Todd Parrott
1249 posts
Oct 20, 2014
1:02 PM
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grahamonica
110 posts
Oct 20, 2014
1:17 PM
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Video not available in Britain !! Lol.
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The Iceman
2226 posts
Oct 20, 2014
1:31 PM
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As much as I like seeing harmonica in the limelight and all, I didn't find this guy very compelling. Also, the way it was shown backstage w/the helpers was a bit on the corny silly vaudeville side - something we are trying to overcome.
Can not believe that Simon found it to be brilliant. You never know what is in the mind of a judge.
Can't hurt Joe's reputation, either.
When he came down off his adrenaline rush, I bet this customizer realized he had just given away $1200 worth of harmonicas.
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The Iceman
Last Edited by The Iceman on Oct 20, 2014 2:30 PM
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Michael Rubin
986 posts
Oct 20, 2014
2:39 PM
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Iceman, leave me out of trying to overcome silly vaudeville. I think the vaudeville side of humor combined with music is one of the best things in music. I'm all for serious music too. I think they can live together in this big world in peace.
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Goldbrick
733 posts
Oct 20, 2014
3:25 PM
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Leaving out the dopey show part, - he just wasnt very interesting as a player-- when the little helper yelled douche-- thats pretty much how I felt about it.
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sonny3
220 posts
Oct 20, 2014
4:02 PM
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Kind of silly and not very good.Maybe nerves got the best of him.Why don't good players try out for these shows.
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Sherwin
180 posts
Oct 20, 2014
4:13 PM
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Maybe not the best player in the world........but a super fantastic customiser?
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GMaj7
534 posts
Oct 20, 2014
4:25 PM
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Perhaps the forum comments would be more gracious if he had worn a fedora/sunglasses combination and sported a harp tattoo..while playing a warmed up Big Sonny Somebody lick
Good on Sugar C for finding a way to make it on to national TV in the home country
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Greg Jones
16:23 Custom Harmonicas
greg@1623customharmonicas.com
1623customharmonicas.com
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paulbunyn
102 posts
Oct 20, 2014
5:29 PM
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If he would have actually played something other than a train rhythm. It would have been better if it hadn't dragged out so long.
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florida-trader
540 posts
Oct 20, 2014
7:34 PM
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I have exchanged quite a few emails with Sugar Cain and have done a little business with him. He is a good egg with a very interesting personality. He has a very quirky British sense of humor and at times I can barely understand him. He writes that way too. Sort of like a modern day Eliza Doolittle (and I mean that in the most endearing way). I don’t quite get it but then again someone in the UK might not “get” Redneck humor with a southern drawl and colloquialisms. I tend to file things like this under “to each his own”. Evidently, it works for him and who am I to judge? I do follow him on Facebook and the guy is a prolific builder of harps. I believe it is his sole source of income and it is obvious to me that he is a hard worker because he is putting out new harps all the time. And he has a very strong following. I see lots of positive comments about his work. I don’t know if he’s going to be the next Joe Filisko but it won’t be for lack of effort.
As for his playing on Britain’s Got More Talent, I agree that he would have been better served going with something other than the train chugging. However, based upon my numerous email exchanges with him he had to go through several rounds before earning the opportunity to appear on TV. It is a safe bet that he played other music as he progressed through the competition. The combination of his colorful costume, his infectious enthusiasm and his playing got him pretty far and I say good for him. He deserves credit.
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Tom Halchak
www.BlueMoonHarmonicas.com
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walterharp
1541 posts
Oct 20, 2014
7:37 PM
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so the women don't like harmonica.. ouch!
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kudzurunner
5069 posts
Oct 20, 2014
8:04 PM
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Joe traffics in a line of work that never, absolutely never, becomes pop-cultural. So it's truly stunning, and remarkable in the literal sense--worth talking about--that he gets his name, face, and profession foregrounded on one of the biggest (or biggest??) TV shows in the UK. Good for Joe. He deserves his 5 minutes, or seconds, of fame. He's earned it the good old-fashioned way, through talent and hard work. None of us will ever get THAT spotlight--unless Todd brings his show over there!
As for the player: he's filling the traditional role of the harmonica player: court fool. Nice guy, I'm sure. Steppin' Fetchit was a nice guy, too.
Our instrument is a joke.
Or at least that's how most of the general public think of it.
The question you need to ask is: How should we think of performers who choose to achieve fame, however fleeting, by shamelessly working that public perception?
Last Edited by kudzurunner on Oct 20, 2014 8:05 PM
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Philosofy
616 posts
Oct 20, 2014
9:17 PM
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All the respect to Sugar Cain, but somewhere Joe Spiers is saying "HE"S 2nd best? WTF?"
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RyanMortos
1481 posts
Oct 21, 2014
5:28 AM
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This makes me think of the Elevator Pitch, a few moments to sell yourself what do you play? I think it's cool he doesn't just play Wammer Jammer, Juke, cherry pink & Apple blossom white, the creeper here, though they seem like some obvious choices, IMO. Almost seems he didn't have something planned & played a few short different things? He seems like a cool guy, great hat! Pretty great he put Joe's name out there, he didn't have to do that could have easily called himself the best customizer.
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~Ryan
See My Profile for contact info, etc.
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ridge
559 posts
Oct 21, 2014
6:51 AM
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Damn you, Joe Filisko! I thought it was hilarious. That was a decent length spot on a BIG show. I'm sure Sugar Cain will be getting more orders.
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Ridge's YouTube
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Michael Rubin
988 posts
Oct 21, 2014
7:14 AM
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Kudzu,
Personally I think it's cool. Self deprecate all you want. I don't care how you present the instrument.
I know what I think about it, it's the coolest instrument and possibly the coolest THING in the world.
I will often act foolish and do silly harmonicky things on stage if that is what strikes my mood. It's not my responsibility nor is it anyone else's to be a role model.
That said, I may not want to be in the audience as you fool around. There is a sense of quality, however undefinable, to performances of all types. I would rather see a high quality performance treating the harp like a joke than a poor quality performance playing classical music. Ask me another day and get a different answer.
Last Edited by Michael Rubin on Oct 21, 2014 7:14 AM
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Goldbrick
734 posts
Oct 21, 2014
7:17 AM
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Interesting that they never even cared to ask why anyone would want or need a custom harp.
Since the host of the show obviously couldnt play it was funny how they all wanted Cains harps. Then again maybe he had the last laff and they were really hohner piedmont blues harps.
Or they thought custom harps had diamond inlays or platinum covers
Last Edited by Goldbrick on Oct 21, 2014 7:19 AM
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JInx
926 posts
Oct 21, 2014
7:22 AM
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Kudzu, what about your "ghost of william clark" stage antics, or where you actually being serious? I thought it was hysterical, in a goofball sort of way.
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DoubleJ
107 posts
Oct 21, 2014
7:28 AM
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Our instrument is fun.
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kudzurunner
5071 posts
Oct 21, 2014
9:08 AM
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That's a fair question, Jinx. Since I'm always attentive to deliberate or inadvertent hypocrisy in others, you're quite right to ask me to think that through.
My first thought is: there's a difference between dressing and acting like a clown, on the one hand, and using every conceivable performer's tool at my disposal to dramatize what one is singing about on the other.
Sugar Cain is dressing and acting like a fool--and I mean that literally, not judgmentally (although of course I'm also judging, as somewhat invidious, the broad cultural effect of his dress and performance). And he's doing so specifically in a way that ties that clown persona, at its core, to the harmonica. He's Crazy Harmonica Guy for the masses.
When William Clarke (and let's leave me out of it--or at least let's leave my first-and-second-ever attempts, not highly public, out of it) lays on his back and blows harp from the ground, or when James Brown sheds crocodile tears and falls to the ground as he sings "Please, Please, Please, Please!", both men are working within a very different tradition than the clown tradition Sugar Cain is working within. They're working within an established black blues tradition in which the performer is expected to dramatize his pain in a way that enlarges that pain and mixes it with some comedy. Kalamu ya Salaam talks about "the real black humor," in one of his writings, as being about "laughing when everything in you tells you you're supposed to cry." Zora Neale Hurston writes in an essay entitled "Characteristics of Negro Expression" about an "innate need to dramatize" that characterizes many forms of black cultural expression--including what preachers do when they whoop and testify in church.
There's a lot of laughter in the blues. It's even possible to engage that laughter while holding a harmonica in one's hand. But the laughter is grounded--or should be, if there's the slightest bit of depth going on--in some kind of pain, either remembered or current.
That's a very different thing than positioning oneself front and center, from the first note, in the "I'm a crazy harmonica player" identity. I certainly wasn't doing that when I sang "I need your love" and then came out into the (non)audience to roll on my back on an imagined bed where I'm not getting enough p--sy.
I've never been interested in playing Crazy Harmonica Guy.
Well, I take that back: I did that once, very early in my YouTube lesson ministry, when I was trying to skirt the then-rule that you couldn't use YouTube to sell stuff. This is clowning:
Actually, here's the video just before that one, in which I'm trying to rescue that clown-persona in advance by associating it with the trickster. Nice try, Gussow:
Last Edited by kudzurunner on Oct 21, 2014 9:12 AM
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Honkin On Bobo
1288 posts
Oct 21, 2014
12:56 PM
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"The question you need to ask is: How should we think of performers who choose to achieve fame, however fleeting, by shamelessly working that public perception?"
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It's a good question. For me, I simply view him as the goofball he works at portraying. I wouldn't pay to see him perform this shtick or buy any of his recorded shtick. The fact that he was playing harp was almost incidental to me. He could have been playing a ukelele, spoons, a kazoo, sitting at a grand piano, or juggling custom made knives for that matter. He'd simply be that goofy guy that had some unfunny bit that was on TV the other night.
It's interesting, if he was doing this to promote the custom harps he makes, I think he did himself a disservice by what he chose to play. I viewed the backstage guy asking for some harps as part of the shtick.
Train chugs have never made me think: "gee i neeed a custom harp"
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Quick prediction: He's toast in the next round.
Last Edited by Honkin On Bobo on Oct 21, 2014 1:04 PM
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STME58
1143 posts
Oct 22, 2014
11:03 AM
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His costume looked a bit eccentric but I was surprised today when I went to the Suzuki site and saw a similar pair of "steam punk" goggles;
Are these replacing the old standard shades in harp player fasion?! :-)
Suzuki Harmonicas
Last Edited by STME58 on Oct 22, 2014 11:04 AM
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kudzurunner
5073 posts
Oct 22, 2014
12:58 PM
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Perhaps this is the moment when I should make clear, despite my grim-reaperish comments, that I'm not angered by Sugar Cain's schtick. He's not the antichrist. I completely agree with Honkin's point: in some sense, he could have been playing one of a number of intruments that have accumulated comic baggage over the years.
My dad collected jazz records. He had a few recordings of bands that made what he called "barnyard" sounds. Muted trumpets and trombones that certain players--mostly white guys, Dixieland revivalists in the 40s'--used to create squawks, like a chicken whose tailfeathers have been pulled.
When, on the one or two occasions he played those particular records for me, he wrinkled his nose a little. "That stuff's corny," he'd say. He wasn't a hipster, my dad; he wasn't very judgmental at all. But he thought that there was good music and more.....retrograde music.
A significant proportion of the general public thinks that harmonica players are precisely what Sugar Cain put across. The instrument is basically a toy, a comic thing, and the people who play it--unless they're good players like Bob Dylan or Billy Joel, i.e., major artists--are flapping their hands and having fun, without a whole lot of investment of effort (i.e., without the clear commitment that a violin or piano or even sax player would be required to exhibit). We're basically just a bunch of jokesters. I suspect there's a deep connection in all this with the hundred-year history of blackface minstrelsy: bugging your eyes, clowning, etc. Interestingly, early hillbilly musicians, many of whom worked as blackface minstrels (or worked with people who had worked as minstrels) did a lot of the same sort of clowning and mugging. Eventually the hillbilly music tradition righted itself and put most of that stuff aside--although there was a renaissance of that spirit in "Hee Haw." Still, it should be obvious today that the great majority of country musicians take their music, and their own musicianship, seriously. They're not clowns--even if their predecessors, for various reasons, often played clowns of a sort.
I don't think we need to be all prim, upright, and dignified, god knows. But I also think that clowning, as a harp player, tends to reinforce a strong public perception that is already there, already working against us and an accurate perception of our art, such as it is.
That's where my critique is coming from. Let's remember: Sugar Cain isn't working in a neighborhood pub here. He's broadcasting an image of Crazy Harmonica Player in a hugely powerful way, thanks to his appearance on this program. It is entirely reasonable for the rest of us to ask questions about how that broadcast image works when it enters the popular imagination of our instrument.
Last Edited by kudzurunner on Oct 22, 2014 1:04 PM
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Gnarly
1146 posts
Oct 22, 2014
1:19 PM
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From what I saw, he didn't clown at all!
Granted he is dressed funny . . .
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SuperBee
2244 posts
Oct 22, 2014
4:29 PM
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is Cain a member here?
2nd best customiser in the world...big call...how will it be judged i wonder?
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CarlA
619 posts
Oct 22, 2014
10:30 PM
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Right place at the right time, I guess. Some people can do everything "wrong", yet they are still garnered with fame.
Others can do everything "right", yet fame never seems attainable.
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kudzurunner
5075 posts
Oct 23, 2014
11:09 AM
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Actually, I take back everything I've said. It's just a big funny hat. No red nose, no floppy shoes. He's just a harmonica player with glasses wearing a big hat. No biggie. And look what he did to that audience! We should all be so lucky.
I need a hat like that.
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Gnarly
1147 posts
Oct 23, 2014
1:11 PM
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I have a hat like that--minus the goggles.
It's my Dickens hat.
I am one of those clowns who has worn costumes for gigs--although lately, it's mostly Buffett drag--hey, I dress like that normally, but it's still drag.
If you put blues costume into Google and select images, it's mostly the Blues Brothers that come up--and Blue's Clues (I think).
Last Edited by Gnarly on Oct 23, 2014 1:17 PM
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Jim Rumbaugh
1031 posts
Oct 23, 2014
2:34 PM
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I believe his outfit falls in the genre of "steam punk". I say our comments about his outfit shows how out of touch we are with contemporary trends.
I suggest you Google "steam punk" for images.
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theharmonicaclub.com (of Huntington, WV)
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CarlA
620 posts
Oct 23, 2014
4:41 PM
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" kudzurunner
5075 posts
Oct 23, 2014
11:09 AM Actually, I take back everything I've said. It's just a big funny hat. No red nose, no floppy shoes. He's just a harmonica player with glasses wearing a big hat. No biggie. And look what he did to that audience! We should all be so lucky.
I need a hat like that."
I think you can buy them online. Just google top hat. You would look killer wearing one of those with your blue tank top, whilst playing on the floor on your back. Maybe you can even audition for Americas got talent next year. If you make it that far, I will buy you a pair of those sunglasses.
Just remember to mention that your the THIRD best harmonica customized in the world-lol!
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nacoran
8067 posts
Oct 23, 2014
4:51 PM
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Jim, I was about to say that. There is a whole steampunk community out there. I don't think he's aiming for clown.
I've had a couple very pleasant conversations with Sugar Cain on Facebook. He's a good guy. His harps look great and seem to get really good reviews from people who've played them.
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Nate
Facebook
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