Festivals and Photos – Travelogue

By slim dime | September 19, 2017

We love to travel and play in different places with different folk. Road trips are our kinda fun – Chris likes to drive and Jen likes to take photographs.

We’ve been very lucky over the last few months to be able to travel to some fantastic places, we live in a beautiful place and appreciate it all the more when we return after a road trip!

It’s a real challenge to get a good photograph from a moving vehicle and very satisfying when it works well.

The Kelly Country Pick is in beautiful Beechworth – always a real pleasure the visit a gorgeous town and have a pick with excellent musicians. KCP is all about the pickin’!

Kelly Country Pick 2017 — Beechworth, Victoria

We had a great time, a perfect mix of pickin’ and performing.

It’s lovely to live in a beautiful place – very inspiring, going away often inspires us to experience our area at home with fresh eyes.

We were very lucky to be invited to return to Wirrina Bluegrass & Acoustic Roots Festival this year- a great time and really great performers – we felt blessed to be in such excellent company!

So we hit he road again – headed for South Australia.

Wirrina Cove is on the gorgeous Fleurieu Peninsula, a real pleasure to visit.

Despite some incredibly wild, wet and windy weather – we endured…..

Thanks to Lisa Martin for recording us on Sunday, in the wild windy tent! Jen was very ill all weekend with the flu but we endured! This is our version of the Ola Belle Reed song – I’ve Endured, which was inspired by South Australia’s own Cherry Pickers version of the same.

It’s always a pleasure to jam with great musicians and Wirrina was no exception.

Slim Dime - Jen — At Wirrina 2017 – photo thanks to Ian Fisk

Slim Dime - Chris — At Wirrina 2017 – photo thanks to Ian Fisk

As usual the most intrepid Ian Fisk was there documenting both festivals. He has become a stalwart presence at most events.

After a wild weekend of weather the sun peeped out briefly……..

and the wild weather followed us home again.

for a fortnight of unusually cold weather all the way from Antarctica.

Which bought some fantastic clouds our way and some welcome rain.

We headed north, but not too far to our first Guildford Banjo Jamboree.

We had a fun banjo-centric set all prepared.

We enjoyed playing with fine folk all weekend.

And appreciated the gorgeous historic area.

As always all photos by Jennifer Land unless otherwise credited

Jen on instagram

4am and Pickin’ Oakum – Live at the Harrietville Caravan Park!

By slim dime | May 20, 2016

4am & Pickin’ Oakum – Two Instrumentals – Live at the Harrietville Caravan Park!

Instrumental songs are like picture books: they tell stories without words.

here’s one that is light

and one that is dark

and a story in pictures

all photographs taken in April 2016 while at the Mt Beauty Music Festival

by J. Land – instagram

“Estelle” – Live at the Harrietville Caravan Park!

By slim dime | May 18, 2016

We recently traveled to Harrietville for GAP – the Great Alpine Pick. We stayed in the most excellent on-site caravan. It was so terribly awesome that we filmed some videos there.

It had an autumnal burnt orange vibe that absolutely matched the beautiful Autumn weather.

I fell in love with it and took WAY too many photographs of it’s 1970’s splendor.

I particularly loved the bedside lamp.

“Estelle” is a song we wrote a few years ago and with the encouragement of our Goddaughter we dusted her off and added another verse. We recorded it recently and it will appear on our new album ‘Travelogue’ – which you can preview here.

Travelogue on Soundcloud

A classic folk song about share house living that tells the true, but sad story of Estelle, who owns only a few photos and a stained t-shirt as a result of her last few houses having burned down.

“Estelle” – Live at the Harrietville Caravan Park!

One of the reasons that we named our album ‘Travelogue’ is that we like to travel & I always take photographs as we go……. Here are some from that journey

Bonnie Doon

Mt Hotham

all photographs taken in April 2016 by J. Land – instagram

Recording – Travelogue

By slim dime | March 15, 2016

We’re just finished recording another album; it’s called Travelogue.

A Travelogue describes the experience of a traveler, often in images.

We recorded at Stovepipe Studios with Matt Walker and Rowan Matthews.

We prefer to record a live performance, preserving the human sounds of fingers on fret boards, breath and squeaky chair. It means it isn’t perfect, it feels more important to sound real in these times of heavily processed sound.

If you close your eyes we are sitting in the room with you, just two people playing music and singing.

We recorded 16 songs over a day and a half, with no overdubs.

It’s important to find the right studio for the songs. Matt and Rowan immediately understood what we were looking for. It is challenging to record a live performance in a studio environment but they were up for it. For those of you who have never recorded, it’s important to have nice clean recordings of each instrument/ voice without anything spilling over into it, which is very hard with a live recording when the room is filled with sound. With the help of some really lovely microphones and their technical know how they caught our performances beautifully with very little “cross contamination”.

After recording the songs all the tracks are mixed together – it’s a process……..

are we there yet?

Very soon we’ll have an album to share with you all – till then here’s a track from it we recorded by our friend Chris – “Coming Home”.

“Coming Home” – Summertime Sessions

By slim dime | February 4, 2016

With the help of our friend Chris we recorded our original song “Coming Home”.

This song has been, in one form or another, in the repertoire for a while now but recently got a rewrite, buff and polish and it’s come up a treat! It’s a two point perspective story, two sides of a situation, two voices each in turn.

We are all on a journey “Home” – to that place where we feel most ourselves, whether that be a geographical location, an internal sense of peace or the kinship found within a relationship.

unknown photographer - please let us know if it's you! — unknown photographer – please let us know if it’s you!

It can be hard to hear the lyrics clearly so they appear below. Chris plays banjo in the clawhammer style.

Coming Home – Lyrics & Music by Slim Dime

Oh don’t you roam

Oh don’t you go

Oh don’t you roam

So doggonne far from home

Oh don’t you cry

Oh don’t you sigh

Oh don’t you cry

Until I’m dead and gone

Oh don’t you know

Oh where to go?

Oh don’t you know

This long and lonely road

Darlin don’t you cry

You’re the apple of my eye

Darlin don’t you cry

Until I’m dead and gone

Oh you must know

This hard and heavy load

Oh you must know

this long and dusty road

Oh all alone

Please help me find my home

Nowhere left to go

Lord, please let me go

Oh Lonesome Road

So lost and alone

Oh Lonesome Road

Lord, please bring him home

Oh Lonesome Road

So far from home

Oh Lonesome Road

Lord, I’m coming home

Lord, I’m coming home

“I wish I was in Bowling Green” – Summertime Sessions

By slim dime | January 9, 2016

SlimSummerWeb — photo thanks to Chris Rickard

With the help of our friend Chris we recorded our version of the traditional song “I wish I was in Bowling Green”, which we learned from the Kossoy Sisters, adding to it with more lyrics: somethin’ old, somethin’ new, somethin’ borrowed & somethin’ blue.

The lyrics talk specifically about the town “Bowling Green” in Kentucky in the US of A, but the song for us is about the longing for that place that feels like home and a nostalgic recollection of the place you grew up in, or belong to.

A perfect home…….

Traditional songs last in popular culture because the message or meaning is timeless, continuously relevant, like any cliche there’s a deep truth enfolded inside,

Slim Dime play “I wish I was in Bowling Green”

Wish I was in Bowling Green

sittin’ in a chair

One arm round my pretty little girl

‘Tother ’round my dear

‘Tother ’round my dear,

Bowling Green

Oh you good old Bowling Green.

Wish I was a bumblebee

sailing through the air

Sail right down to my true love’s side,

Touch him if you dare.

Touch him if you dare,

Bowling Green

Oh you good old Bowling Green.

If you see that man of mine,

tell him once for me

If he loves another girl,

Yes I’II set him free

Yes I’II set him free,

Bowling Green

Oh you good old Bowling Green.

Goin’ through this whole wide world,

I’m goin’ through alone;

Goin’ through this whole wide world,

I ain’t got no home,

I ain’t got no home.

Bowling Green

Oh you good old Bowling Green.

Wish I was down in the South

where folks treat you kind

Listening to a pretty little song,

with that love of mine.

With that love of mine,

Bowling Green

Oh you good old Bowling Green.

Been around this whole wide world,

walkin’ all alone;

Goin’ through this whole wide world,

I ain’t got no home,

I ain’t got no home.

Bowling Green

Oh you good old Bowling Green.

I ain’t got a dollar Dear,

I ain’t got a dime

But I got a sweetie pie

who loves me all the time.

Loves me all the time,

Bowling Green

Oh you good old Bowling Green.

Goin’ back to Bowling Green,

any ole way I can;

when I get to Bowling Green,

I’ll never leave again,

Never leave again.

Bowling Green

Oh you good old Bowling Green.

“Shady Grove” – Spring Sessions

By slim dime | November 6, 2015

“Shady Grove” is a lovely Bluegrass standard, which many really great musicians have done versions of. One of our favourites would have to be Doc Watson’s.

Video still from "Shady Grove" — Video still from “Shady Grove”

Link to wikipedia entry on “Shady Grove“

We recently enlisted the help of our friend Chris to film us playing a few of our favourite cover songs/standards. All these clips were recorded with a Nikon D90 – the sound quality is pretty good considering we’re outside!

We don’t make a huge fuss about our guitars but we get asked a lot what we play. Jen plays a Martin LXM tenor guitar and Chris plays a Martin D00-18V acoustic guitar. Neither have pick ups – all acoustic!

So here’s a link to our version of “Shady Grove” – hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoy playing it!

“Take on me” – covering well known songs in a Slim Dime kinda way…………

By slim dime | October 14, 2015

We write our own music but we also enjoy doing covers of well known songs in a Slim Dime kinda way. Enormously successful in the 80’s, Euro synth pop hit, “Take On Me” – lyrics & music by Pal Waaktaar, Mags Furuholmen & Morten Harket is a great example. Although recognisable, without that synth tag it sounds totally different.

Video still - Take On Me — Video still – Take On Me

With the help of our friend Chris this was recorded September 2015 in a house more picturesque than ours on our trusty iPad so the image and sound quality isn’t excellent but it’s certainly good enough. God bless technology!

We decided to share this particular song because it isn’t something we’d ever put on an album but it is a song we put in the set along with country & bluegrass numbers. It has that lovely bittersweet quality that we love so. And it’s fun to surprise folk with something a little unexpected.

One of the memorable things about this song is singer Morten Harket’s incredible vocal range, we don’t do that either! It’s more fun to make a song your own than to mimic someone else.

Here’s a link to the original video, which has a happy albeit sweaty ending……

“Silver Tongue and Gold Plated Lies……..” – Spring Sessions

By slim dime | October 2, 2015

Despite having a really busy month, with the help of our friend Chris we recorded some wee home videos. She lives in a gorgeous house with a brilliant garden. The Spring blossoms were bloomin’ up a storm.

Sliver Tongue & Gold Plated Lies video still

Silver Tongue & Gold Plated Lies was written by K. T. Oslin – country stalwart songstress, although we learned it from Suzanne Thomas on the excellent album “O’ Sister – The Women’s Bluegrass Collection”.

We play it slow.

More like a blues song than a bluegrass number………

Lots of fantastic musicians play this excellent song – this is our version!

Everything we do, we do with a little help from our friends…….

thank you!