bluegrass Posts

The Michael Daves story

Did Telluride last year. 'Twas a blissfully awesome return, particularly since a year earlier I thought my music career was over.

So they pick all us rockstars up at the Montrose airport. I waited around for a bit because the other dude that was getting picked up (who turned out to be Michael Daves) got in about 30 minutes after I did. He showed up and I was getting ready to walk out of the airport when somebody called my name. I turned around to see an old neighbor of mine from Boone, who...

The State of Bluegrass

It's a toy I've been wanting to build for a while. I stole the domain name from Book fair and square, and have been quietly honing the skills to actually build it.

What I'd ultimately like to have is a site that is basically a collection of all current, working bluegrass bands. When you come to the front page, you get a list of bluegrass shows happening in your area. It does this by roughly guessing via your IP address. It has a list of shows in the database that it scrapes from...

An overly long analogy about the IBMA

I'm just going to attach this note to a rock and toss it over the wall here. Maybe someone will notice it. Maybe it will even be read.


Hi. I'm one of the barbarian bluegrass players on the other side of the wall. I've been looking at your gated neighborhood my entire professional life, and it looks very nice from the outside.

A guy that I respect a lot also happens to be a member of your community. He and his band come outside the gates all the time to play for the masses out here,...

Chris Pandolfi IBMA Keynote 2011

Respect, mon.

Chris Pandolfi IBMA Keynote 2011 from Chris Pandolfi on Vimeo.

"So what are you up to?"

So here I sit, at the end of another brief tour, watching the sky get lighter outside the windows at the St. Louis airport. Listening to a bit of the new Bon Iver record, which is beyond terrific to the point of being maybe the record of the year for me. We'll see.

It's not that I haven't had much to say (though I haven't had quite as much to say), it's just that the time in which I used to say it has been filled by the consequence of my prayers for work being answered. I've been very,...

On the music business, generally speaking.

It occurred to me over cooking lunch for my boys just a minute ago that, a week before my 33rd birthday, I've been in the music business for half of my life. I'd like to share a couple of things that I've come up with.

First of all, to get anywhere in this business, to get anywhere sustainably that is, takes a really long time. There is no short circuiting this process, short of selling your soul to the devil. Even bands like the Black Eyed Peas who are on top of the world right now in...

Bluegrass fans

Regarding Pandolfi's recent pot stirrer:

It's pretty much all been said out there, but I'll tell you what gets me going to the point that I have to write about it. It's when I read comments like this one -

Bands like Railroad Earth, Green Sky, Yonder Mountain, Infamous Stringdusters, etc. are going to be labeled bluegrass and I think that's fine....as long as they understand where the roots of the music came from and they have an understanding and respect for that.

Get stuffed. ...

Meta

I might as well ditch this blog. I have no idea where to start another post. Is this a technology blog? Is this a blog about life as a musician? Is this still my rallying cry against the music industry? So much has gone on the last month/year/decade I don't even know where to begin.

I've joined a band. I didn't think I'd be doing that ever again. I actually thought my career as a professional player was over. I thought I'd seen the top of the mountain and that was that and it was...