 | | demonstrating the royal wave |
On Saturday, Aug. 12th, White Hall's own Joey Damiano was crowned Kazoo Queen at the 65th Old Fiddler's Convention in Galax, Va., one of the more dubious unofficial honors at one of the oldest and most respected appalachian music festivals in the state. While Galax regularly attracts thousands of pickers and players to compete for cash prizes in yearly competitions, the honor of Kazoo Queenship is only bestowed upon the shrewdest and silliest political manueverers. Cripsy Duck ran into Her Majesty sitting in on guitar at a recent Walker's Run show and coaxed mandolinist Brennan Gilmore, the band's central cortex and fellow Galax enthusiast, to sit down for a brief chat with the royal matriarch.
BRENNAN GILMORE: Alright, Joey, give us a brief history of the Kazoo Queen Contest and the Kazoo Parade at the Galax Old Fiddler's Convention.
HER MAJESTY, JOEY DAMIANO: How it all began.
GILMORE: How it all began.
HER MAJESTY: Fourteen years ago they started this kazoo contest for kids at Galax. So uh, they decided there would be a queen and the queen was already chosen and so she got really, um... intoxicated the night before and she couldn't perform her duties the day afterwards at 3:33, on Saturday, 14 years.....
GILMORE: Does this sort of thing go on alot down at Galax, this intoxication thing?
HER MAJESTY: ...fourteen... um well, yeah, sure. It's been going on for alot of years.
DUCK: (confused) So you been doing it for 14 years, what?
HER MAJESTY: Well, no, the uh.... the "queen" started 14 years ago. But the queen couldn't actually make it 'cause she got intoxicated the night before.
DUCK: Right.
HER MAJESTY: So, they spent lotsa money on the costume, so her husband says "Ah'll be damned." His name is Sam, the Shooterman. Green Eggs and Ham, Sam. (to Brennan) You met him?
GILMORE: Yeah. Every night they'd ring a bell...
HER MAJESTY: ...And Sam would come runnin'...
GILMORE: ...And have shooters for everybody.
HER MAJESTY: Yep.
GILMORE: And so you'll be in the middle of a jam session and the bell rings...
HER MAJESTY: ...and that's it, fuck it.
GILMORE: In the middle of the song, everyone starts busting it towards the shooter man.
HER MAJESTY: Yep, so much for that. But you know... you'll start back up in a couple of minutes. Anyhow, so he dons the costume, and goes to the kazoo contest and lo and behold, they had a male queen for the kazoo contest. So he proceeded to pass it on to another male who was elected queen. And so on and so forth.
GILMORE: How exactly were you elected? You were the queen's assistant this year, right?
HER MAJESTY: I was the queen's assistant.
GILMORE: That's a long, arduous process.
HER MAJESTY: It is, it is, you know. 'Cause you have to... fight with the other contestants, and stuff, you know. You have to bribe...
GILMORE: It's pretty brutal-- there's alot of guys that want to be the queen.
HER MAJESTY: You have to bribe the queen. And if you bribe the queen properly and the other queens approve then you're elected. And then the following year, whoever wants to be queen, they bribe the queen, so...
DUCK: How would you bribe the queen?
GILMORE: Moonshine.
HER MAJESTY: Well, yeah, moonshine works...uh, little gadgets... uh, little gifts, uh... a little money wouldn't hurt.
GILMORE: How did it feel when you found out you were gonna be queen?
HER MAJESTY: (without hesitation) It was like having a Rough Rider on and havin' sex.
GILMORE: Could you say something that we can print?
HER MAJESTY: Well, if you took it off...
 | | blessing an instrument for brennan |
(all laugh)
GILMORE: Well, Joey, alot of people think queens nowadays don't really do too much. What do you think about that?
HER MAJESTY: Well. I got to play with a little five-year-old at Galax.
GILMORE: O.K.!!! Again, let's put something we can print...
HER MAJESTY: Actually, one of those five-year-olds plays mandolin, and, being queen, I had to fulfill my duties...
GILMORE: So it is really, like-- it's not a bad thing-- it's like a child-oriented...
HER MAJESTY: It's a great thing. Oh yes.
GILMORE: It breaks the monotony down at Galax.
HER MAJESTY: Children look up to you no matter how tall you are.
(all laugh)
GILMORE: That's a public service announcement. Yeah, 'cause after like a week of playing bluegrass with old foagies, all you want to do is see a bunch of hippies dressed up head-to-tail in tie-dye walkin' down the road with a kazoo in their mouth.
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