Fellow Pynins studio session at The Current (music + interview)
foreign [Music] another [Music] he's gonna change [Music] cause I've been born than I decided [Music] no songs you like my body [Music] she said [Music] I'm in the studio with fellow pinens they are Ian George and Danny o'bear and it's really great to finally get to know you guys and get you in the studio thanks for coming thank you pleasure we just heard a song from your most recent CD the song was silver dagger your CD came out in May and then you left and went on a tour of England and Ireland and Scotland we did how did that go two months with our kids and our touring van it was great it was so good we had what like 40 shows or something yeah 42. a bunch of festivals and yeah we were kind of going pretty hard but we had some time off in between and made sure to have a week in Ireland because we love it there so much sessions moved there right you told me you almost moved there we kind of thought about it yeah we packed up our stuff at one point and and went there with an open-ended ticket and uh you know didn't know we ended up traveling around for eight months and a little car tiny little car a Honda Jazz yeah they don't make models that small here in the United States on the left side of the road too yes yeah those roundabouts all right exactly what you mean we got good at it though I was over there but I refused to drive I said no I saw a roundabout said I'm not going to do this backwards it's not going to happen after being over there I realized how Americans just don't know how to use roundhouse you're right we still don't feel like we need training if we're gonna Implement them in our roads systems which they are occasionally around you guys do a lot of old traditional folk music that goes way back centuries and some of this stuff has roots in the UK where you were at how does it feel to bring that music that was created there to them from Americans okay is there any kind of a did any feelings about that yeah a lot of feelings actually I remember we had a conversation like a day or two before flying over there this past summer being like so we're gonna sing these songs they've been singing for hundreds of years and we're Americans I wonder how it'll go down and in general they're just very receptive to the folk tradition it's very the folk tradition is Alive and Well there especially in I mean in England all the other countries Scotland England Wales Ireland you know I think we definitely have Americanized them with the arrangements and definitely adventurous Arrangements at times but you know I think Danny playing the claw hammer banjo is I think we get him with that honestly they're usually enamored by the clawhammer banjo and it's not an instrument usually the banjo that they have on that side of the Atlantic is the tenor banjo fourstring and they play it with a pick and it's more driving and they would pick it like a mandolin yeah in sessions and so the claw hammer I mean it's a strange thing even in the States but it's Appalachian it's Appalachian yeah there's this time when we show up to a gig and it wasn't this tour but there was like a picture of Danny with a banjo and it was like a real American Club Hammer banjo player and I was like well we're a folk Duo I feel like I'm at least 40 as important as Danny and there's no picture of me so I still I hold that a little bit let me go over there but I think we get him to answer questions I think they're very receptive to hearing these songs done Again by Americans and bringing them back I think they really are appreciative in general and since it's a call Hammer banjo I think we really get them there too yeah I'm talking with fellow pinens they are Ian George and Daniel bear and their latest album is called lady mondragreen and I had to Google that to find out what lady Madre green meant and now I know but I need you to explain it to me that's all you that's me okay that's totally you yeah so we were traveling we're actually we had just returned to the states after our second our first trip to Europe where we actually learned a lot of these songs because this album lady Monday green is really we identify main like mainly as songwriters and somehow these traditional songs crept into our set over the last couple years and a lot of people were wondering hey we'd love to like get that version and we never had it because we never recorded it we never thought about recording a traditional album and somehow it you know over the years 20 of our set now is these reworked traditionals and so we felt like before moving on to the next album we needed to represent this part of who we have become by recording them and while we were traveling in New England right after we had come back we'd gathered these songs we had met this woman in Vermont who had told us the story of lady Monda green which is a I believe the definition of Monda green is a is a creative mishearing or misinterpreting of specifically a lyric and I like to think of it as the bigger picture of Art in general and the power of Art and in in music specifically let's say when you hear a song There's equal interpretations for as many ears in the room sure and I think that's the beauty of it and when someone asks me usually like what is this song about I never like to answer it because it's just what it is to me and I don't ever want to take someone's interpretation away from them and when we decided to do this traditional album you know it's eight songs that have been played and reinterpreted for hundreds of years I mean one of them son David I believe is one of the oldest ones the oldest I believe the first recording the the written down version is the early 1700s and I just think how how early I mean it probably been sung for hundreds of years before that and every time these songs the transmission from person to person takes place there's a change maybe the new singer can't hit the high notes so has to change the melody or maybe forgets the third and fourth fifth and sixth verses so it just cuts them out or maybe writes new verses or forgets a word and changes and every time as long as is Shifting and we like to call it we learned recently the term drift when when someone takes a new song and learns it and then changes it it's drift and and depending on the song of course there's varying degrees of drift and these traditional songs and they're like a living breathing like tradition that they're always changing and always being interpreted in a new way and so it felt like for us especially as Americans to sing these songs that are mainly coming from that part of the world and giving our take in just this moment of time of these ancient songs it's it felt like Amanda green oh so right what is a Mondo green lady yeah it's a lady so it's a misinterpreted a creative mishearing of a lyric so this woman I don't remember when in the states years ago they were in Vermont yeah it was a they were she told us a story of where mondren came from and this lady was sung this ballot as a kid uh the Duke what was that something Earl yeah Earl of Murray anyways I forget the song but the lyric was something he died and we laid him on the green and she always thought it was Lady Monday green laid him on the green laid him on the green lady him on the green and I just think that's brilliant it's a great title for your album too because you're reinterpreting them although you're not reinterpreting but to your interpreting old folk songs and it's easy to do that and this woman who told us the story about lady Monda green introduced that concept to us she was such a quirky lady and we met her I think we were couch surfing so we found her through like the couch surfing sleep on someone's couch like sit you know like it's like it's a network for them there's like a network where basically yeah you can if you don't have a place to stay oh I didn't know there's a whole bunch of people across the country that open their home to you to come and stay and she was one that we found and uh she is an amazing person and we played music together all night she loved folk music and she also is a sculptor and she sculpts uh child ballads which are these old these old bounds collected by for Sir Francis James child yeah she would sculpt the ballads so she would create an art piece based on what she hears based on what she heard so she had all this wisdom we had no idea we just found her because we needed a free place sleep and ended up she taught us all this stuff and you know now here we are talking about her like eight years later or something I'm in the studio with fellow pinens today it's such a great pleasure to meet you guys finally we heard a song from your new album lady mondra green laid him on the green now we're going to hear an original song um yeah tell me about this one uh yeah it's a song that I brought to the table Dan and I each write songs and usually we'll write this song on our own yeah and bring it to the other and we'll just arrange it and finish it off together and uh yeah it's a song The Wild and the Untamed it's a not not the the word and but an ampersanth okay I thought that was pretty classy you know it's like a novel or something and um but we just tend to call it the ballerina song because it's inspired by a Moment Danny and I had years back where she went out with the girls on a Friday night out into the town and I was left home for the first time with our our child and a new father at the time new father and as a responsible new father I need not receive any instructions on what to do so I think I know where this is going Danny walked through the door around like 1am and Not only was child not slept the child wasn't fed yet and we were mid pirouette in the house blasting what her daughter calls Cinderella music which I believe is Vivaldi and we had we had turned the record over probably 10 times we were hours into it and time had proven elastic and I couldn't believe it was 1am Danny walks through the door and there we are with all we had on were tutus and I was cooking dinner at least so I at least I had begun the evening routine and um Danny drops the bag and she looks at me and she goes Ian WTF you know and it wasn't the acronym but and she uh just I thought I was in trouble for the linear time predicament that I've created for myself but she was she followed up her initial greeting with I thought you were supposed to be my burly man and I was like I mean in retrospect she'd totally threw me through an existential crisis and I laid in bed that night thinking about my life and I had this brilliant idea to wake up before Danny which in itself is Monumental and put nothing on but the hot pink tutu and chop wood and she awoke to me in that scene and uh you know the thesis of that that action was like look I can be a Peter wedding ballerina boy and like a Viking dude all in the same bod and that's how that song was written it was inspired to write it pretty much is written after that that night about accepting each other's quirkinesses in the world yeah so we we carry that song with us for seven years now yeah I like it this is Philippines and the song it's called the wild or the Untamed [Music] finally head was hanging low blowing braided days ago yeah I finally hit meet the hey there we remained every day [Music] and she said be my belly man instead of Valerie in the gas throughout the kitchen lacking pants and still I will forever [Music] and I'm until the fittest [Music] and I came the world is [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] written by my guests in the studio today Philip heinens they are Ian George and Daniel bear and it was called the Wild and the Untamed you talked about doing both folk and original music in your sets what is the percentage of or is it changing is that always well right now we're we're sharing a lot of the stuff from Lady Montague so maybe half and half and that is mostly of old folk tunes right the lady Monday green is all traditional songs yeah yeah yep so the first album that we put out is all original stuff and then the next one we'll do will probably be all originals and maybe a few traditionals just because folks are enjoying it yeah yeah so you guys are living the life of traveling minstrels you live in a van right most the time and your kids are with you when you're traveling on the road but we have a home base which is in Oregon we have a home and our kids go to school and so we have pretty grounds of life but we do also get out quite a bit and bring our kids with us most of the time but the summer is a good time to get out for long chunks you guys meet in the Twin Cities here and then no we met in Oregon actually okay but you lived in the Twin Cities we did and then moved back to Oregon when the virus hit we moved back to Oregon we kind of saw the writing on the wall we had a bunch of shows get canceled and we just had a feeling it was going to be a bit so it moved right back to where we had come from prior to moving just we lived in Saint Paul for the first year then we moved just across the river to Minneapolis and we put all of our savings into building two tiny houses which is where we live now in tiny houses that we built you built them when you're wearing your tutu as well exactly well only in the summer months but because it does get cold in the mountains yeah right but if you move quick enough you can get away with it into the fall so this next song is an old folk tune that goes way back uh sometimes called a murder ballad would you say yeah yeah uh is it difficult to sing what they call murder ballads well it's kind of funny because we this one is a yeah it's not quite a murder ballad because I changed all the lyrics so no one actually dies um in my version there's nobody being buried and um well in the in the original version Polly and Willie conceive a child and Willie kind of freaks out takes Polly into the woods murders pregnant Polly but then Polly gets revenge he goes off to Sea and she goes and haunts the ship and drowns everyone on the story yeah so everyone dies in the story originally and when I was going to I was digging into that song I wasn't feeling inspired by about the story and I was like how can I change how can I make this my own in some way and I had heard um actually found the song through Woody Guthrie's song pastors of Plenty and I loved that song and I didn't wasn't really familiar with Pretty Polly and I had found that pastors of Plenty I researched it and found that he took The Melody of this ballad pretty Paulie and so that's when I started looking into Pretty Polly and I loved those versions they're very banjo heavy and I knew I was on the right track with that end and so I decided to take both the lyrics from Woody Guthrie's song which is very you know very like noble like his I love his lyrics they're all about migrant workers and the Dignity of working the land and tending the land even though you're not a land owner and so I kind of took that like the Dignity of those men and Infused it into the Polly story and completely changed the ending when you find an old folk tune like that that is the original version is bloody and something you really don't want to talk about do you often do that take an old folk song and maybe just kind of tweak it a little bit so it's not quite so violent or maybe it fits more into the 21st century you know I I hadn't hadn't before um I guess maybe a little bit here and there but that was the first time that I really just completely did something different with it and I yeah it was just a kind of a spontaneous inspiration to do that because it was really the pastors of Plenty song that I was drawn in by and the that those lyrics and uh but then you know I was like how can I make this fit into it this traditionals album and then the kind of the trail of of Pretty Polly was it just made sense well you guys thank you so much for coming in again it's been a pleasure this is uh fellow pinens it's Ian George and Daniel bear and we're going to finish off with Pretty Polly right here in radio Heartland [Music] [Music] each other a heart and Dusty Road and out on your London Town [Music] [Music] I loved everybody [Music] through [Music] I'm gonna party [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] it's always [Music] and all along your Green Valley [Music]
2023-01-01 02:19
