Mountain Fruit Folklore Centre
Canada's smallest music store
We had a lovely surprise visit from a travelling performer, Leila Neverland. Her uniquely powerful and emotive voice and songwriting struck us instantly. It is with great pleasure that we share her performance with you.
For more information please visit leilaneverland.com
Our dear friend Marty Hamilton has passed away. It is with heavy hearts that we say farewell to this fantastic man, community member, and musician.
Rest In Peace, Marty.
The local talent in this area never ceases to amaze us! Noel Fudge and Martine Denbok are beautiful songwriters, composers, and private music teachers based out of New Denver. Take a moment. Set everything else aside. Take a listen to this beautiful track from their new album, which can be purchased here in store at Mountain Fruit Folklore. All proceeds go to the artist.
Learn more about Freya and their music at http://www.fortheloveoffreya.ca
Go to our Youtube channel Mountain Fruit Folklore Centre to hear another song from the new album performed on Octave Violin! Along with a wealth of other incredible performances, Live! From the Pew!
As always it is a pleasure to have Cara Luft in the store. She is probably our most featured Live from the Pew artist. We asked her if she would play us a little something for on our own hand built 19th century guitar, and here it is!
Black Water Side is a traditional Irish Tune, of unknown author. Perhaps in this day the most well known version is the instrumental track from Led Zeppelin’s self-titled first album.
For more Live from the Pew videos check out our Youtube Channel “Mountain Fruit Folklore Centre.”
Mountain Fruit Folklore Centre is now open regular shop hours. Tuesday-Saturday 10-5.
And second, We would like to publicly acknowledge and celebrate apprentice Kevin John, his progress and contributions to the Mountain Fruit vision. Kevin has been with us for 2 years now, working in the shop on customer’s instruments, restorations, and working and maintaining the storefront. He recently finished a period under a grant from the Kyuquot-Checleset First Nations Band (many, many thanks to them!). Kyuquot-Checleset assisted Kevin for six months in funding his training in the art of lutherie under mentor and shop owner Jeremy Behn. We look forward to many more months working together. This New Year will see us taking new steps forward as we are in the midst of building an electric guitar each right from scratch.
Mountain Fruit Folklore Centre will be closed from now, Christmas Eve till Tuesday Jan 10th, 2017 to allow for inventory. The Mtn Fruit staff wish you ease and peace spent with loved ones every day! And Christmas too!
We’ll see you in the New Year, it’s been a pleasure helping with musical journeys and we really do appreciate the support!
It’s just not christmas for most Canadians until it snows and we weren’t sure it was going to happen in Kaslo before St Nick arrived this year. But it did, and the beautiful, peaceful quiet is upon us again. The skates and skis are out and slowly we are adapting to the cold. Which reminds me, high pressure, low temp weather, such as we are experiencing now, is a time to think about protecting your stringed instruments from low humidity damage. Pop into the shop if you need some pointers.
Here’s an excerpt from a beautiful performance done by TJ, a student of Kaslo’s 4th Annual GuitarFest. TJ is playing a 19th Century piece on this 19th Century replica by Instruments of Change, Jeremy Behn. The guitar was also used as part of the GuitarFest’s presentation at the Langham Theatre on the history of the classical guitar. Jeremy presented his hand built 19th Century guitar replica alongside other 19th Century guitars that esteemed players and historians Daniel Bolshoy and Murray Visscher displayed and performed on.
There is gold in these hills! Cultural gold, artistic gold, creative gold. Noel Fudge and Martine Denbok are just two examples of our many local treasures. Both are musical performers, composers and instructors living in New Denver. They perform together as Freya and we were fortunate enough to have them here at Mountain Fruit Folklore Centre. Here’s their performance and interview, exclusively, Live from the Pew!
for more info on the band please visit www.fortheloveoffreya.ca
Sebastien Dufour played the Langham recently with his comrades, Small World Project, and was kind enough to demonstrate the new Cordoba Mini for us. These instruments are fantastic travel guitars, their main assets being; a fingerboard wide enough to use effectively (unlike Guileles), excellent tone and projection for a body this size and 2 sets of strings available; one to allow for optimum tone tuned a 4th above std tuning and one to allow playing at std pitch.
The first piece played is an original flamenco called ‘Tarantos’ followed by an arrangement of a piece called ‘Manha de Carnaval’.
Don’t miss this fabulously creative trio next time they pass thru your town!
Thx Sebastien
Gracious thank you to friends Dave and Tami Gunter from Sandpoint, Idaho. They took time out of their business (organizing over one hundred kids music parts for their school musical!) and pleasure (soaking at Ainsworth Hotsprings) trip to play us a tune ‘From the Pew’ at Mtn Fruit.
Local singer/songwriter Jeremy Eisenhauer showed up the other day with a handmade guitar by none other than Canadian Luthier Icon Grit Laskin. Beautiful sounding guitar which we attempted to amplify in a way that does it’s tone justice. What we came up with is relatively faithful to the guitar and reasonably affordable, at least when you compare to something like the very popular DPA D-Vote mini condenser. Our configuration actually uses a the D-Vote guitar clamp which I have to say is very well conceived but to it we have clamped an Audix Micro-HP mini condenser. Perhaps not the holy grail of setups but it went together reliably and the sound is most definitely pleasing! Have a listen;
We’ve been back at it for awhile now, after our christmas break, and are finally getting our ecommerce platform to a functioning state. Please click on the shop link and have a look, we are adding product weekly, your feedback is welcome!
Kevin John who has been apprenticing in repair with Mtn Fruit and also manning the storefront while I had some much needed time off has embarked on another journey for the winter! He’s off to Vancouver Island to find his fortune or whatever comes his way. We’ve grown fond of having Kevin on our team and will miss him but wish him well on his adventure.
Here’s a quick video that Kevin put together to show off the rich, mellow sound of the Octave Mandolin.
Brian DenHertog performs an original song, Bridesville Cemetery Road, Live from the Pew. Brian is shown playing an Eastman 00 with a solid Adirondack Spruce top. Beautiful music, beautiful guitar. Thank you Brian!
Sahara Jane and Daunt Lee recently played at Kaslo’s Blue Belle Bistro
These two wonderful players show off a Celtic Duo titled Uncle Gerald’s Burnt Potato.
Live from the Pew at Mountain Fruit Folklore Centre.
Another wonderful moment of beautiful people sharing themselves at the Mtn Fruit!
If you missed ‘The Tequila Mockingbird Orchestra’ last night at the Bluebelle Bistro in Kaslo you can catch them tonight at the Gray Creek Hall!
Thanks Again guys!
John Kestalic visited the shop awhile ago but I thought now would be a good time to post his visit due to the unusual name of the band he and his brother have formed. ‘No Mothers’ is comprised of two brothers (John and Tony) who both play viola and sing! Story I recall is they had a rule as youngsters that when they disagreed they couldn’t use mom to settle there differences or take sides! Super nice guy with a beautiful handmade viola by Chris Sandvoss who lives in the foothills of Alberta.
These fine young fellows (and they did seem young) from Brandon, MB played us a song on a brief visit to the Mtn Fruit the other day. Lovely blend of voices and infectious positive energy. Roman is playing a handmade drum from Bill Machuga of Gold Line drums in Kelowna, Liam, a used Vantage acoustic bass and Dillon, one of the new Eastman 00 models with Adirondack spruce top. All currently available at the Mtn Fruit.
Slide player Jeff Lang knows his music and he knows his guitars. We had a great chat about both and he applied the requisite technique to the 1967 Gibson for sale in the shop right now. The result was impressive and he was impressed. In his words this Gibson is a very nice players guitar with near perfect neck angle, action and tone but not a collectors guitar. As in not mint condition, a few rough spots but nothing major, functional or structural.
Accomplished multi-instrumentalist Marty Hamilton tries out his new Eastman AR 810CE before taking it home! Apologies for the background noise.
How about a Dulsitar?
Recently did a project for Nelson based accomplished musician Andrew Ross. Andrew asked for a left handed dulcimer on a guitar body with some sitar overtones. Only the two plain steel octave strings have the Jawari effect.
Andrew kindly posted a YT video of some inspired playing that arose shortly after he received the modified 1940’s Kay.
If you’ve never seen a marimba band playing instruments they’ve made and you like to dance, now’s your chance!
Karen Behns fantastic community choir will be performing in Argenta tonight at 7:30 at the Argenta Hall and Tomorrow night, Sat the 31’st of May at the United Church in Kaslo, also at 7:30pm.
Moyo Marimba will perform somewhere in the middle of their performance to give the choir a break, see you there!
This client doesn’t like the traditional raised pick guards and associated hardware found on many mandolins. So we installed a faux tortoise shell directly onto the surface of his Eastman MD 505 A-style Mandolin in classic sunburst. Happy to say there was no significant affect on the tone of the instrument and he was pleased with the function and the aesthetic of the pickguard!
The top was refinished on this 70’s Gibson below (at the request of the owner!) and we used a clear pick guard to replace the original which had left a patch underneath that wasn’t so UV affected. Overall a neat effect as it looks as though the pick guard is made of the same wood as the top just a slightly different hue.
