A solid recording of the recent Chicago Bluegrass Festival in Evanston, IL is available for free bit-torrent download at bt.etree.org:  http://bt.etree.org/details.php?id=524105

Here’s a little sample, our four-man, banjo-less version of the Takeup Reel Medley, from our latest record, Most Folk Heroes Started Out As Criminals:

Here are the notes for the recording, which was made by Joe Steffen:

Chicago Bluegrass Festival
2009-04-04
American Legion Hall
Evanston, IL

Source: SP-CMC-8 cardioid > M-AUDIO MicroTrack II > 44.1 kHz 16-bit WAV
Location: front center chair 2′ from stage, ORTF 20cm 100°
Transfer: WAV > CD Wave > Trader’s Little Helper > FLAC
Recorded by: Joe Steffen (HackensawFan at comcast dot net)

Disc 1
01. intro

Harris Covington
02. Some Day

Bubbly Creek Bluegrass Band http://www.myspace.com/bubblycreekbluegrassband
with Harris Covington on guitar
03. intro
04. Travelin’ Teardrop Blues
05. Colleen Malone
06. banter
07. Lee & Paige
08. Dusty Boxcar Wall

James Creek Road http://www.jamescreekroad.com/
09. intro
10. Love Please Come Home
11. Girl from West Virginia
12. Where Corn Don’t Grow
13. Flight That Is Leaving Soon
14. Crosses and Stones
15. Six Feet Under

Whiskey Hollow Bluegrass Band http://nailthatcatfish.tripod.com/WALLOW.html
16. intro
17. Turkey Knob
18. Wonder Where You Are Tonight
19. I Never Will Marry
20. Hang Me
21. A Few Old Memories
22. banter
23. Somewhere Over The Rainbow
Disc 2
01. Bring It On Home
02. Jesus Is A Rock
03. announcements and door prizes

Northern Skyline
04. intro
05. If You’re Ever in Oklahoma
06. Vamp in the Middle
07. Dancin’ with the Angels
08. Walls of Time
09. 1952 Vincent Black Lightning
10. E.M.D.
11. announcements

Peter Nye & the Chicago Bluegrass Band http://www.myspace.com/chicagobluegrassband
12. intro
13. Peter Nye: Chip Covington banjo story
14. Butcher Boy
15. Paddy On The Turnpike
16. Love of the Mountain
17. One More Dollar
18. Just Wondering Why
19. banter
Disc 3
01. Steel Rails in the Tennessee Night

Tangleweed http://www.tangleweed.org
02. intro
03. Sir Lucas de Somerville/The Musical Priest/Whiskey Before Breakfast
04. Hard Times
05. The Logjam
06. South Australia
07. Gonna Lay Down My Old Guitar
08. The Takeup Reel/Cold Frosty Morning/Grey Eagle

Henhouse Prowlers http://www.henhouseprowlers.com/
09. intro
10. Get in Line Brother
11. Darlin’ Who Cares About Your Fun
12. Give Your Lovin’ Out
13. Mourning Dove
14. The First Train Robbery
15. Clinch Mountain Backstep/Turn Me Loose

All Band Jam
16. intro
17. Doing My Time

Bluegrass Legends Concerts http://www.chicagobluegrass.com

Here’s a sample track from Sunday’s record release show @ The Hideout, an accelerated rendition of our new CD’s closing track, Listen to the Mockingbird.

You can download the whole show here:

http://www.archive.org/details/Tangleweed2008-11-16.flac16

There’s a soundboard recording of the evening as well. We’ll let you know if that becomes available on the archive.

…Theater crowd this Saturday.

Here’s the schedule for Saturday’s Chicago Bluegrass and Blues Festival at the Congress Theater. Tangleweed will be doing pop-up sets in the balcony all afternoon. We have two pairs of tickets to the Festival. We’ll be giving them away Friday night at The Charleston.

MAIN STAGE
12:30-1:15pm – Donnie Biggins
1:15-1:30 – Tangleweed
1:30-2:15 – Dollar Store
2:15-2:45 – Tangleweed/Second City’s “Cell Camp”(sketch comedy)
2:45-3:30 – Billy Childers
3:30-4:00 – Tangleweed/Second City’s “Cell Camp”
4:00-4:45 – Lil’ Ed & the Blues Imperials
4:45-5:15 – Tangleweed/Second City’s “Cell Camp”
5:15-6:15 – Majors Junction
6:15-6:45 – Tangleweed/Second City’s “Cell Camp”
6:45-7:45 – Ha Ha Tonka
7:45-8:15 – The Giving Tree Band
8:15-9:45 – David Grisman Quintet
9:45-10:15 – The Giving Tree Band
10:15-The End – The Avett Brothers

Jambase.com’s 312 PAVILION STAGE
Noon-12:45 – Blue Room Hero
1:00-1:45 – Cobalt & the Hired Guns
2:00-2:45 – Lindsey O’Brien Band & Friends
3:00-3:45 – Mike Mangione
4:00-4:45 – Jessica Lee
5:00-5:45 – How Far to Austin
6:00-6:45 – Blue Mother Tupelo
7:00-7:45 – Blackdog

Th' Legendary Shack Shakers, w/ Velcro Lewis and Tangleweed @ the Double Door in Chicago

Here’s the lovely poster for our upcoming show @ the Double Door in Chicago w/ Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers & Velcro Lewis.

Fun fact: Playing guitar for the Shack Shakers will be none other than former Jesus Lizard guy Duane Denison. Seriously. And in Col. J.D. Wilkes, Denison is working with a front man not unlike David Yow. Wilkes will strip down to his leiderhosen and bounce around the stage like a crazy person. Not sure if he can do the tight and shiny, though.

We played with Th’ Shack Shakers a few years ago at the Abbey pub. Nice folks.

You can buy tickets at the club to avoid TicketMaster’s rather astonishing fees ($6, or nearly 50% of the face value of the ticket). If you buy @ the box office, that drops to $2 a ticket. The Double Door box office is open from 12pm-12am on all show nights, 12pm-5pm on Mondays, closed Sundays.

You could get yourself a ticket trying for a new land speed record on some godforsaken corn-lined back country road. Or you could get a bus ticket to Newark, New Jersey. Or maybe a parking ticket to help our cash-strapped metropolis cling to fiscal solvency.

But we’ve got tickets that are much better than that. They’re advance tickets to our record release show at The Hideout, and they’re on sale now at Ticket Web. Everyone at the show gets a copy of the new CD, Most Folk Heroes Started Out As Criminals, plus sets from Tangleweed and Shotgun Party.

How much would this magical evening of entertainment set a person back? Five hundred dollars? A thousand dollars? Seven hundred billion dollars? Nope. Eight bucks. A measley eight bucks guarantees that you get you in the door and a copy of the new CD. Get `em while they last.

Tangleweed’s August 15th appearance on WDVX’s Blue Plate Special is available for download on our music page. It’s five songs, recorded live in Knoxville in front of a studio audience. The sound quality is quite good. Matt, the house engineer, got a good, loud mix for the radio feed.

The set, as best I can remember, was this:

1. Listen to the Mockingbird
2. California
3. Short Life of Trouble
4. The Logjam
5. The Takeup Reel/ Cold Frosty Morning/ Grey Eagle

All are tracks from our forthcoming third CD, Most Folk Heroes Started Out As Criminals. This is what we sound like the morning after an all-night drive.

You can download the whole thing in MP3 format (approx 16MB), or you can stream it in the player thingy below.

This popped up on my iPod this morning, a live recording from June, 2006, at the Ark in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was shortly before our second CD, Where You Been So Long, came out, and we were playing our first real out-of-town shows.

The Ark was a good place to start–it’s a nice-sounding room, with an attentive and appreciative crowd. The show was an opening set for the Hackensaw Boys. Decent folks, they, and a good band as well.

Fun fact: the hollering you hear in the background is me yelling cues to a band member.

You can download the whole show @ Archive.org: http://www.archive.org/details/Tangleweed_The_Ark_20060623

I’ll be playing in the Madison area this Saturday (August 2), backing up Deanna Veragona at the Sugar Maple Traditional Music Festival. Deanna is stepping in to fill the void left by Hazel Dickens who, sadly, has fallen ill and is unable to perform. New Lost City Rambler Mike Seeger will be performing earlier in the evening, as will several former Bluegrass Boys.

The emcees for the show are interesting as well: Tom Martin-Erickson, a Wisconsin Public Radio host who has been kind to Tangleweed in the past, and Bill Malone, author of the best comprehensive history of country music, Country Music USA.

Deanna has made a lot of interesting music over the years. In addition to her solo work, she was a founding member of Lambchop, and has collaborated with the Silos, Paul Burch, Bobby Bare Jr., and host of other notable folks.

All of us, by the way, are huge Hazel Dickens fans, and wish her a speedy recovery.