9/20/22—late

I spent most of last night curled in a fetal position crying my eyes out from the three-punch combination of neuropathy, arthritis, and migraines.

My neurologist has me on something new. Time will tell if it helps. I have more medical appointments in early October. The hope is that we can get things at least moderately under control before the cold weather hits.

There is a scene in Frank (2014) where a young musician, feeling uninspired, bathers about the mythical quality of pain creating great artists. His dumb ramblings are something I have heard far too often over the years.

“Miserable childhood. Mental illness. Where do I find that kind of inspiration?”

The truth is pain makes creating art even more difficult.

There are mornings when my hands are in so much pain that I can’t pick up my banjo without holding back a scream. That I pick it up anyway has more to do with the toughness of my family line than artistic vision.

While being in pain isn’t helping my creative mojo, being forced by arthritis to rethink how I approach the banjo, on the other hand, has. My brain has been on fire with ways to use a slide with the banjo.

I am also finding myself exploring early blues and jazz and blending some of that with country and rock. Then I add in the bottleneck. It’s a sound unlike anything I have heard from a banjo.

The earliest documented sighting of slide guitar only goes back to 1903, leaving things wide open for me to create something new. It is a sort of musical freedom I have never imagined possible.

On the electric side of things, the house wiring is safe, but my guitar rig is still caught in a ground loop from hell. We have a couple of fixes in the works. At least, dad does.

Full disclosure: when stuff like this goes wrong, my initial reaction is to turn the guitar amp into a bidet.

Conversely, my father, former plant manager that he is, makes a checklist of possible solutions and orders them in both cost and efficiency.

So, even when the physical pain I am in leaves me ready to throw in the towel, dad is there with a clipboard of ways to get back into the fight.

Once we have the electric good to go, I plan to go completely bonkers with the slide material. Just you wait. The Reverend Pillsbury is gonna make some noise.

As I write this, the sun has set over Crisfield and the nighttime round of pain is starting. My feet hurt so bad; it is becoming difficult to formulate my words. A swirling blend of cold, heat, crushing, breaking and stabbing through both feet that will steadily increase in intensity until about six or seven tomorrow morning. It’s going to be a long night, and I am so tired.

Oh! I almost forgot to tell you. My song Outrage debuts on streaming music platforms on Friday. Your support would mean a great deal to me. It’s my first ASCAP licensed original song. Not bad for a broken-down old banjo player.

Good night, folks. God bless.

— Patrick Crisfield, MD

A slide banjo cover of Dave Van Ronk’s guitar cover of Jelly Roll Morton’s piano cover of Buddy Bolden’s legendary coronet song.

I’ll do a more polished track for official release once the electric banjo is ready for prime time.

MP3: https://www.patreon.com/posts/72148304

There is an old joke about a unit of soldiers lost in the desert.

The men, tired and filthy, with no water to drink, let alone bathe.

Realizing his troop’s demoralized state, the colonel calls everyone to attention.

“Men” he says, “I have good news and bad news.”

The solders clamor to hear more.

“The good news is, we are finally going to have a change of underwear.”

The men cheer.

“Now for the bad news. Jackson, you change with Thompson. Wilkins, you change with Smith. . .”

I am in similar straights.

The good news is my electric banjo is back.

The bad news is the main issues are stemming from bad wiring. Bad household wiring. Ugh.

This is a repairable scenario. The first thing is to have an electrician fix the house wiring. I can modify my electric rig. I can swap out my single coil pickups for humbuckers. A power conditioner will help with some of the noise. When those things are in place, things should be up and running. It’s an easy checklist, but an expensive one.

The guitar store in Salisbury is interested in selling my Dobro 33D.

It’s a one-of-a-kind guitar that has traveled with me across America, Ireland, England, and a big chunk of Europe. I can’t play it anymore with my hands jacked up, so it’s silly to hang onto it. We should be able to get close to what it’s worth, and that would cover most of what I need to get the electric banjo going.

Still, as much as I try not to hang onto things, it will hurt to let it go. With no support, it looks like I have no choice.

While I am figuring out what to do, we will keep going with the acoustic banjo for a bit.

I uploaded a rough track of The Rolling Stones’ No Expectations only for patrons today. More fun stuff is on the way.

I am thankful I can keep going with the acoustic, but it is hard on my arthritic hands. I dropped my Somerset twice today. The arthritis hurts almost as bad as the neuropathy.

It’s been a long and kind of sad day. Pain is out of control. Need to get some sleep as I have a dentist appointment in the morning.

At least I have clean underwear. . . Or do I? The way this day has gone, I better go check!

God bless,
— Patrick

Something for patrons. Experimenting with open C tuning. https://www.patreon.com/posts/no-expectations-71880978

A knockoff take that came out pretty good. Join my Patreon to download new music ahead of official releases and the occasional exclusive track.
https://www.patreon.com/PatrickCostello

One of the interesting things about pioneering is that you have to deal with the unknown. New territories mean new challenges. New challenges offer untold opportunity to do something stupid. This is the way.

Case in point: my electric banjo.

When I had it in the shop, the repair tech called. He said he was having trouble fitting the electronics into the body. Thinking that it was no big deal, I asked him to screw down the cover plate. What could go wrong?

What I did not know, and, so you know, I don’t know everything, is that the potentiometers in the instrument are thin. As in less than a dime kind of thin. The new electronics are as thick as a double stack of flapjacks.

Something broke getting wedged in. Of course, it did.

I was going to keep using it anyway. Then, something happened that changed my mind. The fourth string lost its winding. This was before the string itself broke. The freak failure resulted in a starling whirlwind of thin wires as I cursed like a rabid pirate. I have been playing all this time, and that was a first. Just weird.

So, two things are happening. First, the electric is going back to the shop. The tech will either rout the old body or use the replacement I picked up for this sort of emergency.

Second, I am recording with the acoustic again for a bit.

The funny thing is, we’re getting cool takes with the acoustic. Go figure.

It was a struggle at first. In fact, the first round of recordings had me so frustrated that it about broke me. We took a break and came back fresh. The second time around, I threw caution to the wind. Improvised a new arrangement of Lewis Collins as we were recording. I let go of everything and let myself get lost in the thing I love. It’s about as close as this broken body will ever get to flying.

Dad was working the mix. He said it’s good. You’ll be able to tell me yourself soon.

More updates soon.

I need to go watch something bad enough to take my mind off the neuropathy pain.

Hurting something awful tonight. I need something spicily, cheesily, stinks on ice bad. Foul. Halloween approaches. So, I am reaching for the Star Wars Holiday Special of Halloween specials… The Paul Lynde Halloween Special, 1976. It’s got Kiss and The Osmond Twins. Oh! The pain!

God bless,
-Patrick

The song won’t be officially released until 9/23/2022, but here’s a sneak preview. More information here: https://reverendpillsbury.hearnow.com/

For updates and to hear tracks before everybody else, head over to our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/PatrickCostello

I have lost track of the days since my father and I started working in our home studio. Time flies, as they say.

Our first track is scheduled for release on September 23. It’s a comic song about our current infatuation with being outraged. Entitled, appropriately, Outrage.

The track is already available for patrons. It will be on most streaming services once it goes public. You can keep track of this and upcoming releases at https://reverendpillsbury.hearnow.com/.

Now that we are getting a feel for what works, my father and I can start pushing the envelope a bit and dig into some slide blues.

I won’t say any of this is easy. My hands are so bad that just getting dressed is a challenge, but, there is a bright side. My father and I are working closely together. I’m the hands and he is the ears. While there are days when everything seems difficult, I am aware of how lucky I am. Not many men get to work like this with their father.

Audio quality, my comfort with the electric banjo, and everything else will improve over time. Learning as we go has always been our favored methodology.

In other news, Crisfield, Maryland, has seen another summer come and go. While the weather won’t start cooling down until late October, there are little signs of autumn all around. I still have a standing invitation to play dominoes with some local old-timers. I hope to get some kind of wheelchair, so I can roll a few blocks down the street and see my friends. My Irish stubbornness dislikes begging for a ride, and walking there hurts so bad that I’m lousy company when I get there.

On the bright side, this is the best time of the year for sitting on the back steps in the evening. Just as the sun starts going down, a cool breeze will start to drift in the air. Dragonflies the size of sparrows buzz and dart at one level. Above them, bats circle as, above them, swallows circle in the twilight sky. Sitting quietly brings welcome visitors. Whitetail deer wander under the pecan tree as foxes, raccoons, possums, and groundhogs come and go. Owls have been crying at night, while the crickets, toads, and other night musicians play a rhythmic backup.

I will be experimenting with recording the electric using a slide tomorrow. If the tinkering yields interesting results, I’ll post sound files for patrons.

Well, there is a storm rolling over town. Neuropathy and arthritis are riling up something fierce. Going to curl up with the three cats and a cheesy movie. Given how bad the pain is presently, it feels prudent to break out one of those mind-bendingly weird movies I keep in reserve for extreme situations: Samurai Cop. It’s my version of chicken soup.

Read the essay on Patreon.

Read all about it: https://www.patreon.com/posts/joy-71427158?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator