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!