Fiddle Festival

Check out the cool banjo in the bottom picture. It has a little hole in the neck for the fifth string and a guitar-like head. The man playing it made it after one he had owned for a while.

On Saturday, I was easily convinced to go to a fiddle festival about an hour and a half north of the city in Cloverdale, something like a mini Weiser with a contest and All That. I was torn between this and marching against the war in downtown SF, but I had been fighting some asthma ever since I got to the city and after the night before was in no state to brave the march. So I wimped out.

The gracious Bob came by with his jeep to take us up there. Bob plays autoharps with most of the keys removed (a la Bryan Bowers) so that he carries two or three around to play in different keys, almost like a banjo.

Unfortunately, I seemed to be reacting to his car as we drove off. It was a little scary as the asthma got worse, but when I put on my silk mask, all was well, and at the festival I cleared up. It was the usual cacophony of music, crafts, nervous contestants, and many folks just wandering around to listen to the groups jamming. After a short wander ourselves to check out the crafts, Bob and I started to play. Soon we had a group of people (including Susan) and Yours Truly even led a few tunes on the fiddle. Frightening, I know.

For some reason, no one plays in C here. I am missing my Skillet Licker and other C tunes! But there’s lots of cross tuning. I saw a bunch of people I knew at least vaguely from Fiddle Tunes, and Maria Muldair swished by in elegant black velvet and Her Divaness. I got to play an interesting banjo, eat a piece of vegetable pizza, and resist buying a big basket for the van. (As if I need more stuff in there.)

By about 4 p.m., I was wiped out from all the noise. Susan thinks I have some hearing loss anyway. I sat with some folks outside and contemplated the fact of orange trees with real oranges on them. Finally, we headed home to Berkeley, where Susan and I had a low res evening (as they say at Microsoft), and I got ready for all my Sunday adventures.