We’ve been having a good time playing at the Metroplis on Sundays. It’s a laid-back family-run place with friendly staff. We play every Sunday from 6-8PM.

We’ve got some cool new tunes and arrangements that we’re anxious to play. Come on by this Sunday and stay for a while.

Folks have been asking us when we’ll have a CD for sale. We’re presently in the process of setting up some recording dates that should result in a release relatively soon.

I’m not crazy about the way most acoustic records sound. They’re too thin and bright, and they don’t have a lot of punch in the low and mid range. The brightness is exacerbated by close mic’ing techniques and the use of digital recording media. This is why, to my ears, bluegrass records recorded forty or fifty years ago generally sound much, much better than bluegrass records recorded recently.

To try to counter this, we’re going to try an experiment in musical neo-luddism. We’re going to record live, to two-track analog tape, in an empty room in Scott’s house. We’re in the process of lining up an engineer for the project, and we’re pretty confident that we’ll be able to work with an outstanding engineer who Scott and I have admired for years. More on that later.

When we’re done, we’ll take the analog tapes and convert them into the zeroes and ones that the kids are all crazy about.

If everything goes well, we should have a release ready to roll in the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Tangleweed is playing an Oktoberfest gig this Friday (September 24). It’s the Northcenter Octoberfest, Lincoln, Damen and Irving Park. We love playing in that neighborhood, so come on by and say ‘howdy’. We’re starting early (around 5 or so).

It looks like we’ve got a couple nice gigs coming up in October, starting with a Saturday night gig at the Charleston on the 9th. The Charleston is a fun place, so stop in for a while.

I’ve played two gigs since I had my shoulder patched up last week (more about repairing a torn labrum). Each gig is getting easier.

The first one was like running a marathon, except there was no Gatorade on the way and no space blanket waiting for me at the end. I couldn’t move my arm well enough to get into the upper register, so I played almost the entire show in first position. I also abstained from playing chords for a chunk of the second set. My doctor prescribed Vicodin tablets the size of horse pills, which left me hoarse (no pun intended) and easily confused. I tought that opiates were suppose to help linear improvisation. Hell, it worked for Charlie Parker. Not for me, I guess. I just want to sleep 18 hours a day.

Last night was a lot easier — I can move my left arm pretty well to get to the upper register, I have more strength and mobility, and I can make it through two sets without much pain. I’ve also stopped taking the horse pills, so my voice is slowly getting back to its regular crappy state.

A couple tunes worked really well last night– the old-timey tune Two-Dollar Bill was stronger than it’s ever been, as was the old tune Train 45. We’re working on adding some new songs to our repertoire, including the old string band tune Ginseng Blues (The Cornlikkers used to do that one a lot, with Ryan ‘The Viper’ Jerving handling the yodeling chores), and a Douglass Dillard tune called Banjo in the Holler. We’ve also been working in some jazz standards, including John Coltrane’s Mr. PC, Fats Waller’s Honeysuckle Rose, and Thelonious Monk’s Blue Monk. Ryan is an extremely strong jazz guitar soloist, and he’s able to translate a lot of that to the banjo.

Tangleweed is playing at MoJoe’s cafe tonight (Tues, Sept. 21) for the first time. MoJoe’s is a cozy place in Roscoe Village, about two blocks east of Western Avenue. Stop by and say hello.

It’s my second show since the big shoulder surgery, so I’m antsy to get my arm out of the brace and get back to playing with the T’weed guys.

We’ve got a lot of shows coming up over the next two weeks. We’ll be playing an outdoor show on Friday (Sept. 24), and we’ll be back in our usual Sunday slot at Metropolis on the 26th. A complete list of upcoming events is available on our calendar page.

Thanks to Cafe Luna for having us last Friday (or at least 4/5 of us - Billy was at a wedding). We had a small but enthused local crowd for our first South Side appearance.

It was very inspiring to see Kip play and sing a whole show just three days after serious reconstructive shoulder surgery. Don’t let his calm outward demeanor throw you off - the mando-man is hardcore.

Lastly, I just converted two tunes from a recent Metropolis set into our first live MP3’s for the MUSIC page.

Tangleweed will be playing live at Cafe Luna on Chicago’s south side tonight. It’s my first show since having shoulder surgery earlier this week, so I’m anxious to see how it goes.

I’ve been cleared by my doctor to play, so everything should be good to go. Music starts at 8pm. Stop by and say hello.

I’m sitting at home, recovering from shoulder surgery, doing a little work on the site each time I wake up from my Vicodin-induced coma. So… welcome to the TweedBlog.

We’ll use this space to discuss gigs, recordings, and music in general. You can respond to any posts here to add your input to the discussion.