RamblinMan3 - Posted - 02/22/2024:  18:07:56

The "on this day on Feb 21" reference on this website regarding the first time a banjo was played in the Antarctica got me thinking about my own experiences playing in remote or weird places. Here's a couple of remote places I've picked at:

- around a campfire at the Fish Canyon, Namibia
- at a campsite in the Taklamakan desert in western China
- at a campsite in Serengeti NP Tanzania
- at a beach hut in Koh Samui Thailand
- jamming with a guy in Kashgar playing a weird bowl shaped mandolin thing with a single string (not an easy thing to do since the one string seemed to be tuned to a G#)

Anyone out there with experiences to share?

The Old Timer - Posted - 02/22/2024:  18:18:26

The 6th fret.

mike gregory - Posted - 02/22/2024:  18:48:01

Don't remember the NAME of the place, but it was a little town above the Arctic Circle, in Alaska.
Met a mandolin player who had won a prize at a festival, earlier that year.

I don't remember if he was Aleut or Inuit or what, but he played well!

Sheenjack - Posted - 02/22/2024:  19:39:19

Attu Island.  At the end of the Aleutian chain.

On the Sheenjeck River.  Brooks Range Alaska.

Snettisham Alaska.

No road access to any of the above.

tdennis - Posted - 02/22/2024:  19:46:28

I was stationed in remote Turkey for 3 years in the USAF, & regularly performed at the base coffee shop, & for general base events (holiday dinners & talent shows).  This was the late 60's & I was playing Donovan, Dylan, Dave Van Ronk & other folkies. 

Edited by - tdennis on 02/22/2024 19:53:19

Culloden - Posted - 02/22/2024:  20:38:39

Nice, France

NewBlackDak - Posted - 02/22/2024:  21:32:18

At the top of King’s Peak in Utah.
It’s an already tough 2 day hike up to 13500 feet, and I did it carrying my good time along with the rest of my pack.

phb - Posted - 02/23/2024:  01:13:33

Any time I play my banjo, I play it in a remote place from a bluegrass point of view... 

stanleytone - Posted - 02/23/2024:  02:38:38

I took my banjo with me into the great dismal swamp tied my canoe to a lone hollowed out bald cypress tree, got out and stood beside it and played the first part of bela flecks Bigfoot. The acoustics

Were incredible. Note the spanish moss swaying in the breeze overhead

Edited by - stanleytone on 02/23/2024 02:40:48

VIDEO: PLAYING THE BANJO INTHE GREAT DISMAL SWAMP
(click to view)

 

banjobob36 - Posted - 02/23/2024:  04:49:32

1970-1971 on the Mekong River Nakon Phenom, Thailand USAF ....

PKM - Posted - 02/23/2024:  05:03:47

Waffle House at 3:00 am. Thats pretty remote.

Too many times to count, while waiting for 40 minutes along with the soccer moms in car-line at my son's school , I'd take my banjo and sit on the passenger side, (I'm right handed), and practice. If I got there early enough, I was at the front of the line and didn't have to creep up every few minutes.
After doing that for about 6 months, one afternoon my 7 year old son got in the car and said, "Dad, the girls in my class say that their Moms told them you play banjo in car-line !! Do you really have to do that ?"

KCJones - Posted - 02/23/2024:  05:07:04

There's a small lake at the tip of the Keweenaw peninsula. On this lake is an island. After a heavy rain, a small pond will form on that island. And in that pond, a rock sticks out that you can stand on. When you stand on this rock, you're standing on an island in a pond on an island in a lake on an island in a sea on an island in the ocean.



I have stood on that rock and played banjo.

Edited by - KCJones on 02/23/2024 05:07:32

Ira Gitlin - Posted - 02/23/2024:  06:35:21

On a State Department tour in Africa (December 2009-January2010) I played in a bunch of places in Mauritania, Togo, the Republic of Congo, and the Central African Republic (CAR). The most remote place we played, arguably, was the town of Mongoumbo in the CAR. We shared the stage with a troupe of Ba'aka (pygmy) dancers and drummers.



I'm the banjo player pictured in this slide-show video, but in the soundtrack you're hearing Mike Munford, who used to play with that band: youtube.com/watch?v=TlBOhH4-baI .

Edited by - Ira Gitlin on 02/23/2024 06:35:37

Tim Jumper - Posted - 02/23/2024:  06:45:51

At a crafts show in Grand Lake Stream, State o' Maine.

stanleytone - Posted - 02/23/2024:  07:10:41

quote:

---

Originally posted by banjobob36

1970-1971 on the Mekong River Nakon Phenom, Thailand USAF ....

---

cant top that. thank you for serving your counntry at a time when it wasnt the most popular thing to do.

Owen - Posted - 02/23/2024:  07:17:00

I've "played" [if you use your imagination a bit] in Pauingassi, MB.   A not uncommon expression re. fly-in reserves is, "it's a whole different world," so, if different world = remote.... .

RB3 - Posted - 02/23/2024:  07:34:58

I once played a gig in The Great Saltpeter Cave, near Mt. Vernon, Ky.

NotABanjoYoda - Posted - 02/23/2024:  07:47:39

Sitting on the crapper... And THAT better stay remote.

martyjoe - Posted - 02/23/2024:  08:26:46

I played a gig once in a NSW town in remote Australia called Gadooga. The reason for the gig was because it was voted the most boring town in Australia the previous year. One of the local farmers had a property of 160 square miles and he flew to the gig with his family in his own plane. A few other local farmers flew in. There was about 70 people in attendance in the hall & about 30 indigenous people gathered around outside. When we were playing & tapping our feet the local kids were under the stage area banging up against the floor boards. Every one had a great night. I think it was a something like a three hour drive out for us back to the next town for the nearest accommodation. We had to dodge an emu on the way in & a couple of kangaroos on the way out.

stanleytone - Posted - 02/23/2024:  08:39:39

quote:

---

Originally posted by NotABanjoYoda

Sitting on the crapper... And THAT better stay remote.

---

Lolol

Thats as lonely as it gets!

Owen - Posted - 02/23/2024:  10:53:58

Geez, martyjoe, it seems every day's a school day.   dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/bo...b926e5796 

 [From ^^ article:  "Back in 1981, Goodooga was classified by the ABC as the most boring town in Australia. It's said a local wrote to the ABC explaining how the highlight of their day was to visit the servo and see if the numbers on the petrol pump had changed from the day before."

But, but, but, that 160 square miles sounds more like an acreage than a farm:     en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Cre...ry.   

???????

Tim Jumper - Posted - 02/23/2024:  17:09:47

martyjoe,

Isn't Gadooga about "nine miles from Gundagai"?

AndrewD - Posted - 02/25/2024:  07:23:15

Remote is relative to where you normally are. So my remote performance was sitting on a log at Fort Ticonderoga playing Soldiers Joy while being filmed by a BBC film crew.

Lew H - Posted - 02/25/2024:  08:53:34

On a sidewalk in Manhattan, NY. That's pretty remote from southern Illinois.

martyjoe - Posted - 02/25/2024:  13:18:49

quote:

---

Originally posted by Tim Jumper

martyjoe,



Isn't Gadooga about "nine miles from Gundagai"?

---

We played the following night in an opel mining town called Lightning ridge, that as I recall was the closest place for accommodation so we stayed there the two nights. I thought it was around 1979/80 we were doing that tour. Burke was another remote town on the tour. 

RamblinMan3 - Posted - 02/25/2024:  16:16:43

I was thinking about remote places that I had travelled to with a banjo forgetting that I had spent several years living in a remote community. Fort Simpson, Northwest Territories is a 4 to 5 hours drive from the closest settlement and a good 8 hour drive to the closest city. Played occasional gigs during that time at the Subarctic Lounge and Nahanni Inn, the local watering holes.

Tim Jumper - Posted - 02/25/2024:  16:21:02

martyjoe:

Thanks for the note.
Sounds like you've seen a bit of the "atback."
My reference was to the Aussie song "Nine Miles from Gundagai," which is the equivalent of "nine miles from nowhere."
It's the sad story of a teamster who ran into some difficulties in that remote location -- the ultimate insult being that "the dog shat in the tucker-box."
Audiences, especially in pubs, always enjoyed it!

Old Hickory - Posted - 02/26/2024:  20:04:34

Millville, Minnesota, and some bar in another town in the same region.

On a schooner on the waters of Penobscot Bay, Maine.

Helix - Posted - 02/27/2024:  10:53:09

Outside Carlton,Oregon there is a place called HIGH HEAVEN, let’s say it’s difficult to ascend

I was up there several days waiting for my new rental home

RB-1 - Posted - 02/27/2024:  11:34:32

Somewhere over the Atlantic, between Amsterdam and Memphis (1995, oh, how young we were...).

40,000 ft. alt., so pretty 'remote'

RamblinMan3 - Posted - 02/27/2024:  11:51:44

That's pretty cool. Just curious, what airline lets you play banjo and guitar on a plane let alone (almost) in the cockpit?

RB-1 - Posted - 02/27/2024:  14:25:44

KLM hired us for the inauguration flight on their Amsterdam-Memphis line.

But this was 1995, remember...

I swapped between banjo, mandolin and dobro, for varieties sake.

Edited by - RB-1 on 02/27/2024 14:26:48

steve davis - Posted - 02/27/2024:  15:33:32

Grafenwohr,Fulda Gap 1973

The decks of the Laura B and the Elizabeth Anne for midnight booze cruises around the islands off Port Clyde from the 70s into the 90s.

Edited by - steve davis on 02/27/2024 15:38:42

doryman - Posted - 02/27/2024:  16:08:32

quote:

---

Originally posted by tdennis

I was stationed in remote Turkey for 3 years in the USAF, & regularly performed at the base coffee shop, & for general base events (holiday dinners & talent shows).  This was the late 60's & I was playing Donovan, Dylan, Dave Van Ronk & other folkies. 

---

Hey tdennis, small world...Cigli AFB, Izmir Turkey, 1967 - 1969!  I wasn't picking a banjo, though!

tdennis - Posted - 02/27/2024:  16:17:23

John, I was at Karamursel AFB.  There were quite a few good musicians on this small base.

Edited by - tdennis on 02/27/2024 16:21:56

steve davis - Posted - 02/28/2024:  07:39:28

150 miles east of Virginia aboard the Sea Trek which is a 98' eastern rig (wheelhouse aft) while on a 10 day scalloping trip in 1980.

chuckv97 - Posted - 02/28/2024:  07:43:07

Jordan River, Vancouver Island... end of the road on the southwest side of the island 

Edited by - chuckv97 on 02/28/2024 07:44:05

Laurence Diehl - Posted - 02/28/2024:  08:37:58

New Mexico State prison. It was kinda remote by design, you might say.

1935tb-11 - Posted - 02/29/2024:  08:47:40

about a hours ride up a dirt road in the mountains of virginia to play at a holiness church in the late 70s,,,, wash board ridin all the way.... oh yeah they had no electricity either.

gDGBD - Posted - 02/29/2024:  14:35:01

In 1971-1972 I was an army JAG officer stationed at Camp Horn in Da Nang, Vietnam. Got to pick with two other guys in our office who played guitar and upright bass. The bass player also played the bagpipes, but he didn't have the whole apparatus with him, just the chanter (that's the part that's played with the fingers). I also got to play a gig at a hospital with some guys from special services who had a small country band.

There's got to be a joke somewhere involving a banjo-bagpipe duet, but all I can remember is that we had fun trying to work out something both of us could play. I dimly recall that we might've been able to duet on Red Haired Boy.

Tom Meisenheimer - Posted - 03/01/2024:  10:41:23

Not remote but a tad dicey on a sand bar (but in the boat) in the middle of the White River up stream 3 or 4 miles from Jacks' fishing camp in North Arkansas. We were at the Dogwood Festival in Mountain View and took a fishing break with Mr. Jack. There was me, Doug Montague and Bill(?) Olson and a guy named Terry who was a devout fisherman.

banjofeller - Posted - 03/01/2024:  19:48:14

Grande Prairie Alberta Canada. Look it up-it is out there. Chris Jones can verify-he lives in Grande Prairie.

RDP - Posted - 03/01/2024:  20:40:32

At the top of Mt. Mitchell, NC. Tallest peak east of the Mississippi River.

pfalzgrass - Posted - 03/01/2024:  23:50:31

On a sailing yacht in the baltic sea somewhere between Denmark and Sweden.

Jack Adams - Posted - 03/02/2024:  03:59:32

There were a lot of weird gigs in Paris, France in the '80s. The lunch hour for medical students at Cité Universitaire where instead of clapping at the end of a song, they would saw the edges of their plates with the corrugated side of their knives. (Remotely unusual).

(Remotely removed). The rice paddies of Luzon, Philippines; South Sargasso Sea aboard the Regina Maris; Bedouin camp at foot of the Atlas mountains, Morocco; Outback Australia near Broken Hill; Whitfield Hall, Blue Mountains Jamaica; The middle of wheat fields from Burkburnett, Texas to Potter, Nebraska; A raucous bar in Teresópolis, Brazil.

My five string friend opened doors and brought smiles wherever we were lucky enough to go.

Dale Diehl - Posted - 03/02/2024:  07:03:39

Wow! This reminds me of that song, I've Been Every Where.

Good Buddy - Posted - 03/02/2024:  07:56:13

I pulled out my banjo in many places on cross country road trips from Key West to Yosemite including: Grand Canyon, Zion Nat'l Park, Arches Nat'l Park, Sedona, the Louisiana Bayou...and from Miami to Toronto including: Florida Everglades, Blue Ridge Mtns, Skyline Drive through Shenandoah, parking lot at Falling Water...and a ton of places I forgot.

Edited by - Good Buddy on 03/02/2024 07:57:30

North Bender - Posted - 03/02/2024:  11:18:02

FOB Salerno, Khost province Afghanistan. On the only banjo I saw in country.

jbhood - Posted - 03/02/2024:  11:39:24

In March of 1973, I gave 5-sring banjo serenade of picking and singing to the last living members of the Palo Seco Leper Colony who were very elderly and residing in the Palo Seco Hospital located on the Pacific Coast of the Panama Canal Zone.