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Alright, I made it back from Telluride. The trip was great and I've got lots of pictures if anyone wants to see them. I was low on battery power for the second half of the trip and was unable to post. So it goes when you have to vacate your hotel suite...

I bring you this post today from my second choice coffee shop, and after having to fight through frat boy congested Brewfest traffic. The things I do for this blog!

Alright, if you haven't gotten it already, you should download yourself a copy of Firefox 3. It kicks at least 8 kinds of ass! The smart location bar alone is good enough reason to try it out, but the increased speed is certainly a nice feature as well. I've pimped mine out with ColorfulTabs, Adblock Plus and PicLens to make a truly wonderful browsing experience.

I've also been playing around with a great piece of software called Handbrake. Simply put, it's a program that converts mpeg2 files to mpeg4 files. I've been using it to covert episodes of Connections so that I can easily watch them on my computer.

If you've never seen Connections, check it out! I remember watching it when I was young, and it's probably one of many things that led to my interest in social history, science and technology. It makes you see the world in a very different, but very logical way. Plus, it's hillarious! (In a dry, British kind of way)

Day 2 Part 2: It's My Birthday

Did i forget to mention that it was my Birthday yesterday? I guess I did...

My pictures dont want to upload today :( I'll add them if I get time later.

The serendipity continues on the 2nd day of Telluride. I got up fairly early, gave the hotel room the once over, (at least 3 times) and vacated it before the hotel folks kicked me out. G-man and Lauren were getting back at some point during the day, but until then I was stuck with 2 bags and a guitar.

Getting up to the press area with all that excess baggage was not something I wanted to do, so I decided to hang out in Elk Park for all the shows there. Besides having to listen to a very dumb Rainbow Family hippie for several shows, it was pretty fun.

I saw the band competition, a song writing workshop from Tift Merrit and Darrell Scott, Abigail Washburn and Bela Fleck, and most of the troubadour competition. Then I got a call from G-man and I was able to dump my bags and guitar in the van.

On the main stage, I saw Tim O'Brien, skipped Paolo Nutuni while set up the tent, and came back for Ricky Skaggs and Bruce Hornsby. Wow! They played Mandolin Rain with Chris Thile and Uncle Pen with Sam Bush.

After that, I met up with a friend from the station and a group of her friends to watch part of Leftover Salmon's set. I say part because they had tickets to the Yonder Mountain String Band Show at the Sheridan Opera House; one of the most saught after tickets of the whole festival. A friend of theirs had wandered off with no way to get a hold of her, so they offered me the extra.

How could I say no?

The Yonder shows was awesome! The Sheridan is a pretty small place, with a capacity of only about 250. We danced the night away for several hours of awesome music and celebrated my birthday in style.

I got back to the campsite at about 3. I am tired now, but pumped for the next 2 days.

Day 2: Camping...

Well, it took forever to get this point, but I've finally set up my tent. Today was a little odd, but I'll tell you about it later. I just wanted to post to show that even camping in the middle of a high school football field, I can find a wireless signal.


Thank you PINHEAD!

Now back to the festival...

Day 1 Part 2: Oh yeah, It's a Music Festival!

OK, enough talk about hotel rooms. This thing's about the music!

The only main stage performer that I missed today was Darrel Scott, but I needed the beauty rest. ;)

Next up was our roommates, Cadillac Sky:


...who kept their shirts on for most of the performance.



After them, Uncle Earl who put on a great show. They did an awesome version of the ballad "Willie Taylor" and a song that involved a hand clapping game with bass accompniment.












Next was Arlo Gurthire. (Who I took nothing but horrible photos of) For me, the highlight of his set was listening to "Alice's Restaurant" while sitting next to Bela Fleck! Priceless press pass predicament!

They we're followed up by the always fabulous Del McCoury Band. No real shockers from them, just good solid pickin'.



After Del came Ani DiFranco, who I've never really been that into. My attitude has changed! She put on a great set!














And then came Ryan Adams and the Cardinals. I'll admit, I didn't stay for the whole set. It was wonderful, but it was a bit too loud for my liking in the press area. I did my best to snap a bunch of photos because of the horrible lighting. (for photos anyway) I'm so glad that I got a new camera because this one is much, much better in low light.
Here's a few of the choice ones:







































Tomorrow might prove a bit wacky. We can stay in the hotel anymore since Cadillac Sky is heading to Washington. G-man and Lauren are taking them to Durango tonight so they can catch a plane in the morning. I'll stay here, check out, and set up my tent tomorrow. I'm not sure what I'll be doing for internet, but if I can't steal it, I'll probably use the free wireless at Baked In Telluride.

Stay tuned, music more is yet to come!

Day 1: The Good Life

This trip is going much, much smoother than last year. No locking of keys in cars, no late arrivals, just good old fashioned bluegrass festival fun.

Well, with a twist I suppose.

That fact that I got a hotel room for the first 2 nights is pretty awesome. I'm used to slumming it in the campgrounds. For the first time ever, not only do I have a room all to myself, I'm getting the star treatment. This suite of rooms was meant for a group performing at the festival, so they've definitely pulled out all the stops. I should describe the place. It's 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2 floors. G-man, Lauren and I are staying on the bottom floor and Andy from Cadillac Sky has the master bedroom on the top floor. There's also a living room/dining room and a kitchen. It's huge. Mega huge. Probably the biggest hotel room I've ever stayed in.


Really though, it's the little things that make it really spectacular:

Getting There

As every good vacation should, this one has started with a bit of randomness that has resulted with putting me in a far better situation than I had originally planned.

I traveled to Denver this morning to meet up with G-man and his girlfriend Lauren. The original plan was to take Lauren or G-man's car to the festival. Through a roundabout series of phone calls, we found out that the band Cadillac Sky, who is playing the festival, had ended up stranded in Denver and was looking for a way to Telluride. Lauren was able to make arrangements to swap G-man's car for a huge passenger van that could carry us and the band together.

The deal was made.

It's been fun getting to know the band in the drive up here. They're ll nice guys, and jovial traveling companions. Banter was light and spirits remained high for the whole journey.

We got here without any big incident, got the press passes and did our best to figure out our accommodations for the night. My camping passes apparently are at the campsite, and since it was getting dark I wasn't even sure I'd be able to see enough to set up the tent. Amazingly, the Cadillac Sky folks had some extra space in their hotel rooms, so we're staying with them tonight.

I'm in the midst of an all star jam right now: Cadillac Sky, G-man, Dominick Leslie and a few other folks. I'm gonna stop posting and just enjoy myself.



More to come tomorrow!

Telluride Bound

Once again, I've managed to get a hold of a press pass for the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. Last year's trip was exciting and my guess is that this year's will be even better.

I'll be heading up tomorrow with my good friend G-Man this year and camping amongst the teeming millions. I'll be bringing my laptop with me along with my newer and better camera and an audio recorder. As long as I can steal a wireless signal, I'll blog as much as I'm able to keep you all up to date with the goings on.

I'll post pictures and stories for sure and audio If I can figure out an easy way to serve it...

Musings on an Underground Venue

The music industry is a fascinating entity that manifests itself in almost every way imaginable. Musicians are constantly making new art and seeking out ways to present that art to the public. Depending on your standing within the industry at large, (your level of experience, fame and any number of other factors) you will find yourself playing gigs at all kinds of different places and events. A few nights ago I found myself experiencing music in a type of venue I really hadn't experienced before as either an audience member or a performer. I took my first trip to an underground venue.

In my life, I've had my fair share of incredible musical experiences in a wide variety of venues. I've seen noise rock shows at art galleries, funk shows in outdoor amphitheaters, opera at the finest concert halls and intimate acoustic shows in living rooms of all sizes. I've had all kinds of musical experiences, but this underground venue was certainly one of the more exciting places I've seen a show, and for a variety of reasons.

For one, the sheer amount of reckless lawlessness was almost unfathomable. I was easily one of the oldest people there. I saw more high school kids in various states of inebriation than I've seen anywhere. (and I've been to plenty of high school theater parties) No one was making any attempt to hide anything from authorities or keep cautious, discrete, and quiet. Any cop passing buy could have made a months worth of arrests in the parking lot alone. If the place had a maximum occupancy rating I'm sure it was exceeded by at least 3 times. There was absolutely no escape in case of an emergency, the floor was buckling under the weight of dancers and people were climbing in and out of windows instead of fighting their way to the single door.

It was amazing!

The music was also quite good. I had been invited by a young guitarist friend of mine who is always fun to see. It was also my chance to see a Denver band I've been hoping to see for several months. Padding out the insanely packed bill was a wide assortment of hip acts from Denver, Boulder and Fort Collins. Hardly the sort of line up you'd expect from a venue of this stature.

This underground venues seemed to break all the rules it possibly could. No venue in it's right mind would pack in that many spectators and bands, especially not on a weeknight. No normal venue would encourage so much underage drinking and drug use. They shouldn't be able to have a "suggested donation" jar actually bring in a fair amount of cash. No where else have I seen an audience actually shut up and watch artists so intently. Denver and Boulder folks *never* seem to come up to Fort Collins for shows, but these band brought plenty of fans with them. By all rights, some sort of law enforcement should have showed up and shut the place down, but they didn't. Somehow by doing everything wrong, the place couldn't have had more go right.

This post is a bit convoluted. I wish I could come to some sort of conclusion that sums everything up in a neat little package, but I can't. The night was incredible, and I can't really say why. I'm still processing everything that happened and probably will be for some time. In any case, it was certainly a singular experience in my life and one that I will remember forever.