Acoustic Americana Music Guide, April 9 to 20 (and beyond) – UPDATE
.
PLEASE support the Guide so that it can continue! See our first News Feature, just below, to see how. Time is growing short for a MAJOR decision to be made.
.
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
.
Tied to the Tracks
ACOUSTIC AMERICANA
MUSIC GUIDE & NEWS
.
APRIL 9 to 20 events (and beyond, through 2010)
.
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
.
.
APRIL IS NATIONAL POETRY MONTH, and includes Cowboy Poetry Week, officially designated in both the U.S. and Canada.
.
.
NEWS FEATURE:
.
.
1) URGENT APPEAL: SUPPORT THE GUIDE!
(AND GET SOME GREAT DVDs / CDs IN RETURN)
+
We need you. More to the point, we need a little of your money. We’ll give you cool stuff in return, with chances for you to receive great tickets to shows all summer – IF we’re still doing this. You can read the whole urgent appeal at http://acousticamericana.blogspot.com/2010/03/support-guide-and-get-some-great-dvds.html
+
Here, we’ll keep it simple: The Guide must ask you, NOW, for your financial support. We’ve been doing this for more than seven years, through thick and thin, through two eye surgeries (with two more to come), and it’s come to require sooooo much time that we just can’t do it for free any more.
+
RIGHT NOW, we are offering some GREAT thank-you gifts in return for your support – we have CDs and DVDs we can send you, while they last.
+
We can and will continue to bring you the Guide, and even EXPAND to a full-feature website (see News Feature #2) – IF we have your help.
+
SEND US A CHECK FOR $25, and we’ll send you a professionally-produced concert DVD and a CD, OR 3 CDs (either option, your choice) PLUS another bonus! The complete list of “thank-you” gifts you can choose is at
.
http://acousticamericana.blogspot.com/2010/03/support-guide-and-get-some-great-dvds.html
+
WRITE YOUR $25 CHECK TO “TIED TO THE TRACKS” AND MAIL IT TODAY TO:
+
Tied to the Tracks
PO Box 5427
Pasadena CA 91117-5427
+
Then email us at tiedtothetracks@hotmail.com and put “Guide support” in the subject line – tell us what choices you want, and confirm your selections before they’re gone.
+
It is our intention to keep publishing the Guide, and to make it even better – THANK YOU for your help to do that! (We cannot do it without you!)
.
===
.
2) GUIDE REACHES AGREEMENT TO MOVE – TO ACOUSTICMUSIC.NET
+
We’ve been working on plans for a long time to move the Guide to a full-feature website and we’ve written about it here, a bit. There are SO MANY acoustic music concerts, club gigs, festivals, workshops and radio shows and describing all of them just overwhelms many people with the Guide’s current format.
+
In addition to the need to make everything MUCH more user-friendly – and rapidly accessible to find specific events and days – we have long wanted to do even more.
+
“More” WHAT? We have HUNDREDS of hours of performance-interviews, recorded live, from the “TIED TO THE TRACKS” Radio Show Library and concerts recorded live. We get requests all the time to hear favorites again. So far, we haven’t had a way to do that. Moving to a full-function website will make FAR MORE available to you!
+
Plus, we get offers all the time to GIVE-AWAY TICKETS to great shows, to you, our readers. We have done some of that (to see Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin, Shawn Colvin, and others) but it isn’t easy to make that possible without a real website. We can essentially take-over at AcousticMusic.net – not quite a coup, because what’s on that site will still be available there and accessible from a new full-function directory. We’ll be able to update the site with LOTS MORE, including exciting new graphics and news of more Folk-Americana / Acoustic Americana / Acoustic Renaissance and other acoustic music than you can find anywhere else! (Yes, we already DO more of that than anybody else, each week in our “plain Jane” presentation of the Guide – so maybe you should think of what we can do on the new site as all that on steroids, PLUS photos PLUS hours of archived performance-interviews as dowloadabe audio from the huge radio show library PLUS concert ticket give-aways.
+
But what happens when the Guide moves will be determined by your financial support. We’ll need money to pay the octopus tentacles of the music industry so can we provide the radio show recordings there. And as we discuss in the first News Feature, we just can’t continue to spend the many, many, MANY hours required to write the Guide and do it anymore for free.
.
.
===
.
3) ZOEY’S, VENTURA’S BEST ACOUSTIC VENUE, RELOCATES & GOES LARGE
+
News arrived that would be happily significant anytime, and is ’purt-near miraculous in the present economy: Zoey’s is moving, a few blocks, to a larger location that will seat about twice as many peoplefor concerts. The last show at their old location was March 27, with Phil Salazar & Jonathan McEuen.
+
Zoey’s had already done about all it could to expand at its original location, in the nooks of a charming Spanish-mission-style courtyard in old downtown Ventura. First, they acquired more space upstairs, where they moved the music room, so the restaurant and kitchen would have more space downstairs. Of course, that meant there was no handicapped access to hear the music, and they ran their staff ragged carrying food from the kitchen upstairs to patrons. Next, they took to moving shows with their most popular artists to a nearby fraternal lodge, to accommodate bigger audiences. But their success demanded more.
+
Friday, April 16 will be the first show in their new location at 185 E Santa Clara St, Ventura 93001. Their phone numbers and website remain the same, for advance tix, dinner reservations & info, 805-652-1137 or 805-652-0091and www.zoeyscafe.com.
+
During the moving phase, they’re presenting a few shows at “The Lodge” at 11 S Ash St in Ventura: April 2, they had TIMMY CURRAN, and April 9 is MOTHER HIPS & FRANKLIN FOR SHORT. Sally Seymour, who frequents the venue, observes, “They do bring in variety for the young and old.”
+
Zoey’s sent a message that explains, “[Our] new, larger facility will enable us to have more flexibility. We are expanding our menu for both lunch and dinner. A separate music listening room will seat 60 to 80 people, and up to 100 standing. We are [now] connected to the Clocktower Inn Hotel and will be offering dinner / show / stay overnight discount packages! Still family-owned and operated with the same welcoming environment. Banquet and private party facility for up to 300. Thanks to all who support live music / art / entertainment and our Zoey’s family!”
+
In addition, they’ve issued a call for volunteers to assist with the move, seeking “Friends with large vehicles to help us move Zoey’s in its entirety.” And there is an opportunity for “Local artists to display their works on our bare walls.” Email them through www.zoeyscafe.com if you’d like to get involved with either aspect.
+
Coming up at Zoey’s new digs:
Wed, Apr 21, 8 pm, is THE QUEBE SISTERS BAND comprised entirely of National Fiddle Champs from Texas; this charming act is a “SHOW-OF-THE-WEEK” pick everywhere, playing the Coffee Gallery the following night (Thu, Apr 22), then Ojai on Apr 23, then the Santa Clarita Cowboy Festival Apr 24 & 25, so catch ‘em somewhere, for sure. (And the name is pronounced kway-bee.)
+
In addition to Zoey’s full schedule of shows, their new location will continue to host jams every Monday night at 6 pm, alternating Bluegrass with Gypsy Swing:
Mon, Apr 19 is their “Gypsy Swing Jam” and
Mon, Apr 26 is the “Bluegrass Jam,” both at their new location.
+
The Guide congratulates Zoey’s for the big move, all their past success, and we wish them many more tuneful and tune-filled years to come!
.
.
===
.
.
4) CROSSROADS OF HISTORY APRIL 14, AND CONNECTIONS WITH MUSIC
+
April 14 is the anniversary of two of history’s most notable tragedies, and both have musical aspects, plus this date has at least two additional connections to music.
+
On April 14, 1865, PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN, while watching the comedic play “Our American Cousin,” from the flag-draped Presidential balcony in Washington, D.C.’s Ford’s Theater, was shot in the back of the head by actor John Wilkes Booth. The President’s party had arrived after the play had started, and it was interrupted while the band – and audience applause – briefly acknowledged the Chief Executive. As would be the case with the Kennedy assassination ninety-eight-and-a-half years later, the President was seated with his wife at his side, and the President and First Lady were smiling and enjoying their surroundings until the moment he was shot. Ironically, the Civil War had just ended, its last casualties were thought to have been counted, and Lincoln had just returned from sitting in the chair in Confederate President Jefferson Davis’ abandoned office in Richmond. And earlier that same day, Lincoln had signed an act creating the Secret Service, which came to be charged with the protection of all subsequent presidents. President Lincoln died the following morning, April 15, after passing the night in agony without regaining true consciousness. Upon his death, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton observed, “And now he belongs to the ages.”
+
On April 14, 1912, RMS TITANIC, then the world’s largest passenger liner and on her maiden voyage, struck an iceberg on a dark, brilliantly starry, and remarkably calm night on the North Atlantic. She sank after midnight, April 15, taking most of her passengers with her, with at least 1,513 lives lost. Titanic carried the legally-required number of lifeboats, but British Maritime Regulations at that time used the tonnage of a ship to determine the number of lifeboats, rather than the number of passengers carried by the vessel. (That, and many other things changed after Titanic sank, including the establishment of an International Ice Patrol.) And no, contrary to Hollywood, there was no silly gunfight below decks as water rushed-in. What there was that night was Wallace Hartley and the ship’s band, playing almost until the end (no ship’s musicians survived, though some of their instruments have been recovered from the ocean floor). And there were many, many additional acts of anonymous courage, a few acts of cowardice, and an unlimited supply of life-extinguishing icy-cold water. Did the band play “Nearer My God to Thee,” as depicted in at least one 1950s movie? Apparently not. The last tune they played seems to have been “Autumn,” which is ironically fitting enough, if you think about it.
+
Folksinger BURL IVES died this day in 1995. He was both beloved as an entertainer and reviled for his testimony before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee during demagogue Joe McCarthy’s witch-hunt era. HUAC’s blacklist ruined the careers of many creative people in music and Hollywood. (Ask folk “singer-songfighter” Ross Altman about that.)
+
LORETTA LYNN, country music’s “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” was born this day in 1935, the same day a major Dust Bowl storm struck the Plains states during the depths of the Depression.
.
.
===
.
.
5) BANSHEE IN THE KITCHEN CHANGING PERSONNEL
+
When you’re one of the most popular Celtic-acoustic fusion bands anywhere, you’ve toured the world, and your lineup of three award-winning women musicians has stayed the same for nine years, it’s worth telling everyone when things are about to change.
+
Hence, the Banshees wrote to tell us, “Mary [Tulin] will be leaving us soon to move with her hubby Kip to Washington State. [He’s the pediatrician who wears the goofy hats.] The really far away part, up near Port Angeles. After many trips back and forth in recent years, Mary finally realized that commuting would not be a viable option, what with 3 large stringed things and nearly 1100 miles to traverse by land or air, with all the attendant joys of travel nowadays. So, we are losing our Guitar-, Tech-, and WebShee in one fell swoop, about which we all are very sad! We do hope you’ll join us for Mary’s final scheduled appearances with us:
+
“Sat, Apr 10, we’ll be at the great and wonderful Kern Scottish Society Highland Games and Gathering, this year newly relocated to the Kern County Fairgrounds.
+
“Sat, Apr 17, we’ll be playing the legendary Living Traditions concert series in Anaheim, with opener BILL DEMPSEY.
+
“We three will also play several shows in Washington State in July. Jill and Brenda being madly curious about Mary and Kip’s new habitat (including a nesting pair of bald eagles in view of their back yard and lots of lavender farms nearby).
+
“And not to worry, BANSHEE IN THE KITCHEN will continue, with an update soon on May performances with our good Banshee friend and guitarist KATHARINE EDMONSON sitting in!
+
– Jill, Brenda, Mary – Banshee in the Kitchen. World Celtic Music.” More at www.bansheeinthekitchen.com – www.myspace.com/bansheeinthekitchen – www.facebook.com/bansheeinthekitchen.
.
.
===
.
.
6) QUOTABLE THOUGHT…
“Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.” — James Russell Lowell, poet, editor, and diplomat (1819-1891). From Anu Garg’s “A.Word.A.Day.”
.
.
===
.
.
RECENT NEWS FEATURES:
.
The March 27 edition’s News Features are available at
http://acousticamericana.blogspot.com/2010/03/acoustic-americana-music-guide-fresh_27.html
The topics are:
2) FOLKWORKS PRINT EDITION – SPECIAL SUMMER ISSUE
3) CELEBRATE RECORD STORE DAY & GET SPECIAL STUFF, APRIL 17…
4) COFFEE GALLERY – WHAT’S WITH ALL THE NEW PHONE NUMBERS?
5) ALL-STAR LOWEN & NAVARRO TRIBUTE CD HELPS ALS FOUNDATION
6) THOUGHT FOR TODAY…
7) THOUGHT FOR THE AGES…
.
===
.
The March 20 edition’s News Features are available at
http://acousticamericana.blogspot.com/2010/03/acoustic-americana-music-guide-fresh_20.html
The topics are:
1) SPRING MUSIC FESTIVALS START ON FIRST DAY OF SPRING
2) GUIDE’S RADIO & TV LISTINGS NOW IN SEPARATE PAGES
3) REGISTER TO COMPETE IN THE 50th TOPANGA BANJO-FIDDLE CONTEST
4) ANOTHER HAITI RELIEF BENEFIT SHOW, MARCH 19
5) MICHELE VREELAND RADIO INTERVIEW
6) A THOUGHT FOR ALL THOSE TEA-BAGGERS…
.
===
.
RECENT GUEST EDITORIALS:
.
L.A.-based musician and expert on the subject MICHAEL HERALDA always presents a compelling and informative performance, and his written piece on the Mexica New Year is fascinating, spiritual, and a must-read for cultural literacy. It’s our guest editorial, by Michael, at http://acousticamericana.blogspot.com/2010/03/aztec-calendars-new-year-time-of-music.html. Michael has done musical and spoken word excerpts from his compelling “Aztec Stories” presentation on radio’s “Tied to the Tracks,” including music on original and traditional Native American instruments.
.
===
.
Did you see our GUEST EDITORIAL in February 2010 by award-winning musician FREEBO? He wrote an essay on climate change that’s worth a read, and we presented it in the Guide. It’s entertaining and thoughtful, and takes it to the “deniers” in right-wing media. It’s at http://acousticamericana.blogspot.com/2010/02/climate-change-by-freebo-special-to.html
.
.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Entire contents copyright (c) © 2010, Larry Wines. All rights reserved.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.
Updated April 9, 2010; recurring events included through Tuesday, April 20, with updated listings of many upcoming events through the rest of 2010.
.
.
ALL THAT’S HAPPENING is available at
.
www.acousticmusic.net or go directly to the current edition at
.
http://acousticamericana.blogspot.com/2010/04/acoustic-americana-music-guide-april-9.html
.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.