Kavanjo banjo pickup

Wow - someone's made a humbucking banjo pickup that's built right into the head. That looks awesome!
Their website's at http://www.kavanjo.com/
I searched them up on YouTube, hoping to hear the amplified tone. I found the clip below, and even though I couldn't tell much about the tone from that clip, I was pretty impressed with what the guy is playing!

Little beggarman video clip

Live from the Heavy Blarney CD release gig at the Celtic Inn, Palmy.
Recorded on Steve's still camera, this came out pretty well I thought!

Blarney photos

Here are a couple of shots courtesy of the Hungarian Press Agency

L-R: Banjo Bing, Seamus Finn, Slapskins O'Shaughnessy, Cathal MacDeth

Then we're joined by Paul The Pennywhistle Turner

Just to keep things weird, here's a shot of NutellaMonk feat. Bling Turkby, 

at the Clocparty gig in the Square, which was put on by The Stomach on Nov. 28th.

I'm afraid the trews and singlet are no longer available in the gift shop, trendsetters!

But if you're lucky, you'll find a flannel hat at an opshop somewhere...


Hey, here's something funny I just found on the internets:

The Blarney is launched!

There was a good turnout at the Celtic Inn on Sunday for the launch of the Heavy Blarney CD.
Massively big thanks to Slapskins O'Shaughnessy, Cathal MacDeth, Seamus Finn and Paul The Pennywhistle Turner for their peerless playing, and the Celtic Inn for hosting the launch.
TurkbyTone Rekkids also would like to thank those who turned up to show their support - cheers!
Sales have already exceeded 3 units, and the Celtic have a few copies for sale, so if you're having a pint you can grab a copy at the same time.
Jim K is now in negotiations with K-Tel to get us some distribution. Watch this space for news on the Blarney Dancers!
It's a testament to the skills of the Blarney band that with only 3 practices they managed to put together a great-sounding show. Slainte, guys.
I hope that anyone who was at the gig, or listens to the CD, will maybe get inspired to pick up an instrument themselves. One of the ideas behind making the CD was to try to show people how much fun it is to play music, whether you're an advanced player or not.
Reminds me of the book "Zen Guitar", and of course Victor Wooten's fantastic one "The Music Lesson".
Let's see if I can put a link to them here somehow...

Na na na

Impossible as it may seem, the song called Na na na (na na na na na na na na na) on the new My Chemical Romance album is NOT a cover of the Bing Turkby song called Na na na na na from the Summer Party album. But you really have to wonder if they just stole the title, right? I don't mind them using it, good luck to them I say. I just hope that when they get to be as famous as the Bing Turkby Ensemble they'll be as magnanimous with other bands.

This Blarney is heavy

We've got one more practice before hitting the populace with Heavy Blarney at The Celtic Inn, Palmy, on Dec 5th. The show will start at 6PM and go for one hour, so your punctuality will be rewarded! Those of you who can't make the show can still get some digital Blarney from Bandcamp here. The digital tracks are NZ$1 each, or you can buy the whole album for just NZ$5.

Or you can hit the Buy Now button below and I'll send you a real-life physical copy, with an actual disc and everything. The physical CD is NZ$15, including postage anywhere in the world, plus you get more pictures and liner notes.
If anyone's keen on learning Irish banjo, and you live in the Manawatu, give me a yell!
In the meantime, have a look at The Irish Tenor Banjo site, it's blimmin' good.

The Heavy Blarney CD includes 3 original Turkby songs, and the rest is rocked-up traditonal Irish stuff.
Tracklisting:
1. Tenpenny bit
2. Star of the County Down
3. The rights of man
4. Step it out Mary
5. The little beggarman
6. Billy at the railroad tracks
7. A hasty trip
8. The Limerick rake
9. Celtic rag
10. My Irish home
11. The maid behind Cooley's bar

You can hear samples at http://turkby.bandcamp.com

Tea Party photos

Some photos from the image-capturing device of Tyrone T. Blowhard.

Photography may or may not have been performed by the Night Frog.

Blarney begins in earnest

Had the first band practice for the Heavy Blarney show on Tuesday this week.
The show is gonna be banjo-mazing, to be sure!
Might be a date change coming up, so keep your eyes on this general vicinity or at the Turkby Reverbnation page. Currently we've had to switch to Dec 5th, but the situation is somewhat fluid at the moment. Will have everything confirmed by next week.
I'm thinking of starting a car race with a Kiwi comedian, it would be called the Rhys Derby. Or the Rhys Darby Derby. Rhys, if you're reading this, get in touch with Jim Keltnenhausen at TurkbyTone Rekkids HQ. He has a budget of $50 to get this thing off the ground.
Bingo

Burning CDs

Whenever I burn a CD, I immediately turn it over to check it, as if my human eyes can somehow tell if the data is OK or not. This is normal, right?
Bing

Vincent Van-O

The Turkbymobile is a Mitsubishi L300 van (short wheelbase). We call him Vincent Van-O. Or Vinnie Vanno. He’s an all-round good guy, always taking us to gigs and hanging out till we’re done. I’ve had him customised with a cup-holder (a cardboard one from a café, gaffa-taped to the dashboard). I saw an ad for a Nissan Vanette the other day. I’m thinking her and Vincent might hit it off, so I may give her a call on Vincent’s behalf. I’m hoping they’ll settle down and eventually produce a fleet of Minis.

New Venue - Evelyn's Room

It's sussed - the Ensemble will be doing the Turkby Tea Party gig at the Evelyn Rawlins Room in the Square Edge building. It's an awesome room with a great vibe, and we'll be adding extra vibes for the night.
Free entry - doors open at 8, band starts at 8:30, tea and bikkies will happen soonish after that!



Update: The -52 band have joined the party, and will be opening the gig. Cheers!

Too hot for the Hall

After a lot of excitment about organising a family-friendly kind of gig at the Theosophical Hall on October 30th, we were very disappointed to be told our booking had been cancelled. We have been kicked out of the Hall, apparently not because we're a rowdy rock band, but because someone from the Palmerston North Folk Club told the Theosophical Society that we would be unsuitable. To be more precise, they told them that Graham Johnston would be unsuitable, which is weird, cos Graham Johnston is not connected with our band at all. They said we'd attract drunken undesirables and violate the rules of the Hall. This is absolutely the opposite of what we intended. We were delighted to hear the place is alcohol-free. We don't want trouble at our gigs - we want people to come and hear the music, meet friends and have fun.
The Theosophical Society told us that if our songs included theosophical lyrics they might change their mind. This is interesting, because they had already cancelled our booking before asking that. In fact, some Turkby songs do include theosophical musings, but the Society didn't have the courtesy to ask us first. Ironically, many folk songs glorify murder, adultery and drunkenness, which Turkby songs usually do not. A lot of my lyrics are inspired by readings on religion, spirituality and history. None of them are radically offensive or anti-social. My last one was written to discourage bad driving practices...
Our intent was to have an early evening gig at an alcohol-free venue, somewhere a little different, that felt safe to people who wouldn't usually come to see us at a pub. We were going to have tea and biscuits at half-time and the atmosphere was going to be a bit special.
But it seems that the Palmerston North branch of the Theosophical Society is a close-minded organisation (*see UPDATE below), which doesn't even attempt to get its facts right before making decisions. They're going on incorrect data from an unrelated society (the Folk Club), which also worries me.
I know a few people from the Folk Club so I'm surprised and hurt by their attitude. I don't know who made the allegations, but I can only assume either 1) it's just patch protection and they don't want any music other than theirs at the Hall, and/or 2) they have us mixed up with someone else (which is obvious, from what I've been told).
Either way, we're looking for another venue with a better attitude. Let me know if you can think of one!
Bing.
PS. We're still going to try to have an EP ready by the end of the month so you can hear the songs we're working on for the 'Summon Forth the Mangonel' album. With luck we'll have it ready by the time we play at The Royal on October 22nd.


UPDATE: I've just had a call from a lovely woman from the Theosophical Society who tells me it was only one or two people who wanted to cancel our booking, and maybe only one person from the Folk Club who warned them off. It's still true that our booking has been cancelled and we would have to re-apply with more information to get it back. Which is sad because we were upfront right from the start. However, I'd like to make it clear that not everyone in the Theosophical Society and Folk Club is opposed to the Bing Turkby Ensemble! Cheers to that majority which actually does have an open mind!

Heavy Blarney CD cover

Here it is! Based on a wee picture of me having a banjo jam on the back lawn of sprawling Turkby Manor. I got the butler to haul 126 amps out but there were too many to fit in the photo so I made him take most of them back inside. He even got grass on some of them, the eejit. Anyway, the full heaviness of the blarney will be revealed on November 28th (note date change) at the Celtic Inn in Palmy, Aotearoa. Start time to be confirmed, but it'll be between 3 and 5PM most probably. That gives you time to get rowdied up, then have a nice plate of wedges at the pub and reminisce about what makes the banjo so darn cool.

Summon Forth the Mangonel and Heavy Blarney

Jim K has lashed himself to the mast until we complete the Summon Forth the Mangonel album. Luckily his mast is next to a TV, inside a jacuzzi, near a steady supply of Tangy Fruits and lemonade. We have almost finished the rhythm tracks and most of the vocals/yelling. Soon we will progress to the fancy saxy parts!

More details will soon be available for the BTE's "Turkby Tea Party" gig at the Theosophical Hall on October 30th. We're pretty stoked about this one cos it's in a small venue that's vegetarian and non-alcoholic, we'll be playing early (8:30) so everybody can enjoy the Turkby madness!

Jim has also twisted some arms and got the Hungarian Thunder and Paul "Tunebook" Turner to play on the turkby sideproject CD Heavy Blarney. MacDeth and Slapskins MacBOOOM will also be joining in the fun when we do a CD release gig. That'll be at The Celtic Inn in Palmy on November 21st, late afternoon-ish. More details to come on that too.

Hey, check out www.reverbnation.com/nutellamonk. TurkbyTone Rekkids' latest signing is making a fancy page there.

By the power of the Sword of Xanthros,
Bing

Make your own banjo pickup

As promised some time ago, here are my instructions for making your own banjo pickup.

DISCLAIMER – if you're not sure about doing this and don't want to damage a precious instrument, DO NOT do this stuff yourself.

If you want to play your banjo through an amplifier or PA system you'll either need a microphone or pickup. I don't like using microphones because I play quite loud and microphones can tend towards feedback at high volume. So I looked into buying a pickup. There are a few models around, but most people seemed to say that a cheap one can cause trouble and a better one gives you a more natural sound. The best one I could find was a twin piezo system. Piezo pickups sense vibrations (in this case, the vibrating banjo head) and convert the vibrations into electrical signals that you can send to an amplifier. The 2-piece ones mean that you can have a good balance between the bass and treble strings on your instrument. But I couldn't really afford one of these nice units. Luckily, one day I remembered that a microphone is just a speaker in reverse, and I wondered if the same is true of transducers. It turns out it's true. So the piezo buzzers that you can buy really cheap at your local electronics store (roughly NZ$5.00 each) can also be used in reverse to capture your sound and send it to an amplifier!

Here's the kind that I bought: http://jaycar.co.nz/productResults.asp?keywords=AB3462&keyform=KEYWORD&SUBMIT.x=0&SUBMIT.y=0

So now all you need is an audio jack socket (I used this kind of thing: http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics,_pickups/Components:_Jacks/Switchcraft_Output_Jack.html?actn=100101&xst=3&xsr=298), some wire like this single-conductor stuff: http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics,_pickups/Supplies:_Wire,_cables/Shielded_Guitar_Circuit_Wire.html?tab=Pictures#details (although I used some non-shielded stuff I had lying around), a soldering iron and a hot-glue gun.

I did the whole project for about NZ$10.00 and it actually sounds pretty good!

DISCLAIMER again – if you're not sure about doing this and don't want to damage a precious instrument, DO NOT do this stuff yourself.

If you decide to proceed...

Firstly you have to get the piezo element out of the plastic buzzer casing. Be careful not to hurt yourself or the piezo element! I used a craft knife: very, very carefully.

You should be able to see that there are 2 separate areas on the element, so you'll have a positive and a negative to wire up (don't worry about which is which, we can find out by trial and error later).

Then cut the circular element in half (I just used common scissors) so you have 2 semi-circles, each with 2 separate areas within them. The reason I did that is 1) because one big element caused feedback to happen when I tried it that way, and 2) you'll have separate elements to cover the bass and treble strings, and get a better sound balance.

Start with one half of the element just to try things out.

Solder the shield or negative part of the wire to one part of the element and the positive part of the wire to the other. Don't hold the soldering iron onto the element for too long – you might damage it. Then solder the other end of your wire to the output jack connectors. Again, you'll hear it if you do it wrong, so just pick a connector to start with and solder it up. Now, to check if things are actually working, plug an instrument lead into the output jack and connect to it to an amplifier – TURN IT DOWN, do not have it up way loud or you may wreck yourself! Then hold the piezo element onto your banjo head, and pluck a string with your free hand and see if any sound is coming through. If not, you may have to switch the wires over on the output jack, or it might just be the way you're holding the piezo element that's shorting something out – try holding it with something non-conductive first before you go re-soldering stuff. Once you know you can get a sound allright, you'll need to plan how to fit the whole shebang. I have a resonator on my banjo so the output jack was able to just bolt onto the resonator ring. I did have to carve a small amount of wood out of the resonator bowl to accommodate the jack. If you don't want to do that you could always use a jack like this http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics,_pickups/Components:_Jacks/Flush-mount_Output_Jack.html?actn=100101&xst=3&xsr=298 and have the wire come right out of the resonator. (If you do it this way you'll have to disassemble your initial setup so you can poke the wire through, screw the resonator back onto the banjo, then re-solder the jack.)

I attached the elements to the underside of my banjo head so there's no ugly stuff on top of the banjo and also so I won't hit things while I'm playing, and break them. To attach the piezo elements to the banjo head, I used a hot glue gun. The extra benefit of this is it adds a bit of dampening, making the tone nicer. Also, the banjo puts out a lot of energy, so it needs a little dampening so it doesn't overload (see below for more on this). You don't want to overheat the banjo head in case it distorts or melts! So firstly, find out where you want to position the elements. To do this you'll need to repeat your initial experiment, but this time with both elements hooked up to the output jack. Solder both positive elements to one of the jack connectors, and both negatives to the other (whichever way round worked for you last time!) Then play around with different positions to see what sounds best. I found that putting the treble-side pickup just off the underside of the bridge, and the bass side element a little further away from the bridge at the top, gave the best balance. Bass strings move more and put out more energy, so that makes sense, yeah? (NOTE: Later on I found there was a little overloading still going on so I made an alteration without moving the pickups – see below. You have the chance to get it right first time, so you might try moving your elements a little further away from the bridge) Putting the elements too far away can lessen the output too much. Click on the photo to enlarge and you'll be able to make out the bridge feet to see my placement.

By this stage you should have a fair idea of what length of wire you'll need to reach from the piezo elements to the output jack. You don't want a lot of extra wire rattling around inside the instrument.

Once you have decided on your positioning, put some hot glue on the bottom of the piezo element and stick it on the banjo head. By putting the glue on the element rather than the head it gets a chance to cool just a little, so it shouldn't damage the head. DISCLAIMER yet again – if you're not sure about doing this and don't want to damage a precious instrument, DO NOT do this stuff yourself.

Once the elements are attached, and wired to the output jack, you can just screw it onto the resonator ring (or whatever arrangement you decide to go for) and you should be ready to play.

FINAL FIX for my overloading problem. I found that there was still a little overloading after I'd attached the elements and I didn't want to chance ruining everything by pulling the piezo elements off the head. So I carefully slid a piece of foam between the head and that big rod thing that runs through the middle of the instrument. That dampened the head a little, took away any distortion from the pickups, and actually gave the banjo a nice mellow tone when unamplified as well – bonus!

Here's what it looks like from the outside:

So there you go – you can decide if you want to buy a top-quality professional piezo pickup, but if you have an instrument that isn't too precious then you can easily try your hand at doing it yourself. Most times, the worst thing that could happen is you might ruin a banjo head, so it's not the end of the world, although in my case I also carved a little wood from the resonator, which I certainly DO NOT recommend if you have a nice instrument! But if you use the other kind of output jack you wouldn't have to do that at all, in fact that's how I did it first time round and it worked fine, without any damage to the banjo.

I've used it at quite a few gigs now and have been very happy with the sound, just plugging it directly into the PA system. No doubt my less-than-professional soldering will cause me grief one day, but I'll just have to grab a microphone and make do if that happens.

Happy tinkering!

Bing Turkby

Mykonos Calendar

Jim K. has gone through my holiday photos and put together a calendar. It features a whole lot of different kinds of 3-wheeled vehicles racing through the narrow whitewashed lanes of Mykonos – not your usual Greek Island calendar! Here’s the cover.

(Click to embiggen, as they say)

If you’d like a copy of the calendar they’ll be selling for NZ$10.00 + postage if you get them directly from me. You can contact me at:
TurkbyTone Rekkids HQ
PO Box 1813,
Palmerston North
Aotearoa.
Or email me at bingturkby at gmail dot com
Or just click on the button below:

Select shipping region

NZ $15.00 Everywhere else $20.00

Any money raised from the sale of the calendars will help get the next Turkby album made.
Speaking of which...

We're getting ready for Phase 2 of recording the new Turkby album. I recently discovered the ancient Sword of Xanthros in my back garden and it has given me magical powers, which have come in quite handy actually. I can now vacuum the stairs in less than 30 seconds, and cat fur doesn’t stick to my black trews. I cleft a few Gordian knots just to test the sword out and was very pleased with the results. It has also made my rhythm playing 26% tighter than before, and the beats on the recordings are just that little bit phatter than I remember from last time I listened…

PS. One of my favourite record company names is Secretly Canadian. I also enjoy seeing albums on the Spunk label because their catalogue numbers always start with URA. Clever stuff.

Newspaper article

We interrupt the banjo-related posts to tell you that the local paper has honoured us with a piece about the Ensemble, reflecting on the fact that the current lineup is in the studio and working on new things for you to listen to. Have a look at the article here. There's even a pretty photo of us in the Stomach's practice room.

Playing Irish tenor banjo

Here are a few tips gleaned from my experience of learning to play Irish tunes on a banjo. If you haven’t heard that kind of thing much, look for some tunes featuring Barney McKenna from the Dubliners, or Gerry O’Connor. Or at a pinch, listen to my trepidatious attempt at playing Tenpenny Bit here.


When I first heard the set of tunes called The Dubliners Fancy on the back of the Pogues/Dubliners Irish Rover 12” (remember those?) I decided straight away that one day I’d play that set on the banjo. That instrument propelled the tune rhythmically as well as carrying the melody. Or rather, when we talk about banjo, it’s more a case of grabbing the melody and throwing it at people, rather than just carrying it. The banjo has such a punchy sound, I reckon it must be the most ‘punk rock’ of all the acoustic instruments.


Types of banjo


Anyway, at that point I thought I could just walk into a shop and grab a banjo and start learning. I didn’t realise there are different kinds of banjo, so I thought Barney was using a 5-string one like Earl Scruggs. Nope, that’s a 4-string (tenor) banjo, I found out later.

There are even different models of tenor banjo. Eg. some have 17 frets and some have 19, some are open-back and some have a big wooden resonator bowl. Mine is a 19-fret Tanglewood with a resonator bowl. Doesn’t really matter, as far as I can tell they all do the job, just pick one that makes you look cool in a mirror.


So now I could go to a shop and ask for a 4-string tenor banjo and start learning, right? Nope, turns out that many tenor banjos aren’t set up for Irish-style playing straight off the bat. Well, not any that I could find anyway. Maybe a shop that specialises in folk instruments will have something for you off the shelf.

The tenor banjo that I bought was set up for use in something like a cool old trad jazz band, and it was tuned CGDA, but kick-arse Irish-tuned banjos are GDAE. So you need to tune your banjer a fifth higher. But you can’t just tune it up like that with the factory strings, because the tension is so much greater. You need some heavy Irish tenor banjo strings. I asked around and didn’t have much luck. So I ended up buying mine from Elderly Instruments in good ol’ Lansing, Missouri!

These 13-gauge John Pearse strings are specifically made for Irish tenor banjo. You can get 12s and 11s too, but I like these big suckas.

There’s not a lot of string-bending involved with Irish tunes, so heavy strings are fine, and they’re great for projection and tone.

For more information on various banjos, try this.

Tunes to play

Here’s a place to find some tunes to play: TheSession.org

You’ll soon see that there are usually 15 different versions of each tune, so if you want to play with other people, ask them to point you in the right direction before you spend a whole lot of time learning a different one!

If you’re like me, you’ll have to learn note-by-note and then internalise the tune, because I can’t read music all that fast. It helps if you’ve heard the tune somewhere first so you get the rhythm right. Reels are 4/4 time (boom-chick-boom-chick). Jigs are generally in 6/8 “double diddly time” (di-duh-ly, di-duh-ly). Slip jigs are 9/8 “triple diddly” (di-duh-ly, di-duh-ly, di-duh-ly).


This site is full of Irish banjo tips: Irish-banjo.com

In my next post I'll tell you how to make your own banjo pickup so you can play through a PA system!

Go Grayson go!

Jim Keltnenhausen was talking record label business to Roger Shepherd last night and Roger said that he'd just signed Grayson Gilmour to the newly revitalised Flying Nun label.
So the first new Nun signing is a Palmy boy! Well done everybody. Rumour is that Jim K. will be advising Shepherd and helping him to make Flying Nun at least as big as TurkbyTone Rekkids. Oh look, it's already worked!

Banjo-bashing

Banjo Bing Turkby went into the studio on the weekend, joined by his mates Lil' Bodhran, Ol' Dirty Bassplayer and Kid Racket. One of the results is a version of Tenpenny Bit, and old Irish tune. You can hear it here. Lil' Bodhran used to be a world-class rapper until people realised he wasn't being clever, he was just talking about the weather in Gaelic. Once they got someone to translate, he lost all his appeal, so now he plays Turkby-ised versions of Irish tunes with me. You may have already heard of Kid Racket. He's the guy making a racket on guitar when you go see a band. Yeah, that guy. Slainte!

Saint Ally of Audio

In Wednesday's Manawatu Standard there was a story about local stalwart Radio Control (Massey University's student radio station). Mention was made of a song in honour of Ally Fergusson, but sadly it was reported as King Ally of Audio, rather than the correct title Saint Ally of Audio. Yes, it's a new BTE number, and you can hear the demo version here. We're working on the studio version now. Yes, right now. Now!

New song, plus a meeting.

Just wrote a new song called “The great wheel”. You can have a listen to my demo at reverbnation.com/turkby. It's about Masonic secrets, astrology, the Mayan calendar, and some mice, for some reason. It features a woodly-woo guitar solo in which I hit fully 70% of the notes I was aiming for. If you feel like it, you can join my email list and then you can download the song too. There’s no pressure on the etherweb, so hey, do whatever you like, amigo!
Last night we had an official Ensemble meeting but Jim K declined to supply a note-taker so we forgot what we talked about. Pretty sure we’re going to record another 4 or 5 new songs for the next album, plus a few older ones that sound different now that the band rocks so damn good. Then we’ll think of a suitable way to launch the album into the world. Possible album title at the moment: “Summon forth the mangonel!”
MacDeth has summoned forth a mini-MacDeth recently. He’ll be playing keyboards with us in no time, I betcha.

Andy is the man!

Word has come down from the penthouse at the top of Turkby Towers – big thanks to Andy for organising gigs at The Factory (128 a Broadway Avenue in Palmy).
You may have seen Andy at gigs around town, and/or working at Mango Music. He’s an onto it guy, and has been getting together bands, poster artists, gear and (very importantly) an audience for gigs each week. Jim K, CEO of TurkbyTone Rekkids, says thanks, not just for organising the Bing Turkby Ensemble gig that’s on this Friday 22nd, but for getting a whole scene going! Next time you see him, give him a fiver if you can spare it.

Update

Yeah, the new band rocks so good it's like living in a quarry. So, to give you a taste of how things sound now, I've uploaded the new version of Against a Sponge that we've just been recording. This might not be the final mix, but I would like to draw your attention to the Warriors of Genghis Khan-style break in the middle. If you compare this version to my original home-recorded one you'll see how far the Ensemble has progressed, specifically in terms of playing in time for a change...
Have a listen here