Friday, July 31, 2009

A mention from San Diego

Street
The ensuing international attention demonstrates just how potent a tool the Internet and social-networking sites such as YouTube, MySpace and Twitter can be -- both for independent musicians seeking to be heard and for companies that fail to take customer complaints seriously.

"I received 4,000 e-mails in the last week, many of them from people thanking me for putting a lighthearted touch on a serious issue and venting for them," Carroll said.


Tuesday, July 28, 2009

More food for the soul (and song)

One of my students mentioned a book by the great mountain dulcimer player Mike Casey called "Hands On Dulcimer" that sounded really interesting. A series of exercises to help you master the art of fretboard finger-dancing. If you've never heard Casey perform, he's a nimble picker and his arrangements for four and five-string dulcimer sound like several instruments playing together in concert. Dude is awesome.

While hunting down a copy, I ran across a book called "The Magic Dulcimer" by one of my first teachers, Lorraine Lee Hammond. Though I don't expect that I'll collect every dulcimer method and tablature book ever written, there are a number of classics that I've hunted down, from http://www.lapidusmusic.com/ to "In Search of the Wild Dulcimer" by Al d'Ossche' and my good friend Robert Force. I'm still waiting on the Mike Casey book, but Lorraine's did come in the mail along with the Mike Casey CD "The Hourglass." Fun stuff to take with me on the trip to Key West next week!

Thursday, July 23, 2009

From the NAMM Website

So Many Ways to Make Music | NAMM.org



Cool! I thought I spied some official NAMM folks at the booth. : )

More looking back to look forward --

Sidingsound » Blog Archive » My online milestones


Another one of us old-schoolers looking back at how far we've come online!

Boo Takes Me Back...And Into The Future

Airline breaks instrument, owner makes video, airline makes good (The Sequel)
Today’s guest blogger is an old friend of mine - I have known Bing Futch for going on 20 years now. He wrote articles about my band back in the day (some are HERE and HERE) and we shared stages all over Orlando during the late 90s.




Dave "Boo" Rhea lived the life of a rock-star for quite some time, first with his brother Vaughn's band Von Ra (and later Vonray) and later with Dust For Life. Von Ra was one of the band's I often interviewed on the run-up to their getting a record deal and appearing on "Party of Five." The trip to see Willie Nelson in Clearwater was a wild trip indeed (Willie signed my dulcimer.)

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

My Online Anniversary



It was on July 22nd, 1994 that I bought an IBM computer with a 128 mb hard drive and a 1200 baud modem, fired it up and installed the included Prodigy Online software, logged on and proclaimed to myself "I'm going to make my money back with this combination." I knew that this would be my preferred method of work from there on into the future.

In fact, I sent an e-mail to Prodigy staffer Jenny Ambrozek and told her that she needed to hire me straight away (part of this was ambition, part of this had to do with the free ID, since Prodigy cost money at the time.) She told me in no uncertain terms, "hold your horses, let's see if you've got anything to offer us yet." Within six months, I was a Special Contributor on the Hobbies Bulletin Board, leading the charge for a sanctioned Disney Fans BB on the service. Within a year, I had become Special Contributor on the newly created Disney Fans BB and, within another year, had become Board Leader. During all of this time, new things were being unveiled to the online community; things like the World Wide Web, Chat Rooms, Web Pages and Interest Groups.



I remember when the WWW was rolled out; headquarters in White Plains, New York was trying to get moderators up to speed on what it was, exactly, and how to design content for it. Those early days of learning HTML were like learning a foreign language and I recall seeing lots of seriously ugly sites, mostly mine. Along the way, there were the first efforts to build community within the Disney Fans virtual world, those first real-time connections in-person, discovering the hard way how to conduct chat room events with special guests and, most importantly, how to connect via dial-up while on the road.



In 1996, Prodigy realized that its proprietary software wasn't a good match for the up and coming internet and they decided to fly their flag on this new "series of tubes." Prodigy Internet was launched with a series of Interest Groups that collected data from various parts of the web and arranged them via topic for PI subscribers. The groups were available only to PI members and, along with AOL, Compuserve, Delphi and some other premium content sites, we were the last of the "private community" sites offering services on the newly commercial internet. As a member of the roll-out time, my Theme Parks Interest Group stirred up news that summer with the Coast-2-Coast Coaster Tour, a madcap dash across the country, riding and reporting on roller coasters (a tour later copied by USA Today.)

Alas, Prodigy's business model wasn't as solid as they had hoped, and one by one, the moderators were told that they could stay if they wished, but on a free subscription basis. Most of us were used to income upwards of $2000 a month and realized that the dream was coming to an end (this was the de facto beginning of the dot com bust.) Not willing to do all of that hard work for free, many of us opted out and eventually settled in with our own virtual ports of call. I've had the Darkstudios.com site since 1996 and it has morphed much over the years; a cached museum of changing designs, attitudes, sensibilities, direction and vision.

Today, as I reflect on 15 years of sitting in front of a monitor, tapping on a keyboard and attempting to navigate our increasingly technological world by way of the information superhighway, I've got to say that for all of the frustrations and hang-ups, tech support and customer service nightmares, constant upgrades and money pumped into equipment - the flip side has been a wondrous experience connecting with people from all around the world, discovering and exploring new concepts, places and ideas, learning and applying knowledge and plying my trade as an artist. That original statement as I fired up that first computer was made by a younger man who still sits down every day, turns on the iMac and says, "today, something wonderful is going to happen."

And part of making it happen is by leaning forward into the adventure and spreading your wings in preparation for departure, isn't it?

Translated Babel Page From German Blog

Translation result for http://www.legourmand.de/?p=1729
But meanwhile the Netzcommunity has recognized that the customer with a simple complaint, a problem does not get ahead any longer, it is ignored. And the next musicians weight about handling their instrument via video. In “Northwest Folk singer Bing Futch describes BREAK Dulcimers” like its Folkcraft double-hits a corner Dulcimer on 14 June 2009 on Northwest Airlines the flight 2363 from Detroit, MI after Ft. Wayne, IN was damaged. This is its contribution:


Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Pocketful of Miracles



There are so many elements to performing. It's not just your singular ability to play an instrument, rather it's a combination of things ranging from the construction of your instrument itself to the tools that you use in conjunction with it. By "tools", I mean everything from amplifiers and cords, capos and strings, effects, processors, slides and picks.

Performers who are always striving to achieve great heights demand the most out of their equipment, realizing that if you use cheap stuff, you basically get what you pay for. It goes without saying that the best instruments are painstakingly designed to give you the best performance possible. The same goes for everything that you use with your instrument. For years, I've been trying to up the ante in many departments and thankfully landed a deal with Folkcraft Instruments, effectively ending that search for a mountain dulcimer that rises to my exacting standards. I've likewise been seeking a string manufacturer that is making the best possible product for what I do. During NAMM this past weekend, I kept my eyes open but did not make any connections towards this solution.

However, one solution did find me this weekend. I've been going back and forth about picks for a long time. Started out playing with super-thin Dunlop nylon picks and quickly found that, for any amount of control while flat-picking, I needed something much heavier than that. Ken Bloom likes to say that your pick "should be able to lift a Volkswagen."

Lately, I've gotten into a terrible habit: I find a pick that seems to work, then buy a bag of them, then find that I don't like them at all. I've gone through Brain and Tortex and Herdim, all sort of leaving me wanting more. At festivals, people have pressed picks into my hands and I've been amazed that they can get anything done with them, some are slick as stone and just as heavy. Being a sometimes fast player, I wasn't sure how I could be both accurate in flatpicking and effective in rhythmic strumming with just one plectrum. As I said, the solution found me.

While in the booth on Friday, I was approached by Vinni and Nancy Smith of V-Picks, who inquired what kind of picks dulcimer players use. Strumming with a yellow Herdim at the time, I showed it to them and explained that the relatively flexibility and size made it easy for many dulcimer players to make music. That's when Vinni laid an Ultra Lite Medium V-Pick on me.

Made of cast acrylic, it was .80mm in size, a lot harder than I'm used to. Yet, when I began to flatpick, the immediate effect was stunning. My volume jumped 80% and I wasn't holding the pick as tightly as I had done with the Herdims.

"Wow," I said to them. "This is amazing."

Vinni then proceeded to let me try a couple more, including a seemingly mammoth 2.75mm medium rounded pick. "Holy cow, that's huge," I said. Vinni just smiled as I made another run at "Turkey In The Straw." The bevel of the pick had the effect of softening the tone ever so much, but my accuracy had not dimmed one bit - in fact, I felt more secure in the picking than I had before. "Just for kicks, try this one," Vinni said, handing me what looked like a fresh-cut diamond.

The "Big Fattie" was 5.85mm of craziness. "No way!" I cried, steeling myself for the major fail as I went to the "Turkey In The Straw" well one more time and, astonishingly, nailed the melody, this time with a soft, almost finger-picked tone. Un-freaking-believable.

Vinni and Nancy both told me about the nature of the cast acrylic, how the different cuts and bevels create different attacks, tones, sustains and playability. "Because you don't grip the pick as hard," Nanci said, "the muscles in your hand relax, allowing you to play more freely." The acrylic even has a quality that causes it to stick to your fingers as it warms to your touch, meaning no more thrown picks on-stage. "The last thing I want you to be thinking about while you're playing," said Vinni, "is your pick."

Hand me something that immediately creates an improvement in my skill level and I'm one die-hard believer. I used one or another of the V-Picks for the remainder of the show and also during my short set with Jason Link and the Link Family Band at The Stage on Broadway after NAMM closed. It's very rare when these milestones appear within a flash during your career and this was one of those moments. I thanked Vinni and Nanci and their crew profusely for changing my life. I've finally found my pick brand and it's already made a gigantic difference in my playing. When a manufacturer can be somewhat invisible (like these picks) and create something that allows you to tap into parts of your ability like never before, they become the perfect conduit for divine innovation.

Besides that - they're nice people and the music biz can certainly use more of them!

That Nashville Rhythm

They don't call it "Music City" for nothin'. After our Thursday jam at B.B. King's Blues Club, I was ready for even more jam action and found exactly that while in town for Summer NAMM.

Friday was mostly spent demoing dulcimers at the Folkcraft booth, taking only a 30 minute break to hang out with Jae and to eat the largest hot dog I've ever had. That evening, we headed out to La Hacienda on the recommendation of Nashville songstress Ashley Robertson.

Saturday, wasn't scheduled to be in the booth, but wanted to catch Stephen Seifert at the NAMM U. Breakfast Session as he performed with Fiddle and Pick. Later, we had the rare opportunity to jam a few songs out in the Folkcraft booth, from Bob Marley to the blues. Lots of folks, including NAMM Logistics Manager Cade Fulton, were there to watch the fun; lots of cameras flashing, so those pics are bound to start showing up someplace.

After hanging out for a little bit, Jae came down to meet me and we went down to famous Broadway to sample some of the music at the venues. Nashville's live music starts early in the day and doesn't quit until early morning, so there is fantastic A-list entertainment up and down the street

We didn't get very far - ending up at Legend's Corner and being highly entertained by Jason Link and the Link Family Band. Energetic, engaging and easily the most fun band we saw all day, Jason and Co. quickly latched onto the fact that I was a musician in town for NAMM and asked if I'd like to sit in with them on a couple of tunes. Since I didn't have my axe, Jason mentioned that they'd be playing The Stage on Sunday and that I was invited to join them for some jams. Of course, you know my answer was "hell, yeah!" The band, comprised of Link, Tim McDonald, Woodstock 69 and The Chef, were a great beginning to our stroll down Broadway and we bought two of their CDs before heading out to experience more of this famous district.

Just the history alone is staggering as you walk down the block - everything from record stores and eateries to venues with walls that are lined with old album covers, autographed pictures, paintings and oversized musical instruments. Every band we heard had top-notch players, though not all of them were as entertaining as Link and his band. On Broadway, the bands all work for tips, which means you've got to be good to survive. Certainly ups the ante' when you're trying to keep people in the "bar whar you are."

Jae bought a black and silver cowboy hat at the Ernest Tubb Record Shop and we popped in and out of bars until it was time to meet up with everybody at Sole Mio for dinner, which was excellent.

Sunday on the floor at NAMM brought many more wonderful moments, including some hot-fired jams with Linda Sack of the Nashville Dulcimer Quartet. Linda and I had conversed some via e-mail and it was a joy to meet her. Our dulcimer duets once again brought a crowd to the Folkcraft booth, stopping traffic in the aisle, which was the main entrance to the show floor. Stopping traffic is a good thing. It gets people very curious as to what's going on in front of that crowd.

The show closed at 4 pm, which gave me the opportunity to slip out quickly, head down to The Stage with Jae and chill out with Jason Link and the Link Family Band. Several folks that I met at NAMM were there to check out my brief sit-in with the band. With a need to get Annie back into Richard's hands for a trip back to Indiana, I could only stay for a couple of tunes, so Jason brought me up with an introduction and I quickly laid out for the band what I had in mind. In no time flat, we were rocking along with "Run On", which hangs out in Em for a good long time, so it was easy to signal the band to stop and start for emphasis. Keyboardist Tim McDonald took some crazy middle-eastern sounding solos and Woodstock 69 laid down a wild bass break-down before we brought it home. The blonde you see in the photo was dancing her ass off, despite being soused to the gills.



Then, we switched it up with "Folsom Prison Blues" in the key of D and the blonde disappeared, replaced by an older gentleman who danced just as madly, holding a drumstick in his hand. Annie sounded fantastic going through Jason's rig, just enough dirt to take on a wicked tone. Though I was sitting down, I made sure to turn around and give plenty of visual cues to the band - I could see them watching my fingers for the changes. Without a single rehearsal, we all stopped on a dime to wild applause as I shook hands with the boys and thanked them for allowing me to share the music with them.

I ran Annie back to Richard, said goodbye to him and Nick, and returned to The Stage for the rest of the show. Had the chance to hang out with Woodstock 69 (real name: Rande Hall) and talk with him about the Nashville music scene, the caliber of performers and the nature of the grind. It was a back alley inside view at the heartbeat of their local scene and deeply inspiring.

Jae and I had dinner at Merchant's and then retired to our hotel room where we both crashed out, happy yet exhausted. We had barely enough time to really dig into Nashville as a whole, but just that brief foray into the city yielded unexpectedly fun and wild results. Made a lot of new friends, created new connections and came away with the undeniable feeling that we'd be doing it all again next year, if not sooner.

Workin' the booth at NAMM

Sent with Aloha! via Blackberry

Friday, July 17, 2009

In The Nashville Groove



We dropped into Nashville in the mid-afternoon, grabbed a couple of caffeine-laden drinks from Starbucks and proceeded to our hotel, Jae and I. It was a long day of travel and was going to be a long night of heading out to B.B. King's Blues Bar downtown and waiting our turn to play the Greg Bennett Guitar Showcase. Roger Zimish has an endorsement with Bennett and we wanted to work some of our acoustic alchemy. During dinner, we were entertained by Tommy Tutone in the main room - they did a swing version of their hit "Jenny", which was pretty sweet.

Roger, me and guitarist Barry Hall planned on rocking out "Run On" and, by the time the evening had drawn on and on, turns out that's the only tune for which I hit the stage. With no rehearsal and a pick-up rhythm section, it was a monstrous go and quite a lot of fun. Annie's first time on-stage since being shipped back home as her whole self.

Annie now has a little sister named Kamalani, which means "chief's child" in Hawaiian. Kamalani is all Koa wood, which can only be found on the Hawaiian islands, with sugar maple fingerboard and ebony fingerboard veneer and heelcaps with backing stripe. She's also fully chromatic, which means I've officially crossed over to the "dark side" of the dulcimer and am playing a far more complex instrument with all twelve half-steps of the western musical scale. I like this, because it helps me to think through theory and also understand the diatonic scale better. Plus, I can play songs in any key now, which is important if you want to really spread your wings and fly. She has a sweet voice and is simply beautiful; another crowning achievement for Folkcraft Instruments.

Morning comes way early. More pics and things after a while. Right now, I'm thinking about sleep, in much the same way that Jae has already explored.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Thanks, Flight Wisdom!

Flight Wisdom Breaks Fiddles | Flight Wisdom
Flight Wisdom Breaks Fiddles

We enjoyed Dave Carroll’s unique approach to speaking out against customer service. Apparently we were not alone in this. It seems a lot of people did. It struck a chord with Westjet, the Canadian discount airline, which invited Dave not only to jam with them, but to fly with them next time. While we were writing this post, Westjet removed its video for reasons unknown.


Gory Bateson shared his thoughts on his favorite airline to fly, Southwest, and how they have always handled his guitar with car.

Then we get to the most unique one yet…Northwest Breaks Dulcimers, by Bing Futch. We were not aware there was a dulcimer podcast, but we learn something new every day.



This blog deals with flying in general and features the Gory Bateson song "Southwest Never Broke My Guitar", which is pretty funny. Watch it to the end.

Linking to the connections

Blog about jazz music » Jazz Guitar Music

Must be a mirror site of some sort for this:
http://www.socializedpr.com/united-breaks-guitars-case-study-in-old-media-failure/

Meanwhile, Bing Futch, whose mountain dulcimer had been damaged by Northwest Airlines, recorded his own video Northwest Breaks Dulcimers. Wisely, according to the Times Online, Northwest jumped in quickly and agreed to compensate Futch before becoming another bad customer service viral video case study.

“‘We’ve reached out to the customer and offered our apologies and compensation,’ said Susan Elliott, a spokeswoman for Delta, who owns Northwest airlines. She said that his dulcimer was damaged, in part, because it was packaged in a soft-shell case but they still decided to offer compensation.”

Futch’s video had just over 2500 views as of this afternoon.


Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Orlando Weekly Blog Coverage

Orlando Weekly - Music Blog
So local dulimist(?) Bing Futch - suck on that name, Carroll - figured he'd ride the United coattails for the whole week it's popular and capitalize with his own similar-sounding jaunt called "Only a Northwest Song," (Beatles reference win?) in which Futch (really with that name?) explains how...well, you can guess the rest.


Pretty funny little blurb and very indicative of the writing for the mag (I used to write for them back when I did a lot of music journalism.)

Out of 179 videos that I've uploaded to YouTube over a span of two years, "Only A Northwest Song" ranks number 24 in total viewings (as of this posting), and that's after three days of being posted. It's sort of like watching a single chart. Kinda.

So THAT'S Why!

YouTube heroes Dave Carroll and Bing Futch win airline compensation - Times Online
Futch’s song, in a similar tune to Go West by the Pet Shop Boys, has an even more memorable chorus. “Northwest! Where baggage handlers roam. Northwest! You’ll be taking pieces home.”


After yesterday's resigned resolution with Northwest Airlines, I had pretty much turned eyes towards the future and have been continuing work on some new projects. The number of hits to the "Only A Northwest Song" videos (both long and short) were nowhere in the neighborhood of 2.5 million hits, but the numbers were still impressive for such a short span of time.

Sometime last night, however, I began to notice an uptick in views. Chalking it up to residual viewings from mirror sites, and thanking the internet gods for any kind of exposure I can get, I thought nothing more about it until this morning when I glanced at the view count and saw that it had very nearly doubled since I went to sleep. With a strange mixture of curiosity and giddiness, I did some Google searches and turned up the link at the top of this post. Well, God bless the U.K.

And, of course, being a musician, the tag of the article is my favorite part. It never gets old when someone likes your stuff.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

"We're Done" says Northwest

Kristine Brown, Assistant Manager of Luggage Service for Northwest/Delta, said "we're done" in regards to my compensation claim for the mountain dulcimer damaged on June 14th, 2009.

"The transport of musical instruments (as checked baggage) is at the customers' own risk, as our tariffs (the rules governing Luggage handling and claims) excludes liability for this type of property. As much as we wish we could guarantee that any fragile items can be transported without incident as checked luggage, our systems and the vastly differing aircraft types used to support our routes preclude this kind of guarantee."

United broke policy in offering compensation for Dave Carroll's guitar, she said, because there was evidence of mishandling (i.e. the eyewitnesses throwing guitar cases around.) My problem here is not so much the mishandling which caused the damage, but the fact that the carry-on bag had to be gate-checked when there was obviously room on board the plane for it.

In my history of flying Northwest, I've either encountered flight attendants who expressed doubt that the bag would fit, only to watch me slide it easily into the overhead compartment, or they've put up resistance, only to give in after I've politely told them that gate-checking was a dangerous proposition for an acoustic instrument in a soft case. Brown argues that their policy states there is no guarantee that carry-on luggage won't be subject to gate-checking should room become scarce on board the airplane.

I argue back that policy wasn't an issue with any of the numerous flight attendants on previous Northwest flights who allowed me to find available space for the dulcimer. A lack of consistency in their approach to policy gave me the knowledge that as long as I could find space on board a plane, I was good to go. So I've made a point to book seats in the rear of the aircraft, knowing that there is always overhead bin space back there. It's never been a problem; until now. With a flight attendant who clearly saw that there was space towards the front of the aircraft, I feel that it was whim, rather than policy, that dictated the fate of my instrument.

On behalf of Delta/Northwest, Brown said "we are concerned about your perception of this experience and as a gesture of our concern, I have issued you an Electronic Credit Voucher in the amount of $200." I suppose, in the corporate scheme of things, that meeting in the middle is as sure a victory for the little guy as anything, eh?

Northwest Breaks Dulcimers - the story continues

Dave Carroll shows online gripes can get results -- chicagotribune.com
Inspired by Carroll, Bing Futch said he wrote a song and crafted a video Friday about a dulcimer splintered by Northwest Airlines workers because he wanted to avoid a lengthy battle to be reimbursed.

Futch said he filed an online claim after the June 14 incident, but not within the 24 hours specified by the airline. "Since then I've gotten crickets," the Orlando-based musician said.

That changed quickly when Delta Air Lines, which acquired Northwest last fall, learned of his video, "Northwest Breaks Dulcimers," on Monday. "We've reached out to the customer and offered our apologies and compensation," said Susan Elliott, a Delta spokeswoman. She said his dulcimer was damaged, in part, because it was packaged in a soft-shell case. She urged passengers to carefully pack musical instruments.


The excerpt above is from the story published in today's Chicago Tribune. There were a couple of surprises included. One, I wasn't aware that Delta had acquired Northwest. Another surprise in the article was the paragraph beginning with "That changed quickly.." Shortly after my phone interview with Julie Johnsson, I received another phone call from Kristine Brown of Northwest Airlines. After talking through the situation, she did indeed make an offer of compensation. Since this situation is still developing, I'll leave it at that.

The article makes it appear as though I willy-nilly offered up my dulcimer as a sacrifice to the baggage handling gods. Suffice it to say that, even by Northwest/Delta's own carry-on allowances, my soft carry-on dulcimer bag was intended to go inside the plane and not in the cargo hold. Though there was space for the bag in a closet near the front of the plane, I was told to gate-check it by a Northwest flight attendant who ignored my protestations that it was an acoustic instrument in a soft case unfit for cargo transportation.

Notice that even Delta spokeswoman Susan Elliott stated that damage was sustained, "in part", due to the softness of the case. The part left unstated had to do with the actions of the flight attendant.

Only one time before have I been forced to gate-check an instrument and that was a Delta flight. Delta has a notorious history, known for their intolerance regarding musical instruments as carry-ons, to the point of a boycott against the airline instituted by the American Federation of Musicians.

The AFM also has been working with the airline industry to institute uniform carry on and storage policies in respect to instruments. While most airlines have shown sympathy toward musicians, Delta Airlines remains uncooperative and has created numerous problems for AFM members. In response, the AFM issued a boycott of Delta. Recently, the AFM has been informed that Delta is reviewing its policies.


The pressure worked and the boycott was called off, according to a press release dated April 26, 2007:

In addition to its carry-on policy, Delta also improved its checked baggage policy. Previously, Delta only accepted checked baggage that measured 80 linear inches or less with a weight limit of 80 pounds. Checked items can now measure up to 120 linear inches and weigh up to 100 pounds, good news for musicians traveling with large instruments.


While "Only A Northwest Song" hasn't gotten nearly the quantity of hits that "United Breaks Guitars" did, the rate of views has picked up considerably over the past 24 hours. In all of the 179 videos posted on my YouTube page, it is absolutely the fastest racker of hits.

Stay tuned.




Saturday, July 11, 2009

United Breaks Guitars - Northwest Breaks Dulcimers (Song Only)

Here's the short form of the video with just "Only A Northwest Song."

Dulcimerica 125 - "Only A Northwest Song"

On June 14th, 2009 - Northwest Airlines baggage handlers damaged Bing's Folkcraft double-neck dulcimer on flight 2363 from Detroit, MI to Ft. Wayne, IN. Many people requested that Bing write a song about the situation, much like Tom Paxton did in his tune "Thank You Republic Airlines."

When Dave Carroll released the video for "United Breaks Guitars", Bing saw an opportunity for even more awareness in the area of baggage handling guidelines for airlines, not to mention perhaps an opportunity to have Northwest finally hear his story out and pay for the damages inflicted by their ground crew. "Only A Northwest Song" was written and recorded on Friday, July 10th. The video was partially shot on the day of and after the incident with editing taking place also on July 10th.

Friday, July 10, 2009

Only A Northwest Song

[UPDATE] The song got a remix, plus a few extra touches, now that I've had a little time.

[UPDATE] Welcome everyone from Facebook, Twitter and other networks - traffic has definitely picked up around here. For the whole story on Annie's June 14th crushing at the hands of Northwest Airlines, see this blog entry.

Wrote the lyrics and music this morning (July 10th), recorded this arrangement in the afternoon. It's an odd little tune.

• The title is a play on the George Harrison-penned Beatles tune "Only A Northern Song." Why, I don't know.

• I listened to both "United Breaks Guitars" and "Thank You Republic Airlines" to make sure I didn't go in either of those directions. 'Twas easy with the Tom Paxton tune. A little more difficult with Dave Carroll's song, because he plays it in the international key of dulcimer - D. Anything I did in D sounded pretty close to this tune, so I went with the key of G instead. A little high in my range, but a good stretching exercise.

• Originally, I was going to rock this one out, but decided to go with a mixture of techno drum loops and dulcimer. The bass is synthesized and played live.

• Except for the male chorus under the bridge, all voices are mine.

It definitely needs some polish, but I'm happy to post it as a demo and see what y'all think. [UPDATE] Thanks to everyone on Blip.FM who has blipped this tune!




Only A Northwest Song
music and lyrics by Bing Futch
Copyright © 2009 J.O.B. Entertainment Inc.

you may have heard the song about the guy from Nova Scotia
how United Airlines busted his guitar
Tom Paxton hit that barrier with Republic as a carrier
and he wrote a tune to serve as a memoir

my heart goes out to both these gents in their respective incidents
and with these words I'm joining the protest
for I had just one expenditure in the shape of a mountain dulcimer
and that instrument got splintered by Northwest


NORTHWEST

Where the baggage handlers roam

NORTHWEST

You'll be taking pieces home

NORTHWEST

You've killed many guitars, for sure

add to that: one mangled mountain dulcimer


"gate check that piece"
"no," I said - "it fits right in the overhead
as easy as a cord fits in a plug"
but in Motor City, my connection had the bins all sliced into little sections
the whole plane looked just like a Volkswagen bug

I've had my share of heart-thumpers, flying these puddle-jumpers
my dulcimer in the belly of the beast
the case was strong, I said a prayer as we lifted up into the air
with Ft. Wayne as my next stop in the east

bridge

The two girls on the ground crew seemed afraid
And watched me from afar, grabbing the last bag on the cart
If I had looked inside, they would have paid
three hours later, I saw the mess
and shouted "curses to you, Northwest!"

So, listen up, American, Delta, Frontier , Air Tran
Continental, PSA , Jet Blue
US Airways, Allegiant Air, Southwest, Compass, Martinaire
Virgin Atlantic, yeah I'm talkin' to you

and all you other commercial flights, your passengers have all got rights
to baggage that is never treated wrong
and if you slip, then so will we, along comes Dave or Tom or ME
to tell the world that you suck, in a song

Of Returns and Powwows and Planes and Things

I hit the ground running upon returning to Orlando; logging the video from Townsend, Tennessee and reflecting on the great time up there. Between the workshops and concert at The Pickin' Porch, sightseeing around Cade's Cove and attending my first powwow, there was a lot to absorb. That video will be coming in a little while.

We head off to NAMM show next week, so I'm working hard on some other video projects along with kicking off some of the musical productions I've been looking forward to starting. "Dulcimerica: Volume 2" and "Mountain Dulcimer In The Band: Book Three" are in that list, along with DVDs from Kentucky Music Week 2008 and 2009.

Annie arrived home on the same day, it's been good to have her back. They folks at Folkcraft did a fantastic job restoring her to showroom shape and I wasted no time doing some writing this week. One tune came leaping out yesterday and is basically dulcimer, drums and a basic structure with no lyrics or other parts.

The other song, brand new today, is actually a long time coming. Many people suggested I write a tune about Annie getting busted up by Northwest Airlines this summer, in the same vein as "Thank You Republic Airlines" by Tom Paxton. Well, after hearing and seeing "United Breaks Guitars" by Dave Carroll, I decided to go for it. There's nothing terribly unique about musicians having their gear ruined by airlines, but Dave's YouTube success and subsequent media attention is all very good news for traveling artists. Perhaps the airlines, attempting to deflect some of this unwanted attention, will actually do something about its baggage handling policies.



Dave's got a great voice and band, not to mention a deft touch with a tune - so I made every effort to steer my tune in a different direction. I took me of a rock tack, though the chorus is more Sons of the Pioneers than Son House. Here are the words - I'm working on the arrangement right now and will have a demo up sometime this weekend. It's a pretty fun little tune - many of you have asked for it, and if nothing else, maybe Northwest will hear it and decide to pay for the repairs to my dulcimer.

In the light of two well-known songs of this nature floating around out there, I took the approach of acknowledging them and making this sort of a call to arms for all musicians, as well as telling my own story. Not many dulcimer-got-broke tunes out there, I 'spect.

Only A Northwest Song
music and lyrics by Bing Futch
Copyright © 2009 J.O.B. Entertainment Inc.

you may have heard the song about the guy from Nova Scotia
how United Airlines broke his guitar
Tom Paxton hit that barrier with Republic as a carrier
and he wrote a tune to serve as a memoir

my heart goes out to both these gents in their respective incidents
and with these words I'm joining the protest
for I had just one expenditure in the shape of a mountain dulcimer
and that instrument got splintered by Northwest


NORTHWEST

Where the baggage handlers roam

NORTHWEST

You'll be taking pieces home

NORTHWEST

You've killed many guitars, for sure

add to that: one mangled mountain dulcimer


"gate check that piece"
"no," I said - "it fits right in the overhead
as easy as a cord fits in a plug"
but in Motor City, my connection had the bins all sliced into little sections
the whole plane looked just like a Volkswagen bug

I've had my share of heart-thumpers, flying these puddle-jumpers
my dulcimer in the belly of the beast
the case was strong, I said a prayer as we lifted up into the air
with Ft. Wayne as my next stop in the east

bridge

The two girls on the ground crew seemed afraid
And watched me from afar, grabbing the last bag on the cart
If I had looked inside, they would have paid
three hours later, I saw the mess
and shouted "curses to you, Northwest!"

So, listen up, American, Delta, Frontier , Air Tran
Continental, PSA , Jet Blue
US Airways, Allegiant Air, Southwest, Compass, Martinaire
Virgin Atlantic, yeah I'm talkin' to you

and all you other commercial flights, your passengers have all got rights
to baggage that is never treated wrong
and if you slip, then so will we, along comes Dave or Tom or ME
to tell the world that you suck, in a song

Thursday, July 09, 2009

Dulcimerica 124 - "KMW: Just Beachy"

Bing Futch performs "White Sandy Beach" at Kentucky Music Week 2009.

Bing endorses Folkcraft Instruments: http://folkcraft.com

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Press from last month's Gebhard Woods fest

morrisdailyherald.com | Back to music's roots
Musicians come from all over the United States to participate in and teach workshops at the Dulcimer Festival held in Gebhard Woods State Park each year.

Bing Futch performed this year at this festival for the second time.

From Florida, Futch said he travels all over the United States to participate in dulcimer festivals.

"This is a beautiful setting next to the canal and ponds and among the trees," he said. "The people in Morris are also very friendly."