Somebody commented the other day, after visiting the site, that older video clips were hard to find. I decided it would probably be a good idea to put some of this material up near the top of the blog so that people could find it. All clips are outtakes from the Troubadour Blues project, for which I shot nearly 200 hours of MiniDV tape.

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First up, here’s a deleted scene, “Festival Folks,” that was in the original two-hour rough cut of the film. It’s a section about folk festivals and other gatherings, and it features scenes from the the Fred Eaglesmith Charity Picnic in Aylmer, Ontarion, in 2005, the Edinboro Arts Festival and the Spring Fever Folk Festival in 2006, and Folk Alliance International in 2007. Interesting stuff, but had to be cut because of length.

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Although they mostly play their own material, troubadours are known to bust out impromptu versions of big hit songs. In this video, Garrison Starr, Neilson Hubbard and Kirk Yoquelet pull out all the stops with a spirited version of the Bangles’ “Walk Like An Egyptian;” Slaid Cleaves and Charles Arthur play the Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” and Peter Case, Jim Whitford, Mark Winsick and Rob Lynch rock out with Jerry Lee Lewis’s “Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee”.

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Stan Ridgway is probably best known for his work with the ’80s band Wall of Voodoo — who doesn’t remember “Mexican Radio” from MTV? Since then, Stan has had a long and varied career as a singer-songwriter and composer of movie scores. As a kid I always loved story songs like “Big Bad John”; think of this as Stan’s contribution to that genre.

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Chris Gaffney was a musician’s musician who claimed to know the words to every song written since 1956. He dedicated a lifetime to exploring the border regions between country and soul. Here’s Gaff in the role he played for many years — as Dave Alvin’s bandleader, road manager and show opener — doing an old Philly Soul classic: the Intruders’ “Cowboys to Girls.” With the Guilty Men: Gregory Boaz on bass, Bobby Lloyd Hicks on drums, Chris Miller on guitar and Joe Terry on keyboards.

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Last but not least, here’s a great performance by Peter Case of “New Old Blue Car,” an updated version of a song that appeared on Peter’s first solo album and was co-written with Victoria Williams and Marvin Etzioni. With DJ Bonebrake on drums and Ron Franklin on harp and second guitar. The song was inspired by an old gas guzzler owned by Case’s childhood friend, the late Michael Bannister.