I’ve had the honor of playing shows with Blue Grass Boys, Bob Black, Tom Ewing and Mark Hembree, in a band called (not shockingly) Blue Grass Boys Reunion. Here’s some clips of these boys doin’ there thing…

You can watch the rest on “The Tube”…

Mike Compton was kind enough to have me up for a few songs during his recent show at the Cafe Carpe.

Blue Grass Boys Reunion performed this past weekend in WI, MN and IA. Here’s a cut from Friday night’s show at Leo & Leona’s in Bangor, WI. The lineup included Blue Grass Boys Tom Ewing, Bob Black and Mark Hembree; with myself and Paul Kienitz on mandolin and fiddle.

This was my first time singing tenor with Tom and we had some fun on this one…

When I blogged about Music XRay being a scam, I seriously did not expect anyone to give two hoots or half a holler ’bout it… but for whatever reason some do and thus, I’ve been forced to wade through various comments and emails about it. And seeing as folks are coming here for that anyway, I though I should extend the literal and also mention that Sonic Bids is also most definitely a scam. This is of course only my opinion and you should judge for yourself but I’ll share a bit of my experience with Sonic Bids.

I book bands for a popular music festival in a major dairy producing state and every year, SonicBids contacts me looking for us to use their service to accept band submissions. The first year they contacted us, though I had read the bad reviews, I decided to have a look for myself so I signed up my band to test it out. The spam started immediately and was unrelenting. Now this should be all you really need to know as no legit business would spam folks and is an excellent indication of the kind of company you’re dealing with. Still, I spent a bit of time checking out SonicBids.

I was really being too nice to them… but it’s not all their fault, they’re only enabling the scam; promoters are allowing the scam. Let me cut to the chase: legit promoters don’t charge bands to submit themselves for a gig. Period.

But on top of that, the site just sucks. I mean, as a promoter, I couldn’t easily search through the bands on their site and find ones I’d be interested in hiring. Searching for genre was worthless, no good way to search by location, keywords didn’t return reasonable results, etc…. So I couldn’t and wouldn’t use their site to find an artist. Which makes it necessary to let the bands find me… which just happens to support their paradigm.

The icing on the cake was when the SonicBids recruiter called again (and they will hound you forever; they still call every year) and explained that “the submission process can be a revenue stream”. I told him we wouldn’t be using their service and cited the reasons above.

Long story only slightly longer: technology has made it easier than ever for musicians to market themselves (for free even) and promoters to find the bands that will make their events a success. If SonicBids actually cared about helping bands and promoters connect, they could use technology towards that goal but instead they used it to reinvent payola.

I have the honor to be playing with two Bluegrass Boys on these upcoming tribute shows. We’ll be playing the entire Kenny Baker Plays Bill Monroe record start to finish. Shows are Friday, Nov 6th at Mother Fools Coffee Shop, Madison, WI, 8pm, and Saturday, the 7th at the Richland Center City Auditorium in Richland Center, WI. Now excuse me, I have to practice…

The boys (and Lorie) celebrated our new President by playing an Inaugural Bluegrass Ball at the Roxbury Tavern. The place was PACKED with folks toasting in a new era. A fantastic time was had by all.

I recently bought a Canon VIXIA HV30 HD camera and schlepped it along to our TITSH show this past weekeind. Long story short, the difference in quality compared to my last camera is HUGE. The differences can’t be as easily detected after YouTube butchers them but the QuickTime files tell the tale…

The boys (and Lorie) will once again be playing out at The Roxbury Tavern. Come on out, you’ll be glad you did. They serve great food and have a fine selection of beer. It’s also the best place in the area to see acoustic music. Plus, it’s FREE!