It’s hard to believe that ACL Fest is little more than a month away! Its always fun exploiting the lineup for cool new bands. The best way to do this is to start at the bottom of the list and work your way up to the headliners.

Maxim Ludwig & The Santa Fe Seven are a great folk group from California. They are playing the Austin Venture’s stage at 12:20 on Sunday. This is a great show to ease your way into Sunday. Here is the Bio from the Band’s myspace:

In California, Maxim Ludwig lives surrounded by the ghosts of the “Gone West” migration. Though barely broken into his 20s, Ludwig embraces folk music of eras past, and his songs seem drunk-honest in their depiction of an uncertain life in a temporary town. Whether he is crooning over lap steel, piano, or violin, the young musician’s lyrics channel the feelings of rambling desperation that inspired such greats as Hank Williams. Confessing, “I became heavily obsessed with words,” Ludwig’s songs unveil themselves like good literature, and string the listener along with equal parts suspense and intrigue. Maxim eventually released an album, and later picked up a full band to become Maxim Ludwig and the Sante Fe Seven. The band would have you believe they are touring to earn another sip of warm whiskey and another story to tell; they may not be far off the mark. With their cool confidence and coiled-snake energy, it is hard to believe otherwise.

Another ACL 2008 spoil was the Belleville Outfit. They’ve got sort of an old time bluegrass swing sound that is chock full of roots goodness. Not to mention their fiddle player is drop dead gorgeous! I can’t wait to see them in a more intimate setting.

Those of you gearing up for Austin City Limits Festival this weekend can get pumped up listening to Pandora’s ACL festival radio station (scroll down to the bottom of the page). Additionally, Pandora has custom radio stations for Bonnaroo, Coachella, Thirsty Ear, Wakarusa and many more. Enjoy ACL this weekend and don’t forget to stay hydrated!

Joel Selvin has a fantastic review of this year’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle.  The article also has some great photos.  I’m going to figure out a way to make it to this festival next year come hell or high water.  Hopefully they will break the “you can only play once every five years” rule and have Todd Snider back again.

By the way, Near Truths And Hotel Rooms is an excellent live Todd Snider album and a great introduction to him if you’ve never heard him before.

There is a great article on NPR about Hardly Strictly Blugrass Festival (complete with streaming audio) and how it got its start. Billionare investment banker (and claw hammer banjo player) Warren Hellman started the festival 6 years ago as a way to bring some free music to his home city of San Francisco in Golden Gate Park. Last year the festival entertained 300,000 people. One thing I found interesting in the article is that the festival was originally called “Strictly Bluegrass” but when Emmylou Harris played it with her band Spyboy who had a New Orleans sound, Hellman renamed the festival “Hardly Strictly Bluegrass”. Check it out!

Related Links:

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Lineup

StrictlyBluegrass.com

O man, the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival lineup has been announced and its gonna be a phenomenal festival. Of all the music festivals out there today, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass is arguably the biggest and no doubt one of the best. It takes place in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park each October for three days and is completely free. Last year there were over one hundred thousand people there. This is the biggest festival on my “festivals to check out in my lifetime” list.

Check the lineup:

Earl Scruggs, Hot Tuna Acoustic, Flying Other Brothers, Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder, Robert Earl Keen, The Del McCoury Band, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Iris DeMent, Four Year Bender, Hazel Dickens, The Steel Drivers, Billy Bragg, Dale Ann Bradley & Coon Creek, Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle & the Bluegrass Dukes, Drive-By Truckers, Laurie Lewis & The Right Hands, Tim O’Brien’s Cornbread Nation with special guest Mollie O’Brien, Kelly Willis & Bruce Robison, Kevin Welch, Kieran Kane & Fats Kaplin, The Devil Makes Three, Chatham County Line, Alejandro Escovedo, Jerry Douglas & Best Kept Secret, Gillian Welch, Scott Miller & The Commonwealth, Guy Clark & Verlon Thompson, Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, Allison Moorer, The Austin Lounge Lizards, Alison Brown Quartet, Nashville Bluegrass Band, The Pine Leaf Boys, Dry Branch Fire Squad, Richard Thompson, The Lee Boys, Todd Snider, North Mississippi Allstars, Banjo Extravaganza with Bill Evans, Tony Trischka and Alan Munde, Jody Stecher & Kate Brislin, T Bone Burnett, Bob Weir & The Waybacks, Heidi Clare & AtaGallop, Chip Taylor & Carrie Rodriguez, Willy Mason, The Avett Brothers, Richie Furay, Danny Barnes Collective, Annie & The Vets, SF Opera Bluegrass Dukes, The Stairwell Sisters, Poor Man’s Whiskey, Etienne de Rocher, Freakwater, A.J. Roach, Elvis Costello, Barbary Coast Cloggers.

I’ve been really impressed at the online representation that this summer’s music festivals have been receiving. If you want to get some (semi) realtime reports/reviews of Rockygrass, point your browser at festivalpreviewblog.blogspot.com/ who also did a wonderful job of covering Telluride Bluegrass Festival and Greyfox Bluegrass Festival. Rockygrass starts today and goes thru Sunday and has been sold out for several weeks. Next year I will surely be taking the family up to Rockygrass!

So the runnaway hit new fall concert festival Vegoose will announce the 2006 lineup on August 2. This year’s Vegoose will take place on October 27-31 at the Sam Boyd stadium in Las Vegas, NV. Of all the new festivals that popped up last year I think Vegoose was the most interesting. The organizers of Vegoose are having a contest where if you add them to your Myspace friends list they will put you in the drawing for two VIP tickets to either Vegoose or Bonnaroo. Here is the 411 from the Vegoose Myspace profile:

VEGOOSE MYSPACE CONTEST

Win VIP Tickets to Bonnaroo 2007 and Vegoose 2006 just by becoming a
Vegoose MySpace friend!

As we gear up for Vegoose 2006, we are happy to announce a special
MySpace contest that gives all of you a chance to win tickets to
Vegoose or the 2007 Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival.

To enter, all you have to do is log in to your MySpace profile, go to
the Vegoose page (http://myspace.com/vegoose), and click on ‘Add to
Friends.’

The contest starts Thursday July 20th and ends Friday September 1st.
All people who become Vegoose MySpace friends during that time will
be entered into the contest.

You will have have the opportunity to win the following:

Grand Prize (1 Winner)
A choice of 2 VIP Tickets to Vegoose 2006
OR 2 VIP Tickets to the 2007 Bonnaroo Music Festival

First Place (2 Winners)
A choice of 2 Tickets to Vegoose 2006
OR 2 Tickets to the 2007 Bonnaroo Music Festival

Second Place (2 Winners)
2 Tickets to Vegoose 2006

With nothing to lose, how can you not enter the contest?!

http://myspace.com/vegoose

And to get your ears fired up about Vegoose check out this killer performance from the Decembrists at last years Vegoose on the Live Music Archive (available in flac).

I just got back from the 33rd annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival and all I can say is wow! This was one of the best if not the best festival I’ve attended (haven’t missed one since 1998)! Every day of the festival hosted incredible music, friends and fun. It was cloudy on Thursday and Friday and blistering hot on Saturday and Sunday.

On Thursday, the festival got kicked off by Tim Obrien and Molly Obrien which is always a treat and this year Molly brought her daughter along to sing. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Next up were the Wayward Sons who were one of my new discoveries of the festival. Neko Case and The Drew Emmit Band (although I miss Leftover Salmon so much) were also killer acts for a Thursday, but I can’t decide if the highlight of the day was the Strength In Numbers reunion (comprised of Sam Bush, Béla Fleck, Jerry Douglas, Edgar Meyer, Tim O’Brien, Bryan Sutton ) or Bonnie Raitt. I totally dig Bonnie and her band, especially the keyboard player John Cleary.

Friday ushered in some great performances from David Grier & Mike Compton , The Greencards, Jerry Douglas Band (who I was in the front row of the poser pit for), Béla Fleck & the Flecktones and Drive-By Truckers (who were by far the loudest act I’ve ever seen at the festival). It was great to see the Flecktones again because they were on hiatus durint 2005 and because they played material from their new album The Hidden Land which IMO is the best album they’ve put out since Flight of the Cosmic Hippo.

Saturday was a great day and I managed to stay out of the heat and still catch all of the best perfomances. Greensky Bluegrass won the band contest which was great because they are a really tight group. Check them out if you have a chance. Next up was Tony Rice & Bryan Sutton who are arguably the two best bluegrass flat pickers alive. Its amazing to see two musicians play together that have such a huge mutual respect for eachother. Bryan Sutton’s inspiration was Tony Rice and it shows in his style. John Cowan Band was great as always. Yonder Mountain String Band was the highlight of the day for me. I’ve never been a huge Yonder fan untill now. I’ve seen them at least a dozen times and for some reason I saw them in a new light this time. They’ve evolved so much and the songs from their new album are incredible (no wonder it is number one on the billboard bluegrass albums chart). Missy Higgins (described to me as Australia’s version of Nora Jones) has one of the most beautiful voices I have had the pleasure to hear. The Sam Bush Band at Telluride Bluegrass was and always be the most rocking performance on the planet. I was a little concerned because apparently this year Sam had to be rushed to the hospital in Montrose via ambulance due to chest pains. This happened on Thursday, Sam said that he heard Bonnie Raitt call him onstage from the ambulance. He said that it was just a virus, but its still scary nonetheless. To close the show on Saturday there was sould music James Brown style in the form of Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings which took the whole festival by suprise, they kicked ass.

By Sunday I was pretty much spent, but I still had enough energy to enjoy Peter Rowan & Tony Rice (although only over the radio), Del McCoury Band, Tim O’Brien Band, Nickel Creek, John Prine and Barenaked Ladies. In fact, John Prine was the highlight of the festival for me. I’ve been a fan of his for many many years and his new album Fair In Square is in daily rotation on my iPod. I wasn’t sure what to expect from John Prine having never seen him… Boy did he deliver the goods, didn’t miss a note, what a treat. And to cap the festival off there was Barenaked Ladies who I admitedly expected to suck. Boy was I wrong, in addition to being killer musicians they were funny as hell. Barenaked Ladies were great performers who I would recommend seeing live to anybody.

It seems like no matter how much fun I have at this festival I always leave thirsty for more great music next year. I can’t really describe how much fun it is and how good of a job the folks at Planet Bluegrass do of puting on the festival. I highly recommend checking it out if you get the chance!

You can see my entire photo stream from the festival on flickr here.

Check out KOTO radio here.

Telluride Tom, mayor of town park.

Telluride Bluegrass homepage is here