Keep it Simple

Funny quote of the day that actually came out of my dad's mouth in public: "Fred here had a traumatic upbringing. You see, his family members were devout Frysbeterians who believed that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof where you can't reach it."

Today I attended the "Keep it Simple" Music Festival in Tamworth, Ontario!!!

Never heard of it? I'm not surprised.
The "Keep it Simple" music festival was started last year in honour of Bernie Jaffe (rhymes with "taffy"), who was this awesome guy who lived in the small town of Tamworth (literally a crosroads is the entire city center. It's a little bitty place.)
Bernie was a member of the band "JP Ringwort and the Heartbreak of Psaraisis". He played fiddle. (It was a bluegrass type band). Other members of the band included Bill on guitar, "Pineapple" Frank on mandolin/dulcimer, and my dad, aka JP Ringwort on banjo and vocals.
This band broke up before 1980 ( the year my mom met my dad), and haven't seen much of one another since.
Bernie died three years ago, but not before me moved from Toronto to Tamsworth and brought music to the community. Apparently he started teacher everyone to play bluegrass and was an amazing guy that everyone knew and loved. So, they organised the festival for him.
It started out as just a violin workshop on the Satruday, for old students ofg Bernie's, but they decided to add music and stuff on the Sunday. Last year there were 18 people at the workshop, and 1 teacher (Gord Stobbe). This year there were 3 teachers and 42 students. Wow, eh?

When we arrived at Faun's (Bernie's widow) house, we were greated by Gord Stobbe (stobe-ee, btw) who wa going to play fiddle in the band in Bernie's stead, and Henry who plays bass, and was going to join the band for the day. They were both awesome guys. We also soon met Pineapple Frank (no clue where the name's from) who made me immediately think of Eugene Levy. He's a lot like him. Really funny guy.
My mom, sister and I left them to practice and went into "town" for lunch, then returned to listen to everyone practice. Bill had arrived late (the usual, apparently), and so they finally got down to it a bit late. But they still were amazing.

Now, I am no huge fan of bluegrass. Really I'm not. But this was good. really good. You couldn't help but tap your foot and nod your head, and even clap and whoop at appropriate moments. It was great.
Their set was amazing. My dad was doing his "we were a little rough, but I think it was ok, don't you?" thing ALL THE WAY HOME, but really, they were amazing. My dad did his old bit as frontman, warming up the crowd between numbers, with lines like the one at the top of my post and "I'd introduce the band, but we've already met." and of course, "We get a lot of requests, but we usually play anyway, so you're out of luck." and such. Jokes that made the crowd groan. It was so fun.

Gord Stobbe (who btw runs the violin workshop) also mentioned this camp he taught at a bit this summer. It's in BC (British Colombia, to you Americans) on the Sunshine coast (or whatever you call it) and it's called the "Sunshine Coast Celtic Music Camp." It sounds awesome. It's not only celtic music, and you learn to really play your intrument. You learn how to jam on the cello!!! Not just do the annoying bass part! Actually, awesome, fun cello! (he used a word that starts with the letter 'b'. "B____ cello". I can't remember what.) He mentioned this at the end of the night, by which time I was questioning my choice of cello as an instrument to play since there are no cellos in bands. There are basses, violins, and even a viola could work. But no cellos. Ah, it would be SO awesome to learn to play fun cello. Mrs Bradley would hate it, but I'd love it.

On the way home we got pulled over by the OPP and given a speeding ticket (nice, mom.) We spent the rest of the ride home at 100 on 'cruise control'.

Eves: hey, read any of Nate's story?
Davis: Not yet, computer decided to snort some cocaine.