[Harp-L] It's a Mad, Mad, Madcat World

["Bill Hines" <billhines4@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I happened to be on the other side of the world last week (Singapore)
about the same time as Peter "Madcat" Ruth. So I stopped by the
Harmonica Aficionados Society to check out his seminar on Wednesday
night. After hoofing it from my hotel down Hill street through Chinatown
and finding the small "Smith St", I was still a bit stumped. The street
consisted of mostly street vendor type outdoor restaurants and
tables/chairs right in the road. It was difficult finding the street
numbers on the tiny doors tucked away behind the various outdoor carts
of food. 

Finally I found the little 21B door and ascended the stairs. At the
first landing there was a mess of shoes. I get it, no shoes beyond this
point. There are many temples in Chinatown so this didn't surprise me.
Temple of the harp or something? Who knows. Off with the shoes and
upward, onward. Got to the room just after the 7:30pm start time and it
was narrow and pretty packed. Rows of chairs with a small table set up
front where I could see Madcat setting up, so I took my seat. Great,
excited crowd.

Madcat had a member of his band there, Chris Brubeck, son of jazz legend
Dave Brubeck. So after some intro chit chat, Madcat did a great version
of Take Five. He talked about positions, tunings, etc. Then did a nice
Peg O' My Heart (on chrom I believe). Then broke out some fun stuff, the
ukulele, jaw harp (never knew jaw harp could sound like that, wow!),
then a low A harp. Some guy said "well I have a double low F" and rushed
up to show it to Madcat and wanted him to play it. I could feel the
tension in the air. If it was me, I'd say "dude, no way I'm sticking
your harp in my mouth". But Madcat, being a trooper I guess, went right
ahead and played it. They guy then broke out several of his other harps
and asked Madcat to play. Maybe he doesn't mind, a bit gross to me! 

Anyway, everything Madcat played was met with great applause by the
group, mostly Asians of course. The room had lots of posters in Mandarin
of various harps, etc - Seydel and so forth, and performance posters.
They had a library they were working on building and Madcat donated some
of his materials to that as a nice gesture. Their host was a very nice
animated person who mostly addressed the crowd in Mandarin, and I had no
idea what he was saying but when they clapped, I clapped, when they
laughed, I laughed. He was probably saying look at that stupid yankee
sitting back there, who knows. 

It was funny when someone asked Madcat how to bend. He went through the
eeeeee-aaaaa-oooooh thing and the whole room was doing that noise
(without harps) and I worked hard not to bust out laughing. Madcat told
some funny stories, like when he had one of his 3 ever harp lessons,
with Big Walter Horton, that was pretty funny. 

When the night wrapped up I talked to Madcat for just a few minutes, to
defer to the locals there who don't get to have guests that often from
so far away. Nice guy. Too bad I didn't get to stay for his performances
Friday and Saturday with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. Anyone record
that? Heh.

Anyway, Madcat's on tour so if he's nearby catch his show, maybe he'll
speak to your group. It was a very informative and entertaining two
hours. A few of their local big shots played too, some nice stuff.

Oh yeah, I also went to the Crazy Elephant blues bar, the bass player
saw my harp shirt and asked me to bring my gear the next night, so I
did. I sat in for a few blues numbers, and started to pack up my gear.
The lead singer said "Where you going, I don't see any other harp
players around" so I stayed up. Later some Elvis impersonator wanders in
and they let him come up for a few tunes. So I uploaded a picture to the
google groups called MeAndTheKing.jpg (at
http://groups.google.com/group/harp-l), it was pretty fun. Someone
actually recorded a bit of it on the movie setting of their digital
still camera. Bad quality but it's at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWVehymMUZE. A bit of a train wreck
because the guy was all over the place, he looked at me to go then he
starts singing again, but fun.

Bill Hines
Hershey, PA