This video comes from a show we did at the University of Chicago in February of 2006. We played WHPK’s annual Pictures and Sounds event, providing live musical accompaniment to silent films. We chose Ralph Steiner’s avant garde classic ‘H2O’, reckoning that it would appeal to both highbrow aesthetes and the very high.

The arrangements we used for these tunes informed the arrangements on our new record. In particular, we worked out the slow intro to Angeline the Baker/ Soldier’s Joy for this show to help smooth the transition between tunes. We liked it so much we kept doing it that way. We also did a sort of hip maqam hijaz-like thingy with the Angeline melody as an interlude.

There’s an edit in the middle of one of the free-form sections to get the length under to the youtube-mandated 10 minutes.

We played this acoustically. No mics, no PA. I used my rather obnoxious-sounding Dobro mandolin for the show.

This is from a show at the Seventh Street Entry in Minneapolis, circa ‘Out My Way’. The song is from their seminal ‘Up on the Sun’ LP. My pal Carl suggested that Tangleweed should do a bluegrassified version of this song.

You can create your own Tangleweed radio station on the very cool music discovery site, Pandora. Just go to Pandora.com and enter ‘Tangleweed’ into the search box to start.

You’ll get stuff from our new record, along with things from folks like Split Lip Rayfield, the Yonder Mountain String Band, Chatham County Line, Steve Earle, and other such. Check it out.

Though the introduction talks about the continuity of mountain traditions, the song he’s playing is a New Orleans tune that found its way into the country repertoire. That said, it’s pretty cool to see footage of Doc Watson at home.

Footage of the late John Fahey has been hard to find, but this 1969 clip is great. If you haven’t already read it, check out his autobiography, How Bluegrass Music Destroyed My Life. I had the pleasure of seeing him perform at the Empty Bottle not long before he passed away.

Here’s another song from the Kennett Brothers’ long out of print and now ridiculously pricey Xmas CD, Santa is Real. This time, it’s the Kennett’s performance of the Marty Robbins tune, ‘One of You in Every Size‘. The lineup as best I remember:
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As a special for Thanksgiving Day, and now with embedded goodness…our appearance on WTTW’s Chicago Tonight program from this summer. They only had room for four of us on the set, so our banjo player Ryan Fisher took one for the team and sat this one out. We’re playing the first song from our new album, the classic fiddle rag ‘Draggin’ the Bow’.

All told, a very pleasant experience. Everyone, from Phil Ponce on down, was great to us, and we owe a special thanks to Erin Bauer from the Mayor’s Office of Special Events for making it all happen.

Here’s another clip of our recent show at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. This time, it’s the title track to our new record.

Thanks to the good folks at the Old Town School for having us, Alissa Baum for the camera work, and Billy Oh for the editing.