Recovering from another injury

I had an extremely short fall season with the Saratoga rugby club. Five minutes into my first match, a tackle went badly and I broke my collarbone. (I was the one doing the tackling, hence the "badly.") So I may well be hanging up my spikes and retiring for good. We'll see how I feel about it in the spring after I've mended.

My blogging will be somewhat limited this fall as I work on my thesis, but I seem to be wasting plenty of time over at myspace. Click the image below to see what nonsense I've been up to there:

 

The Boss Goes All Folky Again

Anyone who's heard me perform in the last two or three years has probably heard me sing "Pay Me My Money Down," a tradtional song from the Georgia Sea Islands that I learned from a Dan Zanes CD.

Bruce Springsteen's new album, a Pete Seeger tribute disc, includes of version of that song that's pretty sweet. He adds a verse about Bill Gates, which was cheeky of him.

There's are audio and video files of the Springsteen performance at the following site:

Springsteen Clips

 

Moon & River Gig Photos

A few pictures that Jen shot at the Moon & River Cafe last week. Thanks to Sandy (at left) and Roland (center) for sitting in with me, and megathanks to those who showed up to listen.

P.S. I now have some .mp3s available for free downloading (free is always good!) at www.nowhereradio.com/smokinbill

Cape Cod Trip Pics, and a Song

I've been neglecting my blogging duties lately. The photo gallery at left has some shots from our Cape Cod vacation.

And for your multimedia enjoyment, I've posted a new recording below. It's the old blues favorite "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out," on which I play an old nylon string guitar and sing in a slightly nasal voice because I did the recording right in the middle of an allergy attack. 'Tis the season. I recorded it using my wife's iriver .mp3 player, which is pretty cool because it has a built-in microphone and it's smaller than a Zippo lighter.

NobodyKnowsYou.mp3

Old-Fashioned Porch Pickin'

Anne Marie (accordion); Roland (guitar, banjo, autoharp, jew's harp); Bill (guitar, banjo, fiddle, harmonica)

I had a great time tonight playing music with Roland and Anne Marie on the front porch at Wemple & Edick's ice cream shop in Sammonsville. It was great to be able to play the fiddle as much as I did; God knows I need more practice playing it in group situations. My bum finger is still healing, and by the time we finished playing tonight, it was beet-red and swollen, but the good news is that it more or less works. Roland and Anne Marie had never met before tonight, so it was cool that we were able to play some songs pretty well (there were a few false starts, but who's counting?) I think the highlight was "Pay Me My Money Down," which seemed to have folks tapping their toes.

The owners said we're welcome to do it again, so perhaps we'll be there on the porch once more before the end of the summer. Stay tuned for details on that.

My next gig will be at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 29 at the Moon & River Cafe, 115 S. Ferry St., Schenectady.

Spending Too Much Time Online!

I've posted a couple of songs over at Folk Alley, a major online folk radio site. You can help me out by listening to my tunes there, posting comments about them and whatnot. Here's where to go:

Bill Ackerbauer on Folk Alley

I guess I should also mention that I've been spending way too much time surfing around on myspace.com lately. If you're into that kind of thing, check out my page at http://www.myspace.com/billackerbauer . And if you're a myspacer yourself, be sure to "friend" me.

My Comeback Gig

Put it on your calendar: My "comeback" gig (after two months of nursing a fractured pinky finger) will be at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 29 at the Moon & River Cafe in Schenectady. The place is at 115 N. Ferry St. in the Stockade. There's no cover charge to get in, but come to have dinner or coffee and dessert, and save a buck or two for my tip jar. I'm a starving graduate student!

The cafe has a website at http://moonandrivercafe.com/

Old-time folk fans, note I've also just found out that Americana songstress Diana Jones will be performing at the Moon & River on Aug. 17. Don't miss this show. She's the real deal! Her website is: http://www.dianajonesmusic.com/