and Rooney (vocals, guitar) are backed by the Charles River Valley Boys, and really deliver some great stuff -- even if they are yankees! Keith's revolutionary banjo technique is already in full blossom (he joined Bill Monroe not long after recording this album), and Rooney is a soulful frontman. Joe Val takes some high-wire leads too. Great price on this rare original vinyl. ($9.99)

We Five, You Were On My Mind (A&M, 1966) - The title track is really one of the great one-hit wonders of a decade filled with them -- the sputtering drums, bellowing vocals, jangley guitars...I've always loved it. The LP is god-awful, filled with showtunes and standards ("Somewhere Beyond the Sea," "Can't Help Falling In Love," "I Got Plenty O' Nuttin'") reimagined as bad parlour-folk. Just lousy...at least it has the title track. ($3.99)

George Melly and the Feetwarmers, Son of Nuts (Warner Brothers, 1973) - Wow...one of the big finds of this trip, this UK-only release (how did it get to the northeast US ? why is it in such great shape) features the legendary author, critic, and singer Melly in a raucous club setting backed by an able jazz combo. Melly is an outsized character -- flamboyantly bi-sexual (he tackles Bessie Smith's "I Need A Little Sugar In My Bowl," for cripes' sake!), he is as much a raconteur as a singer, though his pitch and phrasing are wonderful to behold. Fun, bawdy, dangerous stuff. Only listened to it once, but it will be played again. I may even get the CD, which pairs it with its prequel, Nuts. ($3.99)

John Abercrombie, Characters (ECM, 1978) - My affection for ECM has been written about in this blog before. Abercrombie's subtle, languid playing has always fascinated me. You know he has an amazing harmonic and technical vocabulary, and yet he holds back...there's something thrilling about that. I usually love to hear him with a volatile rhythm section (like with Jack DeJohnette or Adam Nussbaum on drums), where his subtleties are woven into a skittery framework. Here, he is solo...which should prove interesting. I only listened to the first track, which was about 10 minutes long and started with some cool twitchy electric before an acoustic rhythm guitar came in and underpinned a careful, probing improvisation that had a strangely compositional feel (maybe it wasn't improvised). Not as interesting to me as his band stuff, but I will return to this. ($1.99)

An Evening With Johnny Mercer, Alan Jay Lerner, and Sammy Cahn, Singing Their Own Songs (Book of the Month Records, rec. 1971-1972) - Bingo...the big score of the trip. I love hearing Broadway and Great American Songbook composers sing their own song. Since most of them (Mercer and Hoagy Carmichael excepted) were not natural performers, they tend to bring an introspective, personal quality and obliterate much of the showbiz pizazz that tends to keep me from connecting to their brilliant songs. This three-LP boxed set (with book of photos and liner notes) is drawn from a series called Lyrics and Lyricists, which was held at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan, and featuring lyricists singing their own songs, receiving occasional help from trained Broadway singers. Some of the Lyrics and Lyricist evenings (including these three and ones with Dorothy Fields and Yip Harburg) have been released on CD, but they are now hard to come by and expensive...so it was nice to find this. Mercer is the picture of southern elegance and charm. Cahn is warm and modest. Lerner is a scream -- funny, sly, a bit full of himself in an engaging way. His night is my favorite...Mercer was known as a singer, but Cahn and Lerner weren't, but they come off rather well -- Cahn is light and humane, Lerner blustery and forceful. Wonderful stuff... ($8.99)