Leftover x Breckenridge = Tasty Tunes & Brew

The original intersection of Fly FIshing and Bluegrass Leftover Salmon is collaborating with Breckenridge Brewery by releasing some new tunes in a 12 pack sampler with a collection of sweet  coasters to match. Talk about a cross promotional Gold Mine that I can get behind, yeah!

Sign me UP! Now the one thing I will  have to overcome, and believe me I will overcome it, is that those sampler packs tend to be a way to get rid of beers that didn’t sell all that well, at least that’s the way I view them. But I can get over that to support some good tunes and good beer.

Nice work Breckenridge and LOS!

There is a contest, but who needs contests, I’ll pay for the beer and the tunes, and call it good. Not sure where the 12 Packs will be sold, but I’m guessing anywhere you can find Breckenridge Beer. So go get you some.

The new Leftover Salmon songs are all inspired by Fine Colorado Ales, the Colorado lifestyle, and the beauty that Colorado has to offer. It made perfect sense to package these songs with our beers and give folks the full Colorado experience.

Each song download is released alongside an Artist Series coaster that will come packaged inside our 12-pack Sampler Packs. The artists consist of four well-known artists from the “Rock Art” community, including Gary Houston, Jeff Wood,Nate Duval, and Tyler Stout. In addition to the coasters, each artist is printing a limited run of posters.

The song download coasters will start shipping out with Breckenridge Brewery beers in July. Be sure to look for the specially marked 12-pack Sampler Packs.

Dear Bluegrass police, (I’m looking at you Terry 🙂 While Leftover Salmon is not “pure” old-school Flatt and Scruggs or Monroe, it’s close enough, so please do not revoke my membership card. I promise to repent, and for my penance do 20 rounds of Wheel Hoss, 20 rounds of Sally Goodin, and 20 Verses of Blue Moon of Kentucky (the slow part — it’s more meaningful.) 

Jeff Austin in our little old town of Troy? YES INDEED at the Elks Lodge no less…

So I just bought tickets for a Jeff Austin and the Here and Now show at the Troy Elk’s Lodge.

It’s listed on the Stop Over site as Jeff Austin and the Here And Now Bluegrass Jam.

His official site has him listed as playing a few other shows as well. The Market Street Stage you can see for $5.00. WORD!

Troy Memorial Stadium – Troy, OH

w/Mumford & Sons’ the Gentleman Of The Road tour. More info here

Friday, Aug. 30th: 4:30pm-5:30pm @ Market Street Stage & 11:45pm-2:00am @ Elks Lodge

Saturday, Aug. 31st: 12:00am-1:00am @ Market Street Stage

This is going to be a rude awakening for little old Troy, I hope the old people are ready to be jamming til the morning.

Gentlemen of the Road Stopover in Troy Ohio with Mumford and Sons — a preview.

Ok — so as most who read this blog with regularity know that I am generally a card carrying member of the BLUEGRASS POLICE. As such I have the right to preform citizens arrests for such offenses as: Playing Songs in the wrong Key, mis-use of a banjo, calling things bluegrass that clearly aren’t, and bluegrass style cover tunes that are just plain wrong-ditty.

As a member of the Bluegrass Police it has been my duty to call out anyone, who in conversation, calls the band Mumford and Sons Bluegrass. I have fulfilled my duty in this charge numerous times since this band came into the spotlight with banjos in tow. That doesn’t mean I don’t like them or their music. In fact I like their music and the band a great deal and think they have pushed the boundaries of traditional acoustic music in ways that are un-imaginable. They have had such a huge influence and have put the banjo and acoustic instruments on stages and in front of audiences that have largely ignored them for years, and for that fact alone, the Bluegrass world owes them an eternal debt of gratitude.

So with that in mind, I must say that I am totally fucking stoked that Mumford and Sons chose my sleepy little hamlet of Troy, Ohio to host a Gentlemen of the Road Stopover. FULL STOP. This is HUGE for Troy and hopefully will shake the town out of it’s stodgy ways for good! Let’s get some cool stuff going for little old troy again.

Here is a video primer on what to expect from the stop over. I can’t wait.

I just heard that another set of tickets are set to be released to the otherwise sold-out show this friday.

The only thing I’m bummed about is that they haven’t called me to sit in with them — yet. My agent is working on that though…

Here’s the line-up:

A Bluegrass tribute to the fallen — Littlest Guardian Angels #newtown

My songwriter friend and Bluegrass collaborator Brink Brinkman wrote an amazing song that has a whole new meaning when they set some very special photos to it. Get out the hankies folks, this is a tough one to watch, but WOW, Brink can really write a song. It was originally written for Brink’s daughter Lindsey Jean.

Singing on this are Steve Gulley and Dale Ann Bradley along with Brink.

Thank You, that is all.

Bill Evans’s new album in “In Good Company” is one of the best and most surprising albums I’ve heard in a long time.

Every once in a while I’m just totally blown away by an album. I’ve heard and played A LOT of bluegrass. It takes quite a bit to blow me away these days. I’m not saying I’m the Bluegrass Police or an old, grumpy picker who hates anything made after 1960, but I’m getting there.

That being said, this morning I was totally blown away when I popped in the new Bill Evans album “In Good Company” for the morning commute.

From the first note it manages to strike the perfect balance of new grass mellowness, taste and restraint with solid traditional  Bluegrass drive. It’s dry but with a hint of moistened reverb, clean with specks of dust, edgy when it needs to be but traditional in just the right spots without ever being cliché or ironic. (Thank the lord, because I’m really getting sick of ironic)

Honestly, I try to take an open minded approach to these things and listen without any pre-conceived notions, so going in to this I had no idea what this album was all about. But when I got to the office I opened up the liner notes to find out it’s a smorgasbord of bluegrass deliciousness. I then understood EXACTLY why I thought it was SOOO good. Check out the listing of contributors…

Bill Evans with The Infamous Stringdusters, Tim O’Brien, Joy Kills Sorrow, Darol Anger, Cindy Browne Rosefield, Tashina & Tristan Clarridge, Stuart Duncan, Corey Evans, Matt Flinner, David Grier, Rob Ickes, Dominic Leslie, Laurie Lewis, Ned Luberecki, Mike Marshall, Todd Phillips and Missy Raines. Produced by Bill Evans, Stephen Mougin, Darol Anger & Tom Size.

Good grief if you can’t make a killer album with that line up, you need think about doing something else. That being said it even exceeds the sum of it parts by an order of magnitude. Bill Evans really has put a good one together.

The first track called the “The Distance Between Two Points” starts it off perfectly and from there it was a joy to listen to all the way through. From the first note you can tell it’s a technical masterpiece where every note is placed with perfection and care. It’s not just the musicianship that stands out either.

The engineering and production values are off the chart AMAZING! The complexity and space surrounding the instruments is phenomenal. There is serious subtly in the bass tone.The woodyness of each instrument comes through in all it’s sparkling glory. It’s a rare beast indeed that brings this kind of complexity to the table without becoming too tedious, wonky, over-complicated or esoteric. This album has NONE of that, and for that, it’s a breath of fresh air to be sure.

It also manages to hang together as a cohesive idea too, which is rare on these all-star projects. Sometimes these kinds of albums can fall apart and turn into a few decent tracks with some filler. However “In Good Company” manages to maintain a solid feel and vibe that is consistent through out the entire length of the record. It has a nice change of pace and mix of feels but at the same a uniformity that seems to be elusive in today’s scatterbrained culture. I love that!

This is an album that should have a place in every Bluegrass fan’s shelf, it’s the work of a master and his good company.

My Old Dog, a new mandolin tune, in an old style. Just a video of me messing around…

So in February my dog went Blind.

Just like that. Blind as a bat.

He has a disease called Cushing’s disease which causes sudden blindness in dogs. One day he just started running into things, and now he does it all the time. The technical term is, Sudden acquired retinal degeneration syndrome (SARDS).

He’s coping ok, and it’s not going to adversely effect his health beyond his eyesight and some lethargy. I hope to still get him out and hunt, but obviously in a more grassy environment, not so grouse woodsy. Downed trees and briars would not be fun for a blind dog, can you say headache?

To make dealing with it a little easier I named a little tune after that whole scenario and I recorded a video of it last night on the back porch.

It’s simple, easy, no frills, but fun to play. It’s the kind of thing you play and people ask, “what is that?” and you say, oh just something I made up. But now days, those kinds of songs don’t often get written down or recorded. It has lyrics but I didn’t sing them in this version.

The lyrics for it go like this:

My old dog he went blind
He went blind in a week or two’s time

My old dog he can’t see,
He runs into the old oak tree.

That’s it. Simple and Old School.

Who Dey Nick – Getting his sleep on.

Cute chicks, good slide guitar, and vintage Cadillacs, Larkin Poe delivers.

What’s not to love about a couple of cute chicks one of which is a killer slide guitar player, riding around in a vintage Cadillac and singing a killer tune. If there was a “love it” button I’d hit it twice.

Meet Larkin Poe.

Twitter recommended them to me, why, I have no idea but they only have 600 some followers. How is that possible? You need to go follow them and then, buy their record and go their show when they come to town.

If they look familiar, it’s because they used to be called the Lovell Sisters.(because that’s their actual name)

Here’s the backstory from their site:

In their early-teens, after winning a prestigious award on Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion on NPR, the then called “Lovell Sisters” toured internationally – from the stage of the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, TN to Bonnaroo. At the beginning of 2010, after saying ‘farewell’ to The Lovell Sisters, the musical story of Rebecca and Megan’s young adulthood began in the form of a new band: Larkin Poe.

It’s nice to see a group take a turn for the better after being embraced and glammed up by  the Nashvegas Glitterati. These girls took the bull by the horns, turned in a new direction, and I couldn’t love that new direction more. Good solid soulful southern rock, with an alt country under tone without trying to be Steve Earle 2.0 or Wilco 3.0. It’s good stuff. We likey!

This weekend on May 19th they will be performing at Lulu’s in Gulf Shores. A place we always make sure to visit when we stay at Kiva Dunes, love Lulu’s too. Fish on!