The Guildford Banjo Jamboree

3rd Annual Guildford Banjo Jamboree Sept 15 - 17, 2006

Slim had his fiery baptism with High & Lonesome at the Guildford Banjo Jamboree, playing and singing in numerous pub sessions, on stage in concert at the Old Music Hall, on the main stage with The Unwanted Men in Black and a Lady (and a fiddle player, and a banjo player!), the beer garden concert with The Corn Huskers, and if all that wasn’t enough excitement for a young fella, he and Reinhart accompanied Chips in his prize-winning Robbie Watts Banjo Pick Off performance. Old School Rocks!

After a 3 hour haul along every country road and byway on a northerly line from the coast to Daylesford, Slim raced past the setting sun near Mt Franklin to arrive at Guildford camp on the edge of darkness as the chilling cold air from higher ground settled into the valley. Like the boys had said, the Banjo Jamboree straddles the four corners of the crossroads at Guildford, lying between Daylesford and Castlemaine, nestled in the dewy glens of the Loddon River in Central Victoria’s old gold country.

Chips pulled up moments later, and once the wagons were in a circle, the High & Lonesome boys sought refuge and refreshment in Delmenico’s pub, warming up on the dining room stage with Rex Watts and Jim from Coolgrass, and gradually rolling into a rollicking back bar session with the good folk from Ad Hoc and the Horny Toads until closing time. After a rousing a Capella chorus of Goodnight Irene, Slim made for the camp site on the adjacent corner, side-tracked only for some hard-core harmony singing on the corner of the street, on Long Black Veil with the Unwanted Man in Black himself, Pa Coates.

The High Lonesome Yurt was next to the walk way gate into the recreation ground camp site. Slim was concerned that they might be in people’s way, or at least didn’t want to be trampled in his sleep by rowdy folk headin’ home. Turns out, they mostly was the rowdy folk, which meant that all the other rowdy folk stopped by for a night cap or four and a final song or ten. The way Slim saw it, they were doing the community a service by keeping all the rowdy folk in one place so the rest of the good folk of Guildford could some much needed shuteye.

Pa Coates kept the musical home fire burning as the boys nailed together some never-to-be-repeated magical moments of hard-core harmony. That man doesn’t sing those low notes, they just kinda rumble out like a subterranean growl on the lower registers of the Richter scale. As the cold air turned fretting fingers fearfully frigid, the boys finally called it quits, to face the inevitably futile attempt to get warm and sleep in the tent or wagon – after all, they had a big weekend coming up.

Like a chrysalis emerging from a sleeping bag cacoon, Slim gave up on the sleep idea and emerged before 9 on Saturday morning. Chips reckoned Slim couldn’t break the old habit of rising early that he developed doing time as an ascetic for all those years in close confines. Squinting at the stunning blue sky sunny day, Slim stumbled over the road in search of coffee and vittles, having unusually woken up with a demanding appetite.

Reinhart and Chips made cups of Joe and char, and rounds of toast for a passing succession of familiar old faces. Soon enough the musical instruments emerged one by one. Music was coming alive on all four corners of that old crossroads.

A nice man, Greg B, came by and recorded some of High & Lonesome’s 3 hour PCB (Proper Cooked Breakfast) ‘recovery’ session (using a Rode stereo condenser mic and a minidisk recorder for the technologically inclined). He was quite familiar with the boys’ work at Irish Murphys, but it hadn’t seemed to put him off. The resulting record will be pod cast as soon as Slim figures out how to install the appropriate plumbing into the old Lonesome Shack.

There was a passing parade of folks, dogs, kids, motor bikes, vintage cars and musicians – kinda hillbilly-fellini – as the boys workshopped and horsed around working out some tunes and never-attempted-before songs.

Chips, Reinhart and Slim scooted on over to the Town Hall main stage in the nick of time to be hustled up to perform a couple of old time banjo tunes – Cripple creak and Salt Creek for the Banjo Pick Off. The event concluded with an encore of the five competitors leading the audience in a rousing rendition of Will the Circle be Unbroken. Slim was pretty confident that a couple of therapy sessions back home would suffice to recover from the shock of playing with five banjo players at the same time. They were even playing the same tune, which makes it easier.

A reasonable man can only take so much banjo action in daylight hours, so the boys wandered around shooting the breeze and taken care of business and conserving their vital energy. Slim indulged in some quiet time by checking out the place through the lens of his camera. Just when he was thinking a nanna nap might be just the thing, Yardup and Mr Spiller arrived as fresh reinforcements from Geelong to kick the action up a notch with a 20 minute rehearsal of The Corn Husker material for the Sunday concert. Then it was everyman for himself in the search for food and comfort to recharge for the long night ahead.

Chips had the presence of mind to put High & Lonesome down for the blackboard concert in the old Guildford Music Hall. They dispelled the camp site chill with a cleansing ale or two in a session in the front lounge of Delmenico’s, all the while sending runners next door to check on the blackboard concert progress. The boys finally got the call that they were on after the Saw Playing Poet, just before 10 pm.

High & Lonesome stepped up onto the boards of the 150 year old stage and sang it up unplugged for the good folk of Guildford. Magic! (There’s a video of it somewhere which might surface here as a vid cast in due course.)

As the boys wandered off stage, Mhairi brought back word from an agitated Pa Coates saying you gotta hurry over to the main stage ‘cos The Unwanted Men in Black were raring to go in the Town Hall. At Chip’s command, Mr. Spiller valiantly led the troups across the street. The band was already on stage as Chips, Slim and Mr Spiller walked on and strapped up for the ride. (Rehearsal? What rehearsal?)

The Unwanted Men in Black and a Lady fired up with a Luther Perkins style ‘dum chicka dum chick’ to accompany the spoken introduction from Pa Coates. Slim was in with the rhythm section, vibrating with the pounding bass amp of Finn’s doghouse bass and Rex’s electric chicken pickin’ guitar. It was the next best thing to being on stage with Johnny Cash himself.

Slim thought it would be a 40 minute stint, not believing they were gonna work their way through the entire 2 sets of 29 songs, but they damn well nearly did over the next 2 hours of bull-whippin’, floor stompin’, sweat-drippin’ Johnny Cash songs and old school classics. The set was so long that The Lady and Chips both had to excuse themselves during the show to answer the call of nature.

With the show over and midnight past, the only thing a player could do was to head to the pub for warmth and another wild session in the front lounge with Ad Hoc and The Horny Toads. A great time with lots of locals and banjo fans soaking up the atmosphere. About as far removed from Australian Idol as you’re likely to get, and all you need is a critical mass of beer and banjos.

After last drinks, the boys gravitated back to the Yurt, but the cold was just too dismal to keep going, despite every group of rowdy folk returning to the camp site dropping by looking for some rowdyness. With Chips safely bedded down in the back of his wagon (thanks to Mhairi), Slim discretely trimmed the lamp during a lull in the passing traffic, so as not to attract any more wayward moths and retired to the Lonesome Tent for a night’s sleep fully clothed with beanie and scarf, sleeping bag and blanket. An ‘earlyish’ night!

By Sunday morning the sky was starting to close in, and with a warm northerly air stream, the weather was quite balmy with a hint of rain. First up again, Slim wandered the streets in search of some joe in time to witness the gleeful 3-blast testing of the CFA emergency siren at 9.00 am. That seemed to do the trick, with more and more folk manifesting in various shades of dishevelment and greenish/greyish tones of pallor.

With people up and about and various morning needs satisfied and rituals performed, the boys mosied on down to the river for the Sunday Morning Bluegrass Gospel Session. All the folks needing redemption and salvation that morning were there.

Spiritually uplifted and musically reborn, another recovery session began at the High Lonesome Yurt, with Rex, Yardup, Mr Spiller and Mr Coates joining the boys. The nice man Greg B came by again and recorded the proceedings again. Haven’t got that one yet, but it should be even more innarestin’ than the Saturday one. He gave the boys a copy of the recording from Saturday. As Chips put it, “This is the album we recorded yesterday morning.” So now it’s a double.

Around one o’clock sensational music from the beer garden concert wafted across the road to the camp site as the boys chilled, waiting for the arrival of Smasher, and drawing on their inner reserves in preparation for some serious corn husking.

The Cornhuskers were back stage when the announcement was made that Chips was joint-winner, with Finn Mathews, of the Robbie Watts Banjo Pick off, to much hootin’ and hollerin’ from all concerned, and then it was on with The Corn Huskers show.

With the all acoustically miced sound system checked and balanced, the sun broke through the cloud and shone down as The Corn Huskers launched into the set in front of garden full of old school fans of all ages. Old School music interpreted with a delicate touch of Celtic class. Pure magic and very well received. Yardup dedicated the show to Pa Coates for setting the standard of ‘doing it the old school way’.

With duty calling and creeping symptoms of sleep deprivation, Slim and Reinhart cut their losses and lit out of town in search of a warmer places to sleep. As Slim hauled the wagon on up the hill southward, the sessions on the street were ramping up with an intensity and energy that only comes after 48 hours of hard core musical immersion. The spirit was willing, but Slim had other tofu to fry that was gonna require more than 3 hours of chilled sleep.

Chips was off to the final session. He can tell his own story, but Slim reckoned that by the time he’d been feted and toasted, signed autographs, and revelled in his new found fame, Chips wasn’t going anywhere but to the back of the wagon to sleep it off. Now that he’s a famous award-winning banjer player, High & Lonesome will have to put up the asking price for him to a dollar an hour. Good times, here we come!

Slim would like to thank everyone involved for such a fantastic weekend at the Guildford Banjo Jamboree and the Marvellous Ms Mhairi for maintaining the good vibe and keeping it real around the High Lonesome Yurt!

Ya shoulda been there! Put it on the calendar for next year.