Danny Barnes - Got Myself Together (Ten Years Later) (2015)

I spend a lot of time developing new contexts like the barnyard electronics aesthetic. Get Myself Together was my last acoustic-type recording and it was ten years ago. I get quite a bit of fan mail about it, but, unfortunately, the label that released it went out of business. I wanted to make something with this record that featured more of my raw acoustic sound, as though I was kind of playing in your living room. Also, I practice and take lessons and work like crazy on this stuff, so I feel like my chops are better after ten years of hard work.
I had to come up with a different scene for each song. The original context for these songs was as though I had made a movie and everything was all committed to celluloid. However, with music you tend to shape things as you play them live. The routine is: You write something, you record it, then you go play it for ten years on the road. So, in returning to the music, I had a bit of a different perspective. It's more like a dramatic work in that the company that performs it and the venue it's performed in necessarily changes the meaning – post-structuralism, situationism, open source.
I enjoy these songs and I think they are “real songs,” if that makes any sense. They can be strummed on a one-string instrument and they still make sense and tell the story. They don't depend on effects or processing. I think they are worth a busy person taking time to jam on them.
– Danny Barnes, as told to Brian T. Atkinson

Danny Barnes, this year's recipient of the Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass, used a Bishline open-back banjo with bare fingers on this album. He recorded in his kitchen (technically, his dining room) through a Shure KSM 313 ribbon microphone for the banjo and Shure SM-7 for vocals.