Chick Corea was supposed to play Calgary this Friday night, followed by Ben E. King on Saturday night. But that won’t happen now because C-Jazz, the local organizers of the Calgary Jazz Festival, have abruptly pulled the plug on the annual event.

Is it possible the shows will still go on? Likely not. The last time a Calgary jazz festival was forced to fold — in 2006 — an angel was waiting in the wings. The angel was the now troubled C-Jazz, which had been formed six years earlier when Jazz Festival Calgary became too big for its boots. Jazz Festival Calgary had been launched in 1980 with some 75th anniversary grant money from the provincial government. As Jazz Festival Calgary expanded, with more and more focus on international acts, C-Jazz emerged as a local organization dedicated to promoting Calgary jazz artists. With a grassroots rallying of citizens and performers, C-Jazz was able to save the 2006 jazz festival and keep it going until now.

Much the same thing happened in Edmonton. When that city’s famous Jazz City crashed in 2005, after running successfully for 25 years, jazz fans across the country were shocked. Jazz City was one of the longest-running international jazz festivals in Canada. If it could fail, who would be next? The answer, of course, was Calgary.

The Edmonton Jazz Society was the saviour that resurrected Edmonton’s jazz festival. It had been running the Yardbird Suite jazz club for several years, and it was ready and waiting to launch the new Edmonton International Jazz Festival when Jazz City went down. The new festival started modestly, with a focus on Edmonton and other Canadian talent, and built slowly with the help of Jazz Festivals Canada. Its headliners this year include Chick Corea — who will thus be able to salvage something from his now-shortened Canadian tour — Nikki Yanofsky and John Pizzarelli.

 
Jazz City and Jazz Festival Calgary both died because of money woes. The C-Jazz folks now find themselves in the same boat. They don’t have the cash flow to cover the day-to-day expenses of the festival, and there’s no angel in the wings ready to bail them out. Has their festival, like its predecessor, gotten into trouble because it became too big for its boots? Perhaps. It has come a long way from its Calgary-oriented roots over the past four years, regularly featuring such big names as Dave Brubeck, Wynton Marsalis, and Allen Toussaint. Great for Calgary jazz fans, but not so great for C-Jazz’s bottom line. Last year’s festival left C-Jazz with what the Calgary Herald describes as a “significant deficit.” A scaled-down version of the festival for this year would seem to have been the right way to go. But when the board members looked at the books this past weekend, even that option became impossible. Too bad.

First published on http://brianbrenn.wordpress.com/

Proposition: Ostensible tweenstress Miley Cyrus is, in fact, an aging dowager.

While her bio and her boobs say she’s still well shy of 20, Miley Cyrus’s actions have all the quiet desperation of a washed-up starlet three times her age.  The navel-exposing Myspaced photos “leaked” in 2008 are the closest to a sex-tape Hannah Montana could get without getting her blond-wigged ass fired.   And while her Disney persona is still too intact for her to have been technically “pole dancing” at the Teen Choice Awards, she was in fact dancing with a pole, giving salacious-headline-writers a way to kill time.  She’ll also be cameoing in the upcoming Sex and the City 2 movie, sure to win the approbation of desperate housewives and edgy gam-gams alike. 

And let us not forget this get-up, from this year’s Oscars:

That is a support under-garment, a very sparkly, very formal Mother of the Groom skirt in Old-Lady-Beige, and Jamie-Lee Curtis’s hair from that scene in True Lies where she tries to be a sexy stripper. In 1994.

La Cyrus is finally taking the last step towards cat-ladydom: getting her own place.  While other 17-year olds are slamming doors, sneaking out of windows and sullenly refusing dinner, Miley will be lounging parentless in her “really Zen” and “so chill” new home, burning incense and trying to convince the kids that she’s still hip.  “My religion is love, so my door is always open,” she says, as the last of her youth goes up in patchouli-smelling smoke.

By Jan Beecher ~~

On a gentle west coast evening, Todd Butler is opening the Islands Folk Festival at Providence Farm near Duncan, BC. I have just arrived along with a thousand or so other people for a weekend of music and festival-like festivities. It’s Butler’s job to get the show started and get the crowd “in the mood,” and he does it extremely well. By the end of his set a full audience has gathered and we are dancing, clapping to the beat and, of course, laughing.

Butler is funny. He hits on hippies and parents and wrestlers. In all honesty, my mp3 isn’t loaded with parodies, but who doesn’t enjoy good a laugh?

And then the jester on the stage plays “Home.” It’s about moving from the prairies to Vancouver Island. It isn’t funny — it’s strong and emotional and it blows me away.

That’s the thing about Todd Butler: he isn’t just another funny guy.

He isn’t even just another festival act. This month, Vancouver’s Firehall Theatre premieres Debt –The Musical, a spoof on the theme of bankruptcy written by Vancouver playwright Leslie Mildiner, with songs by Butler. His migration from concert stage to the theatrical variety has been a long time in the works — 19 years, to be exact. The two started collaborating on the project while working as street entertainers in Whistler, BC in 1991. Maybe their dedication to the subject has something to do with the fact that both have lived it.

“There’s a song in the musical that’s called ‘Down Under Ground,’ says Butler, “and it’s about basement dwellers, people who live in basement suites. You buy a house, mortgage up the ying-yang; then you fix the basement suite up and rent it out to some college student or some young couple; and they pay your mortgage. So this is happening all over, and then the economic downturn comes and the house value goes way down, and the young couple in the basement can now afford to buy a house and become above ground dwellers and get their own basement dwellers. Then people get so far in debt that they lose everything and they end up back in the basement. So it’s kind of like this circle.

“And I lived that. So did Leslie.”

Now living in Courtenay, BC on northern Vancouver Island, Butler isn’t a complete stranger to theatre. His father sang with the Edmonton Opera and also ran the Alberta Opera Touring Association, which toured the province, performing productions for schools and communities. Todd toured in The Mikado with them, and also performed in musicals in high school. “I did Oklahoma, Kismet, Carousel, and, in grade 12, I played Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof,” he remembers. “[Musicals were] the reason I stayed in high school.”

But it’s his pickin’ that first brought him professional notice. Butler may have made his name as a satirist, but it’s his prowess on the guitar that earns him praise from his peers. “He’s a nimble fingered maniac,” says Spirit of the West Drummer Vince Ditrich, who also drums for Butler’s band. “It’s both his blessing and his curse that he is clever and funny.” Ditrich has known Butler for a long time. “We’re both ‘recovering Albertans,’” he says. Ditrich had heard of Butler long before he met him, “because he is a brilliant musician. People see him on stage and they go, ‘Oh yeah, that’s Butler, he’s the comedian,’ then they go, ‘Holy shit! he can play!’”

Ditrich compares Butler’s conundrum to that of Steve Martin — a famous comedian who is also an exceptional banjo player. Did you know that Steve Martin used to play for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band?

Butler has never worked at anything but music. Well, almost never. “I worked three weeks as a construction schlepper. That’s it. I’ve always made a living as a musician, mainly in bars and pubs. When I got out of high school I went on the road with a rock n’ roll band and just never looked back.”

The comedy came naturally after that. “I guess I have always been able to write satire,” he says. In the late ‘90s, Butler got his big national break thanks to the Vancouver Comedy Festival, where he was a street performer. “I was doing a one-man satirical comedy show — some impressions, some parodies, some satire and stuff — and playing the guitar.” When CBC Radio producer Brian Hill turned to the festival for talent to put on the west coast leg of the radio show “Madly Off In All Directions,” its director gave him Butler’s name.

“Brian called me and said, ‘Would you like to be on ‘Madly Off In All Directions’ with Lorne Elliott?’ and I said, ‘Sure, I’d love to.’ Hill called him every year after that, for the show’s duration. “Whenever they were in western Canada, he would call me and I would be on the show. There were years I did it twice.” He even hosted the show when Elliott took a brief sabbatical. Butler boasts, “I actually hold the record — the show’s been cancelled now, so the record is untouchable — I hold the record for the most appearances on ‘Madly Off In All Directions.’”

Around the same time Butler started with “Madly Off,” he sent a parody he’d written to CBC’s morning show in Vancouver. “It was when Chretién choked that guy? I wrote a parody of a Steve Miller song called “The Joker,” and I called it “The Choker.” And I sang it as Chretié n.” Butler assumes a frighteningly accurate Chretié n voice and croons, “Some people call me the space cadet/ Some call me the gangster of Hull.”

The producers loved it. They invited him in to do a piece about Vancouver and before long they were calling him on a regular basis. “I did a show just about every week — some of them live over the phone,” says Butler. “They’d call me: ‘Todd, you know the salmon are blah, blah, blah . . . do you have any ideas?’ They made it sound like it was off the cuff, but actually they’d phoned a couple of days before. I’d put the phone down and sing into the phone.”

Another CBC connection was a co-producer for “Madly Off In All Directions,” Tracy Rideout. She moved on in her career to become head of comedy acquisitions for the national radio network and brought Todd’s music with her. “I’d produce something, record it, and send it to her and she’d send it out to all the bureaus across Canada.” Early in 2009, Butler sent her “Turkey Gravy,” Billy Bob Thornton’s “Q” debacle, “and it got played all over the place; the whole country was playing it. So the door’s still open for me there. I backed off a bit because it’s fairly time consuming and I’m working on other things.”

“Other things” include his less comedic ventures.

“I‘ve tried to get into the major folk festivals and I haven’t been able to crack it. They just won’t hire me yet. I don’t know why that is, but I think it has something to do with my penchant for parodies. I do a lot of the local festivals like Powell River. I’ve done Powell River eight years in a row and Vancouver Island Music Fest. I did the Calgary Folk Fest too, actually.” Some people would say that the latter is a major festival, but them are mere prairie folk. Apparently Butler has his eyes on even bigger stakes. He wants to be recognized as a guitarist and songwriter, not a musical satirist.

“Home” is perhaps Butler’s most well known song outside of the parody genre. He calls it his micro-hit. “And that’s thanks to one man, David Grierson. Unfortunately, he passed away. David had a morning show in Vancouver, and he asked me to come in when he heard that song, “Home.” And I thought ‘Okay, do comedy,’ because they always wanted me to do comedy, and he said, ‘No, I want you to play that one.’ So I did, and then he was really instrumental in getting that song out.”

Grierson included “Home” on a CD compilation of all his guests, including Canadian favorites like John Mann and Spirit of the West. “All these artists who are serious artists — he put me in there with them, and that really helped to expose people to the fact that I [do other music]. So now I’m really pursuing that.”

Witness his last couple of albums, Idle Canadian and Hamburger Soup. In addition to two CDs with slide guitarist Doug Cox, Butler has released another three of his own, of which only one, Todd Butler Goes Madly Off – Live, a compilation of songs and stand-up from his radio gig, is strictly comedic. Idle Canadian, on the other hand, is a collection of, as Butler describes them, “socially conscious songs.” Social consciousness, mind you, sometimes requires an even bigger sense of humour than parodies. Consider these lyrics from “Bushed”:

I’ve been terrorized, been hypnotized
I’ve been Osama lobotomized and I’m Bushed
From getting’ Dicked around
I been Rums-felled, been Colin-poled
Been Saddam down that rabbit-holed, and I’m Bushed
From gettin’ Dicked around

Socially conscious? Yes. Funny? I’m afraid so.

Next page: “I’ve dug myself into — like everyone else — a financial situation that needs to be fed. It’s this monster that’s in the corner”

On his latest, Hamburger Soup, Butler has tried to further squelch his laughabilly half by making the album strictly instrumental, but again — consider the title. He’s still fighting off the ha-ha’s. Looking at the track list on the album still wasn’t enough to convince me this wasn’t just another collection of parodies: “Drooling Idiots,” “Funky Mormon,” and “Mr. Bumpy” to name a few. But once I listened to “Squirrelly,”, another cut off the album, my opinion changed. He calls this music his own genre, Frazz: a mishmash of jazz, folk and rock.

Cox and Butler have known each other since they were both 18. They met at the Edmonton Folk Festival. (Is Edmonton a “Big Festival” I wonder?) I asked him about Butler’s “music versus comedy” conundrum.

“Todd loves to get a response from his audience and he’s a master at soliciting a response,” says Cox. “I think music often takes a little more time to reach the crowd than his [parodies] and he has a bit of a hard time fully trusting his musicianship when he can reach out and grab his crowd faster with a funny bit.

“His comedy routines often overshadow his musicianship,” Cox continues, “But they have also allowed him to maintain a career while living in a fairly isolated place, so I think it’s both a blessing and a curse for him.”

In other words, being funny has paid the bills for Butler. This may seem surprising since much of Butler’s fame has come from working with the CBC and we all know that isn’t going to make anyone rich. But Butler’s main income is from the corporate entertainment circuit, where he puts together shows for conventions and meetings. It’s easy money.

“I customize a few songs for these things,” he explains. I just did the Canadian Association of Engineers. So these big engineering companies – their CEOs and their wives – are having this big conference up in Whistler. I spent about three days working on songs for the engineers: researching their vernacular; what the issues in the industry are and how I can make that funny; talking with them on the phone, finding out who can I pick on in the crowd.”

“That takes priority for sure,” Butler confesses. “That’s my bread and butter. ‘Cause there’s no cheque comin’ in unless I get out there and do something. And I’ve dug myself into — like everyone else — a financial situation that needs to be fed. It’s this monster that’s in the corner that, if I don’t feed it, is going to eat my house.”

That financial monster is the same one that inspired Leslie Mildiner to write Debt, around the time he met Todd in Whistler “I had a tune back then called ‘You Got a Degree,’ Butler recalls. “It’s basically about over qualified people who can’t find jobs in their training. You know, professors pumping gas, that kind of thing.” Mildiner heard the tune and shared his idea for a musical inspired, in part, by his own experience of bankruptcy. They started work together. Mildiner would write a scene and send it to Butler and Butler would write up a tune to go with it.

They performed a workshop version of Debt at the Vancouver International Comedy Festival, with five actors and three musicians. The show was well received, but not well enough. Though Mildiner recorded the performance and worked hard to promote it, there were no takers. In 2007, they tried another line of attack.

“We re-tooled some of it and did a workshop, literally just a reading of the show, and invited a whole bunch of people down to see it,” explains Butler. “We videotaped that as well — made a DVD of it.”

Finally, Firehall decided they wanted to put it on.

Butler admits it was hard to keep excited about Debt’s success when it took so long to be picked up. “It’s frustrating. Almost to the point where I thought, ‘Well, Debt’s not going to happen.’” This was one of the few times in his life that his comedy hadn’t provided instant feedback.

In retrospect, Butler is grateful for the long wait. He’s had a chance to be away from the songs he wrote for Debt and now can take a fresh look at them and give them a final polish.

“Since I found out they were going to re-do the thing in an actual theatre, I’ve been re-visiting all the songs. And I’ve matured as a musician quite a bit in the last 10 years, so I’m just making it a little better. Taking each tune and playing with how I can improve it. Working with the more experience that I have now: on the harmony, the delivery, the timing, and all that.”

This is Butler’s first venture into writing musicals but he likes it enough that he has others in the works and is even considering writing one of his own.

“I’ve been writing notes on the first five years of my touring life. Like when I first got out of high school, playing the northern Alberta bars? Some unbelievable experiences — people just would simply not believe them.

“I saw some things that were so funny and so ridiculous, playing in Fort McMurray and Grande Prairie.” He shakes his head as he recalls, “I remember watching people get knifed — some of the most horrendous violence you could imagine at some of the biker bars.” Sometimes he’d be the act following the strippers. And he slept in some pretty scary places too. “You wouldn’t put a dog in some of the accommodations I was put in.”

And so begins another stream of the Todd Butler consciousness. Will he perfect musicals as skillfully as he has guitar and comedy? Perhaps.

Doug Cox sums it up best when he asks, “What happens when the class clown has a deep, talented artist lurking inside?” Todd Butler.

“Debt – The Musical” plays January 8-30 at Vancouver’s Firehall Theatre.

But even if we discount Stradivari’s mystique, it is still interesting to speculate as to his method, and googling on the topic will lead one to many interesting articles and forums where makers and interested amateurs alike debate. One area which gets a lot of attention is that of the ground Stradivari used. The ground is the first substance applied to the bare wood in the process of finishing. It is followed by the varnish.

It is not my intention to conduct a review of web sources (I will include some links at the end for those who would like to read more), but I will mention one of the more interesting articles I came across from the Royal Society of Chemistry’s web site, titled Investigating the secrets of the Stradivarius. Therein they outline research they conducted on samples obtained from instruments of the period. One quote in particular caught my interest:

Barlow suggested tentatively, on the basis of a single EDX run, that Stradivari’s filler could have been a kind of volcanic ash. Although the presence of some ash cannot be ruled out, the transparency of the finish rather suggests that finely crushed mineral crystals, like quartz, calcite, feldspar and gypsum, were the main components of the filler powder in most instruments.

There have been other scientific examinations of the ground as well, identifying elements which would make volcanic ash seem reasonable, were it not for the issue of transparency. It did not appear as though Stradivari was giving his instruments an initial coating of mud. But let us not forget that volcanoes don’t only spew forth ash, they also may belch out molten silicon dioxide containing other elements as well, such as potassium, iron, and sodium. This then cools into volcanic glass, or obsidian. A chunk of obsidian appears dark or even black, but a thin slice is transparent.

I ventured to experiment with obsidian ground. In fact, I thought, why not go all the way and varnish a complete violin? Because that would be stupid, I told myself. I don’t know anything about varnishing violins. So I ordered some scraps of spruce from tonewood dealer Simeon Chambers to do my experimenting on. And I set to work powdering obsidian.

I’m not going to go into great detail on how to powder obsidian. I’m not entirely certain powdered glass is something people should be messing with. While not poison per se, one can’t help shake the feeling that it simply can’t be good for you. But it’s really no mystery. You can ground stuff very fine with a big, sturdy mortar and pestle. Then to separate the fine from the less fine, you need a very fine sieve or two. The final thing you need is time. It is very tedious work grinding and sifting, grinding and sifting. But google as I might, I couldn’t find anyone selling obsidian powder, so there was no other course but to make it myself. Don’t try this at home, kids, but if you do, wear some sort of respirator, especially at the finer stages. It might not be poison to eat, but you do not want to breathe this stuff. (Note, wet grinding helps at later stages.)

A big question remained, though, before undertaking the experiment. What medium carried the obsidian? I have no idea. I do know that, in olden times, violin makers used something called vernice bianca as a ground applied to the wood prior to varnishing, so I decided to use that as the medium for the obsidian powder.

Note: The following is taken directly from American Lutherie #10 in 1987 in an interview with Jack Batts. It is also in The Big Red Book Vol. 1 from Guild of American Luthiers.

25g of gum arabic,
1/2 teaspoon of honey,
1/4 teaspoon of rock candy,
about 100cc of water,
albumen from one egg white.

“Crush the rock candy. Warm the water but do not boil. Slowly add the gum arabic, stirring constantly until dissolved. Add honey and rock candy. Strain the mixture through a fine cloth (handkerchief or sheeting) and let cool. While the mixture is cooling, whip an egg white into a meringue and turn the bowl on edge. Allow the mixture to settle out and remove the liquid that separates. This is the albumin. Add the albumin to the cooled mixture and stir well. Use this Vernice Bianca immediately and discard the rest. Sacconi advocated that after potassium silicate had been put on very sparingly, you should cover it completely with the vernice bianca before varnishing.”

Posted by Chuck Hutchison on woodworkerszone.com’s lutherie forum

May 31st, first day, first attempt.

I modified the recipe somewhat. Instead of honey and rock candy I would use a teaspoon of granulated maple sugar. And I would add two teaspoons of powdered obsidian, as well as a tablespoon of kamala, a yellow dye.

First problem was how to measure the gum arabic. I ordered this from Luscombe Violins, along with the kamala, some sandalwood, and catechu. It came in a hundred gram bag. I don’t have scales. I suppose I could have estimated a quarter bag (25g), but in the interests of precision, I measured it out. It was eight tablespoons. So I would need two.

I put the teaspoon of maple sugar into the hot water before adding the gum arabic, but I don’t think that made any difference. I put the gum arabic in a little at a time. It didn’t mix easily at first, forming sort of rubbery clumps. It got easier as the liquid became more of a gum arabic solution. Then I added the tablespoon of kamala. It didn’t mix at first, but eventually appeared to.

I tried filtering this through four layers of cheese cloth, but . . . well, in my defense, I’ve never filtered anything through cheese cloth. Nothing appeared to be happening, so I gather up the top edges and tried to sort of squeeze it. Unfiltered vernice bianca squirted up out of the cheese cloth and spilled in with the filtered, so that operation would have to be tried again. Did it twice more with double layers, and once for good luck with a triple layer.

I next added two teaspoons of powdered obsidian and stirred it in. I suspected this would want to settle out, and sure enough that would be the case, requiring regular mixing to keep it suspended. I used a very fine scientific sieve, but perhaps I could use one finer still.

Earlier I had whipped up some egg white. Having sat for awhile, the albumin had settled out just as the instructions said. Added that.

Here is an image of the board prior to application of the vernice bianca.

I applied the vernice bianca with fingers and thumbs, pressing it into the wood (from a comment on the maestronet forum: “Oh yes, epithelia/skin flakes are also found in Strad’s ground indicating it was applied using the bare hand rather than a brush”). Unfortunately, particulate kamala started to emerge as I rubbed it in. It hadn’t really dissolved in any meaningful way, it was just pretending.

I had experimented earlier with mixing kamala and linseed oil, or attempting to, since it didn’t really mix. Pushing it around on paper did result in a yellow stain, and likewise, while particulate was coming out, the board was also turning yellow.

The pot contains my home made vernice. Where the stain is browny is where there are particles still of kamala. For the most part they come out and can be scraped off, but the whole thing is messy and pretty much impossible to get an even finish.

I boiled up a tablespoon full of kamala in a little more than 100 ml of water, then put it through a coffee filter. Result? Dark yellow water. Just for safety’s sake I put it through a coffee filter again. Very little difference. After a couple of hours in the fridge, a very small amount of sediment had gathered. I will try again another day using the yellow kamala water.

June 18th

Another day, another piece of spruce.

Today I made the vernice bianca as before, but this time using the kamala water, and adding the sugar after the accacia (or gum arabic, same thing). I also got another sieve for the powdered obsidian, now down to a particle size of no greater than 63 micrometers (that’s 0.063 mm). It still settles and the obsidian enriched vernice bianca requires perpetual stirring up.

The kamala water can be regarded as a success if the primary objective was an even coating. One could wish, however, that the yellow was more intense.

Here is an image of 3 spruce boards. The one on the left is untreated, the one on the right is the first attempt, and the one in the middle is this most recent attempt.

In both attempts it may be noted that the obsidian is invisible. It’s there, certainly, but you wouldn’t know it. I think I’ll add another two teaspoons of obsidian to my vernice bianca and see if that makes a difference.

Here’s a picture of the powdered obsidian.

It looks just like a grey powder. It’s “true” colour is only betrayed when added to the vernice bianca. The more obsidian powder, the more the colour moves from yellow towards green.

And here are three boards treated with vernice bianca with different amounts of obsidian powder.

The first is from our 2nd trial, with a vernice bianca that has two teaspoons of powered obsidian added to the recipe. The middle one has four. The final one is an attempt with six. It looks like four is about optimum. By the time we get to six, we run into the same problem I had with the kamala, namely it came out of solution as I rubbed, a kind of grey mud, and that made it difficult to get an even finish.

For the purposes of our original objective of experimenting with the ground, we are done. The clarity of the obsidian, if not over-saturated, allows for volcanic minerals to be present in the ground without causing the surface to be muddy. However, in the interest of thoroughness, we will now add a varnish.

June 19th

We’re going to do the simplest possible coloured spirit varnish, just Canada balsam and isopropyl alcohol with a bit of kamala in an attempt to get it to be more yellow. We’re deviating from the Cremonese pattern here, since it’s highly unlikely they used Canada balsam, and probably used oil varnishes rather than spirit. But in the interests of simplicity and patriotism (nothing can ever be too Canadian), this is the approach I’ll take.

I mixed five ml of Canada balsam with 10 ml of isopropyl alcohol, then added a teaspoonful of kamala. That’s probably too much, it didn’t all mix in. Tested on some white paper and got a very promising shade of yellow, though with the particulate, of course.

Forced it through a coffee filter. I think it was a little too thick to go on its own. Perhaps I should try three parts alcohol to one Canada balsam. Pressing 15 ml of liquid through a coffee filter is a bit of a sticky mess, but it’s doable. A larger amount would be awkward.

Here is a picture of the result, next to a piece of unfinished spruce.

Beautiful. Clearly it’s an incredible waste of time trying to colour the vernice bianca, when right off the bat, with a single coat, one can get such a nice yellow in the varnish.

June 20th

Clear coat, five ml Canada Balsam + 10 ml isopropyl alcohol

June 21st

Next coat red. Mixed five ml Canada Balsam, with 15 ml isopropyl alcohol, plus a teaspoonful of powdered sandalwood. The thinner mixture did indeed strain more easily, but the resulting wash was very thin and with minimal colour. There’s no picture because the difference is so subtle that I don’t think the camera would pick it up.

I noticed, wiping the brush on paper, that while the liquid in the brush initially was a very washed out pink, after brushing it was a very washed out orange, suggesting it had gone through the clear layer to the yellow. Part of the purpose of the clear layer was to prevent just that.

Mixed up another batch with 10 ml Canada Balsam, 15 ml isopropyl alcohol, and two teaspoons full of powdered sandalwood. I’ll leave this overnight and test before straining to get an impression of the intensity of the colour. If it’s still wimpy I’ll try cooking it a bit, though would rather not, as this mixture contains something of the design of napalm — sticky thing mixed with highly flammable thing.

June 22nd

Clear coat. Sandalwood varnish is a bit darker, but not much.

June 23rd

Tried cooking the sandalwood varnish a bit. Even over very low heat the alcohol boiled off fairly quickly. Added back five ml and tried to squeeze it through the coffee filter, but it was really too thick, just got a a couple of ml. Soaked the filter in another five ml, kind of like a tea bag, mushing it about a bit, and added that. The effect is subtle but sufficiently noticeable to warrant a picture.

Perhaps three coats of this would make a significant difference, but I’m aiming for more of a brown anyway, so here we will leave off messing with sandalwood. Cooking doesn’t appear to make make much of a difference. I may try soaking some in alcohol for a couple of weeks and see if the extended soak makes a difference.

June 24th

Mixed together five ml Canada balsam, 10 ml isopropyl alcohol, and a teaspoon of catechu, hoping for a nice brown. Sadly, an initial test on paper was so washed out I’m not bothering today. I’ll let it soak overnight before straining and hopefully get at least a little browner. I’ve also put three teaspoons of sandalwood in a small container with 25 ml of isopropyl alcohol, as well as three teaspoons of catechu in another container with 25 ml of isopropyl alcohol. I’ll leave these set for a couple of weeks to see what happens.

June 25th

I recalled that Leif Luscombe had a recipe for varnish in which he’d used these ingredients, so went back to look at it. In the section on colour down at the bottom, he mentions that the container should be placed in warm water to bring out the dye. So we’ll do that today and tomorrow with the sandalwood and catechu I’ve got soaking, and see what happens.

June 26th

A bit of the sandalwood spilled out into the soak water, and looks like blood. Promising, but I’m going to put that aside for a future attempt. The catechu actually is brown. After straining, I have about 14 ml of brown alcohol, to which I add seven ml of Canada balsam. The effect is still not as strong as I’d like, but it registers well enough for a picture.

June 27th

I could get a deeper brown by giving it a few more coats I’m sure, but I would like to wrap this up before backofthebook.ca wraps up for the summer, so I added two pinches of very finely powdered shungite to the remaining brown varnish. Shungite is very, very black, and so fine there’s no need to filter;it’s like adding pure black. It’s a bit of a cheat, of course, since we’re coming close to crossing the line between a transparent varnish and a paint.

So, after all that, how does it sound? Very nice. How can a board sound? Well, you hold it gently by one corner and tap on it with a small hammer. It does resonate with a pleasant tone with a nice sustain. Of course, it did pretty much the same thing before I put all this goop on it. Simeon Chambers sells nice tone wood, even his scrap pieces.

That’s one of the several things for the next attempt; record before and after tap tones to see if there’s even a subtle difference. I think it has a better sustain from what I remember, but it would be nice to have an audio recording to refer to. Next time I will use two or three coats of powdered obsidian enriched vernice bianca, but without colour. The sandalwood layer will be stronger in colour, and rather than cheat with the shungite, I’ll see what sort of brown I can get with multiple layers. I’ll also add some spike oil to slow drying in the interests of getting more even layers, and will experiment with sanding between layers towards getting a smoother surface.

Not ash, but glass. There you have the secret of Antonio Stradivari.

By Eric Pettifor

Here are some links for further reading on the subject:

Investigating the secrets of the Stradivarius

Stradivari’s Ground, VSA Papers

The varnished truth about a Stradivarius

Violin finishes

Secrets of the Stradivarius: An Interview with Joseph Nagyvary

Susan Boyle went viral for the same reason she did so well on “Britain’s Got Talent.” She . . . er . . . has talent. But she also exploded due to the nature of the viral phenomenon. The more people who saw her, the more vital to one’s pop-culture sensibilities it became to have seen her, and the more people saw her. Other things, such as the SNL short “On a Boat,” are popular because they’re hilarious, but mostly hilarious only because they’re popular. The video for “On a Boat,” with well over a million YouTube views, derives at least part of its humor from the fact that three guys rapping so enthusiastically about something as banal as being “on a boat” has become a legitimate hit.

And in a sense, this just reflects how the dot.com.sphere.net has amplified our basic instincts. Viral videos such as Miss Teen South Carolina’s painfully idiotic take on “U.S. America’s” education system are no more than ramped-up gossip. (Pssst! Did you hear that Miss California hates the gays?.) Our love of scandal (and parody) resulted in the widespread viewing of the “don’t tase me, bro!” guy, as well as its many spoofs.

And of course, there is the inevitable sheep-factor. Since being featured on “Oprah” last week, J&D’s Bacon-Flavored Lip Balm is all over the internet and sales have skyrocketed.

Bacon-Flavored lip balm will be hot for about 20 minutes before everyone realizes that it’s a disgusting idea. While good products get a fair bit of net-play on their own by word of enormous-internet-mouth, lousy products are shunted quickly aside by a bad rep. Social networking and news sites such as Facebook, Myspace, Digg, StumbleUpon, del.icio.us, Reddit, Sphinn (ad infinitum) that allow users to display and rate items tend to be self-filtering. Or would be, if they weren’t corrupted.

But they are, and this is where the viral phenomenon gets dicey. Once marketers realized that videos, games, memes, and products pretty well advertised themselves once they got going, companies began throwing a fair bit of energy into trying to force things to go viral. They started “astroturfing” these forums, posting as ostensibly disinterested parties in order to create what appeared to be genuine grass-roots interest. With the anonymity the internet provides, it became all too easy for a company to create fake but believable endorsements.

Or spawn them. In 2006, a book that had clogged the lit-blogosphere with rave reviews was revealed to have encouraged those plaudits with a contest; send us the most readers, win a prize. The book may have been fabulous, but when word of the contest surfaced, suspicion was thrown even on those reviewers who hadn’t heard of the contest. And as fun as it is to be hip with the jive, maybe this is the attitude we need to adopt when things flash into fashion. When shredded jeans and flannel shirts were all the rage (the first time), we looked like idiots because we wanted to, not because some flannel corporation was slipping free button-downs into the cool kids’ lockers. Now those flannel fat-cats are all up on those cool kids, and we need to watch our backs.

It was great for a while to be able to run around the internet like barefoot children, blithely accepting all the reviews of movies and books and dust-busters and teeth whiteners and squash rackets (I hear that the Wilson N145 has an enormous sweet spot) as though they came from trusted friends. Those days are gone the way of the penny candy. I don’t mean to sound conspiracy theorist here, but I’ve become wary of anything virally popular. From now on, I only click over if it’s that video of the fellow doing his happy jig in all those foreign countries.

Wait, that’s brought to me by Stride Gum? Shit.

You have to give Jian Ghomeshi credit for the way he handled Billy Boob Thornton’s meltdown on his radio program “Q” on Wednesday morning.

Respeck, too, to his long-suffering bandmates, who have obviously become practised in the fine art of prima-donna handling. At least they understood they were there to try and get an audience out for their No-Name band.

Apparently, Billy had been having a bad time all week, if this CanWest interview from a few days ago is anything to go by. I guess the stress of trying to revive the great “British Invasion/Hillbilly” sound of the ’60s is getting to be too much — after all, who can live up to the memory of . . . erm . . . who exactly were the great British Hillbilly artists of the ’60s?

Booby Bill mentions that Canadian audiences have been “reserved” at performances by his band (which does in fact have a name: The Thighmasters Boxmasters). One look at their itinerary, though, explains all: Kingston, Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, London. My god, Jethro, the only place you’re going to escape Upper Canadian repression on a tour like that might be in a sex club on Rue Ste.-Catherine after the show! Tell ya what. Y’all come out west, bud, where we ‘preciate yer kind of music, and we know how to have a good time. Yeah, you come on out an’ play some bars in Hannah and Olds and Merritt, an’ then you sit down in the chairs with the boys an’ explain how yer a “music historian,” an’ how yer “people” and you are gonna be right happy so long as nobody mentions yer acting career, and so long as the waitress follows yer “instructions” fer makin’ a dry martini. Yeah, you try summa that, and see how the boys react.

Bet they won’t be half so polite as that Jian Ghomeshi.

Update: Apparently, Willy Babs has pulled his band from the rest of the tour. Listen, you Canadians were specifically instructed not to boo at his Toronto performance on Thursday night. You didn’t listen, and if you don’t follow the instructions, you don’t get the show. Did you boo Tom Petty? Well, did you?

Since his shock-seeking announcement last October that Phoenix is leaving a healthy and ascending acting career to pursue, of all things, rapping, speculation has raced rampant through the intranets about what. The hell. Is happening. I figure we’ve basically got three options:

It’s a hoax. Most of the word on the street is that this is a drawn-out, terribly un-funny prank. Evidence for:

It started as a hoax, but JP has been EATEN ALIVE by his new badass alter-ego. The thrill of sleeping in his clothes, falling off stage, and giving incoherent, surly interviews has been too much for the troubled Phoenix, and he has swapped his existence as a reasonably-sane-person-from-a-difficult-background for flat-out-batshitter. Alternately, Phoenix is the latest in a long line of Hollywoodsters who have cracked under the strain, and he has crosshisheartandhopetodie lost his marbles. Evidence for: Well, it sounds likely, doesn’t it? I mean, this would explain a lot, and then we’d all get to go back to thinking well of him, if a little pityingly. Evidence against: I don’t really have any, but if this is true then I am a jerk, and I owe the Phoenixes a sympathy card.

It’s for real. Playing dark, insecure characters for years has turned JoaqFeen into a humorless ball of angst. Evidence for: It’s been going on for months. He keeps showing up places and rapping. He has a RECORDING STUDIO BUILT IN HIS HOUSE! Evidence against: If it’s not a prank, he’s being rude as hell. When he appeared on Letterman in February, he relentlessly refused to banter wittily or discuss his allegedly final film, Two Lovers, slouched in his sea looking put-upon, and chewed gum like a teenager with something to prove. Last week the director of Two Lovers, James Gray, called the actor/rapper out for failing to promote the movie, which has gotten moderately good reviews but little buzz. While all publicity is ostensibly good publicity, it seems like people are so tired of Phoenix’s gag that they’re taking it out on the film. If this were a genuine change of careers, you’d think JP would have the grace to tie up his loose ends before treading his new path.

I wonder if Phoenix had mined this endeavor for all its potential consequences beforehand. If it’s a prank then he’s being an un-funny douche, and if it’s not then he’s an irresponsible jerk. It seems like the only way he can come out of this looking good is by being legitimately crazy.

And, ok, when you step into the spotlight, you don’t always get to choose your image. I’m sure Jessica Simpson never planned on becoming a cautionary tale against reality TV marriages, or That Girl Who Jinxes Football Players. Jamie-Lynn Spears didn’t get knocked up so that she could be a role model to pregnant teens. “The Hills”‘ Audrina Patridge didn’t accidentally-on-purpose leak nekkid pictures of herself to provide valuable lessons on discretion to “the young girls who look up to [her]” . . . oh, no wait. She totally did.

But while fame and fortune predicate a certain lack of control, surely some things are still sacred. By now, everyone has either seen the photo of Rihanna’s battered face that TMZ allegedly scootched from the LAPD, or they have gone to great and strenuous lengths to avoid it. Shortly after the gossip site watermarked their logo across Rihanna’s puffy eyes and potentially broken nose, the photo was plastered across the front page of papers like the New York Post. Even sites that blathered on about the shame of exposing such a tragedy in this way would sneak the photo in after the jump.

No one, it seems, could keep from snagging a few more site hits at the starlet’s expense. Most were willing to accept the starlet’s silence (especially since it came at the request of police) and allow her a quiet birthday in Barbados, but recent rumors that she’s taken the bastard back have incensed, well, pretty much everyone. The face of Gucci’s fourth annual Campaign to Benefit UNICEF is now being called “the most famous face of domestic abuse” and apparently she has to answer to the world about why she would go back to a man who (allegedly) beats her.

Don’t get me wrong: I am all for being held accountable for your actions, especially if you are living off the fat of public opinion. However, this is obviously a sensitive issue, and obviously a confusing time for such a young woman, and obviously none of our collective business. I doubt that someone as savvy as Rihanna is going to waltz back into a dangerous situation without some frank analysis, but if she wants to see if she and Chris can work things out, who are we to stop her? I am neither her mother nor her manager nor her best friend. Domestic abuse is about as serious as issues go these days, and I’m not saying that Rihanna should simply disregard what happened. But as much as I didn’t have the right to creep my eyes all over her face in a vulnerable moment, I haven’t got the right to stick my nose into her personal affairs like I know what’s what. I don’t. Neither do you. Time to back off.

Been a minute since last we heard from Q-Tip but damn if the wait wasn’t worth it. The Renaissance is a throwback to old ATCQ without being maudlin. With most of the production by ‘Tip, he shows himself mature and capable behind the boards. “Won’t Trade” deftly weaves a sample of “You Made a Believer Out of Me” by Ruby Andrews between ‘Tip’s raps about love and basketball. Two of my favorite subjects. And the rhymes? They don’t call him the abstract for nothing — as ever, ‘Tip keeps it vague and direct. “You” is a kiss-off to a lover that says so much with so little evidence.

Erykah Badu’s last album, Worldwide Underground, was artistically ambitious but financially a flop. Woman went into hiding and decided to come back harder. With New Amerykah 1, she reminds all the wannabees who is the Queen Bee. Playing on themes of ’70s disco, black power, jazz-funk fusion, and blacksploitation soundtracks, the LP is a sonic war call. Badu is looking for a revolution. Musical, political, or of the heart, it doesn’t seem to matter. “Honey,” the hidden track that closes the album, is a butter soft lullaby asking a lover to get serious. “So tell me Slim, what’s it gonna be?”

2008 really could be seen as the return of the neo soul artist. ‘Tip, Badu, and Raphael Saadiq. With The Way I See It Saadiq plays up his love of vintage 60’s style soul by flipping the script on contemporary R & B and recording an album that hearkens back to old Motown and Holland-Dozier-Holland jams. Even with guest vocalists like of Joss Stone, Stevie Wonder, and Jay-Z, the man is best on his own. On “Big Easy” he uses the hypnotic sounds of the Soul Rebels Brass Band to give his song about losing loved ones during Katrina a funky, uptempo feel, essentially pulling the rug out on the listener. When kids on the dancefloor really listen to the words, light bulbs will flicker.

Speaking of Jay-Z, seems since American Gangster he’s ready to show you how hungry he is. “Brooklyn (Go Hard)” comes from the soundtrack to the forthcoming biopic about Biggie Smalls aka The Notorious B.I.G., and the former Def Jam CEO rocks it. Jumping out on some sinister drums with hipster flavor of the month Santogold, Mr. S-dot reps his borough, his ‘hood, and his boy.

Brooklyn’s Jose James and L.A.’s Flying Lotus are probably two of the most progressive artists recording right now. 2008 saw them respectively release The Dreamer and Los Angeles, two of this year’s most forward-looking albums. 2008 also saw the two collaborate on a track for James’ Park Bench People EP. “Visions of Violet” is a love song that mixes pop, jazz and electronic styles with James cooing sweet nothings in your eardrum.

Electronic music composer Milosh has the soul of a sad, lonely singer-songwriter. His latest, iii, is a haunting mix of glitchy and ambient tones mixed with emotive vocals.

And finally let the Reverend Al Green take you home. From his latest LP Lay it Down, produced by Questlove of The Legendary Roots crew, the track “Just for Me” is a reminder why almost everyone loves Al Green. The good reverend shows that it’s not just the ladies pleading for a little loving.

Something to think about during this cold season.