Hi there fans of Molasses Creek!
As many of you have probably guessed, officials at our home on Ocracoke Island, NC, declared evacuation yesterday to prepare visitors and residents for hurricane Irene. We had to cancel the Wednesday Ocrafolk Opry, and Thursday Molasses Creek shows at our Deepwater Theater so that we could race around securing our homes in anticipation of high winds and probable flood waters coming through the village. Move those picnic tables! Board those windows! Tie down those propane tanks!
For those of you unfamiliar with our island home, Ocracoke is 23 miles of the coast of North Carolina and is only accessible by ferry, a 2.5 hour ferry to the mainland "ports" of Swan Quarter and Cedar Island, or a 40 minute ferry ride to Hatteras Island to the north. Right now the track of hurricane Irene centers right over the Outer Banks, and although visitors are required to evacuate, the 950 island residents have approximately two more days to make the decision of whether they would like to leave or stay. Once winds reach 50 mph the ferries will stop running and your decision will have been made!
Currently, Fiddler Dave and family (Amy and son Lachlan), and Gary and Kitty (wife), are heading towards Chapel Hill and Burlington to sit out the storm, while Marcy and Lou are planning to hunker down on the island. Although all of the island businesses regretfully close their doors and hope for safe passage through the storm, some residents are taking advantage of this enforced vacation to spend a couple of days traveling and being tourists! Remaining Ocracokers gather together in safe houses wait out the fury of mother nature, playing and writing music, feasting, and telling stories.
The small Ocracoke School (K-12, 150 students) was actually set to begin tomorrow, but has obviously been postponed so that residents can prepare for Saturday afternoon landfall. During hurricanes we can almost be assured that the power will be out for a while, and that the village will see flooding. Sometimes the storm surge brings enough water into town so that motor boats and kayaks can travel down the streets. Fortunately, the water eventually washes over the and through the town and then out into the sound (or vice versa depending on where the wind is driving from).
Because the beaches of Ocracoke are all protected by the National Park Service, there is no building right at the dunes. We can only hope that the wisdom of past generations to place their houses tucked back towards the soundside will help us today in providing the most sheltered spots away from the wrath of the storms. But nature is fickle and time will tell. We will try to keep you posted on the storms effects on the island with updates from our island families . . . and perhaps some pictures!
Here's the band news!
Molasses Creek at Greenville Sunday in the Park
One of our favorite performances every year is Greenville Sunday in the Park in Greenville, NC. This year we narrowly evaded a stormy August 14th, but by the time 7 PM rolled around the temperature was perfect and the 600 attendees were ready to listen and dance. Our friends the Green Grass Cloggers were on hand to celebrate their 40th anniversary. Molasses Creek will be backing them up at a big birthday bash on Nov 5 at Wright Auditorium at UNC Greenville, NC. Tickets are on sale now at http://www.ecu.edu/cs-cfac/SRAPAS/. Hope to see you there! Thanks for the concert producer, Stuart Aronsen, for these great photos!
Molasses Creek featured on the Best of WUNC's Back Porch Music Sampler Vol 13
For 34 years, WUNC radio out of the University of Chapel Hill, NC has hosted a wonderful music program called "Back Porch Music." Hosts Freddy Jenkins and Keith Weston have kept the tapes (and CDs) rolling on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. Freddy and Keith chose Molasses Creek's "Red Haired Boy Meets Miss Liza" off of Molasses Creek's 9th release, Follow the Heron Home. For stations and online listening options visit http://wunc.org/programs/backporchmusic. Listen to the entire track at Molasses Creek's Follow the Heron Home page at http://www.molassescreek.com/heron.cfm
Fiddler Dave Appears in the German "Brigitte" Magazine
Over a year ago, German travel writer Beatrix Gerstberger came to Ocracoke Island to write about magical places along the coast of North Carolina. While on the island she interviewed Fiddler Dave, Fiddler Dave's wife Amy Howard, and her father Philip Howard. Little did Beatrix know before the interview that both Philip and Amy had spent time in Germany and had friends over there keeping an eye out for articles on friends in the states.
Fast forward to June of 2011, when one of Amy's friends in Berlin, Germany, Jule Heiniche, happened to pick up a copy of Brigitte while waiting for her hair cut at a salon. The magazine is a slick production akin to Cosmopolitan. Jule began leafing through the travel section and turned to an article on North Carolina (since she had just returned from a stateside visit earlier that month). Much to her surprise, she came across a picture of Fiddler Dave sitting on the steps of his father-in-law's gypsy wagon sawing away! "Geiger Dave Tweedie" hopes to tour to German hair salons with Molasses Creek sometimes next year! Perhaps a little curly perm? Here is a picture of the entire Molasses Creek crew around Philip Howard's styling travel trailer.
Photo by Ann Ehringhaus
Guitarland with Louie!
by Lou Castro
I can’t believe it, but lately I’ve found some great guitars! Or have these great guitars found me? I’ve been getting into jazz with my friend Serge Gracovetsky (not his real name) and tried many of my rock and roll guitars with the Ocracoke Jazz Society. I’ve always been a Hendrix freak so my guitars generally all have or can get a “single coil” pick up sound in the neck position. This is why I generally use Stratocasters or Fender/Strat type guitars for electric gigs. However, none of these could really deliver a nice full even tone across the strings (all over the fretboard). I even tried a Telecaster with heavy strings, but Serge kept saying “No,no,no, zees will not work. Zees is unacceptable. Zees will not do.” so I ended up “borrowing” Aaron Caswell’s (not his real name) hollow body Ibanez AF75-BS for a year.
In the meantime I shopped around for my own “jazz box” and finally found a fantastic deal in the Dean Palomino! This jazz box cost around $450.00-$500.00! I had Betsey Paulson, at the Music and Consignment Shop in Kill Devil Hills, order it, (she’s a Dean dealer). I removed the pickguard immediately and gave it to Jack Willis. This guitar does not rattle or have weird overtones. It has so much bass in the neck pick-up that I matched the Dean with a tube amp that I found to be painfully tinny and the combination is unbeatable!
This brings me to the features that made me choose the Dean over an Ibanez (whose stuff I love and own – used to work for ‘em. They are always innovating – more on that later!) I have lately been looking for an electric guitar with P-90’s like an old 50’s-60’s Gibson Les Paul, Les Paul Special, Les Paul Jr., Les Paul Jr. Doublecut(away) or Melodymaker for some screaming Duane Allman slide guitar tone. This guitar comes stock with three P-90’s and a 5 way pick-up selector switch so I can get jazz, country, blues, rockabilly, 50’s rock n roll, slide guitar AND strat sounds! Plus it has a rockin’ Florentine cutaway (pointy cutaway!) Leave it to a metal guitar company to come up with this screamer! I used it with the Ocracoke Rockers for Jim and Mary Ellen Piland’s (not their real names) party and took it for a stroll down the old rail at the community center! It’s a great guitar that can take a beating and plays all styles of music with class. It’s like a Gibson ES-175 with 3 P-90 pickups!!!!! It also has a sweet Treble Clef trapeze tailpiece and a natural blonde finish.
Anna O'Hara ~ Facebook fan
That's all for the time being. Keep checking back for updates! Here is our performance schedule!
Fiddler Dave, Gary, Marcy, Lou, & Gerald
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