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.

SXSW 2

One of my favorite shows at SXSW we attended was at Flipnotics Coffeespace. This video is John Elliot with Raina Rose, Anthony Dacosta, Andrew Pressman (bass), and Trevor Smith (banjo)..I hope those last two names are right. Ok, I know this is supposed to be Columbus and the music scene here but my adventures in C-Bus and music take me all around so it is inevitable some artists will come in and out from other places. These musicians need to be promoted..they are so good (in my opinion). Oh, and a good tie in to C-Bus is that John Elliot is playing the Cowtown Round on July 12th. Jason Quicksall will be there as always and he asked me to fill the third spot...sweet!

Good times..side note from SXSW

So I got a text today from good ol' Eric Nassau. The man is a great songwriter, a great person, and basically a legend in C-Bus as far as I am concerned. He is the guy that has introduced me to so many awesome awesome people. I will be posting some videos of Raina Rose and John Elliot most likely soon whom I saw at SXSW and about a year and a half ago in Columbus..the connection from them was made through Eric. So anyway, he texted me today to come over and play some music. Now I had been coming down from the high in Austin so I was still tired and was not gonna go, after a few texts and a call later he convinced me. So glad I went. We jammed out on some old time fiddle tunes, bluegrass stuff, cajun, and I met Jen Sygit and Sam Corbin who were staying at Eric's house just for a night or two while coming through C-Bus on tour. They are from Michigan and both super nice and great songwriters. Being more of a "song" person than an instrumentalist, I was ready to jam out today on just songwriter stuff, I just love accompanying a good song....anyway we did a lot of stuff but that is where my heart lies. Here is a video of Jen Sygit playing one of her original tunes, great stuff and I looved playing her really old Gibson guitar, so awesome.

SXSW 1

Just got back from South By Southwest (SXSW). So awesome. Lots of great performances and debauchery. I will attempt to summarize as best as I can. We will also be posting on the ASB blog so check it out for more. The first video I am posting is one of the first bands we saw called Vandaveer. This was a showcase at a great little wine bar called Uncorked up on the hill just a bit away from the main strip in Austin, atleast from what I could tell not knowing the area very well. It was super chill and there were some great acoustic performances going on. This duo is out of DC I believe and I wish I would have gotten more footage. Check them out at myspace.com/vandaveer, really good stuff.

Last Floorwalkers, Thirsty Ear, crazy good week of music

So last Wednesday was the last weekly Wednesday Floorwalkers show at Ruby's..can we say packed? Man, they were like sardines and the constant flow coming in and out of people was amazing. Good job my friends, you are doing something right for sure, wow. So after the Alana Benefit there was the Floorwalkers crazy last show highlights of the night for me -- Tony aka G. Finesse throwing a verse down on "You've Got To Learn" man he is sick, by the way he is taking over Wednesdays at Ruby's so I wish you luck man for sure. Oh yeah they played "Goodbye Ruby Tuesday"...just had to do it, it was pretty perfect I will say, I almost teared up a bit. Good job guys, I wish you much success...not like they are leaving Columbus or anything but it does feel kinda like the end of an era. So after that it was Thursday where I worked on one of the duets album songs w/Caleb Powers. If ya don't know Caleb, he has got awesome loong brown hair,,I'm talking long and looks like he may be found at any metal show (but it's more likely a jazz set at Dick's Den) he is a great mandolin player not to mention guitar, fiddle, and banjo. We have been writing this tune and he has been kicking my ass on it for the duets album and it is almost done, one more practice I think and then it gets recorded March 7th whether I like it or not..thanks Caleb! This album so far has been a great learning experience and Caleb in particular has pushed my guitar playing skills to place I never knew I could go (nor wanted...ha) but the song I think is gonna come out really awesome. So then I taught my fiddle group at Wellington School and then went to a gig at The Gateway on campus. This was for a veterinary conference that our friend Christina set us up with. Great gig, free food and beer, free money (ha) and yeah all around good times. Friday the Royal Tycoons played a happy hour set (that I booked) at Thirsty Ear, I was not there to see it but I heard it went well. I showed up later for Mojoflo and The Pinstripes who were this awesome ska band ala Toots and the Maytals and newer bands such as the Aggrolites (who I just got into, gooood stuff) these young guys are really good check them out, they are out of Cincinnati. The Ear was packed and of course Mojo did a great job. I ended the night at Dick's Den to see Derek Dicenzo and his band rip it up jazz style (btw, saw Caleb there). I am not a huge jazz head but Derek rips it up like I said...and Nate Anders on vibes?? DAMN. Ok so then Saturday Angela Perley, The Lewis Brothers, and Fodder Beets played happy hour at Thirsty Ear (another gig I booked) it was packed as well..and then Jason Quicksall and his band and Andy Shaw Band rocked out the rest of the night. I really liked the combo Jason had up there with Chris Guthrie on drums, good stuff,,he really is a great drummer. Sunday...well I did not do any real music stuff it was a loong great music week I needed a break. Go Columbus music scene!