I'm reminded of a pseudo-Mick pub in Antigua, Guatemala, right next to the Nim Pot supermarket of Mayan-world crafts+arts. A pub blasting Tina Turner videos, hey? Good Irish food, too. 8-)
Some fellow-volunteers in my long-ago US Army Basic Training unit expressed strong desires to undergo paratrooper training, with postings as Airborne Rangers. I said, "It's one thing to jump from aircraft in peacetime, but rather gnarlier if folks shoot at us as we descend. No thanks." 8-)
Tonopah NV sports other motels. Stay at the far edge of town, hey? And remember, you're not too far from Area 51. Clowns or aliens, take your pick! 8-)
My spouse's grandmother worked as a proofreader for a San Francisco technical publisher. The pay was quite adequate, enough to support her party-girl life. Better than an online game, hey?
Other seminal figures in the rise of the banjo in western culture a half-century ago are Pete and Peggy Seeger. His HOW TO PLAY THE 5-STRING BANJO, in USA (I have the 1962 3rd edition), and her THE 5-STRING BANJO: AMERICAN FOLK STYLES, in UK, taught aspiring musicians outside the bluegrass belt just what to do with their instruments. Their brother Mike's band, The New Lost City Ramblers, also spread pre-Scruggs styles. Pete was a familiar figure with his customized long-necked 5-string. The Seegers may not have had mass popular followings, but they influenced generations of musicians.
The tremendous banjo frenzy in USA of the late 1800's led to many curious hybrids. Many folks knew how to play guitar, mandolin, other stringed-fretted instruments, and manufacturers slapped necks from those git-fiddles onto banjo-head bodies. I have my grandfather's banjo-mandolin (circa 1890) and a banjo-ukulele. But banjo-mandolas (double-size mandolins), banjo-guitars, even banjo-basses and double-basses, spread across the land, as did banjo orchestras featuring the entire panoply of hybrids. I'm not sure, but I think a banjo-mandola, with single-strings rather than pairs, was the ancestor of the 4-string banjo of jazz-rag-trad bands -- primarily a rhythm instrument.
And of course, there are homemade tin-cup or ten-cup banjos. Take a metal saucepan (it's OK if it has holes in it). Carve a neck from a stick or a broken wooden chair leg. Attach neck to pot handle. Cover the pot with resonating material, whatever works. Run one or two or three strings over it. Cheap and easy.
Somewhat related are the products of Zeynelabidin Cümbü? in Turkey, originally developed as machine-age replacements for the hand-crafted lute and oud or 'ud. Such has a fretted or fretless neck attached to steel pot covered with a banjo head. They range in size similar to those in banjo orchestras I mentioned above. I have two guitar-sized Cümbü?'s, one 11-string fretless and tuned as an 'ud, the other 12-string fretted and tuned as a guitar. It sounds like the loudest, raunchiest banjo you've ever heard! I especially like to torture it, playing bottleneck-slide blues. Bystanders pay money just to make me stop. :)
Banjos shall live forever! Longer than I will, anyway.
The tremendous banjo frenzy in USA of the late 1800's led to many curious hybrids. Many folks knew how to play guitar, mandolin, other stringed-fretted instruments, and manufacturers slapped necks from those git-fiddles onto banjo-head bodies. I have my grandfather's banjo-mandolin (circa 1890) and a banjo-ukulele. But banjo-mandolas (double-size mandolins), banjo-guitars, even banjo-basses and double-basses, spread across the land, as did banjo orchestras featuring the entire panoply of hybrids. I'm not sure, but I think a banjo-mandola, with single-strings rather than pairs, was the ancestor of the 4-string banjo of jazz-rag-trad bands -- primarily a rhythm instrument.
And of course, there are homemade tin-cup or ten-cup banjos. Take a metal saucepan (it's OK if it has holes in it). Carve a neck from a stick or a broken wooden chair leg. Attach neck to pot handle. Cover the pot with resonating material, whatever works. Run one or two or three strings over it. Cheap and easy.
Somewhat related are the products of Zeynelabidin Cümbü? in Turkey, originally developed as machine-age replacements for the hand-crafted lute and oud or 'ud. Such has a fretted or fretless neck attached to steel pot covered with a banjo head. They range in size similar to those in banjo orchestras I mentioned above. I have two guitar-sized Cümbü?'s, one 11-string fretless and tuned as an 'ud, the other 12-string fretted and tuned as a guitar. It sounds like the loudest, raunchiest banjo you've ever heard! I especially like to torture it, playing bottleneck-slide blues. Bystanders pay money just to make me stop. :)
Banjos shall live forever! Longer than I will, anyway.