As the old saying goes, when it rains it pours.

After the last couple of blog entries, I was happily contemplating a short retirement to enjoy Amber’s last years before college. I figured that by then, I would be ready to jump back into something and be refreshed. What I didn’t count on was the great people who have been helped in some small way by my videos and books. I want to thank each and every one of you that have gone out of your way to say some very nice things about what I do. After some serious contemplation, I will be back very, very soon.

I would be lying if I said that I don’t thoroughly enjoy making my videos, teaching and helping out anyone who asks. It has really been a great thing and I enjoy every single minute. It is a great feeling when someone you don’t know sends you a message from out of the blue thanking you for showing them how to play their favorite song or understanding a technique they had read about.

I had decided to go back to creating videos and teaching full time again when the other shoe dropped. There has been only one gig in the last 5 years that I have actually pursued. Usually someone calls me and then I’ll either do it, or give it to someone else. I’ve really enjoyed the intimacy of playing in a living room or backyard of someone’s home. I was getting the itch to go back on the road, but I didn’t really feel like scratching it yet. I had decided to perform at one place that is always great and treats me like family. I was ready to go there and do my thing when my email inbox starting filling up with potential gigs around the Midwest from out of the blue.

Needless to say, I said yes to all of them. I didn’t even hesitate. The itch was there and now it was being handed to me, so I just took it.

Now for those of you counting at home, that’s three full time jobs. My regular job, teaching and videos and now back to the pubs. What that means is that there will probably be less time for the teaching and videos so I have to prioritize what I want to do. Teaching means money, but the videos help many for free. What I decided after about 30 seconds of thinking about it is, my teaching is going to have to be scaled back. My plan is to still offer two videos a week, when I can and I’ll fit in lessons around everything else. Luckily, I’ve had a lot of “graduations” in the last few months so I am just not going to fill those slots.

If that was enough of a plateful to make a glutton think twice, I’ve decided to finish a project that I’ve been working on for a while. I had recorded some video of basic frailing/clawhammer techniques and gave them  to get feedback and pointers. It seems that I am on to something that can help people play banjo, so I am going to re-record the videos and produce them for purchase.

The project is called “The Folksinger’s Guide to Clawhammer and Frailing Banjo”. It covers all of the basics to get someone started on their journey to accompanying themselves and others with the 5-string banjo. It includes subjects such from tuning the banjo to the basic strum to drop thumbing to using the capo. It was a lot of fun making the prototype, but I am really looking forward to making the final copy.

So the plate is full, but I am still taking the weekend off!!! I’ll be back soon and until then, thank you very, very much for sticking with me!

Kelly

I first have to apologize for being gone for so long. My intention was get back to making videos and teaching as soon as I got back from vacation.

Once we got back, we had to get everything ready for Amber’s knee surgery. Once it was over I decided to take a few days off to get back into the swing of things. What I discovered is that I haven’t lead a normal life since I first joined the USAF in 1989. After being in the service for less than 6 months, I started taking college classes at night. I never really just went home and did nothing. I was always working during the day and then going to class at night.

Once I got out of the Air Force I started working full time while going to college full time. My nights were usually filled with work or homework depending on the day. Just as that was ending I started to perform at night and then got married. For my entire married life, I have either been going to a show, preparing for a show or now teaching or preparing to teach.

I have to say that I am really just enjoying life for the first time in my adult life. Now I go home and visit with Sandy and Amber, do a few things around the house and watch some TV with them. I am getting to be very, very spoiled. I never realized how much fun relaxing with the family on a daily basis can be. Usually I am jumping from lesson to lesson or processing a video or helping someone on a project.

I don’t know how long that I will be out, but it just feels good to actually go to bed and get up seven hours later instead of four hours later.

Now I get to spend time with Omega, my 18 year old tabby instead of letting him sleep for me.

Don’t worry, I won’t be gone forever, but it may be a week or so before I decide to give up the good life.

I have to apologize because this has to be the single longest piece of writing that I’ve done since my novel was shelved in ’96!

I just wanted to check in and say that I am still on vacation until May.
I went back to my day job, but I am still on vacation from teaching and making videos. Poor Amber is having knee surgery tomorrow so I am going to take off the next week or so to stay with her and help her get around.

I am not giving up because I have a lot of fun creating the videos. I usually make them at break-neck speed so that I have enough time to process and upload them. I am often asked, why I do these videos and the answer is really, really simple: PASSION!

You have to have passion if you want to be successful at anything. If you want to be a good banjo player, you have to have passion to achieve that goal. If you have a thimble full of talent and a bucket full of passion, you will be become what you want to be. Passion is the key to success with anything that you do in life. If you have passion you will push yourself to higher levels of achievement because it has become part of you. With passion, you won’t sit around and wait for the skill or ability to come to you, you will go out, grab it with both hands and beat it into submission.

There were two times in my life when passion led me to something better.
The first was playing Irish Pub Music in as many places as possible and the second was learning to play the banjo the way that I wanted to play the banjo. I was never really inspired to play like any other banjo player because I was inspired by the Irish bouzouki playing of Terry Murphy from Detroit, MI. I couldn’t stand playing the guitar and I really didn’t want to play the Irish bouzouki, but I thought that the banjo would be cool.

I have so much passion for these things that I’ve kept every email I have ever written or received since 1998 on performing and playing the banjo. Sandy tells me that I should just publish them as a book, but I don’t think there would be too much of market for that sort of thing. I am just glad that they are there and every once in a while, they inspire me to do something.

For over 10 years, I traveled the highways and byways of this country dragging a group of fun musicians with me to every Irish Pub we could find. I did everything that I wanted to do with Another Pint, because I had passion. I loved performing and I would do just about anything to make it happen. If a venue wanted me to be a guest on a local radio show, I made sure that I was either in the radio studio or on the phone with the host to plug the show. If I was asked to stay after the show and schmooze with the patrons to make them feel like they got their money’s worth, I did it. I would stay even if I had an eight hour drive home after the show. I traveled everywhere and anywhere, because I had a passion for it. I always wanted to go further, see different people, play somewhere new, mix it up with different musicians. I had a passion for the performance that made me a better performer and made me go not just the extra mile, but the extra time zone and region. I loved it because it was who and what I was; a traveling musician. There were many times that I turned down a regular local gig to travel somewhere new. I wanted to go somewhere else and experience that first night in front of a strange crowd as much as I could.

There were some places that I loved going back to again and again. Why? Because they had passion! They loved the music and knew what they wanted to hear and what they wanted the band to play. They knew the songs, the stories behind the songs and every version of the song that had been recorded. You could see it in their eyes, they weren’t just in the pub for a smoke and few pints. They were there because they wanted to hear the songs and sing along.

I’ve held off telling this story for years, because I didn’t want anyone that was involved in the venue to feel bad. The guys in the band call this episode the “Mick Foley Promo Night.” We had been playing in a particular pub for a long, long time and over the course of six months, the crowd started to dwindle. There was a new bar in town, just down the street that had loud music, cheap beer and waitresses wearing short skirts. They were killing this pub and you could see the writing on the wall.

The parking lot at the pub had more open parking spaces every time we went back and the other place had two overflow lots full of cars. It was just a matter of time before this pub went belly up. It was a long, long drive for me to get there. I would work a full day at work and then drive four hours to get to this place, but it was worth it because the patrons who were there, got it. They knew what kind of entertainment they wanted and they came every month to see us no matter what. I had performed the night before and went straight to work without more than a couple hours sleep and then drove all the way to this pub. When we walked in, the place was only half full. I knew the names of each and every one of the patrons. I remember it like it was yesterday. I had just finished reading some of “Have A Nice Day” by Mick Foley. I had read the book before and once a year or so, I would re-read it because his passion for his business was something that I could relate to. He would travel as far has humanly possible to get beaten up and make $25 or $30 because he had passion for what he did. I felt the same way. There were so many times that once I figured out hour many hours I spent performing and driving, I was under minimum wage.

I’m no Mick Foley, but, by God, I had passion too. As we were performing our first set, I kept looking out at the audience and saw that they were all singing along. But seeing all of those empty seats really started to bug me. The manager seemed happy as he told us that we brought in more people than the other bands, but I knew that there was no way they could keep paying us for what we were doing. I figured that it was our last night in this place and all of the passion that was inside of me for performing, came to the surface. Just before our last song of the set, I couldn’t contain my feelings any longer and gave the “Mick Foley Promo.”

I don’t like to brag and don’t have time for those that do, but I am very proud of my one and only “promo”. I have to say that as life-long wrestling fan, I can see how doing something like this and getting it right, could be very addictive. The only thing I can say in my defense is that I was possessed by the spirit of Mick Foley.

I remember it almost word for word, because I wrote it down at the behest of our fiddle player at the time. I have redacted the name of the venue, but everything else is here:

“You know folks, I am standing up here and I can’t help but be moved by what I see. When we started playing here a couple of years ago, this place was filled to capacity. There was a line out the door just to get in here. It was one of the loudest pubs I have ever been in during my entire life. Even with these monitors pointed directly at us, we could barely hear ourselves play.

I noticed then, that out of that sea of humanity that there were some that were here to listen to the songs. While the pub filled up with endless chatter there were those that moved closer to the stage so they could hear. There were some that begged us not to stop playing because they were enjoying what we did. They laughed at my jokes and learned the names of everyone in the band, bought us drinks and sat with us between sets to get to know us better.

I saw people with passion! People with a real passion to find the one place in this town that played the music you loved. And you came every time we were here. It didn’t matter to you what was going on down the street, you were here because you wanted to be. I see that passion today and I am damn glad to be here!

Some of you have asked me before, “Why do come so far to play here?” My answer has always been the same, I have a passion for it. It was that passion that got me to find these great musicians that are here with me today. It was that passion that had me put over a hundred thousand miles on my car in less than a year driving to shows all over the Midwest! It was that passion that brings me up here on this stage to sing this music for you! It was that passion that had me go bankrupt to continue doing what I do! It is that passion that will have me still singing these old songs when everyone else has moved on to rock and roll! It is that passion that will be marked on my tombstone, “He played what he loved!” when I am dead and buried! It is that passion that brings me here tonight to be here with you and, by God, it is that passion that will make me come back to see you all again! And I swear that it is that passion that will make me never quit!”

I signaled the band to go into the last song of the set and as they played they stared at me but I was too wound up to really notice it. I looked out into the crowd and they were giving a standing ovation and a couple of them had tears in their eyes. I really didn’t know what to think, as I was still riding on the adrenaline from my little speech. As soon as the last song was done, I bolted through the side door and sat down outside. The guys in the band weren’t too far behind me and I remember The Colonel laughing at me and saying “What was that?” I told him that something just pushed the right buttons and I knew I had to say something, but I didn’t know what I was saying as I said it. I just remember the guys in the band saying “That was awesome!” and patting me on the back. I told them that I thought I had channeled an old Mick Foley promo before his retirement and we all laughed together.

At that point the manager of the pub came outside and told me that he had never heard anything like that before. He promised me that we would continue to perform there every month until they closed their doors. We did!

Shortly after the pub closed, I started teaching the banjo and the passion that I had for performance started to transfer over to teaching.
First I did it face to face and then after being dragged into uploading videos on YouTube, I made the next step. Now I use that same passion for performing and put it into teaching and playing in people homes for private parties. I am very happy and spend more time at home. The only problem is that every once in a while, I look at my car and think, I know a new place only 6 hours away that would be a fun place to play……

Amber and I made it through 41 hours of vacation without sleep. We had a blast, but Sandy thought that we were crazy. We should have paid more attention to brushing our hair.

The three of us are having fun and I’ll post more pictures later

Kelly

I’m sorry folks that I didn’t give any notice, but I’ve been busy trying to catch up on some last minute things. I am on vacation for the next couple of weeks. I am not sure if I’ll be checking in or not because I’m planning on relaxing and drinking a lot of good, cold beer. If the mood strikes me, I may put up a video or two next week. I am taking the cameras with me, just in case!

I’ll see you all later in April!

Kelly

I am happy to announce a St. Patrick’s Day Sale at BanjoMania!

Order any product from the BanjoMania.net store and receive a free 30 minute Skype lesson! That’s a $30 gift, for free!

Order any time between Wednesday March 14th and Sunday March 18th to take advantage of this offer. You will be contacted by email after your purchase to set up the free lesson!

I really thought that I would have enough time to do some free videos this week, but this is the busiest week of my year and I can’t find the spare time to get it down.

We had a great gig at The Harp Irish Pub in Milwaukee, WI this last Saturday during the St.Patrick’s Day Parade. I love playing next to the water and getting to see the parade pass by.

I will see all of you after next weekend.

Until then,

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

I thought that I would kill two birds with one stone and answer some questions that I’ve been getting about what’s been going on the Griner household.

I uploaded the photo above to show the damage that I did to my leg last weekend. The other leg is not as bad, but the bruises go from my groin all the way to my knee. Sandy didn’t believe me on Saturday that I hurt myself. I think she thought that I was exaggerating. Once the bruises started forming and I couldn’t walk, she started to believe me. I was able to make it to work on Monday, but after doing too much I had to take Tuesday off. I am still hobbling around but it is getting better. The one thing I do know is that I will never play Whirlyball again without some kind of padding between me and the steering console.

I get asked many questions about my schedule and if I can take on new projects or help out on other websites. I have a very hectic schedule and I always have. For years I was gone from Thursday morning until Sunday afternoon until I finally decided that I needed to stay home once in awhile. My current schedule gives me a little more time with my family.

It’s hard to know where to start, so I’ll just use a typical day and go from there. I usually get up around 8 am and give Skype lessons until I have to wash dishes and leave the house to go work at 10 am. I am usually home around 9 pm and eat dinner while Sandy and Amber get ready for bed. At 10 pm, I start on the lessons again until around 2 am. Some time between 2 am and 4 am I go to bed and start all over again. I average about 4 hours of sleep a day and seems to keep me going for about a month or so until I decide to take a whole day off and sleep for 10 hours and then start again.

For a guy who teaches over the internet, I sure don’t get to use it much. I usually do a periodical check on BanjoMania.net and BanjoBandits.com, my YouTube channel and check Facebook and some news and I’m done. I have decided to cut back on some of the Skype lessons because I could really use some time off to work on some other things. As it stands now, I have about an hour and half block a week to record the Irish Pub Song Of The Day and Folk Song Of The Week, process them and have them ready for upload. Since it takes about 45 a piece to process, that doesn’t really leave time to actually record them. I kind of like the pressure because it is very close to live performances. If you haven’t stepped up on a stage and tried to hold the attention of a room full of drunks for four hours, you haven’t lived!

I love performing and teaching is just one more facet of performance. Life is good, even when you bruise yourself. Be brave, jump out there and sing and play even if your performance is just you on your porch. The worse thing that can happen is….you get addicted to it!

See you later this week,

Kelly

I had a great, great time this weekend. I went out with my wife Sandy and some friends to play Whirlyball on Saturday. For those of you that have never heard of it, it’s a cross of bumper cars, basketball and lacrosse.

The only problem that I had is that at six and a half feet tall and three hundred pounds, I BARELY fit into the cart. The steering is controlled by a joy stick that slammed into my legs every time that I hit someone on the court. I have huge bruises from my groin to my knees. It was a blast, but walking today is almost impossible.

To top it off, I had a three hour jam session today that was a practice for the new songs that will be performing this month since it’s the St. Patrick’s Day season. We had two mandolins, fiddle, Irish bouzouki, guitar, banjo and tinwhistle. I am horse from all of the singing and the moonshine that I had hoped would lubricate the old voice box.

To make a long story short, I had a blast this weekend, but there is no way I will be putting up a video for Monday. I hope to have the Folk Song Of The Week up later in the week.

Until then, have fun and don’t forget to sing!

The most frightening thing that can happen has indeed occurred!!!

Congratulations, Amber you now have a driver’s license.