Steve's Blog
Friday July 25, 2008

Hi everyone

What a fantastic concert last night at The Orpheum! I wasn't expecting Lyle Lovett's Large Band: 10 musicians, and 12 backing singers. Stunning. Would have been slightly better if they'd turned the volume down on the band or up on Lyle's voice, but when the drummer is Russ Kunkel you tend to allow some leeway, i guess. Anyhow, it was a great show. Over 100 of you came along. We all owe a big thank you to Keystone Music for making the tickets available. Watch for their advertisements in the Rogue Folk review - and support their shows. They won't always be able to donate tickets.

Mission Folk Festival

We're off to Mission shortly, and look forward to seeing many of you there. I'll be hosting main stage on Saturday evening (must brush up on my foreign languages!)

The full line-up is on their website, including the Day Stage schedule.

CBC will be recording a few concerts on Saturday, including Celso Machado Trio, Plough, and Redgrass - nice to see local music getting some richly deserved exposure across the country.

Radio Broadcast

I hope to broadcast The Saturday Edge from Mission again this year. We had some problems last week at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival, so I'll be running a test broadcast later today from the site. So watch for a short message from me with details of how to tune in. I won't know the IP address of the broadcast until I set it up on the site. If any of you can tune in and email me to let me know that you're hearing it OK, that would be excellent. It should start around 3pm, all being well. Maybe later.

IMPORTANT
Please don't use that address to receive the broadcast on Saturday morning. Instead, tune in to CiTR fm 101.9 or www.citr.ca for live streaming on the internet. If you log on to my stream again you would be using up valuable bandwidth, and this might jeopardize the signal and ruin the show for everyone else.

Crooked Still, July 31st

We have a wonderful concert for you next week, with the Boston quintet, Crooked Still. It's at St. James Hall, 3214 West 10th Avenue

"It's hard to pin down our music," bass player Corey DiMario says. "We play improvised old time music, bluegrass, folk and our own songs within the broad context of a string band. Like a lot of today's bands, we have modern and traditional influences that confuse the boundaries. We want to keep blurring those lines to make something all our own."

Crooked Still made their Vancouver debut at the Rogue in October 2006. Their music showcases the sparkling vocals of Aoife O'Donovan and the fiery banjo of Dr. Gregory Liszt, who is a stalwart member of the Bruce Springsteen Sessions Band. He missed the Rogue gig last time as he was touring with The Boss. Greg will be here this time, though! New members Brittany Haas (fiddle) and Tristan Clarridge (cello) have slotted in seamlessly.

The new line-up has had a few months to gel, and they released the band's 3rd CD - Still Crooked - last month on Signature Sounds. It's another wonderful recording, full of stark imagery, sizzling strings and the sublime voice of Ms. O'Donovan.

This band has excited us since we first heard them, and we are absolutely delighted to be able to bring them back to town.

Website: www.crookedstill.com. Concert Details

Future shows

Our website has details of three great shows in August. We'll update our Fall calendar next week. Watch this space!

Have a great weekend. Hope to see you in Mission.
Steve