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JoBo's Interests
General
WE CONTINUE AFTER THIS BREAK :-)
Dont worry folks it all stay's in the JoBo Family.
Check out My Son's Mediatheek The Shire and especially the more 'Global' part of it called MEDIANSOFT by following the link below That is if Your in need of some high quality web-design or/and Web-hosting for a full web page We made for You or one you've made yourself, even for a one page online calling card. If your on a budget, check out MedianSoft.
NEW
Custom Delphi programming for your made to measure shop or database application, We listen, We talk not to but 'with' YOU, and only then we start to create...
OK, back to my other Intrests... Beside music that's Going for long walks & Hill walking with Vera & Loefke
Photography, Reading a lot. Amateur Drum building, Writing Lyricks, Computing
and last but not least my SheGoat "Loefke" to name a few things...
Music
Traditional Music :
Live Pub Sessions & Recordings, Flook, The Tea Merchants, Brendan Nolan, Athas, Liscune, Cairdeas, Dezi Donnelly, Lasairfhíona, Five Hand Reel, Four Men and a Dog, Peatbog Faeries, Different drums of Ireland, Beoga, Green Jackets, Dave Munnelly Band, Kilfenora Fiddle Ceili Band, La Bottine Souriante, Manus McGuire, Comas, Michael McGoldrick, Shantalla, Rapalje, Dropkick Murphys, O..stravaganza,
Robert Crumb & his Cheap Suit Serenaders, Woody Guthrie and many more...
Non Traditional Music : Corvus Corax, Dead Can Dance, Johnny Cash, Sinead O'Connor, Vic Fontaine, The Specials,
Orchestre International du Vetex
The Dohl Foundation, The Clash, Morrissey, The Smiths, Talking Heads, Iggy Pop, David Bowie, Lou Reed, Sex Pistols, Devo, Madness, White Noice, Lee Scratch Perry, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Jacques Brel, Billy Holiday, Nina Simone, Bela Bartok, Gustav Mahler In short as this list could go on forever, I like Music... I like a whole darn lot of it, ranging from clasical to Experimental Noice it all depends on my mood and where I am and what I'm doing... My only problem so far is with Techno and it's spin-offs... Maybe I'm just getting old... Naaaah :)
R.I.P. I left this here to torture myself .. My VCR went to VCR heaven recently and as you can imagine, it's pointless to invest any further in VHS... Now the question I'm pondering about is, if I will try too rebuild this collection on DVD... How long will those still be around...
Intro to the Movie ->'The Magdalene Sisters'<-
Otherwise I enjoy SF movie's, more the old than the new where story all to often gets to be sacrificed to special effects. I also dig a good build up mystery/triller... Don't like comedy's (with the exception for Fawlty Towers, Monty Phyton, The Good Life, The Young Ones, Rowan Atkinson, Van Kooten en De Bie a.o), tear jerkers, horror/slasher movie's (well to be complete, I do like the old 50's horror movie's, think Boris Karlof, Peter Cushing and so forth)
JoBo's Recommended Movie
Previously Recommended
a>
Television
Books
Click here to visit my Home Book Collection catalog @ Library-Thing... (still loads to add)
Isaac Asimov, Jack Vance, Heinlein (in short i'm an SF Fan), Louis Paul Boon, Aldous Huxley, Ron Langenus,
Jules Verne, Conan Doyle, Godfried Bomans, August Strindberg, Knut Hamsun, H.P. Lovecraft, George Orwell, Bertus Aafjes, M. Lermontow, Kurt Vonnegut, Herman Hesse, Edgar Allan Poe, Carlos Castaneda, Thomas de Quincy and again many more
WHAT I'M READING NOW :
Synopsis:
Hanville Svetz was born into a future to match the sorriest predictions of Greenpeace. Most life forms are extinct. It is Svetz's job is to go back in time and retrieve them, or at least it was until his Institute for Temporal Research was transferred. Now, with a new boss obsessed with stars and planets, Svetz must figure out why the Martian canals have gone dry, and what it means for Earth's future. And yes Mars was inhabited! When Svetz learns how their sapient species were wiped out, he realizes that Earth could soon fall victim to a similar fate. Together with his dog Wrona, a visitor from the distant past, and Miya, an astronaut with her own complex history, Svetz must struggle to unravel a puzzle that will tax not just his rational mind, but the very limits of his imagination.
WHAT I've READ previously :
!!! NEW !!! in my Home Collection
Went to that recycle store again and this time I found seven Science Fiction novels published in the 70's, for only 0.50 euro cents each, thats about 2$ for all of them so like last time, I just had to buy e'm :-)-
Bodojo is delighted to announce the opening of a new Traditional Instrument Auction site made by and for trad Musicians, a place to stroll around in and maybe find that instrument you've been looking for for ages, Open your own 'Free' 5 item shop, leave a wanted add or just sell or trade one of your own.
"Tradauction Irish Music Exchange"provides
For Purchasers
Functions just like ebay
Feedback system - check on a buyer/seller's history
Standard Auctions - Highest bidder wins
Wanted Ads - Looking for a particular instrument?
Email/SMS Alert - lets you know when an new auction has your keyword
For Vendors
A 5 item store is free to all users and would suit those seeking to market their own music of this genre. We cannot provide a download service. (but if there is a reasonable demand for that, we can facilitate that also).
Sales under £10 are always commission free
Bulk upload - add your eBay or other listings
Dutch Auctions - fixed price multiple identical items
Buy It Now (buyout) Auctions - Fixed Price one item
Optional paid functions - to allow you to enhance your listing
Purchaser invoiced automatically after auction
Small listing charge £0.30
Add your Store Today
We are very keen to get our retailers and manufacturers installed in their stores and familiar with that interface - creating an account is very simple, as is creating a store.
Public enquiries should be addressed initially through the Tradauction Website.
Private enquiries please use admin@tradauction.com
We are very saddened to receive the news that bodhran maker Charlie Byrne passed away on 29 November 2007.
Charlie has been a cornerstone in the world of the bodhran for 40+ years, drums he made in the 1970s are still used to this day and "just keep getting better". He is quoted by senior bodhran makers such as Seamus O'Kane as being seminal in their becoming makers and in how they worked with goat skins.
We (BoDojo) are looking for pictures of Charlie Byrne, please send e'm over or put them up in your photo section and let me know... TNX...
A very special Thanks to everybody who participated in the recording session for the Paul Phillips scholarship benefit CD on 2-4 Jan in Portstewart (Co Derry, Ireland). Was it by sending a track, taking part in the (open) Portsteward Session itself or just by helping to spread the word about it.
Two full tracks to have a listen are up on www.pps.bodojo.com
Go check e'm out...
What's there to say, I'm John and living in Belgium. I was born as third in a family of eight children in the French part of the country in a town called Charleroi but moved to the Flemish part to Bruges a few months after I was born, so my native tongue is Dutch.
Seems like music's been a part of Me always one way or another. It’s like an old box player in Castlebar (Mayo) told Me, it must be in my blood & bones..., he said that one of my ancestors must have been a musician for me always to be whistling or singing to myself for as long I can remember... Anyway, and this is something I regret, it never went as far as learning to play an instrument, or to read music or rhythm… My only musical endeavour was to sing in a never completely formed punk band way back in '78-79... It took Me another 20 years and a long wished holiday destination I've had been talking about for years to make things different... See, all this suddenly changed when I first went to Ireland in 2002.
Now, I've listened to trad before I went to Erin, but driving through the magnificent North-West while listing to Ragnag Radio day after day and visiting a few live pub sessions to top it all opened up a whole new world for Me. The end result was, like so many before Me I came home after my first holiday with a 50 euro Waltons Bodhran. I transferred my attic into my Sanctuary, a place where I could sit and practice undisturbed and more important in consideration of my house mates nerves. When that was done I started to beat that Shegoat and I’ve been doing that ever since. These days that Waltons got replaced by Loefke, my 14inch Lambeg skinned Metloef and an 18inch by Brendan White.
In the last six years I visited Wicklow, Kerry, Galway, Mayo, Sligo and Donegal (two times)& N.I. in Ireland and The Tatra National Park in MaloPolska to do some hill walking, another bug I ended up with in Erin (Read more about this & view some pictures in my blog section) and to enjoy and play along in a few sessions if and when I was invited to join. Still don’t know to read music, I even have trouble with the fruit bowl, I listen to a tune and I just play along “On feel”. Is this way of playing acceptable, one side of the scale, don’t think a full fledged percussionist or traditional music scholar, pro player will agree with it. To less boundary’s and to much anarchy I think, On the other side of the scale, in Erin I never been given “the evil look”.
I'm no player… yet and I still have a long way to go, but hey how I like the journey :) ... Will I ever get to where I’m going ? ... Don’t know, don't think it matters that much as long as I enjoy the road and have friends real time and cyber walking it with me…
JoBo ---> Plastic Jezus <---
So, I wish to thank a few people for all the help they gave and are giving Me on this hike... First of all Vera my wife, for her support and encouragement in all this and all those other things that make out a man’s wee life…, The Squire(Yima) for standing up to my practice sounds/noise every Friday night, JRainwood as he's my Bro and mate in Music, Paul Marshall (Bodojo - Bing, Bang, Bong, DDI) for all advice and for just being sucha great guy to talk to and last but not least for getting me my "Loefke", Dirk de Bleser (www.Cairdeas.be) for introducing Me to a few local Sessions and offering some tutoring on the side,
Rob for making Me my Loefke and some helpful drum building advice and on that score also Tony Hedgewolf my drum building friend from the UK… To end this ramblings, I also like to mention Cat, Michael and all the members of the 'Bodhran' Yahoo Group, one of the best and friendliest community's to be found ..
JoBo ---> Howling at the Moon - Sunset Over Scariff
I Tell Me Ma
Egan's (The humours of Castlefinn) - Lafferty's (Glen of Aherlow) <---
So here you are folks, that's about Me the digest version
Greetz and CYA...
Who I'd like to meet:
I haven't the foggiest... So let's use this space educational ..
The Wren (Bitta Bodhran History)
Wren Boys, Ireland 1947 Found this picture online.
The Wren tradition
The old Irish tradition of Hunting the Wren (pronounced Wran) is shrouded in the mists of time and is still practised in many parts of the country, particularly in Kerry. In times past the Wren was actually hunted and killed, tied to a holly bush and paraded around the locality in celebration of the Winter Solstice Festival. Nowadays the Wren is represented by a symbolic bird in a holly bush and accompanied by much music-making and merriment. Early in the morning of St. Stephen's Day, the wren was carried from house to house by the boys, who wore straw masks or blackened their faces with burnt cork, and dressed in old clothes (often women's dresses.) At each house, the boys sing the Wren Boys' song.
Sometimes those who gave money were given a feather from the wren for good luck. The money collected by the Wren Boys was used to hold a dance for the whole village, these days the money often goes to charity instead.
There are many versions and variations of this song, I'll include two here:
The Wren
The wren, the wren, the king of all birds,
On St. Stephen's Day was caught in the furze,
Although he is little, his family is great,
I pray you, good landlady, give us a treat.
My box would speak, if it had but a tongue,
And two or three shillings, would do it not wrong,
Sing holly, sing ivy--sing ivy, sing holly,
A drop just to drink, it would drown melancholy.
And if you draw it of the best,
I hope in heaven your soul will rest;
But if you draw it of the small,
It won't agree with these wren boys at all.
The Wren - The Wren - the king of all birds
On Saint Stephen's Day was caught in the furze
Although he is little his family is great
Come out your honour and give us a trate
Hurrah me boys hurrah
Droleen - Droleen - where is your nest?
'Tis in the tree that I love best
'Tis in the holly and ivy tree
Where all the birds come singing to me
As I was going up the Slippery Dock
I saw an old wren he was up on a rock
I up with me stick and I hit him a lick
And I knocked him into a brandy shop
I have a little box under me arm
A shilling or two will do it no harm
A shilling or two is a great relief
To the poor Wren Boys on a Christmas Eve
The Wren - The Wren as you may see
Is up for height on the holly tree
A bunch or ribbons by his side
And a little wren boy will be his guide
God bless the master of this house
A golden chain around his neck
And if he do be sick or whole
May the Lord have mercy on his soul
Old time Bodhran Pictures
Caherciveen Brass Band 1930
Found this picture in a pub window in Caherciveen (Kerry) 2006 - Notice the man with the Bodhran in front.
REQUEST : If you have any Wren boy or Ol'time Bodhran pictures (or a link to) send e'm over to be added here... Will Ya ? Sure ya will :-)
Shamanistic Drumming
In my searches for Bodhran origin and Wren tradition I came across a great deal of pages about Shamanistic Drumming. Although I did not went to deep into this, as I found no direct relation to The Wren tradition I was captivated by the drum artwork and the costumes. At the time I ‘harvested’ some pictures and like to share a portion of them here for all of you to enjoy and maybe trigger Your own searches into this area… (all pictures & links to where You found e’m are always welcome in private or in a comment).
Wikipedia entry about The Shaman Drum :
The Drum is used by shamans of several peoples in Siberia and Nepal; same holds for many Eskimo groups, although its usage for shamanistic séances may be lacking among the Inuits of Canada.
The beating of the drum allows the shaman to achieve an altered state of consciousness or to travel on a journey. The drum is for example referred to as, “‘horse’ or ‘rainbow-bridge’ between the physical and spiritual worlds”. The journey mentioned is one in which the shaman establishes a connection with one or two of the spirit worlds. With the beating of the drum come neurophysiologic effects. Much fascination surround the role that the acoustics of the drum play to the shaman.
There are two different worlds, the upper and the lower. In the upper world, images such as “climbing a mountain, tree, cliff, rainbow, or ladder; ascending into the sky on smoke; flying on an animal, carpet, or broom and meeting a teacher or guide”, are typically seen. The lower world consists of images including, “entering into the earth through a cave, hollow tree stump, a water hole, a tunnel, or a tube”. By being able to interact with a different world at an altered and aware state, the Shaman can then exchange information between the world in which he lives and that in which he has traveled to.
Robert Crumb & his Cheap Suit Serenaders, Woody Guthrie and many more...
Orchestre International du Vetex 
