January 2010
Well folks, the New Year isn’t even 3 weeks old yet and there’s already been a lot going on!
New Band Photography
We started everything off with a bang and a snap the first week by asking our friend Cam Sanders, a great photographer, to create new band photography for us and the wonderful results can be found on our website’s Gallery page.
New Sounds!
Also early in the month, our friend Ken Lopez from USC did us a big favor by helping us to find new sound equipment which we did with the help of Kurtis Ewing at Westlake Professional Sales. Now we’re traveling around with some fine Audiotechnica mics and are really happy with them. The other cool sound addition to the band is my brother Rick’s Martin 0018. The day before we played Kulak’s he brought it down from Northern California for me to borrow and we love the sound in combo with Rob’s big D28. I hope we get to keep it!
January Shows
The month has already seen two shows – we had a great time at Kulak’s Woodshed in North Hollywood with Tracy Newman and the Reinforcements on January 9th, and the following weekend took the Quartet to Tom Lee’s Songtree Music Series in Goleta California where we had a great, great experience. It’s a beautiful new space for concerts and a large and wonderfully warm audience. Lastly this month it’s the Concert for Haiti benefit concert on Sunday, January 31st at the Culver Culver-Palms United Methodist Church, 4464 Sepulveda Blvd, Culver City 90230. Artists include Laurence Juber, Amilia K. Spicer, Brad Colerick, Robby Longley, Freebo, Bernie Pearl with Mike Barry, Matt Cartsonis, Renaissance, James Lee Stanley, Severin Browne, Michael Richards & Doctor Fun, Tracy Newman, Bonne Musique Zydeco, Sage, Tim Tedrow & Terry Vreeland, Robert Morgan Fisher, Dale LaDuke, Dave Morrison Band, Dafni, Duane Thorin, Lisa Turner, Kara Grainger. Call the Culver-Palms United Methodist Church at 310-390-7717 for more information and plan to come and donate for Haiti earthquake relief. Organizations represented will be Doctors Without Borders, Partners in Health – PIH, CARE, Oxfam, Americares and others. www.hope4la.org
NAMM
Steve and I attended the NAMM show a couple of weeks ago, where we ran into many of our buddies hanging at the Martin Guitar exhibit. Thanks to our friends at IBMA (thanks Jill!), we were able to attend as members of that organization. At Martin we were incredibly lucky to meet with Dick Boak who handles Artist & Public Relations, and is the editor of “The Sounding Board” (Martin’s official newsletter). We shared with him the unique story of how our D28 came to us, and he offered to add a listing about our band and our Martin story to the newsletter, published twice a year. The story in short: Our Martin D-28 (pictured in the banner photo on the top of our website) came to us by way of Steve’s good friend, actor John Goodman. John worked with Steven Spielberg in the movie “The Flintstones” and was given the guitar as a gift from the director. John found he didn’t play the guitar very often and offered it to Steve who promptly jumped at the chance to own this gorgeous instrument. We’ve featured it in our concerts and recording sessions ever since.
We should be in Vol. 29 of “The Sounding Board” this summer.
Also while at the NAMM show we were delighted to set up artist relationship agreements with Shubb Capos (www.shubb.com) and Deering Banjos (www.deeringbanjos.com). Steve ordered a Vega Old Tyme model from the Deering booth and we’re excited to have it arrive soon. Watch out for some old fashioned plunking from Steve coming soon…!
Writing
I’ve started my CD review writing for Dirty Linen (www.dirtylinen.com) and my first byline will appear in their March/April issue. On Folkworks (www.folkworks.org) my review of Jeni & Billy’s CD “Jewel Ridge Coal” is currently CD Review of the Week.
February Shows
As I write we’re preparing for our February shows, including our first time in the San Francisco Bluegrass & Old Time Festival (www.sfbluegrass.org). All the details for February are on our Upcoming Shows page.
