Tag: banjo

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The TSA Took My Baby Away! Heather Harkins, Gothtober DAY 8

Banjolele
Heather “Hard Time” Harkins, showing off her 1920s banjolele!

It’s “Tawdry Tuesday” for Gothtober DAY 8 and Heather Harkins is pushing the limits of our delicate nature by bringing us this revealing piece about airport scans! 2013 marks the end of nude scans in U.S. Airports! Gothtober International Airport is no different, it’s still using the nude scans until they go out of service, and Heather documented what goes on with these machines!

Heather lives in Nova Scotia, that’s right, you heard me: Nova Scotia! That’s very far away from Los Angeles, the home of Gothtober. This is very thrilling because the beauty of internet art is that you can be thousands of miles away and STILL be part of the Gothtober Countdown Calendar. Gothtober hopes to keep luring artists from all over the world to it’s creepy countdown crypt!

About this piece, Harkins says

I don’t know anyone who enjoys going through airport security, so I thought that by setting my piece at an airport security checkpoint, there would be an element of squeamish terror. Once that creepiness was out of the way, and I let myself be entirely goofy with my drawings and the accompanying jingle.

avion

I asked Heather, when she sent in the jingle that goes with her piece if she was playing a banjo or a ukelele, and the answer is YES! She’s playing a 1920s banjolele that she found in Rochester, NY and took back with her to Nova Scotia. This is the banjolele’s VERY FIRST public debut! You heard it on Gothtober!

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Penny’s from Heaven (Mike Penny on DAY 3)

Mike Penny, that is, with DAY 3’s very turbulent and supernatural account of a bizarre trip on a helicopter! You’ll see some of your favorite personalities from “the other side” or what some people have deemed “the great beyond.”

This short film stars Jean Natalia of Wig Out fame, Jean also recently hosted SparkleBlob’s Spooky-tacular Autumn Gala at the Bob Baker Theater in Los Angeles. Wig Out is a monthly club featuring cabaret presentations by an entirely wig-clad cast of performers. Both patrons and those who brave the stage are clad in wigs, it’s always a night to remember, and it’s always lots of fun, nightclub glamour with edgy wigs, what else could a person need in Los Angeles?!?

So what’s that crazy Japanese banjo-type thingy Mike’s playing at the end of the video? Well, that’s called a shamisen, a three-stringed fretless instrument that you play with something that looks a lot like what you’d use to scrape ice off the windshield (a plectrum or bachi.) It is believed that the ancestor of the shamisen was introduced in the 16th century at port Sakai near Osaka, Japan. As you might guess, an instrument like this has some seriously detailed and highly-studied types of playing, and even the instrument itself, and it’s plectrum are divvied up into different thicknesses and lengths, so that there is an exhaustive amount of shamisen information should you want to buy one or get started playing one.

This video from 2010 shows you how the shamisen and banjo are similar, but different!

And here’s Mike doing the Tennessee Waltz on three strings, with improvisation included!

I have no idea how long Mike Penny has been playing the shamisen, but I can tell you that he can shred out an incredible version of “Welcome to the Jungle” by Guns-n-Roses on that thing, it’s mesmerizing to watch him play. Mike is not the only shamisen player following “non-traditional genres” but he does have a style all his own when he plays it. If you’d like to see/hear more Mike Penny, visit his YouTube site and the Mike Penny Orchestra site today!

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