Would You Stop and Hear What I Would Say? (Part 1, BGS)

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I agreed to attend The Bluegrass Situation Festival at the Greek Theater on October 3, 2015 (follow the link for a thorough summary of the event on their web site, with gorgeous professional photos). My main goal for attending was to see the Punch Brothers, those incredible musicians and innovators of progressive bluegrass, and secondarily to see Dawes, an L.A.-based band that all my concert-going friends seems to know about, but I just discovered this year. The concert was really one of two halves — the first, which this blog entry covers, was

Reality Calls and I Just Let It Ring

On Friday, October 2, I attended the latest monthly installment of the Watkins Family Hour at Largo at the Coronet.   Special guest for the evening was Paul F. Tompkins, who has his own regular show at Largo titled “Spontaneation.” Sean and Sara Watkins were soon on stage and the three warmed up the crowd with a discussion of bug boxes, as Sara recalled a time she had a bug box when they played at Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri when she was about 10 years old. This eventually morphed into the idea that the audience should identify the spirit

I Still Want a Little More

On Thursday, October 1, 2015 I had the joy of attending my first full concert by The Milk Carton Kids. I had previously seen them at an interview session and three song performance at The Grammy Museum in May upon the release of their album Monterey. There was a brief meet and greet afterward, where I was able to get my album signed by Joey Ryan and Kenneth Pattengale and share my appreciation for their music with them.  After that little teaser of a show, I was extremely excited for a full performance at The Theatre at Ace Hotel (formerly United Artists