Since my Dad's passing, life has been a bit of a blur. Once the dust settled and we worked on setting up a new routine for our Mom, we had to jump right into preparations for the family reunion we were hosting at our home in mid-July. This meant work every night after getting home and all weekend. 24 years of neglect takes a lot of work to overcome and we only had precious few weeks. Yard work, finishing the porch (walls, floors, ceiling, and windows) and all the prep work wore us out. But it was worth it and we had a great time. I had one day after the reunion to clean the place up, then I packed for Grey Fox and headed up to the farm for a week.
It's taken 2 weeks to recover from Grey Fox (more about that in the next post) and the hits just keep on coming. Evan Shultis, Michael Hunold, and Matt Bowe played a killer single mic gig at the Landmark Inn last weekend and Bill and Claire Keith were in the house. Roland White is playing 3 gigs in our area this weekend, but I am broke and will have to miss those with regret. The Hoot is fast approaching on August 22-24 (you should come, and some volunteer slots are still open). Then I have a trip to Chicago for the second week in September (business, but I may catch some Blues at Buddy Guy's club at some point). The day before I leave for Chicago (9/6), Norm Wennet is playing at Catskill Mountain Pizza, and the day I return from Chicago we have a house concert at The Elmendorph Inn with Nick Gareiss & Maeve Gilchrist. Then I have a weekend off (so far) and on Saturday, September 27th I travel to Brooklyn with Bill Keith for the Park Slope Bluegrass & Old Time Festival.
We catch a flight out on 9/30 for IBMA. This is my first time going and I am honored to be going with Bill. He knows this event like the back of his hand, having been a member since the organization was formed. This is going to be an overloading experience for me, I know already. The street festival, indoor concerts, Bluegrass ramble (multiple clubs with multiple bands on multiple nights), the awards ceremonies, and the private and semi-private events in various suites, not to mention the jamming going on everywhere. I scarcely know where to start. It will be quite an experience to see some of this from the inside. We return on 10/5 and get ready for a house concert at The Barn on 10/11 featuring The Gather Rounders coming all the way down from Maine. This is going to be a very Special night with some special guests and I'll share more about it when we get closer.
Then the calendar clears up for a while until Robert Sarazin Blake is here again, playing out at the Empire State Railway Museum in Phoenicia on 11/22. I have a feeling there will be some other things going on around that time that I don't know about yet, but it's early yet.
SO I put this up just to show both of my semi-loyal readers that I did not drop off the planet, I just got busy and will continue to be so. I also wanted to share some of the upcoming events with y'all. I am trying to get back into some sort of regular postings here, but that remains a challenge.
Keep the Beat,
Tom
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