Summary

Danny Barnes, the incredibly talented banjo player, just won the prestigious Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass. It's a huge recognition that really highlights his impressive musical journey. In this conversation, we dive into the different sides of his artistry, everything from his experimental electronic folk music to his deep roots in traditional bluegrass. This year is extra special for him as he’s starting on some exciting new projects, like a pure banjo album and even a unique blend of banjo and tuba. We also talk about how this award, along with its financial support, is giving him the freedom to focus on long-awaited projects that are finally coming to life. So, come along as we explore the many layers of Barnes's music and how his creative vision is leaving a mark on today’s music scene.

Here's What We Wrote in 2015

Danny Barnes returns to Country Fried Rock to discuss his recent accolade, the Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass. Barnes has two distinct audiences: those who know him for playing with bands ranging from Dave Matthews Band to the Butthole Surfers, and those who know him for his songwriting and wide-ranging banjo styles. The term “electronic folk” may have been coined just for him.

Barnes is fascinated by sound, and how incongruous sounds mesh or conflict. From the computer programs he designed to interpret his banjo or bazouki playing to his obsession with noise music and cassettes, Barnes is engrossed by the process as much as the product. This year, he released a special recording for Cassette Store Day on his cassette-label, Minner Bucket Records, and will release a more traditional bluegrass album later. Barnes’ take on “tradition” is anything but traditional, though, so it is guaranteed to be another fascinating investigation of technology and instrumentation.

***We also spoke with Barnes in 2010 and hope to find that hard drive.

Show Notes

• The latest episode features Danny Barnes, an influential banjo player known for his groundbreaking work in bluegrass and experimental music.
• Barnes recently won the prestigious Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass, and in this conversation, he reflects on the impact of that recognition on his creative journey.
• He explains how the financial support from the award is giving him the opportunity to pursue new artistic goals, including a long-awaited banjo album that captures his musical evolution and celebrates the instrument's pure sound.
• We dive into his diverse musical influences, from traditional bluegrass to experimental electronic compositions, and discuss how his upcoming banjo album represents a return to his roots.
• This album is just one side of Barnes’s creativity. He’s also continuing to push the boundaries of electronic music, blending genres in unique ways and challenging conventional ideas of what music can be.
• Barnes’s label, Minner Bucket Records, plays a big role in his approach to music. He values artistic independence and community engagement, and shares stories about his hand-crafted cassette releases, highlighting the personal connection they create with his audience.
• As the conversation unfolds, Barnes explores how bluegrass and electronic music, though different, share a common thread rooted in cultural tradition while embracing modern technology.
• This episode is a celebration of how bluegrass remains a vital and evolving art form, with Danny Barnes at the forefront of shaping its future through his innovative work.

Links

• Minner Bucket Records
• dannybarnes.com
• Danny Barnes on Bandcamp
• You might also like our conversation with Mike Mantoli of Hollis Brown
• After you buy music or go to a show, we would love your support with a few dollars in our Tip Jar
• Sloane Spencer now hosts a Gen X sleep podcast, Sleep with Rock Stars

Takeaways

• Danny Barnes has had an amazing year, winning the prestigious Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass, which is a huge recognition of his talent in the genre.
• His music spans a wide range of styles, from experimental electronic folk to classic bluegrass, proving just how versatile he is as an artist.
• Thanks to the financial support from the prize, Barnes now has the time and resources to finish several long-term projects, including a much-anticipated banjo album he's been working on for a while.
• Barnes is all about embracing technology to fuel his creativity, stressing the importance of using new tools while staying true to his artistic vision.
• His work with Minner Bucket Records is a great example of this. Not only does he release his own music, but he also supports and promotes other artists he believes in.
• Throughout the conversation, Barnes shares his belief that music and art have the power to transform, and he encourages others to innovate and express themselves authentically in their creative journey.

Chapters

• 00:02 - Danny Barnes: A New Chapter in Bluegrass
• 04:40 - The Journey of Music and Creativity
• 08:16 - The Evolution of Music Production
• 16:20 - Exploring the Intersection of Music and Technology
• 24:00 - The Evolution of Music Production
• 25:21 - The Allure of Cassette Players

Recommended If You Like

Danny Barnes, banjo player, Steve Martin Prize, bluegrass music, experimental folk, electronic music, Country Fried Rock, noise music, banjo recordings, Minner Bucket Records, Barnyard Electronics, cassette tapes, DIY music, underground artist, acoustic music, creative process, music production, sound manipulation, contemporary art in music, music collaborations

Transcript

Speaker A

00:00:00.160 - 00:00:39.860

Danny Barnes joins us again this week on Country Fried Rock. The upstart banjo player just won the Steve Martin prize for excellence in banjo and bluegrass.

While Barnes is often known for playing with other bands, his own work ranges from experimental electronic folk music. Yes, you heard that. Right. Through funky rock with a banjo all the way through. To noise music and a traditional bluegrass record on the way.

There's a whole lot going on this year with Danny Barnes on Country Fried Rock, and I'm your host, Sloan Spencer. My guest today on Country Fried Rock is Danny Barnes, a country fried rock alum from several years ago, following his record Pizza Box.

But, boy, has a lot happened since. Welcome.

Speaker B

00:00:40.100 - 00:00:41.780

Hey, Sloan. How are you guys doing?

Speaker A

00:00:41.780 - 00:00:46.340

Doing great. What an amazing, incredible year for you.

Speaker B

00:00:46.660 - 00:00:48.900

Yeah, I've been kind of busy, kind of wacky.

Speaker A

00:00:48.980 - 00:01:00.500

I first read about the Steve Martin Prize with the excellence in banjo and bluegrass, and I thought, what an amazing thing. And that was the first that I had heard about it.

Speaker B

00:01:01.380 - 00:02:04.200

Yeah, he's a pretty smart fella, and he's kind of figured out a way of. I don't know, it's pretty invigorating for artists, you know, to get a little bit of help and a little recognition.

If you kind of give someone that's a creative person a little bit of help, they tend to do interesting things with it and stuff. And he's a fan, a real fan of banjo. He just likes banjos and banjo music. And I don't know, he's pretty. Seems to be pretty obsessed with it and stuff.

And so him and I have a lot in common in that regard, I guess. But I think what he's doing is pretty smart, and it's really interesting that he would do that.

And the people that have won have been really different kinds of different. All different kinds of players. And then the folks he has on the board represent a lot of different kinds of players, too, like J.D. you know, J.D.

crow is one of the guys and all different people and stuff. It's real interesting. I don't know, I just think he's a.

He's a super smart man, and he's really figured out a way to give back in a pretty powerful way, you know, So I know my hat's off.

Speaker A

00:02:04.200 - 00:02:11.440

To him, you know, it's incredible. And the prize also comes with some significant financial support. What is that allowing you to do?

Speaker B

00:02:11.920 - 00:02:53.330

Well, a lot of things. One is, I've just got a lot of music that I've written that I haven't really been able to sort of commit to either tape or paper. Because I've been.

I have to work really hard, and I do, you know, 120 days a year, whatever, touring. So I'm out a lot and I have to work really hard. I put out a lot of recordings and I work really hard because I'm pretty far underground.

And so I have some projects that I sort of haven't really been able to finish because I've been working really hard on just trying to, you know, just keeping my business going and stuff. And so that kind of gives me a little breathing room on that. One of them is I've never really done like a straight up banjo record.

Speaker A

00:02:53.570 - 00:02:54.130

Yeah.

Speaker B

00:02:54.450 - 00:03:55.170

And I've been talking to some people about doing that.

And I'm excited about going to Nashville and getting some kind of straight up a team bluegrass player guys and just do just a straight up banjo record. You know, like, left to my own devices, I tend to blend like American music with like 20th century art or whatever.

You know, I compose music and noise music and things like that is what I'm interested in. And so I've never really made just a straight up banjo record. But I've been working on that stuff since 1971, which is 43 years or whatever.

So I've been working on it a long time, but I've never put any of that out. So I've been talking, been working on getting that done. And I have several different things I'm working on.

One is I have this suite of music that it's serial music or 12 tone music for banjo and tuba. It's like the most maligned instruments in the history of the world.

That has the most jokes about them, but some heavy music for those two instruments, which I thought would be kind of an interesting juxtaposition.

Speaker A

00:03:55.490 - 00:03:55.970

Cool.

Speaker B

00:03:56.130 - 00:04:36.160

And I've been working on that. I have a couple pieces done, but I need a little bit of time to finish it and record it and everything. And it's gonna help me do that this winter.

And I'm excited about that. And just things like that just. I don't really know. My response to everything is just make stuff.

So I don't know, it's like I don't really have a plan B. It's just. I just. Whatever happens, I just make something, I don't know, in response or whatever, as a.

As an answer to or to ask a question or whatever. I just tend to like make something so I don't really know what else to do. I'm like just a valve, you know, it just only does one thing or something.

Speaker A

00:04:37.200 - 00:04:51.980

Hey y', all, this is Sloane Spencer, the host of Country Fried Rock. We've had an incredible year with more finding us on the radio and our podcast than we ever imagined. Thank you all so much.

Careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

Speaker B

00:04:52.220 - 00:04:55.660

Hey, this is Danny Barnes and I'm on Country Fried Rock.

Speaker A

00:04:55.820 - 00:05:12.700

Well, I've followed you in social media for a long time and seen you play live many, many times. You do a lot of different things that I'm fascinated by. So you also have these cassettes that you hand do the covers for.

But then I think there's maybe more an official approach to some of these cassette releases.

Speaker B

00:05:12.700 - 00:08:22.500

Now sometimes I have them made, you know, depending on what I do. And I put out some cassettes on other artists too.

I have this little label that I run called Minner Bucket Records, which is M I N N E R Minner Bucket Records. And we have a bunch of stuff on our site that listeners can just stream for free and listen.

But I put out tapes on some other people that I like, friends of mine, and stuff that I think is interesting and needs to be heard. And I put out tapes of my own music. And sometimes if I gonna do like this one tape that I make called Barnyard Electronics, which is kinda like.

It's like the basic sort of palette of my, sort of my aesthetic, Barnyard Electronics on a cassette. And I have that going in perpetuity, that's not a fixed number.

But sometimes I'll do tapes where I just do like a hundred of them signed and numbered and they're sequentially numbered and everything and I'll hand draw the covers and all that. In that case, if I'm gonna make 100 of them or 200 of them, I'll. I'll have them duplicated. And if I.

For this particular run though, we were kind of up on it really close and I kind of had to crank them out. So I just made them at home. I just dubbed them at home. I just sat in front of two tape decks and just dubbed them off.

It took about three days to do it.

I made 50 copies and I just sat there and did them all by hand and just sat there and looked at those VU meters for about three 12 hour days or something. It took a long time, plus recording it and mixing it and mastering it. I mean that took like about a week probably. But I don't know.

I do these projects. I'm kind of like, I. I do like our first thing we did on did on Minter Bucket Records was a series of CDRs.

And there was a hundred of only 100 made, but every one had different music on it. And I'll have one name called the Pathos of Smack, which is a title I got from a Charles Dickens novel, Nicholas Nickleby.

But I did, I had 100 and they all had hand drawn covers. Like I'd take like a. Like a cereal box and cut it up and draw things on it and that would be like the COVID or whatever.

And I made a hundred of them and they were all different, you know, I sold them for $25 a piece and it took a lot of work, just a little bit of time. I had $2,500 free and clear. And it was like, whoa, man, this is pretty cool.

You know, because in music it's really hard to get actually get the money in the bank, you know, it's like you can spend so much time on your press releases and social media and manufacturing product and setting up tours, talking to people and legal stuff and setting up your publishing and doing. You can easily spend 50, 60 hours a week and never actually put a penny in the bank, you know. And that was like about the year 2000 or 1999 or so.

That's when it was like that was way before all this stuff was really happening. People doing self publishing back then, it wasn't really.

That wasn't what people were thinking about, you know, but it certainly turned on a little 40 watt appliance bulb in my head and sort of it interested me because it was something that I just did it directly to my fans and it was something that was super creative on an artistic level and it went straight to people that were really interested in music. And it was a lot of work though. If you can imagine a hundred different records, it was a lot of work, but it was fun.

Speaker A

00:08:23.140 - 00:08:44.780

You're constantly creating on so many different levels, I guess. I saw you play last live maybe a year ago and that was the first time that I had seen the app. I don't know if app isn't the right word.

You had made a program on your computer. We're making noise music. I don't even know the right terms to use, but it was the first time I had seen you perform in that kind of capacity.

Speaker B

00:08:45.420 - 00:09:58.980

Nice. I had to kind of figure out like programming and building programs because I couldn't find what I wanted. So I had to make it.

It was pretty good to do that because that launch opened up a whole new like world for me, was learning about programming and stuff and something. Something I Didn't really. I use computers a lot of my work, like in the office, respect or whatever and certain things.

But for recording, my training is actually in audio stuff. I use computers, obviously, a lot for that, but I never really created a platform for audio manipulation.

And it took about two years really, probably to get it where I kept tweaking it and having to play live with it and see, and then it would screw up and I'd go home and rebuild. Took a long time, you know, to test it where I could. And then, you know, I got where I could play.

Like, I did open up a show at Red Rocks for some friends of mine. There was. I don't know, there's probably 7,000 people there, but I could walk out there and do a set with my computer. And it was real solid.

And I got my stability up and got it really reliable and stuff like that. And I'm rebuilding. I'm constantly rebuilding it. And I'm starting on another version of it now. And I kind of been tweaking on that.

Speaker A

00:09:59.220 - 00:10:03.740

Is that something that you would like to collaborate with friends on, or is that more your way of seeing it?

Speaker B

00:10:03.740 - 00:13:22.580

It's kind of my thing, you know, Like, I like manipulating the banjo and making these kind of soundscape things. I feel like it's like something I have to offer artistically.

If you take commerce completely out of the picture and you're just talking about what does this guy do that's interesting or something.

Like, for me, making something that wasn't there before is kind of interesting, you know, I mean, I get known for songs and for playing the banjo and playing on people's records and things like that.

I think just my typical fan knows me more from that respect because I played on some record that they like, or maybe one of my songs or something was on a TV show they liked or they liked a song or something like that or whatever, or one of their friend or a band that they're into plays one of my songs or whatever and. But this is like something that I feel like is kind of like my own little tableau, so to speak, to create, you know, and things. And it's.

It's really invigorating and it's not really for everybody because it's kind of like a hybridization of various kinds of musics.

But I feel like, you know, I'm pretty driven about it and I really like it and it's really creative and it's kind of cool because, like, you can bend it and morph it sort of on the spot. Kind of like the way a DJ works, you know, you can kind of bend things in the moment.

And some people think of electronics as being real static kind...

Danny Barnes joins us again this week on Country Fried Rock. The upstart banjo player just won the Steve Martin prize for excellence in banjo and bluegrass.

While Barnes is often known for playing with other bands, his own work ranges from experimental electronic folk music. Yes, you heard that. Right. Through funky rock with a banjo all the way through. To noise music and a traditional bluegrass record on the way.

There's a whole lot going on this year with Danny Barnes on Country Fried Rock, and I'm your host, Sloan Spencer. My guest today on Country Fried Rock is Danny Barnes, a country fried rock alum from several years ago, following his record Pizza Box.

But, boy, has a lot happened since. Welcome.

Hey, Sloan. How are you guys doing?

Doing great. What an amazing, incredible year for you.

Yeah, I've been kind of busy, kind of wacky.

I first read about the Steve Martin Prize with the excellence in banjo and bluegrass, and I thought, what an amazing thing. And that was the first that I had heard about it.

Yeah, he's a pretty smart fella, and he's kind of figured out a way of. I don't know, it's pretty invigorating for artists, you know, to get a little bit of help and a little recognition.

If you kind of give someone that's a creative person a little bit of help, they tend to do interesting things with it and stuff. And he's a fan, a real fan of banjo. He just likes banjos and banjo music. And I don't know, he's pretty. Seems to be pretty obsessed with it and stuff.

And so him and I have a lot in common in that regard, I guess. But I think what he's doing is pretty smart, and it's really interesting that he would do that.

And the people that have won have been really different kinds of different. All different kinds of players. And then the folks he has on the board represent a lot of different kinds of players, too, like J.D. you know, J.D.

crow is one of the guys and all different people and stuff. It's real interesting. I don't know, I just think he's a.

He's a super smart man, and he's really figured out a way to give back in a pretty powerful way, you know, So I know my hat's off.

To him, you know, it's incredible. And the prize also comes with some significant financial support. What is that allowing you to do?

Well, a lot of things. One is, I've just got a lot of music that I've written that I haven't really been able to sort of commit to either tape or paper. Because I've been.

I have to work really hard, and I do, you know, 120 days a year, whatever, touring. So I'm out a lot and I have to work really hard. I put out a lot of recordings and I work really hard because I'm pretty far underground.

And so I have some projects that I sort of haven't really been able to finish because I've been working really hard on just trying to, you know, just keeping my business going and stuff. And so that kind of gives me a little breathing room on that. One of them is I've never really done like a straight up banjo record.

Yeah.

And I've been talking to some people about doing that.

And I'm excited about going to Nashville and getting some kind of straight up a team bluegrass player guys and just do just a straight up banjo record. You know, like, left to my own devices, I tend to blend like American music with like 20th century art or whatever.

So I've been working on it a long time, but I've never put any of that out. So I've been talking, been working on getting that done. And I have several different things I'm working on.

One is I have this suite of music that it's serial music or 12 tone music for banjo and tuba. It's like the most maligned instruments in the history of the world.

That has the most jokes about them, but some heavy music for those two instruments, which I thought would be kind of an interesting juxtaposition.

Cool.

And I've been working on that. I have a couple pieces done, but I need a little bit of time to finish it and record it and everything. And it's gonna help me do that this winter.

And I'm excited about that. And just things like that just. I don't really know. My response to everything is just make stuff.

So I don't know, it's like I don't really have a plan B. It's just. I just. Whatever happens, I just make something, I don't know, in response or whatever, as a.

As an answer to or to ask a question or whatever. I just tend to like make something so I don't really know what else to do. I'm like just a valve, you know, it just only does one thing or something.

Hey y', all, this is Sloane Spencer, the host of Country Fried Rock. We've had an incredible year with more finding us on the radio and our podcast than we ever imagined. Thank you all so much.

Careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

Hey, this is Danny Barnes and I'm on Country Fried Rock.

Well, I've followed you in social media for a long time and seen you play live many, many times. You do a lot of different things that I'm fascinated by. So you also have these cassettes that you hand do the covers for.

But then I think there's maybe more an official approach to some of these cassette releases.

Now sometimes I have them made, you know, depending on what I do. And I put out some cassettes on other artists too.

I have this little label that I run called Minner Bucket Records, which is M I N N E R Minner Bucket Records. And we have a bunch of stuff on our site that listeners can just stream for free and listen.

But I put out tapes on some other people that I like, friends of mine, and stuff that I think is interesting and needs to be heard. And I put out tapes of my own music. And sometimes if I gonna do like this one tape that I make called Barnyard Electronics, which is kinda like.

It's like the basic sort of palette of my, sort of my aesthetic, Barnyard Electronics on a cassette. And I have that going in perpetuity, that's not a fixed number.

But sometimes I'll do tapes where I just do like a hundred of them signed and numbered and they're sequentially numbered and everything and I'll hand draw the covers and all that. In that case, if I'm gonna make 100 of them or 200 of them, I'll. I'll have them duplicated. And if I.

For this particular run though, we were kind of up on it really close and I kind of had to crank them out. So I just made them at home. I just dubbed them at home. I just sat in front of two tape decks and just dubbed them off.

It took about three days to do it.

I made 50 copies and I just sat there and did them all by hand and just sat there and looked at those VU meters for about three 12 hour days or something. It took a long time, plus recording it and mixing it and mastering it. I mean that took like about a week probably. But I don't know.

I do these projects. I'm kind of like, I. I do like our first thing we did on did on Minter Bucket Records was a series of CDRs.

And there was a hundred of only 100 made, but every one had different music on it. And I'll have one name called the Pathos of Smack, which is a title I got from a Charles Dickens novel, Nicholas Nickleby.

But I did, I had 100 and they all had hand drawn covers. Like I'd take like a. Like a cereal box and cut it up and draw things on it and that would be like the COVID or whatever.

And I made a hundred of them and they were all different, you know, I sold them for $25 a piece and it took a lot of work, just a little bit of time. I had $2,500 free and clear. And it was like, whoa, man, this is pretty cool.

That's when it was like that was way before all this stuff was really happening. People doing self publishing back then, it wasn't really.

That wasn't what people were thinking about, you know, but it certainly turned on a little 40 watt appliance bulb in my head and sort of it interested me because it was something that I just did it directly to my fans and it was something that was super creative on an artistic level and it went straight to people that were really interested in music. And it was a lot of work though. If you can imagine a hundred different records, it was a lot of work, but it was fun.

You're constantly creating on so many different levels, I guess. I saw you play last live maybe a year ago and that was the first time that I had seen the app. I don't know if app isn't the right word.

You had made a program on your computer. We're making noise music. I don't even know the right terms to use, but it was the first time I had seen you perform in that kind of capacity.

Nice. I had to kind of figure out like programming and building programs because I couldn't find what I wanted. So I had to make it.

It was pretty good to do that because that launch opened up a whole new like world for me, was learning about programming and stuff and something. Something I Didn't really. I use computers a lot of my work, like in the office, respect or whatever and certain things.

But for recording, my training is actually in audio stuff. I use computers, obviously, a lot for that, but I never really created a platform for audio manipulation.

And it took about two years really, probably to get it where I kept tweaking it and having to play live with it and see, and then it would screw up and I'd go home and rebuild. Took a long time, you know, to test it where I could. And then, you know, I got where I could play.

Like, I did open up a show at Red Rocks for some friends of mine. There was. I don't know, there's probably 7,000 people there, but I could walk out there and do a set with my computer. And it was real solid.

And I got my stability up and got it really reliable and stuff like that. And I'm rebuilding. I'm constantly rebuilding it. And I'm starting on another version of it now. And I kind of been tweaking on that.

Is that something that you would like to collaborate with friends on, or is that more your way of seeing it?

It's kind of my thing, you know, Like, I like manipulating the banjo and making these kind of soundscape things. I feel like it's like something I have to offer artistically.

If you take commerce completely out of the picture and you're just talking about what does this guy do that's interesting or something.

Like, for me, making something that wasn't there before is kind of interesting, you know, I mean, I get known for songs and for playing the banjo and playing on people's records and things like that.

I think just my typical fan knows me more from that respect because I played on some record that they like, or maybe one of my songs or something was on a TV show they liked or they liked a song or something like that or whatever, or one of their friend or a band that they're into plays one of my songs or whatever and. But this is like something that I feel like is kind of like my own little tableau, so to speak, to create, you know, and things. And it's.

It's really invigorating and it's not really for everybody because it's kind of like a hybridization of various kinds of musics.

But I feel like, you know, I'm pretty driven about it and I really like it and it's really creative and it's kind of cool because, like, you can bend it and morph it sort of on the spot. Kind of like the way a DJ works, you know, you can kind of bend things in the moment.

And some people think of electronics as being real static kind of thing. But the way this.

The kind of people that I'm interested in in that world and the way that I kind of set up my program is where you can bend it and morph it and make other things out of it, you know, like, I can sort of play and grab anything that I'm doing. I can grab it. I can pitch shift it way down and make kind of a bass line out of it.

Or I can make it go really high and play it backwards to make sort of like a. Like a string pad thing almost. And I can turn on reverbs and delays and compressors and distortions.

And then I have different kinds of samples I can play and things. And it's just kind of a fun thing, you know, it's kind of a laboratory deal. But I feel like it's important because it's like when. If you look at.

If you look at Bill Monroe, say, a lot of times when musicians are inspired by Bill Monroe or something, they want to go get a tie like that, you know, they want to get a hat like that, you know, or learn some of those songs and don't use drums, you know, and do this thing kind of like that. But that's not really. Like the Sufis have this thing like, don't copy someone's altruism.

Copy what makes them do altruistic things or something like that, you know. And so Monroe, in context, embraced technology. And that's something. I don't know. People don't. Really. Don't think about that now.

But if you go back in time, he mastered the art of radio and recordings, you know, which a lot of his contemporaries or some of his contemporaries were very suspicious of that, you know, and they didn't want to be recorded. A perfect example is Ed Haley.

And you've probably heard about John Hartford talking about Ed Haley, who was a great fiddler, but there's very little recordings of him because he didn't want to be recorded because he wanted you to pay him to come play. And he makes a really valid point. You know, in hindsight, he's the guy's like Nostradamus or something.

But anyway, so I've talked to John Hartford about that, too. Like, in copying Bill Monroe, if you really wanted to copy Bill Monroe, you have to go make your own style of music.

Hey, y', all, this is Sloane Spencer, the host of Country Fried Rock. Those Of y' all who listen on our podcasts, it's a quick hit of just the conversation.

If you want the full radio program with all the songs that we talk about, ask for it on your local radio station, joining 20 other stations across the country. Get the goods@country friedrock.org hey, this is.

Danny Barnes and I got a bunch of new music out. You can go to my website at www.minnerbucketrecords which is M I N N E R. And I got a new cassette called the Barnyard Space program.

There's only 50 copies made. And I got a brand new record coming out, a brand new CD coming out on Black Friday called Got Myself Together. Thank you.

It's kind of a like punk rock view of things.

Absolutely. Because when punk rock first exploded, it was very informed by art. I was really into that man Richard Hell in the Voidoids.

And you can tell by his poetry that he had read Rimbaud. Rimbo. Have you say that guy's name? Baudelaire. Those kind of. Yeah, those kind of existential kind of things. And like some of the.

Maybe like Jean Paul Sartre and certain kinds of like post structuralism kind of things or whatever had popped up sort of thematically in what he was talking about.

And a lot of those guys, you know, like the Clash and a lot of those guys were really well informed on like contemporary art, cut and paste and things like that.

And it's interesting that a lot of that type of contemporary art, like Stravinsky and like Man Ray and Gertrude Stein and, you know, those kind of characters, they were kind of born about the.

Same time as bluegrass, which is kind of crazy.

It's kind of interesting to me, you know, like that all kind of came out of that same time in a way. Like, it's really interesting, kind of like that post World War I kind of explosion of stuff. And I always found that to be interesting.

Like electronic music and bluegrass music are sort of contemporaneous.

You know, a lot of the orchestrations that, like technically that Monroe was using and things, and Chuck Berry too, sort of came from big band in a way. Like some of their things was kind of reminiscent of like big band stuff sort of.

To me, like the horn parts and the chop parts and sometimes the walking bass and various things like that sort of reminded me of these larger ensembles that you might have heard on the radio.

The way things would switch off, you know, like one person solos and like, it's like in old time fiddle music, like people kind of all play at the same time, for instance.

But if you listen to Chuck Berry, like to me, a lot of his chordal movements, especially those block chords, are almost like the horn parts of like Benny Goodman records and stuff.

And so it's like the technology using a mandolin and a banjo and a fiddle and a bass, just using four or five guys and recorded through like an RCA 77 ribbon mic with an Ampex tube compressor going to a 1 inch mono tape. The technology of that allowed them to sort of sound like a huge orchestra.

So it's like it gave someone who wasn't quite maybe like economically as advantaged as.

I mean, it would take a lot of dough to get the Benny Goodman orchestra to come play, you know, and it would give someone who just had, you know, like a little bit more limited deal the access to that same power sonically. And I think that's kind of like what electronics approach does to someone like me is it gives me like a.

It gives me a lot of power as one person because I can build these giant things. It gives a smaller group a lot of power, a smaller person a lot of power. You know, like for instance, I can.

This is a silly super elemental example, but I can go on old records and find a bass drum hit all by itself. It's like a perfect bass drum hit that's like a really cool old kit.

A really great musician that tuned it perfectly recorded with all this vintage gear, perfectly compressed and limited and EQ'd and it goes to record, which sounds awesome. And then I can grab that hit and use it as a bass drum in a piece via sampling.

And if, like, if I write something for a drummer and I go into a studio, a good studio is going to cost me about 800 bucks. You know, the drummer himself is going to cost four or five hundred dollars. It's going to take about four to five hours to get it mic'd up right.

And I haven't even made anything. I haven't even gotten one thing yet. And I'm already down, you know, $1,400 and we haven't even got a sound yet.

And like that way it allows me to work really fast and allows me to, in terms of like the open source kind of model, you know, it allows me to take things and make other things out of them. Kind of like a Creative Commons kind of approach or whatever. It allows me to build things out of other things.

And I suppose it's a bit like the bricolage technique, it means bricklayer, but it's like I don't really do much rock work.

But like you have to use the materials at hand and you have to like work with what you have, you know, like when you get to this job site, maybe there's a tree there and that fence is going to have to kind of go around that or whatever. You got to work with what you got and you have limited things but you use the materials at hand to complete the job.

And so I don't know, it's like there's a lot to it there. But I get a lot of inspiration from like just contemporary art and the way a lot of those guys were able to make things and stuff like that.

It just kind of inspires me to find my own power. Even though I'm just one person and you know, I'm just, I'm a small person and I'm kind of an underground artist, you know, I'm like beyond.

I'm like a subgenre of a sub genre. So I'm like way down there, you know.

So I have to really, any chance I get to do kind of an end run around something and have a little bit of power, I really got to make sure that I seize it, you know, and make full use of it. So that's just kind of like what electronics allows me to do. And like building programs.

You get to boss the computer around, you know, instead of like get a daw, which is a digital audio workstation, like you get like Pro Tools for example, you get a copy of Pro Tools, it's going to set you back, you know, the computer and interface and everything to run a Pro Tools rig. If you get it all new, it's going to cost you a couple of grand or whatever. Maybe more, a little less. Maybe you get it used less.

Of course it'd be a lot cheaper to use a Linux computer and use a Ardor or one of the open source daws would be a lot cheaper. I really think that open source stuff is like the wave of the future. Whether you like it or not, you know, but anyway.

But like you have to kind of work with what it. Like it'll have a workflow that it wants to really impose on what you're doing. You have to kind of learn.

You ever notice that with a software you kind of got to figure out for me anyway. You got to figure out what they're wanting you to do with the data.

Totally.

It's not really in the manual. You kind of just got to figure it out.

Like if you're trying to learn how to use Photoshop or Excel or something like you just gotta to figure out what they're wanting you to do with the data, like with building things.

I use this platform called Max msp, which is open source in that these real smart people put up these modules and you can download them and then crack them open and take bits that you like or change it or whatever. You have to buy into the platform, like the language itself.

The little platform is like I think about $500 to get it, but then you can just make anything you want. And it's open source in that you can get into things, you know, like a copy, a word. You can't crack it open and mess with the code.

You got to use it kind of as it is. Some of that stuff is like slot cars, you know, you kind of got to go around that sort.

That's how you're going to go, you know, you got to go that way, you know what I mean? Or whatever. It's like set in stone.

But that kind of stuff is pretty exciting from art because you can finally tell the computer what to do rather than it telling you what you got to do.

I'm your host, Sloane Spencer. You can keep in touch with us on Facebook.

But I really like Twitter where we are Pride rock ending with R O K. And if you want to see pictures of my shoes, my dog and my lunch, stop by Instagram. But whatever way you like to hang out, stop by and say, hey, hey.

This is Danny Barnes. If you want to know more about my music and where I'm playing and stuff, you can look@www.dannybarnes.com.

Maybe about 10 years ago there was Get Myself Together, but now you have a. The new version.

Well, we had this record, I put out this record. These real good friends of mine with a label called Terminus Records put out this record called Get Myself Together.

And then they came about in a real tough time in the business. They started selling CDs at like a rough time, you know. So they ended up closing the doors on the place.

And so this record, it was really kind of like my last acoustic record.

Really like pretty much after that I sort of abandoned for various reasons, like acoustic stuff and just was all my records were much more experimental and electronic and rock based or noise based or whatever after that. And it sort of represented like my last like acoustic effort, so to speak. And I get a lot of fan mail about it and people really like that record.

It's really hard to find. Like I think there was one on ebay that was selling for $72, like DVD. Holy cow. Yeah, they're out of print. You can't get them.

And you can download it, I guess, but you can't get the stuff. They're hard to get. And I have a few. I should. I'm gonna keep mine, but anyways, so this record company down there, there's a producer, Lloyd Mains.

I don't know if you know him or not, but Lloyd. I've been told that Lloyd uses that record to tune when he's gonna mix an acoustic record. He like plays that record to listen to it, you know.

That's amazing.

We did a really good job of getting the sounds on that record anyway, but it's. You can't get it.

And so this label came to me and said, hey, you know what would be really cool is if you just redid all those as you would play them now, you know, just redo the whole record. And so it's not. That's not the kind of idea that I would come up with, you know, because it's like, I don't think like that.

Like, I think like, oh, well, we'll do a whole record backwards or something. You know how I would think of it?

Or I'll do the whole thing, I'll print it on vinyl, I'll play it over a PA and then mock the page and then we'll press that, you know, like, that's the kind of stuff I come up with, you know, we'll put all the amps in the bushes or something. But anyway, they came to me with that idea and they were fan.

Like the two people that run the label were fans of that record and wanted me to do that. And so I thought that'd be fun to do.

And so I was in a situation where I had a little bit of time and I just sat down and worked on it really hard for couple of weeks and mixed and mastered it. And I think we got something really cool. It's interesting because I approached them really differently, you know, because it was just me, really.

I was engineering myself and just kind of playing around my kitchen table. And plus I've been practicing and taking lessons and studying for 10 years. So I feel like vocally and performance wise, my playing was a lot better.

So it's interesting and it turned out really well and I was really excited about it. And it's pretty small. I really am interested in minimalism, you know, so it's like. It's pretty small.

Orchestrations are small, but it turned out really well. I'm proud of it. And it comes out on Black Friday tour coming up in Texas. And a lot of touring next year behind that record and stuff.

Is there another record also?

I have a cassette that's coming out for Cassette Store Day, called the Barnyard Space Program.

And is that more of the electronic noise?

Yeah, and there's only 50 of those made. The handmade. I made those at home. And that comes out on Cassette Store Day, which. There's not very many copies of that.

So if you want one, you better get them. There's only 50. They're numbered one through 50. It was really fun. I like doing stuff like that. I mean, it's really, like.

Cassettes are really funny because you immediately eliminate all the people that aren't, like, really into music, you know? It's like the only people that pick up a tape and look at it at a merch table are, like, total music freaks, you know?

Like, one time I played over here in Seattle, and there was a kid about 25 years old working the door. The manager of the club or the owner of the club or whatever comes over and he says, you got anything to sell? And I said, well, I have some tapes.

You know, I had these two tapes or whatever, and I have a 45, you know. And he's like, why did you make all that? Or something? And then right as he said that, the kid walks up and he goes, you have tapes?

I'll take all your tapes. The kid was like, I love tapes. I'll take all the tapes. Give me two or three copies of each tape. I'll give them to my friends. He's like, okay.

See what I mean? It's like, you know, And I'm the kind of person where if I'm in a venue and there's somebody selling tapes, I'll buy it no matter what it is.

You know, if it's just like, a sound. If a guy just recorded his blender going, I'm gonna. Oh, I gotta have that, you know?

Anyway, I picked up a really nice Tascam cassette player.

Yeah, I love them. I love them. I rebuild them and fix them up and put them together again. And I'm into them. I'm really into those jam boxes. I have about 20 of them.

I like those metal frame, stereo, single W, non auto, reverse cassette players.

Okay. Yeah.

And they have, like. Usually the radios on them are really good because antenna is tuned to the wattage of the receiver.

Yes.

And so the radios are really good on them. They really are good.

And it's like the last actually really good AM radios that were Made with those jam boxes, you know, and they're AM fm, you know, but they're. Man, they're awesome. And I love those machines. And I constantly buy them and fix them and sell them and work on them and Stu. Cool.

They're really fun to have.

You know what I like about it is you can be listening to a tape at home, and then I can get in my van and bring my jambox and it sounds exactly the same. And if I go over to somebody's house, I take the machine in and it sounds the same.

You know, instead of having a piece of music that you play at home, and then you get in your car and you listen to it and it's a little different, you know, and you get in your house or whatever, and you put your headphones on, your earbuds or whatever, and it's always different. But with that thing, you can just take the machine around with you. And it's always the same. Yes. I don't know. I just.

I think those things are pretty fun. They have. They have, like, a certain kind of noise floor that I find is really flattering to music.

You know, for instance, like, if you shine a colored light on a stage, it doesn't really. You can't see it, but when you pump a little fog, then you can see it.

Like a little bit of distortion or a little bit of filtering or something brings out some of the points. And so it's like. I like. I think that noise floor of audio tape is really flattering to music. And I like listening to music like that.

It's funny, too, because, like, tapes sound slightly different when you play it again.

Tape speed is really slow, and there's like, this inherent sort of wow and flutter that if you play something and you play it again, it's just a little bit different. Really compelled by that sort of thing.

I'm not savvy enough to pick up on that, but I could pick up on it when it would start to stretch over time from vigorous rewinding.

Well, it's sloughing off oxide, too, as it goes. So every time it plays, it, like, sloughs off some of the dust and stuff. And yet it'll go over the head in a little bit different way.

And it has, like, this inherent wow and flutter. Like the thing that's got this kind of cycle to the wow and flutter, which is like the inherent sort of speed differential or whatever.

It's not constant. It's kind of up and down a little bit. And since that's variable, if you Play it again. It does it in a little bit different place or whatever.

It's hard to explain, but the speed is so slow, it's not really consistent. It's like an inch and three quarter, I think, per second. So it's really just creeping by, you.

Know, I'm gonna sit and play with my cassette player tonight and see if I can hear that because I've never thought about this before and I can't say that I have any.

You know, the guitar on Street Fighting man, those acoustics, I think those are going into a cassette deck. I was told those were. You know, if you listen to the guitar super compressed and it's sort of distorted but not. It's like.

I think they were using like a Phillips cassette deck sort of as like a little preamp or something. Like I read that somewhere.

I don't know about that, but I'm.

Certainly gonna go back and play like, especially if you got it on vinyl, you know, that's a beggar's banquet or whatever.

Thank you.

Yeah, give that a listen. If I'm not mistaken, they recorded. They ran that through a cassette deck or whatever.

There's like this cool, like kind of overall compression and stuff. It's pretty. It's pretty flat. It's flattering to music. I mean, that kind of stuff is flattering.

Danny Barnes, thank you so, so much for checking back in with us at Country Fried Rock.

No problem. Thanks for playing my records and thanks for asking me about it.

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