Gigs, Recording, pics... and beautiful October

I love October - everyplace looks great, Fall is in the air... ahhh.
We have been very busy playing, recording, rehearsing and writing and loving it. Our time at Cowboy Jack's Bunkhouse and Recording Spa in Nashville was productive and a gas. That is one smart, fun, quirky, talented guy... not to mention a legend in the music biz.
I have a bunch of photos to post from the various fun-o-ramas The Fall Strawberry Music Festival, recording in Nashville, Dead On The Creek, and more- Joe Bob sez "check it out"...
P.S. Click on a pic to see a larger version

The Road Beckons

Wow.
We have been out having fun again...The Lincoln Center Theatre in Mt. Vernon WA is a gorgeous venue in a very cool town. We got the royal treatment - like they give everyone (!) - and had a great show and a great time. The band is sounding good and the folks we meet out there keep it fascinating.

Uncle John's "Dead On The Creek" was amazing. Nice folks, beautiful rural location, excellent weather and vibes... Even our friend Peter (pictured at Right) would have been having a fantastic time if he weren't preoccupied with the Viking Invasion ... or Danish Pacification as they called it when they were busily killing my ancestors....

Now it is time for me to go teach at CRMC music camp in Colorado for a week, then we are off to the Strawberry Music Festival near Yosemite, The Palms Playhouse, the Winfield Fest in Kansas - off to record with legend Cowboy Jack Clement in Nashville -- all good stuff. I need to consolidate our photos and post more but man, the time does fly by... I don't want to become a prisoner of the Mac like David here...

This travelling around playing tons of music - I just can't tell you how I look forward to the part when we actually count off the first tune...
all the airport, load-ins, load-outs, strange meals and bad road signage, jammed-up freeways and weird bumpy toll raods fade away and I just can't get enough...
See you out there -

Don't forget to come right up and say " Fellas, Can I buy you lunch?
Do-doot-do-do-do-doot-do-doot-do
Dang me.

Slide & Steel was Cool!

We had soooo much fun in Port Townsend, WA.
Thanks to all my students for their patience and progress. Thanks to Stacy Phillips and Billy Cardine for their generosity in co-teaching with me. Thanks to Peter McCracken for hiring us!
The venue - Fort Worden is an amazingly lovely spot, particularly this time of year.
wow.

I played a bunch with steel guitar legend Bobby Black and he is an amazing player and a very fine person as is fellow steel guitarist Joe Wright. Those guys made me fall in love with clasic country all over again.
Add in Billy Cardine - red-hot Dobroist and dynamic vocalist Mary Lucey (shown above), not to mention fiddler/singer Odessa Jorgensen (shown with Laurie Lewis and Tom Rozum) and fun was on the menu.

Special Thanks to Ghost Jerry Fletcher for teaching Sight Reading for Singers and putting a bunch of us well on the road to better sight reading.

We are off to do more playing - I hope we see you out there!

Back to Work!

So... back to work for the Ghost.
June 24-30 we are Band-in-Residence at The Centrum Slide & Steel Festival combined with Voiceworks at beautiful Fort Worden in Port Townsend WA. We have played the Fiddle Tunes festival there numerous times over the years and have also been involved in other fests and shows there, but this is our first time at this event.
Fort Worden is a glorious venue and Port Townsend spectacularly beautiful.
I will be teaching Dobro, Danny slide, Jon harmony, Eddie steel, Jerry reading music and raising your game.
We are really looking forward to being there and I hope we'll see some of you!

Then it's Lincoln Theatre (Mt. Vernon, WA)
Dead On The Creek (Willits, CA)
Strawberry Fall Festival (Yosemite)
The Palms (Winters, CA)
The Walnut Valley Festival (Winfield, KS)
Bernie's Guitar (Redding, CA)
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass (San Francisco, CA)
... and on and on

Barcelona, Mediterranean, Rome...

Wow.
We fell in love with the great international city of Barcelona. Clean, beautiful, great food, friendly people and the sea... you must go there. If you were on the fence - hop off and go. You'll be glad you did. We took a few days there before embarking on a small (148 passenger) sailing cruise ship the Wind Spirit across the Mediterranean to Menorca, Mallorca, Sardinia, Corsica, Elba and Rome.
Yeah, baby.
Our entertainment duties were fairly light and our enjoyment and appreciation of the boat, crew, islands, sights, sounds and fellowship profound. If you have not been to Europe or it has been a while since you did- I recommend you go.
We had a ball...

It All Seemed So Simple

It did seem simple - get into the studio and start knocking out basic tracks, mine and refine - Shazam!
...another record.

But then Nick and Van Dyke had this idea - What if we created a story line compelling enough that we could integrate characters, parts for a symphony to play.... dare to dream big!

... wow.

So it looks like the development cycle may take a bit longer and, potentially, be pretty darn interesting.

Stay Tuned!

In other news, we are playing in the San Francisco Bay Area in early April, then off to Spain at the end of April. We begin in Barcelona, then embark on a 7-day cruise across the Mediterranean, arriving in Rome and then we are back home sometime during the second week of May.
Gotta love it.

I hope Spring is treating you all well and that we will see you out there on the road sooner rather than later.
Cheers,
Mike, Ed, Dan, Jon and Jerry.