Bret H. Hart - outsider artist and noise-maker

bhh12-13-2013all dobro [unedited]

bhh 12-12-2013

365 HOWLS #100: Token Yankee7-26-2013bret harold hartgear:Fender ac/el guitarBOSS BR8 digital recording platformThis instant song is an example of what I have been calling 'structured melodic improvisation', whereby I lay a foundation (pre-structure) by improvising a rhythm guitar figure (after jamming on it for a few minutes) to tape. All subsequent overdubs are unrehearsed and unedited. Bass-like sounds are drop-octaved acoustic guitar. Signal processing is courtesy of the Roland FX suite present in the recording deck.'Token Yankee' is a favorite working of a familiar Blues/Rockabilly/Country 1-4-5 progression that hundreds of Pop songs have utilized. Over the foundational strum, you will hear nods to a host of song-oriented guitarists I have come to admire over the 40 years I've been learning the instrument: JJ Cale, Mark Knopfler, Clarence White, Vince Gill, Roy Buchanan, Billy Bremner, Dave Edmunds, and others. I guess that's why I like this piece so much, it honors my guitar heroes.This is the last upload in the 365 HOWLS Series on podomatic. I have eaten-up all of the memory available to me. From now on, please visit my 'mop-site', https://www.facebook.com/groups/365HOWLS/ to continue hearing daily free music in this series.

365 HOWLS #99: Limp Legumes and Soft Beans7-25-2013bret harold hartgear:Fender acoustic-electric guitarFXdigital drum programming"Some things are good for you, some things give you gas."

365 HOWLS #98: Woodshedding 27-24-2013bret harold hartgear:Dobro (resonator guitar)FXMore of the same, from the same session, recorded live into a RS micro-recorder. The shed has great acoustics...I want to hear a snare in there.

365 HOWLS #96: No, We Won't Drown7-22-2013bret harold hartgear:acoustic guitarsWhen she was 8, my daughter thought that the greatest thing in the world was to go to the Wave Pool at the Greensboro waterpark and be buffeted by danger.

365 HOWLS #95: Rick Wakeman's Last Organ Solo7-21-2013bret harold hartgear:modified Fender 'Montara' acoustic/electric guitarchorus/reverbtc electronics 'Ditto' 5m looperPOD 2.0 (for percussive guitar channel)SET-UP PHOTOS: https://www.facebook.com/bretharoldhart/media_set?set=a.10200897704499805.1073741848.1080834292&type=3I sent my modified-Fender through a short FX array [Moen 'Shaky Jimi' vibe/chorus, Behringer 'Reverb Machine', & tc electronics DITTO looper] to one channel of the recording deck; the other channel captured the fuzz'ed output of the guitar's additional K&K contact violin pickup that is located inside the guitar, attached to the soundboard in the lower bout. While it picks-up vestigial amounts of the guitar proper, what it is really for is to amplify the sonic aspects of the instrument when used percussively.I grew up in the 1970's enjoying all manner of what we called 'progressive rock'. I liked the popular "commercial" stuff, I liked the Baroque-leaning stuff, I liked the free-jazz-y stuff, I liked the extremely outre' experimental and improvisational stuff, and I liked the music that spawned or was spawned-by it. While watching a BBC documentary on the subject the other day, I realized that Yes-keyboardist Rick Wakeman has a great sense of humor. I dedicate this piece to him.

365 HOWLS #87: Banging in South Korea7-14-2013bret harold hartgear:allsortsThis is a particularly old recording, from 1988 in South Korea where I worked as a linguist for 4 years and assembled a humble little music space in my apartment to house my Western instrument and the WILD stuff I found in the Orient. At the time I was using an original Fostex X15 4-track cassette deck for projects. This is one of my forays.

365 HOWLS #86: Amazing Trace7-13-2013bret harold hartgear:bowed acoustic guitar (2 tracks - BHH)banjo (2 tracks - TT)This is not a new recording, but I want to share it anyway. Several years ago during the Charlie Poole Festival, I met banjo-master Tony Trischka, who happens to be a home-boy from Syracuse, NY. TT came to my house and added two improvised banjo tracks to a song I'd been recording titled 'Daddy Only Did The Best he Knew How' for the record FINDING GRACE. First pass - perfect. The song is in Am, but I arranged it in a way that the melody of 'Amazing Grace' might be layered onto it in the key of C. This mix is both of Tony's banjos with two tracks of my bowed guitars, with the rest of the song omitted.

365 HOWLS #85: Relative Third, I Love You7-12-2013bret harold hartgear:guitarsbasspercussionA foray into Funky Town...through a dadaistic lens.

365 HOWLS #84: Slam The Log7-11-2013bret harold hartgear:StrumStickThe StrumStick is an American invention, sort of dulcimer-like, three strings, and frets. This is an ode to whistling while woodworking.

365 HOWLS #83: Machine Oil7-10-2013bret harold hartgear:guitarsThere was a time when American people knew how to fix things.What mattered was whether a thing worked properly, not how pretty it looked.

365 HOWLS #82: Evening Horse7-9-2013bret harold hartgear:percussionI always liked Henry Fuselli's painting of the woman experiencing a nightmare. As a child, I had mind-blowing nightmares. My dreams no longer scare me.

365 HOWLS #81: Tooth Loss7-8-2013bret harold hartgear:tenor banjoI am 54, have brushed and flossed diligently for years, and still have had to have two tooth extractions as an adult. It makes chewing an adventure.

365 Howls #80: Afghanistan7-7-2013bret harold hartgear:electronicssamplesWar sucks.

365 Howls #79: Bowed Things7-6-2013bret harold hartgear:bowed thingsA layer-cake of melancholy.

365 Howls #78: Snow Divingbret harold hart7-5-2013gear:homemade bass-banjoToday was so hot and sweltering that I felt like glop. I wish it would snow.

365 HOWLS #77: Bedtime Tale7-4-2013bret harold hartgear:banjo-ukeHappy Birthday America! Fireworks with the family tonight!

365 HOWLS #76: SNOWCREAM7-3-2013bret harold hartgear:contact micelectronicsEver eat snow with fruit juice poured over it? Come to think of it, ever seen snow?

365 HOWLS #75: Put My Decals Back On Baby7-3-2013bret harold hartgear:ukeDitto looperDR85 micro recorderI wondered whether I could assemble a micro performing/recording rig that was suitable to my comfortable chair on the front porch where the radio is. Not wanting to miss Alistair Begg, I chose NOT to hear the playback from the DITTO while recording... I was overdubbing on uncharted waters, unable to hear whether or not subsequent tracks were achieving any synchrony until after the recording was finished. While listening to it for the first time through the recorder’s tiny speaker, I was a bit reminded of the splat and pointillism of the Magic Band, and of the apocryphal story of where the song 'Bat Chain Puller' came from - a rhythmic sword-fight between car radio and windshield wipers.That's sort of how the accidental entrainment here sounds to me.

365 HOWLS #73: Timbral Timbre7-1-2013bret harold hartThe next rung on the tc electronics DITTO' 5m looper learning curve. This one remembers the enjoyment I got from Terje Rypdal's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terje_Rypdal) work on ECM during the 70's and 80's. He was one of a handful of guitar stylists who ushered me into the world of atmospheric playing and the intelligent use of reverb.

365 HOWLS #72: Hedgehogs6-30-2013bret harold hartgear:Telecaster'Ditto' 5m looperelectronicsHedgehogs are like porcupines.

365 HOWLS #71: Porcupines6-29-2013bret harold hartgear:Telecasterreverb'Ditto' 5m looperPorcupines are like people.

365 HOWLS #70: Drifts6-28-2013bret harold hartgear:2 window harpsWhen I was a kid in 1970's Liverpool, NY, we had intense winters. The snow would bank-up so high beside the elementary school that we could climb up on the roof and jump off into 6'-8' drifts.

365 HOWLS #69: Oildrum Fire6-27-2013bret harold hartgear:steel-string guitarIn the cities of the world that I have visited, an oildrum fire is a ubiquitous source of winter warmth. They warm hands nicely. This improvisation pulls some riffs from a 1977 composition called "Fishing by the River".

365 HOWLS #68: Iraq 36-25-2013bret harold hartgear:wind harpelectric mandolinelectronicsOur son has served three combat tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. This is a reality that is hard to shake from my mind. Michael's service-time has been the inspiration for a lot of music.

365 HOWLS #67: Cool Summer Island6-24-2013bret harold hartgear:StrumStickelectronicsThis one is for my drummer pal Keith Prescott, who posted the temperature today in Akureyri, Iceland (see graphic) as being 50F. I live in hot and humid North Carolina and could enjoy retiring to a cool summer island somewhere, someday.

365 HOWLS #66: A Strange, Virtually Unplayable, Mess6-23-2013bret harold hartgear:Plickett (dulcimer-like instrument)Tina found me this this at a yard sale. NOT for live performance, friends.

365 HOWLS #64: Iraq 1 and 26-20-2013bret harold hartgear:circuit-bent musical thingsMany friends and family have served in active duty military for the United States. So did I. So does our son.It makes ya different.

365 Howls #63: Blue-grey Night Sky6-18-2013bret harold hartgear:dobroA sad day at the Hart home. Our beloved old dog, Freddy, has been diagnosed with extreme diabetes and the treatment would be more than our mortgage payment. School teachers seldom have 'disposable' income. My head and heart sound like this today.

365 HOWLS #62: What We No Longer Are6-17-2013bret harold hartgear:bowed acoustic guitarWe must put down the baggage, let go of poison, begin becoming again.

365 HOWLS #61: SKIN N' STEEL6-17-2013bret harold hart(I worked a 13 hour day on Saturday at the Charlie Poole Festival doing stage set-ups on competition day, and Sunday was also full of work. Fell behind some with daily postings.)gear:guitarsdrumselectronicsBack in the halcyon days of the 1960's, many bands got 'famous' working a 2-chord groove for the overly medicated. This is a 2-chord groove designed to quiet the listener's mind.

365 HOWLS #60: DulcimArimba6-14-2013bret harold hartgear:guitarZairian folk-marimbamini marimbaelectronicsA study in rhythm and foreground-shift.

365 HOWLS #59: An Occasionalism6-13-2013bret harold hartgear:Takamine "miracle" guitarI recorded this one-pass jam just before The Occasionals practised tonight. It had been storming, was VERY humid, and I wanted to hit the strings hard to see whether they would hold their tuning.

365 HOWLS #58: LOOKS LIKE BULLWINKLE6-12-13bret harold hartgear:Washburn acoustic guitarelectronicsI loved 'ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE' when I was a kid. I may have learned sarcasm from it.

365 Howls #56: Poisoned Whiskey for the Sinner6-10-2013bret harold hartMy trusty, tho' persnickety, 60-year-old, Kay parlor guitar, subverting Delta Blues through some electronics.

365 HOWLS #55: FROGWERK (Jamming with Karl Bartos and Some Frogs)6-9-2013bret harold hartThese opportunities to jump right into the spirit of John Cage and AMM don't present themselves often enough, but with the help of the radio program Sound Opinions, a Eurobeat song by Karl Bartos, and a chorus of frogs in the neighborhood, I was able to participate by adding a gut-bucket porch-jam on my Tele through a PYLE-PRO PWMA50B [Portable Waist-Band PA System with Headset Microphone & Rechargeable Batteries]. Karl Bartos was (1975-1990) an electronic percussionist in the electronic-music group Kraftwerk, which I enjoyed immensely as a college kid and helped make synthesizers interesting to me.Frogs are a nightly musical inspiration from the comfort of my porch armchair.

365 HOWLS #53: Sounds of the House 16-7-2013bret harold hartgear:music roomliving roomcomputer roomdaughterporchwifepetsradio

365 HOWLS #51: Mementos and Fingers6-4-2013bret harold hartgear:guitarIn 1981, while helping a friend clear debris from a vacant lot beside his house, I cut my right forefinger off on a sharp piece of porcelain. My hand slipped on the morning dew and the finger travelled along about 18" of the broken edge. I bled terribly, it was sloshing on the floor of my friend's VW Rabbit as he sped me to the nearest hospital. Miraculously, a surgeon was able to reattach it and I can still play guitar and do all of the other things that having a whole hand permits.

365 HOWLS #50: My Past Sure Was Tense6-3-2013bret harold hartgear:guitarFamily is a fascinating thing to look back upon. My family is a fascinating subject.This is a stroll through some old pictures.

365 Howls #49: Glow in the Dark World6-2-2013bret harold hartgear:homemade instrumentselectronicsWe have an interesting backyard at night.

365 HOWLS #48: RAINDROPS6-1-2013bret harold hartgear:electric guitarInspired by rain falling onto and into other objects.

365 HOWLS #47: 'Food of the Gods'4-31-2013bret harold hartgear:DR85 recorderTascam mixdown deckLast night, Tina and I enjoyed participating in a writing & grilled chicken party at our friends the Ormond's home. I ate in a screened room and was told about the noisy cicadas that have been raising a clamor there in the mornings. Today, in the morning before work, I stopped at a number of places around town to gather recordings of North Carolina's noisy tree-orchestras. This is a mix of those ambient recordings of insects that only sing like this every 17 years or so. Cicadas seem to prefer to make their burrows in places that are not ever mowed, and have a wide range of sounds and rhythms that can be discerned in their communication.There is a science-fiction novel, Food of the Gods by HG Wells (http://www.palomar.edu/english/versaci/images/Food%20of%20the%20Gods.jpg), that has giant insects (and other critters) in it. In the Old Testament, cicadas were called 'locusts' and were a periodic environmental scourge. In many parts of the world, insects are considered a source of protein for people.

365 HOWLS #45: Her Hair Fell Down5-28-2013bret harold hartgear:bassbaritone electric guitarpercussion sampleselectronics

365 HOWLS #44: Peristalsis & Diverticulitis4-27-2013bret harold hartgear:guitarelectronicsAbout twice a year I suffer through a week of diverticulitis, an inflammation of the intestine. The first time this hit me, I was in the hospital for a few days, radium drink, "butt-cam", high cost, the whole nine-yards. The second time it hit me I was 2 hours into a 13 hour drive to Worcester, MA for a CD release party gig. Lisa Kleman suggested chicken broth with collard greens, which cured it overnight.

365 HOWLS #42: Hammers, Nails, and a Musical Saw4-25-2013bret harold hartgear:hammersnailslumberpaint rollera few seconds of a countdown at a small churchbowed saw (1.07 minute sample): Emmalee HartMy father-in-law and I have been building a large 10'x12' garden shed out back. Using my Dictaphone, I have been snagging sound samples of floor paint being rolled on & of the framing work, and sending them into the 8-track for manipulation and arrangement. As they say in Feng Shui, "Placement is everything." To this, were added layers of my 14-year old daughter playing around on her musical saw for me. I ran her 1.7m sample through a 20 second looper and a wee sample of some friends from a small start-up church in Reidsville (The Fellowship) doing a countdown, and manipulated them into a "made-environment" with the live hammering & construction chatter of her grandfather and I. I meant to have this done yesterday, but am finishing/posting late because it was a complicated piece (and because Tina and I went on a date last night).

365 Howls #43: Head In The Sandbret harold hart4-26-2013gear:electric guitarAnother miniature. (4-25 was difficult...I need a breather!)

365 HOWLS #41: Deadly Sucking Bogholes5-24-2013bret harold hartgear:feedbackThis is another 'Hound of the Baskervilles' spin-off. I hear the dark soul of Roger Baskerville (aka Jack Stapleton) leaving his body like a black bubble.

365 HOWLS #40: Birds Have No Lips, Birds Have Beaks4-23-2013bret harold hartgear: Telecaster guitarTascam recording platformSince stopping watching television in 2002 and choosing to watch what our front porch offers, I have noticed a couple of things.

365 HOWLS #39: Way Up Where It Matters5-22-2013bret harold hartgear:solo electric guitarThank you, Lord, for another fantastic school year and some great kids to teach.