Hazmat Modine planted a seed...

["Scorcher" <scorcher@xxxxxxx>]

Seeing that post on Hazmat Modine got me thinkin'...

Some of the bands I ~really~ like to listen to don't play any kind of music
I can describe very well.

Oh, sure there's Paul deLay, Rod Piazza, Kim Wilson, Brendan Power, Toots,
etc....

Of course all the ODBGs...

And then Bill Barrett, Mitch Weiss, and Jason Ricci....

But then there's Tom Waits, The Latin Playboys, Hazmat Modine, They Might Be
Giants, The Rugburns, The Whitestripes...

and THEN there's "alt country", Old Time & Jug Bands...

OK, OK, I'm all over the place here. - Let me try to re-focus.

Many of you have found very unique voices on our instrument (Richard Hunter
& Ironman Mike Curtis are two more wildly divergent voices that come to
mind)
...in the case of the last 2, y'all have made your own way (almost
conspicuously) solo, but in the case of many of the others (especially
Hazmat Modine, I believe) it's really an ensemble thing, so the music that's
made is really a group effort, and the whole is greater than the sum of the
parts (not to take anything away from y'all as INDIVIDUAL artists!).

Now, I realize that ANY musical group is going to produce a "group effort",
but some ensembles are very predictable ("mannered", as Bill Barrett would
say), and some are just...OUT there!

So, for those of you who have been involved in dyanamic, unusual, creative
ensembles, where the heck do you FIND people like that to collaborate with?
Is it a matter of just happening to hear a tuba player you dig at the local
cafe? Was your brother-in-law a busking banjo player? Did you write to the
2nd chair oboe player at the philharmonic and invite him to sit in? Did THEY
all gravitate to YOU?

- -Scorcher
(solo)