Sunday 10 August 2008

Car Boot Sale Report



One undoubted advantage of having access to the internet is finding local events - specifically car boot sales (although I should try to do it with folk clubs too, but that would involve some kind of planning ahead on my part). So there I was, 9am, in the drizzle... quite a good haul, though, and have added to the menagerie of instruments on the boat (none of which are worth anything, if there's boat burgulars reading this). The new item is the tiny blue accordion; quite a handy beast, actually, 12 bass and 22 treble notes (not quite the ful two octaves, frustratingly). I'd been thinking abotu bringing one and hadn't, and this one is quite playable. I do wonder if anyone else has driven a canal boat along the Caldon Canal whilst playing 'Theives like us' by New Order on the accordion...

The guitar & mandolin also both came from car boot sales, I realise, the guitar isn't bad sounding (and a bargain at £8 a couple of years ago), the mandolin was £25 and is very beaten up, but also very old, possibly a century's worth. I've noodled occasionally, but I really should do some blasted recording, or learen some new tunes, or something...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I do wonder if anyone else has driven a canal boat along the Caldon Canal whilst playing 'Theives like us' by New Order on the accordion...

*smiles*
Really enjoying this mental/aural picture!

MortimerBones said...

nice instruments - do they work, can you play them?

Simon said...

yes, & kind of... I used to be respectable at irish mandolin a long time ago. This one looks great but isn't a greatly playable instrument, but certainly my instrument of choice for a camp fire (to play, not to light it). It's pretty loud, too.

I played accordion for a political folkie called Robb Johnson for a couple of years (after joining as the mandolin player) - I couldn't really play it properly, I pretended it was some sort of acoustic hammond organ generally...

And everyone can play the guitar a bit, can't they?