The READIN Family Album
Me and Sylvia, smiling for the camera (August 2005)

READIN

Jeremy's journal

The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.

John Stuart Mill


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Saturday, October 15th, 2011

🦋 Jamming notes

Bob and Janis are coming over this afternoon to play some tunes -- I'm eagerly anticipating my first jam using the custom shoulder rest I carved this morning. Ever since I got this fiddle I have been thinking that a wooden block shoulder rest would work better than the contraption the maker provided, to attach a standard violin shoulder rest. Fate forced my hand a few weeks ago by ordaining that I should lose the said contraption... (come to think of it, I've been playing with no shoulder rest for a few weeks, and have been making some interesting music that way too... Mountain Station recorded a fun take on Odds & Ends last week.) Turns out I was right! It's extremely comfortable to hold the violin with this extension.

I've been listening to some old (well not that old I guess but from like last year) Mountain Station tracks lately and enjoying our sound. And it is just getting better -- our new "St. James Infirmary" is a different, more organized and complex song than our first recording of it.

Also -- bought a pickup for the fiddle, I decided to get a saxophone pickup that will clip onto the bell. This will help with amplification when we play at Studio 12 in Montclair next Friday.

posted morning of October 15th, 2011: 1 response
➳ More posts about Jamming with friends

Wednesday, October 19th, 2011

🦋 Friday at Tapastry

Mountain Station is opening Friday's Songwriter Showcase at Studio 12 in Montclair. Come on time at 8 if you want to hear our music! -- We're doing two short sets, the first at 8 and the second later on after some of the featured acts have their sets. We'll be playing a couple of our old favorites and a couple of brand-new songs. Hope to see you there.

posted evening of October 19th, 2011: Respond
➳ More posts about Music

Sunday, December 4th, 2011

🦋 Tentative setlist

Mountain Station will be playing a gig in 2½ weeks, at the Crossroads in Garwood, a one hour set. Exciting! This week we are starting to figure out our set list. Here is an initial idea --

  1. High on the Mountain
  2. The Louisville Burglar
  3. Drowsy Maggie/ Dancing Barefoot
  4. Revelator
  5. Meet Me in the Morning
  6. A Jockey Full of Bourbon
  7. Running to Stand Still/ The Arms of Love
  8. Japanese Radio
  9. Mountain Station
  10. (if we have time) Highway 61 Revisited
  11. Odds and Ends

posted afternoon of December 4th, 2011: Respond

Friday, December 23rd, 2011

🦋 Dancing Barefoot

Mountain Station's show on Wednesday was a lot of fun -- we got a couple of people to come out and listen to us, we got a chance to play with amplification, played our whole set plus a couple of spur-of-the-moment songs, got a chance to play with Kari sitting in on vocals...

Ellen got a tape of us playing "Dancing Barefoot" on her phone -- the audio quality is a little strange but I think our sound comes across nicely.

posted evening of December 23rd, 2011: Respond

Saturday, January 28th, 2012

🦋 Notify my next of kin

This Wheel's on Fire by Mountain Station

(Jeremy Osner on stroh fiddle and vocals, John Hicks on guitar and vocals.)

posted evening of January 28th, 2012: Respond

Wednesday, February first, 2012

🦋 Tentative setlist

Come and see Mountain Station at the Crossroads in Garwood next week! Next Thursday at 8 to be precise.

  1. This wheel's on fire
  2. The road to Lisdoonvarna
  3. The L&N don't stop here anymore
  4. Behind that locked door
  5. Red Overalls
  6. Country Honk
  7. Carrie Brown
  8. White Freightliner Blues
  9. Johnny 99
  10. To be young is to be sad is to be high
  11. Harvest Home
  12. 4&20 Blues
  13. Walk right in
  14. You ain't goin nowhere

(Update as of Saturday): We played the set through tonight and it took just about one hour. If we do everything the same speed on Thursday and without any screw-ups (there were a couple tonight which stretched the set out slightly), we will probably have space to play one more song, which will probably be NJ Transit.

posted evening of February first, 2012: Respond

Sunday, March 18th, 2012

🦋 Folk Process

Practice with John this afternoon was composed exclusively of almost-new and brand-new songs.

  • "Chinese Bones" -- we've abortively tried playing this a couple of times before, today was the first time it really came together, through the magical-seeming addition of a short capo on the second fret.
  • "Old Joe Clark" -- we've played this once or twice, how could we not have, but not for a long time. Sounded really nice.
  • "See Emily Play" -- this one will take some work, I'm excited about doing that work.
  • "Jug of Punch" -- we tried playing this (in honor of the Saint's day) a couple of times, it was sounding ok, suddenly John got the idea to speed it way up and completely alter the melody of it; and all of a sudden it was a Mountain Station song! Really fantastic. I will post a video later on.
  • "I've Just Seen a Face" -- what fun. We haven't done any Beatles covers but this one might be a keeper.

posted afternoon of March 18th, 2012: Respond

🦋 A Jug of Mountain Punch

What happens when Mountain Station tries playing an old Irish drinking song? Liam Clancy says of this song that it's like St. Patrick's Day in the way it starts out beautifully melodic and rapidly deteriorates.

Well I think we have a bit of a head start on the deterioration aspect of it... With a little practice I think this is going to become a core bit of the Mountain Station catalog.

posted evening of March 18th, 2012: Respond

Friday, March 23rd, 2012

🦋 Capo 5

I'm pretty thrilled with where I'm headed with this song. (Hope John has the rest of the lyrics!)

Hmm... John does not have the other lyrics. Apparently I only hand-wrote them and now I need to figure out where the paper is, or rewrite...

posted evening of March 23rd, 2012: Respond
➳ More posts about Guitar

Saturday, March 31st, 2012

🦋 Let's Listen to

me and John.

You're welcome.

posted afternoon of March 31st, 2012: Respond

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