Hmm..Ravari Room, Michigan...what else?

Well the Andy Shaw Band had a great time in NYC. We are back now and just played a show at Ravari Room with Playhouse and One Under, two bands we have not had the pleasure to share the stage with yet. They are both great bands Billy's Playhouse brings a great live improv show with Carlos Fisher wailing there back on the drums, a sitar player, Mateo on B3 and everyone else was just awesome too. I especially like Carlos with his drum and bass beats..man he is sick. One Under killed it too and Justin Campbell sat in on drums with them, another beast behind the "skins" if you will.

I played the bluegrass jam the other night at Dicks, always a fun time..constantly trying to remember all the songs, they have such a big catalogue. The are slowly seeping into my brain and I love playing with those guys.

We are actually in a Red Roof Inn right now on our way to Saginaw Michigan to play with our friends The Banana Convention. They are a fun group of guys *and girl* we met a few years ago and I was trying to think of how we met or who we met through. I really can't remember...they are really good people and killer musicians, they used to ride around in a short bus they dubbed "The Cool Bus". The last time we saw them in C-Bus it had broken down, :(..hopefully they will revive it soon. ASB played last night in Dayton (where we are now) at One Eyed Jacks, a new spot for us. I really liked the place, good size, they had food which was pretty good (I just had fries), a great beer selection, plenty of pool tables and good people that jammed out. We sold like 10 CD's and by WE I mean our very helpful friends Melissa and Ro..thanks guys you rock! Our friend Kelsey was there and London who we met last time at Trolley Stop so that was awesome to see everyone, Dayton has been good to us.

My duets album is coming along and all I need is ONE more track to get ten. Matt Monta and I wrote a song waaay back and have finally decided to record it. It has taken a long time to get each other on the same schedule for recording but it will happen next week I think..finally! Once this is done I am going to be mixing it with Jay maybe adding a few things and then it's time to print it! I will be heavily promoting the album so look out for that, still untitled..any suggestions? It may be called Just Duet..if I don't get any suggestions...ha. Kidding.

I am still doing some booking for Thirsty Ear Tavern which actually officially changed its name to "Woodlands Tavern" which is really fun. The show I booked last night on a Thursday at 74 people at it, NICE work Phillip Fox and The Olde Souls! Thanks for making a great show. Let's see what else is going on? ASB got into the Park Street Festival. If you don't know about this one it happens every year and like a huuuge amount of people come out like 10,000 I have never been to it but they close the streets over by the North Market (Gaswerks, Brothers, Park Street Patio, etc..) and I think they may have vendors and a few live stages. This year none other than SMASH MOUTH is headlining...WTF? That is crazy! I didn't even know they were around still. Blues Traveler will also be there and some other local groups including ASB! Woot.

a busy week and it's off to NYC on Wednesday

This past week phewww it's over. Let's see Monday booking meeting at Thirsty Ear, Tuesday busking (more about that later), Wednesday gig w/Andy at Beekman Park for an OSU Engineer picnic, Wednesday night writing with Matt Monta for duets project, Thursday Lucky's gig w/Andy and Theo, and Friday a gig in Athens with ASB, Saturday 2pm blistering cold gig outside w/Shaw Bros. and finish the night off at Club Diversity another Shaw Bros gig.....ok Sunday...DAY OFF!!! Spent time with the lovely gf Ginger took her out to Marcella's (mom was out of town) had a great lazy day!

So I met Andyman Hopkins last week and we had a common interest: busking. He has toured all over the world and has recently planted himself in Columbus. I had never played with him and had only heard him on myspace in a couple videos, needless to say I loved it and busking with him was exhilrating (since I didn't know any of the material) and humbling (this guy kicks ass). We had a great cajun lunch at DeLevee (try it, it rules) chatted with some great folks, and made around 11 bucks each!

Thursday was our first gig at Lucky's for our acoustic patio sessions with Andy, Chris, and Theo..we don't call it Andy Shaw Band only because we aren't playing a TON of ASB songs...we may have to use that name soon though it's kinda confusing. It was a great night, we added drum set this year..a tiny version of my real kit. Bass drum, snare, and hi hat, and it worked out great...we will be there every Thursday starting in June.

Saturday Andy and I played the Gahanna "Spring Fling" and it was like 20 degrees outside. We showed up to a stage with no one in front of it and half the vendors (that woulda been the only audience) leaving. The other vendors were way far away from the stage. We set up, and played, the wind blew our speaker over...so we were like..well we're getting out of here. The woman organizing it came over and was like "can you play just a little longer?". So Andy and me being the troopers we are, set our speakers on the floor and played maybe an hour more...felt like 4 hours...in the blistering cold. How the hell does it go from 85 to like 45 in a day??

A busy and interesting week to say the least! Wednesday we head to New York for a gig in Brooklyn with our friend Pezzettino on Thursday at Goodbye Blue Monday, Friday at The Bitter End, and Saturday at Sinclair's Pub in Long Island..I am very excited hopefully the weather is good for driving!

Bluegrass Jam at Dick's..Lucky's...engineer picnic?

Andy and I just played at Fred Beekman Park, it's that huge sports park on Lane and Kenny wow, confusing..finally we found our gig after searching that behemoth park. It was a nice little picnic for the electrical engineering students. Went and played the Bluegrass Jam at Dick's Den and took some video, since I have been problems embedding them I will just share the youtube link, unfortunately I have found limits on my iPod as a video camera but that is to be expected, it peaks in volume a lot, my apologies. Here is a cover of Merle Haggard's "Mama Tried" -- not EXACTLY bluegrass but it's all related. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGE7_0iTXS4

Andy, Theo, and I will be playing on the Lucky's Stout House patio on High Street again this warm season. We had a great time last year and this year will be even better. We will play tonight (May 6th) and then the next two Thursdays we will be off because of out of town gigs (NYC next week!) and then we will continue our "residency" when we get back. We will play some ASB tunes, some Shaw Brothers tunes, Theo originals, Chris originals, Andy originals, and a bunch of fun covers too..it'll be half acoustic half rocking out adding a drum set this year..I think I'll bring a bass drum, snare, and hi hat so a "half kit" if you will. I love playing this patio always filled with good people and just a great atmosphere for music under the stars. 10p-2am with great drinks come out and support us!

Buskin' in the Bus

Here is a short video shot from my iPod, wow not bad huh? I woulda been playing fiddle but I can't do both (yet). The first of many busking videos. So can I name the group "Columbuskers"...ha..or "Go Busk"..instead of Go Bucks..ok I'm done.

Busking, OCB, ASB at Rumba...more??

So I have decided Columbus needs more busking musicians and the response I have gotten on Facebook alone shows that apparently I am correct. The other week I thought of an idea to have a busking "association" or group like the Columbus Busking Group...I even thought of maybe doing like "The C-Buskers" or "Columbusking"...I dunno, kinda clever maybe? Well, anyway lots of people on FB were intrigued and really the idea is just to get more people playing in the streets, liven up people's days walking to the bank, help raise awareness about the music scene to people that have never been to see a live band in their own town, or make Columbus THAT much cooler to people that are traveling through the city. So besides making a name or anything official really we just need to go out and start playing on the street, bottom line. So we did it, and it was great. My good friends Jake Young on banjo/guitar, Steve Moeller on dobro, and Chris (sorry, I haven't learned your last name) on upright bass joined me a couple weeks ago in front of Northstar during Earth day, it was packed cuz they give away free veggie burgers (shh) and all my dreams came true, well sorta. A woman that apparently lived next to FloRida in town from Miami loved us and was just shocked at how talented we were, she took a business card and a cd and was just very nice, despite her only knowing what bluegrass music was from the movie "Oh Brother Where Art Thou?" she was very nice..I think she even gave us a 10 in the ol' guitar case. So, one objective already done, make Columbus THAT much cooler to people from out of the state/city...nice! We then had a girl from CCAD newspaper (what?) I went to CCAD and they never had a newspaper, not a student lead one atleast...she then told us it was the first issue. So she asked us our band name and said she was going to write us up, niice! Us not having an official band together besides the less-than-official Dick's Den bluegrass jam on Tuesdays...we called ourselves "The Streetside Hillbillies"...ha! So more attention locally..and we made a few bucks doing it. Apprently when I left the other guys were asked by Northstar to stick around and play on the patio, I am not sure if they did but originally I thought there would be so much dissent but people welcomed the busking. Great times! We went out this week as well in front of Funky and Functional and they thanked us for playing and said we were actually bringing people into their business, niice. We met a mailman that plays pedal steel, a dude from Pittsburgh looking for local music, and a woman that got right in our faces and conducted..I think she gave us a $5 or $10! So busking has been great, it's nice to go out on a beautiful Columbus sunny day and just play some music with some great people, I am very happy to have met the Jake, Steve, Nicole, Chris and all the guys from the bluegrass jam and am excited to busk with other people in the C-Bus community.

So my duets album is coming along fast,,,finally! I have 9 tracks recorded!! And it looks like Matt Monta and I will finish the album out with an even 10. Dave Huffman of Jakob Freely fame works for the Ohio Center for Broadcasting and is a good friend. He and the Underground Columbus team at OCB will be helping me promote the duets album and really emphasize the community aspect of it. Getting C-Bus musicians together to collaborate is one of the great things about this duets album..in addition to the album greatly helping me in the process of writing, recording a ton, and learning off of great musicians (Megan Palmer, Heidi Howes, Larry Cook the list goes on) it is about collaboration in the end and I really want to just emphasize that and see this as a community driven project. So I will be meeting with Dave/OCB soon to talk about how we want to do this. He wants to have artists interview each other and this will be a good opp to do that. Another idea he had was to have musicians cover other musicians from the local scene which I love, I gotta start working on some tunes..maybe Josh Krajcik or Floorwalkers or hmm Hebdo maybe.

ASB played Rumba last night with Los Caminos. I have played with Paul Gaul at the bluegrass jam but have not seen him play that Tele for a while and maaan I forgot how good he was. As far as "chicken pickin' goes in this town, I don't know anyone that can match him besides Mike Nugen of McGuffy Lane fame (this video is goofy but it shows a little of Mike's amazing guitar work http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF8wmm6Uezc), but that is my experience..touring with him last year. To be fair I don't really know anyone that does that except those two guys and man it's just a pleasure to watch Paul rip that guitar in half! The whole band is awesome as well but man Paul, cheers. The crowd was great and the energy was greater last night, wow. We had our good friend Monica up on stage for Damien Rices' "Volcano" and Terrence Farmer up on sax for some tunes, it was just a fun show, though I always have a hard time w/sound at Rumba. Jason does a good job doing sound but I think it's just the way the sound bounces in that corner and my ears feel like bleeding even despite my earplugs shoved deep into my canals. Thanks for all who came out..man lot's going on!

Cowtown Round & Dan Dougan's Listening Hours

Most Mondays at Rumba Cafe you will find an amazing songwriter round..I saw most because every once in a while a traveling band is coming through that needs a gig and the round is either moved to after the show or does not happen. Regardless, check the Cowtown Round out where Jason Quicksall and Jesse Henry (of the Spikedrivers, Royal Tycoons, and a new un-named band..I'll get to that in a minute) play host to one other songwriter either local, or traveling through. The three songwriters all sit on stage and play in a round one after another. The night is always amazing with Jason bringing is sometimes quirky, jazzy, pop, folk singer songwriter tunes and Jesse with his whiskey infused, Arlo Guthrie tinged, talkin' blues, monster truck folk rock...ha. I hate describing music in one word or genre so I choose a lot of words. Point being Jesse and Jason are two of the most talented songwriters in town that I know and it is a treat to see both of them every week (if I can make it) and then add a third songwtier and ya got magic, and usually that third is always awesome too. Tonight it was Micah Schnabel from Two Cow Garage. Two Cow has been around for about 9 years and is one of those bands that just tours a ton, which is so awesome to me. A band that makes you want to kick yourself in the butt and just get on the road and do it. According to Wikipedia Two Cow has clocked over 300,000 miles on the road, wow. I will talk more about Micah when I post the video of him. Oh I said I'd talk about Jesse's new band. So I had a gig postponed (when does that happen?) on Thursday and was able to go out to Dan Dougan's Listening Hour at Gateway Film Center. Originally Dan Dougan, former owner of Little Brothers (RIP) ran this acoustic night at Bristol, apparently Bristol is retarted and did not want this at their bar, or it just was not the right fit, who knows...anyway the Gateway is amazing. A room that fits maybe 35 seated is the scene for the Thursday night "half un-plugged" night. Performers sing not into stage mics but very nice mics (cardio condensers? perhaps?) and basically play all acoustic, when I watched Larry Cook on bass did plug in to a small amp. Megan Palmer played a great first set with Larry on bass, Jimmy Castoe on drums (love him), Jen Miller sang back up on a few, and Jesse Henry played and sang as well. Up next was...well Jesse Henry and his new band which is un-named so far. Caleb Powers on mando and guitar, Jake Young on banjo, Steve Moeller on dobro, and Chris (insert last name..sorry) on bass. More of a bluegrass sound than I have ever heard Jesse, this ensemble provides a warm bed for Jesse's songs to rest upon. Tasteful, good harmonies, and they allow Jesse to shine without overpowering. Good stuff. Dan Dougan is a great guy too by the way, I wasn't sure if I had met him before but he is just a super nice guy, I asked him if Andy and I could play the listening hours and he was enthusiastic in saying yes so look fort hat in June. Below is the video of Jason at this weeks Cowtown Round with Theo backing him up, more Cowtown videos soon.

Chicago, return to Ruby's, where am I?

We just got back from a gig in Chicago on Sunday, we being the Andy Shaw Band. A place called The Horseshoe was the venue and Keith Moody and his band played alternating sets with us. We had a great time and Chicago was very welcoming. Fortunately we got in on Friday night (played Saturday) so we got to check out some of the music scene there like a local band called Waterstreet who are friends of Theo's. Playing covers such as the Raconteurs "The Level" and Radiohead's "15 Step" the guys had chops. They played mostly originals with a style that ranged from AC/DC hardcore rock and roll to Queen like harmonies to Zeppelin hip shaking rock with booming Bonham drums. I enjoyed their set and thought the guys were super talented, especially the guitar player on the right..just figured out his name is Joe who was the one that sang lead only some of the time. He did a song at the end that was real slow but still rocked and it was just a beautiful song. Check them out here. We checked out a reggae club called the Wild Hare and if someone could tell me who we saw, that would be cool cuz I could not understand a word the lead singer said. That being said, you know he was playing some authentic music. I was a bit dissapointed because there was absolutely no bass player or guitar player, or really keyboard player. There was a guy on keyboards that kind of played but mostly hit a small box I assume was controlling all the pre-recorded bass and other parts. The drummer chick was rocking with lead vocals on some tunes and drums on all (obviously) and the lead singer was good as well. Our friend Genean Grantham of Greenleif and Burning River Band fame came along with use and having been to Jamaica said that the set was pretty authentic even with the pre-recorded parts. Good times in Chicago, hit up some deep dish, got to see my aunt and uncle (thanks for allowing us to crash and the amazing breakfast!) and saw some cool bands.

Wednesday ASB is returning to Ruby Tuesday Live for the first time since our departure from the regular Monday gig. We are playing with Keith Moody (played with him in Chicago) out of Nashville and with G. Finesse and the N.S. who recently took over the Wednesday spot held down by the Floorwalkers. I absolutely love Tony's (G. Finesse) style and wish him well in taking over the spot, good times will be had tomorrow night for sure.

Friday we play at Oldfield's on High bringing back our good friends from Michigan Banana Convention to C-Bus, they are a sight (and sound) to see (and hear)...so hope to see some people out to that show for sure.

In other news, I am finishing up the Duets album (yet to be named) and just tying up lots of loose ends with that, getting songwriters together is like pulling teeth and with my schedule it is even harder. Hopefully this week Caleb and I will finish our song and Joey Gardina and I will get ours done Sunday. Phew...catching up on everything is making me dizzy.