So we’ve had Polish visitors in the office the past couple weeks. I have to say most of them I’ve met are abnormally happy 🙂
…I’m convinced they’re putting viagra in the water or Poland is some testing ground for new pharmaceuticals that alter ones mood 🙂
Anyways they’re all so nice. It’s great. They tend to bring gifts for colleagues and it seems the Italians don’t have a taste for Polish stuff, so the logical thing (?) to do when one has received a gift from Poland that one is not fond of…is to find an american and re-gift…As everyone in Italy apparently knows – Americans will eat or drink anything.

I’ve got two bottles of Vodka, some candy, and a jar of homemade stewish type stuff that I’ve never heard of…I’m just going to call it grzsykyyski 😀 Obviously it was made by some gramma, and I love her for it…Lest anyone assumes I think badly of the Polish I can assure you that’s not true. Most of them I’ve met have been wonderful (I’m not being sarcastic)…(don’t worry noone from Poland reads this – Your re-gifting ways are still a secret)…

…and I just read that Possessed by Paul James (Konrad Wert) will be in Europe this summer…this calls for a road trip. Apparently he’ll be in the U.K. France and Swissland (hopefully not all at the same time). I’ll have to go see him at some point.
I saw him once in Frankfurt and the show was incredible. I managed to invite myself onto the stage for the third set – I also was responsible for the whole third set. Just yell “Third set” when he’s wrapping it up and he’ll do a third set…
The link if anyone cares…

I’m sure the Italians think this is odd, but some vids…

OH AND….this was a related video on one of the videos above…ha! christy! Diving, cheating, lying bastard…

I’m glad to see that I wasn’t the only one to draw the US invasion of ‘Mexico’ to Russian invasion of ‘Georgia’ comparison…Glad to see that America has learned from its past mistakes and is now focused on righting wrongs in the world…
…see….it’s funny cuz….

So a couple days ago I downloaded the CD of ‘Possessed by Paul James’. I saw this dude last year at Dreikoenigskeller with some friends. He was AMAZING and blew me away…Dude was super nice and hung out with us outside between sets. I even managed to invite myself to sit down on the side of the stage as he was coming back from the first set. He said something like ‘sure man, then it’s more like a living room’. He was so super nice I knew he wasn’t being sarcastic or anything.
He is the son of a mennonite (as in not quite amish – but backwards enough) minister. He plays banjo, fiddle, diddley bo (more on that to come), guitar, mandolin, stompbox etc.
So listening to the CD I am amazed again and forgot how great he was. I’m actually surprised by what a pure voice he has when he wants to, and how quite jazzy his singing style is in amongst the sort of traditional old americana musical instruments.

so as promised here’s a song with an instrument apparently called a ‘Diddly Bo’. The song isn’t that great, but interesting for it’s use of the instrument.
PossessedbyPaulJames-PossessedbyPaulJames-08-DiddlyBoTraditional.mp3

OK some dude giving us the ‘Norm’ – too detailed version of what this instrument actually is…kind of interesting if you’re into that sort of thing….though I think he’s attempting to play the wall at one point 😉
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT5O6M-nWA8&feature=related
there are more of these types of clips on you tube if you search on it.

One other song from Possesed by Paul James (Paul James is a singer but the name of this dude in the songs is actually Konrad something…). Anyways I love this song cuz you don’t hear a lot of mandolin solo songs…The percussion you hear is actually him. If I recall he had some chimes attached to his legs which were also stomping on a box..hmmmm stompbox… 😉
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCLqLBSb3gM
This was filmed in Frankfurt…the recording is the same one off the CD, and you can’t really hear percussion on the youtube version, but if anyone wants the CD you can buy it online, or ask me nicely 😉

Here’s the trailer of the movie he’s in:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckOl7ddbDDo&feature=related