A RAGBRAI Rider who carried a banjo:
R.I.P. Michael “Moon” Mullen
This guy was the original Ragbrai Banjo guy who rode in 41 Ragbrais. He died of cancer on May 22. I only started riding in 2005 and there were some years that Moon and I actually got together and did some banjo jamin’ but I never saw him at the old “Peanut Butter Jam”. On this year’s ride, I was approached by a few of Moon’s friends who asked me if I knew him. “We all knew Moon”, I answered.
Some Live Music around FoCo:
Mary Ellyn at the Cupboard
Tuba Christmas at Oak Street Plaza
Electric Banjo & Drumming at Jim’s house
On the road again, this time starting in Onawa, Iowa:
Looks like we have here Lois, Barb, Ken, Sue and Jim getting ready for the first day of the ride
Onawa, Iowa is where the Darrow Pipe Organ company is located. I stopped by their shop located at 421 Pearl Street in Onawa just by chance as it was just a block away from the Ragbrai Expo, a good thing too, because there was not much new at the expo this year except for the Tide booth where I won a stainless steel coffee mug.
Biggest tractor award
Goes to this Case Quadratrack Mega-tractor parked out near some main street in Iowa someplace.
A sign of our age
No, we didn’t stay here, but this was the first Ragbrai we did where there was NO CAMPING! Oh, one night we stayed in a rustic cabin in a state park that had a bed and was air conditioned, but the bathroom/shower facility was located in another building. Other than that, it was Quality Inns and EconoLodge for us.
Weld two school buses together, what ya get?
The Bus Maximus of course. Since we didn’t make the campgrounds at any overnight, I didn’t get a chance to meet up with some of my favorite Ragbrai teams and their buses but we saw this one in the parking lot at one of the meet-up towns. (I did get to meet Lee Dog of the Tall Dogs again this year for a short time).
Thomas Rest Haven in Coon Rapids
This place sold Gyros for lunch and the residents were having a great time using water guns to shoot at the passing cyclists. I had heard that they were pretty accurate marksmen.
With Iowa State mascot, Cy the Cardinal
The Iowa State ‘Cyclones’ were called the Cyclones since 1895 but it was too hard to dress some volunteer to look like a a system of winds rotating inward to an area of low atmospheric pressure so years later the university chose a bird for their mascot.
The ABC computer
I made a pilgrimage to the Durham Center to see the first electronic digital computer ever built, but of course the exhibit was on loan to a computer museum in California. There were a few vacuum tubes and a memory cylinder on display so it wasn’t a total loss.
Jacquie Phelan and the Ragbrai Banjo
Jacquie, also known as “Alice B. Toeclips” is a famous cyclocross racer and founder of the WOMBATS. From an interviw: She has been called “the outlaw queen of mountain biking.” Sometimes, she plays the banjo.
Six Miles outside of Melborne, IA
In this picture, upper left is an Iowa State Patrol vehicle with a large audio speaker on the roof. On the right, THOUSANDS of cyclists safely crossing a highway. Bottom center is an official Iowa State Patrol wireless body microphone connected to a left-handed banjo.
Wilton, Iowa
In a caboose playing banjo for an hour. Another Ragbrai complete. No rain, no heat, no humidity. Best Ragbrai ever?
The BIG CAN OF SOUP IS STILL THERE:
With Duncan Madog
Remember back in 2009, in the old blog there was this soup can at the UCA? Well, it’s still there. Today however, I somehow made a connection that I had forgotten all these years. It seems the Campbell Soup Company was instrumental in setting my career path toward a future in robotics, if a spectacular short future at that, but none the less, the deed was done. Maybe someday I will tell you about it.
I brought my bass banjo to the grand opening of the Cloverlick Banjo Shop in Fort Collins!
Hey look! It’s Mark Austin playing the big banjo!
Mark is the owner/operator/builder at the Cloverlick Banjo Shop. The Cloverlick shop has moved from Wisconsin to Fort Collins to make custom banjos because why not? Colorado is banjo country!
Alexandria Ensemble and the Eclectic Gypsy Tribe:
What a crazy bunch
It was a very hot day but we managed to keep our cool. I’m the one with the red silk shirt and pimp style hat.
The Gypsy Tribe
This was a party at the Laughing buck Farm.
…and a university approved field of hemp
What do you do with a 22 inch kick drum?
Make a Bass Banjo!
Here we have some method of lifting the playing surface up over the standard drum hardware. Since the head does not have regular banjo brackets, these two triangular pieces of wood were glued into place to hold up a finger board at the right angle needed (at least in theory).
Head detail
A sturdy broom handle was used to bring up the rear after attaching it to the heel of the neck… at least that’s one way of doing it and it still falls within the normal design specs for a cigar box guitar or banjo.
Sliced drum
This dimension was based on a simple ‘2X’ proportion in that here we have a 22 inch diameter head and a banjo head is ‘around 11 inch diameter’ so, everything else is twice that of a ‘normal’ banjo. At least that’s how it was planned to work.
Frets added
I used a hand router to make grooves in the fingerboard and then glued the fret wire onto the grooves. The wire is from the wire that used to hold up political yard signs.
Testing it out
With the traditional weed whacker strings and a nice bridge we now have a bass instrument suitable for the orchestra pit or some other type of pit in hell where banjos belong.
Taking it out on the road with the dog and the Black Sheep
Could this be carried on the great feast of the RAGBRAI ? Would I want to drag this thing 500 miles across the state of Iowa?
Jamming with the folk
Finally some people who appreciate bass banjo! This was at the CROMA festival, also known as the Central Rockies Old-time Music Association. The fest was somewhat west of Berthoud, Colorado so it may have been more like in the Northern Rockies, but I guess CROMA sounds better than NROMA. OK?
Yep, at any given time day or night– DRUM CIRCLE!
This time at Jack’s Gulch
Drums mostly, but some brought flutes, guitars, and some guy brought his banjo. There was dancing too, but the high elevation kept the dance moves to a minimum. Nice weather however, and no bears.
Or maybe some songs from an earlier period:
Mixolydian Mode
Maybe. Banjo music from the Civil War era plus a few things about early banjo construction, especially how musicians at the time ‘borrowed’ parts from other regiments via various acts of vandalism.
At Yum Yum’s on the Second Saturday of the month:
Drumming with amplified banjo and violin
And belly dancers too. The Middle East meets CSU campus with weird fiddle and banjo dancing with Santori Dance group. Time to get your shimmy on!