Holiday Methane from The Faw

First of all, we are NOT going to celebrate Chanukah by setting fire to a banjo every night for eight nights. We don't know where you heard that.

Music:
1. The Hallelujah Chorus

2. Merry Christmas From the Family by Robert Earl Keene

Murphy's Flaw Custom ringtones for your cell phone:
Murphy's Flaw Ringtone #1
Murphy's Flaw Ringtone #2
Murphy's Flaw Ringtone #3

Have a happy, and don't forget the BIG SHOW with our special guest Tim May on Sunday, Jan. 24, 2010! The fun begins at 7 p.m., Coffee Gallery Backstage, Altadena.

See you in 2010!

The Flaw

Seasons Greetings, Have a Calendar

Dear Patrons of the Arts:

As you know, we are a giving band -- that's just how we roll. So this year, we're putting out our first Murphy's Flaw calendar for 2009. Use it in good health.

(Actually, we really don't care about your health, but if you're going to croak you could provide for a bequest to our tip jar.)

[We're sorry, we didn't mean to type that out loud.]

So: Why not a 2010 calendar, you ask? Because it's not 2010 yet. Duh.

But, speaking of the new year, here's something you'll want to plan on attending:

Sunday, Jan. 24, 2010, 8 p.m.:

Murphy's Flaw with Special Guest Tim May at (wait for it.....)

The Coffee Gallery Backstage in Altadena!

Yes, the Flaw finally invades the Coffee Gallery Backstage -- didn't realize the recession had gotten that bad, did you?

Times are tough, yet the Flaw promises a cosmic evening of entertainment mostly because of the presence of Mr. May, an amazing musician we've lured out from the confines of Nashville for the weekend.

You can read about Tim May here. Prepare to be shocked and awed -- this guy can flat-out pick.

Tickets are $15 and you should budget another $200 or so for CDs, coffee, pie, etc.

So circle the date on your calendar or, as the Flaw likes to say, write it on a scrap of paper and staple it to someone you love.

More news as it happens, or as we remember it.

Happy Holidays,
Murphy's Flaw

Thanksgiving Day Leftovers Recipe

During these last-minute, frenetic days of not practicing for the big gig Saturday at Vincenzo's Pizza in Chatsworth, we thought we'd take a breather and offer you some ways to get creative with all those Thanksgiving day leftovers.*

The Flaw is indebted to Chef Francois Alles-Zirconia of the prestigious nausées Académie de la cuisine in Paris who came up with this quick recipe for braised turkey almondine gumbo:

* salt
* 1 lb fresh lard, trimmed and cut into 2-inch lengths
* 1 cup artificial sweetener
* 8 oz bacon, finely diced
* 2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
* 2 tbsp chopped turkey skin
* 3 cups grenedine syrup
* 1 cup stuffing
* water to taste
* 3 lbs lemon zest
* 4 vanilla beans (or substitute with a large can of pork and beans)
* Artificial whipped topping -- just a dab'll do ya.

Combine ingredients in blender on high for three minutes. Pour into lightly floured plastic container and place in 375-degree oven for 12 hours.

Don't skimp on the time -- it's the slow cooking that brings together the flavors of the turkey skin, grenedine and plastic.

While all that's in the oven, you may as well take in the Flaw's performance at Vincenzo's Pizza in Chatsworth on Saturday night:

Where: Didn't we just tell you it's Vincenzo's Pizza in Chatsworth? Focus, people!
Address: 10364 Mason Ave, Chatsworth, CA 91311-3305
When: 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 28, 2009
Cost: Nothing up-front, but the tip jar is ever-present

See you then,

The Flaw





*As we mourn the senseless deaths of hundreds of thousands of young cucumbers, pulled from the vine while yet babies and mashed into jars to sate our insane desire for sweet gherkins. We will never forget.

Thick Crust

Dear Patrons of the Arts,

Many of you have asked* what Murphy's Flaw 2.0 has been up to for the past month since our international debut at October's Tierra del Sol Harvest Festival in Sunland.

"International?" we hear you exclaim, "Don't you mean 'irrational?'"

Indeed, no: guitarist Mike Gurzi found a link to this YouTube Clip on a site in Britain.

The great Flawed master plan is coming together nicely. Local exposure --> international exposure--> remastered box set of the entire Flaw recording catalog, available both in stereo and mono** just in time for Christmas at only $250.

The only detail yet to be worked out: No recordings. We're working on that. There's no limit to the length the Flaw will go to in order to provide you, the loyal fan base, with a CD -- Short of actually spending money to go into a recording studio and do it right. The flowchart looks like this:

No Talent -->No Gigs-->No Money-->No CD.

We should be a case study at Harvard Business School.

Despite that, sporadic attempts are being made. John came up with the idea of using last week's rehearsal tapes for a CD, because the rehearsal turned out really, really well.

This was shouted down by the band which pointed out that a) John wears hearing aids and plays banjo and wouldn't know sonic quality if it smacked him in the face and b) the recording came out really, really well. The rehearsal itself was, well, a rehearsal.

Point taken.

And still we gig. Just as a shark must keep moving to stay alive, so must the Flaw, moving silently through the water, smelling blood, breaking smaller fish in two with our sharp, powerful metaphors.

We will be appearing this Saturday night, Nov. 28, at BASC Bluegrass Night at Vincenzo's Pizza, 10364 Mason Ave, Chatsworth, CA. The music, so to speak, starts at 7 p.m. Prior to that we'll be spending an hour trying to figure out how to arrange seven musicians, with instruments, mic stands and cables, all into the tiny Performance Corner at Vincenzo's.

An artist's conceptual sketch is attached.

The first set will be the Flaw's Greatest (International!) Hits, and in the second set various members of the audience will take to the stage to show us how the first set would have sounded if we'd only rehearsed. Throughout, the tip jar will be passed by Andie "the enforcer" Bryan. Give freely; she can smell fear.

A map to Vincenzo's in Chatsworth is here. Go for the cheesy pizza, stay for the cheesy music.

-- The Flaw


*actually, no one has asked. This is a cheap writer's device.
**not monophonic, mononucleosis. Don't lick the cd.

"Murphy's Flaw -- better than you'd think"

From the Flaw: Tales of the Undead Bluegrass Band

Dear patrons of the arts:

It's been a weird summer, we'll give you that.

First, the whole band was flown over to Switzerland to work on the Super Hadron Collider, which didn't go well. But they fixed it after we left.

Then we spent the first few weeks of August providing mood music to town hall audiences all over the country to kind of keep them entertained and smiling until the meetings started. (In our spare time, we helped with the proofreading on the protest signs)

Oh, what's the use? You were bound to find out anyway.....

The Flaw broke up. The FLAW broke UP!!

Well, 3/5th of it, at any rate, leaving behind a dumbfounded bassist and perplexed banjo player.

Fiddler Edie Murphy decided to pursue solo projects, George Biner lives too far away from the practice site (at least during rush hour on the 405) and is up to his ears in other stuff including his own band, Pure Play. And Jarrett wanted to devote more time to his job (!!) and Simon Pure, a first-rate bluegrass band out of Agoura Hills, in which he plays Dobro. And this all happened in the space of, like, two weeks in August.

So now there were two....

Sure, we saw it coming and we tried to head it off -- we tried Band Therapy:

Therapist: How do you FEEL when they tell you the banjo isn't in tune?
John: The banjo IS in tune!
The band, screaming: See what we mean?
Therapist: Maybe it's best that you spend some time apart.

Shortly after that, we came home late one night and found all our banjos out on the lawn. We knew then that it was over. (And it's always the banjos that suffer in these things...)

And so we started living the empty life of a single picker. Wednesday nights, formerly the practice night, were long and cold, with no rehearsal coffee to warm us. We found ourselves driving by the old practice and gigging spots, then slowly driving home, silently weeping. We'd tell people the red eyes were from allergies. No one was fooled.

After a while, we were persuaded to join a single-musicians mixer at a local church. We went a few times, but -- frankly -- most of the other musicians played these. Small wonder...

We wrote a Craig's List ad looking for new musicians, and got some very interesting replies, suggesting that perhaps placing the ad in the "personal services" category was a mistake. We tried again under the "musicians" category and got better results.

A gigabyte of emails and several get-acquainted jams later, we were back in business -- Flaw 2.0 was born!

This truly Flawed concoction has grown from five to seven members, pretty much guaranteeing no stinkin' money for anybody.

The new roster:

• Bass: Paul Dorn, a holdover from Flaw 1.0, You know him, you love him....well, at least you know him.
• Banjo: The same old hack.
• Mando: Matt Witler, a high school senior and rather amazing player as long as his homework is done.
• Guitar: Mike Gurzi, lead guitar and vocals, an awesome player who's also aiming for an pickup-truck endurance record by driving between Chatsworth (new practice spot) and Long Beach (where he lives.)*
• Dobro: Uli Sinn. Uli is from Austria and does a wicked impression of Governor Schwartzenegger, as does everybody else from Austria.
• Mando and vocals: Dee Farnsworth. Another mando: Why not? A singer and harmonizer? Absolutely!
• Fiddle: Peter Blackwelder, a college student who's really a violinist, but we're trying to beat the music out of him and replace it with sweet, sweet bluegrass fiddling. Resistance is futile.

Well, we're going out on a limb here -- the old Flaw members used to go nuts when we'd make practice tapes public. But this band is coming together so well, we can't help crowing a little. Hear for yourself.

Sample1

Sample2

Can you see why we're so excited??

We know you'll want to come hear us live, and our first gig is for a great cause:

Tierra del Sol Harvest Festival:
9919 Sunland Blvd, Sunland, CA‎
10-3 p.m. Saturday Oct. 17, 2009.

We do this every year, but this year, with state finances in a train-wreck, the annual fundraiser takes on added importance.

So come on out, hear the new Flaw, and buy a pumpkin, some sculptures, knicknacks and doo-dads. Great barbecue lunch, by the way. Here's a map.

Later that night, John will be shuckin' the corn, at Dave and Deke's annual Hillbillyfest at Joe's Great American Bar and Grill. This one is so humiliating that only John will be allowed to participate.

Yours for greater acceptance of alternative banjo tunings,

Murphy's Flaw
-----------------------------------
Murphy's Flaw: "Expensive, Tasteless, Mediocre Bluegrass since 2005"

The Flaw at Topanga Banjo Fiddle Contest & etc.

Sunday: Topanga Banjo Fiddle Contest

It all happens again at 9 a.m. Sunday at the beautiful, sun-baked Paramount Ranch near Agoura Hills.

Gaggles of fresh-faced, inordinately talented kids will step to the microphone at the Topanga Banjo Fiddle Contest, brows furrowed in concentration, giving the audience a jolt of raw musical talent and glimpses of the extraordinary musicians they may become.

We hate them.

We, by contrast, trudge to the stage, perform, slink back to our lawn chairs, knowing we'll get hammered in the results by some bands that feature Cute Kids.

They also tend to play better than we do. But that's not the point.

The point is there needs to be a Doddering Old Inept Bluegrass Band category, and you can't get into it until your acne has cleared up.*

Failing that, the Flaw is resigned to -- nay, embraces -- its probable third-place finish.

In fact, we're committed to extending our third-place streak by another year. We're going for the Guiness, folks!**

We're Contestant No. 39, so come and cheer or merely observe the wreckage, sigh, and move on. Full Topanga details are here.


*ingrown whiskers=no problem
**both the record book and the ale

Tuesday: Bluegrass Night at Braemar Country Club. The Recriminations Concert

Tuesday night the Flaw, still licking its wounds from Sunday, will be on stage at the Bluegrass Association of Southern California's Bluegrass Night at the Braemar Country Club. We'll probably be demoralized, which only adds to this incredible entertainment value.

Braemar will be the performance that we could have had at Topanga had if only we'd practiced, but hey -- maybe if we tape it and put it up on the website we still can get some mileage out of it.

(Past attempts at videotaping have included long periods of people standing in front of the camera so you see the little hairs on the back of their necks (we're talking men here, of course -- ha, ha!) accompanied by the soundtrack of bluegrass thrashing for which the Flaw has become so infamous.)

Full Braemar details are here

--
http://www.murphysflawband.com
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Murphys-Flaw/58844108000

Everybody's a music critic

We've not been shy about our grudging acceptance of a farting dog as the band mascot. The canine in question is Anna, a loveable chocolate lab who gets ultra-relaxed and falls asleep during our practices.

At this point the methane level in the room rises.

Usually we put this down as the price suffering artists must endure, but this time, we caught it on tape as the fumes spread through the band.

http://www.soundlantern.com/SoundPage.do?ToId=33075

From the Flaw: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

The Flaw will be appearing it's so late, I should have done this earlier...can't even see screen SUNDAY yeah, that's it...now which one...there are so many.....oh, the next one! January 18, 2009....is it 2009 already? Jeesh.....ahhh, where? I know we get on a freeway.....big art museum on the hill.....traffic jam...stupid Mercedes 2 miles per gallon cut me off........West L.A. Farmer's Market, They sell West L.A. farmers, no, there are no farmers in West L.A., I think it's veggies...veggies...no, ma, I DID eat my asparagus!....push it around plate better next time....must concentrate...where, where....hang a right off 405 then these little tents on the left selling swiss chard...swiss chard? you can't eat swiss chard...aw, MA! .. Swiss Mercedes drivers cutting me off.....focus, focus...address....11338 Santa Monica Boulevard at Corinth Ave on the Court House/Civic Center plaza, behind the Public Library. How'd I remember that? Oh.. website....when... daytime, for sure...it's like after Meet the Press is on... maybe football?... cheerleaders...their Swiss, Mercedes-driving boyfriends, too good for a banjo player ...what time ??? Noon to 2 p.m. Gas back up to $2 gallon can't afford banjo strings.... never in tune anyway......Tips Gratefully Accepted....