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We recorded this as a scratch track on my tiny little Tascam DR-05 for Riley’s mother and the rest of the sisters Halverson to use as they practice singing this song for Riley’s wedding, coming right up in July!

Edward Burch, Riley Broach, and The Viper rehearse in Champaign, Illinois, June 2013.

I re-baked this jug special for Rob right before this show.

TRANSCRIPT

“How to make a jug band jug”
with The Viper

Today I’m going to talk about how to prepare a jug for playing. By “prepare,” I mean finding one and then cleaning it. Cleaning it will involve getting out all the stuff that might have gone into a ceramic jug in the past, and sterilizing it to get out any remaining funk. You can put that funk back in later when you play.

Stage 1: FIND A JUG

First: finding one. This is a 2-gallon stoneware ceramic jug of the sort that you might find in an antique store, a basement, an estate sale, things like that. They’re not that hard to find. But they are a little bit hard to find cheaply, unless you’re lucky.

The good news is, it’s not the only thing you can play. Really, anything of about this size and shape will work: a glass apple cider jug (although those are harder to find these days, as well), a wine jug, old bleach bottles, laundry detergent bottles. Even things like a milk jug will work, although [with] the sides, the plastic is probably too soft to really give you good tone. You want something with about this much volume — 2 gallons is about the right amount of resonance — and you want resilient, tough sides to hold their shape.

Well, now let’s talk about cleaning.

Stage 2: CLEAN YOUR JUG

So cleaning a jug isn’t rocket science. But it is materials science. In putting these instructions together, I’ve consulted the online advice of people who deal in antique ceramics but, perhaps more importantly, home brewers and distillers. If your jug is particularly valuable and irreplaceable, you may want to go beyond what I’m saying here to make sure I’m not giving you bad advice that might lead to a cracked or otherwise wrecked jug.

I’ve got some very basic materials here. I’m going to use vinegar and bleach. And if you’ve got a glass jug, [like an] apple cider jug from the supermarket, [it's] even easier: just warm soapy water (like you’d clean any dish). With ceramics, we have to worry a little bit more that the glaze inside may have not held up, may be porous; and any water of the kind that you might be spitting in would harm the jug and lead to funk, which will come right back at you when you play it.

I’m going to start just by rinsing it out. And, incidentally, one way that you can check for porousness is simply to fill it up to the lip with water. Let it sit for a couple of days; and if the water level goes down, then you know you have porousness.

Then I’ll pour some vinegar in — you know, swish it around, maybe let it sit for a while (you might know better than I do). And then when I’m happy with the amount it’s sat, pour it out, maybe do it again, fill it up with water — in other words, just give it a number of good rinsings to get out any of the big stuff.

Stage 3: STERILIZE YOUR JUG

And when I’m satisfied that I’ve got everything out, then I’m going to sterilize it. I’m going to start by filling it about halfway with water. Then I’m going to add 2 tablespoons of bleach for each gallon of water. So for a 2 gallon jug that’ll be 4 tablespoons of bleach. Fill it the rest of the way with water. Then I’m going to let it sit for 20 minutes while the bleach does its magic.

20 minutes later…

I pour out the bleach. And now to get rid of any remaining water and bleach and to sterilize the jug I’m going to bake it for two hours at 320 degrees. I don’t want to pre-heat the oven, because to avoid any cracking I want the jug to warm up slowly and then, again, I’m going to let it cool down slowly. Put in the jug. Now we’ll let it bake — 2 hours.

2 hours later…

Two hours are up and the jug is done, so I’ll turn off the heat. But, again, I’m going to leave the jug in to cool along with the oven to avoid any sudden temperature changes that might lead to cracking.

later…

When the oven has cooled, then it’s time to take the jug out. And then when it’s cool to the touch — like it is right now — then it’s ready to play. Now, it’s your turn!

This was recorded/filmed on November 29 & 30, 2012 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. My daughter, Irene, and I did the camerawork, with Irene Jerving starring as the eponymous Krampus. Play along, with chords & lyrics available here.

If you are unfamiliar with Krampus (and in the age of Wikipedia, that’s really unforgiveable, you know), you should know that Krampus is the troll-like creature who accompanies St. Nicholas in the holiday traditions of parts of Austria, Bavaria, and such, playing bad-cop-good-cop on their house-to-house rounds. Especially bad kids get stuffed in a sack and dragged away to the Krampus’s lair. Somewhat bad kids just get their oranges taken away. Happy holidays!

Madison Match-up Madness, culminating in this moment of mental chess between Milwaukee, WI’s The Viper and Ghent, Belgium’s Stijn Debrouwere. Photo by Rob Henn.

In the summer of 2009, when The Viper and His Famous Orchestra started playing together again after my return to the Midwest, an innocent self-search on Google turned up the fact that a trad jazz band out of Belgium had posted a cover of “Ich Bin Berlin (The Sundown Song),” a Viper and His Famous Orchestra tune recorded for our Everything for Everyone long-playing CD.

What followed was some frenzied e-mails among the members of the Orchestra, some excited comments to the YouTube video, and a correspondence with the Rambling Boys singer/ukulelist, Stijn Debrouwere (including an e-mail interview that you can find here).

On Saturday, August 18, 2012 we finally got to meet up in person. Stijn travelled to Madison, Wisconsin from Cedar Rapids, Iowa (where he’s been working) and The Viper travelled to Madison, Wisconsin from Milwaukee, Wisconsin (where he hasn’t been working).

After dinner with some friends, we all retired to the Spaight Street home of Orchestra trombonist Rob Henn to make some music: everything from Bob Wills, Roger Miller, and Hank Williams through some Stijn Debrouwere orginals and Viper stand-bys.

Rob documented some of this through his laptop camera/mic and posted the results, with some context, to YouTube, which you can see here. This is the long awaited international, trans-Atlantic intersection of The Viper and His Famous Orchestra and The Rambling Boys of Pleasure, playing “Ich Bin Berlin (The Sundown Song)” for your orchestrated pleasure.

August 18, 2012 – The Viper (plus Rob Henn) + Stijn Debrouwere
Madison, WI

October 1, 2011 – The Viper and His Famous Orchestra
PRF Auktoberfyst 2011, Cicero, IL

August 10, 2009 – The Rambling Boys of Pleasure
Ghent, Belgium

I tested it our today — doesn’t yet work through the Ubuntu side of my computer, but it does on Windows. The following represents a good five minutes of work, using the Audacity sound editor to lay down three tracks of Fender Telecaster gold, un-amped and plugged in as is directly into the machine.

The sound isn’t actually terrible. The song is an instrumental version of John Papageorge’s Kissyfish classic, “Girlfriend,” from our Grownups Are People, Too tape.

John Papageorge, circa May, 1987, Madison, Wisconsin

Specifically, I took the style from the first bit he teaches/plays on that video: “Deep River Blues.” Below, you can see me doing trying to do this bit  — same key (E), same diminished chord (G dim), same neck position and everything — as The Viper and His Second String perform the Neil Young song “Vampire Blues” (shot and uploaded to YouTube by Sue Peacock earlier this year — that’s birthday boy John Peacock you’ll see taking the suitcase solo in the middle).

from http://youtu.be/LpwrXyigmX8

And now here’s Doc Watson doing the same thing but better on “Deep River Blues.”

from http://youtu.be/6VAbrnjdtYw

Great stuff. And now follow this link to a clip from the Smithsonian video to have Doc Watson teach you how to do it too!

MUSICALLY: What you’re seeing in this recording is the first song I’ve written on piano and, really, my first public performance on the ivory/ebony 88′s. That’s why I look so terrified for so much of the song. Late last year, we inherited a free piano from someone looking to unload it. So by February of this year I decided I was going to learn to actually play something on it. With it being Mardi Gras season and all, I decided that that something was going to be the New Orleans style associated with Professor Longhair — a habanera rhythm on the left hand; 8-to-thebar, “crush” grace notes, and falling arpeggios on the right hand.

The music for this song is basically the result of that: a swiping of “Tipitina,” “Big Chief,” and “Hey, Little Girl” (with some of Louis Jordan’s “Early in the Morning” and Ray Charles’s “Mess Around” around the edges).

VISUALLY: I set up the camera to try to make it look like the way Fats Domino was filmed in the 33 1/3 Revolutions per Monkee television variety special from 1969. I definitely succeeded in the Fats part, belly-wise. You also see me sporting my new Mahlon Mitchell button — free from the Tom Barrett rally with Bill Clinton I’d gone to earlier in the day at Pere Marquette park in downtown Milwaukee.

LYRICALLY: It goes like this (some of which I flub in the version I filmed — like I said, I was terrified and just holding on for dear life):

Don’t let the good times roll
Good times roll too slow
And it might take a push or a shove
To make the bad times go

So let the talkers talk
And let the walkers walk
And if they need a push or a shove, shove with love
And let the bad times roll

There’s a way to tell the story
So that it turns out right
Don’t let the good times flow
They flow too slow
Baby, let the bad times roll.

So tell your Ma and your Pa
Wisconsin Mardi Gras
Is scheduled for June 5th this year
Tout le monde, chantez-les bas

And let the talkers talk
Let’s let the walkers walk
And if they need a push or a shove, shove with love
And let the bad times roll

All y’all can sing it with me:
“Laissez les mal temps roulez“
And if you still can recall, the thrill of it all
Baby, let the bad times roll.

…and it’s true. Like Frederick Douglass said: good times don’t just roll — sometimes they need a push or a shove. So let’s get out there and shove (with love).

As I wrote when I posted this the first time,

It’s the Monkees meets The Music Man meets “Revolution #9″ meets Licensed to Ill. Which, all told, just may be the Viper’s Rosetta Stone.

The instrumentation was sparse — no ukulele (I played the egg shaker — and eggs come from a chicken, not a bunny, dummy!). Just bass, trombone, and suitcase, and mostly just in the breaks. This was, I think, so we could roam as we spit. Most of the Adam Yauch lines seem to handled by Riley Broach, vocalizing with appropriate gruffness.

The show was recorded on a handheld analog tape recorder — I believe just through the built in mic — by Brad Allen. You can hear a little device-on-lap noise at the beginning. In digitizing it, I did a little bit of equalizing to cut out volume spikes but I didn’t otherwise  alter the original recording.

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p30LK-h9

Great day in the morning!  The Viper AND His Famous Orchestra will be tearing up large swaths of the Illinois cosmopolis and hinterland over the next few months.

Here’s what we know about so far:

PRF Auktoberfyst 2011
Saturday, October 1, 4:00 p.m.
Klas’ Restaurant, Cicero, IL
http://www.prfbbq.com/prf-auktoberfyst-2011-schedule-1625
…or say you’ll be there on Facebook.

The Viper and His Famous Orchestra are the first band of an all-day program on the last day of a three-day festival. My friend Faiz (who helped set up the show, and will be rocking there as well) says that Klas’ is a very cool place to play — an old Czech restaurant that he describes as like “playing inside a cuckoo clock.” Let’s polka!

Third Annual Champaign-Urbana Folk & Roots Festival
Saturday, November 5, 11:30 p.m.
The Iron Post, Urbana, IL
http://folkandroots.org

The Viper and His Famous Orchestra stay up LATE for this one (I’d forgotten there was an 11:30 in the p.m., too) to bring you all the music that’s fit to folk. I’ll also be doing a songwriting workshop earlier in the day, called “How to Steal a Song,” about which I’ll have more to announce as the time draws near.

Prairie Breezes Mini-Concerts for Kids
Friday, December 16, 4:15 p.m.
The Urbana Free Library, Urbana, IL
http://www.urbanafreelibrary.org/about/news/#bre

Burdened with four strings and the truth, The Viper brings his ukulele and his Famous Orchestra to the Urbana Free Library for an interactive show of kid-tested, grown-up-approved music and mayhem. Learn to play The Viper way on washtubs, suitcases, and other repurposed household materials, and sing along as the 4-piece Orchestra performs a unique blend of street-corner jazz, meeting-hall folk, and front-porch country.