Finnders & Youngberg, Colorado’s premier Americana quintet, will add yet another honor to their impressive resume: they’ve been chosen as an official showcase act for the International Bluegrass Music Association’s World of Bluegrass conference in Nashville, Tenn., this fall. They are one of just 13 acts invited to perform during the bluegrass industry’s biggest and most important week.
Festival Mozaic has announced its 2012 summer season, which will take place July 12-22 in the most charismatic spaces across California's Central Coast including Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa, Chapel Hill in wine country, Hearst Castle overlooking the sparkling Pacific Ocean, and Mission San Miguel . The theme, "In The Footsteps of Giants," will showcase a lineage of masterworks which inspired – and were inspired by – phenomenal composers over the ages.
The San Francisco Mandolin Orchestra with singers Susan Gundunas and Twila Ehmcke will be performing one of the gems of the Baroque music era, Stabat Mater, written in 1736 by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi.
The Newport Festivals Foundation has announced the lineup for the 2012 Newport Folk Festival set to take place July 28-29 at Fort Adams State Park.
This album is sophisticated urban pop played with a combination of acoustic instruments usually found in bluegrass bands. Any further references to blugrass is hard to find on the album.
A neurological disorder called dystonia is estimated to have ended the careers of at least one member of every major American metropolitan orchestra. Dystonia has claimed the livelihoods of musicians across genres including the acclaimed pianist Leon Fleisher of the Peabody Conservatory of Music, former first oboist of the Chicago Symphony Alex Klein, acoustic guitarist Billy McLaughlin, classical guitarist Liona Boyd, keyboard player Keith Emerson of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, and others.
Luckily, Alexandra Coutinho and Rio Con Brio decided to make this a stand alone album. The plan was to feature Alexandra Coutinho on some tracks of Rio Con Brio's Caprice.
Caprice is an album by a guitar and mandolin duo playing mostly choro standards. It could be a challenge to make this fly. Rio Con Brio have pulled it off.
Watertown is an honest low cost production. All tracks but one are signed songwriter Cheryl J. Watson. Fellow musicians helped her by contributing takes from their home studios.
The expression Goat Rodeo is a description for an event where a hundred things must go right in order for the event to work. That is the concept for this cross genre production.
Magazine
Folk with an attitude
"Oi, Druzil here," he presents himself, "The Dread Pirate Druzil is the resident mandolin, banjo, and tin whistle player in the world travelling band of raving drunken lunatics and purveyors of fine clusterfolk known as the Dreadnoughts."
By Reidar Falch
According to the website, the Dreadnoughts formed in 2006 over pints of cheap beer at East Vancouver's notoriously violent Ivanhoe Hotel. They play folk punk.
The Dreadnoughts
Folk punk is party music, "It really wouldn't be the same without a bunch of sloppy-drunk fans bashing into each other, screaming profanities and soaking the floor in sweat and booze. It also makes for great cultural experience on the road. The Surfin Turnips in Bristol gave us an education in knock-you-on-your-ass strong scrumpy cider aboard a local floating cider bar, some fans in Poland taught us how hard it is to play a gig after an afternoon swilling 20something pecent bathtub wine by the river..."
Druzil - Photo by Vojta Florian / Vojta Florian.com
Druzil and Seamus O'Flanahan - Photo by Adam PW Smith - by permission
Druzil and Seamus O'Flanahan - Photo by Adam PW Smith - by permission
Druzil sees a connection between folk and punk, "Folk and punk are unpretentious forms of easy to appreciate music. While punk's tradition and evolution may span only decades compared to folk's centuries, they share straight up simple and solid chord progressions, and melodies and lyrics that beg listeners to sing along."
The mandolin fits in, "Mandolin makes a great addition to a folkpunk band as a driving force. The attack on tremolo picked melody lines keeps the fiddle from getting lost in the chaos, and chop chords marry the rhythm of distorted guitar and drums to bring it all together into a tight head banging and foot stomping sound."
Druzil started playing the mandolin about 5 years ago, "Not long before I joined the Dreadnoughts. My dad is a piano and 5 string banjo player, I grew up jamming with him on guitar. He always loved the sound of the mandolin, especially in bluegrass, so one day he just brought a cheap one home for me to learn on."
"I started off teaching myself traditional Irish tunes I had learned originally on the Irish whistle. Once I got hooked on playing mando, I moved on to play around with more bluegrass, polka, and Eastern European folk. I'd love to get more comfortable in ragtime and gypsy jazz styles," he says.
About his set up with the Dreadnoughts, "I play the cheapest and most readily available acoustic/electric mandolins I can find. Our stage show is very chaotic, so I prefer not to be too concerned about my mandolin getting soaked in beer or blood, throwing it around, or using it on the cymbals. Right now my whole set up is an Epiphone MM-30-E mandolin, a BOSS tuner pedal, and an L.R.Baggs paracoustic D.I. box/preamp."
On their new CD, Polka's Not Dead, Druzil likes to draw attention to one track, "In our quest for all things polka we became fixated on this exaggerated lightning fast Finnish style. Polka's Not Dead features an original humppa which boasts my crowning achievement as a mandolin recording artist. Tremolo picked 16th notes at 218 beats per minute. Suck on that!"
"I'm very happy with it and proud to have been a part of its composition and production. For me, it does a great job of showcasing the broad range of influences that define the Dreadnoughts," Druzil says.
They added new instruments to the mix, "including viola, piano, and nylon string guitar played by our fiddler and guitarist, and cello and tuba played by guest musicians. I recorded both on my acoustic/electric mandolin, and on a fully acoustic deep bodied mandolin for a richer and more natural sound on acoustic tracks."
"We also did a lot of vocal work for this one, and despite the fact that save for our lead singer none of us has a lot of vocal experience, I'm very happy with how the backups and harmonies turned out," Druzil says.
He has no doubts, "Whenever I'm asked which Dreadnoughts album I'd recommend, Polka's Not Dead is my clear favorite. I hope it inspires our punk fans to look into more traditional music, and our folkier fans to find more inspiration in the grittier punk aspect."
The CD will be released for the European audience in January. "We like to be as direct as we can with our audience, so we won't officially release our album in Europe until we have a chance to tour there again and we can get the album into our fan's hands personally. I'm quite happy for our fans to download our music, legally or not, it's so inspiring to see people in the crowd singing along to brand new songs. Plus, having a chance to hear the entire album in advance should just help you move copies if it's a solid disc. I hope it helps make artists more accountable to keep the songs interesting and strong."
Druzil enjoys touring, "We jump at any opportunity to play in front of new crowds in new countries. In Europe We've been as far North as Denmark and as far East as Ukraine, and this next tour we're doing in January includes our first ever Russian gig. With any luck we'll soon be guzzling your local booze and finely studying your local women."
The Dreadnoughts - Photo by Adam PW Smith - by permission
"The years I've spent in the company of my band mates have very much broadened my perspective. I went from performing traditional music to a handful of people at open mics to touring the world and having the chance to perform at hidden away little dive bars to full festival stages for thousands of people. Having a chance to crash with local people and chat over breakfast is a great way to experience other cultures, and effectively living in a van with 4 guys you see 24 hours a day can really push you to become more adaptive, if it doesn't drive you completely insane," Druzil finishes.
The Dreadnoughts will continue their mission to seek out and spread the oft overlooked carnal pleasures of the world; gin, cider, pasties, polka, spatzle, poutine, sliebowice, pierogies...
The Dreadnoughts @ Pub340 Vancouver
Radim Zenkl, the Czech-born, California-based magician of the mandolin has been on the road and onstage since he arrived in the USA more than twenty years ago. He recently swung through my hometown of Portland, Oregon and performed his eclectic solo show to a packed house of enthusiastic fans.
Rio Con Brio started out to make one CD. As they recorded tracks, they realized they had two albums on their hands. One is their third choro album, the other is the debut of fado singer Alexandra Coutinho.
If you were there, you’ll agree that the Baltimore host team put on an excellent convention for our quarter-century landmark. With so many people attending, the energy level was high. If you weren’t there, you want to know what you missed. Here are some highlights.
James "Yank" Rachell was the primary exponent of blues mandolin, although he also played guitar, violin, harp and sang expertly well.
To create a violin with the same characteristics as the 1704 instrument known as "Betts," Dr. Sirr worked with professional violin makers John Waddle and Steve Rossow of St. Paul, Minn. They used a CT scanner and a CNC router. Here are a few photos.
Recently, Cheryl Watson released a CD called Watertown. She unplugged her Fender Tele and turned to acoustic guitars. She traded a guitar for her first mandolin. Chloe, her cat, listen with the eyes closed when Cheryl plays the mandolin.
International mandolin super-group revives the name and repertoire of a 1930's Polish Jewish mandolin orchestra. And this September, they took the music back to its source. Full story and notes from the tour by one of the Ger mandolinists.
Alon Sariel is young, gifted and busy. He is one of those remarkable guys from the Beer Sheva Mandolin Orchestra in Israel. This Friday he appears in Cambridge, UK, to teach in the Cambridge Performance Masterclasses.
Conference. College. Genre bazaar. Horizon expander. Mandolinirvana. Musical family reunion. An ear-stretching, soul-filling, life-altering immersion experience. Surely, we must be talking about the Mandolin Symposium.
Nigel Forster is a luthier. He has a lot of thoughts about his trade. One book is not enough space for his thoughts. He willingly shares more thoughts.
Jim Richter is inviting all to his 1st annual Jim Richter rock-n-blues mandolin camp. He hopes it'll approach mandolin instruction from a perspective more immediately beneficial and useful than some workshops. He also has top ten advices for beginners.
"Enjoy." This quiet word, unheard by the expectant audience behind him, flew straight from the conductor's lips to the hearts of 35 mandolin, mandola, and mandocello players. Instantly, the chemistry in a Chelsea rehearsal room in the middle of New York City was altered - a subtle change, but the perfect one.
Raffaele Calace released his mandolin method in 1910. Mike Marshall and Caterina Lichtenberg have reissued his work in English, 100 years later.
He found way to combine Finnish traditional music and Brasilian choro. An unique flavour of choro was born.
Los Hermanos Cubero, The Cubero Brothers, live in Lliçà d'Amunt, a small town near Barcelona in Catalunya, Spain. Combining their folk music with bluegrass is a natural consequence of their influences.
French rock star Feloche has created his own cajun universe. It's rooted in his Urban Bajou.
"Oi, Druzil here," he presents himself, "The Dread Pirate Druzil is the resident mandolin, banjo, and tin whistle player in the world travelling band of raving drunken lunatics and purveyors of fine clusterfolk known as the Dreadnoughts."
Tim O'Brien is a traveller. He wants to get off the road and write and produce more.
Mandolin Cafe was launched November 18, 1995. The number one mandolin site is celebrating 15 years.
The education of the fashionable girl is not complete nowadays until she has secured a certain degree of proficiency in playing upon one or more of the popular string instruments.