Cathy & Marcy's Blog

Aloha Snowstorm!
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ALOHA In the Hawaiian language means affection, love, peace, compassion and mercy. Since the middle of the 19th century, it also has come to be used as an English greeting to say goodbye and hello.(wikipedia.org)

While the east coast was getting slammed with 30+ inches of snow, we went directly from the GRAMMY Awards to the land of sun, sand, whales & Aloha – Hawaii. We spent lots of time in the music community-taking in a Slack Key Guitar concert with George Kahumoku and Ledward Kaapana, writing songs and jamming on ukuleles, guitars and harmony singing for hours and hours with Ginger Johnson and Robyn Kneubuhl of the Hula Honeys, visiting Keola and Moana Beamer (gorgeous slack key guitar and hula dancing), meeting songwriter/producer Melinda Caroll (who has compiled lots of CDs of Girl Scout Songs) and even meeting up with our local friend, Paul Reissler of Kid Pan Alley. We’ve got lots of ideas for a recording and brought home plenty of new material to work on.

Cathy took her first Hula lesson and is hooked-now looking up where to take classes in Maryland. Marcy taught Ginger of the Hula Honeys some CELLO BANJO and left one behind so Ginger could practice.

Meantime, we saw humpback whales up close and personal! Right now, the locals call it “Whale Soup”, not cause we’re gonna eat them (Cathy is still very vegetarian), but because the ocean is FULL of whales. We took a Pacific Ocean Foundation whale watching boat and marveled at 45 solid minutes of a boat side visitor-a baby whale (only 2 tons), playing with us. Then some star gazing, volcano trails, snorkeling, and a visit to a fabulous aquarium.
Whale MovieCLICK TO SEE WHALE MOVIE
Cathy lived in Winnipeg, Manitoba for 5 years and Marcy in Michigan for more than 15, so we apparently had already survived enough monstrous snow storms. As big as this was, neither Winnipeg or Michigan would have closed down. But, we’re shoveling now-both through the mail and the snow.

Out with the old, in with the new. But how did we spend 2009? It’s amazingly difficult to choose 1 highlight per month but it beats writing a whole book, so here we go:

JANUARY: We performed at the Smithsonian’s American Indian Museum the day before Obama’s inauguration in a pre-inaugural multi-cultural party.
Marcy produced a CD by Kellie Allen & Pete Peterson

FEBRUARY- At the GRAMMY Awards we announced about 20 awards, handed the GRAMMY to 2 friends (Bill Harley and Art Rosenbaum) and Cathy had her photo taken with Paul McCartney, REALLY.

MARCH- We launch the Brownie Troop of Kensington, MD Ukulele Orchestra

APRIL- BANJO TO BEATBOX plays Philly kids fest and CD is released on our SongShop™ label

MAY- Can’t do just 1. Birchmere Mother’s Day show with Deborah Tannen (NY Times Best selling author), Peggy Seeger & the dynamic duo AND
While in Maui for business (ha, ha, ha) we meet the HULA HONEYS, jam for days on end with them and vow to produce their next CD
Film JUBILATION MUSIC VIDEO
JUNE- Perform tribute to ELLA JENKINS at Smithsonian Folklife Festival’s Ralph Rinzler Memorial Concert

JULY- gotta do 4
*Old time Banjo Festival at the Birchmere includes Cathy & Marcy, Bruce Molsky, Mike Seeger, Adam Hurt, The Old 78′s- Mike’s last Washington DC performance
*Ukulele Festival- James Hill, Victoria Vox, Cathy, Marcy, local friends & 3 uke orchestras-WOW
*Wolf Trap Theater in the Woods w/ Chris Bacon & BANJO TO BEATBOX
*Kennedy Center Millenium Stage w/ James Hill & Adam Hurt

AUGUST- Clifftop Appalachian String Band Festival gives a chance to chill & play old time music with friends from all over the country. BUT, we lost good friend and old time music torch bearer Mike Seeger to cancer.

September- Record 2 DVD’s (Meet the Instruments) and a CD (Michele Valeri’s “Little Ditties for Itty Bitties”) for our SONGSHOP™ label. February releases.

October- Favorite show was the Tribute to Utah Phillips celebrating the 2 CD set, “Singing Through The Hard Times” honoring his music & raising $ for the homeless shelter he helped build.

NOVEMBER- The dynamic duo sold 110 ukuleles to pre-school teachers at the National Association for the Education of Young Children Conference in Washington DC, plus plenty of C&M CD’s & DVD’s, but most importantly, loved hanging out with pre-school teachers and teaching ukulele at our booth. 2 chords makes you ready to sing 100 songs! 3 chords=500+ songs

DECEMBER- gotta mention a few
*BANJO TO BEATBOX becomes our 14th consecutive GRAMMY nominated CD, for Best Musical Recording for Children
*24th Annual Winter Family concert including Scottish fiddle virtuoso Bonnie Rideout and the Rockville High School Bagpipe Band. Some families bring 3 generations of Cathy & Marcy fans
*Then a memorial & music party in honor of Mike Seeger
Then- Marcy’s mom has major surgery and lives to tell the tale
Then- 17th Annual Gingerbread House decorating party
Then- Xmas party at rehap center for Marcy’s mom with musical friends
Then- Xmas dinner & music party
Then- Hank Williams Tribute nights at the Birchmere Music Hall & Court Square Theater (Harrisonburg, VA)
Then- HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Someplace in there we also contributed to the National Geographic’s new Documentary on the Appalchian Trail on dulcimer, banjo, guitar and mandolin. Cathy got a new bike in trade for banjo lessons. Marcy collected a few tenor guitars and we each rescued some special instruments from gloom and doom on ebay and elsewhere. Cathy became more active with the Washington Area Women’s Foundation and Marcy built up the Girls with Guitars and Ukulele Social Network social websites. There’s always more, but now that it’s 2010, we’ve got new work & projects to get to.

Here’s to a year of CHANGE, HEALTH CARE FOR ALL AT AFFORDABLE PRICES, GOOD HEALTH, SONGS, PEACE, HAPPINESS, PEACE and ever expanding hat collections. Keep your sense of humor-you’re gonna need it. Get up and do something and it’ll get done!
Cathy & Marcy

Today’s Hats
Dust Collector, Human Snow Plow, Bookkeeper, Philosopher, Mosaic Artist, Buddy, Shipping Clerk, Secretary, Label Manager, Artist Rep., Grammy Winner, Banjo Player, Pro Bono Advisor, Satirist, Content Creator, Dishwasher, Songwriter, Activist, God-Mother, Aunt, Chameleon

Are we movie stars? Not yet, but we have taken the adventure of making our first official “music video” of the song “JUBILATION” from the new BANJO TO BEATBOX EP. Hard to say if we are the stars or if our puppets are the stars. OK, so how’d it happen? Read on!

When we decided to make a music video it began with the planning stage. Our first goal was that every aspect would be fun and that all the people working together would enjoy it. So we started with planning and brought together a great team of people of various ages and skills. Brad Tehaan was a film student that Cathy met in a film editing class. At 22 he is the brightest and best and we fully expect him to be making major movies in the future. We hope he includes us.

Ingrid Crepeau makes puppets that equal the genius of Jim Henson (we don’t take this compliment lightly) and she was excited about making puppets of Cathy, Marcy, Chris and Trevor, our recording engineer. She took photos of each of us and even looked at what clothing we would wear in the video shoot. Then Ingrid disappeared to her puppet making workshop.

Meantime, we created a script following each line in the song, and Brad turned it into a storyboard so that he’d know every camera shot that he needed to cover. We decided to make some of it look like live concert and to shoot some of it on green screen. Our friend Michelle Valeri would create Photoshop backgrounds so whatever we shot on green screen would have a location that could tickle the imagination. We all had a lot to learn and everyone was up for the experiments.

Cathy & Marcy assembled all of the props which included scuba gear, beach ball, clock, glow sticks, fun sunglasses, toy piano, beach hats, lounge chair, raincoat, windup toys, confetti, and more.

During the 2 day video shoot we had puppeteers ranging in age from 11 to 63. We also had a six year old apprentice, an expert at toy trains. The song JUBILATION played constantly as we performed and filmed each scene. Ingrid created shadow puppets for the audience and we started by filming the shadow puppets on the green screen. Then we filmed performance scenes, and then we went through every scene Brad had listed and more that we made up on the spot. The goal was that during the show each of us would meet our puppet with surprise and glee and by the end everyone would be singing JUBILATION. It was a giant team effort that included plenty of jokes, laughter and after hearing the song JUBILATION 1000 times, new rhymes and verses!

Once the filming was done Brad had the job of assembling all of the footage, editing, syncing the music to the film, creating animation, incorporating Photoshop pictures, and even learning about new animation techniques with one of our puppeteers, Barry Gordimer. It took about four week’s of Brad’s free time to pull the video together. He showed it to us every once in a while and we would get to comment and make suggestions.

The JUBILATION MUSIC VIDEO was a jubilant and fun process that brought together friends who love being goofy, creative, artistic and joyful together. When were done, after 100 hours of work between everyone involved (which does not include the making of the puppets) you’ve got almost 5 minutes to look at. We may not be movie stars, but we hope every time you watch it will tickle your funnybone, encourage you to sing-along and enjoy the fun for the sake of fun.

Comment on this blog to let us know your thoughts. Should we star in another movie?

For more on Chrisstylez Bacon visit www.Christylez.com

For more on Ingrid & Michelle’s puppet and song magic visit www.dinorock.com

And for all things Cathy & Marcy you know where to go www.CathyMarcy.com

FOR LYRICS & LINER NOTES TO THE BANJO TO BEATBOX CD TO HERE:

TO ORDER YOUR OWN DIGITAL OR CD COPY OF THE BANJO TO BEATBOX CD,GO HERE

Upcoming shows with Cathy, Marcy & Christylez Bacon:

June 27: Smithsonian Folklife Festival with ELLA JENKNS

July 22-25: Wolf Trap 11:15am

August 15: Blackrock Center for the Arts, Germantown, MD 7:30pm

August 16: Philadelphia Folk Festival

See CALENDAR for more date info.

Thanks for being here!