Spotlight on: The first annual Carbondale Brews and Bread Fest Presented By Sopris Liquor & Wine

The first annual Carbondale Brews and Bread Fest Presented By Sopris Liquor & Wine, held Friday June 1st and Saturday June 2 at Third Street Center and PAC3 in Carbondale, CO.  The Bread and Bread showcases the art of home brewing, the choices of  craft breweries, the fragrance of community bread baking and the creativity of music and puppetry surrounded by renewable energy options and a mother of all mountains called Sopris.  Friday night kick off at PAC3, featuring special beer tasting and local band TRUNK and Roots Reggae band The Itals.

Saturday features carft brewers brewers to showcase their seasonal summer brews while festival-goers savor the spirited results.  The main event tasting on Saturday, both create high energy as brews flow freely and popular Colorado music, with a focus on local organic food. Community, wood-fired Bread Oven on site. Saturday Night at PAC3 will have Dan Sheridan opening for folk legend David Bromberg.

THE MOTET: PAC3′s One Year Anniversary Party

May 25th, 2012

Doors 7pm Show 8pm

$25Adv/$30 Day of Show

IT’S OUR ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY!
Help us celebrate with  music by our friends, the Motet.

A Benefit For The New PAC3 Foundation
Please come celebrate our one year anniversary
it’s all about the soul and keeping the music & art alive

Get there early to get a limited edition One Year Anniversary Party Motet poster, and get the band to sign it.

We need Volunteers for this show!

The Itals

Friday June  1st

Door at 7

TRUNK opens at 8pm

Itals at 9pm

Tickets $25 advance/$30 day of Show

The Itals are a Jamaican reggae vocal group formed in 1976 by Alvin “Keith” Porter, Ronnie Davis, and Lloyd Ricketts (R.I.P.) (Ronnie Davis is currently a member of The Tennors), all of whom had previously also recorded as solo artists. All three had worked together in the late 1960s in The Westmorelites. The group recorded several albums through the late 1970s and 1980s, with Ronnie Davis going on to a successful solo career. Their debut single, “In A Dis Ya Time”, is regarded as the group’s finest work, and topped the Jamaican chart. 1987′s Rasta Philosophy was nominated for a Grammy Award as Best Reggae Album. The line-up has changed over the years, with former solo artist David Isaacs joining in 1987 when Ricketts was sentenced to a prison term, preventing him from travelling to the United States. Davis left the group in 1994, and was replaced by Porter’s daughter Kada. The Itals continued to tour in 2009 in support of the newly released “Let Them Talk”. In 2011 original member Lloyd Ricketts was able to obtain a work permit and performed two shows with Keith and Ronnie before his death. Ronnie Davis stepped away from The Itals in 2012 and reunited with the Rocksteady group The Tennors, but Keith continues to tour with two of his children, Darien Porter and Kada Porter, providing harmonies.
Over the years, the Itals have performed countless shows worldwide. Although the background harmonies sometimes change, they always sound as sweet as ever, backing the original Itals lead vocalist, Keith Porter.

Carbondale Bread and Brew Festival

Full weekend tickets- Gets you in to all the events all weekend.  Start your friday night off with The Itals and some Colorado Local Brews.  Saturday enjoy more craft brews and pizza.  Starting at 8pm Dan Sheridan will Open David Bromberg.  This is the best value for all weekend.  These tickets are  LIMITED.  So, get your early!

Saturday Day and Saturday Night with David Bromberg

Friday Night The Itals Tickets-

Friday Schedule;

5:00pm-6:30pm Pizza Bake

7:00pm: Doors Open at PAC3 Beer tasting

Saturday Night David Bromberg- 

The first annual Carbondale Brews and Bread Fest Presented By Sopris Liquor & Wine, held Friday June 1st and Saturday June 2 at Third Street Center and PAC3 in Carbondale, CO. The Bread and Bread showcases the art of home brewing, the choices of  craft breweries, the fragrance of community bread baking and the creativity of music and puppetry surrounded by renewable energy options and a mother of all mountains called Sopris.

Friday night kick off at PAC3, featuring special beer tasting and local band TRUNK and Roots Reggae band The Itals.
Saturday features carft brewers brewers to showcase their seasonal summer brews while festival-goers savor the spirited results. The main event tasting on Saturday. Both create high energy as brews flow freely and popular Colorado music, with a focus on local organic food. Community, wood-fired Bread Oven on site. Saturday Night at PAC3 will have Dan Sheridan opening for folk legend David Bromberg.

· Live music in the afternoon Third Street Center starting at 12:30-7pm featuring Whitewater Ramble and Yellow Dog Dingo.
· The Bread oven will begin baking 6pm on Friday & 12:30 on Saturday.
· Tasting Friday night featuring 3 Colorado breweries and on Third Street Center featuring 10-15 breweries on Saturday, the grand beer tasting is 3:00-5:00pm  at the Third Street Center. The local’s homebrew competition will also take place on Saturday, June 2nd during the grand beer tasting.

Volunteer for this Festival!

David Bromberg

Doors at 7

Dan Sheridan at 8pm

David Bromberg Quartet at 9

Beer tasting 7-9

Tickets: GA Seating $35 advance/$40 day of show

Reserved Seating$45 advance/$50.00 day of show

He’s played with everyone, he’s toured everywhere, he can lead a raucous big band or hold an audience silent with a solo acoustic blues. Here’s the story of David Bromberg, or at least some of it . . .

Born in Philadelphia in 1945 and raised in Tarrytown, NY, “as a kid I listened to rock ’n’ roll and whatever else was on the radio,” says Bromberg. “I discovered Pete Seeger and The Weavers and, through them, Reverend Gary Davis. I then discovered Big Bill Broonzy, who led me to Muddy Waters and the Chicago blues. This was more or less the same time I discovered Flatt and Scruggs, which led to Bill Monroe and Doc Watson.”

Bromberg began studying guitar-playing when he was 13 and eventually enrolled in Columbia University as a musicology major. The call of the Greenwich Village folk scene in the mid-’60s drew David to the downtown clubs and coffeehouses, where he could watch and learn from the best performers, including primary sources such as his inspiration and teacher, the Reverend Gary Davis.

Bromberg’s sensitive and versatile approach to guitar-playing earned him jobs playing the Village “basket houses” for tips, the occasional paying gig, and lots of employment as a backing musician for Tom Paxton, Jerry Jeff Walker and Rosalie Sorrels, among others. He became a first-call, “hired gun” guitarist for recording sessions, ultimately playing on hundreds of records by artists including Bob Dylan (New Morning, Self Portrait, Dylan), Link Wray, The Eagles, Ringo Starr, Willie Nelson, and Carly Simon.
Bromberg’s range of material, based in the folk and blues idioms, continually expanded with each new album to encompass bluegrass, ragtime, country and ethnic music, and his touring band grew apace. By the mid-’70s, the David Bromberg Big Band included horn-players, a violinist, and several multi-instrumentalists, including David himself. Among the best-known Bromberg Band graduates: mandolinist Andy Statman, later a major figure in the Klezmer music movement in America, and fiddler Jay Ungar (who wrote the memorable “Ashokan Farewell” for Ken Burns’ PBS documentary, “The Civil War”).
With the release of Try Me One More Time, his 2007 solo return to the studio, David continued his musical revitalization, playing shows on his own, backed by (and supporting) Angel Band, his own David Bromberg Quartet, and reunions of the David Bromberg Big Band, the configuration depending on the circumstance. As 2010 draws to a close, David is completing an ambitious new album entittled Use Me, which features David collaborating with friends like John Hiatt, Levon Helm, Los Lobos, Tim O’Brien, Vince Gill, Widespread Panic, Dr. John, Keb’ Mo’ and others. 2011 promises to be another eventful year in the history of David Bromberg.

Listen Here to the KDNK Interview with David Bromberg

Saturday Night of Bread and Brew Festival

David Grisman Bluegrass Experience

July 12, 2012

Doors at 7pm Show at 8pm

Tickets $35 advance/$40 day of show

For nearly half a century, mandolinist / composer / bandleader / producer David Grisman has been a guiding force in the evolving world of acoustic music. His musical range is wide and deep — embracing many styles, genres and traditions. An acoustic pioneer and innovator, David forged a unique personal artistic path, skillfully combining elements of the great American music/art forms — jazz and bluegrass with many international flavors and sensibilities to create his own distinctive idiom — “Dawg” music (the nickname given him by Jerry Garcia.)  In doing so, he’s inspired new generations of acoustic string musicians, while creating his own niche in contemporary music. Grisman discovered the mandolin as a teenager growing up in New Jersey, where he met and became a disciple of mandolinist/folklorist Ralph Rinzler. Despite warnings from his piano teacher that it wasn’t a “real” instrument, David learned to play the mandolin in the style of Bill Monroe, the father of bluegrass music. He took it to Greenwich Village where he studied English at NYU, while immersed in the proliferating folk music scene of the early 1960s. In 1963 Grisman made his first recordings both as an artist (Even Dozen Jug Band – Elektra) and producer (Red Allen, Frank Wakefield and the Kentuckians ­ Folkways.) In 1966 Red Allen offered David his first job with an authentic bluegrass band, the Kentuckians. Grisman began composing original tunes and playing with other urban bluegrass contemporaries like Peter Rowan and Jerry Garcia, with whom he would later form Old & in the Way. David’s interests spread to jazz in 1967, while playing in a folk-rock group, Earth Opera. A failed attempt at learning to play alto sax turned him into a student of jazz musicianship and theory. His burgeoning career as a session musician gave him experience playing many types of music and opportunities to stretch the boundaries of the mandolin. His discography is filled with notables including Jerry Garcia, Stephane Grappelli, the Grateful Dead, John Hartford, Del McCoury, Bonnie Raitt, Linda Ronstadt, Earl Scruggs, James Taylor and Doc Watson. Dawg’s instrumental style found a home in 1974 when he formed the Great American Music Band with fiddler Richard Greene. “Nothing against singers,” said David, “but it became apparent to me that I could play 90 minutes without one. Besides, Elvis never called.” Within a year, David met guitar wizard Tony Rice, who moved to California where they started rehearsing a new group, the David Grisman Quintet (DGQ,) which also included violinist Darol Anger and bassist/mandolinist Todd Phillips. Since then the DGQ has featured such stellar notables as Svend Asmussen, Hal Blaine, Vassar Clements, Stephane Grappelli, Mike Marshall, Andy Statman and Frank Vignola. The current lineup includes bassist Jim Kerwin, flutist Matt Eakle, percussionist George Marsh, guitarist Grant Gordy and fiddler Mike Barnett (DGQ+). After recording for major and independent labels, David founded Acoustic Disc in 1990 and entered the most prolific period of his career, producing 67 critically acclaimed CDs (five of which were Grammy-nominated.) In 2010 he launched <http://AcousticOasis.com/>AcousticOasis.com, the first download website devoted to acoustic music. Recently Grisman has revisited his roots with the David Grisman Bluegrass Experience (DGBX). This very traditional group includes Keith Little on 5-string banjo, guitar and vocals, Jim Nunally on guitar and vocals, Chad Manning on fiddle, Samson Grisman on bass, with David on mandolin and vocals. Dawg also plays blues and old-time music with his old jugband-mate John Sebastian. He lives in Northern California with his wife Tracy, an artist and musician. Between them they have seven grown kids and four grandchildren. David Grisman has always been a revolutionary. He has deeply influenced contemporary acoustic practicioners through his own musical explorations and with the continuing success of Acoustic Disc and Acoustic Oasis, has helped make artist-owned independent labels a viable force in today’s music business.

New Riders Of The Purple Sage

July 16th, 2012

Doors at 7pm Show at 8pm

Tickets $20 advance/$25 at the Door

In the summer of 1969, John Dawson was looking to showcase his songs while Jerry Garcia was looking to practice his brand new pedal steel guitar. The two played in coffeehouses and small clubs initially, and the music they made became the nucleus for a band—the New Riders of the Purple Sage.

That same year, David Nelson, expert in both country and rock guitar, joined the group on electric lead guitar. Filling out the rhythm section in those early days were Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart and engineer Bob Matthews on bass, who was later replaced by Phil Lesh. In 1970, Dave Torbert took over on bass and the New Riders played every chance they got. Soon enough, smoky clubs all over the San Francisco bay area were filling up with whooping, foot-stomping crowds as their music got tighter and more dynamic. They began to tour extensively with the Dead, and in December of 1970, Spencer Dryden, who had previously showed his impeccable drumming style with the Jefferson Airplane, had stepped in on drums.

The New Riders were signed to Columbia Records in 1971 by Clive Davis and their eponymous first album,New Riders of the Purple Sage, was released in September of that year to widespread acclaim. In December, 1971 they played a live radio broadcast with the Dead over WNEW-FM in New York to an audience of millions. In 1972 the pattern of their success continued to grow, with their first European tour followed in June by the release of their second album, Powerglide. They toured the United States extensively in response to increasing demand, and in November, 1972 released their third album Gypsy Cowboy. These first three New Riders albums were all produced by Stephen Barncard, who also worked with Crosby, Stills and Nash and co-produced the Dead’s American Beauty.

In May of 1973, the New Riders appeared on ABC-TV’s “In Concert” program to a nationwide audience. Working hard on the road for much of the year, including gigs with the Dead at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco and R.F.K. Stadium in Washington, DC, they took a brief time out to go into the Record Plant in Sausalito with producer Norbert Putnam. The result was The Adventures of Panama Red, released in September of 1973 and with Peter Rowan’s title track, this became an FM radio staple and the first gold record for the band. In November they embarked on an east coast tour that included them setting the box office record at New York City’s Academy of Music. This tour was recorded for the group’s first live album, Home, Home on the Road, which was produced by Jerry Garcia.

Early 1974 found bassist Dave Torbert wanting to pursue a more rock and roll direction as he left the New Riders to form Kingfish with old friends Matthew Kelly and Bob Weir. Skip Battin, formerly with the Byrds, joined the band on bass as they kept to their solid touring schedule which had become one of the band’s trademarks. In August, 1974, the New Riders gave a free thank you concert in Central Park on a Tuesday afternoon to 50,000 New York fans. Their sixth album, entitled Brujo, was released in October, 1974 and found their recorded sound getting crisper with delicate harmonies and more original songs.

The New Riders of the Purple Sage received a Lifetime Achievement Award from High Times magazine at their Doobie Awards in September, 2002 and performed a brief set (which included “Loneseome L.A. Cowboy” and “Panama Red” with Peter Rowan) at the festivities at B.B. King’s Blues Club in New York City.

Henry took off the brakes in 2006 as the New Riders of the Purple Sage went back on the road with a revived and inspired lineup, bringing the songs of John Dawson back to the ears of adoring crowds nationwide as well as taking those songs to places they’ve never been before musically. Led by David Nelson and Buddy Cage, the current touring lineup includes Michael Falzarano (Hot Tuna) on guitar and vocals, Ronnie Penque on bass and vocals and Johnny Markowski (Stir Fried) on drums and vocals.

John Dawson passed away on July 21, 2009, but before his passing he had given the guys his blessing and was excited to know his music is being heard live again by a new generation of fans. Keeping the NRPS spirit and flame alive, the band released it’s first studio album in twenty years in 2009 titled Where I Come From. Featuring a slew of new songs written by David Nelson and Robert Hunter among other band originals, the New Riders’ renaissance continues to grow, both on record and at their live shows, where they are continually breaking out new songs on every tour while staying true to the legacy that was started over 40 years ago by John Dawson and Jerry Garcia.

Dirty Dozen Brass Band

July 18th 2012

Doors at  7pm Show at 8pm

Tickets $20 advance/$25 day of show

To describe how the Dirty Dozen Brass Band has arrived at its 35th Anniversary, trumpet player Gregory Davis employs a tried-and true New Orleans-centric analogy: “It ends up being like a pot of gumbo – you drop in a little okra, drop in a little shrimp, you drop in some crabs. Before you know it, you’ve mixed in all these different ingredients and you’ve got a beautiful soup. That was our approach to music early on and it still is today.”

Baritone sax player Roger Lewis — who, like Davis, has been with the combo since its inception in 1977 — echoes that sentiment: “It’s a big old musical gumbo, and that probably made the difference, separating us from other brass bands out of New Orleans. It put a different twist on the music. We were not trying to change anything, we were just playing the music we wanted to play and not stay in one particular bag.”

An appetite for musicological adventure, a commitment to honor tradition while not being constrained by it, and a healthy sense of humor have brought the world-traveling Dirty Dozen Brass Band to this remarkable juncture in an already storied career. To celebrate its 35th, the band is releasing Twenty Dozen, the septet’s first studio release in six years. The new album, cut at the Music Shed in New Orleans, reunites the band with producer Scott Billington, who helmed DDBB’s first major-label release,Voodoo, in 1989. It’s a resolutely upbeat effort that seamlessly blends R&B, jazz, funk, Afro-Latino grooves, some Caribbean flavor, and even a Rihanna cover. Twenty Dozen mirrors in flow and feel a vibrant DDBB live set. The disc reaches an exuberant peak with a medley of New Orleans staples, including a particularly high-spirited rendering of “When the Saints Go Marching In.” The final track – or, as Lewis puts it, “the after-party” – is an audience encore favorite, the ribald “Dirty Old Man,” with Lewis doing an outstanding job in the title role. Twenty Dozen, says Lewis, is “classic Dirty Dozen. It’s got something for your mind, body, and soul. We’re gonna get you one way or another.”

Twenty Dozen is also very much a group effort, with each of the members – Davis, Lewis, tenor-sax man Kevin Harris, trumpeter Efrem Towns, sousaphonist Kirk Joseph, drummer Terence Higgins and guitarist Jake Eckert — bringing original compositions or arrangement ideas to the sessions. It kicks off with the light-hearted funk of “Tomorrow,” segues into the jazzier “Jook” then heads into the party-hearty island groove of “Best Of All.” Billington suggested DDBB cover Rihanna’s “Don’t Stop the Music,” and the group’s reinterpretation is as ingenious as it is fun. The tough, seventies-style soul of “We Gon’ Roll” supplies the most serious moment, as composer Higgins pays tribute to the indomitable nature of his fellow NOLA residents. As Davis – whose own “Git Up” is a smoking jazz workout — explains, “Just about everybody had a song or something they wanted to contribute. As we started to record the songs and listen to them, each song seemed to fit not just with the character of the individuals who wrote them but the character of the band. We are the Dirty Dozen and it’s the overall character of the band that makes the live show work –and that makes this record work. Had we planned to make a certain kind of record, it might not have come out like that. In letting the guys’ voices speak and come out on their own, the album turned out this way.”

The traditional numbers at the tail end of Twenty Dozen serve as a reminder of how the group, since the beginning, has tried to reinvigorate the standards and build a bridge between old and new. Says Davis, “Over the last few years we have been doing a medley that has included ‘Paul Barbarin’s Second Line,’ ‘E Flat Blues’ and ‘Saints.’ It had been going over so well that we thought maybe we needed to capture the spirit of what we’re doing with this medley and put it on a record. ‘Saints’ is one of the most requested songs we do and you have to face the challenge of playing that song so many times. But once you get that started and see the smiles on people’s faces and they start dancing to it, it makes you want to do it a little bit more. In the studio, I was envisioning different scenes from our audiences. I’d remember the reaction I would get attempting to get people up to dance, to do certain steps and follow me. It made it so much fun to remember the faces, the smiles, the body movements of the people. To get them up, to get them sweating — it’s always a pleasure.” Listening to this new “Saints” rendition on disc has the same effect: it’s impossible to remain in your easy chair. Davis considers this and, laughing, imagines a new opportunity for the band: ““Maybe we need to sell this as a work-out CD.”

While traditional numbers infused with a DDBB flavor have always been crowd-pleasing staples of the group’s repertoire, it’s the Dirty Dozen Brass Band’s willingness to look beyond the New Orleans songbook and find connections amongst a wider range of music that has endeared them to critics, fellow musicians and a multi-generational, global audience. They’ve been embraced enthusiastically by the jam-band followers at Bonnaroo as well as by the devotees who flock to the yearly New Orleans Jazz Fest. Acts like the Black Crowes and Widespread Panic have taken them on tour and artists from Dizzy Gillespie to Elvis Costello to Norah Jones have joined them in the studio. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, DDBB participated in the From the Big Apple to the Big Easy benefit at New York City’s Madison Square Garden and offered its own response to the aftermath of the disaster with an acclaimed 2006 song-by-song remake of Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On. Their music has been featured on the HBO series, Treme, named after the New Orleans mid-city neighborhood where the band had formed, and the group performed on screen with Galactic and rapper Juvenile in Season 2. New Orleans remains a wellspring of musical inspiration and DDBB is a living, breathing embodiment of the continued vitality and evolution of the sounds of the city.

But, Davis cautions, “We’ve never been the norm, even though we started out as a traditional New Orleans brass band. In the beginning we weren’t getting work of any kind, so we thought it was okay to explore other music. That allowed us as individuals to bring ourselves into the rehearsals and that’s where we started to experiment. At the time the band started, I was a student at Loyola University and we were all being introduced to other music – to jazz from the twentieth century and so on. It’s impossible to think that you can be exposed to the harmonies that Duke Ellington was making, the rhythms coming from Dizzy Gillespie or the funk being done by James Brown, and then ignore it when you’re playing New Orleans music. New Orleans music is all of that. If we had chosen to just put in the music presented to us then as traditional, it would have stunted our growth. Being more than what we heard is what the band was about.

Nicki Bluhm

Nicki Blum

Doors 7pm Show 8pm

Tickets $10 advance/$15 day of show

Upon hearing the unique and refreshing sound of Nicki Bluhm, it becomes immediately clear why she is in the midst of a breakout year. Nicki has filled a void in music with her brand of vintage-tinged rocking country soul — music that’s like an enchanting friend you’ve known for a short while but feels like you’ve known forever.

Nicki’s story began at a New Year’s Eve party when she sang an impromptu blues song that caught the attention of musician/producer Tim Bluhm (The Mother Hips). With Tim’s encouragement Nicki began to write songs and perform in public, and soon was earning fans of her own. They went on to record Nicki’s debut album, Toby’s Song (2008), which appeared on Jambase’s top ten albums of the year. Nicki and Tim were married shortly after and formed her band with childhood friend and guitar player, Deren Ney. The band continued to grow with the addition of Steve Adams on bass (ALO), Dave Mulligan on rhythm guitar and drummer Mike Curry. Nicki has since shared the stage with Chris Robinson, Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Steve Kimock, Jackie Greene, Pegi Young, Josh Ritter, and many others.

Her sophomore album, Driftwood (2011), shows an impressive expansion of Nicki’s natural talent and is well into its second pressing. The sounds range from the AM magic of Linda Ronstadt to the charming duets of Johnny and June Cash to smokey Memphis soul. Since Driftwood‘s release, Nicki has become the “It Girl” of the San Francisco music scene — performing with her band, “The Gramblers”; as a duo with her husband Tim; and as a guest artist with an array of revered peformers. Her warm, strong voice and striking presence have undeniable appeal, confirmed by her sensational performances and rousing reception from music lovers at every show. 

Hot Tuna

July 21st

$30 Standing/$35 GA Seated

From their days playing together as teenagers to their current acoustic and electric blues, probably no one has more consistently led American music for the last 50 years — yes! — than Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady, the founders and continuing core members of Hot Tuna.

The pair began playing together while growing up in the Washington D.C. area, where Jack’s father was a dentist and Jorma’s father a State Department official. Four years younger, Jack continued in junior high, then high school — while playing professional gigs as lead guitarist at night before he was old enough to drive — while Jorma (who had played rhythm guitar to Jack’s lead) started college in Ohio, accompanied his family overseas, then returned to college, this time in California.

Along the way, Jorma became enamored of, then committed to, the finger-picking guitar style exemplified by the now-legendary Rev. Gary Davis. Jack, meanwhile, had taken an interest in the electric bass, at the time a controversial instrument in blues, jazz, and folk circles.

In the mid 1960s, Jorma was asked to audition to play guitar for a new band that was forming in San Francisco. Though an acoustic player at heart, he grew interested in the electronic gadgetry that was beginning to make an appearance in the popular music scene — particularly in a primitive processor brought to the audition by a fellow named Ken Kesey — and decided to join that band; soon thereafter he summoned his young friend from Washington, who now played the bass.

Thus was created the unique (then and now) sound that was The Jefferson Airplane. Jorma even contributed the band’s name, drawn from a nickname a friend had for the blues-playing Jorma. Jack’s experience as a lead guitarist led to a style of bass playing which took the instrument far beyond its traditional role.

While in The Jefferson Airplane, putting together the soundtrack of the 60s, the pair remained loyal to the blues, jazz, bluegrass, and folk influences of the small clubs and larger venues they had learned from years before. While in San Francisco and even in hotel rooms on the road, they would play together and worked up a set of songs that they would often play at clubs in the Bay Area and while on the road, often after having played a set with the Airplane. This led to a record contract; in fact, they had an album recorded before they decided to name their band Hot Tuna. With it they launched on an odyssey which has itself continued for more than 35 years, always finding new and interesting turns in its path forward.

Sarah Jarosz & Kasey Chambers

July 26, 2012

Doors @ 7pm Show @ 8pm

Tickets $25 advance/$30.00 day of Show

Sarah Jarosz has as rich a skill set as anybody in acoustic music. She plays, not just one instrument, but enough of them to be a one-woman string band: mandolin, octave mandolin, clawhammer banjo and guitar. She sings – in supple tones that transcend the boundaries between folk and pop – and she writes – old-timey ballads and modern singer-songwriter ruminations alike. Raised just outside of Austin in Wimberley, Tex., Jarosz blossomed within the local music scene and well beyond it, earning admirers from Austin City Limits’ Terry Lickona to acoustic music mavens Tim O’Brien and Chris Thile with her mature sensibilities. She released her debut, Song Up In Her Head, on Sugar Hill Records the year she graduated high school. What followed was a move to Boston’s prestigious New England Conservatory, a GRAMMY nomination and performances on “Austin City Limits” and “A Prairie Home Companion” as well as prestigious music festivals – Bonnaroo, Telluride and Newport, to name a few.

In May of 2011, Follow Me Down came out, a sophomore album that coincided with the end of her sophomore year of college. It channeled her ever-broadening musical horizons, and again showcased her songwriting, offering two tasty covers and including a number of top-notch guests from Punch Brothers to Shawn Colvin. The album met with critical acclaim – the New York Times called Jarosz “one of acoustic music’s most promising young talents”, and MSN Music named her “one of the fastest-rising stars in the roots music scene”. 

What followed was a whirlwind tour packed into summer break. Since neither Sarah nor her musicians, Nathaniel Smith (cello) and Alex Hargreaves (violin) were old enough to rent a car, it became the tour of planes, trains and automobiles driven by whoever could be pressed into service. Despite this, Sarah managed to cover a large portion of the United States, make several forays into Canada and two trips to Europe. One of the highlights of her year included participation in the Transatlantic Sessions – a folk collaboration of top musicians from the United States, Ireland, and the UK. This fall, she returned to NEC for her junior year, which will be punctuated by more touring slipped into holiday breaks.

Despite her age, Sarah Jarosz maintains a highly developed sense of what she’s about. “What’s most important,” she emphasizes, “is just trying to stay true to myself as an artist and be as original as I can.” Whether it’s continuing her studies at NEC or soaking up inspiration from collaborations with musicians across the globe she’s doing just that.

Tim O’Brian

August 3rd 2012

Doors @ 7pm Show @8pm

Tickets $25.00 advance/$30.00 day of Show

In Tim O’Brien’s music, things come together. The uncanny intersection of traditional and contemporary elements in his songwriting, his tireless dedication to a vast and still-expanding array of instruments, and his ongoing commitment to place himself in as many unique and challenging musical scenarios as possible has made him a key figure in today’s thriving roots music scene – and well beyond it. O’Brien’s presence – be it as a bandleader, songwriter, mentor, instrumentalist, or vocalist – has been strongly felt not only in his own rich music, but in the many recordings of his songs by such artists as the Dixie Chicks, Garth Brooks, Dierks Bentley, Nickel Creek, Kathy Mattea, the New Grass Revival, and the Seldom Scene, and in his recorded collaborations with Steve Martin, the Chieftains, and innumerable others. Most recently, O’Brien has been performing before capacity crowds in the band of Mark Knopfler, who described O’Brien as “a master of American folk music, Irish music, Scottish music – it doesn’t matter; a fine songwriter and one of my favorite singers.”

O’Brien listens to bluegrass and hears the music’s roots in modal Irish ballads and vintage swing. He insightfully re-examines and reconstructs those styles, and many others, in his own music, throwing off new sparks by reawakening the tension and interplay of the colliding components at the heart of American music. “Over the years,” he explains, “my music has become a certain thing. Each time I go into the studio to make a new album, I could make an Irish record, or a bluegrass record, or a country record…but it seems artificial to sift anything out. I feel like I’d be leaving out something important. In the end, I just try to make it round…”

That roundness of vision and scope permeates every aspect of Chicken & Egg, O’Brien’s thirteenth solo album, available July 13 via his own Howdy Skies imprint. Mixing O’Brien originals, collaborations, and a handful of outside compositions, Chicken & Egg is an illuminating, engaging, and ultimately life-affirming meditation on the art of living. “This stuff reflects what goes on in the life of someone my age,” O’Brien reflects. “I’m 56 years old. I’m not the young kid on the scene – and I’m happy about that. I’m at a strange point in my life: my kids are growing up, while my parents and teachers are passing on. There’s a lot happening – but it’s just life, and that’s what this album is about. There’s a little love song action here and there, but mostly it’s about living life.”

As a songwriter, O’Brien has a gift for finding the profound hiding within the mundane, and bringing it out in a way that is both casually conversational and deeply felt. The earthy wisdom of Chicken & Egg’s songs are delivered in appropriately spontaneous fashion, largely recorded live in the studio with a core group of collaborators. In following his previous album, 2008’s entirely solo Chameleon, O’Brien says, “It was time to make a more acoustic record – more along the lines of a bluegrass thing, with an ensemble and not a lot of production: something pretty down-home, featuring a more consistent band.” To do so, he spent four days in the studio with master musicians Stuart Duncan (fiddle, mandolin, cello, banjo), Bryan Sutton (acoustic and electric guitar), and bassists Dennis Crouch and Mike Bub. O’Brien contributed mandolin, guitar, bouzouki, fiddle, and banjo, while drummer John Gardner enlivens many of the tracks. The cast of harmony vocalists includes Abigail Washburn (Sparrow Quartet, Uncle Earl), Chris Stapleton (the SteelDrivers), and Sarah Jarosz.