The Bubbadinos – My Country Band

Mark Weber | 27 feb 1999 | Photo: James Gale

The idea that became the Bubbadinos came to me during my exile in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1986. Living so far from home I began to think about my family and family history and growing up playing country music with my granddad in California.

1991 my wife and I found ourselves in Albuquerque. And by 1995 it was time to make the idea a reality. I had had all of those yearsto think about it and to scout out musicians and I have to brag and say I sure picked a perfect bunch of guys for this operation. This was no hodge podge of merely whoever happened to be available. I wanted these particular musicians.

Manny Rettinger | click the image to enlarge…

All of the early sessions were done at the old Ubik Studios at Buena Vista & Gold in Albuquerque, on the 2nd floor. Manny Rettinger was the engineer and chief punter. (I swear, some of that stuff we recorded sounded so gawd awful and he’d come running out of his booth all excited at how amazing it was — I’d be sitting there with my guitar and headphones and look up at him thinking, WHEW what IS this guy smoking?) Well, that first session was a deal where I wanted to record some of the songs I used to do with my grandfather. I had intentions of doing a CD of music and poetry on the subject of Okies. But, after that first session the whole thing just got out of hand. And I should say here that the Bubbadinos became a thing unto itself, I take no credit for it, ha ha ha. It had a mind of its own completely outside my feeble idea of what I had originally planned. In fact, singing in that band was like trying to hold onto a skinny tree in a tornado. There were some titanic personalities amongst that ensemble and behind the recording console and the energy at the center of that music was like a powder keg and when it went off we all held on for dear life. It was an explosion. A maelstrom. There was nothing bland about the Bubbadinos when they were making music.

My heritage is Ulster-Scot and Ken’s is Catholic and as you’ll recall from Irish history it’s been since 1600 (the siege of Derry, 1689) that we havent gotten along too well. Dino claims he’s descended from Vikings. Weaver is descended from English. Stefan is a native New Mexican and studied microtones with Joe Maneri at New England Conservatory. Manny’s mother is Apache. Mary is full-blooded Navajo. Quincy is Ulster-Scot. So, that was our blood lines. The spirits of our ancestors ranged war in the studio. We raised Hell.

The thing was the core quintet was comprised of three hardcore avant-garde motherfuckers and me and Ken were the normal guys. Ken is a long-time member of the band Bayou Seco and has a history that includes playing with the Balfa Brothers. Myself, I’m a jazz guy and a writer. Stefan has gigged with Cecil Taylor. Dino was with Ike & Tina Turner for a couple years. Mark Weaver tried to keep us all in line, even as much as he would have rather been improvising. The Bubbadinos only played in public four times. We played in the studio one hundred and four times. A lot. In that, we were like Jelly Roll Morton’s famous Red Hot Peppers who only worked in the studio and never played in public. So that was the Bubbadinos 1995-2005 RIP. We made five CDs and sundry other recordings. —Mark Weber | 22feb10

I dearly love the bubbadinos and all of the music that we created together and I especially miss the relationship that Big Web, Quincy (Dr. Q) and I (Bubba D), had in the mixing, sequencing stages of each recording project (great times in the studio). I can give you a few memorable quotes. J.A. Deane

Kenneth Keppeler | 3 december 1999 | Photo: James Gale

As much as Bubba D loved playing the tracking sessions Dino loved the mixing sessions with the post crew DQW (dino/quincy/weber). When we finally dug into the studio “concept album” (#4- yup, we’re beating a dead horse/the sargent bubbadino sessions), we used George Martin’s book (with a little help from my friends), about the making of Revolver/Sgt. Pepper’s/Magical Mystery Tour, as the script for the entire project. – J.A. Deane

The Bubbadinos | 27 february 1999 | Photo: James Gale

I had a picture of the Reverend Lonnie Ferris (who inspired the “full on energy” portion of bubba d’s musical direction), over my amp as sort of a global filter on the sound.- J.A. Deane

Mark Weaver | 27 february 1999 | Photo: James Gale

At the very first Bubbadinos recording session, the very first song we recorded (with no rehearsal) was “Wade in the Water”. After we played the song, Mark asked the engineer (Manny), to play it back, which he did. After the playback a hush fell over the room, and then Ken (Keppeler) said “Well, there goes my credibility as a folk musician”. —J.A. Deane

Mark Weber | 27 february 1999 | Photo: James Gale

The first time that I brought my “fretless mountain dulcimer” (dulce= sweet) to a Bubbadinos session, after Big Web heard me play it he immediately re-named it the “acerbis” (acerbic=sour).– J.A. Deane

The Bubbadinos | 27 february 1999 | Photo: James Gale

I intentionally kept a very primitive (punk rock) relationship with my lap steel guitar during the entire life of the Bubbadinos (which is actually harder than one might think) and did my best to always come at the instrument (at every session), with a complete lack of technique just all ear. The theory being “as long as you keep that slide moving, you are bound to be close to something thats going to work” (this also meant that I couldn’t reproduce any thing I played, which I think drove Big Web a little crazy at the time). At recording sessions when Quincy would ask “Who wants Dino in the headphones”, there would be a resounding “NO”. —J.A. Deane

J.A. Deane | 2 september 2001 | Photo: Mark Weber

When Big Web asked me to join his new band the (as yet un-named) Bubbadinos he asked me to play trombone but I told him that I wanted to play lapsteel guitar. He said “I didn’t know that you could play the steel guitar”, I said “I can’t”. —J.A. Deane

Kenneth Keppeler | 3 december 1999 | Photo: David Hughes

Where are they now? – I was the Pete Best of the Bubbadinos, but actually i wasn’t from the valley, and after my pulley broke, I couldn’t take the rope across the river. Moved into a junkyard and found the Chuppers and the Player People living there. Joined up. —Manny Rettinger

Mary Redhouse | 30 october 2000 | Photo: Mark Weber

At the first session for the Bubbadinos third CD recorded in Studio A at KUNM when Ken arrived I pointed out where he was to set up his operation, and as I pointed around the room to where everybody else was sitting, I said, and that’s where Dino will be and Stefan right next to him. Ken said, “Good, so all the noise will be coming from the same place.” —Mark Weber

Mark Weaver

Dino & Colleen moved to Ribera, New Mexico, from Oakland, around 1995. And somewhere around that time I drove the two hours north from Albuquerque to visit them. This is a little adobe village with house trailers and horses and a little restaurant called The Sad Cafe. And as I blundered around trying to make sense of the directions to Dino’s house, a little mud-spatter’d car started following me. I decided to pull into the dirt parkinglot of the Catholic Church and this car with dogs all hanging out the windows and a rough customer wearing a yellow Caterpillar duckbill hat pulled right up behind me. I looked in my rear-view mirror and said to myself, “I wonder what this bubba wants.” And it turned out to be Dino in disquise! And thus is how Dino became Bubba D. —Mark Weber

Kenneth Keppeler | 27 february 1999 | David Hughes

The photos from February 27, 1999 were from a performance arranged by Dino’s friend from San Francisco and it was called “Cookie Marenco Presents THE BUBBADINOS in the Liquid Audio Crash Pad” at the Doubletree Hotel, downtown Albuquerque. I don’t remember what songs we did — I’m sure there’s a set list somewhere — Cookie recorded it, you can see the pop filter stuck on my face — there were quite a few Bubbadino renditions of old country songs that never made it to CD. Just imagine what a goldmine country music is, we could spend years just playing Buck Owens, or Ernest Tubb, or Carl Smith. Myself, I had to write songs for the CDs because we couldn’t afford to pay for the rights for as many songs as can fill up a CD. Which was a shame, because there are so many great country songs.– Mark Weber

Mark Weber with his Grandfather Harry | 1976

Ken’s Bubbadino Story

I met Mark at a concert Bayou Seco did at a park in Albuquerque. We talked for a while and I brought him back to our house near the Pueblo Cultural Center. It’s a nice place and we could hear the native music coming from the center and, at the right time of year, it’s possible to see the Voladores from Mexico spinning around a very high pole at the cultural center. They are tied by their feet and just go twirling away up there in the air. Jeanie, my wife and musical friend and partner, really liked living that close to such a fine place.

Anyway, Mark came over and we talked about Jazz and Blues and Folk music and growing up in LA, him in Cucamunga (a wonderful name, much better than Oxnard), and me from East LA. His people came from Kansas and mine from New Mexico so we had some of that 20’s and 30’s forced migration and hard scrabble attitude. We also had connections to the junkie world, me with my brothers and he, with himself. I recall that we both had a lot of admiration for the guitar playing and singing of Joseph Spence, who can nail any song to the side of heaven’s golden gate, pure feeling.

I don’t know when he mentioned that he had this idea for a band, but it sounded good to me. I have spent too much, or not enough, time playing and busking on the street, to worry whether I could play with such fine musicians as he told me about.

Well, I soon found that I was swimming in a pretty deep musical ocean with these guys so I just sort of tried to hang on without making any serious mistakes, of course it was hard to hear with all the avant garde crashing and howling around the studio.

I guess I finally figured out that when they gave me a sheet of music with weird notes and chords I’d never heard of, that the best road for me to take was act like I knew what I was doing, and as soon as we started I closed my eyes, ignoring the hieroglyphics on the paper, and played what seemed to work, sometimes in tune, sometimes not. Maybe that gave it the special Bubbadinos sound, a bit of traditional meandering around the practiced chaos of the band.

I think Mark and I and Mark Weaver might have been the main ones that practiced anything. Weaver really held us together with that beautiful Tuba of his. Now, Weber has a lot of interesting timing tricks in his singing, poetry and musical arrangements and I figure it didn’t bother me much at all as I’ve learned a lot from old traditional musicians and they can be all over the place, adding a beat, pulling out a half measure there, changing the chords all over the place and making the music fit the words. I actually got back at the boys one time. I brought in a tune from West Virginia, composed by the great old fiddler (now deceased) Ernie Carpenter, called the Elk River Blues. Jeanie and I were playing with a good friend at the time, M. Mueller, and he transcribed the tune and it seemed to work best with a measure of 2/4, 3/4 and 4/4, though it had a nice slow and beautiful Appalachian beat to it. Man, I shoulda left the music at home, they spent an hour trying to figure it out. Too much knowledge is a dangerous thing sometimes and I kept telling them that I was going to take the damn music and tear it up and they should just learn it by ear, like we did. Anyway, we got several fine recordings of it on various Bubbadino and Albuzerxque CDs.

I’m not much for writing down things but I figured I’d better do something because Mark kept sending me little reminders that I should.–Ken Keppeler March 10, 2010

The general plan for making Bubbadino music was: I went right down the middle plunking chords and singing and everybody else was embellishment. I would mostly play the major triad and the others would add the upper extensions, or not. Weaver had the unenviable task of keeping the form together, and toward that end me and him would always have to sit with good line of sight so he could see if I was going to slop over the bar line, in which case he’d play a dotted note, or two.—Mark Weber

Kenneth Keppler | 3 december 1999 | Photo: James Gale

For our performances we made that WSM sign in homage to the first country station. And during our sets we’d also use that old Hee Haw television gag with the telephone — Manny had an old-style telephone brrrring brrrrrrrring brrrrrrrrrrrrring that he could activate from the board, whenever he wanted, dead in the middle of a song if he so desired, and Ken had an old rotary phone on stage and he’d do like Junior Samples in the BR-549 routines. Ken had a million riffs: “Hello? No, I can’t bail him out right now I’m on stage with the Bubbadinos. How much? Bail is $500! I don’t got no five hundred dollars, he’s going to have to cool his heals for awhile, BYE,” slam down phone, all the while I’ve been singing some Harlan Leonard song. Or, another one would be: “Hello. I can sell you those chickens but you’ve got to take the rooster. No, the rooster is partial to those hens, you’ve GOT to take him. . . .” Speaking of roosters, Manny also had a rooster crowing at his disposal he could activate from the sound board, again, at his own discretion. Us Bubbadinos we aimed to please.—Mark Weber

Mark Weber | Winter 1987 Cleveland | self-potrait

There are places in Bubbadino music that sounds incredibly discordant, and in many instances that is a true perception. This band more than any other I’ve encountered forces you to go to their place, on their terms, into their world. You have to step through the door if you’re ever going to understand what they are doing. Even I at times need to shake my head and step back, before passing through the door. —Mark Weber March 18, 2010


On the Bubbadinos second cd WE’RE REALLY MAKIN’ MUSIC NOW check out the drumset on “O Bury Me Not.” I myself can’t listen to that track without busting a gut, it’s so funny. One afternoon Dino and I were up in the old Ubik Studios and when we arrived there was a drumset in the main studio left over from somebody else’s session the night before. So, we immediately decided we’d like to overdub some drums onto a track of our album-in-process. I don’t remember why we picked “O Bury Me Not,” but Juan Taike (aka Dino) used to be a garage band drummer in a surf band so he was nominated. Juan had to do about 3 or 4 takes, maybe more, until Manny got the sound he wanted. All the while Juan was running out of gas — listen to the track, you have to be 16 years old to play like that! It’s hilarious. Note the similarity in Juan Taike’s name and the notion of One Take. Juan was getting hot with us in the control room as we kept asking for just one more take (this was while he was playing brushes on “Walkin’ The Floors Over You), Mr Taike would grumble, and Manny would say, “Just keep on sweepin’.” (Note: Dino tells me Juan also overdubbed on the hidden track at the end of that CD, that the drum overdub was the last element added to that collage, and Juan is the one who yells, “Who’s got the time in this band?”) —Mark Weber, March 31, 2010

We didn’t always use strict metrical time in the Bubbadinos. We did play mostly in 4 and sometimes in 3. As much as I love metrical time, there are some songs that are hampered by it. The guys knew to follow me as I sped up and slowed down — what maestro Bobby Bradford refers to as “rubber band time.” The effect can be quite nice. Another crazy thing we used to do is: after we had a track in the can, which usually only took one or two takes, I’d then call out for one more take. Being that we already had a great take under wraps we’d use this last go at the song to just completely cut loose, no holds barred. Sometimes that would wind up being the track we used. Other times it was so off the rails we just chalked it up to fun. At one of the recording sessions that Mary Redhouse was with us, she heard me call out for a take 3, and she asked why we were doing another take if we already nailed this song. Dino and Ken looked at her and said in unison, “Just watch.” —Mark Weber April 1, 2010


Even though I wasn’t abnormally traumatized by 9/11, it was certainly 9/11 that changed the world, and the world that I was delving into with the Bubbadinos. There was a psychic atmosphere that I was re-visiting — music from my imagined Okie past, playing Hank and Jimmie Rodgers songs with my Grandfather. It was a very real world. It was a world of the West — the Deep West of the imagination and of Hollywood invention, an idealism that I immersed myself into. If you are going to write, there is no other way. But, when 9/11 came down, the veil to that world, closed to me, I couldn’t see through it anymore. The Bubbadinos still made music for awhile after that horrible day, but it was different. Our last session together was of Bob Dylan songs, some of which were released on ALBUZERXQUE Vol. 22. —Mark Weber April 3, 2010

Bubbadinos: More than what Bubba D knows

Welcome to Mutant Country, the down-home alien world of the Bubbadinos. If you look at the song titles on the Bubbadinos’ first CD, Ready As We’ll Ever Be (Zerx Records), most of the cuts are readily identifiable: “Lost Highway”, “Tennessee Waltz”, “Amazing Grace”, “Battle Hymn Of The Republic”, “Pancho & Lefty”. But I guarantee you’ve never heard these tunes sound like this. As an advertisement for their first public performance at Albuquerque’s Outpost Performance Space read: ‘The Bubbadinos done tarred of playing all the regular notes.”

In one published 1997 interview, chief Bubba Mark Weber talked about the band he was forming. “I’ve managed to talk these jazz musicians (and one Cajun) into playing them old country songs me and my granddad used to do,” Weber said. This is not so different than what Jimmie Rodgers was doing in the late ’20s.” Maybe so — but I don’t think Jimmie done it this way.

Weber, a writer and poet by trade, and his cohorts created a surreal country sound that would repulse purists among the country and folk set as well as the jazzbos. With a lap steel sounding like an assault weapon, a grunting tuba, and a fiddle trying to make sense of everything while a singer growled and mumbled the lyrics of country classics or venerated spirituals over the din, it’s easy to see why. “The jazz crowd, from whence most of us come, don’t want to have anything to do with country music,” Weber says. “The country crowd would string us up if they could find us; and the folkie people have turned so rigid and conservative and narrow-minded, they shiver at the thought of us.”

Stefan Dill and Mark Weber | 20 february 1996

While purists of any stripe might be horrified by the avant-hillbilly sounds of the Bubbadinos, fans of the Residents or Captain Beefheart or Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 or even Giant Sand probably would understand. The origin of the Bubbadinos began back in Weber’s native Los Angeles in 1995, when he and several collaborators created a music and spoken word collage. Weber told stories about making music with his grandfather between snatches of songs performed with a band (which included pre-Geral-dine Fibbers Nels Cline) at the Alligator in Santa Monica. Back in Albuquerque, he decided to record the verses of songs he’d left out of the performance piece. For this he rounded up Bubba D, aka J.A. Dino Deane (lap steel and bass flute), Mark Weaver (tuba), Ken Keppeler (fiddle, accordion, mandolin, harmonica, jawharp) and Stefan Dill (flamenco guitar and hubcap), who previously worked with jazz great Cecil Taylor.

Bubba D is a jazz trombonist who says he used to hide his albums by The Band from his jazz cohorts. Weber originally approached him to play his horn with the Bubbadinos, but “I said the only way I’d be in this band was if I could play lap steel. He said he didn’t know I played lap steel and I said, ‘I don’t.’ But that didn’t bother him. I still like to maintain a primitive relationship with that instrument.”

Keppeler is the only Bubbadino with a country or folk music background, having played for nearly 20 years or so in a Cajun-centric band called Bayou Seco with his wife, Jeannie McLerie. Former residents of Louisiana, the couple has worked with the likes of the Balfa Brothers and Beausoleil.

According to Bubba D, after hearing the playback of “Wade In The Water”, the first song the Bubbadinos recorded, “Everyone grew real quiet. Finally Ken said, ‘Well, there goes my credibility as a folk musician.'”

Credibility or not, Keppeler remains a Bubbadino, joining the group in recording their second, soon-to-be-released CD, We’re Really Making Music Now. This will contain covers such as “I’m An Old Cowhand”, Johnny Paycheck’s “11 Months And 29 Days”, Jimmie Rodgers’ “My Blue Eyed Jane” and the Japanese pop hit “Sukiyaki”, as well as a dozen or so Weber originals.

For the time being, the Bubbadinos are a studio phenomenon, with only two live performances under their belts. Geography is a problem, as the band members live all over the state. But Weber intends for the band to continue; as he puts it, “We’re still not quite where I want it to be.” — STEPHEN W. TERRELL | No Depression | page 24 | march-april 1999

Please click any of the following thumbs and click it’s right or left side to browse through this gallery.

setcover

Set In Our Ways

THE BUBBADINOS: Ken Keppeler — fretless gut banjo, mandolin, jaw harp, pentecostalism, harmonica, vocals, button accordions, fiddle. Mark Weber – vocals, Okie box guitar, hubcaps (track 1). Stefan Dill — flamenco guitar, electric guitars. Mark Weaver – tuba, scissors, hubcaps (track 11). Bubba D — tambourine, background vocals, fretless mountain dulcimer, lap steel, shakuhachi & live looping. Mary Redhouse – vocals. GUEST BUBBADINO: Michael Vlatkovich – trombone

Tracklist: 1. Black Rising Sun (6:29) 2. Approaching of the Disco Void (Fahey) (3:25) 3. Long Black Veil (MariJohn Wilkin & Danny Dill) (4:27) 4. Ten Years Ago (Long Black Veil part 2) (3:40) 5. Flickering (J.A.Deane)(2:10) 6. Buttons & Bows (For Dinah Shore) (J.Livingston/R.B.Evans) (2:13) 7. Moon River (Jhonny Mercer/Henry Mancini (2:34) 8. Way Back Long Ago & Now (11:46) 9. Keep Your Lamp Trimmed (trad. ) (3:36) 10. Old Dan Tucker (p.d.) (3:41) 11. Hardnose (4:03) 12. Pecos River (J.A. Deane) (1:16)13. Rain is Hard and Rain is Good (2:23) 14. Route 3 (J.A.Deane) (2:45) 15. I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry (Hank Williams) (3:06) 16. Black Diamond Express Train to Hell (Keppeler) (12:33) 17. Mythical Kansas (2:23)

When Big Web asked me to join his new band the (as yet un-named) Bubbadinos he asked me to play trombone but I told him that I wanted to play lapsteel guitar. He said “I didn’t know that you could play the steel guitar”, I said “I can’t”. J.A. Deane

All songs by Mark Weber (c)2001 except otherwise noted. Mixed by MW+Q. Mastered & engineered by Quincy. Recorded during 2001 in New Mexico. Zerx #47


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yup

Yup, We’re Beating A Dead Horse

We read George Martin’s book about the making of SGT PEPPER and decided we’d like to make a record like that.

THE BUBBADINOS: Stefan Dill – flamenco & electric guitars, re-enlist trumpet, Ken Keppeler – mandolin, fretless banjo, violin, jaw harp, button accordion, harmonica, Mary Redhouse – vocls, Mark Weber – guitar, vocals, Bubba D – schroeder piano, lapsteel, shakuhachi, dulcimer, bass flute, Mark Weaver – tuba, trombone, Juan Taike – percussion, Guests: Simon Ortiz – reading his poem “A New Story”, Sankirtan Das“Hare Krishna”, Dick Barnes – washboard and reading his poem “The Wisdom of the Pioneers”

Tracklist: 1. Code Blue Alert – (4:47) 2. Walkin Mood – (3:27) 3. You Don’t Seem To Miss Me – (3:58) (Jim Lauderdale) 4. Particles Drifting – (4:40) 5. Leaving the Nest – (2:35)6. Bless Your Heart – (2:10) 7. Bloody Bone – (2:36) 8. Wasteland – (4:36) 9. Elk River Blues – (1:57) (Ernie Carpenter) (words by Mark Weber) 10. A New Story – (4:05) 11. Here in the Real World – (3:23) (Alan Jackson & Mark Irwin) 12. Nickel and a Dime – (2:53) (Mark Weber & Todd Moore) 13. Walkin Mood (reprise) – (8:37) 14. Gambler’s Providence – (1:18) 15. Paint it Baxter Black (glory be rama rama glory be) – (8:40)

Recorded in Albuquerque on 6/11 & 10/23 2000. Recorded and mastered by “The Killer Q” (Ouincy Adams) Mixed by DQW (Rendered in Tri-Phonic Sound) All songs by Mark Weber (c) 2001

As much as Bubba D loved playing the tracking sessions Dino loved the mixing sessions with the post crew DQW (dino/quincy/weber). When we finally dug into the studio “concept album” (#4- yup, we’re beating a dead horse/the sargent bubbadino sessions), we used George Martin’s book (with a little help from my friends), about the making of Revolver/Sgt. Pepper’s/Magical Mystery Tour, as the script for the entire project. J.A. Deane

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buba

The Band Only A Mother Could Love

— Ultra Americana Deluxe —

THE BUBBADINOS: Stefan Dill – flamenco guitar, double-neck electric, hubcaps. Mark Weaver – tuba, trombone, hubcaps. Ken Keppeler – banjo, harmonica, mandolin, accordion, harmony vocal, gritas de Lobo Mexicano, fiddle, jaw harp. Bubba D – lap steel, bass flute, piano, bells, Schroeder piano. Mark Weber – Okie guitar, vocals, violin, piano.

Recorded on May 9,1999 in Albuquerque (except solo tracks) Recording and Mastering by Quincy Adams. Mixed by DQW w/assist from The Jackson Pollock Memorial Ambiance Enhancement Device Pallbearers — Craig Goldsmith & Queenellen, and thanks to Julie Weaver for the use of her piano on track 12. ZERX # 021

Tracklist: 1. Death Don’t Have No Mercy (Trad.) (4:02) 2. Suzy Got Famous, Then She Got Dead (2:03) 3. Bars of the Prison – Ken solo (1:36) 4. Trooper’s Return (2:14) 5. The Living End (2:36) 6. Goin’ Home – Dino solo (2:13) 7. You Are My Sunshine (Davis & Mitchell) (2:52) 8. Greenville (Lucinda Williams) (3:30) 9. Hard Times (Stephen Foster) (2:44) 10. Winter of ’99 (3:36) 11. Singing the Blues (MelvinEndslyy) (1:10) 12. Poundin’ the Ivories – Weber solo (:54) 13. Clementine (:51) 14. Yankee Doodle (1:11) 15. O Susanna (:34) 16. Glory Camp (1:13) 17. Closer Walk With Thee – Weaver solo (2:08) 18. There’s Always Mexico (1:22) 19. Cielito Lindo (1:03) 20. poem/Ashokan Farewell (Weber/Jay Ungar) (4:16) 21. Amazing Grace – Stefan solo (2:17) 22. The Mountain (Steve Earle) (3:15) 23. The Big Offramps of Life (3:26) 24. Party Line (3:57) 25. O Bury Me Not (:16)

The first time that I brought my “fretless mountain dulcimer” (dulce=sweet) to a Bubbadinos session, after Big Web heard me play it he immediately re-named it the “acerbis” (acerbic=sour). J.A. Deane

“As it sez right there on the slip cover, Ultra Americana Deluxe. And may I just add to that, here and right now, that these here Bubbadinos continue to explore the EXTREMELY alt. Western kinda canyons even Johnny Dowd merely peers down every now and then… provide more than their fair share of Uneasy Listening Pleasure… Turn it on, tune in, drop far out.” — Gary “Pig” Gold, In Music We Trust, March 2003

“Tenuousness, trepidation, drought, locust, musica antigua, cant & want, pock-marked chrome, lapsed backyard hallucinations, clippity-clop cowboys & Indians, flat tires, cloven-hoofed, low odds, dice, subdural hematoma, jail house coffee, bellybutton lint… It is easy to say you have to hear it but you have to hear it. And once you hear it you say, I gotta hear it again. And again.” — Michael Basinski, The Hold, November 2000

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we

We’re Really Making Music Now

— Honky Tonk Chamber Music —

THE BUBBADINOS: Mark Weaver – tuba, Stefan Dill – flamenco guitar, ’59 Strat, trumpet, Bubba D – lap steel, bass flute, piano, drums, Mark Weber – vocals, guitar, violin, harmonica, Ken Keppeler – violin, mandolin, banjo, accordion, harmonica.

The quiet before the storm. Lonesome whippoorwill. MY grandfather used to call me up and say, “Mark, when’re we gonna make some music?” and I’d haul over to his place and we’d make some. Will the rappers someday be able to call their grandkids and ask the same ? — Mark Weber

Recorded by Manny Rettinger. Mixed by DQW. Mastered at Quincy Adams Productions. All done during 1998 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Tracklist: 1. Lone Prairie (1:25)2. Fading Into The Sunset (Johnny Mercer) (3:53) 3. Nuevo Sukiyaki (Nakamura/Rokusuke) (1:22) 4. 11 Months & 29 Days (Paychcck/Sherrill) (3:31) 5. John Fahey’s Last Bottle (1:58) 6. Walking the Floors Over You (Ernest Tubb) (3:42) 7. Cherokee Hawkin’s Fear Song (1:37) 8. Autumn Going Away (4:32) 9. Walking By Myself (Jimmy Rogers) (2:16) 10. Procrastinator’s Interlude (1:12) 11. O Bury Me Not/On the Trail (trad./Grofe) (6:03) 12. Rusty Cars (Weber/Weaver) (2:29) 13. My Blue-Eyed Jane (Jimmie Rodgers) (2:56) 14. Dimestore Wrangler Blues (:46) 15. Love Song of the Starved & Broke (2:29) 16. Gothic Interlude (1:19) 17. Nothin Happenin (1:37) 18. Pastoral in Open D (4:59) 19. Call It What You Want (1:56) 20. Albuquerque Nocturne (8:01) ZERX 014

I intentionally kept a very primitive (punk rock) relationship with the instrument over the life of the band (which is allot harder than one might think). I tried to come at the instrument at each session with a complete lack of technique, full on energy and all ears. The theory was “if you just keep the bar moving, you’re bound to be close to something that’s gonna work”. Of course this also meant that I couldn’t really reproduce anything I played which I think really drove Weber a little crazy at the time, but it had to be done. At recording sessions when Quincy would ask “who wants dino in the headphones”, there would be a resounding “NO”. J.A. Deane

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ready

Ready As We’ll Ever Be

Our 15 Minutes of Honky Tonk Fame

Los BUBBADINOS: Mark Weaver — tuba * Ken Keppeler — accordions, banjo, violin, mandolin, harmonica, jawharp,vocals * Manny Rettinger — sound * Mark Weber — guitar & song & tambourine * Bubba D — lapsteel, electronics & bass flute * Stefan Dill — flamenco guitars & hubcaps.

Guest BUBBADINOS Gretchen Parlato — song * Jon Baldwin — cornet * David Parlato — bass * Lee Taylor — clarinet

Recorded, mixed & mastered at UBIK Sound, Albuquerque, New Mexico, during 1997. SPECIAL THANKS to Tommy Guralnick, Cookie Marenco, Bill Plake, Jeff Bryan, KUNM, Paula Mayhew (for the “lyrics” to Battlehymn), and as always to my Janet.

Tracklist: 1.) Wade in the Water 2.) Country Song 3.) If You Got The Money 4.) South of the Border 5.) Pancho & Lefty 6.) Swing Low Sweet Chariot 7.) Lost Highway 8.) Tennessee Waltz 9.) Key to the Highway 10.) Jingle Jangle 11.) I Am aPilgrim 12.) Shenandoah 13.) Pistol Packin Mama 14.) Farewell, Farewell 15.) Red River Valley 16.) Pastures of Plenty 17.) Wild Mountain Thyme 18.) Amazing Grace 19.) Cotton Fields 20.) Battle Hymn of the Republic 21.) What a Friend We Have in Jesus 22.) Wing & a Prayer 23.) Lord Knows I’m Drinkin 24.) Wings of a Dove 25.) Battle Hymn of the Playground 26.) You Ain’t Goin Nowhere 27.) Camptown Races 28.) Bringing in the Sheaves 29.) Rock of Ages 30.) St. James Infirmary 31.) Way South of the Border

“Every town in America has half a dozen prettified country bands but no place on Earth is there a band like the Bubbadinos.” — Mark Weber

CD version (incl. shipment cost world-wide)

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MP3 version (zip download)

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Mark Weber | 4 september 2005 | Photo: Herb Brass

2 Comments

  1. Eleanor Lindgren

    Got a couple of Bubbadino cd’s from my son Esten. Put the first one on while I was driving in the car. Had to turn it off at one point just to make sure that the car wasn’t making those noises. It was probably Dino. Sounded so good on a long drive, the vocals, the tuba, the timing. Had a little trouble with the long thunderstorm, felt like the car was filling with water. But the songs carried me through and I really needed to hear them played just that way. Thanks a bunch!

  2. Carol Tristano

    Hey Mark – this is great – I had no idea of your musical history. I’m commenting now before I listen to the music! Ken’s comments are very funny – that’s what makes me want to hear the music. Seriously – I have to realize that I have serious gaps in my awareness of “traditional” music.

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