MBOTMA Winter Weekend - a few notes

Lynn and I spent this past weekend (Feb-29 to March-2) at the MBOTMA Winter Bluegrass Weekend. We played at the Europa Room Friday night and were part of Phil Nusbaum's 'Spotlight on Longevity' on Sunday afternoon. Saturday we just showed up and went to some workshops, heard a lot of bands and did a little jamming - some notes:

Our gigs went well and the sound was good on both stages (at least the monitors were set right). For the Longevity session it was kind of fun to resurrect a couple of old songs and arrangements (and I actually remembered all the words!). Didn't get a whole lot of feedback, but did hear from a few people that they liked what we did. Al Jesperson (from Middlespunk Creek Boys, another band in the Longevity set) told me we did a good job. Since he's the guy who books Dulono's (where we play in a few weeks), that was good to hear.

We didn't spend much time jamming, even Saturday. I sat in on the Saturday tune Session with the 'New Bad Habits' and Lynn sat in on a Swedish Tune Jam (finding that she and the Swedish folk had friends in common). We also jammed with Bill Cagley and others and wound up "entertaining" the line waiting for the 9:30 Main concert on Saturday Night.

When we weren't performing or getting ready to perform, we spent a lot of time catching up on some bands with friends in it or some new bands (to us anyway) that we hadn't heard - these included:

- Ditch Lilies, John Whitehead and Deb Carlson and the Eelpout stringers: these bands played at the Saturday Night Dinner. We ended up sitting in the way back area (behind the buffet), the sound was OK , but couldn't really see the bands. John and Deb were accompanied by Deb Sorenson-Boeh, a great fiddler which added a nice touch to the good singing. I think John is writing some great songs (and we saw some scenes from his new movie on Black String Bands on Sunday). We know folk in the Eelpout stringers, but hadn't heard them before - good string band sound (we didn't hear the whole set as we had to finish eating and run down stairs to hear Hello Stranger).

- Hello Stranger: this is a band that has been around for a while with some veterans of the Minnesota Bluegrass scene. They recently added Deb Carlson on guitar and vocals and the duet singing of the two Debs (Deb Sorenson-Boeh is the other) was a real treat. We hope to make it to one of their nights at Dulono's on March 14 or 15th (one week before we play Dulono's).

- The Roe Family Singers: a band that I was aware of but had never heard. We heard them at the Europa room Saturday night (after dinner so we had better seats). Great old time singing - I especially liked their take on Cuckoo (Clarence Ashley's version).

- The High 48's: we just caught the tail end of their set on Sunday after our Longevity set. Classic bluegrass band with a lot of original songs - they are having their CD release concert at the Cedar, Sat March 22nd. We'd go, but we're playing that fri-sat at Dulono's ;-)

- New Bad Habits: this was the national old time act (from Illinois) - saw their concert and listened a bit as they played for the Sat night square dance. Chirps Smith and Dot Kent will be at the Bluff Country Gathering in Lanesboro in May (and so will we!).

We also saw The Fish Heads, Switched at Birth, Poor Benny, Highway 61 and more.

As Lynn says, these MBOTMA events are getting to be more and more fun as we get to know more of the performers. Next up is the Homegrown kickoff - we're playing on Saturday afternoon - we volunteered to be in a duet singing showcase/workshop, but no word on that yet.
See ya' there!